{FROM THE ARCHIVES} My Hair History.

This post was previously posted on my old blog in 2013, I had a quick read through it and thought it would be fun to update it. I hope you don't think I'm cheating by posting an old blog post, but I have updated it!
Now over to 2013 Jacquina...

I love reading these posts, I think your hair can often show things about you at different stages in your life (does that sound really shallow? Never mind) and mine has certainly changed a lot! So let's have a look back...

 

Aww look at that, 3 years old, naturally blonde and more posing than you can shake a stick at, could this photo be any more 90s? (I'm wearing clip on Pocahontas earrings)

Oh wait, it can get more posey, I'm about 5 here and I'd been allowed to grow my hair long!  Those are Belle's shoes by the way, hold in your jealousy.

Fast forward to age 14 and I've got a full fringe again and dyed my hair dark. Also, this pose? It was totes in fashion, as was the school tie.

Back to my natural hair colour, quite long and probably the only time I haven't had some kind of fringe. (This is my 17th birthday.) It actually grew quite a bit longer than this before the next photo happened but I seem to have worn it up more often than not and can't find any good pictures.

The red hair picture shown here was my 19th birthday, I loved my hair like this but red is such a hard colour to maintain, and I wish I'd never cut it. I then decided blonde should be my thang for summer. For a girl who thought red hair was hard to maintain blonde was not a good choice. I lasted as a blonde for about 6 months.

The first accidentally supremely mardy picture was taken early summer last year (thats summer 2012) when I had just grown my hair out to a good length again, and the second was around September '12 where I stupidly decided a bob would be a good idea again! Now I'm back to the inbetween stages of growing my hair out again and we're up to date with my hair history!

That's what you think 2013 Jacquina, let us continue...

Oh this picture holds many memz, this was the first time that Sam met my family and probably the first picture of us as a couple, we have both changed so much in the 2.5+ years of being together it makes me laugh, Sam especially looks his age these days (in a good way! the beard he has now has mad that baby face a thing of the past)!

Fast forward a bit and I had started to go to a hairdresser to have my hair coloured instead of DIYing it, as you can see from the previous picture, box dye on top of box dye made it go a bit patchy and I ended up having hair of all different colours, getting it fixed meant either bleach or dark and by this point my hair was really quite long and I was terrified of damaging it so dark it was. All of a sudden my hair was long enough to be commented on as something unusual, I hadn't even noticed how long it was but before I got it cut (spoiler alert!) it was probably just past waist length. 

I had to have a good long chat with my hairdresser to convince her to cut 8" off my hair to this length but I was so happy with it. I think shorter and darker again is the way for me to go from here, I am such a fickle thing when it comes to my hair, always looking for the next thing I want to try! 

Now we're up to date on the left is my hair when I first went for the full chop, darkened it up a bit and got some balyage in there too and on the right is it a bit grown out and a bit faded so the contrast is a bit less harsh. I know I wrote back in 2013 that another bob would be a mistake but I love my shorter hair and i think its because it's the 'lob'. I think the next step for me might be to tone down the balyage a little bit, mostly because I love it when I style my hair but for everyday when my hair is just put up in a ponytail it can look a bit odd! I can't believe I've lasted this long without getting a fringe cut back in too, its a minor miracle. 

Hope you enjoyed this post and it hasn't been too self indulgent! I think this is a fun way of giving a sneak peek of your history and if you've done a hair history post then link it below because I love 'em. Thanks for reading.

I also hope you don't mind me pulling a post from the archives every now and then, they're a good glimpse back for me.

 

Sense of Self.

Ingrid Nilsen has done a series on her YouTube channel called 'Sense of Self', I love the format of the videos, so far she has done 3 episodes of it with other youtubers. The premise of the series is her exploring their space (with their help) and looking at one thing which represents each of the 5 basic senses. I've found with this series it offers an insight into what someone places around them that means something to them, because to choose their 'item' for each of the categories I really feel it has to mean something. I decided to use the basis of the sense of self series to create this blog post (after a bit of a crisis as to whether it would be plagiarism!) to show you a little more insight into my space and the things around me that I really feel represent me. 

S M E L L 

This candle is just all kinds of awesome, before moving in together Sam and I went to a little boutique style shop in my hometown and found a tiny version of this candle, we picked it up on a whim after both being completely surprised by the smell. Often when we're shopping in a place with scented candles we spend ages sniffing them all and only offering the other one a sniff when it smells particularly bad (TK Maxx is a good place for this game) and I really thought I would have hit the jackpot with this one on the bad scents game but it smells AMAZING. It's really heady and smokey but not in the way I expected when I picked it up, the patchouli adds a subtle earthy scent that I'm really failing to describe properly! After we had sparingly burnt all of the small one and moved 200 miles away from where we originally bought it we were on the hunt for a big version of it.
It turns out paddywax is stocked quite well nationally, Urban Outfitters in store and Beauty Bay online being 2 of the places I've found them but not this scent! After much trawling I eventually found them (for a reasonable price, after seeing them on eBay for about £80) on Amazon, this was in the middle of some trouble i'd been having where my wages at my new job hadn't come through but I immediately ordered 2, thats what credit cards are for, right? Since then it has been the smell of our home together, being burnt regularly but sparingly, the scent fills the room quickly and theres even a hint when the candle isn't lit.

T A S T E 

In my opinion there is no better food than humble peanut butter, I remember my addiction to the stuff starting as a teenager when it was the best snack to have on toast and I was frequently told off for eating it out the jar 'Joey style'. After moving out I definitely went through a phase of doing that or eating just a spoonful of peanut butter since I was an independent laydee who could make her own damn choices but soon realised it wasn't so great for the healthy eating kick i'd been on! I've tried the peanut butters that are all 100% natural and meant to be used as added protein in smoothies etc, and they're good, but they don't serve the proper purpose of comforting, salty spread that I will use anything as a vehicle to get into my face. My current favourite for eating peanut butter are the little aldi crackers pictured above, the cranberry in them adds a nice contrast of sweetness (similar to the peanut butter and jam sandwiches i consumed almost daily as a teen) and I find they're perfect for an afternoon slump snack when needed. I didn't realise I could write so much about peanut butter, and thats with some of it cut out as well!

 T O U C H

 It's no secret that I'm addicted to comfort, I love nothing more than getting snuggled up on the sofa with a cosy throw and lots of cushions, it's the hermit lifestyle that I love. These 2 are my current favourites, the furry one my most recent purchase from Primark, I think it's to make up for not being allowed pets in this house, and the red throw is from Sainsbury's. It's also now on sale (in store only) for half the freaking price I got it for :( Never mind, it was still quite a steal at £25. I've been looking at and longing for more expensive throws from the likes of Anthropologie and The White Company for some time and even though we are a young couple with no pets or children I can't quite bring myself to get them in case of any spillages or clumsiness (on my part) that could ruin something so expensive, I know, that's what being brought up poor does to you! These being reasonably priced mean they can be changed on a whim whenever the next fluffy thing catches my eye, within reason Sam, don't worry!

S I G H T 

This may seem like a strange one, but for my whole life I have been someone who is rarely seen without a book, if I'm going to the hairdressers I often take 2 books in case I finish one while I'm there, i always misplace books in the house because I carry them around with me to read as I'm doing various tasks and I'm going to need to get another bookshelf soon because mine is overflowing a bit. I am a book hoarder, always have been, always will be. When I was younger and only had one room to contain my things in, there wasn't a surface in my room that wasn't covered in books. I don't understand how someone can do the 'one in, one out' policy of buying books, I'm all for sharing the book love with friends and charity shops but I just can not bring myself to do it often! I've had maybe 3 major book clear outs which have gone to the oxfam bookshop but a few months after my last one I accidentally bought a book back that I had previously donated. After that happened I just bought a bigger bookcase so I could keep all my babies safely instead of balanced all over the place. I'm a rereader of books, I've lost count of the amount of times I've read the Harry Potter books, I honestly wish I'd kept a tally somewhere because I think it's in the hundreds, no exaggeration, reading books for me is how some people are with fragrances, they can transport me right back to a feeling I had the first time I read it. I have books I always read around christmas, books I read when I'm feeling sad or happy, there are old books for every mood and yet I'm constantly buying new ones. The top picture is the book I'm currently reading and the bottom picture is my current to read pile, not including 'Girl on the Train' because Sam is reading that. I've mentioned before that I'm doing a Goodreads 'reading challenge' this year because I felt like I hadn't read enough in 2014. I'm doing okay but need to get cracking if I'm going to complete it!

S O U N D 

I am sorry that this post contains yet another picture of my phone on a marble background, I should have really had some foresight into the 'Now Playing' post I just did as it left me stumped for what to do for sound for this post! I don't really have an ultimate favourite artist and my taste changes so much based upon my mood. When I thought about it I thought about an app I've got on my phone called 'Sleep Pillow', this was a lifesaver when I lived in flats when I first moved out alone especially with doing night shifts and having to sleep during the day when there was grass cutting going on around me etc. Its a white noise app with lots of different sounds to choose from, some of them are crap and i would feel completely ruin good sleep but my favourites are the rain and fan noises. Now Sam and I live together I don't need this on every night like I did when I lived alone (I know, I'm so bloody co-dependant) but it's great still for sleeping during the day, either after a night shift or y'know, when napping. I also like it for if I'm working on something and need some noise going on that doesn't distract me like the TV or music does sometimes.

That's me all done with my sense of self post, I have to give all credit to Ingrid Nilsen for the premise of this post, I was so inspired by her videos that I had to give it a go myself. I hope you feel like you've learned a little something about me :)

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 ;)