Calming Colouring

Hey guys! 

Before I start, I'd just like to mention that I'm not being paid to write about this and none of the books I talk about were gifted to me (minus one which was a christmas present), I paid for them all myself and I am not sponsored to write this. I simply adore colouring books.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve loved stickers and colouring in. My family were always buying me sticker books, colouring books and endless crayons, pencils, felt tips etc – occasionally, they’d also get me those colouring books that you just used to paint over with water to reveal the colour underneath (I loved those a lot too) and I think I used to make a lot of mess doing this, haha!

When I was a teenager, I used to love printing off pictures and patterns from the internet and colouring those in – mainly from Hello Kitty and The Bubblegum Club sites (I used to love the Bubblegum character greetings cards you could get, they were awesome!) and eventually, when I got bored of doing that, I started doodling patterns and colouring those in instead – quite often on my schoolbooks and planner, and even occasionally in the margins of my homework (which isn’t a good idea – I think I may have got detention a few times for doing that).

So, when I first heard about colouring books aimed at adults a few years back, I really wanted one for the nostalgia – plus, I wanted to see what kind of designs they’d have in more adult orientated colouring books! Plus, as someone who has anxiety, I find it calming to colour things in or do something that keeps my mind and hands occupied, so this kind of thing would be perfect for me, and other people who may feel the same!

I went on Amazon and looked around for a while, and there were so many that looked amazing! My eye was drawn to the tattoo colouring book first, though, so I actually ended up asking for it for Christmas last year. It’s beautifully illustrated, full of both large and smaller pictures, and it’s actually giving me ideas for other tattoos I’d maybe love to get one day, oops. I’ve only coloured in a few of them so far, as I don’t want it to run out too soon and half the time, I’m a lot calmer when I’m only partway through the picture.

I then saw another colouring book with a really intricate fox on the cover – the art therapy colouring book – and I fell in love with it, so I had to order that too! This one is slightly different, however, as it’s split into two sections – the first section is purely for colouring, and the second, slightly smaller section is for finishing the designs as well as colouring, which is pretty fun too!

A few weeks ago, I noticed that they sell colouring books in my local Sainsbury's, so I ended up buying some of the more beautiful, intricate ones I saw and fell in love with instantly - a couple of them are adventure/quest books as well as colouring, but I still think they're amazing, as they keep your mind working while you're colouring too! 

Tropical Wonderland colouring book

Animal Kingdom colouring book

Enchanted Forest colouring/quest book

Secret Garden colouring/quest book 

What do you think about colouring books? Do you like them and/or use them? Or do you think they should only be for kids?

General Life Update!

Hey guys!

I'm sorry I've not been around lately - as you can probably tell from my last post, I haven't really been having the greatest year, and it's been going from bad to worse since then too. I thought it would be better to kick things off again with a blog explaining why I've been away, rather than just chucking up a blog about something else as my first post back.

First things first, I'm really sorry I've been away - I've still been blogging pretty much every week over on Birds, but even that's been a bit of a struggle sometimes, and there were a few weeks when I literally only scheduled a post about 5 minutes before it was supposed to be live - although luckily that hasn't been the case for a while now. 

It also hasn't helped that my internet hasn't been working properly for a while - I've had my phone, sure, but I find it a lot harder to post from there, plus my data allowance isn't that high anyway - but luckily, I've got that sorted now, and while the signal isn't the most amazing thing in the world, it's definitely better than no internet, so I should be able to post fairly regularly again now. 

Not long after my ex boyfriend died, my dog got ill. He had been ill for a while, but he wasn't getting any better, and unfortunately after one particularly horrible night (where we were up all night with him) we had to make the heartbreaking decision to have him put to sleep. So, that really hit me hard - one death is bad enough when it's someone you loved, but it's even worse when you have another death and it's a pet you'd had for ages who was basically a member of the family. On top of that, my internet wasn't working, and I also had some other personal issues going on (that I don't feel particularly comfortable discussing) so I decided that it would be for the best if I took a break from blogging until I was feeling better and life had calmed down enough that blogging wouldn't feel overwhelming. 

I feel like now is that time.

It'll take me a while to get back into a routine, but I'm going to aim to post at least once a week from now - this will give me time to come up with content that will hopefully be interesting to everyone, as well as thinking of things that I actually want to blog about and will enjoy writing about.

So, here's to a new beginning.

RIP Dan // Memories and Pictures

Hey guys!

So, this post is going to be a lot different from any post I've ever written, and a lot harder too - I still can't get my head around it, and my thoughts are all over the place, but I just wanted somewhere to write this all down and say what I wanted to say. If you don't want to read it, please click off now, as it'll probably be kinda emotional and everything, but I just wanted to say some things.

Last weekend, one of my best friends told me that my ex boyfriend, Dan, had died from kidney failure - he was only 25 years old. I knew he has kidney failure, as we were still together when he first got diagnosed, and I used to go and visit him in hospital a lot, but the last I heard about 6 months back, he was doing okay and everything was under control. Needless to say, even though I had been there when the doctors predicted he wouldn't live much past 25 unless he got a transplant, I never for a second actually thought that he would actually die that young. No one deserves to die so young.

We may have got together pretty quickly, but I never felt like we were going too fast. We met at a festival in Kent, and we spent pretty much the whole day together watching bands, eating sweet and sour chicken, chatting to bands and each other, and generally just getting to know each other a bit better. I hadn't originally planned to stay at the festival, as I only had a day ticket, but me and the friends I went with ended up crashing at the festival that night. The next day, before we left, he asked if I wanted to meet up in London before he had to get his coach back to Nottingham, and I agreed, so I went home and got ready before heading back out to London to meet him. We got along so well, just hanging around in London and wandering around aimlessly, and before he left he asked me out. Below is the first picture we ever took together, and to this day is one of my favourite pictures ever.

We used to talk every day, whether it was on MSN, texting on something like Facebook or emails, and we used to talk on the phone a lot too. After a while, he invited me to stay with him in Nottingham for a week or so, and I couldn't wait - I was staying with family just before, and they drove me to the station to meet him, and we went to his. I have so many memories of that time - he used to work night shifts, so I used to stay awake all night waiting for him to get back (he used to leave his iPod with me, and I had mine, so we used to alternate listening to one iPod and charging the other so we always had music playing) and when he got back he'd usually bring me breakfast and then we'd go to sleep for a while to make up for being awake all night. We used to walk to Asda and buy a load of stuff we probably didn't even need. He asked me to bleach and dye his hair for him while I was there, as he wanted a green fringe, so we got all the stuff we needed and on a whim, I decided to use the leftover bleach on my hair (I was sandy blonde at the time) and ended up with platinum blonde hair with bright pink bits, and he had black hair with a greeny blue fringe. We stole the kettle from his communal kitchen once for a few days, as we used to drink a lot of tea and coffee in his room (which was massive) and we used to go down when no one else was around and cook - one time, we got some bacon,  but it looked really gross when we were cooking it. We also used to go to the McDonald's near him a lot and get free hot chocolate - he worked there - and use their wifi on our iPods for a while, before going for walks near the river.

While I was in Nottingham, I also met some of his family for the first time, which was nice even though I was terrified - I was so nervous that I was going to make a bad impression, but I don't think I did, luckily! Below are some of my favourite pictures from this time.

;

After we'd been together for a while, we kept joking around about getting engaged - eventually, the joking became reality, and when we were in Brighton one day, he proposed - of course I said yes! He gave me a temporary ring at first, as he wanted us to choose one together, and I'm glad we did because I loved the ring we chose - in fact, I still have it somewhere now. The only pictures I can find of my ring are of both of us, but also from when he had an eye infection, so the one below is pretty much the only one I can find where it's just me showing it.

So, all in all, we were really happy throughout the relationship - of course, we had our arguments and ups and downs, like in all relationships, but we made sure to never go to bed on an argument, for which I will always be thankful. We were together for nearly three years overall, which I never thought I could do, and I will always cherish the memories I have of and with him. I was really happy when I was with him, even when we were just at a gig together, or hanging out at one of our houses, and he always managed to cheer me up when I was feeling down.

I'm trying not to think about the things I regret too much - I feel a bit like I'm drowning when the sad thoughts and regrets take over my mind - and instead I'm concentrating on the good, which is why I wanted to write this post - I wanted to make a post where I could write down some of the amazing memories, so I can look back on it and remember everything <3
Of course, this post is only a small portion of the good memories - the rest will forever live on in my mind and my heart. All our little private jokes, all the cute things we used to do for each other, the cute texts and emails we used to send, the secret pictures we used to take when the other one wasn't looking and just everything - I'll never forget you.

Rest in peace, Dan - I hope you know that I never hated you, ever, and that a part of me will always love you. I hope you're finally at peace and not in pain now. 
<3

Top 10 // Places I Want To Visit!

Hey guys!

I'm going to try to get back into a better blogging schedule again, as lately I've obviously been pretty bad at it! Hopefully I'll be starting back with one post a week, and hopefully will build it up soon to more.

 

I've had a pretty stressful week this week, with various small not-so good things all building up and causing me to become really stressed out. I won't go into too much detail about anything that happened, as it's long and boring, but even going to my usual happy place didn't help to destress me - neither did any of the methods I'd usually try, like having a nice hot bubble bath before bed, or having something lavender scented under my pillow to help me sleep.

One night, when I couldn't sleep, I was browsing the internet for cute cat pictures and happy things (part of my happy method, which usually works) and on one site, I saw an advert for an airline, with a beautiful picture of a beach in the background. As you probably know if you read my blogs on here, I went on holiday to France last year, and it was my first holiday abroad in years, and since then, I've been desperately wanting to go back on holiday.

I can't quite afford a holiday yet - although I'm really hoping to be able to go away again before the end of this year - but I decided that it was time to write a list of possible holiday destinations (mainly the places I really want to go the most and have wanted to for years) and went to look for pictures of these places while I compiled my top 10 places I want to visit before I die list! (I should probably think of a better and shorter name for that list eventually...)

1 - Paris. 

This has been the top of my list for literally years now, and I still haven't got my act together and made it here yet! Fingers crossed it'll happen soon, as there's so many things I'd love to do if I went and it'd be one of the best, most memorable trips ever! Of course, I want to go to more places in France as well, but Paris has been the top of my list for as long as I can remember!

2 - America. 

I can't decide exactly where in America I'd like to go yet (although I have family in Miami) but I'd love to go on a road trip - or several - and just experience as much of it as I could. New York would definitely be on the list though, and of course Miami.

3 - Japan. 

I love so many things about the Japanese culture, plus it looks like a beautiful place to visit. There's so many amazing, unique sounding things to do there, and fabulous sounding places to explore - plus, I would probably go a little bit mad shopping there! 

4 - China. 

I actually have some Chinese relatives, so I'd love to visit China and learn a bit more about everything, as well as explore a lot! I'd love to see the terracotta warriors and the Great Wall, as well as a lot of other things!

5 - Spain. 

I've actually been to Menorca a few times when I was little, and loved it, but I obviously only have hazy memories of it now, so I'd like to go back and see some more places as well as hopefully returning to Menorca. I remember at one restaurant, the waiter used to give me and my brother free ice cream lollies shaped like bones - I have no idea why, haha!

6 - Australia. 

This looks like a beautiful place to explore, and I'd love to learn how to surf and stuff if I do ever go. The only thing that puts me off is the spiders - I hate those anyway, so going somewhere with massive spiders and poisonous spiders puts me off a bit.

7 - Greece. 

My parents are always talking about how much they love Greece, and my dad in particular is very keen to take us there one day, so hopefully one day I'll be able to cross this off my list. Plus, I adore Greek food when it's done properly, so I will literally be in food heaven, haha!

8 - Sweden. 

My brother used to go here a lot and come back with loads of gorgeous pictures of the scenery and everything, and it's such a beautiful place that I'd love to go myself and explore it. 

9 - Egypt. 

This looks like a fab place to visit, plus I've always wanted to go and see the pyramids and see the river Nile! It looks like a lovely country.

10 - Italy. 

There's so many places in Italy I'd love to see, and many experiences I'd like to have! Plus I've always wanted to learn Italian, I did it for a bit at school but have forgotten pretty much everything! 

So there you have it, my list of places I'd love to visit and will hopefully get the chance to one day - there's also a LOT more places I want to visit, not just these, but I had to try and narrow it down a bit for this list!

Have you been to any of the places I mentioned, or want to go to them too? Let me know!

Motivational Meltdowns!

Hey guys!

 

I'm sure we all have those days where you wake up feeling drained and have literally no motivation at all to do anything, other than curl up on the sofa with a blanket and watch trashy TV shows/play games/read a book/nap all day.

I woke up the other day and knew instantly it was one of those days for me - I woke up later than I wanted to, in a bad mood and with a pile of things I needed to do, and just didn't want to do anything at all because I simply wasn't feeling it at all. I barely even wanted to get out of bed because I was annoyed at myself for waking up later than I planned, on top of being annoyed that I'd had a terrible night's sleep (I find it hard to sleep a lot of the time, I'm very restless lately) and everything just felt like a chore - even making a cup of tea, which is what I usually do when I wake up, felt like it was taking longer than usual and felt like it was using more effort too.

Lately, I've started going for walks in the morning, too - sometimes it's just a quick ten minute walk around a field (I live really close to a field, haha, so it's nice and easy for me) and sometimes I take my iPod and listen to music while I take a leisurely stroll for at least half an hour or so. That day, however, I didn't want to even get dressed, let alone go for a walk. Somehow, I managed to eventually muster the energy to get myself ready and go out, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, and afterwards I felt even more tired, but was happy that I'd pushed myself to do it, even though I was in a horrible mood with zero motivation.

After that, I actually managed to get rid of my bad mood enough to get everything done that I had planned for that day, and even recovered enough to cook dinner for everyone! The sense of accomplishment I felt after forcing myself to stick to my routine (even if I was running behind with everything) managed to shake my mood and give me enough motivation back to complete the tasks I'd set for myself.

The thing is, if you stick to goals you set yourself - even if it's something small like going for a walk every day, making sure you drink enough water in a day, smiling at someone when you're on your way to work even if you're in a bad mood - it makes you feel a sense of accomplishment when you complete them, and it will lift your mood and make you feel amazing, even if at the time you feel like you're doing it wrong, or that it's pointless to even do it.

A good way to motivate yourself is to promise yourself a treat - for example, "If I go for a 15 minute walk today, I'll reward myself by having a long bubble bath" or "If I get all this paperwork done today, I'll watch the new episode of *insert your favourite TV show here* tonight". I do things like this a lot, and it does really help! For example, I promised myself that if I went for the walk and got everything else done, I'd buy myself some frozen yogurt as a reward - last time I had a day like this, I promised myself I'd do a day of pampering over the weekend, and I did!

What do you do on days when you're lacking motivation and feeling drained?

Judgement Day!

Hey guys!

Sorry I've not posted on here in a while, real life seems to have caught up with me lately and I've been stressing out a lot, especially because I've had all of my wisdom teeth out in the past month and it's left me feeling drained. However, I should be back to posting more regularly now :)

I thought I'd kick things off again with a post I've been meaning to write for a while, and recent events just made me want to write about it even more, so I finally did. I hope you can relate to it, feel free to comment and let me know!

My hair is quite thin - it's always been pretty fine anyway, then when I got diagnosed with PCOS I knew why it was so thin, as it can be one of the side effects. Anyway, since I was in my early teens, people have felt like it's perfectly okay to say things like "You have really thin hair" or "wow, your hair is so thin" and a couple of times I've even had people come right up to me and be like "Did you know you're going bald?!" (which, obviously, was pretty hard to ignore and I really had to struggle to bite my tongue, especially as one time, it was coming from someone I used to consider a friend, who knew how self conscious I am about my hair.) So, you can argue that I'm used to being told this now, but it's still frustrating and baffling how people feel like they can bring it up in everyday conversation and expect me not to get upset and react in a negative way.

A good example of this is when I went to a consultation about having my wisdom teeth out a few weeks ago, at the hospital - I had my hair tied back, so it was out of the way and because it was annoying me a bit that day so I wanted to get it off my face - and the dental person who was examining me and asking me questions about my teeth somehow decided it was okay to just drop into conversation "By the way, did you know you had really thin hair?"

In my mind I was like "No, really, I have thin hair?! I wasn't aware of that at all, Mr dental man, considering I have to look in the mirror every day and see it, I have to see it in photos, and I have people randomly pointing it out to me! Thank you for pointing out something I'd never have noticed myself!"

Instead, I just rolled my eyes and answered yes, I was aware and it's because of a medical condition. He went quiet then, and I thought that was the end of it, until a little bit later into the consultation, when he was talking about which kind of anaesthetic I had a choice of, local or general, and he then said "usually we advise people on the larger side to take the local, as it has less risks" and I seriously nearly lost it then, I actually wanted to get off my chair and punch him.

Seriously, if you're going to point out something about someone's weight, at least do it with tact and a bit of warning, instead of just blurting out something. In fact, better yet, just don't mention someone else's weight. Yes, I know I'm on the larger side - I'm not so deluded that I think I'm a skinny supermodel, I know I'm not skinny, but what gives anyone the right to try and make me feel bad about my body?

I hate it when people feel like it's okay to judge people based on how they look - whether it's pointing out someone's weight, their hair, a birthmark, etc - I feel like it isn't right to be pointing out things that people might not like about themselves, and wouldn't want reminding of constantly. If you feel inclined to point out potentially hurtful about someone else, think about how you'd feel if the shoe was on the other foot, and someone came up to you and told you how lacklustre your hair was looking, or how massive your nose is - how would you feel?

I think we need to concentrate less on pointing out things that might make people feel bad, and more on making people feel good about themselves, and pointing out small things to make them smile - something like "I love your makeup today" or "that colour really you" and spread happiness instead.

The Bedtime Tag!

Hey guys!

So today, I felt like doing a tag I came across while browsing YouTube - it was created by FleurDeForce and TalkBeckyTalk, and it's called The Bedtime Tag!

View their video here

As always, I tag anyone who enjoyed it to do it too!

1. What are you favourite pajamas?

At the moment, my favourite pajamas are probably my blue Cookie Monster top from Primark, which is nice and loose to sleep in, and a pair of white trousers with little grey Eiffel Towers on them, which I think were also from Primark. If I get cold, I also usually wear a jumper or a pair of slippers - my current ones were a christmas present off my mum.

2. Current bedtime reading?

I'm a really fast reader, so when I start reading a book, I like to finish it in the same day/night if it catches my attention enough. I'm just about to start reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak though - when I was on holiday last year, I started it, but because I was so busy while I was away, I didn't really get the chance to read very much of it, and it didn't really grab my attention. I've since bought my own copy - I was borrowing my aunts - so I've decided to give it another try.

3. What is on your bedside table?

At the moment I have - a Red Berry and Cedar scented Yankee Candle, my iPod, my TV controls, a lamp, my phone, a book, a hairbrush, a notebook and pen, my 3DS (I usually play that in bed if I don't feel like reading) and a bottle of blackcurrant squash - I like keeping a drink near my bed because I wake up thirsty in the middle of the night a lot.

4. Favourite sleepy scent?

I used to sleep with lavender under my pillow because it keeps moths away and is supposed to help you sleep, but it was too distracting, so at the moment I can usually just smell my face cream and the candle by my bed.

5. What is your usual bedtime & wakeup time?

I actually have a pretty terrible sleeping pattern at the moment which is all over the place. I guess that I usually fall asleep around midnight or so, and if I don't set an alarm the earliest I wake up at is around 9am.

6. Top 3 bedtime products?

At the moment, the three products I use around bedtime that I'm loving are -

Soap And Glory Greatest Scrub Of All Facial Exfoliator (for all skin types)

Simple Kind To Skin Soothing Facial Cleanser and Toner

Garnier Moisture Match Mattifying Face Cream (I use the one for combination to oily skin)

7. Your most common sleeping position?

I usually sleep on my left side, with one leg straight and one leg bent and my feet poking out from the blankets.

8. Any strange bed time routines?

Hmm, I don't think so? I usually settle in bed and play my 3DS/browse the internet for a while before I put on some music (usually relaxing game music) and read for a while.

9. Are you big spoon or little spoon?

I don't really get to spoon anyone, haha, but when I do I prefer to be the little spoon, definitely.