My July in a nutshell (2020)

July was quite a busy month overall. It was busy for really great reasons though so no complaints from me! I hope you enjoy reading about my highs, lows and standout moments for the month, and I hope you had a great month too!

HIGH

For the first time since lockdown began I was able to travel to see my family! There had been restrictions in place preventing the travel to and from England and Wales, and it had left me feeling so cut off even though my parents live just an hour and a half along the motorway from me. Anyway, this restriction was lifted so we obviously took advantage and headed up. The car was overloaded with all the presents that had built up over time for birthdays/Mother’s day/Father’s day so it was great to finally be able to give them all out. Mainly though it was just nice to chat, spend time together and catch up.

HIGH AND LOW

July saw the long awaited news that I had been hoping for reach me, which was that I am keeping my job (at least for now anyway). I work in the food and beverage department of a hotel so I’ve been on furlough for months now, and waiting to hear whether I was going to be made redundant or not was pretty stressful. Thankfully I kept my job but a lot of people from my department and the wider hotel didn’t. This was to be expected, but horrible nonetheless. My partner works in the hotel also, luckily he has kept his job as well. As you read this it is my final day off, I return to work tomorrow morning. It’s certainly going to be different to when I was there last but it’ll be nice to get a bit of normality back. It’s like returning from Maternity Leave again, I only did two shifts in between that and being furloughed so it’s almost as if I didn’t go back at all. I’m a little apprehensive again about leaving my daughter but it’s been a blessing to have all this extra time with her. I’m actually working slightly less than my contracted hours and spread over an additional day so I don’t have to leave her for quite as long per shift which is nice, it’ll give us a chance to adjust. Also, it’ll mean that when I go back to working 4 days rather than 5 I’ll really appreciate the additional day off.

HIGH

I put myself on a NetGalley request ban a little while ago because I had quite a backlog to catch up on. I finally caught up on it in July. I have read all the outstanding titles and reviewed all but one, (that will hopefully be up next week) so now I can focus on catching up on some more of the books from my actual bookshelves. I was also playing catch up with books that I had been sent by authors/publishers and I’m down to my last one there as well, I’m confident I will finish reading it in the next few days. I’m going to keep my NetGalley ban in place for the time being because as I say I have a lot of books on my bookshelves that I want to prioritise, and also because I don’t want to be reading with a sense of obligation for a while.

HIGH

I studied French in school, and I was actually alright at it at the time. But, as inevitably happens when leaving school I forgot pretty much all of it. I’ve been wanting to relearn it for ages now but it was one of those things that I just didn’t get around to doing. I would love to be able to competently speak another language and I thought French would be a good choice because having studied it at school I felt like less of a total beginner if that makes sense. Anyway, this month I downloaded the Duolingo app and started learning and practising French on it. I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m really happy that I’ve finally kickstarted this. I actually remembered quite a bit (I am however still at the basic levels) which has been great. I only work through the exercises for around 10 minutes a day so it’s totally manageable. I’m not sure whether I’ll achieve fluency from it but it’s a start nonetheless! If you haven’t checked out Duolingo then I really recommend it.

HIGH

We had a couple of birthdays in July that we could actually celebrate which was lovely. Firstly my boyfriend’s sister hosted a garden party for her birthday which was really fun. I particularly enjoyed watching my daughter play in the grass. Our garden doesn’t have grass so it was a bit of a novelty for her, she was fascinated! Secondly it was my boyfriend’s birthday at the end of July and we went to Margam Country Park (give it a google, it’s beautiful!) which was a great day out. There was a local brewery selling beers and ciders from a renovated bus, I had a pint of cider and it went down a treat! The weather held out for us as well, it only started to rain as we walked back to the cars at the end which was lucky. We went there for his birthday last year also and that was the first time that my daughter had seen farmyard animals, she was too young to appreciate it though. This year however, she was really engaging with them and watching intently and that was great to see…also another reminder of how fast babies grow!

LOW

Last month I spoke about how I was struggling with my sleep. I wasn’t struggling to get off to sleep but I couldn’t stay asleep. I was also having really vivid dreams and nightmares so I wasn’t feeling rested at all. It seemed to be improving at the beginning of the month but it’s gone downhill again unfortunately. It’s not as bad as before, the dreams appear to have stopped, and I’m not struggling every night like before but it’s still more than I would like! On the bright side it gives me a excuse to have an extra coffee.

STANDOUT MOMENT

I shared in my June roundup that right at the end of the month my daughter took a tiny step. Well, what a difference a month makes! She took her first proper steps on July 7th and now as I write this she is racing around the room, she really has the walking mastered now. It’s adorable to watch her, she’s so proud of herself! I was so hopeful that both myself and my partner would be there when she walked the first time properly and luckily we were so this is definitely my standout moment for the month.

I must say July was a really great month for me! I always enjoy writing these wrap up posts but I particularly enjoy them when they are full of positive things like this one.

How was your month? Any highs, lows, or standout moments that you would like to share?

Thanks for reading, I hope that you enjoyed!

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Until the next time…Jess x

My January in a nutshell (2020)

My February in a nutshell (2020)

My March in a nutshell (2020)

My April in a nutshell (2020)

My May in a nutshell (2020)

My June in a nutshell (2020)