Rescheduling

 
Guys.

Hello, hi. I am alive!

Last year I blogged >50% of the weeks of the year, and this year my hit rate so far has been pretty pitiful (I had hoped for it to be even better…) There have been many reasons for this – but most of all it has been because I have been putting every spare second into Soulful Kitchen which launched back in May. This requires a constant cycle of filming, editing, and thinking about next steps, and quite frankly, it has zapping any spare bit of energy I have. That said, we are a few months in now which means I’ve more or less gotten myself on a repetitive schedule for SK which leaves time again to blog once a week (or once most weeks, at least). I’m really going to try and stick to this for the rest of the year.

What else has been happening?

✈️ I’ve just come back from almost 2 weeks abroad! Usually I take a week off from work in the summer, but just before Covid hit, I realised this wasn’t enough – a 1 week holiday comes and goes in a hurry and doesn’t feel like a proper break from the office. So finally, this year, I took off 2 weeks. Levi and I spent the first half of the holiday in an island in Greece called Rhodes, in a gem of a little town called Lindos; then we hopped on a ferry to Fethiye in Turkey, where we met with 2 friends and booked out a luxury villa. It is definitely one of the best holidays abroad I’ve ever had and I could definitely have done a week or 2 (or 3) more. Unfortunately we are back to the grind now, so I just need to adjust and get back into the swing of things!

💭 Thinking about what I could do if I could do anything… Somebody asked me what I would do if I could do anything in the world and didn’t have to earn money to live. There were 2 things – first I thought to build an online platform (which I am doing with SK), then I realised, more importantly, what I really want to do is just… write. I think the bustle of daily life, and the realities of hustle culture, sometimes having us all forgetting what we would do if nothing else mattered and grinding was never even a concept. I probably would live permanently in the sunshine, by a pool, putting out fiction books and blogging when I can, with the hope at least one person reads. Some of you will know I have a goal to write a fiction book by age 30, I have a general idea of what I want to write about and even a high level view of the characters, I just need to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). This is still a huge goal of mine and something I want to find time for, so I hope once I can fall in line with more frequent blogging again, I hope to also slot this passion project back in.

👗 Remembering how this all began… Somebody reminded me the other day of my days of fashion blogging and it transported me back in time a little bit. Whilst the days of me filling my wardrobe with new clothes every month and trekking into Nottinghill to take photos outside shiny white houses feel long gone, it was actually only Covid that stopped me in my tracks. It’s really only something I stopped doing in 2020 because a virus forced me to, and once I re-evaluated, I realised it wasn’t something I was interested in anymore. I want to dress nice, of course, but I don’t so much care about sharing my outfits as I care about just writing blog posts that can make people think, laugh, or fly by time. The landscape of fashion blogging is totally different now, some appeal is lost as we move into a more conscious world, and the concept of showing your outfit on your website has been lost, it’s moreso about Instagram and Reels. Whilst it was a season of my life, it’s always a reminder to be constantly adaptable. Having new goals, interests and focusses is normal. Afterall I’m moving into my late 20s now, far from the young 20 year old who was only focussed on likes and follows on Instagram!

🍅 A sustainable health and fitness restart! Now that I am back from my holiday, I am actually looking forward to re-focussing on my health & fitness. I feel like I am always learning something new in this regard.; for example, during Covid, it was learning how to eat in a way that works for my body from home and trying to curb some overeating. Then I introduced a more “balanced” approach to my workouts that wasn’t just glutes and hip thrusts. Going back to work, and moving to a new office, it has been again about rediscovering how to eat balanced yet not boring in a new environment, without home cooking and under a new schedule. I’ll put my hands up and say that in the weeks prior to my holiday, I felt that I needed to go into overdrive to be “in shape”, I was gyming 6x a week and beating myself up about my diet. It was a dark time, but by the end of it I remembered that with my health and fitness, I always want try to take a sustainable/long-term approach – eat things I actually want to eat (that are still balanced) and let my body have good rests from working out. The short-term approach never works out – you’ll never really stick to any changes, end up in a constant cycle, and probably get upset and worn down during the process. Interested in seeing what I can do here by year end!

And those are just a few random musings upon this return from a month long hiatus! It really is back to the grind of daily life, with work also about to start picking up soon. At the front of my mind I’ve got my health/fitness, Soulful Kitchen and some therapeutic writing on the brain. Let’s see what the next few months have in store!