November Goals!

Well, Halloween has been and gone. And with Bonfire Night right around the corner, I'm starting to feel the excitement of Christmas in the air! And I know I'm not the only one; Christmas songs are on a constant loop in every store you step foot in. Costa are releasing their Christmas drinks menu very, very shortly. And everywhere you look there's Christmas tree's and decorations. Now, in my opinion, Christmas doesn't start until the first of December. But that doesn't mean I haven't started buying my Christmas presents and cards, or thought about how I'm going to decorate the house this year. Oh yes, I've given Christmas a lot of thought. But not as much thought as my November goals. Before I tell you what those are, let me clue you in on how I got on with the goals I set myself in October.

1. Get my referral to the mental health nurses pushed through. At the time of writing this, I've not only chased up my referral but had an appointment with a lovely MH nurse called Rosie! We chatted for an hour, and she decided on two alternative drugs she'd like me to try in place of Sertraline. She thinks I may have become resistant to the SSRI's, and the new drugs she wants to put me on are SSNRI's, I think. A week and a half before this goes live, I'm waiting on another appointment with her to receive my prescription if the prescribing psychiatrist has agreed with her suggestions. But who knows, by the time this post goes live, I may already have had the appointment. Fingers crossed!

2. Eat at home, at least, four times a week. Hahaha, nope. I don't know why we have such difficulty with this goal... It must be because I have such an aversion to cooking. I just find it tedious. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing with my time. 

3. Drink, at least, two bottles of squash/water per day. I'm not sure I'm exactly drinking two bottles of squash/water per day, but the important thing is that I've definitely upped my fluid intake. This mainly came about after I developed a nasty UTI and decided I really needed to drink more!

4. Reach 2k on Instagram. Excuse me whilst I die laughing. This is a bit fat nope. My follower count took a massive hit when overnight a few hundred accounts unfollowed me. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe inactive/spam accounts that IG deleted? Maybe I posted something really offensive? That seems unlikely. I post very innocent photos, in my opinion! I then went on an unfollowing spree myself, which resulted in another drop because...ya know...follow for follow, guys! So I'm so much further away from 2k now than I was when I wrote this goal.

5. Send out thank-you cards. Yay, we got this done with ease. We ordered our cards from Vistaprint, in a very similar them to our wedding invitations, and got most of them sent out pretty much straight away. However, there are still two thank-you cards sitting on our mantelpiece yet to be mailed. My bad. 

I mean, three out of five ain't bad. Especially considering I couldn't really have done much more on the old Instagram front. Now, here's what I'm hoping to achieve in November.

1. Put all of my blogging income aside for Christmas. I intend to put any money I make from sponsored posts into a savings pot for Christmas presents. This will really help take the burden off me when Christmas shopping starts!

2. Go Christmas shopping in Bristol with Steph. I want to beat my anxiety this month, and have a day out with Steph in Bristol.

3. Stick to a weekly budget. I really need to stop splurging and start saving. Especially with Christmas coming up! 

4. Get back into a daily skincare routine. Every time I think I have this nailed, I lose it again. Last month it slipped because I was in so much pain that, come bedtime, all I wanted to do was sleep. I was lucky if I even made time to take my meds! This month I really want to nail it, again.

5. Read a chapter of my book before bed every night. I find that reading before bed really helps me switch off. If I don't read before bed, I'm usually awake for hours with thoughts swirling through my mind I just can't turn off. 

Wish me luck!