This chaotic glow-up week was less ‘minimalist wellness guru’ and more Botox, cabbage fermenting in my kitchen, and curtains fighting for their life on a sewing machine.

The Sewing Machine Saga (a side quest I didn’t plan for) 🪡🧵✂️

It all started when the owner of my block chopped down this huge palm tree outside my apartment.

Lovely: more sunlight.

Less lovely: my yoga room now felt like I was putting on a free yoga show for the neighbours because my floor-to-ceiling windows had only one set of curtains and no sheers. 🌴☀️👀

Easy fix, I thought.

Buy a new curtain rail with two tracks. One for blackout curtains and one for my soon-to-be-purchased sheer curtains.

Done.

Except:

• I “measured” the rail by literally laying a tape measure across the floor underneath it and thinking, yeah this looks about right. Shockingly, the new one was too small. 📏
• The sheer curtains I bought were way too long (forgot curtains come in sizes). 🙃
• Couldn’t be bothered to return them because… traffic. 🚗💀

So my brain went: what if I just… learn to sew?

Next thing you know, I’d panic-ordered a sewing machine, scissors, pins, the whole lot. 🧵✂️📍✨

This would’ve been fine – except I then found some sheer curtains in my wardrobe from a year ago that were already the perfect size. 😩🙃

So now I had:

• A curtain rail that doesn’t fit (now floor décor). 🚪
• Sheer curtains that don’t fit (and can’t be returned because I ripped the packaging). 🙃
• And a sewing machine I technically didn’t need. 🧵✂️

When it arrived, I nearly yeeted it out the window trying to set it up, but after some YouTube tutorials, I hemmed my velvet pink bedroom curtains perfectly. 🪞

For context: I bought these curtains about two years ago because they looked soooo cute online.

When they arrived?

They were Victorian gown dragging across the ballroom floor long. 👗

And they’ve just… stayed like that ever since. But now? They look fabulous. ✨

(See below before & after pics 😂👇 – can you tell I’m really pleased with myself?! 😂😂)

And then came the Bali dresses.

Last year in Bali, I bought two strapless dresses from Bamboo Blonde (my all-time favourite store) – one in baby blue and one in black. 💙🖤 They’re literally the only two dresses I wear.

Then at a local market, I spotted basically the same dress and bought it in every colour. 🌈

Except… when I got home, they were all about five inches longer than my beloved ones (and I’m 33 and still firmly in my short dress era – not “butt out” short, just the cute kind of short I actually like). So they just sat in my wardrobe, unworn, while I kept saying I’d “pay someone to take them up for me.” 🫠

Enter the sewing machine: I finally shortened them myself. Now they’re actually wearable – and I suddenly have a whole rainbow of dresses ready for summer. 🌞👗

So yeah – I can sew now.

Accidentally.

And it’s my new favourite thing to do. 🧵

(Also, how cute is my sewing machine? 🥹)

The Rest of the Glow-Up Buffet 🍽️

Once I’d unlocked “seamstress” mode, the week spiralled into a full glow-up extravaganza:

• Botox: Glow-up hack of the gods. 💉✨

• Dentist: my weirdly favourite place. My dentist and his assistant are awesome, we always chat and gossip, and this time I got scanned for my tooth implant and booked composite bonding on two more teeth. All very adult and responsible. 🦷
  …Except his office is literally next door to Spar. Which is the only place that sells stroopwaffles (Dutch caramel waffle biscuits that taste like pure happiness and regret in equal measure). I went in “just for one pack” (as always). Left with four (as always). Ate them over the sink so I didn’t have to dirty a plate (they’re so crumby). This is how I fell into the Stroopwaffle Trap. 🍪

• Sauerkraut: krauting away on day 3 – not sure if I’m making gut health magic or a biohazard, but either way, it’s happening. 🥬🫙

• Green veggie soup: lovingly made today, completely ignored in favour of the stroopwaffles. 🥣➡️🍪 Tomorrow is a new day.

• Yoga + gym + 5k walks: the classic wellness trifecta. 🧘🏻‍♀️🏋🏻‍♀️🚶🏻‍♀️

• Splits challenge: because apparently I decided “why not regain my splits in 14 days while also fermenting cabbage and getting Botox.” 🥬💉

• IAMI GUEST Advanced Leadership course: casually upgraded my professional life in the middle of all this chaos. 📚

My Retirement Hours 👵🛋️

By 2 pm I’m basically finished with the day.

Comfy clothes on, ambition gone, spirit clocked out.

That’s when I make soup (aka boil veg, forget about it, and then eat stroopwaffles instead), watch Modern Family and declare myself retired. 🥣📺

By 6 pm I’m getting ready for bed, smugly telling myself this is “self-care” while I slap on skincare, journal, write my blog, and occasionally call my parents to see if they’ll let me move back in and become a kept child. (They keep saying no. Rude.)

Peak grandma energy. Zero regrets. Thriving. ✨

Soundtrack to the Chaos 🎶

Evenings = me in bed writing my blog, or reading my Kindle, soundtracked by the same one-hour playlist on quiet repeat like a little emotional support soundtrack. 💻📚

For context, the only playlists I make are:

• G Workout *insert year* 🏋🏻‍♀️
• G Faves *insert year* 🎧
• G Chill *insert year* 🌙

Obviously, we’re currently on G Workout 2025, G Faves 2025 and G Chill 2025.

But my true masterpiece is the G 2014–2019 playlist.

It’s 20 hours long and contains literally every single song I heard in that time and thought, “hmm, I like this.”

It’s got everything:

• Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond
• Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen 💕
• Mit Keinem Andern by Helene Fischer (a random German song I heard charter guests play once back in 2014) 🇩🇪
• Disney bangers 🏰✨
• Auld Lang Syne by Susan Boyle

Basically, it’s Spotify DJ but better – pure Georgia taste, zero algorithm. 🪩

If you want to snoop 👀

• G Chill 2025 ← my current evening soundtrack, one hour long but on constant loop 🌙
• G 2014–2019 ← 20 hours of unfiltered brilliance 🎧

Oh, and I did Parkrun 5km – compulsory photos below

Or it didn’t happen…

(Photos courtesy of my local Parkrun Facebook group!)

How This Week Felt vs How It Looked

• How it felt: “I’m thriving, glowing, levelling up like a pro.”
• How it looked: Me hunched over a sewing machine swearing at tangled thread, then later eating stroopwaffles over the sink like a gremlin.

🪞 Final Thoughts (aka proof of life post-glow-up)

So yes – my curtains fit, my cabbage is fermenting, my Botox’s settled, and I can sew now (accidentally).

If this week had a slogan, it’d be: thriving, but make it mildly unhinged.

If you made it this far, bless your attention span — you deserve a stroopwaffle. 🍪

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