And that, my friends and fellow beauty junkies, is what we call a bold-faced lie.
Rarely am I able to log onto one of these sites without getting the uncontrollable urge to hit ‘Add To Basket’ a few times.
But what am I supposed to do when Charlotte Tilbury exists in the world?
Aaaanyway, I bought things and I feel pretty good about them, so let’s talk about it.
The Mr and I are both keen home cooks, and yet we’d never had a decent space to play chef in. When we bought our first home, the kitchen was just okay-ish enough that we never got around to tackling it before we needed to move.
When we bought No.80, we knew we wanted to install our dream kitchen - but there was no point doing it before we could afford to build an extension.
The house had previously been subdivided into three student bedsit flats, so the kitchen wasn't the best quality.
Life (and having kids) gets in the way of the best laid plans though. By the end of last year, we’d spent five years living with chipped worktops, badly designed cabinetry, scuffed lino floors and an oven that only worked sporadically. It was definitely time for a change.
OK, this lockdown thing is really starting to bite now. We’re entering our eighth week of self-isolation (my work decided to cancel all meetings and make people fully based at home a week or so before official lockdown kicked in), and up until now it hasn’t been so bad.
But with no end in sight, we can feel ourselves getting more and more burnt out trying to work full time and look after two under 5s who are beginning to get very cooped up and sad about not seeing their friends. It feels like no-one is winning at the moment - the balance for working parents is always very fine anyway, and it's just been completely eroded.
No matter how hard we’re trying to stay positive, often we end up feeling like bad parents AND bad at our jobs - and we can’t be the only ones. It feels like we’re approaching a tipping point now. Almost everyone in my network is beginning to crack under the pressure.
In this rather sad scenario, fashion has given me something creative to focus on. It’s very true that how you dress affects your mood, and as comfy as gym leggings and giant hoodies are, eventually they begin to make you feel worse.
When we first moved into No.80 in late 2014, potential was pretty much all it had.
A handsome early Victorian semi in our favourite area, it had lovely bones but had suffered a series of alterations done on the cheap to turn it into three bedsit flats. Although it certainly wasn’t a dream home to begin with, we realised that we could turn it into one. What we didn’t realise is just how much time, effort and money it takes to get there.
Like most first-time home renovators, we imagined that with a little work we could turn an unloved house back into a family home without many problems. The reality has been lengthy delays trying to secure planning permission, unexpected costly issues popping up taking us over budget and something that no-one could have foreseen - building work grinding to a complete halt with the onset of the UK coronavirus lockdown.
At times, we have felt very frustrated and far away from where we wanted to be. It’s been a longer, harder, more expensive process than we imagined. There’s still a bit of a way to go until everything is perfect, but we’ve been able to order the furniture to take it closer to our ideal space - which feels like a milestone moment.
Life is a catwalk, darling, or at least my driveway is!
I'm now about to start my sixth week in self-isolation, and its a bit of a kicker. With Easter gone, it feels like there isn't anything to look forward to until this coronavirus situation shifts. I've never been very good in limbo - patience is not a virtue of mine - so I'm getting a bit restless. Still, if we have the chance to save lives just by staying home, then that's amazing.
To be honest, it's a miracle that it's taken me this long to start getting restless, but with a full-time job and two kids under five at home, I'm busier than ever.
At least this time is teaching me to really appreciate life's small pleasures and be thankful for my family and our good health so far.
This is going to be a life update post extremely different to any I’ve ever written.
Who could have imagined even a few weeks ago that daily life would so utterly change for most people across the globe?
The coronavirus pandemic started off as something distant and remote - , a terrible problem but one that seemed far away overseas.
Despite the warnings, I don’t think anyone was at all prepared that in just a few short weeks, we’d be on lockdown, unable to leave the house unless it's to go to the supermarket.
All schools, restaurants, bars and gyms closed, and everyone not deemed a key worker at home from work until further notice.
It still feels unreal - I wake up each day and things feel normal for a split second, then I remember the situation.
We’re living through a time that will be difficult for most people in lots of different ways, and its a slice of social history that future generations might be interested in - so I still thought it was worth recording what life is really like during a global pandemic.
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