January reflections + February intentions

After the holidays, which in Serbia include the first year of January as well, my schedule has been quite hectic! I've been working six days a week and after work all I want to do is lay down, read a book or watch YouTube videos. I go to bed quite early and with cold weather and short winter days, 24 hours go by extremely fast.

One of the amazing things about getting up earlier is incredible sunrise you get to witness! Every day I try to find simple reasons to be happy and grateful for and these sunrise views and my morning coffee are always on top on my list. Starting the day with that attitude really sets the tone for my mood in hours to come. Now that the days are getting longer, when I wake up to go to work, there's already daylight so I won't be able to enjoy these views biking to work. But I always have magical sunsets to watch! :)

This winter so far we only had a few days when it was snowing and snow lasted for two days before it melted away. The weather feels like a mixture or spring and autumn and weather changes are frequent which I am sensitive to so I have experienced a couple of massive headaches that lasted for a day and a half leaving me pretty exhausted afterwards. I am making vitamins regularly but I was having a lot of sweets, a lot of coffee daily and not drinking enough water which is something I am working on fixing since February started.

Speaking of sweets, in January I did a decent amount of baking! In December I got a Gugelhopf mold as a present from my neighbor so I made what seems to be 'babovka' - a two colored Czech version of Gugelhopf or kouglof. It's essentially just a biscuit but it tasted really good especially paired with coffee. I will definitely make this one again but I would also love to try some different recipes, there's so many to choose from... I also made some simple cake with blackberries that we all love. I hope to continue baking for me, my family, neighbors and maybe even colleagues at work! :)

In January I also completed my first ever adult puzzle of 1500 pieces! I bought this as a holiday gift for myself as I thought it would be so nice and relaxing thing to do in the winter and I was right! I enjoyed this so much, with some coffee or wine and music in the background. I was completely zoned out and I wish I started doing this many winters ago! Since I don't have room for a puzzle this big, I had to destroy it but I will complete it one more time this month and maybe get some more.

My intentions for the shortest month are to have a better work-life balance, focus more on my health just by changing a few simple habits, definitely post more on Hive and Instagram, read two books - I would usually choose more but these two have somewhere between 900-950 pages together so even if I only finish these two, I will be happy. I have a few birthday celebrations in a span of only few days so that will be a very eventful period of February. I would also love to go on a solo coffee date at least once and start planning an exciting trip that will happen at the beginning of March. Overall, I would say it's going to be an interesting month where I will try to find balance between work, other commitments, social gatherings and fun/relaxation/joy.