My Month In Photos - April 2017.
My Month In Photos - April 2017.
Normally I feel like the months are flying by and whilst I'm pretty freaked out it's already May (well tomorrow, ya feel me) when I look back at the beginning of April, it feels like a lifetime ago. Maybe it's because I've been insanely busy, maybe it's because I've crammed a lot in but whatever it is, April lasted about 2 months and it was great.
There was a LOT of family and friends time and also pretty much the whole month was blazing sunshine so that's always nice. Literally when everyone was like 'Where Spring gone tho?' and like frolicking in the snow, in South East Wales we've been spoilt by the sunniest sunshine ever.
What I Did;
Ah that time of the month where I have to refer back to my bullet journal to find out what I've spent the last 4 weeks doing. Every Sunday this month my brother and his family have been down at my Mum's and we've had many a roast dinner and many a sunny day doing crosswords and watching my niece play. Back at the beginning of the month my Dad had a week off so we took my niece out for days to our local National Trust property and a family farm I visited as a child and then obvs I just upped and drove to London to spend a day with some blogging besties (but you probs didn't know that). Over the Easter weekend I met up with 3 groups of friends and in the space of 10 days I went to the same coffee/cocktail bar 4 times for birthday and lunches and breakfast and uhhh, more drinks. I went to Judgement Day to see the rugby over Easter and won our sweepstake on the National and then the Easter Egg hunt too cos, duh, born winner. And then if that wasn't busy enough I met up with my university flatmate last weekend and some of the friends I made on my Foundation course this week. Throw in lots of work, a coupla trips to the supermarket, the dentist, the post office and all the general life admin you have to do and you'd be surprised how I managed it all.
What I Watched;
So can we plz just take a moment to talk about Broadchurch and Line of Duty? I have been absolutely hooked on both of them and I had no idea up until the very end who did it in either. I'm not going to write about the finale of either in case people haven't caught up but I worked out the Broadchurch one about 10 minutes before they announced it sooooo I'm basically a detective. Aside from hard hitting dramas my life has been full of comedy with Peter Kay's Car Share, Celeb Juice, Gogglebox, Last Leg and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown which started again last week. Naturally I have also binge watched Real Housewives of Atlanta, Cheshire and Orange County and Made in Chelsea which is maybs my fav series so far cos Binky/JP/Ollie make my life. Last weekend we had a Saturday night free so we watched Locke (Tom Hardy omfg <3) and The Girl On The Train which was ace and tonight we watched Jack Reacher which was alright. I also re watched Season 1 of Game of Thrones in 2 nights for no apparent reason but it kept me occupied when I was designing my illustration website. One thing I haven't watched which the world has been going mad for is 13 Reasons Why and about a week after Sarirah and Sarah were talking about it, I realised I read the book when I was in university.
What I Worked On;
I'm still working on a personalised book which is my ongoing project these days but this month I've had a fun few lil commissions put in place too. I've got some more personalised prints to do and also some V. FUN wedding things which is top top secret (well, unless you're the blogging squad) but so much fun. Can I emphasise how fun it is to draw? I also redesigned my illustration website like I mentioned above. It took 8 hours yesterday but I love how it's looking and I filled it with my new work and projects and I also set up a sweet lil newsletter which you can sign up to here. I'll also be ordering my Father's Day card designs this month so they'll be on my Etsy in the next few weeks.
What I Chatted About;
Hahahahahahaha -manic laughter- I only did one Late Night Bloggers chat this month because Tina reminded me about it (thank god) and it was fabulous and yet again I was like THIS is why I need to make time for chats and yet again I haven't found time since. I am the worst I don't even know what more to say about it.
What I Blogged;
I feel like this month I really cracked on with my blog. I had a schedule planned out in my Bullet Journal with my regular segments in and after that I mapped out a rough plan of what I wanted to do about a week in advance so everything was fresh in my mind and I'm really pleased with a lot of content I pushed this month. I took an unplanned break for a few days when I went to London and a planned break over Easter and whilst that only meant 6 days off all month, it kept things fresh and I had plenty of time to do fun stuff to then write about. I wrote a lot about blogging this month, including in response to things that happened on social media, from having a bitch about brand opportunities, to that Easter weekend blogging drama over bots on Instagram and also 'Is The Blogging Community Supportive?' which was my fav blogging post whereas yours (from the stats) was 8 Things Bloggers Do. Undoubtedly though, the content I'm most proud of this month and the one with the biggest reaction and most shares is my Guide To The General Election. I did a LOT of research for this, illustrated my own images and really put a lot of effort into it because I feel like there's a lot of confusion in politics at the moment and I wanted to make a simple, opinion free guide to help ya'll out - which is apparently working.
What I Bought;
I put myself on a spending ban this month for clothes and shoes and all that typa thing because I want to have an actual blowout when I'm away with my friends in the middle of May. This went allllll gravy until I decided I needed a big bag to hold my snacks and bujo and wallet and camera for London so snapped up a beauty on the Boohoo 20% discount day and then I got an email a few days ago saying they had a further 70% off on the sale soooo sadly a jumper and a scarf and a top found their way into my basket..... I know people find Boohoo a bit hit and miss and I do tbf but this month they didn't disappoint so maybe they're bringing their A Game. I also took advantage of the Paperchase sale and grabbed some Christmas wrapping paper for under a quid and some cute stickers for my bujo. Andddd then when I was in IKEA the other week I got some boring things like scrubbing brushes (and more wrapping paper) but I also got myself a plant stand which is proudly holding a new plant by my front door. So yeah, the spending ban has gone V. well.
May is shaping up to be another busy month. I'm away for 3 days next weekend and then away for another 3 days mid month, we have 2 Bank Holidays and it's my niece's 2nd birthday and I need to do normal things like ya know, work or earn money or whatevs.
