I’m updating about my progress with my 27 by 27 goals list.

Catching up with my friends

Related goals:

• ✨ Reunite with at least one person whom I have not seen in person for at least a year.

  ✅ Complete!
• ⚡️ Meet at least one online friend whom I have not met before.

  ✅ Complete!

Reuniting with someone I haven’t seen in over a year was just a little bit hard. Who haven’t I seen in over a year? It would mean getting in touch with old coworkers or even high school friends… and honestly, high school friends? I only really talk to two friends from high school, eep. (Those two would be my best pals Lilian and Dylan, BTW!) I’d reunited with some friends earlier this year after not having seen them in over a year, but that was before I made this list. And I was not going to wait another year to see them again just for the sake of completing this goal.

I actually follow some of my high school friends on Instagram. I chose to reach out to my friend Anika who I tutored during university as she wanted to learn web development. She was on vacation at the time I contacted her but I’d still love to catch up with her at some point!

I ended up catching up with my friend Ryan, whom I first met in university. Several years ago, he moved four hours out of town, and as timing would have it, he was actually moving back to Sydney this month as he’d gotten a pretty good job offer. So Nick and I met up with him – I hadn’t seen him in three years. :O He hadn’t changed, really – but then again, I don’t think I had, either. 😄

In terms of meeting an online friend, well, I actually met my friend Cozza in Perth. I have actually known her for some time, and she was always around on social media, but went quiet for a bit with regards to blogging. When we met up in her hometown in Perth, she wasn’t too familiar with the city area because she lives out in the suburbs (like me, I guess!). Our meet went really well; it was so nice to meet a fellow Australian because a lot of people I’ve met online are from countries other than Australia. We had Japanese for lunch since we both love Japan and Japanese culture.

Fitness and wellbeing

Related goals:

• 💪 Achieve a physical result of a more visibly toned abdominal area.
• 🍑 Achieve a physical result of more shapely glutes!
• 💭 Try my hand at meditation.


So, gym and fitness and all that! I recently started following more inspirational personal trainers and female bodybuilding champions on Instagram, and getting a bit of inspiration from some of their workouts. As I am trying to shape my glutes, I’ve been looking for some better exercises and I’ve found some that target that region, thanks to Amy Pollock and Whitney Simmons sharing some of their workout tips. :) 🍑 I know it sounds almost silly, but I have been measuring my hips and now I’m positive I’m bigger by one centimetre (almost half an inch). Haha.

I absolutely love the fitness community and although I felt myself at a plateau I started to lift heavier weights to get my progress on the rise again. I really want a toned abdominal area but it’s really hard getting that belly fat to disappear. I think I need to try more HIIT cardio (I hate cardio…) to torch that fat and let my abdominal muscles show. 😆 But I have been trying to incorporate a heap of abdominal exercises to the end of my workouts.

I have continued to meditate and am now trying to make it something that I do daily. I usually end up doing it at the end of the day or during the night. I have also tried to attend yoga lessons once a week. I go to the free ones that the Lululemon store in Sydney holds, although one time I tried a class at Yogabar because I had a free coupon. That particular class (flow yoga) was super intense and I sweated a lot. Most people have the wrong idea about yoga and are misinformed, thinking that it’s all about relaxation and stretching, but it’s more than that. You can work up a sweat by challenging the body, but at the same time you listen to your body and what it needs. It’s something that, like meditation, can help increase focus.

Cleaning my wardrobe

Related goals:

• 👗 Pare my wardrobe down to 90 items (excludes shoes, accessories, underwear, or clothes worn only at home/gym).


I’m kinda going backwards with this one. 😰 I have cleaned up some of my clothes a bit, but I’ve also bought and accumulated some more. Now that we have our apartment I am going to be far more ruthless with the clothes I have and do a better job of cutting it all down. I wanted to have 90 items and was going well but now I’ve got almost 123 again.

My black skirts aren’t doing me any favours… I have about 11 of them, all in different styles, and I really probably don’t need that many at all.

Food, food, and more food

Related goals:

• 🍵 Visit at least 20 cafes in Sydney that I have not been to before.
 (5/20)


Over the past few months, Nick and I have visited a handful of cafes. We went to The Grounds of the City (which is a new cafe located in the city) for breakfast.

Closer to home, we went to Badmanner Thymes, which was recommended to us by Dylan, and we caught up with him for brunch there when he visited Sydney again. Also close to home is The Social Hideout, which I had heard about time and time again. Nick and I had brunch with my friend Phuong, who recently moved to Sydney from Perth.

Nick and I had brunch with Lilian as well, at a cafe called Circa. It was a fairly long wait but the food was pretty good.

We also went to Bread and Circus, which is close to our apartment. The cafe was recommended to us by one of Nick’s coworkers. I had parmesan eggs and they were totally delicious. Probably the best breakfast I have ever had in Sydney!

I was going to include some photos in this post but because there are quite a few I will save them for another time.

🏁 Have a look at my 27 by 27. See you at the next Checkpoint.