Hello, hello! Long time no blog! In 2021 I haven’t blogged much at all, it’s not through not wanting to but I feel like I haven’t had much to say and I’ve been enjoying keeping under the radar a little bit and using weekends as chill out time to read and catch up on other things. I still read other blogs almost every day and do want to put out posts when inspiration strikes. This is kind of the reason for this post, bridging the gap talking about what I’ve been feeling and what’s been happening and a push to get me excited about blogging again.
I’ll start by rewinding back to April/May of this year when I felt things start to change. In April my mum was in hospital again, thankfully it wasn’t as serious as her admissions in 2020 but the situation doesn’t get easier. She came out a week later and over the past six months her and I have noticed improvements. She’s able to do more and walk further without getting breathless as fast and she came off prednisone after being on them for a year. At the end of April I had time off work and was able to recharge. Throughout this and a few months prior I’d been feeling really tired and sometimes didn’t know how I was getting through the day. My job can be intense so on top of feeling tired I was also incredibly drained. A few people suggested I might have glandular fever based on my symptoms and how I’d been feeling. In May I went to the doctor and mentioned the tiredness and she said it sounded like I was burnt out and suggested more time off work (which I didn’t take as I would have felt guilty) and a blood test. The results came back and my white cell count was up slightly so it looked like an infection of some sort. A few weeks later I had another blood test and the cell count had gone up. I was prescribed antibiotics and had another blood test after finishing them but the cell count was still the same so I was given more antibiotics. The doctor couldn’t figure it out as she said ‘I’m pretty healthy.’ In the end I had three courses of antiobtiotics and countless blood tests and still don’t know what was wrong. I asked to be tested for glandular fever but it didn’t happen. I haven’t seen a doctor or had a blood test since July so I don’t know what my white cells are like currently. I still feel tired some days but nowhere near as bad as I was.
While all of that was going on I made sure to be gentle and kind to myself and started taking more time at weekends to relax and started not to feel guilty if I stayed in my pyjamas one day or didn’t get the house all cleaned. I’ve started pacing myself and going with the flow a bit more and listening to what my body wants. I mentioned I feel like I’ve been under the radar a little bit and I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve still been quite active on Instagram and I’ve been trying to adapt to the new features of the platform such as reels but honestly sometimes I do lose motivation with it. Reels and video content is supposedly pushed to more people but I personally find they don’t get as many likes for me. I don’t know whether my followers aren’t seeing the content, they don’t like it or a mixture of both. I will keep perservering as they have been fun to make and I like watching reels from the people I follow. I am aware the feed content has been lacking since New Zealand went back into lockdown in August and I’m working on it.
The day the second lockdown was announced I was on annual leave and hours before had received my first Pfizer jab. Absolutely the right thing to do was lockdown the country as they didn’t know if it was a Delta case or not, that decision was ridiculed but it meant lockdown only lasted for a few weeks. If you look at where New Zealand is now, the day I’m writing this post we have had the highest daily total of cases since the pandemic started and most of the country is in Level 2 which means shops, cafes, restaurants and businesses can open with social distancing and safety measures in place and mask wearing is compulsory. Okay, more of the country is vaccinated now but the case numbers aren’t plateauing or going down.
Recently on an Instagram story I was sharing thoughts and feelings I’d been having and one of those was around the way I look. I’m not feeling too confident at the moment – perhaps that’s down to not wearing makeup for three months – but mask wearing makes me feel sweaty and overheat and I don’t like the way some things are looking on me. I don’t feel like I’ve eaten more or gained weight but I think it’s that mindset of Covid is still here there’s no point going out anywhere or putting a nice outfit on. I’m still staying home and keeping activities to a minimum. I’ve also not been in the mood for dating or trying to meet anybody, I’m happy by myself at the moment and socialising with new people during times like these makes me nervous.
Onto the last and most exciting piece of news in this post, I’ve ordered a new phone. I’ve been an Apple user for years and when I saw they had released a pink iPhone it was destined to be mine. I ordered it last week and it should arrive in a few weeks. I was tossing up between the 13 or the 13 mini but I went with the 13 in the end as it’s a similar size to my current phone but doesn’t weigh as much. It’s going to be strange not to have the home button but I’ll soon get over it. I treated myself to this phone as a) the model I currently have is 6 years old (I bought it in 2019) and it won’t last forever b) how often do you see a pink phone and c) the base amount of storage is 128GB, four times as much as my current phone. That will be useful for making more video content.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to catch up with me.
Please say hello in the comments and let me know how you’ve been lately!
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Chanelle Hayley 