Tag: planning

My Two-Year Bloggiversary!

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Hello friends!

So……. it happened again. For two years now, I’ve had my blog — and for two years, I missed my blog’s anniversary. (Although, I feel it’s important to add that I forgot I missed it last year, but remembered when I posted about my anniversary last year…… then went back to check what the exact day I started my blog was when I started this post and realized my mistake. Anyways, I digress).

These last two years have been, honestly, one hell of a rollercoaster. I started this blog right as I finished up what was supposed to be my final year of university, and well, we all know how that went. I could elaborate on the story all over again, but frankly, I’m tired of talking about it (and I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing it). All in all, I was really going through a rough time this time last year when I posted on my blog’s anniversary. While I made it out the other side, I don’t really know that it was all in one piece — a year later on, and I’m still kind of picking up the pieces from the last year and figuring out what it is I want to do next. (But seriously, after the last year we’ve all had, aren’t we all?).

This time last year, when I was thinking about what I wanted to share for my bloggiversary post, I decided to do a little “update” on my first-ever blog post, “10 Facts About Me“. I wanted to make something like this a tradition, but frankly — there really hasn’t been many changes to my original 10 Facts over the years, apart from their vibe being a little dated. They’re all more a less still true (save for my career goals), but they don’t really feel like they give a good summary of myself — to me, at least.

For that reason, this year, I wanted to start a new tradition — one that will hopefully stay a little more fresh year-to-year. Rather than updating my old 10 Facts post every year, I’ve decided to put together a little self-interview, Billie Eilish and Vanity Fair style — each year, I’ll update the same questions, and we’ll be able to see how my life has grown and changed since the previous year’s post!

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Honestly, I’m still in such a weird place in my life that it’s hard to even visualize where I’ll be a few months from now. I guess in five years I’ll hopefully be a little more settled, if nothing else.

What’s changed since last year?

So much and nothing at all. I’ve decided on a new career path (!!!) so I’m going into interior design. Somehow I feel I’ve come a long way from the last year, but at the same time nothing has really happened. Its hard to explain, I guess.

Favourite social media?

Instagram, I guess…… does it count if I keep on forgetting to check it for weeks on end? (I guess it’s still kind of new and exciting, though, since I’ve started up my Art Instagram recently).

Favourite blog post from the last year?

Hmmmm…. I have a few, I guess. If I had to narrow it down, then probably my FabFitFun Unboxing from last summer, or my first ColourPop Haul Unboxing — or, possibly, even the post I mention down in the next answer (no spoilers!).

Most successful blog post from the last year? What about of all time?

Obviously it’s kind of hard to determine a “most popular” blog post, because that really depends on the specific metric you choose — is it views? Comments? Overall reception? I kind of went for a mashup between the three, so I guess my most popular post from the last year would be my ColourPop x Animal Crossing Collection Unboxing! (Which, to be fair, was a personal favourite of mine considering my love of both ColourPop and Animal Crossing). Oddly enough, I guess my most popular post of all time has probably been my Glossier Haul Unboxing from back when I first started my blog — I’m not too sure why, but it consistently still gets a good number of views every single month without fail. I will say that I’m still pretty damn proud of my photography for that post — though I kind of hate the photos of myself (the apartment I stayed in that summer had terrible lighting and backgrounds, which really hindered my ability to even take a decent photo when I was looking my absolute best).

Favourite memory from the last year?

Getting to hang out with my cat all December long (mandatory cat tax included at the bottom of the post).

Something you hope to accomplish this year?

I’m hoping to do well in school, now that I’m going back for Interior Design. I’m also hoping to finally get my career a little more on track. As well, I’m hoping to be able to finally dedicate more time to my blog and artwork and see my hard work pay off … which is a lot of things, I guess! But here’s to hoping.

Something to cross off the bucket list this year?

I guess that really depends on the pandemic, sadly… I have a couple of places I’m really hoping to/have some non-concrete plans to travel to once the world opens back up (Japan, Italy, Greece… some of my top bucket list locations!) but it’s really hard to know whether or not that’s going to be able to happen.

Something from the last year that I’m proud of?

I’m not too sure, too be honest. I guess just surviving it all. Little victories still count as victories, too!

How am I feeling about the upcoming year?

Positive, I think. I don’t wanna jinx anything, but hopefully by this time next year life will have returned to normal. This last month has already been kind of brutal with how busy I’ve been, so I have a feeling adjusting back to “normal life” (whatever that’s even going to mean) is going to be kind of rough. But I have a semblance of a plan, a general idea of where I want to go (and, most importantly, an appointment to get my vaccine!!!) so, not to get ahead of myself, but I think things are starting to look up.

What would I tell myself from a year ago?

Thank you, all of you, for sticking with me over the last year. It’s been a rough one, for sure — between C*VID (lol), job hunting, burn out and learning to cope with everything that has happened in my life, it’s been one hell of a learning curve. It certainly hasn’t been an easy year for blogging, either — between my burnout hiatuses, inactivity and plain old writer’s block (hard to run a lifestyle blog when life is on hold, am I right?) it definitely wasn’t the stellar blogging year I was picturing back at the start of 2020. I’ve adjusted my expectations a little, and I’m trying to be easier on myself for the sake of my wellbeing and mental health. Slowly, I’m starting to feel a little more normal, and a little more ready to get back into it.

So, here’s to two years, and hopefully this next year is better than the last. We really never do know what life is going to throw at us — we can only know that with a little patience, we can find the strength to make it through. Here’s to a better year for all of us — I think we all deserve it!

Much love,

Meredith

(+ Cat tax, as promised)

My June Bullet Journal!

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Hey y’all!

A lot has changed in the world since I shared my May Bullet Journal last month. I talked all about how during lockdown, while I had absolutely nothing to keep me on track, my little journal was invaluable to keeping my routines, mental health and goals in check.

While I’ve used and loved bullet journalling before, the way it helped me stay on track over the last month has been incredible. I’ve kept up with old and new daily routines nearly every day without fail, gotten a lot of tasks I’ve been meaning to complete forever finished, and being able to visualize my mood over the last month has helped me check in on myself during a time when it really is the most important.

I don’t know that I’m going to be making a habit of sharing my journals each month, as I do feel that would be awfully repetitive. However, the world has changed completely, once again, over the last month — which poses new challenges and goals to keep track of. In Vancouver, restrictions are slowly being lifted — restaurants are slowly reopening, beaches are open to the public, and we’re all allowed to hang out with up to six people in person. It’s a slow start, but the world (for the time being) is starting to feel a little more normal.

As such, I have totally different goals for the next month — while I want to ensure I keep up the good habits I’ve formed over the last little while, I also need to start applying to new jobs, making more of a point to get outside and create new content, and hopefully even incorporate workout classes into my schedule. The point being — this month, while still not even all that close to being normal, is going to be crazy different from the last. It’s still just as important as ever for me to be keeping track of my goals and checking in with myself, so I wanted to share how I plan on doing that for others who are a little nervous for what June may hold!

Mood Tracker

I’ve already shared this one with you before, but this was my first time using a mood tracker for an entire month and actually sticking with it every day. I had started one just before May when I shared the tracker I’ve been using over the past month, but it was only for the second half of April and I wasn’t great about filling it in every day. This month, I’m taking my mood tracking a step further by adding a wider range of categories to help me determine my mood for the day more accurately.

New And Improved Habit Tracker

This habit tracker has been unparalleled in terms of being a useful tool to ensure that I stick to habits I’m hoping to create. Not only does it hold me accountable and increase the likelihood of me sticking to habits even on days when I have low motivation — it allows me to visualize how successful I’ve been at incorporating these habits into my life. As well, in terms of things such as skincare and taking my medications, it serves as a reminder to do these before bed if I haven’t already. This month, I’m adding a few mew categories — I’m breaking up workouts into yoga and workouts, as I intend to maintain my daily yoga routine while incorporating spin classes, running or HIIT into my days as well (but not every day — I know what I can handle!). As well, I’m breaking down medications into meds and vitamins, so I can hopefully have an easier time remembering to take the daily vitamins that I need, which I’m still not great about. I’ve added one to remind me to practice my Japanese on Duolingo (why? no reason — it’s something I tried a year ago and I love the idea of being able to speak three languages). As well, I left one blank — just in case!

Job Hunt Schedule

This one is a new one for this month — I’ve been working on creating a plan for applying to jobs to ensure I can be as efficient and successful with it as possible. Since this will be my first post-grad job and the job market is definitely a little weird right now, I want to make sure I’m staying on track and making daily progress.

June Goals

This one is pretty standard — I make a checklist of everything I want to accomplish before the end of the month to help me visualize and remember all of my goals. It makes it a lot easier to keep track of what I’ve done and what still needs doing — and even if they’re things that can’t be checked off until the end of the month, it still serves and an important reminder every time I check in to see the progress I’m making. This list is more for month long goals, rather than tasks, so this list more helps to remind me of things I should be constantly working towards.

June To-Do List

This list, on the other hand, is all the tasks I need to complete by the end of the month. Unlike the goal list, these are just things I need to get done and out of the way. I guess an easy way to think of it is that my goal list is for long-term tasks and activities, whereas this is for short-term — and once I complete a task it’s over and done with. This list helps me keep track of everything that I need to just finish up and get out of the way, and it feels great every time I’m able to check one off the list.

June Brainstorm & Blog Tracker

This month I’m taking my blog brainstorming a little further to really help me flesh out all my ideas, so that I can be free to be as creative as possible and work through all my ideas — whether they work or not, or just need to be saved for later on. As well, I’ll be including those blogging, Twitter and Instagram trackers I mentioned earlier, to help me visualize how frequently I’m creating content and utilizing social media.

June Chore Schedule

Since over this next month, it’s likely I’m going to be spending more time being out and about and a being a lot busier than I was thing month, I’m creating a chore schedule for the whole month to ensure I keep up with everything and keep my home clean and organized. I’m scheduling everything from weekly cleans to monthly deep-cleans and reorganizing, so I can be sure to complete them in a timely and appropriate manner to keep any of these tasks from being pushed aside for too long. Hopefully this will help bring balance to my life when it starts to get a little busier and keep me from getting overwhelmed with tasks, as I’ll know when to do stuff and whether or not it is done.

I don’t know about you all, but I’m both incredibly excited and nervous for what the next month is going to hold. On one hand, I’ll be able to see a few friends, maybe go for a meal out, and hopefully spend some time outside without worrying as much about everything going on. On the other hand, I’m really nervous that I’ve become too adjusted to my stay-at-home life, and that I’m going to have trouble finding the energy and motivation to stay busy and away from home all day, as well as putting in the effort to look put-together and maintaining my newfound routines. Having this journal ready to go for the next month at least has me feeling a little hopeful I’ll be able to use it to stay on track and make June a success.

I hope you’re all adjusting well back to normal life, whatever that means for where you live! It’s strange how some places in the world are now completely back to normal, whereas some still have full restrictions — whatever lies ahead for the next month, it sure will be interesting. I’m sending positive vibes out your way, and hoping that you’re all able to stay safe and have a successful June and achieve all your goals, whatever that may mean for you! (And if you want to share those goals, or your own methods for keeping track of them — drop a comment below! I’d love to hear all about it).

Stay safe out there, and happy end of May! No matter what you’ve been through this month, it’s finally almost over. We’ve almost made it through.

Much love,

Meredith

HOW TO: Keep It Together During Busy Weeks

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Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

Hey y’all!

Sooooo, once again, I’m delaying my Lash Lift post. I know, and I’m sorry! At this point I’ve had it done — I just really want the time to take good photos where you can see the effects and really perfect the post for you guys. It’s a post that’s been a long time in the making, so I just want to be sure it’s the absolute best and most informative it can be!

That being said, unfortunately, I’ve still been having a crazy week (clearly…my apologies for the delayed post — again! I swear this is the last time it’s going to happen). Between having a term paper due Thursday, Poetry class assignments (also due Thursday, because of course), a crazy busy week at work (between the amount of Canucks games, Lacrosse games and UFC Fights this week, its been a little overwhelming) and getting ready for my trip to Mexico (!!!) exactly one week today — I have been overwhelmed as heck.

Since I once again had to delay the post I had planned, I figured I’d share with you a little list of ten tips on how I’ve been surviving this week! Hopefully, for those of you with crazy weeks of your own coming up, you’ll find some advice here that’ll help you get through the busy and stressful times and make it to the other side in once piece.

  1. Get some sleep!!! It’s tempting to stay up super late to get everything done, especially when you’re on a roll. But not only will you end up regretting it the next day, but it’ll slowly start to build up and take more of a toll as time wears on — making it harder for you to keep up.
  2. Make sure you’re eating regularly. This one may seem super obvious — but when you’re having a really long day and feel like absolute garbage and can’t quite figure out why — you probably just need to eat more. Plan ahead for days when you know you may have to delay meals (for me, this is longer work days) and stock up on some snacks. My personal fave to get through long shifts are Clif Bar’s Nut Butter and Fruit Smoothie filled granola bars — soooooo good.
  3. Make sure you’re still keeping in touch with friends and family — you really need that support.
  4. Set aside daily time for self-care, but don’t overdo it! Taking time to take care of yourself is a necessity — but there’s a line between what you need and just procrastinating. If you’re having a ridiculously busy week, try to limit yourself to maximum one hour a day. You can always make up for it next week if you need to! But anything more than that may just be a guise to put off important tasks. If you need good self-care ideas to formulate a structured one-hour plan, be sure to check out my list here!
  5. Plan everything out well in advance. Even if you don’t follow the plan to a T (stuff always goes wrong — you can’t sweat it!) just having everything written down will ensure you don’t forget anything.
  6. On that note, be sure to limit tasks that need to be done ASAP to busy weeks — everything else can be taken care of later. Even things that feel super important to you and keeping your life together, such as cleaning, meal prepping, laundry, etc., can slide for a few days if it helps you complete all your tasks on time. Just remember — it’s all about balance!
  7. Obvious one — but stay hydrated.
  8. If you have a lot of tasks that are going to take a while to complete, try to break them up into smaller segments and switch it up every few hours. Maybe it’s just me, but I find this really helps me avoid burning out.
  9. Don’t overdo it on caffeine! It’s hard, I know. Sometimes during the crazy weeks it feels like that coffee is LITERALLY the only thing that’s going to help you survive the next few hours. However, if you’re already feeling kind of exhausted, you don’t want all that caffeine to impact your sleep. Even if you’re still falling asleep quickly, too much coffee can impact your quality of sleep — meaning you won’t wake up feeling refreshed and ready the next day. (If you really feel you can’t go without it, try decaf! If nothing else, hopefully the placebo effect will have you convinced it’s what you need).
  10. Be sure to reward yourself for completing tasks. You’ve been having a rough week — you deserve it! Not only that, but rewarding yourself for checking tricky tasks off your checklist will help to incentivize you to keep going. (It’ll also help to refresh you so you don’t feel like the week is one never-ending struggle — you need breaks!). Try to stick to little rewards after each task, and try to take a whole day off after you finish everything up — you need it! Take the day to relax and catch up on all the self-care, sleep, and alone time you’ve missed since your life got so hectic.

Happy Sunday everyone, and hopefully this next week goes well for you all! (And if it DOES happen to get a little intense, at least you have a little advice that’ll help make it easier!). If you have any other advice that helps you get through the tough times, or just want to vent about the week you’re having, drop a comment below! This week is going to be a bit of an intense one, but once I make it through to the other side I get to head down to Puerto Vallarta for a week, which is making it all worth it. Be sure to stay tuned for next week’s post about my experience getting a Lash Lift (seriously this time, I promise!) as well as TWO new travel posts coming out in the following weeks.

Here’s to surviving this week — or even thriving, if you’re lucky! I hope you all achieve your goals — we’re almost halfway through February, after all!

Much love,

Meredith