December, For Me

Main Highlights

Personal

• 🎄 Christmas holidays – the break we all wanted and deserve
• 🌱 Spending time at the Peaks as I returned home for Christas
• ☹️ I was unwell again the first week of December which sucked
• 🙌🏻 Decided to stop using foundation
• 📺 Watched the final episode of Silicon Valley (one of my favourite shows) and fell inlove with The Witcher
• 📦 Decluttering mission at my family’s home for 2020

Health

• ⌚️ Bought an Apple Watch to replace my old Fitbit
• 💪🏼 Been consistent with my health grind

Online

• ✏️ On the blog, I wrote posts about passing my AWS CCP exam, my favourite books in 2019 and my five lessons this year.

Career

• 👩🏻‍💻 Finished off projects for the year!
• ☁️ Still progressing (slowly) with my AWS Learning, I joined AWS Newbies Discord to help facilitate my learning
• 💜 Prioritised my mental health and finally did something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I’m proud of myself.

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3 Things that made me happy

1. Distraction-free fitness

Since buying the Apple Watch and replacing my Fitbit, I’ve found some renewed motivation towards fitness! I struggle a lot in the winter months, so usually fit in a home workout when I get up but this month I’ve been really good at getting up for the gym.

Not only that, I’ve also stopped taking my phone to the gym and only using my Apple Watch to track my workouts, listen to podcasts and music. I didn’t think it would make a difference, but it truly has already!! Without my distracting phone which I have often been pulled into mid workout, I’m focusing on my reps more and just feel like I’m truly getting some headspace.

It’s always nice to get away from the world, and be in my zone for a bit.

2. Being home for Christmas

Because nothing beats being with family. I’m so grateful for them. 💜

3. Confidence boost without foundation

I was running out of my favourite foundation at the end of November, but instead of going out and buying another bottle, I decided to challenge myself this month to not wear it at all.

The reason I say challenge is that I’ve always been quite self-conscious of my make-up free face – I don’t have flawless skin (no matter what social media feeds tell you lol) and for as long as I can remember, I’ve used foundation to cover these imperfections.

I have to admit, it was difficult not to wear it at first and I found myself not being able to maintain eye contact with some people at work (I know, crazy right?! 😂) After a while though I got used to it and now love the freedom of having a foundation-free face. Not only has this sped up my morning routine, but also improved my skin overall in just 4 weeks!

Overall, I’m feeling a lot more confident with my natural self. Self-love level over 3000 ✨

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December in Photos

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#Pawsitivity

I’m really proud of the progress we’ve made in just a day of clearing things out. Bare in mind though, I’ve been talking about this since 2016 and it’s been such a difficult thing for them to understand. I think they’re finally understanding how much our stuff weigh us down!

— Pauline P. Narvas 🎄🤶🏻⛄️ (@paulienuh) 22 December 2019

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December Favourites

• Watching:
  • Silicon Valley – sad that it’s over but the finale was amazing!
  • Matt and I have been laughing at TikTok videos so much 😂
  • I fell inlove watching The Witcher
• Face: I’ve been using Body Shop’s Vitamin E Moisture Cream ONLY. It’s been my favourite recently!
• Body: I did some Yoga sessions on YouTube to help move my body when I was ill, I particularly enjoyed sessions with Yoga with Adriene.

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Quote of the month

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Pauline P. Narvas (@paw.lean)

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Next month

2020… How crazy is that?! A new decade!

More to follow in my next blog post.

Have a lovely rest of the month / year, friends! 😊