April/May 2025 Wrap Up: What Happened | Jo Linsdell

April/May 2025 Wrap Up: What Happened

 

  

April/May 2025 Wrap Up What Happened


Lifestyle: April/May 2025 Wrap Up 

What Happened in April and May


Join me as I recap what happened in April and May with my hair, blog, health, reading, travel and fitness.


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Welcome to my April/May 2025 wrap up. A lot has happened over the past couple of months so here's a break down of what I got up to.

Unfortunately we started April with a funeral. The dad of my sons friends died. It came as a huge surprise to all of us and definitely brought home how everything can change in a moment. 

My youngest had his Invalsi exams at school so that was a little stressful. He's now preparing for his final exams which will be taking place in June. Can't believe he's so close to being done with middle school. These past three years have just flown by! 

Also in April, I had some issues with my Kindle reading app. There was a glitch and it removed all my books from my app. Luckily they were all still on my account so I didn't lose any but it's meant that I have to manual add them back onto my app again. On the upside it's given me a chance to rediscover books I'd forgotten I had on there that I still haven't read yet. 

I've also been having numerous health problems but I'll go into more detail about that later in the post. 


Wrapping Up April and May: What Happened


Hair

I decided to stick with brown hair for now and dyed it with Schwarzkopf Natural and Easy Natural Brown 570. I'm loving this colour and have decided to carry on using this colour for while. I'll post a full review soon to give more details.


Health

My health has been a bit of an ongoing disaster for a long time now. 

I gave myself a goal to meditate every day in April. The idea being to improve my mindfulness and destress. As I'm a beginner I decided to use some apps to help me. 

As I already had the FitOn app installed in my phone I started with that one. They have a variety of different types of video meditations and affirmations to choose from. Unfortunately I didn't complete the whole month but I'll be reporting back soon with my full review of each app I tried. 

April wasn't great for my health but May was worse. I got hospitalised twice in the intensive ward, was in a lot of pain, and couldn't eat or even drink water for over a week. 

I'm incredibly grateful for all the amazing staff at the hospital who took care of me. Especially my doctor who realised straight away at our control visit that something was seriously wrong and sent me straight to the emergency room.

Turns out I have an extra long colon and diverticulitis which caused multiple blockages in my intestine. It is also the reason I have chronic gastritis and suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease. It also explains why my immune system is constantly struggling. In fact it explains a lot in general when it comes to my health issues. 

This is a big deal. I finally know what the cause of my chronic health problems is. It's taken 44 years but I've got the diagnosis! At least now I know what I'm dealing with and have specialist help to manage it.

I still need to have more tests done and I'm also still waiting on the results of the biopsies they did during my gastroscopy. Hopefully I'll have those soon. I'll also be having routine control visits from now on.


You might also like: Monthly Goal Ideas for Better Health


Blogging


I'm happy to report that my DA score has gone up (in March it was 27).  

Traffic for April: 88,834 page-views

Number of blog posts published in April: 16

Current DA score: 28


During April I was trying to get back into working on improving my website, updating older posts and checking for errors, broken links etc... 

I went on Google Search Console and discovered that some of my links weren't indexed by Google. I've since been going through to make sure all my links result as indexed and submitting those that aren't. 


Traffic for May:  54,347 page-views

Number of blog posts published in May: 12

Current DA score: 28


Reading challenges


I was still going slowly with my reading but in April I did get back into more of a routine of reading daily (even if only a little at a time). In May my health didn't allow me to read much. Hopefully I'll get my groove back soon. 

The Clock Reading Challenge 2025

I created the Clock Reading Challenge a few years ago as I thought it would be fun and not too difficult to complete. 

If you need some help finding books for the challenge check out Books with Numbers 1-12 in the Title: Clock Reading Challenge.

I completed the Clock Reading Challenge 2024. You can find all the books I read for the challenge here. 

You can now join in the Clock Reading Challenge 2025


The Clock Reading Challenge 2025 May update




Books read:


9 - Nine Minutes Eleven Seconds by L.V. Pederson - My Review - Amazon - Goodreads

8 - Cabin Eight by Susan Specht Oram - My Review (coming soon) - Amazon - Goodreads

3 - A Body in 3B by Eryn Scott - My Review (coming soon) - Amazon - Goodreads


The Net Galley TBR Reading Challenge 2025




The Net Galley TBR Reading Challenge 2025 April/May Update



Books read: 

Nine Minutes Eleven Seconds by L.V. Pederson - My Review - Amazon - Goodreads

The Summer Dare by Joanna Dodd - My Review (coming soon) - Amazon - Goodreads


Other books read:

All Spell Breaks Loose by Annabel Chase - My Review (coming soon) - Amazon - Goodreads



Currently reading:

Shadow in the Ward by Ari Gray - currently on page 116/345 - Amazon - Goodreads




Travel



Whilst I did manage to go briefly to the 1st May concert held at San Giovanni this year, we did have to leave early. My health just hasn't allowed for getting out and about.  


Fitness


I gave myself a goal of walking over 10,000 steps every day in April and I'm happy to report that I managed it most days (some I went over so that gave me an average of over 10K a day by the end of the month even if I didn't quite make it to 10K on a few days). 

I've discovered that I actually really like walking. Whilst most of my steps were done outside I did try a few of these easy walking workouts too.

I also gave myself a goal of 100 squats every day in April which I also completed.

Unfortunately exercising of any kind wasn't an option in May. 






April/May 2025 Wrap Up What Happened



How did you do with your Challenges in April and May? What challenges are you doing for 2025? Join the conversation in the comments section. 

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3 comments

  1. I'm so glad you are finally getting the proper care after a long-awaited diagnosis. Sending you all the healing vibes!

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  2. I’m relieved to hear you finally have a diagnosis for your health concerns! You’ve experienced a great deal of discomfort. My husband has acid reflux and swears by gum! He reports that chewing gum helps him more than any otc meds he’s tried. 🤷‍♀️ He is also very careful with his diet, eats light meals frequently, and sits up straight for a period of time after a meal. I’m amazed at all you accomplish while dealing with all this!

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    Replies
    1. Oh…. DA drives me crazy! It’s like a yo-yo! I’ve stopped looking because it’s so disheartening!

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