Sitting In Limbo

 

SOMETHING DIFFERENT

In my last update to you guys, I shared that I have been having issues with one of my breasts. To cut a very long story short, I woke up all morning and my nipple was bleeding. Surrounding this, there was a lot of panic and upset. However, hopefully things will come to a head very soon.

Last week was my appointment at the NHS breast clinic. The first doctor I saw gave my boobs a good feeling, and he was confident that he could feel something. However, his advice at the time was not to worry too much about it, and he was confident that it would be something and nothing. I was then referred to go and have an ultrasound. The doctor who facilitated the ultrasound put the device straight on my breast and found the issue. In her opinion, she thinks it is some of the milk ducts within my breast that have become infected and solidified. However, because they found an issue on the screen, they had to go ahead and take a series of biopsies.

Because the issue was so close to my nipple, it was difficult for them to get accurate biopsies, and because of this, they took a series of them. At the time, it was fine because I had anaesthetic, but the issue came after the anaesthetic had worn off, and I was in pain in a number of different areas.

This week, I should get the results. Apparently, whether it is cancerous or not, surgery will be needed because the issue will not disappear on its own. Either way, I feel optimistic that it should be something which is easily manageable. Hopefully, I will be able to update you guys with good news soon. At the moment, I am just sitting in limbo.

 

THE BEAUTY BREAKDOWN

I have shared this before with you guys in other updates, but I kind of feel like I am at a strange place when it comes to buying new makeup items. For a long time, I was a true over-consumer of new beauty products. Every single new release, I had to have it.

The only new makeup product that I have tried recently is the Haus Beauty Mascara. To be honest, the only reason that I went ahead and purchased this item was because I had run out of my Charlotte Tilbury mascara, and I fancy trying something new. But I want to put an emphasis on that I committed to using up all of my previous one comment before going ahead and purchasing another. So far, my new mascara has been absolutely fantastic, and to be honest, I think it may be my favourite one that I have tried over the last few years.

I know that it may be incredibly boring given how this website first started, when I was reviewing makeup products hand over fist. However, I am either cheating on beauty with fashion and homeware, or I am simply in another stage of my life where I no longer need 40 different foundations rolling around in my beauty drawer.

 

THE FAMILY UPDATES

My son is quickly approaching 13 months old. And at the moment, he is in between having one and two naps a day. The days when he had two naps a day, his bedtime seemed to be getting later and later because he is so full of beans. However, on the day when he only has one nap per day, it isn’t quite enough to stretch him until bedtime, and he can end up being quite upset. I know that this is just a short phase, but I cannot wait until he is able to have one great nap, and my cheery little boy is back in the room with us.

I do want to mention something else that seems to be quite a point of contention whenever I was speaking to certain individuals, and that is that from the day we brought our baby home from the hospital, we slept with him. It was never my intention. From the very first day that we brought him home, he had an adverse reaction to his cock. We tried many different ways, different rooms, different positions, and God knows what else in between. And then we started to notice a trend that he would sleep soundly when he was laid in our bed. To this day, that is where he remains. I don’t know why so many other people seem to take it upon themselves to inform me that I must start putting him into his own bedroom.

The truth is, I soak up every single moment that I have with my little boy. Especially now he’s back at work and he’s in nursery most of the week, I do not feel like I see enough of him. Just getting to be around him at the end of the day, even if he is napping, means the world to me. I guess my reason for raising this point is that I don’t know what happened in the world, which gave so many people the right to share their strong opinions on a set-up that has no impact on their own lives. Parent how you want a parent as long as you are doing it in a safe manner.

 

THE DAY JOB

My day job is going absolutely wonderfully. I am getting to know my new colleagues, and I feel like I am settling in really well. Thankfully for me, there are a few more new people even though I’ve only been there a couple of months, and it’s giving me some comfort that I am no longer the new girl.

I am not sure if I ever mentioned it, but my husband and I actually met at the place where I spent most of my career. When I didn’t return there after my maternity leave, my husband continued to work. However, I am so happy that he has just received notice that he has been offered a new job, and he is able to hand in his notice.

With my husband still working there, I have had to be cautious about how I speak about the company. I still will not name them because that is not in my DNA to do so. However, I know that there are a number of employees of that business who visit this site, and it would probably kill them to know that I am aware that they visit the site. But what I will share is that the company, for a number of years now, has been incredibly toxic, and sometimes it takes stepping away and out of that daily routine to see things for what they truly are.

I want to implore everybody out there who is in a job that they no longer align to, to take a look and consider if it is time to move on. For far too long, I knew that I no longer wanted to be with my previous company; however, through loyalty, I chose to stay, and that is the wrong reason to stick to a job.

 

THE FASHION UPDATE

As I sat down to write this post, I felt rather proud of myself that I hadn’t bought many new items over the past couple of weeks. However, I then looked at my closet tracking spreadsheet and I realised that I was vastly incorrect. The only saving grace is that a few of the items are from the high street, which is usually very unlike me.

The one boujee item that I do want to mention that has found its way into my collection is a pair of boots from Celine. For a while now, I have been on a mission to add a beautiful pair of black, mid-calf black boots to my collection. After some research, I found a pair of western-looking Celine boots from a couple of seasons ag,o and I was in love. I set up an alert on Vestiaire Collective, and within a few weeks, I was the proud owner of a beautiful, never-worn pair of boots. I cannot wait for the cooler weather to set in and for these boots to live permanently on my feet.

Now onto the more wallet-friendly items that I invested in. The first item that I want to mention is another coat. I know that I mentioned last month that I found a bargain coat in Next, but this time it was Tesco that swooped in and caught my eye. What I realised after seeing this coat is that even though I own more coats than a department store, none of them are particularly practical. Meaning, not waterproof, no hood and most of them don’t even fasten up. The coat from Tesco was the best part of £70, but it is so incredibly similar to a longline Barbour wax coat. I am in love with it and I actually can’t wait to wear it when the weather turns.

Then an honorable mention to a few items from H&M and Zara that I have bought recently. Since losing hell of a lot of weight, my standard basic items from my closet no longer fit me. I want to replace them with quality items that are budget friendly. Zara and H&M have been my best friends recently.

 

THE NOVEL PROGRESS

This past week in an attempt to get ahead and to get my head in the right place, I have been focusing on my novel. I recently paid for an external editor simply to ensure that there were no holes in my story and that things flowed well. Thankfully, they were minimum Suggestions, and I am feeling incredibly confident in the work that I have produced. If anybody out there has wrote a novel before, you will understand that there is a lot of self-doubt that comes with it. Why would anybody want to read your novel? Why would anybody be interested in the inner workings of my mind? How could my book ever be picked up by some of the big contenders within the publishing sector? Working with an editor has really helped me with this. Having somebody that is not personally tied to me tell me that this is something of worth, something that should be taken forward, it really meant a lot and it was certainly worth the value of the time invested in it.

 

THE HOME RENOVATIONS

I feel like things in the house are finally coming together. I certainly recognise that I bit off more than I could chew when I started doing renovations in many rooms, all at the same time. I feel like I need a week or so off work, without a toddler moving around my feet to get on top of everything and make sure that everything is as it needs to be. However, that is possible so I will have to continue to complete small tasks in the evening and as I can at the weekend. Again, I am simply trying to remind myself that it is a marathon and not a sprint. We are in a home that will have our family for many years to come so I don’t have to rush these things, and it doesn’t matter if rooms do look slightly upside down during the process of completion.

 

THE MENTAL HEALTH REPORT

In my last update, I mentioned that I was in a really good place regardless of what was happening with my health. I still think that that seems to be the case. If anything, I feel like I have switched on an incredibly resilient switch. Rather than spiraling, I am attempting to put everything into perspective and not jump too many steps ahead. I think it is that now I am a mother, I do not have a luxury spending holds of time building up a narrative at my never occur. I am taking every day it comes, trying to think as logically as my mind will possibly allow and should any issues arise, I will deal with it as and when it occurs.

 

THE SOCIAL UPDATE

I am not going to lie, in terms of being social, I have failed. I had one evening with family members which was lovely because we don’t manage to get together very often. Aside from that, my primary forms of socialising have been dropping my son off at nursery and going into the office a couple days a week. I know that some people think this will sound incredibly foreign, but I still feel incredibly grateful to have my son and I cannot seem to prioritise making time for myself leaving the house every now and again. The main reason for wanting to keep this section within this blog post is to keep me accountable and hopefully in time I will be able to report to you guys that time getting out a little more and spending more time with the people that mean a lot to me.

 

THE RECENT READS

Over the past few weeks, I have read all three of the Bourbon Brothers series by Victoria Wilder.

I am not going to lie, the main reason why I initially picked up these novels is because of the absolutely stunning cover artwork. Sometimes I shy away from cover art that depicts the characters because I like to use my imagination to think about how they may look, however there is no getting away from the fact that each of these three novels has absolute hotties on the covers.

I made my way through these books incredibly quickly. They were easy but I truly liked that. They had a little bit more grit into the story than simply falling in love, ravaging each other’s these bodies and then living happily ever after.

 

OTHER RAMBLES

I think that given some of the harder updates that I’ve shared in this post, they have had a really good couple of weeks. I feel incredibly lucky that my mental health has remained in a good place despite the fact that I have been incredibly panicked. I also count my lucky stars that I have a wonderful family that I get to come home to at the end of each day.

I can only hope that the start of September is just as fantastic as the rest of the year has been. And I don’t know about you, but who else is excited for the temperature to begin to drop and for us to see autumn beginning to creep in.