2018: My plans for the year

2017 was a year of changes for us.  Stuart changed jobs, meaning instead of working regular hours he was working different hours most days and working weekends and evenings.  I went back to work after maternity leave, which was a huge change for me and Oliver started his new childcare routine.  We’ve worked our way through it and worked out a new balance within our family.

2018 is going to be another year of changes.  One big change really, the impending arrival of our second child.  Come May Oliver will be a big brother and we will be parents to two little boys.  I’m so excited to see how the boys get on, but I’m also feeling a bit nervous.  Nervous how I will juggle two, and nervous how Oliver is with his new sibling.

This February Oliver is starting pre-school, the week after he turns 2!  I couldn’t quite believe it when they emailed to tell me he had a place from after the half term.  He is definitely ready for pre-school though.  Oliver loves spending time with other children and he loves learning new things so hopefully he really enjoys it.  He did really well at the settling in session and his childminder has said that when she has gone to drop off children there Oliver runs off and starts joining in the activities!

In March I finish work in preparation for my maternity leave.  I’m using my annual leave to go at 32 weeks so that I can spend as much time as I can with my little boy.  That and I really struggled last time round working until 36 weeks.  Working 11.5 hours a day, mostly on your feet isn’t much fun heavily pregnant!  Although Oliver will be in pre-school and at the childminders 3 days of the week, I’m hoping we can fit in a few days out and maybe even a short trip away.  Just spending time as the 2 (or 3) of us is so important.

Past May, we have no hard and fast plans.  I’m hoping we can take a trip away as a family of four.  I would love to go abroad, but my husband isn’t so keen.  Hopefully we can go somewhere within the UK or even a couple of mini breaks.  For the past couple of years we keep saying we will go on more mini breaks, and every year we get to the end of it and go ‘oh, that didn’t happen’!  We have some plans to do some work on the house, putting down new flooring in the living room.  Maybe we’ll re-do the bathroom if money allows as well (although I have a feeling that might be a job for 2019!).

This year I want to document more of our every day lives, the days out, the little moments.  I want to improve my photography.  I have a nice new Canon G7X (thank you to my husband!) and a really old DSLR, so between the two I can hopefully get some nice snaps.  At the moment I don’t really edit many of my photos, and I know that with a few little tweaks they would be much nicer.  So I am thinking of investing in Lightroom as well to edit them.  I want to be able to look back at the end of the year and see how far I’ve come, and how our lives have changed, and for my photography to have improved.

2018 for my blog

Blog wise, I have really been slacking the past few months.  When I went back to work I got in a routine, I posted on certain days and it was going well.  But then the summer came, I got out of the routine and then I fell pregnant.  I was ill for 2 weeks straight and I fell asleep on the sofa every evening, which is the time I would usually use to blog.  I have done the bare minimum to keep my blog going, posting once a week (and some weeks not even that!).  Most of these were reviews or sponsored work, rather than the personal posts I love writing.  I’m feeling a lot more motivated now and I have lots of ideas in the pipeline.  Come February when Oliver starts nursery I will also have a few hours 2 mornings a week to write, which is great.

My Youtube channel has been plodding along, but I have no regular upload schedule.  I am finding it hard to find the time to film.  I have all these ideas, but when Oliver refuses to nap, or when he sleeps when I’m out, I don’t have the time to film.  Generally I will only film when he’s napping or my husband is home to occupy his attention, so when he starts pre-school I should be able to film a bit more regularly!

Last year I was too focused on the numbers to begin with, how many followers I had on different platforms, how many views my blogs had had.  Instagram was doing well, but the changes in the algorithym meant that my steady growth stopped.  Now I seem to have sudden influxes of followers but my numbers will stay the same for weeks.  I have also changed the way I use Instagram, moving away from commenting on peoples photos because I have to, and liking and commenting on photos that I love or relate to me.  I don’t tend to look at my blog views anymore.  Occasionally I have a look and to be honest, I’m happy with what I see but I’m not so caught up on what does well.

Thank you to all of the readers and followers of Mummy Miller for sticking by me this year.  Hopefully 2018 will be a great year and you will join me for the big and little moments!  Happy New Year!