September, For Me

Main Highlights

Online

• 📝 On the blog, I wrote about my new favourite tools recently that I’ve integrated into my workflows and wrote a little piece on being enough.

Career & Learning

• 🧡 3 months at Gitpod have flown by! I’m still thoroughly enjoying myself and learning so much about start-up, fully remote life. I’ll probably do a deep-dive on a separate post on what I’ve learned once I hit that 6 month mark. Thank you again to all Gitpodders for making it feel like home!

Personal

• 🏝 Matt and I took our first trip in two years to the Canary Islands for a two-week, stress-free holiday! (We had just left before the volcano erruption there, although we were on a different island.)
• 🎼 We also watched Hamilton LIVE in London 🥰
• 💭 Inspired by our trip, we’ve been thinking a lot about our future now that we’re both working fully remote jobs! Why stay in the UK when it’s dark and bleak?!
• 📱 I’ve slowly come back on IG after a much-needed month off. My behaviour using the platform has definitely changed – I’m not obsessively refreshing despite having it on my phone! I’m proud of that.
• 💜 I’ve begun a fun project, “Project Comeback” which essentially is where I focus on my intuition when it comes to all things health and wellness after coming from very extreme approaches.
• 👀 My LASIK surgery is next week!
• 🖼 I tried moving all my photos from Google Photos to Apple, only to return back to Google because I didn’t feel like I was getting the same experience on Apple’s Photos/iCloud system.

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Things that made me happy

When Matt surprised me on my 25th birthday with this trip to Spain and Hamilton tickets, I was initially worried about even going. After many disappointments in the past 2 years, I expected to cancel again. You could say that I was surprised at every step of the way – getting on the train, getting to the airport, being ON the plane… “Is this actually happening?” Was my question at every step! 😂

I’m glad that I didn’t let my fears get ahead of me especially since the UK is gradually getting back to “normal” as with the rest of Europe. Sure, there were a few annoying extra steps to do this time around with travelling but it wasn’t too bad. I was pleased that both our COVID tests ended up negative too. Yay for science and vaccines! 😊

Overall, I’m happy that we are somewhat returning to normal and that we had the chance to unwind because prior to that, I was definitely heading towards burnout and a general meltdown (because of the external pressure I was putting on myself, all the time!)

I’m back, feeling a lot more refreshed and ready to finish off 2021 strong!

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MY FAVOURITE PHOTO THIS MONTH

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September Favourites

• 📺 Brooklyn 99 came to an end for me this month. It’s one of my all-time favourite shows! Although I was a little disappointed on Season 8, it’s still made it on my comfort show list.
• 📚 I read a lot this month (what else do you do on holiday?) You can find all my favourites from this month on Goodreads.
• 💜 I hate myself but I got the new iPad mini 6. Hear me out, I wanted something smaller to my Air (which has a new home!) and it was purple so, duh. I’m thrilled that Apple are recognising how great the colour purple is nowadays. 😂

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Quote of the Month

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Next month, my intentions are to…

• 👀 Take it easy – especially since I have a life-changing surgery taking place next week! My surgeon has recommended deep rest for a month to ensure I heal properly so this intention is very important.
• 🧡 Keep figuring out what routines work as part of Project Comeback, but also in other aspects of my life like work-life balance.