July 2021 Look Back & My 30th Birthday

I suppose I should probably start this post with an apology for disappearing off the face of the earth for the past few weeks, but as you’ve probably guessed from the title of this post, I had a reason; on 22nd July I had my 30th birthday!

 

It feels really weird to think that I’m no longer in my 20’s. Even more so because I still don’t really feel like a ‘proper’ adult. Which I probably should by now, given that I’ve ticked off plenty of adult-y things like buying a house and getting married. That being said, literally everyone I speak to about it feels the same so maybe that’s the catch – no one really feels like a ‘proper’ adult and we’re all just muddling our way through and pretending we know what we’re doing.

 Anyway, let’s have a little look back over July and the month of my birthday!

I kicked off the month with a relaxed evening with one of my closest friends, Maria, as well as her husband and absolutely stunning doggo Otto. They came to ours for the evening and we had a massive take away together and talked the night away. Our cat Boots even got to meet Otto, very briefly before he decided to dart upstairs.

 

The following weekend I had a day seeing my Mum, and we went for a long walk in the stunning weather with the beautiful Willow before heading for lunch. I followed up that same evening with a D&D session with friends. We’re all getting quite into the game and are now all fairly competent when it comes to playing.  

During the actually week of my birthday, I have the whole week off work. I had no real plans when I booked the time off, but I knew that working was most certainly not going to be on my agenda. Mike and I spent a few days having a massive clear out of all the weeds and debris in the garden, something we’ve been meaning to do for some time but not got round to. I also made a start on our fences, jet washing, cleaning and repainting. With the lovely weather we made really good progress with the painting and are now almost done. Next up is the decking, and then we need to work out whether we are doing the planters or not. It should all look really good when it’s finished.

 

On one of my days off (the day before my birthday) my gal pals surprised me by turning up at the house unannounced to kidnap me for the day. They brought my an ice coffee and took me off in the car. I did work out where we were going pretty much straight away (it was a toss-up between Taverham Garden centre, Yo Sushi, or both) but, that’s because they know I love both of these places. We had a great lunch, and then went off the have our nails done and chill out together.

 

To celebrate my birthday, Mike, with the help of our friends threw a Hawaii themed party. My friend Katie decorated her house with tropical themed decor while Chloe made some absolutely delicious cupcakes. We had a bar fully stocked with everything we needed to make tropical themed cocktails and I got to see plenty of people, some of whom I’ve not seen in quite a while.

It was a great night with lots of laughter, and topped off the end of July really nicely for me. I’ve even put a little video together to immortalise the day! When I returned to work from my holiday the following week I felt well rested and refreshed and ready to tackle the rather significant number of emails in my inbox!

The end of July was fairly quiet for me as work has been absolutely crazy. I’m still in the office just two days a week, but a lot of the other teams have started to get more people back in. Our ground floor is a very large open plan room, and to be honest, I’m finding the additional noise and stimuli really difficult to deal with.

I’ve always been quite hyper aware of things happening around me (most likely to do with my ADD / ADHD) and the increased number of people around me is taking a bit of a toll. I’m finding that I have a headache by the early afternoon, and I’m absolutely shattered in the evenings when I’ve worked from the office. I’m hoping that this is something I can get re-used to, but I guess we’ll see.

Mike and I also decided that we would quit (or at least heavily reduce) drinking after my birthday. There are a few reasons, but a main one is that we just aren’t interested in returning to bars and clubs. To be fair, we were getting bored of our regular haunts before lockdown, and the long break hasn’t changed our minds. I’ve also been having some health issues that I think are down to whatever has been going on with my heart. I’ve been on a list for a week long ECG and another cardiology appointment for over a year now (covid screwed it up for me) and I don’t think that binge drinking on the weekend is going to help.  

I also want to have a healthier August, with more activity and better eating. Not only will this help me prep for our Mexico holiday later in the year, but it’s good to be kind to your body as well.

That sums up what I got up to in July! Here’s hoping the weather stays nice so that I can finish off the garden and enjoy the sunshine a little more!