Jane's Life in January

Tangled GIF found on Tumblr

Hello, everyone! Well today, I thought I'd bring you up to speed as to what I've been personally doing this last month. Davy will be probably doing his post, which will no doubt include how well he has been doing with his keeping fit / running & cycling - something I'm super proud of him for keeping motivated and up with! ;)

Nonetheless, I shall tell you a bit about how boring I am! I don't go out much, because of my low self esteem - and the fact I just like the comfort of being indoors all nice and warm especially during the winter we had down here in Cornwall. We had constant winds, rain and just terrible weather for the end of December going into January but thankfully the weather has picked up, as have the length of days. I hate it when the days are so short. I dislike the dark, so seeing the sun for a few hours longer is very enjoyable.

Beautiful sunrise (13th January)

This year, I decided that I wouldn't have a New Years Resolution. That wasn't a resolution, but I didn't want to go into the year thinking I'd be a new person, and promise things that I know I wouldn't enjoy trying to keep up. Especially as I'm an introverted person, and I like staying inside. I'd like to go out more to be able to get back into my photography, but  it's hard to make friends let alone motivate myself to go out there feeling uncomfortable around strangers even if I know that'd it would be good for a little confidence boost. I want to see how this year goes without thinking "oh this year, I'm gonna promise myself to do this even though I know I won't keep it up" kind of thing. I'm just going to let things tick along by themselves, and if they go great - then that'd be super, if not...then life goes on.

Shortly into the month, we sadly found out that one of my Dad's sisters that he had found after being adopted out passed away earlier after falling ill in 2013. Her own adopted family didn't seem to care, and we weren't informed until after Christmas as my Mum had sent her a birthday and Christmas card mid-December which were returned to us as no one lived at the address any longer. After going through the right channels, and calling up people locally we got the unfortunate news. My aunt didn't even manage to reach 50. But she's probably in a better place now, with people surrounding her. I didn't really know her, but when my parents first found her, me and my twin sister were with them when they went to meet her for the first time when we were around 14 years old - so it was quite sad knowing that we didn't get to know her more.

Learn languages completely free via Duolingo!

On more pleasant news, I finally asked Davy to teach me Dutch! Well to start teaching me for sometime during this year or something. He only expected me to want to know simple things like hello, goodbye etc. But when I want to be taught something, I want it to be taught thoroughly. I want to learn the ins and outs, I don't want to know just small tid-bits, I want to know everything. I like learning! So yesterday, me and Davy spent the day (well I spent about an hour or so googling resources to learn with whilst Davy was out cycling for an hour and a half) looking up books etc to learn! So anyone else who is intrigued to as to what we found, we came across Dutch in 3 Months and Basic Dutch: Grammar & Workbook so if you're wanting to learn Dutch too, here's what Davy and I will be using to help me learn! I haven't learnt anything as of yet, I want to be more prepared before I allow Davy to teach me. You can also learn other languages completely free through Duolingo (they're designed to making learn languages fun). They currently have Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian & German as full courses - whilst they're adding more through their incubator programme all the time - quite a few are available through their public BETA! They're also undergoing a redesign at the moment, so keep a look out for that. Be sure to check the incubator page to see what other languages they'll be providing in the upcoming months. It's available on the web, through iOS and Android! :)

Last week, we also celebrated our 2yr and 3 month anniversary of being together. It may sound silly, but we like to keep track on how long we've been together (828 days - how do I know this? I use the Between app for couples, available on iOS) and it's something that keeps the distance from affecting us. So we decided to have a movie week for it, we watched Pacific Rim and Tangled :D

Overall my month has been quite decent, not too quiet and well balanced start to the year. Hopefully it can continue and I can't wait to continue to share me and Davy's journey together! Hoping to also start reading CIA Rogues & Killing The Kennedys by Patrick Nolan sometime at the end of this week, I've just finished Bergkamp's biography which I should have a review up of on the blog during the weekend.

Have a good weekend, everyone! Remember, you can always find me or Davy via Twitter @davyandjaney