My Year In A Nutshell

At the beginning of 2013 I remember feeling distinctly underwhelmed about my life. I seemed to have lost my previously care free nature and replaced it with constant worries and feelings of great responsibility about life in general and I often wondered where on Earth all the fun had gone. So on the first of January I set myself a new year’s resolution – to find myself. My aim was to reconnect with the old me, the one who seemed to breeze through life without a care in the world, the happy me. Well now we are nearing the end of a year which I can safely say was one of the most challenging but also one of the best years of my life so far. Like everybody else I’ve had my ups and downs, however I’ve learned so much from my experiences and in turn I’ve achieved my goal of finding happy Kate.

There was one person in particular that helped me find my happiness again and that was my best friend who is also called Kate. We’ve been inseparable since we met at the age of three at nursery school, however about a year and a half previously we had a bit of a falling out and hadn’t spoken at all since, needless to say I missed her terribly. Then one morning in mid January to my utter surprise I came downstairs to a hand posted letter with my name on it, I opened it in curiosity as I couldn’t think who it could have been from, I’ll give you three guesses (although I severely doubt you’ll need them). I had a tear in my eye as I read what Kate had written about how it was silly that we hadn’t spoken in so long, reminding me of our pact that we made at the age of seventeen about how we would still be out partying together when we are old ladies. I immediately got in touch and what followed was a series of the best nights out of my life (which were so good largely due to the hilarity that she and I found in busting the craziest dance moves we could think of, hair whipping and high kicks spring to mind – although I wouldn’t recommend the hair whipping, we found that it can quite possibly cause the quite aptly named ailment of whiplash, no I’m not joking!) As best friends do we laughed until our insides hurt, often on one of our late night car journeys to nowhere (nowhere was quite often KFC or to the end of my road where we would just sit and chat about everything and anything). She had helped me let my hair down and it was exactly what the doctor ordered, I was no longer missing my right hand woman and I was much happier in myself.

 (Kate and I having the obligatory posing sesh while getting ready for one of our crazy nights out!)

 In July this year I had quite a bit of time on my hands, I had finished the arduous task of writing my dissertation and was at a loss for ways to fill my new found spare time. This is when I decided to start writing my blog and created a youtube channel, both of which I have come to love so much, I’ve read beauty blogs and watched videos on youtube for years and so I thought ‘hey, why not give it a try?!’ and that’s when ‘Kate’s Beauty Station’ was born. I love sharing my views regarding the contents of my beauty stash and I’ve enjoyed writing my ‘Feel Good Friday’ feature tremendously as I find it to be really therapeutic, I just hope you enjoy reading my ramblings! At times work has meant that I’ve had to slacken off on the blogging and so my posts haven’t been as regular as I’d like them to be, however in 2014 I’m going to get a diary and organise my time so that I can keep on top of blogging, as like I said, I do so love it. As far as my youtube channel is concerned, I plan to make better quality videos in 2014 and more of them, I have my new camera now and I’m exited to put it to good use. The main reason for my lack of uploads in the past few months is down to the fact that I dislike the quality of my previous videos, but with that problem fixed I have no excuse not to film lots of new content for my channel. I’ll be sure to keep you informed as to when I do!

A milestone month for me was August, this was the month that I received my dissertation result. I was so nervous to find out my score as I had poured my heart and soul into this piece of work, however I knew that whatever the mark was that I achieved it was the best I could have done and so I braced myself and hoped for the best. To my absolute astonishment I received 85%, I was beside myself with excitement and sheer amazement as I hadn’t even thought that I was capable of achieving that kind of grade for such a large piece of work. It meant a lot to me especially since when I was younger I hated every day of school and had never even thought of going to university until I was 20, that’s when I decided to go back to college and undertake an access to higher education course. It was a very happy moment for me to receive my grade and it proved to me that it really is possible to achieve whatever you want if you really put your mind to it, no matter what it may be.

The day after I received my result for my dissertation I went on holiday to Ireland for a week and  a half with Gavin, we visited County Kerry which is a place that we hold close to our hearts, we visited there during the beginning of our relationship and so to go back was lovely, it’s such a beautifully scenic place. You can read about our time in Kerry here.

(Gavin and I on holiday)

 

Gavin had been working in Dubai for the past year and in October I made a bold move and followed him over. It was scary to move away from my family for the first time, however I’m settling in to my new life well and enjoying lots of fun new adventures, although I do sometimes miss the comforts of home. I even miss the Winter cold (would you ever have thought it?!) I now split my time between Dubai and the UK. I’d miss my family, friends and of course my cats far too much otherwise!

 

These moments and a lot of others have shaped a year that has taught me just to relax a bit more about life, to appreciate the good times with my loved ones no matter what else is going on around me, to have more fun and to trust that I am going to be just fine. I have become the happy old care free ‘me’ that I used to be and I’m more content than ever. Looking forward to 2014 I plan to carry on this trend, to lead a life that I am truly happy living, to make more memories that I will cherish for years to come with the people that I love, to take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and have fun in the process and not to worry about the small stuff, as in the end it really doesn’t matter.

So there you have it, my year in a nutshell. This will be my last blog post of 2013 as Gavin and I are off to Sri Lanka in three days time for our Christmas holidays, I’m so exited! So my lovelies, I shall bid you farewell until January when I’ll be back with lots of holiday snaps to share with you, new videos and most probably reviews of beauty products that I will have undoubtedly picked up in duty free (you just have to, don’t you?!)

(Raising a glass J )

 

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

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