My Month In Photos - January 2018.
My Month In Photos -
January 2018.
Guess who's back. Back again? This lil segment is.
In December I talked a bit about what I was and wasn't bringing back for 2018 and my Friday Favourites and my Pinspiration didn't make the cut but this wee babe did. I wasn't sure on this one, I felt like it'd gone a bit stale and was repeating a lot of what I said in my Friday Favs. However, since I don't do my Favourites anymore at all I felt like I was itching to share a bit of my life, what I've been up to and well, this blog post format still fitted so here we are.
Here's what I was up to in the longest month ever; January 2018:
What I Did;
My year started off slowly and quietly following a busy Christmas and New Years. I got home at 3am on New Years Eve after dropping members of my family off and spent the first few days of 2018 at home chilling out, working on my bullet journal and running a few errands and generally having a nice old time of it. We managed to make it to the local pub quiz the first few weeks whilst my friends were home from university which was a right laugh and we were up against my brother and his friends too which makes it even more fun.
The second week of the month Joss went away to Gloucester on a 6 day course and I had our house to myself for the first time since we moved last January. I spent the time he was away spring cleaning the house, emptying all our cupboards and sorting through our belongings in a big clear out. I took 2 big bags to the clothes bank, another 3 to the charity shop and sold a bunch of stuff too, let alone what got packed up the attic or chucked away. It was blissful and he had a great time away too so we had a very happy household.
I spent a busy weekend with my Mum back in the middle of the month where we went to a 50th birthday party for a friend locally which was divine. We danced, the band were ace and the venue was amazing and we had a good night together. The following day we went to Gloucester for my cousin's baby's 1st birthday and had a nice family road trip and a cheeky Maccies and a sing along on the way home.
I spent the majority of the month babysitting. I had my niece more than ever this month for a variety of reasons and it meant I had no time for anything but eat sleep babysit and repeat. As tiring as it was and as much as I couldn't do any work it was a joy as always to spend so much time with her. She's been an angel of late and I have thoroughly missed her when I haven't had her with me. We went to our local National Trust property, played at home a lot and went to soft play yesterday which she bloody loved (and I didn't mind an excuse to have a go on the bouncy castle either).
When I have had time off I managed to fill it well. I've been busy with my business beavering away and several runs to the post office and lots of walks in the countryside with the dog. I went to Bristol mid month to visit my gal pal, my old flatmate from university and we had a cute pub lunch and wedding planned and went to Ikea and it was a very exciting day.
What I Watched;
I am still watching stuff for Christmas lolololololol. I am in a rut of recording programme after programme and never being able to catch up and here we are - I say it every month. This month I didn't manage to watch a single film, it was all TV and I've watched some corkers. I am back on the bandwagon of watching allll the medical documentaries so in January I have firmly got stuck into 24 Hours In A&E, 999 What's Your Emergency and 999 On The Frontline and it's been great. I have also got well into my reality TV shit again with new seasons of Real Housewives of Orange County (but for real Heather not being in it breaks my heart), Ibiza Weekender and my personal fav - KUWTK.
What I Worked On;
January is always without fail my slowest month of the year work wise because everyone has spent all their cash on Christmas. That being said I've actually had a really good January as January's go and I have secured two commissions which will finish in February and April respectively. Two commissions in the slowest month of the year is 2 more than I normally get so to have some ongoing work is ace. I have also launched my 2018 Valentine's range which I am prouder of than ever. I worked super hard to get my designs ready to go and I created 4 new designs, my fav of which is my Donald Trump one and your fav seems to be the cheesy one which is selling fast. I also brought back a few of my best sellers from previous years which have started selling again and I also created a few Welsh ones for good measure because really, it was about time wasn't it? Shop V Day cards on my Etsy here!
What I Journaled;
A new year means a big ol' journaling stint and 2018 was no exception. You can have a peep at it all over here but if you just want the highlights, read on.
I spent a good week designing all my spreads and and trackers and I am v pleased with how it all turned out. My bujo starts as normal with a key, special dates, birthdays and then my monthly calendars followed by my monthly habit trackers. This year though with the beauty of hindsight I have kept my calendars and trackers to January - June instead of thinking I could fit the whole year into one journal. We have all learned that no, I cannot.
This year I also remembered to add my NYE resolutions and my 2018 bucket list which is really working for me and I am also way happier with my monthly savings tracker and the money I owe. My 2018 books and 2018 films didn't really change because the layouts were working but I did work on a new sleep tracker which tracks not only how well I slept but also the hours too. This year for the first time I included a bunch of health trackers including steps, period tracker, 30 day yoga and abs challenges and a weight loss tracker, the layout of which I am in love with.
My mood tracker is my first foray into colour in my journal and I am not against it and I have even added a lil bit of colour into my weekly spreads. My future log, present ideas and wishlists pages are a pre cursor to my parcels tracker, my chores list and then a general packing list and shopping list, the latter of which is being used weekly. I also like normal have a list of blog post ideas and bujo post ideas and then a tracker of my stats which is the same layout as in my last journal.
The biggest success though has been my monthly trappings which I have decided to start off with a mood board made up of all my fav Pinterest images and it's totally informing my theme for the month. My January mood board was very grey and white and my February one is very pink so you can see where I'm getting my motivation. I have also gone back to the master to do list format which stopped working for me but has worked ok for the past month so we'll keep that going for now at least. My blog schedules are back, though I deviated a lot from it this month and I also have a very redundant Friday Favs page which was an oversight. Other than that there was very little to report this month, my normal weekly spreads punctuated only by a phone numbers list in case I lost my contacts in the phone move (which I did) and a packing list for Joss' week away.
What I Blogged;
I didn't come back to the blog with quite the bang I was hoping for in 2018 but I still had a modest schedule. I wanted content going out every other day but with the babysitting and work I just didn't have the chance. I popped up a couple of bullet journal posts which ya'll seemed to enjoy but my fav post to write was my letter to my blog squad - something I had in my head for a good month before writing it.
I felt like I got into my groove a bit more toward the end of the month and I think that's reflected in my writing. I really enjoyed sharing some of my favourite independent businesses and cards in my Valentine's Day post and I had a good response to my twenty reasons why January ain't so bad post.
I also celebrated my blogs second birthday too! It passed me by and I only realised a day later (despite having written it in my bujo) but I wrote a lil something about my second year in numbers which was fun to look back on.
What I Bought;
Like the rest of the country I'm sure, I was flat broke this month and spent the majority of it ticking 'no spend day' off my habit tracker. I used my pennies for the important stuff like food and petrol but this week when my wallet was looking a bit kinder I went to Cardiff to spend the Primark vouchers I'd been hoarding since Christmas Day. I am going to Venice for a few days at the beginning of March and I wanted to get my hands on a few bits like a new pair of jeans and some fake Timberlands and the essentials like leggings and plain vest tops. Like with all healthy trips to Primark I also popped a few cute extra into my basket which made their way home with me like some earrings, a breton striped jumper and I got THOSE star boots in red which takes my collection up to three.
And that my loves, is my January. It hopefully won't have escaped your knowledge that I have also had a cheeky redesign after Hannah changed hers and convinced my returning to the grid system for my blog was the best idea. Can't fault that gal.
