Playback: January 2012 Highlights

How quickly is this year passing? Already we are days into the 2nd month of the year and I’m only just publishing my January monthly highlights.

This month’s highlight/playback will give you an insight into my blogging life.

January was more about professional achievements for me. I was given more responsibilities at work which gave me a great sense of achievement but it also meant that I had less time to spend working on the blog and often saw me up into the wee hours some nights trying to finish my work or a blog post (so much for that new years’ resolution to get into better sleeping habits). Truth be told, for the most parts, blogging is far from glamourous or fun.

Most days, hours can pass just to find the right words to describe the texture or scent of yet another face cream or the shade of that muted berry-pink lipstick. Compound that with writer’s block sometimes, I assure you, it can be quite stressful.

Then there’s the time spent to find and research all the facts about a product, its pricing and ingredients and any scientific support behind the at times ostentatious claim. There's also the waiting for the opportune moment for good lighting to do product swatching and face-of-the-day (FOTD) shoots in good natural light where possible.

After all that, there is editing work in Photoshop to fix the lighting, crop it and apply watermarks to the photos. Sometimes I wonder how it doesn’t consume all my time and how I manage to have a life outside of work and blogging at all. But honestly,  I love blogging and I wouldn’t have it any other way (but don't ask me that question when I've only had 5 hours sleep that day!).

I find time (to the detriment of my beauty sleep) to write and still try to have a balanced lifestyle catching up with overseas friends who came to Melbourne to visit, take a mini-trip away with my best friends and let my hair down on Friday night drinks.

Onto other blogging news, January saw the launch of Kiehl’s highly anticipated midnight recovery eye complex to complement its popular Midnight Recovery concentrate (and I promise a great giveaway to go with it later this month!), falling in love with Face of Australia illuminators, finding my perfect red lip liner as well as finding a HG product in Alpha-H to give me amazing skin.

Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Eye cream launch

So 2012 has been a frantic and fabulous start with a great array of beauty product findings; I can only see it getting more exciting and fun-filled in the weeks and months ahead. Now I just need to make sure I can keep pace.

What has been your achievements for the last month? 
How do you get yourself motivated when you lose your Mojo?

A view from the top of  Mt. Hotham on a brilliant Summer's day during my long weekend away.