Little Loves #4.

Oh dear, I did it again! I keep forgetting/ feeling too busy for this little blog of mine. So I thought i'd come back with a bit of a favourites of late, I always find it quite easy to write these Little Loves posts since it's like speaking to a friend about what I've enjoyed recently!

Our trip to Newquay. 

If I had been on my blogging game this would have been a post all of it's own. Our trip to Newquay was just amazing. We went Monday to Friday in a random week off we had together but I wish it had been 2 weeks! We stayed in a glorious AirBnB, our first time doing so, and it was lovely! I would definitely use the site again to book somewhere. We stayed in a little campervan in someone's garden, they had 2 beautiful dogs and they really made us feel welcome. So many things were great but the main highlight for me was seeing Newton Faulkner at Lusty Glaze cove. It's a beautiful venue for music, on the beach! It rained none stop as you can see from the soggy second picture but I loved it. If you're a fan of Newton Faulkner I would highly recommend seeing him live, I think this was my 5th time and each one has been a new experience. 

PokemonGO. 

Are we fed up of this yet? Sam totally made me jump on the bandwagon, I kind of missed Pokemon the first time round which is odd because i was a *prime* candidate for the card obsession with my age etc. I think maybe we couldn't afford the cards and my mum worked her wizardry to make me realise I didn't want them. She's clever like that ;) Anyway, the game! I'm not majorly obsessed like some people *cough*Sam*cough* but i like the VR aspect of the game where you see the pokemon in your actual environment! Also, it gets you out the house and that so yeah, all good! 

Flavour by Ruby Tandoh. 

Is this the messiest picture I've ever posted on my blog? Maybe. I was so annoyed that I left the bloody butter there in the picture, the rest for me is justifiable mess when showing off a cookbook, but the butter? It can bob off. Aaaaanyway, Flavour, Ruby Tandoh, my new love. If you don't follow Ruby on twitter please do, then buy this book! She tweets a lot about the wellness trend which relates to this cookbook, basically in the term of eating what you love and not feeling guilty about it! She is far better at explaining than I, just know that this first recipe I tried from the list was 1) so bloody easy 2) easy to change up (I don't like egg so added falafel) and 3) so so tasty!! If you are so inclined I think Ruby estimated that around 70% of the book is veggie with a lot being vegan/ easy to make vegan too! 

Wedding stuff and bonus, snapchat! 

 

Wedding planning is becoming so so real now! It's just under 9 months until the big day and pretty much everything is booked! We bought my wedding ring the other day which Sam has subsequently hidden to stop me from trying it on, thanks bae. Time is already flying so I know the next 9 months isn't going to be any different. We wanted to get as much done as possible to have a while off from wedding planning over Christmas and it looks like we're going to succeed in our plan to do that, fingers crossed! This is why I need to update my blog more, I will be looking back in a year and wondering what I did with this time before the wedding, I just know it!

I think I'll stop now, I could keep rambling, I've been looking through my social media platforms for inspiration of things I've been loving and all it made me realise is that I need to bloody well blog more. How many times have I said bloody in this blog post? Who am I? Ron bloody Weasley. 

Okay, bye!

My Illustrated 2016 Goals!

Yes, another post about goals in 2016, I'm sure you're completely fed up of them, these ones are different though (aha!) because the lovely Emily of Jammy and Jelly has done an amazing piece of art which portrays my goals!

Emily tweeted out asking people for their New Year's Resolutions to draw, something I believe she's done for a few years now.  I absolutely love this one that she drew of mine, and I'm so happy that she's said I can use it in this blog post. So, here are my resolutions:

1:: Exercise more! 

Completely cliche I am aware however i'd really come to enjoy exercise last year and I was probably doing a good cardio/weights workout 3 times a week with some yoga thrown in too! I can't believe it looking back because of back to back ankle injuries one in October and another in December just as I was almost back to normal set exercise completely on the back burner. This year I want to work towards that enjoyment and frequency of exercise again, once my ankle is up to it again of course.

2:: Read 30 books! 

If you read my last post about my 5 favourite books of 2015 then you'll know I set myself the challenge of reading 25 books in 2015 (surpassing it by reading 26 woo!). This year I want to go a bit further and do 30. I also want to keep the part of the resolution last year of reading more books by women and more non-fiction books, this year expanding it by reading more by WOC and from the LGBTQ+ community as well. 

3:: Learn to play the harmonica!

I know this seems like a bit of an odd one, Sam bought me a harmonica for Christmas because of a few comments I've made about always wanting to know how to play it, I blame being brought up on Alanis Morisette for this urge! I was so happy with the gift (even though Sam was totes nervous thinking I might think he was taking the piss) because I had only ever mentioned it offhand but it really has been something I've wanted to learn but never really had the drive to go and buy a harmonica in order to learn. He also got me a beginners guide so watch this space for harmonica solo youtube videos ;). 

I also have a few others of eating more green things/less pizza and making sure mental health is a priority this year but I'm sure they weren't quite as interesting to illustrate so they didn't get a look in for my list that I gave Emily!

Let me know what your resolutions have been if you keep them! I've seen a lot of stuff around the internet about not needing a New Year to make changes and that is completely true but hey, if the reason is there and it helps give some people a purpose behind their goals, who is it hurting? 

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. 

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 :)