After moving to our new house last week, we hung our first bird feeder out on Monday and waited (im)patiently for the birds to come eat, but they didn’t. No birds to be seen at all. We were disappointed, but I knew that they would come – they just had to discover the spread first. Photo By @domlimphoto After days…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
We in the ME community are so grateful that you are interested in supporting our cause. Thank you! I hope that the information on this page will inspire you to action, giving you ideas and resources to help you help us. We need all the help from healthy allies that we can get! The quickest way to support our cause…
We are now 3 weeks into this year’s 100 Day Project! If you’ve been following along here on my blog, you will know I have divided my 100 Day Project into 10 sets of 10 days. Each set of 10 days has it’s own theme to focus on using watercolour inks and gouache. For the first 10 days I worked…
I am so pleased to have made it through the first 10 days of The 100 Day Project! This is the third year I am attempting to do this and I am determined to complete it this year! If you aren’t sure what this project is all about, I wrote about it in a previous post where I explained how…
I can’t believe we’re almost half-way through April already! This is possibly one of my favourite times of the year being the season of new beginnings. The days are becoming sunnier and longer, flowers are blooming and there is great excitement in my heart. Let me tell you why… More… This post is part of the April link party with…
April is a very special month for me. Many of my great life changes seem to have happened in April. This particular celebration is very special to me: on 7 April 2012 I was baptised in the sea at Brighton beach in the UK! I was 30 years old at the time. Baptism was something I had been thinking about…