My Month In Photos - September 2018
Will there ever be another month where I don’t apologise in my introduction and then do that blogger thing of saying “I don’t need to apologise”? I blogged a mere four times in September, an all time low for this site and I feel pretty shit about it ngl. I want to keep blogging, I have SO many ideas, I have photos to edit and bullet journal posts to write but no flippin time.
Time is not my friend at the moment and unfortunately blogging falls into the ‘things that don’t make me much money or help my house be clean’ so it seems to be falling to the bottom of the pile. Alongside such things as breakfast, scrapbooking my photos and tbh, most of my bullet journal. So yeah, if someone wants to pay me to review a product that cleans my whole house without me lifting a finger that would basically be the dream right now.
What I Did;
September by diary is actually more quiet than the last few months have been. Having got a job and started it soon after in July I think I still had a lot of plans in August I’d organised before I started work and I basically burnt myself out. I tried to organise less mid week in September but basically what I did was cut out all the mad big events I had in August and still managed to be out after work at least three times a week at Mum’s or my Nan’s.
The month started after August bank holiday which was a busy one for me and saw my cousin and Auntie & Uncle down for a few days. I was in work for the most part of their visit so I caught up with them in the evenings and had something like three chippies in about 4 days which even for me was a lot.
I had lots of boring life admin type events booked into the calendar for the month including my car being in the garage because the boot was leaking and letting all the rain into the car, seemingly millions of trips to the supermarket and lots of chores. Not a chore but something I now cherish given my lack of time, I also saw my niece as much as I could. She started school 5 mornings a week in September which near on broke my heart on how big she’d got and she’s aged about 10 years and grown in confidence ten fold since she went. I go to my Mum’s most Wednesday’s and Friday’s straight from work when she’s normally finishing tea and I get her ready for bed before my brother picks her up and we all go home. I also spent every Sunday of the month at my parents house with the whole family hanging out, having lunch and generally spending as much QT with her as I can.
I did also manage to have some fun and whilst I am trying not to get into a ‘live for the weekend’ mentality, keeping my weeknight’s free has resulted in some good memories on my time off. At the beginning of September we went to an Escape Rooms in Cardiff which my brother and I had bought for my Dad for his 50th birthday. We took him and my brother’s fiancé and went to a venue we hadn’t been to before and it was bloody brilliant. We did a pirate themed room which was all electronic and ended with us firing the canon in order to escape and we did with about 10 minutes to spare. The following day I woke up early and went with Jos’ Dad to a cider event for the day to sell which is one of my favourite events of the year and we sold loads which is always a good sign.
Mid month I met up with my friends of SEVEN years (which absolutely baffled us) and we went for lunch out and a cheeky trip to Ikea. I had a million and one hideous moments getting there and back with the traffic being an actual nightmare but we had such a good time and it’s always such a laugh seeing them. The following weekend I went on a v important road trip in the pissing rain to Bristol to see my university flatmate and drop off her actual factual wedding dress which I had been keeping safe at my house for a month. We went shopping, we had a lifesaving McDonalds and I bought loads and had a great time.
To finish the month in style Jos dropped me off at work and then drove my car back to town to pick me up in the evening and I drove us down to his grandmother’s house in West Wales. We only went for 24 hours but we crammed so much in (mainly chilling out and eating) and we got to see his Auntie, Uncle and cousins and it was a really relaxing way to end what was a chaotic month due to laaaaats over overtime and stress at work.
What I Watched;
Hasn’t TV been good lately though??? I watched my normal run of reality shit (see Real Housewives, MIC and Life of Kylie) and then chucked in some good BBC dramas for luck. Bodyguard was ridiculously good and I basically didn’t breathe for 6 weeks, Killing Eve is hilariously excellent but my favourite of all has actually been Press and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Other channels that have tickled my fancy have been ITV2 for the return of Celeb Juice, Dave for Taskmaster which if you have never seen is well worth a watch and of course Channel 4 for GBBO - Terry was my fav FYI.
What I Worked On;
My own work has been deathly quiet this month aside from one Christmas commission which I can always rely on. I know it’s all down to my lack of promotion but I legit haven’t found the time to even send out a tweet. I am trying not to panic too much that this is it, that my biz is over because I am so determined to go back to it full time in however many years to come but for now I am just trying to focus on a balance I haven’t quite cracked. What I have done however is packed all my cards into little cellophane bags with the correct stickers and envelopes attached so when the orders do come flooding back in again (yes plz), I will have them all packaged and ready to go.
What I Journaled;
I found September a really hard month for my bullet journal and that was mainly down to time. I am in constant need of a to do list and a calendar to keep my head on straight but in all honesty, most of the thoughts whizzing their way around my brain were work related and I have a work bujo for that (post incoming honestly). My work bullet journal is already half filled after 2 months of working and yet my actual bujo at home was lacking. I barely filled in my habit tracker, my mood tracker and weather tracker have massive chunks missing and I killed off my sleep tracker after about a week. I basically used the weekly to do’s as a way of tracking what I had already done and making a huge master to do of things I just will never have the time for but want to achieve.
My September monthly theme was a cute mix of berry red and pink and lots of white space and I proper loved it so the month started with good intentions. My blog calendar was a bit of a joke, I made a spreadsheet for my advertisers that really didn’t work (and I have since moved into Excel and muuuch more productive) and then I just about salvaged it with a packing list for our weekend away but that was basically it.
What I Blogged;
This is normally the section where I link back to my favourite posts of the month for a cheeky bit of self promo but in all honesty there was only 4 blog posts to catch up on and you can do that so easily from my home page it makes no sense to re upload them here.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, blogging had to take a back seat and it has done in a big way for the last few months if I’m being honest. I have so many ideas of things I wanted to write about from bullet journaling to my office renovation to thoughts on full time work and I really still want to post them all. Every day, every week, every new month I am thinking ‘this is it, this is when I have time again’ but inevitably something else comes up so really, idek. Hopefully I’ll get there before the new year is out.
What I Bought;
It was the end of August when I was paid my first wage from work and obviously the end of September when I was paid my second so needless to say I went a bit spend happy with all the extra income I suddenly found in my current account.
I was in a modest amount of debt to my parents and to my overdraft for the 5 and a half weeks it took me to be paid so that first cheque went to paying all that off and then I decided instead of doing the sensible thing of saving, I would treat myself to spend that money leftover as a well done for getting a job and boy did I appreciate it. I had my car valeted, I bought clothes, I went for food out without worrying where the bill was coming from, I treated my Mum, I treated Joss, I went on road trips without panicking about petrol, I booked myself a weekend away for my birthday and I did what all grown up adults do and bought Christmas decorations 4 months early.
Now my second wage has come in I have settled back to normality and whacked it in my savings account and will try and buy less Christmas decorations at every turn (Halloween decs is a different matter…..)
So we come to the conclusion that we always come to; that I want to blog more, that I try and promise to blog more but chances are, I just won’t have the time. Probably see you in November at this rate……..
Jk.
I hope.
