Surviving my life hurdles in June 2017

I can’t believe it’s now June and six whole months since I started blogging.  I’ve found a whole new community of supportive people and made some great online friends along the way.  I love being able to help others by sharing my struggles, my successes and my everyday life here too!

My MS hasn’t been all that kind to me over the last couple of weeks, due to a cold stirring up a variety of my MS symptoms but I’m still trying my best and getting by however I can.  So although I haven’t met all of my goals in May as well as I did in April, I know there is a really good reason for this and I did all that I could.  

Did I achieve my May goals?

Some of them!  I think I still did well though considering how ill I’ve been over the last couple of weeks, so I’m not beating myself up over what I didn’t achieve as that’s just the nature of my illness unfortunately and realistically anything else is out of my control.

Learning to live a little

Here are a few photographs I wanted to share with you to show what life with MS has looked like for me over the last month.  I still have so much I’m grateful for in life, such as my amazing little boy and it’s nice to regularly reflect on the positives I have.

In fact, I had great feedback on a positive article I recently published, listing 10 ways I’m rocking motherhood with a chronic illness.  I felt it was a really important article for me to write for my own self-esteem and to support other chronically ill mums too.

I share a lot of my photographs on Instagram every month too.  I love that my Instagram feed fully reflects my creativity, my sense of fun and the joy in find in family life.  You really wouldn’t think I was so worried about creating an account only a few months ago being as shy as I am!

My main achievements

I’ve helped to set up a new and really supportive Facebook group Chat MS- Newly diagnosed/young people with fellow blogger and MSer Hannah from Hannah Eliza Site.  It’s a lovely little community so far and if you’re interested in joining then please do!  

Here is Hannah’s YouTube video where she explains a bit more about our ideas behind the group and what we hope to achieve.

Creative and fun

I definitely made more time for me to be creative and have fun this month and I loved every minute of it!  I’ve really enjoyed planning out some future craft tutorials and I had fun sewing and creating some textiles pieces too.

I even surprised my friend Caz from Invisibly Me with a little hand sewn gift, just because she is lovely and deserved it!

Blogging

I won’t bore you with the details but I finally got around to dealing with the technical side of the blog a bit more.  I’ve noticed a huge difference with how quickly my articles load now as a result of this which is great.

I also added the themes of ‘Wellbeing, Health, Family, Creativity, Crafts and Life with Multiple Sclerosis’ to my blog header to make it a bit clearer to new readers what my blog focuses on, particularly as it’s a rather unusual collection of interests, as much as they reflect who I am!

I’ve also included links to a few more articles in my ‘Start here’ page, where I’ve shared my most popular articles from each of my blog categories for easier reading!

My June goals

I really hope how ill I’ve been recently has been a bit of a blip as I was feeling just that little bit better over the last couple of months.  Let’s hope for the best!

Health and wellbeing

• Slowly build up my exercise regime by introducing new activities (if possible), such as yoga and swimming.  Continue with my walking and getting outdoors every day for plenty of fresh air.

This was a target for May which I didn’t achieve as I really wasn’t well enough.  So I’m carrying forward to June instead in the hope I have better luck this month!

Parenting and family

• To be more organised and plan ahead better with things like meal planning, upcoming events, holidays etc so that if I’m feeling ill it’s not so much of a disaster or last minute panic!

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while but I find it so difficult with such a variable illness.  I think better organisation will certainly help, even though I struggle to find routines which work around my MS.  I’m going to give it a go though!

Creative and fun

• To have fun and enjoy myself without doing too much!

I have lots of family time ahead and I’m also going to Cheltenham to visit a friend for a couple of days which should ensure I have plenty of fun this month.  Not a massive ask  for most people but all these activities will require a lot of energy that I don’t have.  So my goal is to have fun and enjoy myself without doing too much!

Blogging

• To be a better organised blogger and just be generally more productive with my time!

All the family time I have coming up is fantastic but it does mean that blogging over the next few weeks is going to get so much harder for me as I’ll have less time and more distractions.  I’ll need to make what time I have count and not get stressed about what I can’t do.

So there are my June goals, as ever, please wish me luck!

What goals are you working towards this month?  Also, if you have any organisation tips and advice I’d love to hear them!