Lifestyle: June 2025 Wrap Up
What Happened This Month
Join me as I recap what happened in June with my hair, blog, health, reading, travel and fitness.
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Welcome to my June 2025 wrap up.
Those of you who read last month's wrap up will already know that my youngest had his Invalsi exams in May. Well, June was time for his final exams. Days of written tests and then his oral exam. I'm happy to say he passed with flying colours and is now officially done with middle school! Proud mummy moment 💖
A lot has been happening regarding my numerous health problems but I'll go into more detail about that later in the post.
I did manage to fit in some fun stuff too though.
Wrapping Up June: What Happened
Hair
I'm loving having darker hair again at the moment and so decided to go a shade darker and dyed it with Schwarzkopf Natural and Easy Natural Dark Brown 580. I'll post a full review soon to give more details.
Health
After being hospitalised twice in the intensive ward in May for multiple blockages in my intestine. I've been on a very strict diet for the past month. I have an extra long colon and diverticulitis which causes a whole bunch of problems. It is also the reason I have chronic gastritis and suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease.
I finally got the results of the biopsies they did during my gastroscopy and basically just confirmed stuff we already knew so no nasty surprises.
I've had numerous control visits and more tests done during June. At one point I risked having to go back to the emergency room again but luckily it calmed down again with home treatment. Blood tests showed I still have some inflammation though so I'll be doing another round of tests next week to make sure that's under control.
I've now got a new diet too. Whilst I'm very happy to be able to eat a slightly wider variety of foods it also scares me. It's a huge on-going experiment to see which foods are going to trigger my condition. It also doesn't help that I have a lot of food intolerance issues.
They've also now scheduled my colonoscopy for September so I need to make sure I don't relapse again before then.
During my last control visit they told me they think I might have celiac disease after all (I've been gluten free since 2005 as they thought I had it, but then decided I was just intolerant as blood test was negative). Now they think I got a false negative and so need to investigate further but only once I've got my diverticular disease under control and have done the biopsies from my intestines.
I'm glad we're finally putting all the pieces together and working out exactly what is wrong but chronic illness is so frustrating. It's that constant feeling of one step forwards, two steps back.
You might also like: Monthly Goal Ideas for Better Health
Blogging
I'm happy to report that traffic is increasing again. I'm definitely seeing a difference between when I manage to work more on the blog and promotion and when I can't due to my health issues. This has just underlined for me again how important it is for me to schedule posts in advance. Organisation is key!
A consistent posting schedule helps your audience know when to expect new content and it improves SEO as search engines favour sites that are regularly updated with fresh content. It also means your blog stays active even when you're not available.
Traffic for June: 93,220 page-views
Number of blog posts published in June: 16
Current DA score: 28
Reading challenges
The Clock Reading Challenge 2025
Books read:
4 - Four Cold Months by K.J. Kalis - My Review (coming soon) - Amazon - Goodreads
The Net Galley TBR Reading Challenge 2025
No new updates for this month as didn't manage to get much reading done with everything else going on.
Currently reading:
Shadow in the Ward by Ari Gray - currently on page 116/345 - Amazon - Goodreads
Travel
2nd June is national holiday here in Italy and so we had a beach day at Lavinio with family and friends. Our first beach trip of the year. It was great fun and a lovely time was had by all. I even managed to have my first swim in the sea of the year. Unfortunately I struggled with my health (particularly towards to end of the day) and then it took me about 3 days to recover. Still worth it!
I also went with my sons to the TIM Summer Hits Music Concert at Piazza del Popolo in the centre of Rome. We'd been planning it for ages and I'm not one to give up easily. Again a bit of a struggle but we all ended up having a fantastic night, singing and dancing. This also took a few days to recover from. Again, it was worth it.
I've basically decided to try and do stuff when I can. Life is for living and I want as many happy memories as possible.
Fitness
I've slowly been trying to increase my number of daily steps again and doing some light workouts. Not always easy, especially in this heatwave (we're about 40° with the humidity here in Rome at the moment and on red alert).
I've been mainly doing arms exercises as my stomach area is still too delicate to do much. With all abdominal exercises and even leg work like squats out of the picture (squats actually work your lower abs quite a lot), I've been trying to do arm exercises most days and I'm already seeing a small improvement. I'll put together some blog posts soon with all the exercises I've been doing. All are suitable for complete beginners.
How did you do with your Challenges in June? What challenges are you doing for 2025? Join the conversation in the comments section.
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