Wow. What a year. It’s far too long to even think about going in to every little detail, and I wouldn’t want to bore you with that.

I’m now back in Glasgow! I’ll be leaving within a few hours to head to the east coast for a few nights, but I just thought it would be a nice idea to have a look back through the year – a highlights and points of interest type thing if you will.

But before we properly travel back through 2016, shall we look at my goals for 2016? I’m sure you can all guess how well they went!

1. Send myself an email to a new account each day recording something positive or happy about the day. Then, this time next year I will be able to sit and look back on everything good that happened, even if there are some less pleasant memories.
   Well… no this didn’t happen. In fact, I’ve forgotten the email address I was sending them to! Whoops… Ah well, it was a nice idea at the time. Maybe this is something I can do in 2017 – who knows!
2. Become happy within myself. Whether through weight loss or whatever else it may be, I want to be happy in myself.
   Nope. Can honestly say, I’m still not happy being me. However, I am happier  I think, so that’s at least something! Can’t remember which of the supermarkets it is that uses the tagline ‘every little helps’ but they’ve certainly got that right!
3. Be open. Now while my friends would agree that I wear my emotions on my sleeve, this past year I found myself falling for someone who quite possibly liked me back. However neither of us had the courage to say or do anything about it and she moved back to Connecticut without me ever talking to her about it. Still haven’t and yet we talk at least once a week…
   Haha, okay first of all I have to laugh at myself about that. The first two words of the above were the goals for the year, and whole once again I have to say I didn’t actually achieve this, I certainly improved a lot! I opened up here on my blog to you amazing people, and in turn you helped me gradually open up to my friends more.

So okay 2016 was a bit of a damp squib when it came to achieving my goals, but I certainly feel I achieved a lot throughout the year!

January saw us adopt Maisie, and she certainly has become a part of the family! I watched the entire boxset of How I Met Your Mother over the course of 3 weeks (that’s an average of 10.5 episodes per day and I can’t even be ashamed of myself).

February had me being ill at the start of the month – period+headaches+throwing up+ a cold = a very lazy Katie! I didn’t seem to do much during February, however my favourite post of the month was definitely Respect… – all inspired when a certain someone helped themselves to my food without asking, finished it, and then had the audacity to ask why I was annoyed when half way through cooking I realised I didn’t have half the ingredients! Wow, you’d almost think I was still slightly bitter about that… Hannah came to stay for a while, while her flat was repaired for leaks, I went to the first of the 21st Birthday celebrations, and I had a very interesting trip to Dundee!

March came along, and with it was my first ever real date (followed by another three) and while it didn’t work out in the end it was still a good experience! I started planning Rachel’s 18th birthday present, I celebrated reaching 69 followers here on the blog (286 now!), I went to GULGBTQ+’s Farewell Dinner, a few good nights of drinking, and a stay in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland.

April was my first ever attempt at daily blogging – it didn’t exactly work out too well! However, I did reach 79 followers by the end of the first week, so some of you were clearly enjoying my posts! I finished reading The Freedom Writers’ Diary and confirmed that I want to be a teacher more than anything else. I saw The Jungle Book in IMAX with Pablo, went on a road trip with another uni friend (followed by a McDonald’s dinner tht I’m now somewhat craving), I sobbed my heart out watching The A Word, Jason and I went out for a lovely dinner after a day of sunbathing and rounded off the day by drunkenly dying each other’s hair, and I was addicted to watching The West Wing. To be honest, the month was mainly taken up with revision.

When May hit, I was still battling through exams and not really having a great time. I finished The West Wing (which, again, I say you simply must watch), reached 100 followers, I started doubting my entire university choice, Kelsey came to stay and we had an amazing few days – we went out for meals, watched Captain America, had an interesting night in, went to a disney themed club night – before she had to go home. I had a lovely day out with Pablo, was emotionally exhausted by the first 15 minutes of the Grey’s Anatomy season 12 finale, posted my first ever collab post, went to Disneyland Paris for the first time ever and very nearly cried with happiness, and took part in my first ever Twitter Chat!

June arrived with me being back in Northern Ireland and unable to blog half as much as I wanted to. We had a family wedding, booked a return trip to Ibiza, and had a few job interviews. It was a quieter month, but I still had a lot going on!

July was welcomed in by the usual celebration of Granny B’s birthday on the second and then Rachel headed off to Romania that night. I joined in at a family bbq at the fold where my granny lives, travelled to Fermanagh to spend a few nights with my cousin, started my addiction to Pretty Little Liars, took a trip to Portrush, ‘celebrated’ the 12th of July, went to Ibiza, downloaded (and quickly forgot about) Pokemon Go, went to a hippy market, I got a new phone, and then finished the month by flying into Glasgow for my resits!

August had a quick turn around of two resits within the first three days of the month and they didn’t go too well. To be honest, the whole month of August was a bit of a low point for me, however we did have a few good days when I was forced to go out and do things! I had a spontaneous trip to Edinburgh where I saw two plays for free and saw another for only a few pounds! I went to Dundee to say goodbye to one of my cousins who is in China at the minute teaching English to kids – Hi Rory! We revisited the little town we had lived in on the east coast of Scotland when we were younger, I started putting more time and effort into my blog, I sat even more resits, had an existential crisis, sold things at my first ever real car boot sale, somehow accidentally liked a tweet that got me involved in GRLPOWR, and I first started organising my Christmas Card Swap.

September arrived with a bang! I attempted yet another blogging challenge and once again failed, there was my 21st birthday which lasted basically a week by the time I got through celebrating, we celebrated Rachel’s 18th birthday, lectures and societies started up again, and I moved back to Glasgow.

October was slightly busier as I got back into blogging and started to figure out blogmas – anyone else surprised at how successful I’ve been with it? I had a trip to Edinburgh Napier with Rachel to see the university, I had a few good nights out (much to the dismay of my bank account), hosted my first ever twitter chat, met up with Becca, had a friend’s 21st birthday party, met up with Jordanne for the first time (and definitely not the last!), attempted to make fudge (and failed miserably), Rachel came over, I fed a wild squirrel, we took a trip to Aberdeen, and finally we all got dressed up for Halloween!

I started November by going book shopping with Jason and somehow came home drunk (well, I know how it happened, I drank too many cocktails). We went to Glasgow Green to watch the fireworks for bonfire night and then went for drinks afterwards, I cooked a big meal for 9 of us, I went to my first ever bloggers event (the Body Shop) with Jordanne, Donald Trump somehow became POTUS, I spent a weekend in Dundee with family, had jury duty, went to two table quizzes (came last in one and won the other!), went for dinner at a friend’s family’s restaurant (review coming soon!), went home for a few days, and wrote up a lot of blogmas posts!

As for December, well it’s only just coming to an end. We hosted an open house dinner night where people contributed food and we got in the festive spirit drinking mulled wine, we had our flat Christmas dinner and exchanged Secret Santa presents (I can’t wait to share what I got with you all, it’s actually such an amazing idea!), we survived exams, I met Jordanne for dinner, presents and an evening of planning things for London, then came our actual weekend in London! It was actually so much fun and I can’t wait to do something like that again! I battled through one more exam before flying home and celebrating Mum’s 50th birthday – we went to an expensive restaurant in Belfast and drank lots of cocktails while listening to jazz music. We did lots of last minute Christmas shopping, Rachel and I took Mum away for a spa day as her birthday present from us, we had our usual Christmas Eve routine, celebrated Christmas, and now I’m back in Glasgow! We’ve completed the year! And, I have finally had a month we’re I have posted daily! It’s a lot more stress than it’s worth, I think…

Looking back through the year, so much has happened! How has your year been?

Have a lovely New Year’s Eve, and try not to be too hungover when you call in tomorrow for my New Year’s Resolutions and month’s goals!

Ktkinnes xx