The Sunday Post: January

Sending it at the right time, this time.

Jan 05, 2025

Sunday 5th January | Issue #06

I’ll admit it, I have the Sunday scaries hard. My boss terrifies me, she deprives me of normal working hours, picks over every bit of work I produce and never lets me stop checking my emails.

It’s me. I’m the boss. I’m the worst.

Or I was. It’s a new year, and despite being a *little* nervous about getting back into the swing of things on Monday, I feel like I’m returning from a good break with some learnings on how I’ve been running my day-to-day life.

Having two weeks off (at once, the first time since… you’ve guessed it, the Christmas before) has made me realise:

I am more creative when I rest. As a creative freelancer, I should prioritise more rest, so I am in turn, more creative.
It’s okay to want to do a bit of everything. I spent all of last year forcing myself into a neat and tidy business that only does one niche thing. But, that is not me, at all. I really love the variety of work, and it’s okay to choose to work this way.
You only have so much to give. If you give all of your energy to work, other areas of your life will suffer. I’ve spent the last two weeks finally crawling back into my WhatsApp groups, hoping my friends remember me (thankfully they do).
Just because you’ve always done something a certain way, doesn't mean you can’t change how you do things in the future. I get rejection sensitivity hard, I’m talking about physical feelings of rejection that I’ll ruminate on for hours, days, (and weeks more likely). This has always truly stopped me from making change, I still feel a rejection pain when I let myself down, so I often won’t bother to try. I’m learning to work through this because nothing changes if nothing changes.
There’s more to life than being a successful business owner. I found myself horrendously caught up in a dream that wasn’t mine. I have always prioritised creativity and freedom, so, spending all of 2024 trying to build a business and only talking about said business slowly destroyed my creativity. 2025 will be about balance, trying new things ways of working but most importantly, not living to work.

Phew, that was a little deep dive into my pre-back-to-work brain. It feels odd to talk about my day-to-day work on this platform, but it felt quite in line with the type of New Year intention I am holding this year—to start 2025 more calmly. A gentle new year, some might call it.

I’ve decided to turn my back on the classic New Year hustle culture of resolutions, diets, and bettering oneself. Instead, I’ll focus on gently bringing myself through winter with small intentions and prioritising rest above all else.

The biggest way for me, (and I know for many others) to bring a touch of gentleness into our lives, is to take stock of how we go about our work. We pour so much energy into our jobs, only stopping to refill once we’re far past depleted, lying on the floor in a crumpled mess. Burnout cycles have controlled my adult life, I never learn, instead, I return to the cycle after gaining a bit of energy after the last crash.

If you also struggle with this mentality of rapid energy for new things, plans, decisions, and goals only to be met with an absolute slump periodically, you are in the right place. Let’s start our 2025 gently, and take care of one another during this winter.

That was quite the intro, I can tell how rested I am from the break, words seem to be spilling out from my fingertips. Hopefully, this creative energy is gently sustained throughout January.

Anyway, I have been writing The Sunday Post as a weekly series, but I’ve decided to scale it back to a monthly bumper newsletter instead. As I was pulling together content plans for the foreseeable I realised I had such an abundance to write about, and a weekly series is a bit of a space-taker-upper in the old inbox.

So, with that in mind, a monthly piece will be a larger, more in-depth view of seasonal content, as well as the usual links, entertaining bits and of course, a ton of musings.

Last bit of admin to note, I have made the bold decision to turn on paid subscriptions, which feels very audacious for me. However, I do believe you need to start somewhere and I truly want to make A Very Good Day a larger part of my life, giving it the time, energy and effort.

So, if you do enjoy reading my ramblings, I’ve set a monthly price at the same as an oat milk flat white (£3.50p/m). There will still be free posts, including The Sunday Post monthly series, but there will be a weekly, longer paid read if that sounds up your street.

On that note, as an introductory offer, I’m offering 20% off (forever 😲) on annual subscriptions to AVGD until 31st Jan 2025 (it works out at £28 for the year):

Get 20% off forever

Okay, now we’re all caught up…

Let’s dive into the listy bits of January’s Sunday Post.

This week in links:

☁︎ January means one thing, ordering Dahlia tubers. I’ve gone all in this year on Farmer Gracy*, with a few varieties, I’ll be sharing more on that soon. If you’re giving Dahlia’s a go this year, let me know — I’m so excited! - p.s. you can get 10% off your Farmer Gracy order with the code ALLIESMITH

☁︎ I have issues with new sketchbooks, they scare me. The fear of ruining a page is so strong within me. I’m tackling that notion this year, but keeping a weekly art journal, small notes and mixed media art for every week of the year. I wanted the perfect lay flat, good cardstock kind of sketchbook - so went for this Pith Lumia, it’s absolutely dreamy.

☁︎ My Substack feed has been flooded with posts exploring coming away from Instagram. This one in particular by Angelina was a great read. They’ve definitely got my brain ticking a little, how are you feeling about social media right now? I do envy those away from it at times.

☁︎ In the mood for an essay? Make this your long read this week. The quiet rebellion of a little life by Caitlyn really summed up some thoughts I’ve had of late. In a world where we’re told to want more, what if we want less?

☁︎ I just spotted this article and had to include it. Bedtime ritual recommendations, but not your obvious ones. There are a few I’d like to include, I feel like they are quite catered to those who sit on the night owl end of the spectrum.

Entertaining things:

Read:

My reading slowed down quite a lot in December, I have a terrible habit of ploughing through books that I don’t enjoy. For a few reasons — I hate putting time into something and not seeing it through, and I do quite like to understand why a book wasn’t working for me. So yes, it was an uphill struggle. Nonetheless, I thought I’d pick a few books from my recently read that I loved, and hope you will too:

⚀ Why Women Grow by Alice Vincent* — I adore Alice’s writing and feel so aligned with a gradual fall into gardening. This book was a dream to read, I loved hearing so many perspectives of what brings women to the garden. A great read if you are kindling a new love for your green space.

⚁ Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love by Huma Qureshi* — Short stories are a sure way to reignite an extinguished reading flame. I read this one night when I couldn’t sleep, I thought it would help me drift off, but instead, I was hooked and inspired. So, maybe save it for the daytime.

⚂ Babel by R. F. Kuang* — I’m late to the party on this book, but what a gem. I love a historical novel, knowing how much has gone into creating a believable fictitious thread in a real-world setting.

Watch:

I’m going through one of those phases where my attention span for TV is non-existent, but a few gems have made it through. Films, however, forever binging, since using the Letterboxd app, which I started using in 2023, I feel like I can find films I’m genuinely interested in rather than being weighed down by the Netflix algorithm.

⚀ Shrinking — I’ve probably mentioned it, but I will keep mentioning it until everyone I know has watched it. It is so refreshing to watch something that is heartwarming, funny (not cheesy) and isn’t overloaded with dramatic storylines to carry it. Also, the cast. Ergh, they’re so perfect. Also, also… Death Cab theme tune? It was always going to be a winner. Please watch it, thank you.

⚁ Severance — Season two is finally coming. So in preparation, I will be watching series one for the 4th time this week. Did someone say waffle party?

⚂ When Harry Met Sally - Okay, I know. It’s from the 80s, but how did I miss watching this classic? It is every inch perfection, how rom-coms are supposed to be. I’ve come to realise, I haven’t grown up and decided I hate rom-coms, they just do not make them in the same way. On my way to watch through the entire Meg Ryan catalogue now.

One last thing:

I’ve always struggled historically with January, the festive warmth of December is ripped out from under our feet, and we’re paraded the same old clinically cold narratives: get fit, throw away your Christmas cheese, achieve, achieve, achieve. Blergh.

And it’s easy for me to sit here, and tell you to be gentle, to be kind to yourself. It’s a hard narrative to rewrite, but even simply rejecting the notion that everything needs to be started now is a step forward into a more gentle new year. You’ll feel better for it.