Dating Disasters #2

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I wrote THIS post back in January about my foray into the world of dating and what a disaster it was, well there’s a lot more to the story now so make yourself a cuppa, get comfy and let me update you!

So the guy I went on a date with back in January, a few days after writing the original post and about a week after the date and hearing absolutely zero from him. Well I met up with a friend for lunch and was telling her the story and I showed her a picture of him and it turns out she knows his girlfriend, yes you read that right, GIRLFRIEND! I still can’t believe it, so many people are on dating sites how did he think he could get away with that?! Some men are jerks!!

So after that I took a hiatus from dating, not that one date throws me back out there fully! Life’s been pretty hectic but the past couple of weeks I decided to stop being a complete relationship phobic and try and put myself back out there. So back onto plenty of fish I went, I’ve been chatting to a few guys, none of whom have wowed me. Where the hell are all the nice single hot guys hiding?

One guy, not particular nice to look at (yes I know that sounds awful but I do believe there needs to be an attraction and you need to find them hot!) but was nice to chat too, he randomly tried to add me on facebook. I know you may think that sound like I’m being dramatic and that it seems like a normal thing to do.  Well I would normally agree but I plenty of fish profile doesn’t contain my name and I hadn’t given my full name to him. I queried him on this and he replied that he used to be a body guard and can find anyone who doesn’t want to be found?!! Creepy!

So last Sunday I braved it and went on a date, not with the creepy guy, a different one, we had been chatting for a little while and agreed to meet in Costa for a coffee. Firstly never meet in Costa for a coffee! It was super busy, we were wedged between buggies and grannies gossiping. It was really noisy, hard to hear what was being said and the least relaxing environment you. Oh and I don’t even drink coffee!

Hmm where to start? Well he was late which is annoying, especially on a first date. If any of my friends are reading this, yes I know I’m a hypocrite! I am always late but not to dates!! When he arrived he didn’t look much like his picture and was super short, I mean ridiculously short! I am 5ft 2, I am a Shorty so I don’t look at peoples heights on their profile as 99% of the time everyone is taller than me!  He must have been 4ft something! When I got home I double checked and he had put 5ft 5 as his height, there is exaggerating the truth and then there is exaggerating! I like my men tall and I mean really tall 6ft plus, I also need to consider my future children I don’t want them to suffer with my height deficiency! Then on the actual date all he spoke about was himself! Not one single question about anything else! It was a complete yawn fest!

So that is my update! I am 4 months into the New Year and my resolution of putting myself out there and back into the dating world isn’t going to well! All I have learnt so far is that dating is hard work, I don’t enjoy it, and it feels fake. I want to just bump into a TALL, good looking man who makes me belly laugh and we click. Is that asking for the impossible?! 

March's Health and Fitness Roundup

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Welcome to my third instalment of my monthly health and fitness updates, you can check out last month’s here. The idea behind these posts is to keep me focused and on track, so here is how March went...

Food...

My diet is my big let down at the minute, I completely fell off the bandwagon in February and have been having a nightmare trying to get back on it. I have been so stressed with handing my notice in at work it’s all been a bit too much and I am a comfort eater. I’m also a convenience eater, I eat quick things I can grab on the go and spend very limited time in the kitchen. Well my friends, that is all going to change! As I mentioned in Aprils motivational Monday post, April is all about change and that includes my diet. My new job is based nowhere near any shops so I can’t just nip out for a naughty m&s sandwich, I will have to be prepared! I am going to make a healthy pack lunch each day which I think will make a big difference for me and get my more in control of what I put into my mouth. My other challenge is to start eating breakfast, at present the thought of eating when I wake up makes me feel sick. I don’t get those people who say they wake up hungry, it baffles me! But I know it’s the important meal of the day so I am going to try my best with it. I am heading back to weight watchers, I find getting weighed each week keeps me on the straight and narrow too.

Exercise done in March...

Boot camp x 6 sessions

Rowing x1 sessions (1.5 hours)

Runs x7

The last week in March was a massive write off as I was finishing work and I then had a stinking cold so all exercise was off. Prior to that thought I was managing 2 bootcamp sessions a week, I normally do 3 so was a little unhappy with myself on this one. However I have now thrown running in the mix. As I mentioned last month I have signed up to run a 10k in September so I have started working towards that. At present I can’t run 1k, this is no exaggeration, I run for a few minutes then walk but I am determined to improve and show myself that I can do it!

Progress this month...

	Loss in March in inches	Total Loss in inches
Chest	0.5	1.5
Hips	2.5	4
Left Thigh	2	3
Right Thigh	1.5	2.5
Bottom	2	4
Left Arm	0.5	2
Right Arm	0.5	2
Waist	2.5	5

Weight loss this month:   4lbs

Total weight loss:   9lbs

I also managed to wedge myself into a size 14 pair of jeans so I am pretty happy with this month’s progress! I still have a long way to go and I’m determined to stay on track this month and work really hard. Wish me luck! 

Motivational Monday // April

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I’m BACK! Properly, officially, fully back into blogland and so excited for it too! I think in March I managed about 3 blog posts, an all time low for me! I want to feel bad about it but the last few months have been such hard work that blogging on top was impossible, not the fun enjoyable hobby I love, and it became another thing to be ticked off the list. That is something I never want this space to be, so it took a back seat for a while instead. I have had a nightmare with work, I loved the job but didn’t like the management and it made me stressed and grumpy. As it was things I was unable to change I took the plunge and went for another job and I actually got it! I start tomorrow and I am slightly terrified/nervous/excited! I’ve been at my old job for 5 years so I am sad to leave the young people I work with but I can’t wait for a new challenge.

Saying that though I am horrendous when it comes to change, I think that’s the stubborn Capricorn in me, it makes me feel sick and I am such a worrier! However I’ve decided to look at this as a new beginning and I like how that feels! So April for me is about making positive changes, starting this new job, blogging regularly again and still working on improving my diet and fitness, all things I am super excited by! I think this is massively helped by spring finally arriving, the sun is out a bit more, its lighter in the evenings and is my favourite time of year!

How do you tackle change?

Februarys Health and Fitness Roundup

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This is the second instalment of my monthly Health and Fitness updates, check out the first one here which explains a bit more as to why these posts will be popping up regularly! I was hoping to post this last week but I’ve been a bit AWOL from blog land. However lots of good and exciting things are a foot which I shall explain about soon, so ear with me, I will be blogging regularly again soon! Promise!

 

I’ve been really hesitant about writing this post as I had a pretty bad month in February. I had bronchitis for the first 3 weeks of the month, which was awful, I was making it to work then just coming home and crashing. It completely wiped me out. It also meant I was massively craving comfort foods, so pretty much lived off toast for the month. Then I finally start to feel human again but the last week of the month became stress central at work, so my exercise improved but my diet was still pretty lethal. I am a massive comfort eater!

 

Unsurprisingly I ended up putting 2lbs on which has got me down as January was such a positive month. So although I was undecided about writing this post, the idea of this series is to document my fitness journey, the good, the bad and the ugly and most importantly keep myself motivated.

 

So the question now is what am I going to do to get back on track? Well I’ve took the bull by the horns and signed up for ‘Run to the Beat’ which is a 10k run in London in September. I currently can’t run to the end of my road without hyperventilating but it’s on my ’30 before 30’ list and I really want to achieve it. I also work so much better when I have something I’m aiming towards. I’ve enlisted the help of one of the coaches from boot camp who’s also a personal trainer. He is going to set up a training plan for which I’m excited to start. We’ve already set my 6 week goal as being able to run 2 miles!! It may not seem like much but it’s like a marathon in my world! Eeeek!

 

I am also back doing my fitness camp sessions 3 times a week and rowing on Saturdays. It feels really good to be exercising again!

 

Exercise done in February ...

Boot camp x 5 sessions

Rowing x2 sessions (3 hours)

 

Progress this month...

Chest:   -1”

Hips:  +0.5”

Thighs:   left +1” Right -0”

Bottom: -0”

Arms:  Left -0.5” Right -0.5”

Waist: -0”

Weight loss this month: +2lb

Total Weight loss: 5lb

 

Disappointing results for February but I think I need to accept that I am going to have times where I am ill and there’s nothing I can do about it. It just makes me more determined to achieve my goals and work hard!

Motivational Monday // March

I was originally going to write this as a separate post along the lines of ‘when life gets in the way’ or ‘struggling send help’ but then I stopped and reminded myself that I write these motivational Mondays to keep me thinking positively and looking at the good rather than the bad.

You may or may not have noticed that I have been a little AWOL lately, February has been pretty pants if I’m honest. I spent the first 3 months feeling horrendously ill with bronchitis, I did manage to go to work but all free time was spent in bed sleeping. Then the last week of February, I have had a nightmare with work so all my time and energy has been spent dealing with that. My healthy diet and exercise went out the window and blogging was pretty much a non starter. I was unable to promote The Bloggers Snail Mail project as much as I usually would, so this round is super quiet compared to previous rounds and my emails are stacking up and all are unanswered. This has made me feel so sad and fed up. I’m usually pretty on the ball but all this has made me loose motivation.

So I have decided this is a new month and it’s going to a good one! Yesterday I booked my flight to Australia, I am going for a month in November as a good friend of mine is getting married. I also signed up for a 10k run in September to get me back on track with my fitness goals. And do you know what, I have started to feel good again! Positivity spreads positivity and sometimes you need to fight to regain control of everything around you.

I have decided to challenge myself to write a blog post a day this week, I won’t post everyday but will schedule some for next week as well as this one. I want to get back into blogging, as I hate leaving this little space on the interweb unattended, it feels like I’m neglecting a child!

I also going to look for the good in everything, I once read if you can think of 3 things every day that you are grateful for, it will help you to train your brain to be more positive. There are so many blessings in life, sometimes we just need to look a little harder for them.

Happy Monday!

Overcoming Anxiety

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I’ve never shared this on here before but a few months ago I was diagnosed with anxiety. My mum was really ill in hospital at the time and I wasn’t coping very well. I ended up having a massive panic attack at a friend’s party. I’d never had one before and it was the weirdest feeling. It felt like my heart sped up out of nowhere and I just could not grasp any breath. It was after that, that I decided to visit my doctor and received my diagnosis.

I wasn’t sure what to think when he first said the word anxiety. I had heard it thrown a lot at the time and felt it was a bit of a dramatic trend for young people. How dumb was I. looking back I think I’ve suffered from it for quite a while. I don’t think anxiety is necessarily a bad thing, a certain level of it is really good for us. It’s what spurs on our adrenaline and keeps us going. It’s not healthy though when it inhibits your life and prevents you from being yourself and being able to get on with daily tasks. This is how it got for me, I lost motivation, I felt empty and I just didn’t feel like myself. I’ve been on medication for a while, which has really helped, but I’ve tried a few other ways to try and help reduce my level of anxiety and have found them to really work. I am definitely by no means a medical expert and anxiety affects everyone so differently, but I thought I would share what helps me in case it may be useful for someone else…

Delete Facebook off your phone – I’m a serial Facebook snooper, I can spend hours mindlessly browsing through Facebook, but I know I’m not the only one! Let’s be honest though, all you’re really doing is wasting time, catching up on gossip and comparing your like to everyone else’s highlight reel. How does any of that make you feel good? It doesn’t, so delete it! I now go on Facebook once a week, check my notifications and that’s it. I feel so much better for it and am learning to use my time more wisely.

Cut out caffeine – I was a complete coffee whore! No joke, I would have 2 cups of coffee before I left for work, about 3 in the first hour there and then at one an hour for the rest of the day. Looking back that’s insane! I would spend my whole day wired and then stupidly wondered why I couldn’t sleep at night! I feel so much better for giving it up, I’ve replaced it with fruit teas and a chamomile tea before bed. I am much calmer, I’m not spending my whole day feeling tired and I’m sleeping much better.

Get Creative! – I find getting crafty and making things very therapeutic. As well as making jewellery for my shop ‘Pearl Divine’, I’ve started joining in with craft swaps and I’ve also recently come across adult colouring books which are ace! I think it allows your mind to focus on something and I always feel great when I’ve completed something.

Talk to People – I’ve barely told anybody about my anxiety but I have spoken to three of my close friends about it. I regularly check in with them and they have been amazingly supportive. It feels good to talk and get it off my chest.

Improve your sleep routine – I used to average about 5 hours of sleep a night. I would stay up ridiculously late every night, making no allowance for getting up early. I now try for 8 hours of sleep a night even if that means forcing myself to go to bed! Life is so much clearer after a good night’s sleep!

Exercise – go for a walk, run or cycle – get moving, head to an exercise class, whatever suits you just do it! Get those endorphins pumping and you will feel so much better for it.

I still have good days and bad days with my anxiety but I am feeling more in control of it now. I guess the moral if this post, the one thing I’d like people to take from it is to make sure you take the time to switch off and look after yourself.

Motivational Monday // February

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Welcome to Februarys motivational Monday post! If you caught my changes post a couple of weeks ago you’ll know that I have decided that instead doing a motivational Monday post every week I will not only be doing them on the first Monday of every month. They are one of my favourite posts to do and remind me to take stock and appreciate things a hell of a lot more, I find them therapeutic. However I was getting a bit bored of doing weekly ones and wanted to break my blogging habits and shake things up around here a lot more!

Today’s quote is all about taking charge of your own happiness! It is true, so many outside influences can impact our lives but at the end of the day we are in control of how we react to things and how we feel. So it’s up to us to choose happiness! I am determined this month to wake up each morning and decide to be happy. To try and smile more, laugh a hell of a lot more and just be a jolly old soul! Happiness spreads happiness and I love seeing other people with smiles on their faces!

Happy Monday lovelies!

My disastrous adventure back into the world of dating...

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I have been single for around 2 years and am not the most confident when it comes to guys. I’ve been pretty lucky this far as in I’ve always been introduced to guys through friends or I’ve we’ve been friends first, so it feels natural. This becomes harder as you get older, your social circle shrinks and you get to know the majority of your friend’s mates. I have had a blast being single and don’t feel I need a boyfriend but do miss having someone there and would like to meet the right man to have fun with. However I am useless at putting myself out there! My friends laugh at me and say I wouldn’t have a clue if a guy was chatting me up, I’m pretty oblivious to this kind of stuff!

It is on my 30 before 30 list to get out there more and start dating again and I recently had a look at the dating app Tinder. Highly recommend if you fancy an entertaining evening at home, get a glass of wine and slide one way if you like the look of the man and the other if you don’t.  If they click they like you too, you get matched and can start messaging. Apart from being ridiculously vain the problem with Tinder is that hardly anyone seems to message. This may just be me but if you actually want to meet people I would necessarily recommend this one!

So on the 1^st January my 2 best friends staged an intervention and signed me up to the dating website, plenty of fish and wouldn’t let me have the password for the first week. The first message was from a guy offering to pay £2700 to do rude stuff to my boobs, to say I didn’t have high hopes for this intervention would be an understatement! 

After a week of them messaging random guys I eventually got the password. I was pretty impressed with their work and it definitely showed how well they know me with their responses. I did delete a few who I didn’t think were my cup of tea and I carried on chatting to the ones I liked. I was having a great time chatting to one guy about travelling, and then he suddenly disappeared so I’m assuming he met someone. Then another guy was I was chatting too asked to befriend me on facebook so I agreed and we became facebook buddies and then he stopped chatting to me! I’m assuming he didn’t like the look of me. Who knows?!

I then started chatting to this mediocre guy, his profile stated how spontaneous he was but his messages were a little generic and boring. However I tried not to judge thinking online dating is an awkward thing in general and he might be my amazing dream man in real life. Therefore I agreed to go on a date with him, so we arranged to meet last Sunday and he would get in touch nearer the time and say a time and place. He text me at 6:30pm on the Sunday asking if we could still meet, err no, I was already in my pj’s and having a hot date with Ben & Jerry. So that one’s fizzled out.

Then I started chatting to a nice guy, for the rest of this he shall be known as ‘wakeboarding guy’. He was entertaining and chatty, he loved being out on the water and liked snowboarding. He gave me his number so we started texting instead. I really liked him and when he suggested meeting up in real life I agreed. So last night we met up in a county pub for dinner, we met at 7pm and relieved and happy to see that he was ridiculously hot and seemed really nice. We chatted about various things, I was ridiculously nervous and talked rubbish, and I also giggle a lot in these situations. He seemed a bit nervous to begin with but then seemed to relax. There were a few awkward silences, and I don’t think me blurting out that I’m 29 and moved back in with parents last year is a particular selling point. So at the end of the evening (9:30pm, not sure if that’s a bad thing?! The pub was bloody freezing!) In true Gemma style we walked to the car park to our cars and I just kind of flung myself on him for a hug and then pretty much ran to my car. Awkward much. He said ‘ill text you’ then paused for a bit and through in a ‘...soon’, what the hell does that mean?! So as you can probably guess I quite liked him.

I arrived home to a barrage of texts from friends asking if I was okay and how it went and I don’t really know to be honest! I then went through the dilemma of should I text him and say thanks for dinner and a nice evening. My friends were split on this one and me not being able to leave things text him. I then got a text saying ‘No worries, thanks for coming x’. According my dating expert friends this is known as a cut off and I won’t hear from him again. Gutted.

This dating world feels cut throat, I feel massively out of my comfort zone, I have woken up feeling extremely anxious and headed straight to the gym to try and sweat it out. It feels like a rollercoaster of emotions and this morning I feel pretty crap.

So I am currently sat here blasting out Beyonces single ladies and attempting to pull myself together and get back out there again. Sigh....

10 reasons why having a birthday in January sucks!

So as you can probably guess I am a January baby, my birthday was a week ago now and for the record this year it was pretty lovely and I got to spend some quality time with my friends and family. However this isn’t always the case and a large part of me is pretty grumpy about having a birthday at this time of year! So for a bit of fun, here are 10 reasons why I think it sucks to have a birthday in January....

1. People actually give you Christmas presents that they received and didn’t want. How do I know this? They forget to remove the original gift tag!!

2. Presents arrive in left over Christmas wrapping paper.

3. No one wants to come out and party as they are too skint from Christmas and New Year.

4.  If they do come out, they can only stay out for an hour/not eat/not drink as they are on a January detox which involves only eating green leaves and no alcohol. They then proceed to rub this in anyone’s face who is indulging, therefore ruining the party atmosphere. 

  

      5. The January blues have kicked in and everyone’s grumpy and in hibernation mode. Everyone’s tapped out emotionally and financially by this point.

      6. When you were younger all you wanted was a birthday party involving a BBQ and a bouncy castle but it was always too cold (this is made more stressful by the fact my sister (June baby) and brother (august baby) could have my dream party! Kick in the teeth!)

      7. Birthdays are just never a big deal. They have been completely over shadowed by the previous month.

      8. "Oh, this is a Christmas and birthday present."

    

      9. Or the flipside, some people from actually explain that you’ll have to wait to next month as they have no money. Err it’s not my birthday next month?!

     

     10.  Folks with January birthdays are usually pretty despondent about having a birthday at this time of year, we all feel pretty hard done by.

But then having a birthday in January means getting to go mad in the sales yourself, being able to add your Christmas and birthday money together to get that big pressie you wanted, finding out who your true friends are (the ones who will still come out and party) and the hideous January blues are postponed till February! So its swings and roundabouts my friends!

A few changes at Lipsticks and Lashes...

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Lately I have had a bit of the blogging blues, I’ve just lost the motivation to blog which hasn’t been helped with the lack of a laptop this month!

It’s not been a completely bad thing though as it’s made me stop and re-evaluate my little space on the internet, why I blog and what I want to be writing about. I think to be completely honest with you all, I have just got really bored of it lately!

So I want to shake things up around here and write about what makes me buzz! For someone who absolutely hates change I am pretty proud of myself for making this decision! High five me! I will still write about beauty as I love it but I want to include a hell of a lot more lifestyle posts too. I want to write about my travel plans I have coming up this year and do more recipe posts. I want to record my adventures and focus on improving my photography.

I want to do a monthly round up of my health and fitness journey to keep myself focused. I am scrapping the weekly motivational Monday posts and am going to do a monthly one instead.

I am going to post when I want rather than having fixed days, I don’t want the pressure of that, and if that means not posting for a few days and loosing followers then so be it! I started this blog for me and this year I am going to focus on that fact!

Change is good so this year I plan to embrace it, I hope your all going to stick around for the ride as I think this year’s going to be pretty epic!

January Comforts & a House of Fraser Giveaway!

So for me January is the month where you hibernate, I am ridiculously poor at this time of year so can’t afford to do much and the weather is either freezing cold or pouring with rain! January is all about indulging in home comforts so for me I have been going to circuits 3 times a week first thing in the morning so on my nights off I can come home from work and just relax.

My favourite place on earth is my bed, this love has increased since my friend bought me an electric blanket for my birthday. I know this makes me sound super old but it is the best invention ever! So for the past couple of weeks I have been arriving home and just snuggling on my bed. I have recently signed up to Netflix again and am hooked on watching ‘Pretty Little Liars’. I know I’m late to the party but I am currently on season 3 and its soo good! I’m thinking ‘Sons of Anarchy’ next but if anyone has any other Netflix suggestions let me know?!

I’ve also been reading ‘The Power of Habit’ by Charles Duhigg – I’m about half way through and it’s fascinating. It looks at how we form habits and how we can change those habits into new ones. I can really relate to it at the moment as a lot of my new years resolutions this year were about changing my habits into healthier ones.

The other thing that keeps me entertained during an evening at home is ‘The Tattoo Colouring Book’, it’s an adult colouring book!! I’ve had it for a while and find it so therapeutic to pick up every so often and just colour in the pictures. Did you know you can get tons of different colouring books for adults?! I didn’t till recently and am already deliberating over which one ill get next when I’ve completed this one!

I tend to complement my cosy nights in with a ton of herbal tea! I gave up coffee around 10 months ago now and try not to have much monkey tea. I feel so much better for it! I’m also a huge fan of candles and am still burning my Yankee Candle Christmas candles, so there are usually a few of them on the go too!

I love summer and can’t wait for the lighter evenings to arrive however I’m going to enjoy the guilt free cosy nights in while I can! Do you like to hibernate too? What do you like to do to treat yourself during this long cold month?

Fancy winning a gorgeous candle set of your own? The lovely folk over at House of Fraser would like to offer one lucky ‘Lipsticks and Lashes’ reader the opportunity to win a Linea Elderflower & Lime Luxury Gift Set worth £40. The scent is an energising lime fragrance with sweet elderflower and linden blossom, complimented by woods and musk. The set contains a reed diffuser, a jar candle, a mini pillar candle and a mini room spray. How awesome does that sound?!

This giveaway is only open to UK residents and you can enter by using the raffle copter below. The winner will be picked next Sunday 25^th January at midnight! I will be checking the winner is genuine and not some made up account!

Good Luck lovelies!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hopes and Dreams for 2015

Happy New Year Lovelies! Hope you’ve had a wonderful festive period! I can’t believe how quickly it’s flown by! So this is my annual post where I get to be a little reflective on the past year and start looking at what I want to achieve in 2015! 2014 had a lot of ups and downs for me, it started off amazing, I spent the first month in Thailand and had the most amazing time! Over all its been a pretty good year however the last few months have been a bit of nightmare as my mum’s been very ill but hopefully we’ve turned a corner there! I also feel like this year I’ve been on autopilot, my life being a bit static and I’m just going through the motions. Does that make sense?

I am really looking forward to 2015! I have some fun things already booked in the calendar and think it’s going to be a good one! Here are my personal hopes and dreams in no particular order. Please note that this is a working document for me and something I want to come back and reflect on throughout the year. Also for the record these are NOT New Year’s resolutions! Who actually sticks to those?! These are just a few of my hopes, dreams and aspirations...

• Be better with my money – start saving and stop spending so thoughtlessly!
•  Get fit! Standard for most people but I want to improve my fitness, tone up and run a 10k race this year!
• Laugh more! The last few months have been pretty hard so I want to smile and laugh more! Have the most fun going!
• To say ‘yes’ more and to try new things. Something I started a few years and want to continue and do more of as it’s only led to positive things! 
• Be positive! I want to be one of those cheesy people who see the light in every dark situation. I truly believe positivity attracts positivity!
• Be more adventurous, try new things and travel to new places! 
• To start dating again
• To buy a house, Okay so this one may be a pipe dream but I want to save up and start heading towards this one! Or at least move out of the parents loft by the end of the year!

In terms of hopes and dreams for 2015 in regards to my blog, I want to shake things up a little! I have got a little bored with my blog lately and want to insert some excitement back into it! I want to blog about different things, maybe do a few more lifestyle posts. Is there any type of posts you’d like to see more or less of?

So 2015 I want to mainly enjoy my writing and to see what other excitement and adventures it brings me! I also want to meet some blogging friends!! None of my real life friends blog and I would love some friends who do!

I am so excited to see what 2015 may bring! I also just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to stop by and have a look at my ramblings here over the past year; it means the world to me!

T'was the night before Christmas...

Motivational Monday #41

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As Christmas is now only a few days away, this is my last Christmas themed motivational Monday before Santa visits! The last couple of motivational posts have been pretty light hearted and fun, so I thought id finish on a bit more sentimental note.

This is what Christmas is all about for me, spending time my friends and family, those I love.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!

My Top Christmas Movies...

My Favorite part of the build up to Christmas is watching as many Christmas films as humanly possible! I absolutely adore them and their feel good spirit! It really gets me excited and counting down to the big day its self! So I thought I would share with you lovelies my top six (I tried to make this 5 as I thought it sounded a better number but just couldn’t cut it down!) all time favorite Christmas films!

 Santa Clause the Movie – it has to be the old one not the new one! We watched this every Christmas Eve growing up and it was a fab tradition that we still stick to now!

Love Actually – this one reminds me of my mum and sister who are also huge fans of this film! Definitely one to get the Christmas spirit flowing, who doesn’t love a film with Hugh Grant in it!

Miracle of 34^th street – who doesn’t love this film?! Richard Attenborough is the perfect Father Christmas who gets the little girl believing.

 It’s a Wonderful Life – this is my all time favorite movie let alone Christmas movie! It is just such a lovely heartwarming film and never fails to make me feel all gooey inside!

 The Polar Express – this one melts my cold stone heart every time! Its true Christmas magic! It is just too cute!

Elf – for a laugh a minute you need to watch this film!! I wouldn’t say I’m a massive fan of Will Ferrell I find him massively annoying in most films but this is a massive exception! As buddy the elf he is hilarious and cute, love it!

What Christmas movies get you in the Christmas spirit? would love some new recommendations!

The Christmas Tag!

I love a good tag post! I am a ridiculously nosey person and love finding out a bit more about the bloggers behind the blog, team that with Christmas my favourite time of the year and it’s my perfect tag! I’ve spotted this Christmas tag on a few blogs and thought I would give it ago....

1. What is your favourite Christmas Movie/s?

Oooh I absolutely love Christmas movies and must watch hundreds in the month leading up to Christmas! I did a post on this last Sunday so go check it out. I love Elf, Santa Clause the Movie, Love actually... just to name a few! My all time favourite would have to be a It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s just a lovely film that never fails to make me feel all gooey inside and fill me with Christmas magic! 

2. Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

Without fail on Christmas morning! We have to wait for everyone to get up and my dad usually makes everyone bacon butties and then we can finally open our pressies!

3. Do you have a favourite Christmas memory?

It used to be so magical when we were little! We would leave Santa some milk and cookies out on Xmas eve and then the next morning we would come down to a mountain of pressies under the tree and my Nan would always tell us she heard reindeers on the roof the night before!

4. Favourite festive food?

Christmas dinner... a huge turkey roast.. yum yum!! Oooh and a ridiculous amount of chocolate and peanuts, followed by turkey sandwiches on Boxing Day!

5. Favourite Christmas gift?

A few years ago a friend brought me a special edition Harry Potter book set, I LOVE Harry Potter so it was super special to me!

6. Favourite Christmas scent?

A fresh real Christmas tree! The best Christmassy smell ever!

7. Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions?
Yes it usually involves family time, lots of alcohol, a Chinese take away and Christmas movies.

8. What tops your tree?
We used to have this scary looking vintage white angel but sadly a fairy light charred her dress so she went and we now have a big glittery gold star. Our tree is usually gold themed which I love.

9.As a kid what was the one (crazy, wild, extravagant) gift you always asked for but never received?

A horse! As a grownup I don’t even like horses so no idea what that was about!!

10. What's the best part about Christmas for you?

Getting to spend time with friends and family. I love the build up to Christmas, the excitement, choosing presents for everyone. I love all the Christmas parties and recovering the next day in front of Christmas movies! And generally just having a lovely time!

I now tag you all to have ago! Let me know if you do, I would love to read them!