Image Credits – Joey Rozier, Flickr

It has been a fascinating month of sorts on here – and also in real life where the issues which drove my sense of dissonance and the need to begin again have eased off. I would be remiss if I said I was out of the woods completely, but there certainly is a sense of significant progress and building traction in the right direction. The money numbers were pretty much bang on plan – just under £0.01 actual vs planned – which allowed me put away twice what I planned at the beginning of the month. I did spend more than planned on transport and purchases, main driver being the need to head down south for a weekend at short notice and the bits and bobs I purchased to support that. For the interested (waves at SisiOnABudget), here are two charts (by category, plan vs actuals) with a little more detail.

On here, Blogging101 has been a great way for me to get back to basics and ease myself into writing again. Thanks to the various prompts, over the past month I managed to reimagine how I self classify, reflect on the why for this blog, and meet – virtually at least – a bunch of interesting folk as evidenced by my swelling reader inbox. A bonus – largely unexpected – was praise from someone whose work I am a fan of, as well as being compared to another writer whose body of work I was and still am a big fan of.

From the task for Day 15, I have decided to sign up for the Monthly Masterpiece Challenge – by blending art, faith and reflection into a coherent whole, my hope is that I can develop my practice of contemplation more. I am keen to see how that evolves.

Going forward on here, I still like the initial idea I considered at the beginning – a Friday lunch time ramble on something that catches my fancy within the normal everyday context I live my life in. For those who are still on here – whom I haven’t bored to death or scared away – thanks for surviving Phase 1. I can only hope Phase 2 is even more exciting and fulfilling.