My Month In Photos - April 2018.
My Month In Photos - April 2018.
Cor blimey I feel like an amateur writing this.
I feel all rusty and like I don't know what to say and have I maybs forgotten how to blog? I published a grand total of 10 blog posts this month, the lowest count for years and after my little life lately rant last week, I promptly gave up again and didn't write anything else.
That being said I have some thoughts I want to publish and some ideas I want to write about for May so maybe it'll be a better month and I'll be back to it. As rusty as I feel currently I do like the way my hands fly over the keys like they've always known what to do and sharing some of my snaps and an insight into my life feels normal. We'll see.
What I Did;
I'm well on my way to having gone away for every month of 2018 and April has been no different. Late in March my old flatmate from uni gave me a call asking if I wanted to spend an impromptu weekend at hers in Bristol for a catch up and a wedding fair. I am a bridesmaid for her wedding next year so we spent a glorious couple of days eating leftover Easter egg, watching chick flicks and on the Saturday we went to Bath for a bridal fair, with a cheeky stop at Primark on the way home. Later in the month I went back up to university in Wrexham for an overnight stop to see my pals and have a general lol of a time. Wrexham is a good 4 hours away from home but I love a road trip and as the weather hit a cool 23 degrees it was one of the nicest memories of the whole month. I stayed the night in town with my bestie and my godson who I haven't seen since November and it was glorious to spend time with them, spend time playing with the baby and enjoying a nice 4 hour sleep because he was too busy playing in his cot. We also saw spent time with our friends family, meeting his niece for the first time, had a yummers burger in Frankie & Benny's, had a cracking bowl of cheesy chips the following day, caught up with our tutors 3 years after graduation and went shopping and spent our life savings in Primark.
Aside from spending time away from home, I also got up to loads closer to the house too. The month started with Easter (can you even believe that?) which we spent with Joss' family having a big old roast and a catch up. The Monday was then spent doing exactly the same with my family at Mum & Dad's house. Joss' Nanna came to stay with us for 3 days mid month which was lovely, we enjoyed some warm weather and I took the time to go for a few runs and we took the dog on a big long dog walk in the sun around local lakes. We've also had a lot of fun too, taking my niece to our local National Trust property, soft play and a wetlands trust full of cheeky little ducklings. Last weekend we smashed the end of the month by taking Joss' parents to Judgement Day (4 Welsh regions all play rugby against each other on one afternoon in the Principality). We met my brother and his fiancée there and we had a corker of a day topped off with chips at home in front of iPlayer.
Of course there was much of the normal life admin that comes with another month, like supermarket shops (I have been trying out Asda this month), two trips to the dentist and a hefty afternoon having my car checked which ended in a cheeky 200 quid and 4 new tyres. The less said about that one the better.
This month my niece has been my main focus as she started struggling at nursery, getting hideously upset at drop offs to the point she plain wasn't going. It was up to Auntie Gwennan to crack it and I put all my time into it this month, and she put all her trust in me and thankfully by the end of the month she is thriving. We have conquered the drop off, she has made friends, we navigated snack time, we've managed to raise it from 2 to 3 hours with ease, she now never wants to leave and last week we even got as far as eating some fruit there (something she refused to do originally). I am hideously proud of this kid and her faith in me and what a bloody good team we make and it'll probably go down as one of the most difficult and successful things we have navigated together.
What I Watched;
Oooh I had a marathon of a month film wise. I watched Table Nineteen with my flatmate at her house with pringles and easter egg (7/10), Free Fire with Joss (much shooting 9/10), Murder on the Orient Express (8/10), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (8/10) and then rewatched Grease with Joss when we were feeling sad one Saturday night at about 1am. We've been really good at watching TV too when we're together but watching things on my own has become almost impossible so I have something like 70 programmes on my record box. Ever feel like you need your other half to go away for a week just so you can clear your schedule? Yeah me too. What we have done though is binge watched Peaky Blinders Season 1 & 2. Joss watched them when they were on and for whatever reason, I never did. However seeing bits he was watching made me think it might be for me so now, even with massive plot spoilers ruined for me we're watching from the beginning and omfg it's so good. And Cillian Murphy is just perfection.
What I Worked On;
It's been all things wedding this month! I mentioned in last month's round up that I was working on a wedding portrait and the deadline for that was the beginning of the month. The perks of working for your pal who you're bridesmaid for means 1. you have intimate knowledge of the wedding plans and 2. you can take the work to them in person. I was able to get their feedback in person which is a million times easier and the project was complete - and looks great even if I do say so myself.
I also got commissioned to create some themed bridesmaid cards which has been an absolute joy to work on and were finished and posted this morning. I am excited to show you those too but that might not be for a long ol' while so the secrets are not spoiled.
What I Journaled;
I definitely need to do an update on my bullet journal soon with lots of photos of what I have been scribbling away but today is not that day. I have been dutifully filling in my step tracker, mood tracker an sleep tracker which has been insightful to say the least.
My April spread were pretty varied, starting with my monthly title page full of lovely inspiring images from Pinterest. This month I went for yellow and pink tones and alllll the floral which has made me very happy all the way through the month. My April blog schedule however was laughable, I didn't stick to it at all and you'd be surprised I ever thought I could get all that content created but there we are.
My weekly spreads have stayed the same pretty much throughout, I am living for the colour I have added in now and am a bit miffed I didn't think of it sooner. Aside from that, I have added a few new spreads. I actually started running this month so I have bothered to create a running tracking page where I outline how it went. I include the weather, how long it took, when it was and how much I ran and how much I walked and it's a really nice way of looking at it imo. Having been away twice I obviously have two packing lists, one for Bristol and one for Wrexham and have 'tasks to do the day before' because aren't they always more stressful and busy the day before you go away?
This month I also added a really nifty tv schedule but only for ITV Be programmes. For some reason my TV can't get the holy grail of ITV Be so I have to track all my programmes there manually so I remember to watch them on my laptop. A fail safe way for me to get started in the day is to watch something shitty on my laptop with my breakfast so I have been tracking easy watching I haven't finished yet - this month being Sam & Bllie Faiers and Real Housewives of Cheshire, Orange County and Atlanta. On completely the other end of the spectrum I have 4 pages dedicated to my self assessment tax return and all the paperwork I need to provide and prove which is a bit of fun innit.
What I Blogged;
Well the less said about blogging this month the better no? No that's not fair, I still knocked out 10 blog posts so it wasn't all radio silence over here and I did actually really enjoy working on my homeware wish lists about a fortnight ago. But of course, really this month I found blogging a bit difficult and I wasn't very motivated for it - you can read all about that here.
What I Bought;
Well 220 quids worth of tyres and a shit load of food innit?
Aside from those I went to Primark in Bristol and was super reserved and only bought a bag (you can see that on my Instagram here) but then I went to Wrexham and spent a cheeky 40 quid. I bought the shoes I have been lusting after for ages, I got some essentials like vests and leggings, got a lacy bralet that never fitted in a million years and a shit load of tops, plus some goodies for my niece for summer. I raided the New Look sale which I would v much recommend if your local store still has it on and I also finally got my hands on the Benefit Bad Gal Bang mascara I have been lusting after for weeks. Now I am just impatient for the latter to arrive.
So yeah, maybe this is the start of being being back on my game or maybe I'll take a whole month off - who bloody knows. Maybe I'll be all motivated, maybe life will get in the way yet again or maybe it'll be somewhat patchy and in between. Who knows, but what I do know is I deffo am not alone - there's a lot of this feeling in the ol' blogging community, for reasons I'll probably write a blog post on soon so at least my loves, we're all in it together.
