Welcome to our garden! We have just moved into a lovely new house and this one has a garden! I am beyond excited about being able to see the gorgeous views of nature from different windows around the house. I have always enjoyed bird-watching and nature walks, so this is an incredible joy for me. We hope to learn more about the inhabitants of our garden, and do our part to support them and protect them year round. I will…
One of my favourite things about the blogging community are the seasonal tagging events. These blog tags are like a game of “20 Questions” and “Tag – You’re It!” rolled into one. You generally answer a bunch of themed questions or write a post based on a theme or prompt and then tag a few people to take part. It’s a wonderful way to get to know each other better and a fun escape from the usual topics we write…
Summer can be a really difficult time for people with chronic illness. Regulating body temperature is a common problem. Add in a rare summer heat wave and you have a recipe for horrific flares including utter exhaustion, weakness, headaches and so much discomfort and sweating! So I’m sharing my 10 top tips to beat the heat and survive the summer months. If you have a chronically ill friend you’d like to help out this summer, I am sure they would…
If you are a blogger with an Instagram account, you will be very aware of the frustrating limit they have placed on us. I love Instagram, it is probably my favourite social media platform, but I must admit that the one-link-only rule has been very frustrating over the years. In this post, though, I am going to show you how I have overcome this obstacle and gained more click-throughs to my blog without using another app like LinkTree. Update 2024:…
I am so excited to share this news with you! I have been nominated for the 2018 WEGO Health Award in the Best In Show: Blog category! I first heard about WEGO Health Awards last year when one of the lovely warriors I follow on Instagram was nominated for her advocacy efforts. I later joined them on Twitter for a few of their live chats too. I thought it was a great idea to give recognition to these chronic illness…
Chronically Hopeful has been nominated for another blog award! The Sunshine Blogger Award is awarded to bloggers by bloggers, in recognition of their contribution to the community. In particular the Sunshine Blogger Award is awarded to those bloggers whose posts bring a bit of sunshine to the community by spreading joy and positivity. I am honoured to have been selected. Who Nominated Me? A big thank you goes to Kristine from Kristine’s Blog who nominated me in April. Thank you…
It’s time for another personal update. Time to reassess and set realistic goals. This month has been so much harder than I anticipated. Somehow I imagined that summer would bring better health and more energy along with sunnier days and warmer temperatures, but it hasn’t really. I have spent so much time in bed! Despite this, there have been some exciting things happening here. Exciting for me anyway, not sure anybody else would define it as such! Haha… There are…
It’s been a while since I posted my last round-up of paintings for The 100 Day Project. That’s because I actually took a whole month off! I am very pleased to be back to it though and have thoroughly enjoyed painting each evening. The sunny summer evenings are just perfect for painting! This week I picked up where I left off at the start of May with Sunsets as the theme. I will also reveal next week’s theme today. Why…
As we head into a new month I am excited to show you my new bullet journal layout for June! I’ll also share more detail about my symptom and mood tracker as well as a layout comparison with previous months. I cannot believe we are already half-way through 2018, time is just racing by so fast. I only started this year’s journal in March, so I don’t have 6 months of journal updates to show you, but I will share…
Who am I? When living with severe chronic illness it can be easy to feel like you’ve lost your identity. When experiencing a loss of identity, you start doubting yourself, you lose confidence, you lack purpose and vision. You start to feel useless. It is important to reflect and remember who you are. Reignite your dreams and goals, your passion and purpose. Being diagnosed with a severe chronic illness means those things can become a bit blurry. When you…