The Bloggers Snail Mail Project - Sign Ups For The Spring Round NowOpen!

Welcome to the Spring round of The Bloggers Snail Mail!! Wahoo! I love this project so much and I’ve met so many awesome bloggers through this project and want it to continue in 2016 so spread the word, tell all your friends, let’s make this a round to remember! 

So here is how it works: A quarterly gift exchange where you can meet other bloggers from around the world and spread a bit of positivity! People get paired up in February, May, August and November. During the sign up period, every participant will be paired with one other new participant and you’ll spend a few weeks becoming BFFs (i.e. reading each other’s blogs, sending happy e-mails, you name it!). After that, you’ll send your partner a gift from your country that you think they may like from the info you now know about them. There’s a £5 limit on the gifts to make this project as affordable as possible. Be as creative as you can and make it meaningful! Motivate them, tell them all the beautiful things you learned about them, and make them feel special! We could all use a little encouragement, especially from our new friends. Also, each package should include a postcard (or a letter if you can’t find one!) with some motivating love or positive words of wisdom written all over it.

So to sign up for the ‘The Bloggers Snail Mail’ you just need to send an email to whatsinyourmakeupbag@gmail.com, title it ‘The Bloggers Snail Mail’ and include in it your name, where you are from, and your blog! Sign ups will be open until the Friday 29^th April. I will then randomly match you all up aiming to make sure you are with someone from another country or at least in another area from you! I will then let you know by Monday 2^nd May who your partner is and you then have 4 weeks to get to know them! So the week of the 30^th May, you can then send your new buddy their Snail Mail

Once you receive your gifts, write a blog post about your experience, sharing what you gave, received, and learnt through this being part of this and meeting your new pal.

If you want to tweet about this project, use the hashtag #TheBloggersSnailMail, You can also tag me @GemmaMarieJames and ill retweet your post, so everyone can share your experience!

Please only sign up if you definitely are willing to take part and if you want to be matched with someone from the same country as you to save on postage then please let me know!!

Also please share this post and let all your friends know about this project, it would be great to get as many people involved as possible!

Health & Fitness Roundup - March

You may remember my ‘Health & Fitness Roundup’ posts from the beginning of last year, well they are back! I found it super helpful to put out there how I’m getting on and it helped me to keep focused.

I have been over weight for a long time, I have an under active thyroid which doesn’t help matters but at the end of the day I have eaten way too much of the wrong things! It definitely affects my confidence and self esteem and I don’t want to live like that anymore. Over the past year I have massively got into my fitness but my nutrition lets me down and has meant the weight doesn’t budge much. I want to feel fitter and healthier, I want to feel confident in my own skin. So each month I am going to share with you all how I am getting on, so here goes...

Food...

I feel like I have finally seen the light with this one! I have started eating clean, meaning my diet mainly consists of single ingredient foods and no caffeine, sugar, wheat or alcohol. I stuck to his religiously before I went to Australia and lost a stone. I also found that I felt a thousand times better, I had more energy, my eczema disappeared and my thyroid levelled out. It was amazing! But then Australia, Christmas, my30^th and a mass of social occasions happened and I fell off the wagon big time. Nightmare! However I’m finally back on it and have been pretty good this month up until the last week as I’ve been on leave and do you know what, I don’t want to not be able to have a life, so I’ve been pretty naughty but I’m ready to go back to being good next week. I’ve also been doing a massive food prep session on a Sunday evening so I’m all ready for the week ahead. As I juggle 2 jobs I find that I’m sometimes in a rush or too tired to go so I eat crap on the go, so prepping for the week ahead I have no excuses any more! I think I’m also going to post some of my clean recipes on here to share with you all!

Exercise...

Boot camp x 8 sessions

Physiques x12 sessions

Runs x 12

I’m still doing my boot camp which is a circuits class, I do 2 sessions a week and I’ve been doing it for over a year! I think its the longest I’ve ever stuck at any form of exercise! The guys who run it also run a physiques class which is a ladies weight lifting class which I’ve joined and been doing 3 times a week. Before this I had never lifted weights in my life and I LOVE IT!!

I’m also still going at the running, I’m horrendously bad at it!  I really wish I could improve but I am so slow and regularly have to stop and walk 1whilst other runners lap me! Mortifying! Saying that though, I’ve signed to do another 10k this summer and I’ve signed up to do a half marathon in October, bonkers I know!!! I can barely run 5 k at the mo but I need to have aims to keep me motivated!

I’ve also signed up to do another tough mudder at the end of April, I loved it last year it was such an amazing experience! However everyone I’m doing it with are amazing runners and I’m terrified I’m going to be left behind!

Progress...

Chest:   -0”

Hips:  -2”

Thighs:   left -0.5” Right -0”

Bottom: -0”

Arms:  Left -0” Right -0”

Waist: -0.5”

Weight loss this month: 6lb

Total Weight loss: 6lb

I am pretty chuffed with this month’s progress! On average I’ve not lost many inches and I’m 6lbs down! Over all I need to lose 4 stone, I am hoping I can achieve this by the end of the year, fingers crossed!

Blogging and me...The Breakup?

View from this mornings run - beautiful morning here in Weymouth!

Blogging and Me... The Breakup?

I was about to sit down and start this post with what’s become a bit of a familiar starting point around here....sorry I’ve not blogged in like forever... waaaa what a shit way to start a post and it got me thinking, whys it become such a regular point round here?

Have I fallen out of love with blogging? Can I still be classed as a blogger when my posts have gone from 3 times a week to once a month or sometimes even longer? Even worse, have me and blogging split up? Is this a break up?

Lets start from the beginning, I started blogging 3 and a half years ago and up until a year ago I was hooked, if I wasn’t writing a blog post I was either taking photographs for said post, joining in all the twitter blog chats or sending and receiving blog emails. It was BLOG LOVE central over here! When I started blogging I wasn’t in a great place, I was bored, lonely and if I’m honest, completely lost. It sounds cringey and dramatic but blogging kind of saved me. Honest to god, it really rescued me rom a dark place. Blogging gave me a massive confidence boost, it gave me that creative outlet I was desperately in need of and gave me a sense of purpose.

Over the past year I have been spending more and more time focusing on my fitness and this has left less time for my magical little space on the internet. My life has been work, gym, sleep, repeat with a good spoonful of socialising thrown in for fun. Life has been pretty grand.

I know this post is starting to ramble but I think its a personal post for me to clarify my thoughts and feelings and I guess I’m trying to figure out if bloggings done its job in my life and we are over? I truly believe we are blessed to have things come into our lives a the right moment and that sometimes its for a certain purpose and when the jobs done off it pops again. Has blogging given me the boost I needed and now I no longer need it?

I don’t think I’ve fallen out of love with blogging as I still read blogs every day and I have a long list of post ideas that I’m constantly adding too. Its just time and that horrendous guilt feeling of not spending enough time as I would like writing. I do finally have a new laptop so I can spend a bit more time online now which is a bit of a blessing.

I think perhaps me and blogging have been on a break and I’m going to start dipping my toes in, having a few dates with it and see how I get on! I don’t want to give up on blogging  just yet, I just need to take the pressure off and remember what u love about it!

I would love to hear If you've had a bit of a waiver with blogging?