2020 My Year In Review

Hi everyone, for many people this year has been the worst year of their life and that is trully terrible.  But honestly for me, it's been the first year in my life I've really felt I've achieved something.  For me this year has been a chance to reflect, to focus on what's important, what I want from life and my goals and to actually start working towards my goals, which is something I've been putting off for years!

Being someone with a health condition and living with chronic pain, the most I ever normally went out was once a week.  So apart from desperately missing seeing my 2 best friends, I haven't felt too much of a hardship not going out and the extra time I've spent indoors has made all the difference to the work I've put in on my goals and I've already seen the rewards.

So to explain in more detail; firstly on January the 10th we welcomed our second furbaby.  A rescue teacup poodle (teacup is the smallest size there is) and she is SO tiny!! We named her Lucy and she has been an absolute joy and makes me smile everyday 😍

In June I was FINALLY able to talk to a counsellor after 2 years of being on a waiting list and after suffering with severe depression for many years.  I talked to her on the phone an hour a week for 8 weeks (I did a blog post all about it here) and it was the best thing I did, it helped so so much and I will be forever grateful to her!

I've been journaling and drawing again and trying to learn to do digital drawing.

And in August, after about 4 years of planning and making and designing, I finally opened my Etsy shop Crystal Sparkly Dreams (link in bio) :-D  I have loads more to list on there, including all my handmade jewellery but so far it's going well. *I will talk fully about it soon, probably when I have a few more items listed and I'll be doing giveaways, competitions, discount codes etc for all my readers.  If you want to follow my shops progress, check out when new items will be listed on the shop etc, please follow the IG account Crystal Sparkly Dreams Shop

I also helped my mum open her Etsy shop in October Crafty Renegade Design again I still have LOADS to list because she has been busy making so many amazing and beautiful craft items but at least it's a start.

I have also really seen who my real friends are this year and had a couple of pleasant surprises as well as disappointments on that score!  But the ones that have been there, have been absolutely amazing, so supportive and I don't know how I'd have got through the year without them! ♥♥♥

I still have stuff to sort out, with my work and my depression/anxiety etc but at least I feel I've finally made a massive start for the first time in my life!

This year has been a very mixed bag of emotions, it's still a huge worry and I'm feeling very anxious of what's going to happen this year but all we can do is hope and look after each other and focus on what we CAN still do.

So until next time, Happy New Year and Stay Safe ♥

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Life Update and A Return to Blogging

I first started my blog on the 4th of November 2013 and I uploaded a post once a week, every single week without fail for over four years (how daily bloggers manage is beyond me!)  But for me that was pretty good going, since I consider myself as someone who doesn't always stick to a project for very long.  Anyway, sadly I've had a few times since then that have disrupted the routine, so I come back with an update post and always feel I need to apologise and explain my absence, and this seems to be the only posts I'm uploading these days which makes me sad when I think of how great my blog once was and how much I used to enjoy doing it!  This past 18 months I've barely blogged at all, maybe three or four times and I've really missed it.  So again, I apologise and I'm so thankful any of my regular readers are still here. This particular 18 months has probably been the busiest, most difficult and in general, the worst time of my life.  Between moving house twice, losing two precious members of my family, gaining another (that came with its own trials) and suffering severe depression because of it all, as well as constant flare-ups of my health condition due to the stress, it's most definitely been a terrible time, especially with some of it still going on.

I would so love to say that I will write again next week but more realistically I will say that I will try and do at least one or two posts a month, at the moment, and go from there hopefully with the end goal of getting back to a more regular schedule in the future.  Because it wasn't until I finally sat down to write this post, that I realise just how much I love blogging and writing.  It just feels so good to take time out of my hectic crazy life and do something just for me!  When everything around me is chaos, that feeling is precious!

As of now, I am concentrating on getting help for my mental health (because we all know how important that is and it's something I do want to talk about a lot more on here).  I'm also still working hard on reaching a few other important goals and there is a lot more to come.  I'm also thinking of doing a giveaway again this year, either in November to celebrate my blogs 6th year birthday, or in December for a Christmas giveaway, what do you guys think?  And if you can think of any particular prize or prizes that you would want, please let me know in the comments or message me on Twitter.

Stay happy everyone and follow your dreams! ♥

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A New Year Catch Up

Hi, happy new year!  It's freezing today and currently snowing again.

Since I haven't uploaded a post since just after Christmas, I thought it was a good time to have a catch up with you all and tell you what's been going on in my life lately.  Everyone seems to have ill on or around Christmas this year, I'm a little late to the party but my Fibro has well and truly kicked in and I've honestly just been feeling horrible the past couple of weeks, this past week especially.  If you don't know what I'm talking about or if you're new here (hi), I have a health condition called Fibromyalgia and also EDS, if you would like to know more in detail, you can read my health post here.  Basically if I over-do things I get flare ups and by the feel of it, that's exactly what's going on right now.  I also still have anaemia at the moment, so I feel like I'm fighting my health all ways round lately.  I'm due to speak to my specialist this week, after 3 months of waiting for an appointment, about finally sorting out some iron treatment for my anaemia, so fingers crossed I can finally start that and I'm praying it kicks in soon!

I've even felt too rough this week to film a video which is disappointing as I've really been enjoying making videos over the last few months.  Kind of disappointing that not many people see them as I put sooo much work in to them and like with my last video 'What I Got for Christmas' I only had 7 views! But I guess perseverance and time will help.  I have another video planned to film later this week, I thought I would have a go at doing monthly favourites.  If you're a long-time reader of my blog you'll know I usually only ever do seasonal favourites, but I thought it might be nice to give it a go and there's been quite a lot of little bits and bobs I've been loving so why not do a favourites!

As for resolutions or goals this year, well one was to regularly upload videos and posts (going well so far I don't think) but we're still only in January so I'm not feeling too guilty yet.  I also would love to really try and get out and about more this year.  I have a couple of big events coming up in March and April, which I am SO excited about but then nothing else, so I want to try and get out of the house and actually go places, maybe just on a train a go to a new town or go and visit one of my friends and vlog the trip later in the year.

And finally, I have really gotten in to bullet journaling, wow have I got into it, pinterest has been my best friend this week.  While I've been feeling too crappy to do anything, I've been really enjoying scrolling through all the ideas and saving image after image, as well as watching countless 'bu-jo' videos on youtube.  I was given a really lovely plain notebook for Christmas and after investing in many new stationary bits (very naughty I know), I now am the proud owner of a lovely set of colour pencils, brush pens and fine liners to help get me started!  I have also been learning how to do some nice little fancy fonts and cute little doodles, I've already started on my index page, calendar page and main January layout, as well as figuring out the various themes I'm going to do for each month.  So far I'm not finding it a quick process which doesn't really work with the whole 'bullet' idea but I'm new, I'm still learning and I'm enjoying it, so that's good enough for me for now.

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Well, that was a lot more than I planned to write, well done if you made it this far, if you did write in the comments what your favourite colour is :-)  Also, let me know any particular posts or videos you would like to see from me this year and until next time, lots of hugs to you all and 'Stay Happy' ♥xx

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