January Life Lately

We did it! January is done for the year. Wow it was a long cold dark one wasn't it?

Here's everything I got up to and here's my One Second Every Day for the Month.

What I Did

We started the year in our favourite way with a New Year's Day parkrun. Last year we had a Covid scare over the Christmas break so we missed New Year's Day parkrun, but the special event parkruns are always my favourite.

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Speaking of parkrun, I ran my 300th parkrun in January too. I love going to Heaton Park to celebrate our milestones!

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For Christmas I was thrilled to receive an overlocker so I spent a lot of the month learning how to use it (with a bit of help from Tilly and the Buttons as always). I'm just starting to get my head around it and even used it on my first project in January!

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In December I made my first Indigo dress and loved it so much that I knew I'd be making more soon. Last month I made my second in this gorgeous blue brushed cotton which I got as part of my brand ambassador work with UK Fabrics Online. This might be my favourite dress I've made yet (don't I always say that?). The cotton is beautiful and soft and I love the extra midi tier I added for beautiful length. I cannot wait to wear this in the summer!

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Finally in January we ran one of our favourite races, Stockport Daffodil 10K. It's genuinely one of the best-organised races I've ever done and the goodie bag is like no other. Can't wait to do it again next year.

What I Watched

Lots watched in January!

At home we watched:

• Frances Ha 
• The Menu 
• The Meyerowitz stories 
• Con Air
• Velvet Goldmine 
• Thelma and Louise

We absolutely loved Frances Ha and The Menu was great fun after just finishing The Bear, and I can't believe I'd never seen Thelma and Louise before! We also rewatched the original Mission:Impossible.

One cinema trip to see M4gan which we loved.

TV was excellent in January! Like everyone else we are hooked on The Last of Us and I love it being dropped once a week especially as I'm in the office on Tuesdays so I love catching up with my colleagues on the latest episode.

But the best thing we watched in January was undoubtedly The Bear. I am telling everyone I know how much they need to watch it. I hope I eat my words but I don't think I'll watch anything better on TV this year. Absolutely fantastic in every way.

What I Read

A great start to the year with 8 books read, including a 600+ pager:

• Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer
• I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
• The Joy of Snacks by Laura Goodman 
• Liar, Dreamer, Thief by Maria Dong
• Which as You Know Means Violence by Philippa Snow
• The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
• I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy
• You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People by Aubrey Gordon

This was a fantastic reading month with a real mix of books! Two audiobooks (Aubrey Gordon and Jenette McCurdy) and 5 of the 8 books I read were non-fiction (Monsters, Snacks, Violence and the two audiobooks). 

The Joy of Snacks was exactly that, a joy. I love Laura Goodman's recipe book, Carbs, and I knew I would love this. A perfect mix of memoir, essays and recipes, focusing on my favourite food type, snacks.

Of course anyone who knows me and how much I love Maintenance Phase won't be surprised at how much I loved Aubrey Gordon's new book. I'm so glad she read the audiobook this time. You Just Need to Lose Weight is not an easy read and while it's nothing new if you're a Maintenance Phase listener, I do think it's such an important book that every single person should read.

I've mentioned before how much I love Celebrity Memoir Bookclub podcast, and Jenette McCurdy's book I'm Glad My Mom Died is the first book I've read on the back of an episode. I listened to this incredible and heartbreaking book over a weekend and while it's a hard listen, I can't recommend it more.

Finally, my favourite book of the month, and undoubtedly one of my books of 2023, was of course Bret Easton Ellis' The Shards. While I might disagree with him politically and culturally, I am a huge fan of Bret Easton Ellis' writing (I wrote my undergrad dissertation on American Psycho) and The Shards was a real return to form for me and one of my favourite books of his. Despite being 600 pages long I didn't want it to be over and absolutely savoured it over a long reading week. Definitely not for everyone, but definitely for me.

What I listened to

One new podcast for me as well as the audiobooks mentioned above, Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV with Pandora Sykes. This is the second podcast I've listened to about the history of reality TV and I just find it fascinating. 

What I read online

Like everyone else I absolutely hate January so I loved these two pieces- why you hate winter and this one on how to have a gentle January.

I really loved this piece from The Guardian on how to spread joy every week of 2023.

Lots I loved in January around resting and resetting - what does rest really mean? And why you should quit books you don't like. One of my goals for this year is definitely to be more intentional with my rest and also be better at putting books (and anything down) I'm not enjoying so both of these resonated with me. 

Related from the Guardian - if your resolution is to read more books, here's why you shouldn't

As a person who absolutely hates throwing this away and who is very sentimental, I love this piece from Anne Helen Petersen on archiving your teen self.

The internet can be a scary and not very nice place but I was so happy to see everyone rally round this piece - you need help: you fat-shamed your beautiful girlfriend.

Catch up soon!

Charlotte x