Happy New Year!

Hello and welcome to 2022!

I hope you all had a good start. We took it easy with a small family gathering and raclette. After the somewhat stressful last few weeks, the days between Christmas and New Year's were very relaxing.

I'm probably one of the few people who really enjoys Mondays, because they're a little fresh start to the week. Everything's open, new plans can be made. So you can imagine that the beginning of the year puts me in a particularly good mood. A new 365-page book that's waiting to be written.

And even though it seems to have gone out of fashion, at least that's what I hear from all sides, I have set myself concrete goals for this year.

On the business side, I'm obviously planning to further expand the product range for Das Kutscherhaus. Implementing new ideas, bringing new partners on board, bringing many great ideas to life with the lovely Sina Agneta, and finding new manufacturers for you around the world. I ended 2021 with around 120 products in the shop. By the end of 2022, there should be at least twice as many! And I want to organize my workspace a bit better. You know that I work from home. That's actually an ideal situation for me. Commuting, open-plan offices, private offices, and collaborative collaboration - I've had it all, and I really enjoyed it, especially at my last job. But even then, I often took work home with me because I can simply work so much more effectively at home. Nevertheless, it still bothers me a bit that my desk is our dining room table, and I have to clear everything away and put it away every time we want to use the table in its original form. A dedicated workspace is a must in 2022!

There's also a very specific new business branch that I want to launch. Preliminary discussions have already taken place, and I think I'll be able to present concrete ideas to you here by the end of the month.

But of course, I haven't just set myself business goals; I also want to try to achieve some things in my private life.
We all imposed significant restrictions on personal contact, vacations, and leisure activities in 2020 and 2021. And I still think the measures taken are perfectly fine. It's just a completely new situation that we have to live with now. But that's exactly the key. With Omicron, the coronavirus has outsmarted us again, and science and research agree that this isn't going away anytime soon. Therefore, within the limits of what's permitted, with caution and self-testing, I want to try to make our free time much more social again. Meet up with friends at least once a month. If you extrapolate that over the course of a year, that's only 12 meetings... actually far too few! But that should be at least manageable.
A visit to the Zugspitze and Königssee is also firmly planned for this year. After all, we live in the region, and the last time I was there was as a child, when my grandparents repeated their honeymoon there for their golden wedding anniversary. That was many years ago now. This summer, I'd like to go somewhere south where it's really warm (as beautiful as the Baltic Sea was, and I'm already planning to go again in 2023).

Well, I want to continue getting fitter and healthier in 2022, but I'm actually on the right track. Everything is tailor-made. I don't have to be able to run a marathon, and I don't want a bodybuilder's physique, but my back and core muscles need some support, especially because I want to start riding again in 2022. The time with Aladin was incredibly wonderful, and I'm still very grateful to him for the security he gave me when I got back into riding. Nevertheless, I clearly felt my deficits; my fitness was no longer there. I was also lacking some of the core muscles needed to be a stable rider for the horse, even when sitting, and Aladin was also difficult to sit on. I want to work on that this year and seek qualified lessons that will help me get back to my previous riding level. Simply going out for a ride and letting my mind wander isn't enough for me. I need to immerse myself in the lessons and the shared exercise, also for my mental balance.

I feel like all of these personal and business goals are achievable. Let's meet here again on December 31st and go over what I've accomplished and what I haven't.

Have you set plans and goals for 2022?

Best regards,

Alexandra