Life in January

January was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I did enjoy some great days out with friends and family, including celebrating my Dad's birthday last weekend, but there have also been some bad times. Work life has not been that great for me this month and a member of our family was taken ill a few weeks ago, which worried us all. Fortunately, she is showing signs of improvement every day and we are hopeful she will be able to go back home this week. I don't want to dwell too much on the negative anyway, so here are my highlights from the month.

So, the first Saturday of the year brought a now quite rare trip to the football. Not many of you may know, but I am a massive Coventry City fan. I used to be a regular both home and away but, for various reasons, I am now unable to attend as often as I'd like. I got the opportunity to go to my favourite away day, at Barnsley, and jumped at the chance. A big group of us set off early from my hometown via coach, stopping off at a pub in Yorkshire on the way for pre-game drinks and a game of pool. I won't bore all of you non sports fans with too much detail, but my team came from behind to win 2-1, so the atmosphere at the end of the game was amazing.

The following weekend was my sister in law's engagement & housewarming party. We couldn't stay too long, but made an appearance for a couple of hours and had a really nice time. It's always nice to see my boyfriend's family, as we don't get to spend as much time with them as I'd like. It's also lovely to see his sister looking so happy and settled in her new home with her own little family. We went to a wedding fayre together, along with her mum, this month and although it wasn't particularly successful for me (to be fair, I have most things sorted now), we still had a great time and my sister in law even tried a few dresses on. It's an exciting time for their family, though very expensive, with both of their children getting married in the space of 18 months!

I have spent a lot of money this month, way more than I should've done! I still have some bits to haul for you, including another load from Primark (you can find my first one here). I think because I'd spent the last few months running up to Christmas spending so much money on gifts for other people, I wanted to go a bit nuts this month and treat myself to a few new bits. So as soon as payday came, I was off to town again and managed to pick up quite a few bits that were on my wishlist, including the newly released Revlon matte & lacquer balms which I am loving already - I can see these making their way into my February favourites!

As well as spending a tonne of money in the shops, I also signed up to subscribe to Birchbox this month. I've missed having a monthly beauty box ever since I cancelled my Glossybox subscription early last year. From the many reviews I had read, Birchbox appeared to be the best option for my new subscription and so far I am not disappointed - you can see what I got in my first box here.

The most exciting thing we did in January was picking out our wedding rings! We stopped off at the jewellers on one of our many shopping trips in January, to take my engagement ring in to be resized (which I got back today - so happy!). Since getting engaged, I've lost almost four and a half stone (you can read about my weight loss journey here), and my ring would no longer stay on my finger! We thought that since we were there, we may as well take a look at the wedding rings, and we both managed to find one we loved and ordered them there and then. I won't be showing you what they look like just yet, but I'm sure you will see them in the pictures I share after the big day. It's less than four months to go now - after almost three years of being engaged, I can't believe it's almost here!

What have you all been up to in January?