Life lately, in verbs part 2.

I can't believe it's April and I haven't written a blog post yet this year. I want to make this a catch up post but give it a bit of structure! I've done a life lately in verbs before and the original concept comes from Rosie :)

 

Feeling:: very strange. We are now just over one week out to ~the big day~ and in myself I haven't felt stressed however I've cried at work a few times and had some 'coming down with something' type symptoms for the past 2 weeks. I left quite a bit of the stuff I have to diy for this weekend and I would not recommend. Spread stuff out people. 

Writing:: an essay! What an idiot, this is a bit of an explanation for why I've been so absent. I decided to do a uni course with the exam and essay deadline in the same month as my wedding. I've been super fun to be around. 

Reading:: books by women, incidentally. I like to follow what I've been reading on Goodreads and bar one book so far this year I've been reading books exclusively by women. I've decided to try and maintain the trend. My fave so far has been Letters to my Fanny by Cherry Healey. 

Listening:: podcasts. I started off when everyone else did with podcasts by listening to Serial then kind of forgot about podcasts for a while. I can't remember what started it but I decided to start listening to the Woman's Hour podcast when walking Charlie and since then found a few that I've really enjoyed! It feels like I'm doing more for myself ~education wise~ than just listening to music. 

Eating:: bloody everything. I had my final dress fitting and then ate takeaway 3 times in one week. Normally I don't care about putting a bit of extra weight on around Christmas and easter etc as it usually balances out over the next few weeks. However this time, the wedding is single figures away and my goodness it feels strange to have such a snug fitting dress. You don't realise your clothes don't *fit* until you have something that is 100% fitted to your body. Strange concept. Don't worry, my dress will fit as everything people say about the stress keeping your weight stable/ making you accidentally lose weight in the weeks up to your wedding is true. Bodies are weird man. 

Buying:: bikinis! I have never in my life worn a bikini, isn't that a sad concept at 25 years old? I have been too self conscious to wear anything more revealing than the tankini I had at 10 years old until now. It feels stupid to say now and it makes me a bit sad but I've bought some killer bikinis for our Scottish mini moon (hello hot tub on the roof) and I'm looking forward to having some time alone to get used to wearing them before going full public with me bod. I say that like posting pics of myself in them on twitter isn't public ;) 

Yet again, ending a blog post with the whole 'hope I don't leave it so long next time' line again but I really don't. Thank you to Charlotte for giving me the kick up the bum I needed to get writing again. Unless there's a blog post between now and 26/04/2017 I reckon I'll have a pretty special day to update you on next time ;) 

October Round Up!

Oh, I did that thing again. I didn't blog for a month. It's been a very busy work month for all kinds of boring reasons and I'm still not very good at chasing myself and finding time for blogging. I thought I'd do a bit of an October round up / things I've been loving in my absence!

Invites!

We posted our wedding invites!! October signified the 6 month mark until our wedding, when I look back at something from 6 months ago it feels like no time at all so I know it will come in so quickly now. I designed/mocked up our invites myself around a week after we got engaged to check with myself whether I could do it. I could! (there were a few design changes after that original 5 minute mock up!). We used printed.com to get them well, printed and I would highly recommend them. For some reason the files corrupted the first few times they were uploaded, causing a bright green border on the RSVPs! Instead of just carrying on and printing them which would have been a nightmare they called me and checked with me whether it was right as they didn't think it matched the rest of the designs. It just felt really personal that someone was checking through everything. We've received a few RSVPs back and it's so exciting building our playlist from people's requests!

Blogsocks. 
Charlotte has made this brilliant blog to help people find their new favourite blogs, it's so great because I find it so hard to find blogs with a smaller following. I usually prefer these blogs because they're just a bit less polished and more personal. I've linked the round up above and this is the interview that I did, I felt like a bit of an idiot for being the only person to actually include recipes in mine but i hope if you try them you enjoy them!!

A big old change of a haircut.

A lot of people tried to talk me out of this haircut with it only being 6 months to the wedding, however, I have always been someone that has a fringe. It's only in this last year that I've managed to successfully grow out a fringe and keep it grown out for any length of time! I'm so happy with this change though and I'm sure I can figure a way to style it for the wedding. Ive basically given up on my eyebrows since having it cut and wearing not a stitch of make up day to day. It's kind of great.

Family visits. 

We had some family visits this month from Sam's fam and my future in laws and it was so lovely! We had a really nice day out in keswick, walking around, looking at the beautiful scenery and eating so much food. I had a vegetarian queasadila that I almost sent back because I was sure it had meat in it. It was very delicious but I'm not sure I enjoyed the uncertainty!!

We chose a great day for our visit, even though it was cold it was so bright and lovely. How lucky are we to live less than an hour from these views!

Absolute silliness. 

I don't know why but I feel like we have just had so many laughs this month. The top picture started off as me trying to get a nice selfie but I think these turned out so much better.
The bottom picture is proof that my personal training is paying off, we were kind of just messing around getting ready to go to the gym after work and I wondered (no idea why) if i could pick Sam up!! I honestly crack up laughing every time I look at this picture, Sam's face is hysterical, he looks so pleased. I'm also creasing up with laughter in the photo, if I hadn't been laughing so much maybe id have been able to squat while holding him up ;) I think this is a move that will have to happen on our wedding day ;)

I say this every time but I'm really going to try and keep up with blogging again now! I need to get back into practicing photography!!
Most of these pictures come from my Instagram which you can find here.
I'm also over on Twitter ranting out general life and talking about how much I love pizza.

Back soon!

Life Lately, in verbs.

The wonderful Rosie over at Cider With Rosie  (one of my all time favourites) does these posts called 'Life lately, in verbs' and I love them, I contacted Rosie a while ago to see if she minded me doing one of my own, she very kindly said she didn't.
In times when it feels like time won't slow down and I don't quite know how to document everything I feel like this is a way for me to step back and look at the big picture, whilst singling out the little things.

Listening to: Vinyl! I am now the ultimate hipster, my lovely fiancé Sam bought me a record player and my first vinyl this week and I LOVE it! I've wanted one for ages and always thought of reasons not to get it but vinyl shopping is my new favourite activity, we even have an independent vinyl shop in Carlisle!

Recovering: From wisdom teeth removal. I went in on Wednesday morning to have my top 2 wisdom teeth removed under sedation. In April my dentist tried for AN HOUR to remove them before giving up and referring on to the hospital. I thought the sedation hadn't worked because I could remember the whole procedure but in reality I thought I was in there 5 minutes and it was actually 30, so maybe it worked better than I thought.

Watching: Brooklyn 99. I love this show, we've now watched series 1 twice and I still laugh out loud a few times every episode. Would highly recommend (series 1 and 2 are on Netflix).

Eating: The new Italian range at Dominos! I tweeted about my fancy AF Domino's the other day and people were not as impressed as I was. My pizza came with a little pot of fresh rocket, goats cheese and a mini bottle of chill oil to drizzle! Swanky.

Buying: Plants on plants on plants. This week of leave that Sam and I had (despite the wisdom teeth bump in the middle) has been used to really get our little house how we want it. We bought and built furniture, we took a trip to Homebase and spent approx a squillion pounds (£50) on plants for every room in the house (2 for the bathroom that lucky devil). It's been hard to make this place truly our own because it was part furnished when we moved in and there's always that temporary feeling of a rental place but we love it here and a year down the line we figured we should really make it right.

Drinking: Green smoothies. Sorry to keep harping on about these bloody teeth but I really thought their removal and recovery was going to hinder my eating abilities more, so I panic bought green smoothie ingredients. My fave little combo has been :
a handful of strawberries,
a handful of frozen mango
as much spinach as will fit in the blender
coconut water (about 250ml)
a tsp of organic honey
It's probably the wrong time of year to begin enjoying green smoothies for breakfast again and I'll soon transition back onto porridge but for now myself and my tender mouth are enjoying the refreshment and nourishing factor of the old smoothie.

Feeling: Ridiculously excited about the wedding. I know, I've just been moaning all over twitter and here about wedding planning for the last however many weeks, let me live. We went with family and friends in tow (anything can be an excuse for a meet up when you live 200 miles apart) to our future wedding venue for a wedding fayre! It made me SO happy to see it all done up for a wedding since we'd only been there to eat and meet the wedding co-ordinator before. It also made me well up a little (on the inside) to see a few of our family members and friends get along so well and get so excited on our behalf. We're a lucky pair.

Reading: As much as I can! I had a realisation that I hadn't read a book for 2 whole months and I was so upset with myself. I always prided (??) myself on being a big reader, no matter what, I had a book on the go and I had let myself get so 'busy' that I didn't leave time to read. I've remedied that by reading 2 books in the last week. One was a complete trashy (no hate) chic-lit novel about weddings (set in the lead up to the royal wedding in 2011) that I LOVED. I eat that shit up honestly, give me a book about a strong female lead in a 'stereotypically female' conundrum with some drama in there and I'll devour it. No shame.

That's all I have for now, I'm back at work Monday after a very strange week off and I'm kind if looking forward to some normality again! Thanks for reading :)