July Recap
I think the most shocking thing in realizing that July is over is that Christmas is less than five months away… Umm wasn’t it just the holiday season like last week? This month has flown by once again, and I just can’t wrap my head around how fast this year is going by! I’m continuing with my recap-style monthly roundup posts because you all really seemed to enjoy the last one!
July was full of birthdays, sweat-filled workout sessions, sparklers, and way too many desserts. In case you missed my last monthly recap, I’ve changed my layout a bit! Instead of just covering my monthly favorites, I talk about my life over the past month, five of my monthly favorites, and my stats for the month. And let me just tell you that the stats portion of this month’s recap is INSANE…
LIFE UPDATE
July just might be my favorite month of the year. Not because my birthday is in July, but because it’s just overall a really wonderful month. 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays because it’s not focused on giving gifts or being stuck inside with relatives during the cold months. Instead it’s about hanging out with friends and family and just having a grand ‘ole time. I threw a little 4th of July get together this year, and it was honestly so fun! Then, on the 9th, I celebrated my 19th birthday. I’ve reached the point in my life where my birthday just feels like a regular day so it was nothing super special, but I did get a lot of stuff for my dorm this year. I wrapped up my 10 week internship on the 22nd and I spent the last week of July packing (well, not really. I was watching Netflix the entire week, but no one has to know that). Overall, July was such a wonderful month!
ACNE FACE WASHES
My face just decided to go absolutely crazy this past month, and there was one day where I was so over it. I marched myself down to Target and settled on a couple of face washes to try out.
Turns out, I absolutely love them! They control the acne relatively well – I mean there’s only so much that a product can do to combat hormones, you know? They’ll definitely be going with me back to school!
SPOTIFY DISCOVER WEEKLY
Let me just rave about this playlist for a moment. Spotify, you have outdone yourself with this one. The Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify is update weekly with new music. I’ve been following it for over a month, and I never had a week where I really dislike the music.
In fact, I’m so obsessed that I created a Discover Again playlist where I add the new music every week. Right now, we’re sitting at over 15 hours of music on that playlist. Needless to say, I’ll never run out of music now!
HALO TOP BIRTHDAY CAKE
Halo Top. Halo Top. Halo Top. This is my newfound love. I’ve been on sort of a health and fitness kick for the summer, and this ice cream lets me have dessert almost every night without going over my macros.
It’s low-calorie, high in protein, and relatively low in carbs. The birthday cake flavor is my favorite, although I really want to try the lemon one! I have a few spoonfuls every night, and it works wonders for satisfying my nightly sweet tooth.
CANON G9X
So this was a huge splurge purchase for me. I’ve been filming vlogs on my old Canon ELPH 310 HS, and that video quality was just plain awful. You could hear the camera focusing, and it just wasn’t good.
One day at work, I decided that it was time for me to invest into this blog. It was time for a new camera. After doing a few hours of research, I settled on the Canon G9X. It’s the less expensive version of the G7X which is what almost every vlogger on YouTube uses. The video quality is amazing, and it takes beautiful pictures! It also has wi-fi sync so I can take Instagram shots, send transfer them to my phone, and upload them. This is actually what I used to take all of the post pictures!
NETFLIX
Okay yes, very broad, but you get the point. I’ve had the past week off (well technically I should have been packing for my move on Wednesday, buttttt I didn’t pack a thing) and I’ve spent it doing absolutely nothing which was glorious.
Some of my favorite shows from the past week are Gilmore Girls, New Girl, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. All hilarious and totally suggest you watch!
STATS
July was such a good month for me! The stats went absolutely crazy and I am 100% fine with that 🙂 My pageviews more than doubled which I still don’t understand how that happened and my social media accounts are really growing!
What went right:
- Updated old post images to make them more Pinterest friendly (College Note Taking Tips, How to Revise a Paper)
- Figured out why my images were looking blurry
- Developed and launched Blogger Roundtable
What went wrong:
- Not active on social media
- Let blogging take a back seat to Netflix
- Wasn’t able to dedicate as much time as I would have liked because of full-time internship
Make sure to grab my free stats tracker if you want an easy way to keep track of your monthly stats! It’s what I use every month, and since it can be kept in Google Drive, you’ll have access to it anywhere.
~abigail gray
