Life update

Hi sweethearts,

Since I've been undergoing a couple of changes in my life, I thought it would be a good thing to keep you guys updated about things! So in this post I'll tell you everything that's been going on.

Just so you know, I took a blogging-break in Cinque Terre. Such a beautiful place to travel to. I really love the Italian vibe. The turquoise sea, the colored houses, the (unhealthy) food,... i just love to travel to be away from my actual life. To reload and distract my mind from my daily life and the daily struggles I need to deal with. I'll tell you guys more about that later.

First of all: I got a new job. Working in education means that you cet contracts for a schoolyear, but sometimes the school can't take you back the next year. This has happened to me twice before.

I've started my third schoolyear now. Every year, I worked at a different school. Also to those of you who don't know what I do for living: I'm a special needs educator. I work with special needs kids in regular schools. I support those kids and I support teachers, to be able to teach these kids too. I love my job, it's often challenging but I love it.

Second update: I also started my own business. I can officially say that Stylinglikesteph is now a onepersons business, run as a secondary occupation. This means that I can style hair for money now and that I can also post promotions and blogs for money. So hopefully with this, I'll be able to do more hair for events such as festivals, weddings,... Styling hair is just something I really love to do as a hobby so it's fun to actually be able to get something back from it.

To be able to do my hobby as a real business is just so much fun. But still, my real job is working in education, which is my real passion. Styling hair doesn't give me lifepurpose, my actual job does. So I'll probably never will do this all as a fulltime job... UNLESS I could travel fulltime haha!

Update number 3: a fun one...coming from a not so much fun one.. As you guys know, I love animals and I promote a cruelty free life for them. I, myself have a beautiful dog at home, and two gerbils. Gerbils are Mongolian dwarf hamsters to those of you wondering. They kinda look like mini rats. They are super friendly and love to play. I had a gerbil of 4,5 years old. The past months, he's not been so well and eventually he passed away. I cried for four days straight. But I know that I gave him a good life.

-A small disclaimer: gerbils are animals such as rats, so often used for reasearch and awefull animal testing. NEVER buy sweethearts like that, because you'll support this cruelty. Always try to save them.-

Gerbils are social animals, who don't usually live all alone. So I had two of them. I recently adopted a new one, so that the remaining gerbils could have a new friend! This has been a hard process but we're working on it haha!

I'm happy that I was able to save this gerbil. He lived in a very small cage and the owner didn't have time for him anymore. She posted him on a secondhand shopping website, how weird is that? It's like actual living creatures can become "secondhanded". But: I'm happy that I did this because I know that I can give him a good life, WITH a friend. Who knows what would've happened with him if she couldn't find a new parent...

So also why I'm a bit distracted from working and blogging: I'm training them to be friends. This has been very hard since they are both two very dominent men, apparently. If I knew before thet the owner wouldn't have another friend for him, I'd probably send him to a shelter (because I knew that he wouldn't be used to being wiht another gerbil). But so, we're all doing our very best to match them. I'm putting them in splitted cages to get to know each other. Putting them in a regular cage, together, causes fights. The first time I tried this, they bit me really hard and it was blood everywhere haha!

So I'm actually forcing them to become friends, so that they don't get bored alone and that the geribl I had, doesn't have to mourn too much. The first days after the passing, he slept a lot and really seemed depressed. This was just awefull to see. So now, I'm here, writing this blogpost, with the cage next to me, trying to keep an eye on both of them, which isn't easy!

Update number 4: Yes, so much going on, I know... But I've been dancing a lot also. In october, I have a dance recital that I organised with my dancegroup and we've been practicing constantly. I love the fact that we're doing it all by ourselves and that we're able to make the dance routines too. It's for me a great way to distract myself from stress.

And last but not least: Update number 5: I've been doing a lot of collaborations with pr-agencies and brands lately. I told you guys before, I unfollowed a lot of non-vegan brands and started following only all-vegan brands. I discovered that there are so many options out there to choose for cruelty free options! A lot of brands have contacted me yet to try their products out and I really love this. Let's all make this world cruelty free. It's just not necessary to use animals to test products on. There are so many options (just google them!).

So e-mailing them took a lot of my time, but it's worth it. The products I liked, will also show up in my blogs or on my social media.

So, that was a lot of info haha! See you next time and thanks for reading this!

Wish you all a happy week.

X Steph