Life Lately - A trip Down 2016 Memory Lane
I haven't done a 'Life Lately' type post in ages so I thought it would be an appropriate end to Blogmas to sit down and chat about the past year. Especially for any of you who are new/recent readers, or if you're old and want to know what I've been up to.
Life has been pretty swell lately and I'm a bit shocked that the end of the year has come about. Looking back it's been a pretty great year! I'm nearing my first year anniversary at my current job - it has literally flown by. Things at my office are changing up and if you follow me on Snapchat (@cindyhyue) you'll know that our office is switching things up and we're going from cubes to an open space concept. The new layout is very start-up(y) and we're all not sure how to feel about it. I never talk about what I do but in short I work in the legal field - and a lot of my work consists of writing, reading, and prepping cases. My coworkers and I are a chatty bunch and a quick catch-up on how the weekend was can easily turn into a 30-45 minute conversation. Can you imagine what it'll be like with all of us just there facing each other? (I'll keep you guys posted lol.)
Beauty wise, I've been introduced to new products and this year was definitely a great year for testing out new things - especially for a creature of habit like myself. Blogging has been quite fun and looking back on the year I've had the opportunity to collaborate with quite a few brands. To name a few, I've had the opportunity to work with Dermalogica, LVX Nails, pur~lisse (post coming early next year!), DedCool, Klairs. and NOTO Botanics (1 & 2). But, perhaps the most exciting opportunity of the year is that I am not a Brand Rep for Glossier. Please excuse all the excitement in all social media forms, I'm just that - excited. If you'd like to shop my picks and recommendations, use the link (glossier.com/reps/cindy) and you'll get 20% off your first purchase and/or free shipping over $30! You can also click the link to watch my intro video - I'm awkward AF and it's the closest thing you'll get to me + YouTube. If you need some quick-fire reviews, feel free to read my Glossier brand focus post HERE. A good few people were kind enough to use my bff.glossier links over the last few months so I was fortunate to be able to pick up some new products that I had been eyeing. I just received my package so you can bet I'll be testing them all out and doing a larger Glossier Guide type post soon. If you have any specific review requests, please let me know!
Travel wise I was quite fortunate enough to be able to go a few places, both domestic and international. The first trip of the year was to the UK - specifically London & Edinburgh. Sometimes I'm really good with sharing my photo diaries in a timely matter, but in other cases I'm absolute crap - like in this case. I'll try my best to work on my little photo journals as it's something I enjoy! You can see some quick photo diaries of shorter weekend trips I took this year to Los Angeles, CA (here), to Chicago (here), and to Disneyland/CA Adventure (here). I have a quick trip to Portland, Oregon in January and hopefully a trip to Asia around May/June of next year - so fingers crossed that this travel bug gets her fix!
I did fairly well on the minimizing my personal belongings and did some big clear-outs with clothes. I did a post here on all the best ways to get rid of clothes and how to just cut down the bulk. It's okay not to go full Mari-Kondo and get rid of everything, but to do them in semi-big phases. My boyfriend and I are looking to buy our first place next year (#adulting) so fingers crossed that goes smoothly, but I gotta do some major cleaning ahead of time so I don't end up taking all my crap with me. I have 2 days off over the next week so I'm hoping to get some good clear-outs done then! There are also so many shows to watch so I'm excited to just shut off my brain and be free for a while and just purge old belongings while binge watching anything and everything. 3% on Netflix was amazing by the way, and now I'm starting Man in the High Castle on Amazon. You can bet that a new TV show post will be coming your way soon.
I know next year is going to be quite a busy one and to be honest, I'm not sure how much blogging will be impacted. I'll try my best to still keep with the two posts a week, but it's highly unlikely that I'll be doing anymore of these "everyday posting" months for a while. If I'm radio silent for a little while, please bear with me!
I have a few exciting posts coming next week, my top picks of 2016 (both beauty + skincare) will be live next week, so stay tuned! Hope you have a fun and safe Christmas and New Years. And I hope you've all enjoyed Blogmas and 2016 has been a great one, cheers to 2017!
PS - I'm planning on doing a huge giveaway over on Instagram (@chyism) soon, so be sure to follow along so you won't miss out! Hint: it'll have Tatcha and Glossier goodies 😏