July 2019

Affiliate links are marked with [*] and gifted items marked with [gifted].

Haul month, heat wave week, £295 for a Canon G7 X mark ii (thank you Amazon Warehouse) and friendships in this industry. The month of July has gone by strangely fast and I've been counting down the days for my summer holiday as I'm heading to Portugal at the end of the week, at last! As always, I have a monthly update for you. Filled with my rambles and thoughts over the past month. I honestly love writing these blog posts but sometimes I really do feel like they're just a load of word vom haha!

I'm going to try and break up this month's roundup in to sections as best as I can. I often just write out paragraphs and I think everything ends up being a big jumble! So hopefully this will make things a bit easier to read (especially this month as I jump from talking about the books I've read to the areas of my body that need shaving...)

Friendships

One thing I really want to do is give a shout out to all the bloggers/influencers that I've been hanging out with this month. With a job that is often so lonely like this one is, despite being an industry filled with many people, it's nice to find others you just click with and have things in common. I've been to quite a few events this month which has been really nice and I've had the chance to hang out with other girls doing the same thing as me which has been amazing. It's been refreshing to see girls supporting girls and that is something I really value in this industry, the importance of helping each other up! I really want to put more effort in to making work friends - I feel like this is so much harder to do when you're self-employed and sometimes it can be taken for granted at the workplace so I want to make an effort when it comes to making blogger friends.

Haul month on my YouTube channel

This month was another haul month on my YT channel (peexo vlogs). This year I wanted to focus less on hauls but I still enjoy shopping and I typically do buy a few things to replenish my wardrobe at least seasonally. With that in mind, I decided to dedicate particular months to sharing weekly haul videos. That way I can still share some new in pieces but with a reason behind them. So this month, my hauls have been based on my upcoming holiday to Portugal and I bought pieces I felt like I would get use out of whilst I'm away. As it's a holiday-heavy time of year, I thought this would be of interest to some of you too! If you haven't watched my recent videos, you can watch them here and if you're not subscribed to my YouTube channel then please subscribe here.

Books

I've been pretty hooked on one book this month, Never Greener by Ruth Jones. It's quite a chunky one at 516 pages long so it has taken me a while to get through but I enjoyed it. I find that starting a book is always the most difficult for me. I usually spend a few days without starting any other new read when I finish a book, even if I already know what I'm reading next. I've recently started The Secret Barrister which isn't quite what I expected on first impressions. I'm only one chapter in though so I can't say much more about it, admittedly, I'm not sure I'll really enjoy the read but we'll see!

As I'm spending a large chunk of August in Portugal, I've been bulking up my reading material for my holiday. I'm packing 5 books for just shy of 4 weeks away, I'm not sure I'll get through them all to be honest! The five I bought were If You Could Go Anywhere by Paige Toon; The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan; Don't Wake Up by Liz Lawler; The Lido by Libby Page and The Secret Barrister. Last summer was when I re-discovered reading and since then I've probably read more books than I had ever read before in my life! I'm hoping that this summer I'll enjoy books just as much as I did last year.

Bargain of the year?

Amazon Prime Day may have led to a cheeky purchase on my behalf... 

Basically, when I got back from Amsterdam last month (read my blog post: June 2019) I had major regrets for not vlogging the trip. To be honest, I almost always regret not filming snippets of my travels whenever I go away. I just think that even if it's not for YouTube or to share with anyone, it's really nice to have those clips to look back on. I have some clips from Scotland earlier on in the year (read my blog post: Scotland from my iPhone: What I Wore and Did and What NOT to Wear Skiing and Winter Moments Captured on Film) which make me laugh so much every time I watch them and I wish I had that for all of my trips! I've vlogged a few of my travels in the past including my holiday to the Maldives (thank goodness as that was probably a once in a lifetime holiday!) Crete, which I just love to look back on, and I've even attempted vlogging Portugal in the past.

So this year I bought a compact camera to hopefully vlog on! No promises though but I have discussed this with my boyfriend and asked him to please help motivate me to vlog whilst we're in Portugal. He's said he won't take any photos for me if I don't vlog so I think that should help do the trick!

But anyway, I started talking about Prime Day and here we are having story time... the point of this was to let you know that I bought a vlogging camera (just thought I'd give you a bit of a back story you know?) I ended up buying the *Canon G7 X mark ii which is just the cult vlogging camera. It was part of Amazon's Prime Day deals and was down to £399 (it's usually around £499 in most retailers). However, that's not the best bit. The best bit is I discovered Amazon Warehouse!! From what I gather, Amazon Warehouse is basically where any returned items, slightly damaged items, items with damaged packaging or non-delivered items go and then get re-sold. So there are various markers for the products ranging from used - very good, used - good, used - like new and the listing will usually have a description about the item too. If the product has any scratches or the packaging is damaged, it will be in the item description.

There were quite a few *Canon G7 X mark ii cameras being sold by Amazon Warehouse and three of those were described as used - like new with no other flaws listed so I bought one. There was an additional 20% off Amazon Warehouse being offered on Prime Day which is what ended up sucking me in. I bought the camera for £335.82 and then got £40 cashback from Canon too! 

I bought the Canon G7 X mark ii for a total of £295.82. A STEAL.

And the camera? Well, it's like new. The camera itself had no marks on it and it's all in perfect working order. It came with everything in the box including the camera (obviously), wrist strap, battery, battery charger, charging cable and the user manual kit. It came in the original box and there was no damage to it whatsoever. I actually watched an unboxing video to see whether it was any different to how a new one would have arrived and the only difference I noticed was that the user manual didn't come in a plastic pouch (everything else did) and in the unboxing I watched, the camera had a little Canon tag attached to it and the one I received didn't. Two very minor things which honestly, make no difference to me so I'm very happy with my purchase!

Heat wave + no shaving = an absolute mare

I had to stop shaving last week because I want to get a wax before I go away and of course that was when the UK was hit with a heatwave - typical. In a desperate attempt to not spend the week literally stuck to my jeans, I bought a pair of wide leg trousers which have been the dream. Honestly, this blog post could be an homage to them because they've been life savers this past week and a half. My wax is scheduled for the day before we leave and I'm actually dreading it! I feel like I haven't had a wax in ages because I haven't had any summer trips so all I've done is shave when I need to.

I'm trying out sugaring this time around, just for my bikini and underarms which are the two areas I find the most painful. I've heard good things about it, it's apparently great if you have sensitive skin and suffer with a lot of redness post-waxing and supposedly hurts less too! It's pricey though so I found a deal on Treatwell for bikini and underarms and I'm getting my legs and half arm waxed the traditional way.

I hope you enjoyed this month's rambles! If you want to follow along and see what I get up to on holiday in Portugal next month, join me over on my Instagram: @peexo.