My Month In Photos (a chatty life catchup) - October 2018
Another month has flown by and another month where I had good intentions of getting back in to blogging. I am sure you are as sick to the back teeth hearing me bang on about how I am too busy to blog as I am of writing it but here we are again.
Luckily for me I had a birthday and an engagement this month which gave me the motivation to get some content out and then time escaped me again. If you’re a regular reader (and hopefully you are) there IS content coming, I have 5 posts scheduled in drafts half written and you know me, there’ll be some Christmas wishlists no doubt. Hopefully the darker nights will allow me some time at home to blog to my hearts content and we can end the year on a high.
That’s the plan anyway.
What I Did;
I always really enjoy October and this year was no different. It’s my birthday month, I normally feel like I am ‘settled’ which I think stems back to going back to school, it’s Halloween and it’s all lovely and autumnal without being too dark and rainy. I have done a lot this October which has been a huge part in my lack of blogging but I have enjoyed lots of real life stuff in my spare time. I am three months into working full time now and tbh it seems like way longer but I had my first day off for annual leave and it was lovely. Could deffo get used to.
Wasn’t it satisfying that October started on a Monday? I started it off nice with a visit from Joss’ Nanna so we spent time catching up with her over a big casserole and we watched GBBO. I tried to keep my week days after work quite quiet where I could but I see my niece most Wednesday and Friday evenings getting her ready for bed and often go to my Nan’s on a Tuesday too so when I say quiet, I mean, relative to me. Toward the end of the month though things ramped up with a trip to Cardiff with my Mum to kit us both out for our winter wardrobes where I treated her to a McDonalds…….and then the following week a trip back to town to return all the stuff that didn’t fit! But this time she treated me to tea.
Keeping my weekdays as quiet as I could meant the weekends were non stop, from chores to my weekly food shop to working for myself to all the family celebrating, I didn’t stop for a second every weekend of the month and I think I forgot what a lazy Sunday even was. Jos and I went Halloween shopping one day which we do every year and really enjoy. We trawl the local supermarkets and The Range and Wilko and picked up all the bargains and then spent a glorious evening decorating the house (have a nosey here). The weekend before Halloween we finished our spooky traditions bu carving pumpkins in front of Nightmare Before Christmas and I made biscuits and cakes till the wee hours. The following day we had my family around and we hosted them for the whole day for lunch, tea and a big Halloween treasure hunt for my niece. Everyone had loads of chocolate and she had a new book and a paint your own ceramic pumpkin which she took great care on painting blue. She also carved her very first pumpkins with my Mum (who was also carving them for the first time herself) and we generally had a cracking day.
October is my birthday month and on the 17th I turned 26 and had a mid week day off work. In hindsight it was a bit weird being in for two days, off and then back in again but I had a lovely day on the day none the less. I spent the morning cleaning my house because apparently I am old now and then went to collect my niece from school. Since I started work she finished in her nursery I used to take her to and started proper primary school and has become the most confident outgoing clever kid ever - a stark change from her screaming crying at me, begging me to take her home back in April. She was SO excited to see me at the school gates and jumped into my arms and remembered it was my birthday. I had her and my parents at my house for lunch and we went for a big long walk in the forest where she paddled in the lake, and then she warmed up in the bath at home with a new bath toy. The next day at work my colleagues treated me to a doughnut tower covered in candles and then the following weekend we celebrated at my Mum’s with the whole family. I had my presents, we had chips and my niece unwrapped every single one of my gifts for me and helped me blow the candles out on my cake.
Of course the biggest news of the month and the one that kicked it off to a good start was getting engaged. We had a chilled day at home then went to my parents and then spent the week phoning around all the friends and family who needed to know - all very low key, all very me. What was ideal though was we had booked a long weekend away in the New Forest (blog post coming soon) for the weekend before my birthday as an early birthday treat but it just so happened to be 5 days after we got engaged so actually it was the loveliest time to get away just the two of us and have some quality time wandering one of my favourite places.
What I Watched;
Joss went a bit mad this month and agreed to watch not one but two musicals and I my friends was happy to oblige. We watched Mamma Mia at the beginning of the month which he actually found quite funny and Sound of Music later on which he didn’t enjoy quite as much and holy hell I do nattt remember it being that long when I used to watch it as a kid. We of course watched Nightmare Before Christmas for Halloween which was as good as always and I have had my fill of crap reality TV. I binge watched all the current episodes of Real Housewives of Cheshire, the return of Mummy Dairies, repeats of Life of Kylie and Made in Chelsea.
We’ve also watched a lot of good TV though like the return of The Apprentice, obviously the final of GBBO (I loved the winner fyi) and we have been loving Taskmaster, Mock the Week, The Last Leg and Have I Got News for You.
What I Worked On;
Aside from working full time for someone else, October actually saw me make some cold hard cash from my own business which was nice. I have yet to find the balance between running my own business and working 9.00am - 5.30pm and having a busy family life and running a tight ship at home but I have managed to work on freelance projects this month….even if it did mean working 5 or 6 hours after a full days work….
I can’t really reveal any details of the projects I am working on as none of them are finalised yet but it’s included some Christmassy stuff and some prints and posters and I’ve enjoyed the process again. I was surprised how much it’s felt like starting all over again like I hardly know where I am but I have enjoyed drawing and designing again for sure. I have also been beavering away on Etsy orders and had a couple of batch buys where someone has bought me out of a few ranges which has been ace so make sure you check out my Christmas cards! Tis the season after all (nearly).
What I Journaled;
I kinda don’t even want to talk about my bujo to be honest. I have always been like ‘but what do you MEAN you haven’t had time to journal, how do you even do anything’ and yet I have become that person. My life has been so on the go and so work focused for the past few months I have taken to just organising on the go and relying on my google calendar and notes on my phone to remind me what the flip I’m supposed to be doing. I write reminders to myself in my work bujo to pick up milk or fill the car up on the way home and anything that isn’t on my phone is lost in the wind. My habit tracking has fallen apart and my weekly to do’s are like half filled and I kinda hate it. I don’t really know what to do to get my bujo mojo back but hopefully when my life is all sorted out and I have semblance of a routine a once had, maybe it will come back to me. Poor bullet journal, I love and miss you.
What I Blogged;
Another month where I started out with great intentions but another month that life got busy and blog got slacking. I actually blogged 7 times which has been unheard of for the past few months since I got my job and I really enjoyed writing everything I wrote.
Obviously my birthday and engagement blog posts were my favourite because it was personal and a nice way to document another year of my life but I also enjoyed my Halloween photo diary too. Like I said above I have half written drafts of a few things including my work bullet journal, my office renovation, a photo diary of the New Forest in autumn and some pieces about the work life balance I deffo don’t have at the mo.
What I Bought;
I was on a mini spending ban (self imposed) for much of the month because I knew I was getting some birthday money and I wanted a nice shopping trip with my Mum so I held off. I of course broke it to get all my Halloween decorations but hey, whats a girl to go with more regular monthly income than she’s ever had before?
When I did have my birthday I wrote a big long wishlist of everything I needed from the shops and I hit Primark hard. I have been jotting things down as and when I think of them and when the weather finally turned autumnal I found my work wardrobe was lacking. I mentioned it in one of these posts back in July or August time about how office dressing has meant basically a new wardrobe for me. Long gone is the freelance uniform of a breton and jeans and in is dresses and skirts and nice shirts and whilst I kitted myself out with work appropriate sandals and thin cardigans for the summer, the change in climate has brought up a whole new set of problems for me. I invested in lots of fluffy warm jumpers in neutral colours, black boots, tights, leggings, black roll necks, skirts and as many pinafore and jumper dresses as I could find and then topped it all off with some banging earrings because Primark really are killing it this season with jazzy jewellery.
I might link to some of it in my current obsessions tab when I have a spare five minutes (ie never) but the piece I fell hardest for was actually this* New Look hun which is never a cut or length I’d ever have gone for before but oh man do I adore it.
*Affiliate link*
So we’re about 7 weeks away from the Big C and I am trying all my might not to get the tree down from the attic now and am instead whiling away the hours (as if I have any) thinking of all the lovely gifts I’m going to get my loved ones. Onto the next month my loves!
