The Reading Challenge!

Hey guys!
I have always been an avid reader - even from a young age, I would more often than not have my head buried in a book, and would rather be curled up in a comfy chair reading a book than playing games or whatever else.

However, as I've got older, and especially over the past year or so, I've noticed that I've started reading less and less - for example, I asked for the Mortal Instruments books for Christmas 2013, and I still haven't even started reading them yet. It also took me longer than I'd have liked to finish reading The Hunger Games trilogy, which I received at the same time. I used to be able to read a book in about an hour or two - it is both a blessing and a curse being a speed reader, haha - but now, I seem to get easily distracted by other things, like playing my 3DS (Animal Crossing takes up a lot of my time) or just general life gets in the way and I'll have to do something like cook some dinner, or go food shopping.

So, this year, I've decided to put down the electricals, and start reading more again. I have mountains of books in my room (no joke, my room literally has bags and small piles of books EVERYWHERE) and a lot of them are unread. I've set myself a challenge this year, to read at least one book a week, and that means I can declutter my room slowly too, whether I pass the books on to someone else if I like them enough, or donate them to charity if I don't.

I've made a good start to this challenge already - last night, I read Bridesmaids by Jane Costello, which was a cute and lighthearted read to kick things off with, and is good if you like stories about falling in love, funny wedding disasters and more. I also reread Pretty Things by Sarra Manning, recently, and I still love it as much as I ever did!

As well as reading books I already own, I also have a long list of books I want to read jotted down in my diary, and hopefully I'll be able to cross a few of those off my list before the year is out, as well as getting through some of the mountains of books I already own.

I'll probably be writing about some of the books I read on this blog, so if that's the kind of thing that interests you, stay tuned! Also, if I succeed at this challenge, at the end of the year I will be posting a list of the books I read, so if you're at all interested you can see what I read and recommend!

If you think you'd like to do something similar too, let me know! I'm also open to book recommendations, so if you have read any good books lately, leave the title and author in a comment and I'll check it out!

Letter To Myself // Future

Hey guys! 

Yesterday was the letter to my past self - now here's one to my future self! If you enjoy these posts, I tag you to do them, too - it's actually pretty fun!

So, hey there future Amy!

I don’t know when I’m planning on re-reading this – right now I’m thinking when I’m thirty, maybe? – but hopefully, by now, you’ll have finally settled on some kind of career path or have found a job somewhere, doing something you love, or at least like! At the moment, you kind of want to do something creative, maybe music or writing based, but you don’t have a proper plan yet, so I’m hoping that by now (whenever you’re reading this) you’ll at least have a proper plan, if not a decent career!

I also hope that, if you’ve settled down with someone, they’re someone who’s worth it. Relationships can be stressful – as you full well know from your ex, Jesus Christ was that a mess – but if they’re the right person, it’s worth every argument, every bad patch, everything that annoys you about them – if they’re worth it, hang on to them! Fingers crossed it’ll be who you like now – but no biggie if not, I have faith that you’ll have found someone amazing if you’re with someone. If not, don’t worry – you’re just as amazing and wonderful when you’re single, too, and you don’t need someone else to complete your happiness and to complete your world!

Do you still enjoy having weird and wonderful hair colours? Right now, as I’m typing this letter to you, my hair is pale-ish pink – not my favourite, but it’s pretty nice at the same time! I know you used to have a soft spot for black hair, but just remember that it also drains you! Do you still have a nose piercing, too? Remember getting it done for the second time because you had to take it out the first time for various reasons, and how excited you were? Hopefully your tattoos still mean something to you, too – and if you have any more (which hopefully you will – I mean, I have enough planned that hopefully future me will have at least one more) I hope they’re nice, well done and have some kind of meaning like the others do. Also, don’t get the swallow coloured, ever!

I hope you’re living somewhere nice, too – did we ever live in Paris, like I’ve always wanted to, or visit America? Small things like that, which you spent hours endlessly planning in your room, mapping out imaginary road trips and furnishing your dream apartment in Paris…those were the days! I hope you have a fabulous room mate, as well, and that you’re still friends with some people you know now – some are worth everything.

So, future Amy – I hope you’re making yourself proud. That’s all that matters.

Love, present day Amy.

Letter To Myself // 16

Hey guys!

Do you ever wish you could go back in time and give advice to your past self? Well, I do, so I decided that the next best thing would be to write my past self a letter, so I did!

Dear 16 year old Amy, 

So, hey! You managed to survive the tough times – the mornings of having panic attacks before you had to go to school, going out at weekends to see the few people who stuck by you and enjoyed your company, all the health problems and everything! I’m proud of you. 

I remember I found an old diary, a while back – I think I’ve thrown it away again now though – and it made me sad to see how upsetting and stressful everything seemed back then. You wrote endless entries about things that were upsetting you – from school to bullies to exams to hospital appointments – and, although there were a lot of happy things in them too – things like going to gigs to see your favourite band, and going to Camden with your best friends, and even small things like parties at J’s – it was overwhelmingly filled with sadness rather than happiness. I remember that part of my life so vividly, and it makes me upset to look back on it and remember feeling like that – worthless. 

I just wish I could have let you know that things do and will get better, younger Amy – you’ll go to college and make some amazing friends and memories, you’ll make the best friend you’ve always wanted, you’ll do things like dye your hair bright pink and get tattoos – you’ll get more piercings than just your lip, but then take them all out again. You’ll go on holiday again. You’ll be nerdy and sit at home playing games without feeling like people are judging you. You’ll eventually learn that sometimes, it’s better to be single than be wanting a boyfriend constantly, and you’ll also learn that sometimes, relationships look a lot better when other people are in them, and you’re just someone looking in from the outside. You’ll experience a lot of love, and hate. You’ll obviously still experience a lot of sadness – some so bad that your heart will ache and you’ll cry until you have no tears left and yet you’ll still continue – but you’ll also have moments of overwhelming happiness, coming along randomly and enveloping you in a cloud of the warm happy feelings. 

You’ll also remain the same in a lot of ways, over the years – I think no matter how old we get, we’re always going to be experimenting with our hair, getting crushes on guys we know we can’t have, spending too much time listening to music and procrastinating (kind of like when we used to sneak our iPod into school and listen to it during lessons when we had long hair, oops) and generally, you will always live on inside me with the cheekiness and innocence of being a teenager, and being curious about the world. 

Thank you, 16 year old Amy. I think we did good. 

From, present Amy.

Small Update!

Hey guys!

So, this is my first post of this year - HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had an amazing New Year and Christmas, I know I did - it was lovely to get away for a few days and spend some time with family, slobbing around and watching films, playing games and eating far too much amazing food!
I'm kind of sad to go back to routine and stress again now, aha, and it doesn't help that I somehow managed to pick up a cold from somewhere, but that's life!

Last year, I managed to get myself so disorganised with blogging - obviously, at the moment, I'm blogging once a week at birdsontheblog as well as blogging occasionally on here, but I feel like I was neglecting this blog more and more as the year went on, and I don't want that to continue this year - I feel like I should be posting on here at least once a week as well, even if it's just to do an awesome tag I've found, a review of a product I have, or just spilling my mind out like I used to. Writing, for me, is a good way to clear my head, and I miss it when I don't do it very much. So, this year, I'd love to try and post once a week at least on here, as well as carrying on with my Friday slot on birdsontheblog for as long as they still want me.

I'm not saying I won't get writer's block - cause knowing me, I still will - but as long as I try and stay on track and plan out my schedule, I think it'll be fine (she says as she internally panics, aha) 
So, to make sure I don't start slacking already and break my resolution to blog more, I have two new posts going up over the weekend :D

But yeah, this was just a quick post to let you know my plans and what I've been up to, pretty much :) I hope you enjoy the posts at the weekend, and please feel free to comment and let me know what kind of posts you'd like to see me do in the near future :D

New Year's Resolutions // 2015

Hey guys!

So, it's about that time of year that I usually start to think about making my New Year's resolutions - which is probably leaving it a bit late, as it's tomorrow, but better late than never right? Every year I make them, and every year I end up failing  – sometimes I’ll stick to them for a while, but sometimes I’ll fail within the first couple of days, haha. I’m not one of those people who says things like “NEW YEAR NEW ME” (if you're one of those people, sorry but it irritates me a lot, haha) but I think that this year, most of my resolutions will revolve around things that I know I need to change in my life (either for my health or my happiness) and hopefully that means I’ll be more likely to stick to them and not break them within days.

The first, and most important, of my resolutions is that I need to eat healthier. On the whole, I eat reasonably healthily, but I also have a sweet tooth, which isn’t good, and I also tend to eat a lot of carbs, which can bloat me out. Next year, I’d like to cut a lot of food out of my diet that doesn’t make me feel good, and replace it with healthier alternatives – for example, I’ll be replacing white rice and pasta with brown rice and pasta, and eating Greek yogurt and fruit instead of cake or sweets. I’ll also be cutting down on the amount of tea and squash that I drink, and will be replacing it with flavoured water and fruit/herbal teas.

This leads nicely into my next resolution – I need to get more sleep, and sort out my sleeping pattern. At the moment, I am a night owl – I prefer to get up later, then I usually end up staying awake until the small hours, either reading, playing games or watching videos. This means that I’m usually really tired during the day, and it means that I hardly ever seem to have very much motivation or energy as a result. This will probably mean turning my phone off at night (so I don't get distracted by Twitter and YouTube, oops) and putting my laptop and other gadgets in a drawer after a certain time, so I won't be tempted to go on them if I can't sleep.

Another thing I really want to do next year is visit some new places. I went for a few years without a passport, so now I have one again I’d love to go on holiday, and maybe do a few day trips to a few fairly nearby places like Paris and Amsterdam. I feel like I haven’t really travelled very much in my life – I’ve been to Spain, and to the South of France, but that’s been about it, and there’s so many places I’d love to experience! Don’t get me wrong, I love living so close to London and think it’s an amazing city, but I’d also love to experience a few more places in the world too. I already have a few very loose plans made for holidays, so hopefully the plans will soon be a reality and I'll be able to do some more travelling and see more places. 

Another thing I'd also love to be able to achieve this year is to try and build on my confidence/self esteem  – I know that I’m probably never going to be able to look at myself in the mirror and like what I see, but I’d like to actually not feel like I’m about to cry when I catch sight of myself. I’d also like to find a way to stop comparing myself to everyone else, as I know that everyone’s different and beautiful in their own way, but I just can’t see the good in myself (years of pretty much relentless bullying will do that to you) so I’m determined to find a way to try and actually like myself a little better, for pretty much the first time ever. This is the one resolution that I'm pretty much already expecting to fail, no matter what, but I'm determined to at least give it a pretty good go!

I think that one way that I can feel better about myself is to add to my tattoo collection – at the moment, I have three, and I love them all to pieces, but I’d love to get a few more as well. I’ve been planning out what tattoos I want since I was fairly young, but I’ve not been able to get some of the ones I want the most, so hopefully next year I’ll be able to get at least one! The ones I have at the moment are small enough to hide, and in places that are easy enough to hide them, and the ones I have planned will (on the whole) be the same, so hopefully this year, my tattoo dreams will finally become a reality! There's one I've been planning since I was about 14, so it'd be lovely if I could finally manage to get it done!

Another thing I can do to make myself happy is to see my friends more – unfortunately for me, most of my favourite people live reasonably far away from me, and a lot of the time our schedules conflict too, so I don’t get to see a lot of my friends as often as I’d like to. In the new year, I’d like to hopefully see my friends at least once every few months, as we talk a lot but it’s definitely not the same as meeting up and having a good old catch up over coffee and window shopping! There's a few people I've not seen in literally years that I'd like to see, and I'd love to get back into contact with some of the people that I've lost touch with over the years, so hopefully 2015 will be that year - I already have a few vague plans to see some people, so that's a good start, don't you agree?

Finally, I’d like to get back into the swing of blogging! I’ve kind of been neglecting this blog recently - as you've probably noticed -  so I really need to be more organised with it all really. I’ve got a massive organiser calendar thing put to one side, and I’ll be investing in a notebook and pen to carry around with me and jot down blog ideas, as half the time I forget to do that, or I scribble them down on a scrap of paper and promptly lose it again straight away! I'd also love to continue blogging for Birds On The Blog for as long as I'm wanted, as I've been doing it for over a year now (wow, it doesn't feel like that long)

So, there we have it – my resolutions for the New Year! Whether or not I stick to them is a whole different matter, haha, but I’m hoping that if I have them written down, I’ll be able to remember them better, which will hopefully mean sticking to them better!

If you set yourself resolutions too, I wish you the best of luck with them too!

Reading Habits Tag!

Hey guys!

As you may or may not already know, I'm a massive bookworm, so when I stumbled across this tag I knew I had to do it!

I'm lucky enough that I was always encouraged to read a lot from a young age, and - this is either a blessing or a curse, I'm not too sure - I am also a speed reader, so I get through books pretty quickly. I love the way you can read a book, and if it's written well, you can lose yourself in it completely and immerse yourself in the story in your mind.

So, without further ado, here is the tag - feel free to do it yourself too if you enjoyed it!

1 - DO YOU HAVE A CERTAIN PLACE AT HOME FOR READING?

I usually either read while I'm curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea, or when I'm in bed propped up with loads of cushions and pillows. I really want a window seat though, I think it'd be lovely to sit there with a lovely view and sunlight spilling into the room while you immerse yourself in a book.

2 - BOOKMARK OR RANDOM PIECE OF PAPER?

In an ideal world, I'd have a bookmark, but I used to lose all of mine so now I usually use whatever I can find that's near me when I decide to stop reading.

3 - CAN YOU JUST STOP READING OR DO YOU HAVE TO REACH THE END OF A CHAPTER/A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF PAGES?

I don't like just stopping in the middle of a page, even if it's at the end of a paragraph or something, because I usually end up forgetting where I was up to and either accidentally skipping a paragraph, or re-reading the same bit. I like to get to the end of a chapter because then it's just easier to start from a new chapter, plus I get impatient and like knowing how the chapter I'm reading is going to end.

4 - DO YOU EAT OR DRINK WHILE READING?

I don't generally eat while I'm reading, but I like drinking tea when I'm reading, even though half the time I get really immersed in my book and forget about the tea, then go to drink it and it's stone cold, ugh.

5 - MULTITASKING ~ MUSIC OR TV WHILE READING?

Watching TV, no way, how can people try and watch TV while they're reading?! I like to lose myself in the story of a book, so no way would I be able to concentrate if I was getting distracted by that! Music is okay, I usually listen to instrumental music rather than something with lyrics if I'm reading though - I like game music, it's relaxing and I usually just have it on quietly as background noise because I don't really like complete silence.

6 - ONE BOOK AT A TIME, OR SEVERAL AT ONCE?

I've tried to read several books at once before, and I don't really like doing that because it means I can't savour the stories properly, and I've got stuff jumbled up before in my mind before. So, I usually like to stick to just the one book at a time.

7 - READING AT HOME OR EVERYWHERE?

Everywhere.

8 - READING OUT LOUD OR SILENTLY IN YOUR HEAD?

Generally, I read silently in my head, unless I find something that I feel like I should tell someone, in which case I'll quote that passage/sentence at them. I'd feel weird reading out loud to myself...

9 - DO YOU READ AHEAD/SKIP PAGES?

No! I like reading the book in the order it was written, the only time I ever "skip" pages is if it's like the contents page or whatever. I wouldn't want to skip pages in a book, you'd end up missing parts of the story and it seems pointless.

10 - BREAKING THE SPINE OR KEEPING IT LIKE NEW?

Definitely keeping it like new, oh my God. I hate it when you have a book in pristine condition and you lend it to someone and they crack the spine, it makes me want to hit them! My mum borrowed my copy of The Fault In Our Stars and she cracked the spine and I nearly cried when she gave it back to me. I have a lot of second hand books as well, and even though the spines are cracked on a lot of them, I still try not to crack it more if I can help it.

11 - DO YOU WRITE IN YOUR BOOKS?

No! Obviously I used to write in them when I was at school, mainly my name in the textbooks like you were meant to, and in English when we were studying plays and stuff, when we had to write notes in the margin and underline stuff. It's fine for books that you have to write in - for example, Wreck This Journal and The Pointless Book - but in other books, no way.

Toxic Trash And Fabulous Friendships

Hey guys!
Sorry if this post ended up being kind of rambly, I was inspired to write it at around 6am, so it's quite long and chatty, but I hope you enjoy it and I make sense anyway! 

So, people are strange. I know that this is probably a weird thing to write a blog post about, and I don't even know if anyone apart from myself is ever going to read it, but think about it - you find someone and you're like, I like you, we click, let's hang out and be friends. 

There's also some people who we think we like, and we think we can trust, but over time you find out things about them that you don't like, or you drift apart from them, and you're like, why did I even ever want to hang out with you in the first place? Sadly, you have to mix the toxic people with the amazing people for a while, but once the toxic people leave, you will hopefully be left with absolute diamonds in your life!

There's this one guy I used to hang out with - he was friends with my ex-boyfriend, and they lived together, so when I used to see my ex, he was around a lot too. We got kind of close at one point, and then he moved away and we lost contact for ages. Eventually, he got back in contact with me on Facebook, and we got talking again. We used to like each other at one point, and he kept saying he missed me and wanted to be with me, but he also kept harping on about the distance and how he didn't want to have a long distance relationship. I live just outside of London and he lives in Hampshire, it was hardly the distance of the century! So anyway, we got back in contact, and we went through phases of talking and then not talking for ages, and him saying that he still liked me and all of this. Then, out of the blue, he gets into a relationship, and not long after this, he deleted me off Facebook. Let's get one thing straight, guy who will remain anonymous for this blog post - you don't comment stuff on my pictures saying how pretty I look when I'm a brunette, and tell me that you want to be with me and then not make any effort whatsoever to meet up, not talk to me for ages, and pretty much delete me from your life. That isn't how life works.

Another example of a toxic person I used to have in my life is my ex-boyfriend. I refrained from writing about him when we broke up (correction, I broke up with him) as I wanted to kind of forget about it all, but over time I've realised that a, he's actually a pretty horrible person and b, he wasted no time bitching about me online and being a turd when he got in contact with me, so I felt like I could write about him if I needed to, e.g. right now! So there we go! (That's my disclaimer and I'm sticking to it!)

Basically, now I look back on it all, I'm amazed that I actually lasted over two years in that relationship, and that I didn't walk away sooner than I did. To put it bluntly, and without going into too much detail, he pretty much lied about most things (if not everything) even if it was something minor - example, I preordered a CD once and he was going to pick it up for me, I asked him if he'd got it and he said yeah - turns out, it wasn't even out for another week! Seriously, pointless thing to lie about, why bother? He also always used to lie about whether or not he'd left mine to go and meet his friends or not, and I assume he did the same whenever he was "running late" to meet me, aka he couldn't be bothered to meet me so he used to lie and make up excuses about why he was late/wasn't coming.

Another thing - the most important thing - is that he was cheating on me. I don't know how long for, and I don't know how many people with, but the warning signs were there for a long time and I didn't pick up on it soon enough, and I still kick myself for that. There was this one girl we'd met at a concert, who actually had a boyfriend at the time. Me and my ex were having problems, so we were planning on going on a break BUT NOT DOING ANYTHING WITH ANYONE ELSE, JUST HAVING SOME SPACE for a few weeks to think about things. Next thing you know, she's liking his relationship status changing to single, and writing indirect statuses about me calling me a "dopey whore", I do believe were the exact words, and then she proceeded to delete her vile comments - but not before I screen shotted them. He claims that, despite her comments about them going to meet up and stuff, he didn't see her in that way, and idiot that I was back then, I believed him. It isn't until later, when I found proof on his laptop (HIS laptop which he gave ME on my birthday because he "forgot" to get me a present, ladies and gentlemen) in the form of pictures and screenshots, that I knew my gut feeling was correct all along. Yep. If you have a gut feeling, it will be correct. Gut feelings never fail, guys. So yeah. That was a massive factor of me finally putting my foot down and having the strength to leave him once and for all, despite him pretty much begging for another chance.

Also - he eventually tried to get back in contact with me, only to ask me if I had any jewellery making supplies left (side note, I used to make jewellery, and I might be starting again soon, yay!) and, here's the kicker, he wanted it for his new girlfriend, who coincidentally ALSO MAKES JEWELLERY! So, basically, I ignored that, blocked him right away, then marvelled at his barefaced cheek and showed my mum, who laughed and made me tea. 

On the flip side, there's some amazing people in my life, who are the least toxic people you could ever hope to meet, and who make me endlessly happy. I've been lucky enough to end up with some perfect people in my life who I wouldn't trade for anything, and who have stuck with me through the good and the bad, the smiles and the tears, the secrets and celebrity stalking! (not really stalking, you know what I mean!)

Pretty much the best person in my life at the moment, and one of the few people I couldn't imagine not being a part of my life now, is my best friend. We met at a band's video shoot around 4 years ago now (wow, I feel old!) when I was at college, and we kept in touch on Facebook and stuff and slowly, we realised how much we had in common and became best friends! She lives in Essex, and yet we still manage to see each other around once a month or so, as well as texting pretty much non-stop every evening/night (see, guy who is remaining anonymous, if me and my best friend can make the effort to see each other every month and talk every day, why can't you make the effort with me when I try and make plans with/text you? Makes no sense to me) She is literally the person I turn to for pretty much everything, whether I'm happy or sad, if I need advice or just want someone to send funny GIFs to or gossip about cute guys (luckily, we have opposite taste in guys - example, she likes Dan Howell, aka Danisnotonfire, and I like Phil Lester, aka Amazingphil, so we never argue over guys)

I also have a lot of other fabulous friends, who I mainly see at gigs and stuff but are some of the greatest people you can ever hope to meet and who I wish I got to see more than I actually do! There's also the adorable people I know online, who I'm yet to meet, who make me smile no matter how rubbish I might be feeling, and who send me cute pictures of cats and wolves or give me random compliments to cheer me up, for example. 

So, there you go. There's two kinds of people - the amazing people, who make life worth living, and the toxic people, who bring you down and generally turn the atmosphere and your mood sour - there's also many many sub-categories of both of these kinds of people, but I won't go into that now. Obviously, it's good to cut out the bad people as soon as possible (and maybe have the occasional rant about them as I ended up doing, oops) and surround yourself with the good people, but sometimes it's not that easy - sometimes, the toxic people are disguised as good people, and vice versa. 

Time will reveal all, and hopefully you'll manage to rid yourself of the toxic people before they kill the spark in you that makes you unique and amazing, and you'll be left with the people who make you shine and bring out the best of you!