Happy Belated New Year + Hello 2022!

Hello and happy 2022! I know I’m a little late considering we’re halfway through January already but let’s not dwell on that. I hope the year has started off well for you and 2022 overall will be a bit easier.

Since my last post in November – Where I’ve Been… – I’ve felt out of the loop with blogging and haven’t had much motivation at all. New Zealand is in full on summer at the moment, getting up to nearly 30 degrees some days and the heat zaps and drains my energy which doesn’t make me feel like doing much at all. I cannot wait for it to start cooling down as I much prefer the cold.

In my last post I talked about some health troubles I’d had, high white blood cell counts and generally feeling lethargic. In early December I started feeling breathless, had sore chest muscles and pain swallowing occasionally. I went to the doctor and we concluded I strained muscles in my upper chest when overseeing a bar fridge delivery at work. I was prescribed some pills to help heal the muscles and some muscle relaxants. I feel fine now but it was an uncomfortable week or two.

I won’t lie, early in January I toyed with the idea of stopping blogging. Most weeks I don’t have the spare time I used to, I always feel ‘busy’ and since my mum got sick in 2020 our roles within the household have changed. It’s not something I’ve talked about before as most people don’t understand our situation and we’re both the kind that just get on with things and do things because we have to, there’s no one else to help us. Over the past week or so I did realise I want to keep this blog, it’s always somewhere I can come to and express what I’m thinking and the connections and friendships it has brought me over the years are very special. I also think my blogging mojo has been relatively non-existent since I’m not wearing makeup. With mandatory mask use when you leave the house there’s no point doing my face for work everyday and making a mess of my masks and making my skin feel more clammy and sticky. I do have some time off coming at the start of February so I will try and get my plan on and get some posts created and written so there’s not so much of a gap between content. If you’ve got any ideas of posts you’d like to see, feel free to leave a comment below!

In terms of goals for 2022, I’ve got a couple:

1. Read 45 books (I managed 43 in 2021)
2. Start driving lessons
3. Get back into exercycling regularly

I’ve also set up pages for the year in my bullet journal. That was something that fell by the wayside last year and when I keep up with it I feel more on top of things and like I’m able to let go of the events of the day more easily and have a clearer head. I want 2022 to be happy and good and I’m starting the year off on a positive note in the hope it translates throughout everything else.

Here’s to 2022 and the year I’ll (hopefully) make a blogging comeback!

Share any goals you’ve got for the year as well as one good thing that’s happened to you recently!

If you’re still here after all these years, thanks for reading!

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Hello + An Explanation

Hello, how are you? I hope you’re doing well! Sitting down to write this feels a little strange, it’s been over a month since I last posted and I think that’s the longest time I have gone without blogging without planning to. Let me start by saying July was an EXPERIENCE. It was definitely the hardest month of 2020 so far for me. I wanted to document some of what has happened to help me process it better.

The first few days of July started off well considering I had my second bout of tonsillitis for the year and was waiting for the result of my Covid swab. (It was negative by the way, don’t worry. I was advised to get swabbed as a result of my sore throat but the doctor and I were confident it would be negative). I was also talking to a guy and had been for the previous four months, pre-Covid and pre-lockdown. I’m very much a one person at a time girl and I was proud of myself for managing to keep this exchange going for that amount of time. I did have the occasional wobble and think am I boring this guy but then I told myself he wouldn’t message almost everyday for four months if he didn’t enjoy the conversation. We’d mentioned meeting in person more than once and obviously the first two months we chatted people couldn’t go out and socialise so I figured once the levels dropped it would happen. I get a little nervous when it comes to making plans because so many times they haven’t ended up happening or guys flake out and disappear off the face of the earth.

I had a Friday off work coming up and found out this guy finished work early on a Friday so I suggested we meet the following week to grab some food to which he agreed. The new week arrives and I don’t hear anything for a couple of days but I’m not someone who is always on my phone and understand life gets busy so I didn’t worry. On Thursday of that week my mum starts getting chills and feeling really cold and a few hours later her breathing starts going down. My mum is a severe asthmatic and any little niggle sets it off. The next day her breathing was continuing to decline and I mentioned seeing the doctor but I know how much they scare her. If I can keep her calm we can manage but the following day (Saturday) she called an ambulance and was admitted to hospital. This began two and a half weeks of struggles for both of us, I knew she was in the best place to get help but she wasn’t getting the help she needed. There were a number of mistakes made and things that didn’t need to happen that did.

The first week we saw progress and I managed to go to work and visit in the afternoons but things changed when a doctor prescribed her morphine. I still don’t understand why it was prescribed because she wasn’t complaining about pain. The drug didn’t fully affect her for a few days and then I started to notice strange behaviour. Mum seemed paranoid/scared, angry, not interested in talking to me, confused and was hallucinating and seeing things in her room that weren’t there. It was frightening to watch and she wasn’t aware she was acting that way which was more concerning. This was week two and I was barely at work, I wasn’t coming home in the evenings like the previous week because I was scared to leave her and she was scared when I wasn’t there. I basically lived at the hospital. I requested the doctors stop giving morphine and they did but the comedown was hard. The worst day was Thursday, July 23rd. I phoned my brother and urged him to come down as up until that point I was doing everything on my own and I hadn’t slept and eaten properly for days. I also phoned my boss in a state and she was so kind and understanding and later that day a work colleague came up to see if I was alright and took me to get something to eat.

My brother arrived on Friday and on Friday mum had improved from the day before. The doctors came around to say she would be discharged and we could go home. Mum was so happy to come home after being in hospital for two weeks but around 12 hours after being discharged she was re-admitted with dehydration. Mum had been on a machine that was helping her to breathe but because it pumps warm air into your body she was sweating a lot and losing her fluids. Mum was put on a drip which is something I thought they would have done before the re-admission. A couple of days later she was discharged again and has been home since. We did have a third setback and she ended up needing a second course of antibiotics from her GP but fingers crossed we’re on the home stretch now.

This takes me back to the guy I was talking to. I haven’t heard from him since before mum went into hospital which is about a month ago now. I did think about messaging him occasionally but most days didn’t have time, things would change that often and were unpredictable. I was also curious if he’d check in with me and he didn’t so I had a feeling I was going to be ghosted. A couple of days before the end of July I messaged him and explained what had happened and didn’t get a response. I’m not completely cruel and don’t like to think bad of people and maybe there’s something else going on there that I didn’t know about or he has been hurt before but it still sucks if someone doesn’t have the balls to be honest and can’t give you an explanation. It might be uncomfortable at the time but in the long run it’s less painful. I am close to giving up on trying to find a relationship to be honest, it’s hard to give so much of yourself and get nothing back and to feel like you’ve given time to someone who is stringing you along is disheartening.

July was a real mix of emotions and despite the crappy hand I was dealt there were also good moments. Ellie Goulding released a new album, Delta Goodrem announced shows in New Zealand for next April and I learnt yet more life lessons about people and who to trust. As twisted as it sounds the bad can sometimes lead to the good. Let’s hope the rest of the year is calmer and better things are around the corner.

Let me know what you’ve been up to in the last month?

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Something You Should Know…

Hi everyone.

This post is one of the hardest and most horrible I’ll ever have to write. One thing I pride myself on is being honest and I don’t feel like it would be fair if I didn’t share this information with you. There is no easy way to say this but last Tuesday, June 21, I lost my job. It came completely out of the blue and a little part of me is still in shock.

A couple of weeks ago my new boss had approached me to arrange a time we could both meet and discuss any concerns we were having. (My new boss took over the business on April 1 after purchasing it from the previous owner). My boss and I met last Monday and all weekend up until the meeting, I had a bad feeling. Maybe I was naive because I genuinely didn’t think there was a problem. I’m not saying I’m perfect and I never make mistakes but if someone has an issue with me or is not happy I’d rather they just came out and said it.

I am going to miss that job because it helped me grow in confidence and it also taught me a lot of important life lessons. It reinforced how focused and determined I am and it made me feel good to know I was working hard to earn my money. I think the hardest thing to deal with is the fact I don’t have a job to go to anymore. I am trying my best not to let it get me down and I know I was never dishonest or did anything untoward which led to me no longer working there – it simply didn’t work out anymore. I am one of those people who believes things happen for a reason and while it feels frustrating at the time to not know the reason why, I have to cross my fingers something else will come along.

I don’t want this to be a negative time. I am planning to do a few things that will better me. I will update my CV and I now have 14 months experience of being in a job behind me which I didn’t have before. I am also working my way towards sitting my Learner Licence driving test now that I’ve got a bit more extra time and can focus on it. I received a lot of encouragement on this month’s Hey, It’s Okay… If You Can’t Drive post and I’m just going to take the plunge and do it! It will be a big worry off my mind.

In August I am planning to take a trip up to Auckland to stay with my brother for a few days and we are going to see Alan Carr’s comedy show Yap, Yap, Yap! I booked my ticket to the show and my flights last week and I am really looking forward to it! It will be the first time flying on my own but it’s only a 40 minute flight. I’ll also get to go on a train for the first time which is exciting and I’ll get to go shopping and perhaps add to my MAC lipstick collection (beauty blogger priorities). I am lucky enough to be in a position that I can afford to take some time out and go away and have a break. The flights weren’t too expensive and even if I could drive the amount I would spend on petrol as well as the extra two hours it would take to get there would make it less appealing.

Times are changing and nothing stays the same forever. I didn’t want to go into too many details about the situation which I hope you respect and understand. I did want to keep you informed though and let you know what is happening. I will still be blogging and I am unsure if there will be a time I don’t stick to my three posts a week but I thought I’d warn you in case. I probably will but in case I’m not inspired or just not feeling it that’s why.

I started this blog to keep me busy when I was looking for work after my Communications course so in some ways I feel like I’ve come full circle except this time I’m armed with knowledge and experience in both areas. Let the next part of the journey begin!

Thank you so much for always sticking by me and for reading this post! Have a wonderful week!

P.S. Have you entered my GIVEAWAY? CLICK HERE for info!