Hello everyone! It’s been a little while since I did a life update so I thought I’d fill you in on what I’ve been up to! The past few months have been pretty uneventful really, not much has been going on in the fun part of my life, but a lot has happened work-wise which has taken up the bulk of my time! May went by in a whirlwind and June & July seem to have followed suit (how are we over halfway through the year already??) But, to kick things off I am happy to say I’ve finally started properly on the fitness front!
June
I’ve never been particularly motivated when it comes to fitness, although saying that, my motivation for anything hasn’t been that great over the last 3 years or so! Since my Anxiety/Panic Disorder started back in 2016, my motivation has taken a hit. Some days I’ll feel really energised and motivated to get things done, other days, It feels impossible to do anything other than chill on the sofa and catch up with Youtube and Netflix or a good book. You might remember me saying back in May that I wanted to start getting a bit fitter and potentially take up running, Well, I’ll be honest, none of that happened in May, however, I recently decided that I’d procrastinated long enough and it was time to start getting my butt in gear!
In late June I started my 30 Day Fitness Challenge app alongside some flexibility exercises that I found on Pinterest as I am really interested in learning Yoga/Pilates and want to build up my flexibility again. I never thought I would be one of those people who actually look forward to my next workout but I’m finding I actually really enjoy it! I complete 3 exercise challenges a day; Full Body, Arms and Legs/Butt which totals up to around 15/20 minutes. As the 30-day challenge progresses, the workouts get longer and more difficult. It’s great to be able to feel the exercises working and am already starting to see results!
June was pretty uneventful other than starting my fitness plan. We did take a little trip to IKEA as I needed a new bookcase (too many books for my other 2) and I love IKEA so that was pretty fun, we also ended up buying a new display cabinet to spruce up the living room a little bit, we bought one in a light natural wood colour but after building it and deciding we didn’t like the colour, we dismantled it and went all the way back to IKEA to buy the same one in a different colour (opted for white this time and it looks great!)
The final fun thing we did in June was going to see the new Disney/Pixar movie, Toy Story 4. It was incredible, you can read my review here.
July
July was a bit of a stressful month, to be honest! So much has just seemed to go wrong this month for me and a lot has been happening work-wise too so it’s been a bit tough! I’ve really been thinking about options for my future lately and what I want to be doing with my life. I still can’t set my mind on one thing for sure right now because all of the things I would like to do are either not jobs that are easy to come by where I live, not do-able right now or just not easy to get into in general. I have been thinking about going back to college next year for an evening a week to gain the final qualification I would need to study a healthcare degree if I ever decided to go back into it (such as Midwifery) potentially a Creative Writing Course and maybe even explore some other routes that I’ve always had an interest in such as Special Effects Makeup/Face Painting just for fun and to get another qualification! I also have a lifetime membership to an online college programme in which I can take as many courses as I like. I currently have 3 on the go and am looking to finish those within the next year. I’m in the mood to add a few more strings to my bow and would love to do some courses for fun and to better my skills in areas I’m really passionate about. I have been looking into this a lot recently and feel like this can be my task to achieve for next year as well as travelling more! A couple of things we did do in July was our annual trip to the circus and participated in our local carnival. I was pretty disappointed with this year’s circus if I’m honest. I wasn’t as exciting as previous ones we’ve seen and It was very expensive for the quality of content provided! (we managed to get half-price tickets and it still came to £50) 😱 Nevertheless, the Big Top still looked great!
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0rXWrXnodK/
In terms of the carnival, myself and Lee volunteer at our local hospital radio station which is a registered charity. Every year we participate in the local carnival to raise funds for the radio station so that we can continue to provide music and entertainment for patients and their families in the hospital. This years theme was ‘The Greatest Showman/other movies’. We all dressed up as characters from movies and ended up winning 1st prize in our category – an amazing achievement!
August
We’re only a just over a week in so far but August is already shaping out to be a motivational month for me creatively. As I said before, the past few months have brought on a lot of changes and a strain of bad luck for me which has really knocked my confidence. I’d fallen behind on my blog and not really felt motivated or inspired to write anything, until recently when I stumbled across a few blogs I used to read. They reminded me why I started my blog in the first place and gave me the boost I needed to get back to it. I’ve decided it’s time to stop sitting back and watching everyone around me achieve their goals and start chasing after mine! In light of this, I have actually decided to start one of my online courses now. It is originally intended to be a 4-week course, however as the lessons are on-demand, I have been able to attend 2 per night which means it should only take me a week to complete, and then I’ve got another diploma under my belt! I am really excited to gain more qualifications in areas I am truly passionate about and at my own leisure, it’s perfect for me as I work full-time so to be able to do it as and when I can with no pressure is a great help.
On the fitness front, I am pleased to say that I went for my first ever run on the 2nd of August and managed 20 minutes before my lungs felt like they were going to explode! I am really proud of myself as it’s such an achievement for me, I’ll admit though, my legs paid for it for a few days after! I do want to try and work out at least twice a week if I can and would love to try and go for a run at least once a week, We’ll see how it goes!
The only other thing I’ve done so far this month is that I went to review a youth theatre’s production of ‘Into The Woods’. It was the first time I’d ever seen a staged production of the show and I had a great time! You can read my review here.
Reading Challenge
My 2019 Reading Challenge is ticking along really well, we’re only just over halfway through the year and I’ve already smashed my 2019 Reading Challenge goal of 10 books! It’s been great reading so much again but I do also think it might be another reason why I’m slacking on the writing front, When you’re reading, It’s so much more difficult to write! Now that I have reached my goal, and with so much time left of the year, I’ve decided to up it to 15 books, so that’s 5 more to read for the rest of the year. However, since I’ve already smashed the goal I originally set, I won’t feel any pressure to finish a book and start the next one so I should have plenty of time for writing.
So there we have it, a little roundup/life update of the past couple of months. I just wanted to keep you updated and assure you that I haven’t disappeared! Unfortunately, working full-time means you barely have time for anything else so there really hasn’t been much to write about lately (I don’t know how other bloggers do it!) I will say though, I have some pretty exciting stuff coming up soon that I can’t wait to share with you all, so stick around!
See you next time!
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