I’m back | Life update & future plans

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Hello Hello How are you today?

It’s official! I am back to blogging after being away for just over a year to get through my final year of university and my first job.

It’s been an absolutely wild year and I’ve missed blogging so much. I have been able to post the odd tour schedule, spotlight or review but hardly anything and nothing close to what I was posting before I went on hiatus. Needless to say, I’m so glad to be back and I missed blogging so much.

So here are some updates about my life and plans for the rest of the year!

UNIVERSITY

So the whole reason why I put my blog on hiatus last year was that I was going into the final year of my Book and Publishing Trades Master’s degree and I knew that my thesis would take up a lot, lot, lot of my time. I just didn’t want to mess any of it up so I decided to focus solely on it and I might be a tad dramatic here, but it honestly nearly killed me… AND I haven’t even finished yet!

All of our teachers decided to throw dozens of really complicated and time-consuming assignments at us, to be done in groups (which I hate) all throughout the year, and we were all honestly scrambling to get everything done and to progress on our theses.

I’ve mentioned this a few times before I think, but the subject for my thesis is “Disability in anglophone literature“, and as you can probably guess, it is not a very light subject, but it’s something I’m very passionate about. I’ve really struggled with my health and other personal things over the summer and I was getting so sick just thinking about time ticking away and the thesis not progressing, so I’ve decided to apply for an extra year just to finish my thesis at my own speed and to my own standards instead of rushing and botching it. I’m glad I decided to do this as I can still work regularly on my thesis and keep progressing but still have off days and relaxing days, which I haven’t had for 2 years to be perfectly honest with you. And I get to keep all my previous assignment grades for other classes which means I don’t have to follow those classes again or even go to my university, apart from presenting the thesis when I’m done! This has made me so much more positive and de-stressed me a tiny bit, so I’ll be plodding along with the thesis for a few more months, but my motivation is back, which is such a game-changer.

JOB

During this final year, I was offered a temporary spot in my local library as one of my colleagues was going on maternity leave. I was renewed once and was hoping to be renewed permanently but it just didn’t work in my favour as the Mayor is cutting costs… with the first costs being cut from the heart and soul of the town – a.k.a the second biggest and best library of our region – so that’s that!

I have however had a job proposition to be a bookseller at my local cultural centre, and I’ll know if I got the job in September, so please keep your fingers crossed as it’s the next best thing to a library and it would give me much more financial stability and help while I finish up the thesis!!

PERSONAL

Gosh, so many things have happened in the last year!! But I think the main and biggest change has been new members added to our family! In February, our 11-year-old Border Collie, unfortunately passed away and our life just felt so empty and sad without a dog, even with our two cats to keep us company. We ended up adopting two Golden Retriever sisters, Toffee & Tessie from a breeder. Long story short, the breeder completely messed up their socialisation, their health and everything else so we’ve been playing catch up with board & train and training sessions and some tough love these past months. The good news is they are improving and their health is now fine, but they still had a lot of issues due to the fact that their mum was removed when they were still too young. So…. the solution our trainer proposed was to get an adult dog to help them and balance everything out. As I am writing this, the new member of our family, Meï, a very sweet 6-year-old Australian Shepherd is sleeping at my feet and settling in since we picked her up today (Saturday morning). It will take some time, patience and love but it’s already going well and we wouldn’t change anything for the world.

As I mentioned above, I’ve been having a lot of extra health issues this summer, so lots of doctor appointments as you can guess which I hate, and I have a few surgeries planned for the coming weeks and months, but hopefully I’ll have some answers and solutions soon!

And I think that the final thing of note is that my fiancé and I are now looking to purchase our first house. We’ve found one we really like so we are keeping our fingers and toes crossed that things will work out but taking it slow and being patient for things to fall into place. Hopefully, by this Christmas, we could be in our new home!

Last week we were able to go on a 7-day holiday to Normandy and while it was a tiring and expensive trip, it also let us relax, go have some fun and visit some amazing places. This really helped me reset physically and mentally (even though my body is punishing me for it this week). I’ll have a book haul up for you in a few days as I bought a few special books during my trip!

FUTURE PLANS

And if you know me, you know I already have a tonne of things planned, because why not??

So the first plan is to get this thesis finished so I can get my Master’s degree and say goodbye to studying because it’s been a long and tiring road these past 5 years. I’m ready for that to be over now and to get on with my life!

I also really want to revamp my blog completely and get back into blogging regularly. Perhaps not posting every single day because it will just burn me out again, but at least a few times a week. Also, blogging is something I really enjoy so it will be nice to come home from work and just sit at my desk and type up a few posts before snuggling into my cosy reading chair. And because I’m so me and so extra, I already envision this taking place in the new house and I can see exactly how I’ll decorate and set out my library/office, hahaha!!

Because blogging also implies reading, I would really like to catch up with my Goodreads challenge because I’m about 30 books behind schedule! I might not make it to 150 books read this year (pretty sure I won’t actually), but I think I would be happy with 100 or 110, so that’s my new goal! We are trying to save every little penny we can for the house and our wedding next year, so unless I get some books as a treat for finishing my thesis before the end of the year, I’ll just be working through my owned TBR, and I can tell you this now, I won’t be lacking choice!

And I suppose my final plan, probably not to squeeze into the end of the year but in the next year, would be to (once I’ve done my thesis) finish writing the first draft of the novel I’ve been dragging in my head for nearly 3 years. This story lives in my brain constantly and I literally dream of the next chapters some nights. I need to get it on paper and I can’t tell you how much I miss writing. I feel like I’ve just been exiting these last two years and not actually living, so adding all these future plans and goals to my head is a great motivation to get my thesis done and work towards my dream.

So with that said, that is, I think, the end of my life update & future plans post!

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Please let me know in the comments section how your summer went and what plans you have for the end of the year!

See you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx