Now Playing.

 Male Voice Playlist 

I feel like I'm betraying my Queen, Taylor Swift, by using and enjoying Spotify. I've had premium since the beginning of the year when they did a 3 months for £1 deal and I basically just forgot to cancel it! I do love it for being able to create playlists for all moods and activities, usually I go to the mood section and browse for something I might like but recently I've been trying to cultivate my own playlists a little. I'm no DJ and basically the only way I can ever explain why I like a song is 'I don't know, it sounds good?' but this is my favourite playlist of the moment. 'Male Voice.' 

These songs aren't particularly for a certain mood other than wanting a lovely man to sing to you, some upbeat but mostly quite chilled, I'm loving listening to this on the drive to and from work at the moment, some songs to hum along to and some to belt out. I did get caught at the traffic lights getting slightly too into White Blank Page by Mumford and Sons, always fun! 

Who knows if this will be a regular feature, as I say, usually it would consist of me linking other peoples' playlists usually entitled such things as  'songs to sing in the shower' 'twerk it out' or 'easy listening with your morning coffee.' People on spotify can really just hit the nail on the head no matter what mood you're in. 

Thanks for reading :)


YouTube playlist in case you don't have Spotify. 

10 things I need to say about weight loss.

I've been, as my doctor put it, 'actively losing weight' since New Year and with that happening I've noticed an awful lot of social norms seem to go out the window, all of a sudden people can comment on everything about what you eat and how you look, but it's okay because you invited it, didnt you?
Here's a list of the things I've noticed.

1.  If you tell someone you're 'on a diet' (I hate that term but it's for ease here) they immediately start offering sweets and 'unhealthy' items trying to tempt you away from it, would you do that with cigarettes to someone who's stopped smoking? Don't tell people to 'loosen up' and offer them things you know will tempt them, they're probably trying really hard to avoid this and just want support, it doesn't mean you have to give up eating that stuff. Just because your friend is dieting doesn't mean you can't eat a donut, and if your friend shames you for that, they're an asshole, its not because they're dieting.

2. You don't need to lose weight! Don't make me make this uncomfortable and tell you the reasons why, I personally, do need to lose weight. I can get all serious about my self esteem or even my health, its probably not what you want to hear.

3. People become health experts, they tell you why what you're doing is wrong and what you should be doing instead. Everyone has a story about how their auntie's, hairdresser's, niece's dog groomer's son found a miracle weight loss cure that works. Or how they know a nutritionist or a trainer or they've read an article in the Daily Fail that say the next big step to weight loss is drinking 200mls of water heated to 26 degrees with 0.34 teaspoons of honey and a dash of eye of newt. Leave me alone, let me eat my lunch and don't tell me i'm not allowed bread because I'm dieting, I need carbs.

4. Calorie counting is just disordered eating, it makes people obsessive. I have actually had someone say this to me, calorie counting does not work for everyone, I have tried it multiple times in the past and given up because it's felt too restrictive or it made me feel like a failure if I went over my calorie goal, but for some reason, this time it stuck. It's working for me and I like it.

5. People asking if you're allowed to eat that when you're on a diet, or worse still as I found when I was once seen eating a SINGLE DIGESTIVE BISCUIT 'aren't you supposed to be on a diet?' The problem here stems from society's views that a diet is about deprivation, its cutting out joy and taste to become skinny, and it couldn't be more wrong. For me, this is about longevity, I'm coming at you with the hard hitters now, its a LiFeStYLe ChAnGe. Forgive me for using that phrase. 

6. Being accused of body shaming for posting before and after pictures. There’s a lot of controversy around before/afters with regards to body shaming your own body and others who may look like you did in the before picture. I’ve found a lot of ‘real life fitness’ kind of people on instagram have been my biggest motivators, not the personal trainers who sweat green juice but the people who are in the same boat as you but a bit further down the line. The ones who know it’s absolute bullshit that you have to make time in your day that could be used for playing The Sims to exercise but that help you to stick at it because really being healthy is for yourself and no one else. I’ve posted pictures along these lines on my own instagram, above is a picture of me wearing the same dress with a difference in my weight, I put the pictures together for myself as at that stage I was feeling unmotivated and like there were no changes happening. I decided to post it because of the reasons above, maybe it would help someone else who sees that other people are doing the same as them. 

7. People have assumed that I think I’m better than them because i’ve been able to lose weight, I’ve even thought this about other people who are losing weight in the past when I wasn’t. (A kind of fuck you, I’m eating this donut, just try and say anything, like they would have done!) Weight loss is really fucking hard, it sucks, it feels never ending and no matter how much someone says to you to eat less and exercise more that is not how this is about to go down. I stress eat, I eat emotionally that can't be overcome by eating less, moving more. You have to have a change in mindset and I completely understand people who says they're not in a place where they can lose weight right now, i don't think just because its working for me right now (and who says it will continue to work?) doesn't mean i think I'm stronger or have more willpower. Weight loss is really really hard. 

8. Exercise makes you SO HUNGRY. I've spent most of this post complaining about other people when you're dieting, oops, guess i just had some things to get off my chest, but this one, this one is the killer. I am always ravenous after I work out and could quite easily devour £40 worth of dominos in one sitting, I've had to learn to be clever with pre/post workout food (by clever I mean pinterest and instagram are my friends) to kind of make this work for me, but there have been days where I've worked out and being doing amazingly well with my eating all day then ordered pizza. It happens. 

9. Weight does not come off all over the body at the same rate, it just doesn't happen in equal parts. I am an odd shape, I could wear  probably up to 4 different dress sizes in different parts of my body. It's so great. 

10.  Junk food is great, and I will never be one of those people who loves kale, also, dates and raw cocoa powder do not a sweet treat make. I'm sorry. 

This post isn't in any way supposed to offend anyone, I am a big believer in loving your body and accepting what you've got but also (and to completely contradict myself) I think if you want to change it in someway, as long as its safe, all power to you, whether it be through surgery, a haircut or weight loss. This is meant to be a bit of a tongue in cheek view of the things i've noticed since I started losing weight, even though I'm moaning a lot through this over this year I really have had a lot of support so it's definitely not all bad! 

Little Loves.

My little loves of the moment, no particular theme or order, just as they come to mind! Hope you enjoy.

This guy!

Since moving in together in July I often look over at this lovely bearded face with a mushy look of appreciation that my past self would hate. He makes me laugh every day even when I'm a big ball of anxiety and I feel like there's a cloud looming that will never go away. Plus that beard is pretty magnificent. I know, I know, mushy mushy but we've just moved 200 miles across the country together, its a big deal y'know?

Lucy Rose. 



I had heard Lucy's song Like An Arrow on Radio 1 a while ago and really enjoyed it but once I'd arrived at wherever I was going forgot about it completely, I was then looking for local listings for who was coming to the Brickyard in Carlisle and saw her name on it. Unfortunately Sam and I are both at work when she's playing here but since discovering her again through that website I've been playing her songs non-stop on both youtube and spotify. I don't know enough about music to describe why I like her music so much but it's just my cup of tea.

Jillian Michael's Burn Fat, Boost Metabolism. 

Let's pretend when writing this section that I didn't spell it motabolism and wonder why spellcheck was being such an idiot trying to correct me, it didn't happen.
I have always had a thing for Jillian Michaels, something about her telling me 'not to phone it in' and 'you don't get to where you want to be by just taking the stairs every now and then' really manages to get me to try harder. I kind of hate her, but I love her so much. I've been on a 'weight loss journey' (yuk, I know, I don't know how else to phrase it, I sound like a dick all the ways i've tried!) since the beginning of the year, I've lost 3 stone (not looking for praise) and I've only been to the gym twice, I like to workout at home and I really feel like Jillian's videos make for the most effective workout I've tried but without making me feel like i'm going to collapse. I track calorie burn using a polar watch and I always get a bitchin' burn that makes me feel like a superhero and I only sometimes counteract it by ordering pizza. Like 30% of the time probably. You can find most of Jillian's workouts on youtube, this one is my fave because of the kickboxing aspect of it, makes me feel bad ass, even if I don't look like one ;)

Goodreads.

I've always been an avid reader but last year I really felt I hadn't made enough time to read as much as I usually did, it was my first full year of proper employment and Sam and I lived 100 miles apart nearly so there was a lot happening all year! I had seen friends and Sanna from books and quills doing 'reading challenges' before on Goodreads. I decided to download the app and set myself a reading challenge, it started off as 30 books but when I realised how behind I was getting I cheated a bit and reduced it to 25, I don't like failure okay?! It's really helped me keep track of what I've read and i've found some amazing recommendations on there. My favourite book of the summer was 'I'll give you the sun.' and I saw it on their homepage one day. My goal is to spend a day scanning all of my books so I have a list of all the books I actually own, it would take me such a long time though, so maybe it's a task for a week off, done shelf by shelf a day at a time! You can follow/add me on Goodreads here.


There you have it, pictures from my phone on this post, some from instagram, follow me here :)

Bloglovin'

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

After many an unsuccessful attempt including my blog being blacklisted for explicit content (!!!) I'm now finally up and running on bloglovin'. Yay!

A 'Saturday style' Monday.

I've seen hour by hour posts floating around the blog world and always loved them, I decided to try it for myself as a photography exercise. I actually studied photography at A Level but always stuck to film photography meaning settings and buttons and electronics in a DSLR confuse the hell out of me.
I've tried reading books and blogs about photography to enhance my skills but really I think I'm only going to improve by doing. So here we go, a photo (or 2) an hour for a Monday that we treated like a Saturday. I love that about working shifts, my Friday feeling can come any day of the week depending upon my days off!

7am

Even on a day off I always try to wake up reasonably early to make the most of the day, gone are the days where I could sleep in until 1pm and feel okay, if I even lay there for too long now I feel a bit iffy. On this day the alarm was set for 7:20 and I only snoozed once! When we moved in together we decided to get some decent high thread count (i think high is better?!) bed sheets and let me tell you, they improve your sleeping situation times probably 1 million, you can quote me on that. Another thing which improves your sleeping situation is cartoon character pyjamas from Primark. Grown up bed sheets, not so grown up pjs. That's the scientific formula you can quote. 

8am

Being a nurse and often having to leave the house before 6:30am to go and do fairly manual work I don't spend time on my makeup very often. I have a fairly modest collection and it's something I really enjoy shopping for and doing. All the make up in the first picture is what I put on my face, I feel like it looks like absolutely loads for a fairly natural make up look! The naked smokey palette is the newest big addition to my collection and I am loving it so far, I can't wait to try out its's full potential with a properly smokey and maybe a bit glitzy look in the coming months. 

9am

We decided to head into town fairly early for our first PSL of the year, I am an unapologetic lover of the PSL, they are delicious, granted they don't taste like real coffee but boy do they instagram well. 

10am

After spending a good hour in Starbucks catching up (the joys of a couple who work shifts) we headed into Lush, I had a note on my phone of 2 things I wanted to buy, shampoo and lip balm, very sensible, but of course the bath products beckoned. My collection has depleted since I figured out my way of storing them was making them go a bit crumbly but I've stocked up a bit again now! The staff in Lush Carlisle are always so lovely and were quite happy to let me take these pictures, asking about my blog and if I was on instagram. (I am, follow me here, that segway!) I could always spend hours in Lush and it's always been my idea that if I weren't a nurse I would have loved to end up working in Lush or somehow with the company. 

11am-12pm

This hour was spent doing some more shopping, going to the bank and taking a slow walk home via Sainsbury's, very exciting stuff. I had to have a look in Waterstones as I always do, managed to avoid the novels by repeating to myself how long my 'to read' list is but I had to pick up this 642 things to draw but, yes I really did have to! I also need some validation that I'm not the only person to buy random cards in Paperchase with the idea that I'll frame them for our as yet unframed picture wall. 

1pm

Sam was taking pictures of me on my laptop editing the photos from earlier on in the post and complained so much about my resting bitch face, I actually quite like how the pictures turned out but you wouldn't think it! We then decided to order some lunch from our favourite American style deli in Carlisle, they do proper Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (I know you've seen it, don't pretend) style sandwiches, all freshly baked bread and amazingly cooked and seasoned meat. Drool. 

2pm

Im cheating a little bit because the food arrived at 1:50 but the estimated delivery was 2:05 so I had already planned to do this as the 2pm picture. Sorry. 

3pm - 4pm 

After our lunch time carb-fest it was a struggle not to just nap on the sofa, so instead of napping I just slobbed on the sofa, caught up on youtube, read a magazine, watched everybody's snapchat stories. I wish this post was #spon by Starbucks but really I just love their coffee and this is the biggest and best mug I have for the afternoon slump. The day is getting more exciting as time goes on. My particular youtube favourites at the moment are The Michalaks (pictured above).

Lily Pebbles.

Vivianna Does Makeup. 

HayleyGHoover. 

5pm-6pm
After a thoroughly lazy time in the afternoon we decided to head out for a walk around a park near us, they call this a park but I would say it was much more, with a river running through, a cenotaph, and a whole herd of cows wandering around i'd be loathe to call it just a park. Having only moved to the area in July we're still exploring and finding places to go and when I spotted this on my way to work one day I couldn't wait to go, the only thing I miss is having a little pup running around with me on my walk. That has to wait until we go home to visit our family since we're in rented accommodation. Boohoo!

This was where the pictures ended as it got pretty dull and there wasn't much more to be seen, the rest of our Saturday style Monday was spent catching up on An Inspector Calls, (yay, Lupin!) eating pasta (yes, more carbs, my fave) and watching Fear The Walking Dead, I can't stop watching despite the recurring zombie dreams I have.

Thanks for reading, speak soon! 

Can I call it a hiatus?

Oh hey!
So, I used to do this blogging thing and I've been thinking more and more lately about coming back to it, not as the blog used to be because I ended up hating it and it's probably the reason I took a 2 year break from the blogging and internet world.  I was definitely comparing myself to other blogs and bloggers and making myself write about things I thought would be popular instead of what I enjoyed.
I was so unsure about if I could even remember how to blog that it put me off for a long time, that and not being able to think of a name. So, creatively, I decided to just use my name. I know, groundbreaking.

Since I've taken such a long time off blogging I'm not going to be so egotistical as to think anyone remembers anything specific about my life, so lets treat this as a little intro, a lot has changed in the 2 and a half years since this little blog was used last. Mostly the fact I will never use iPad photos in my posts again, iPhone is a different matter!

This is me, in my current home county of Cumbria, I moved to Cumbria with my boyfriend Sam in July of this year for his job. Previously we both hailed from North Lincolnshire so that's nearly a 200 mile move for the both of us! I'm a staff nurse, which is lucky in that my job really can move anywhere. I feel that this blog will be my outlet for anything and everything not related to my job, quite different from those who's job is related to blogging or even is blogging but thats the beauty of it I've realised now, you do you boo! (Why can't I put the sassy emoji here?!)

It was really this move that has made me want to start blogging again, it's such a scary, exciting and sometimes lonely time living so far from family and friends that I really felt like for me it needed documenting, it also might be just a little bit more interesting to read now! 

I kind of don't know what else I can say at the moment, so I suppose I'll just sign off here and see how we go! I'm hoping to make it through without another 2.5 year break ;)