My Month In Photos - May 2018.
My Month In Photos - May 2018.
Oh hi bet you forgot about me didn't you? It's been a while. Maybe I'll just spend the rest of my blogging life apologising for taking impromptu breaks for the rest of my blogging career.
The last post I wrote was that corker on GDPR and what it means for bloggers and I think that says everything about the fact I haven't blogged since then. I think it's been about a fortnight with nothing from me. I have basically spent the last fortnight in a mad rush of family stuff, business stuff, life stuff and a whole host of GDPR compliance activities.
I obviously run my own blog and business which took a lot of work to make it compliant but I also run websites for clients and had a lot of work to do there with mailing lists and paper lists and my head was just awash with GDPR and consent and double opt ins and omfg brain fried. So there we are, my evenings were taken up with all of that and here we are now, a fortnight on and I actually have life to catch you up on.
What I Did;
May has undoubtedly gone the fastest of all the months this year and the fact we're into June tomorrow morning is shocking. May is always a busy month for me as it's bookended by celebrations (and next year between them I have two weddings so that's going to be a busy one). I did a lot of life admin this month but not for myself so much which is unusual. It's that time of year where my family saw their cars in the garage every two seconds for MOTs and tyres and the like and it made me chief chauffeur. In fact I spent 4 days of this month picking various family members up from work, doing garage trips and generally playing taxi which was a novelty but bad for my bank balance and milage.
We of course spent loads of time with my niece. I am still childcare for her two days a week and some weeks this month I was with her 4 days on the trot. She's been in nursery about two full months now and it's still me who is navigating the drop off but she's smashed it and loves to go there now and has upped her hours and never wants to leave so we are both bloody happy with the way we teamed up and made it work for her. We've been out enjoying the sunshine together and went out to St Fagan's which is a local outdoorsy museum kinda place, soft play which is always a hit, we played in the garden lots and she gardened with my Mum. Mid month my brother had a day off, back when it was super hot so me and him took my niece down to his work to see his colleagues and then went to the beach with her and let her get as wet and mucky as she could and we had a right blast and she had a great time. I think it was my favourite day of the month, I love hanging out with my brother and we rarely have time with just my niece and she finds it quite the novelty. I also watched Eurovision at my brother's house with his fiancée and her sister and I saw most of it from the stairs whilst trying to simultaneously have a tea party with the 2 year old.
The beginning of the month was mine and Joss' 8 year anniversary and we chose the best bank holiday weekend to go to West Wales and explore the coastline. We only went away for the night, we weren't even that far from home but we enjoyed our time away and the weather was insaaaane and we had a jolly old time. You can read about it (and nosey at the photos) here.
Cider season has well and truly heated up and we have started our market season for the year which will now run on every weekend (give or take about 5) till Christmas Day. I don't work every weekend now Joss is a partner in the business so he and his Dad are in charge and I try to pretend he's not like my boss but I've done two days this month. Our local town of Cowbridge has a Food & Drink Festival every late May Bank Holiday and this year we were there again and it was heeeeaving as usual. It's one of our best days of the year and we didn't stop and it was exhausting but oh it's so good to be that busy. Time flies and it's nice to talk to customers and we sold loads of cider and made loads of money Here's hoping it's a sign of a good summer.
And then finally, seen as we're on the on the subject of the bank holiday, I sure as hell made the most of the extra day. On the Saturday my old flatmate from uni came down on the train and we spent the day together having a little life catchup and a natter. We went to Cosmeston Lakes which is, just as it sounds, lakes local to me and we walked for ages and chatted about her wedding plans which I am a bridesmaid for and then she humoured me whilst I drove about the countryside doing boring admin stuff like an Argos filing cabinet and petrol and then got loads of picnic style food in Tesco and had a house picnic in front of Netflix documentaries.
And then on the Sunday we had my niece's third birthday party. We all got together, her whole family, parents, aunties, grandparents, great in laws, second cousins and even her great grandmother over Skype and she had the best time. We had loads of balloons, loads of presents, loads of banners and she dressed up as her favourite My Little Pony which was also on her cake and as I carried her sleepy little body to the kitchen for dinner at the end of the day she said "you're my best friend". She turned 3 on Tuesday and spent the day with her Mum and Dad at the museum and made me sing happy birthday to her down the phone twice and she told me "I've grown since I was 3" when I next saw her.
What I Watched;
I have actually had a shocker for TV this month and my telly recordings are mounting up. My evenings are normally spent watching shit TV and blogging and this month I have been so busy in the evenings I haven't had time for either. I haven't watched a single movie but we have worked our way through Peaky Blinders season 1 - 4 in the last few weeks and I have managed to keep up with Taskmaster. I have however seen all of this season of Made in Chelsea, Real Housewives of Orange County and KUWTK so that shows you where my priorities lie. I did of course watch The Royal Wedding because half of the UK did and last weekend my flatmate and I watched all of Evil Genius on Netflix which is highly recommended unless you don't like a proper conclusion in your documentaries.
What I Worked On;
People keep asking me if I have been busy this month and I have been rushed off my feet - it's just there's not a lot of work to show for it. Because most of this month has been spent getting me, my business, my blog and my freelance clients ready for GDPR on May 25th I've been hideously busy but it's all behind the scenes stuff you'll probably never notice so that's fun.
I have however designed my Father's Day cards for this year (June 19th gang, pop it in your diaries) and they're available to buy on my Etsy now following this handy lil link.
What I Journaled;
Looking back at last month's post I apparently said "I need to do a bujo update post soon" and then, uhm, never did it. I had great intentions I really did, I have a 2 year anniversary of bullet journaling post planned and I have taken the photos but uhhh, not written it yet. It's coming.
If we're talking May though, my Pinterest inspired title page this month is all floral and bright pink and purples tones which I was v much feeling. I did my normal blog schedule which I didn't stick to as normal and my weekly spreads which I did stick to and are working really well for me still. I have had a few packing lists this month for both Joss and myself as we've been away, both at the beginning of May when we went to West Wales and also actually for now as we're off to Birmingham tomorrow to spend a few days with Joss' Nanna.
I have also made a master spread of cider events which takes us right up to Christmas so I know when I am supposed to be working and more importantly, where Joss is supposed to be cos lord knows he doesn't have a clue. I also created a master to do list for GDPR which I completed and a rough page for my blog post and exactly what I wanted to cover.
What I Blogged;
I know I started this post with a 'lol I haven't been blogging' but also I really started this month as I meant to go on, it genuinely was that GDPR post which was really research heavy and then a busy few weeks just finished me off.
I actually really enjoyed blogging at the beginning of the month and felt like I was back and my content was back on form and my motivation was back and I really enjoyed writing them all. My most well received post of course was the General Data Protection Regulation for bloggers because it was timely and a lot of people shared it and it had a great reception on Twitter but the one I most liked writing was the one on Instagram Husbands for my anniversary.
What I Bought;
I have been pretty savvy with my money this month even though I have been insanely busy. Joss and I went to Cardiff mid month because I needed a birthday present for a pal and so we had a late night shopping date night and bought some cinnamon pretzels and had a TGI's and we went to Primark for a summery shop. The hot weather this month reminded us both we don't have enough clothes for more than about 3 summery days so he bought shorts and flip flops and I bought some loose t shirts, some stripy trousers and some new pink shoes which I totes didn't need but deffo still bought.
We also made some grown up purchases this month including a lockable filing cabinet, a shredder, a BBQ and a 6 seater patio set. And then the sun went in and the rains and storms came so maybs we jinxed it soz guys.
I wanna say I'll blog more in June I really do. The motivation is here, the desire is here but I dunno if the time is yet. Time will tell but for now, enjoy your weekend, let's hope it's sunny and I'll see you for one of these posts again at the end of the month.
