[The photo above is our monthly couple portrait for May. We have been taking these since January 2019!]
A monthly round-up post? ''What do I have to round up'' you say? 'You only post once a week here and don't leave your house'. Well although I only recently started to post on this blog again, I actually also have 2 other blogs I post on equating to another 3 posts a week on top of the one on a Monday here! I'm still taking my daily photos and with having 10 animals there's always something to share.
This Life Lately post will be in a different format to my previous monthly round-ups etc and will probably develop over time but for now, this has been my life lately.
Talking about my other two blogs, let's start off with those and what was posted on them throughout May.
Adventures of the Hallows - My Photo Diary Blog!
Pages of the Hallows - Our Couple's Book Blog!
Top 10 Quick Reads
Cats Protection Tyneside Adoption Centre Blog!
(I contribute to this blog as a guest writer)
Easy Up-cycled Cat Pillow
How to Take the Purrfect Cat Photos
The calendar below shows my May daily photos in one big overview! A lot of days have more than one photo per day, some up to 10(!) so to see them all and see the images in a larger size make sure to follow the links listed above.
---
Our daily photos are usually a pretty good representation of what goes on in our life throughout the month, but for the things they don't show see below...
Loving
The fact we have a garden. It's a luxury not everyone is lucky enough to have but to me, an outdoor space is a necessity. For my animals, for my mental health - I need somewhere safe to go outside.
We've done quite a bit of work in both our front and back garden over the past few months and it's nice to be able to sit outside with a book and enjoy it while Baker does his sunbathing and the husband potters in his greenhouse.
Hating
Okay, hear me out. Yes, I am an environmentalist and I do as much as I can in way of being eco-conscious / eco friendly ( I have some blog posts coming up about this as well) but my goodness cyclists are causing me no end of stress. By all means, it is a great thing for the environment and fantastic more people are doing it, but why do they insist on putting themselves and other people in danger by cycling on main roads when there is a specific cycle path. According to my fitness tracker, it fully spikes my heart rate because it gets to me so much!
Thinking
How insane it is that we are meant to be one of the most powerful countries in the world, but our government is so bad that they cannot react to a global pandemic in an efficient fashion. Compared to the rest of Europe we have done very poorly and the people of our country are either extremely ignorant and just downright don't care or they are uninformed, dim-witted and other words that mean 'stupid' but aren't nasty (haha).
Feeling
A multitude of things. I'm worried about my parents, one of which is rather poorly currently - I feel so far away, just helpless. I'm struggling with my weight/body image and my arthritis/chronic pain. I'm stressed about the upcoming Honeymoon.
That all being said, I am also feeling extremely thankful that I am safe at home and don't have to go to a job. I'm thankful for my husband and how incredibly hard he works and for my parents' constant help and support too.
Reading
I read 7 books through May. Of those 5 were physical copies from our collection, 1 was an ebook read on the Kindle app and 1 was an audiobook listened to through
Audible Stories, the free audiobooks they have listed for children while the schools have been closed.
Check out the posts we've put up on our couples book blog above.
Watching
We've watched more in the past couple of months than we probably did all last year. We aren't really TV people and don't have 'TV' just Netflix and our DVD collection. So we've been working our way through the Disney Classic collection to get ready for our Honeymoon and some other classics like The Secret Garden and Jack which Mr H had never seen!!
As for shows, we've gone through a few..! That 70s Show, Fawlty Towers, Dinnerladies, Making A Murderer 2, Drag Race, Time: The Kalief Browder Story, The Big Bang Theory, Magic for Humans, Secrets of British Castle and more haha.
Doing More
Making! Crafts and gardening and DIY, oh my! We made an actual castle for the cats out of cardboard boxes and some upcycled cushions for them too (see above for the blog post I wrote for the Tyneside Cats Protection blog about them). We got our Greenhouse at the end of April so Mr H has put it a lot of work growing food for us and there has been plenty of other garden work going on transforming them into 'ours'.
I've also been finally doing something I've wanted to do for years - learn sign language or BSL in particular. I'm just over halfway through the full course and have passed all my assessments so far with flying colours, though I am taking my time with it and repeating sections so that I can get it to really sink in.
Doing Less
Walks, hikes, adventures and explorations! We've had 2 walks in the past 3+ months.
Baking and making. I'd often make homemade pizza (bases and all), bread, cakes etc but with the lack of ingredients that's been a bit difficult.
I can't let this monthly summary go without expressing my constant hate for the human race. That statement isn't the best choice of words obviously, but I really do. I hate the divides between classes, races, sexual orientations, species even. My heart absolutely aches for the injustice and downright abuse people are subjected to suffer all because of the things that make us different and we can't sit down and turn a blind eye until things change. It is 2020 for goodness sake!!
Black Lives Matter -
LGBTQIA+ Organizations -
End Homelessness -
Stop Animal Use, Abuse and neglect -
There are no words I can use to coherently get my point across so I just urge you to do what you can. Read as much as you can. Inform yourself on the important subjects. Share links. Sign petitions. Join peaceful protests when it is safe to do so. Donate where you can. Be an
ally.
The world is a very scary place. Please be kind.
