So its been a while since I've posted and been even longer since I've done one of these posts. My bad. Its been a busy few weeks and I've been up to lots of stuff.

1. I finally booked my holiday! I'm off to Crete in July for 10 days in the sun with Jared. I've worked hard to save for this trip and it feels so good to finally have it all booked and sorted. I've just got the car hire left to organise and then all that's left to do is get excited! I've already bought a new bikini and I'm constantly thinking about new outfits I want to take with me. I can't wait!

2. My sister Ellie got me this adorably cute gift just because. Firstly isn't that just the nicest thing? A surprise present for no reason at all? And its from Paperchase which is where the stationary gods place their gifts for me to drool over. A big thank you to her, the notebook lives in my bag so I can jot down random things I need to remember. So not only is it pretty but its also useful.

3. During the Easter holidays I pretty much just worked (in order to pay for uni next year and for Crete) but I did manage a weekend back in Southampton to see Jared. We wanted to go to the beach but it was raining so went off to explore Winchester. Its such a cute little place and as I've previously mentioned on this blog reminds me so much of Salisbury. The main thing we had come to see was the cathedral which is stunning and I had no idea it was *quite* that old. After a cheeky McDonalds we spent most of the afternoon in a second hand book shop which sorta made me feel like we were in a Match.com advert or something. I got a book on watercolour painting as a gift for Ellie, to say thank you for my notebook.

4. As we are now in the start of the new tax year I got some holiday pay. I wasn't expecting to receive this and it made an excellent contribution towards paying for my trip. Nice to get a little unexpected something extra.

5. Last weekend was a special occasion so Jared and I went away for the weekend to Exmouth in Devon. Although the weather was rubbish we had a lovely few days and watched a lot of films and ate huge amounts of food. We made an excellent playlist so the drive down was pretty fun as well.  After a stressful week full of deadlines it was really nice to escape to some fresh sea air.

6. As mentioned above I had a big essay due to last week and I am relieved to see the back of it!

7. A quick shopping trip turned into damn I need more lipsticks. I got these on a 3 for 2 offer and I am just loving the purple shades for Spring!

Things that have made me happy this week

 

I've got so behind on doing these posts I've ended up posting two back to back. Never mind, life gets busy sometimes. Its been a great week all in all and I've been pretty busy.

1. My sisters Ellie and Kiera came to stay (Sorry Tigs but you're too young) and we went out for a gorgeous dinner at Turtle Bay. This was then followed by sharing a sundae in Sprinkles which was just pure chocolate heaven.

2. Valentines Day. I had such a blissful day preparing a roast dinner from scratch with my boyfriend, playing music and getting drunker throughout the day. The recipes included honey roast carrots, lemon, thyme and garlic chicken, homemade meat stuffing and garlic and rosemary potatoes roasted in butter. So indulgent! I had then had a long shower and got myself ready just before the meal was ready. My boyfriend got some family recipes off his parents (thank you for that) and made us a very boozy trifle which was great. We followed this with yet more wine and a cheese board. Feeling so full I couldn't move we settled down with more wine to watch Harry Potter. It was literally the perfect day, thank you so much Jared <3

3. Taylor Swifts new album. I know I'm about 48659754 years late with the Taylor hype but my flatmate has been playing 1989 all week and I just had to get it too. Its making me so happy! If like me you were a sceptic then swallow your pride and just get on iTunes.

4. Painting my nails. I bloody love painting my nails and have done several times this week. Theres something so relaxing about it as you need to be zen else you will end up painting your whole hand.

5. Dior J'Adore perfume. I got bought this for Christmas by my extremely glamorous Nanny and it just smells like paradise. Until I found out how much it cost! Seriously Nan! So now I am using it very sparingly. I decided that Valentines Day was a worthy use of this delight and I just feel so elegant when I wear it.

6. Diet coke. Seriously, how does anyone even get through the day without this? I've been using this as a coping mechanism for a shit weeks lectures. Is it bad for me? Probably. Don't even care.

7. Continuing on the food theme, I've discovered that Doritos do a sour cream dip that goes perfectly with Sensations Chilli crisps. So effing good! It took me three films to get me through the whole lot and it enhanced the (shit) films I was watching immensely.

8. Watched 10 things I hate About You for the first time ever. One of those classics I've been meaning to watch and I was left alone with the boyfriends netflix... Such a great film! I absolutely loved it, my friends were right, I should have watched it sooner.

The Happiness Project: Part 2

So it has been a full week since I handed my dissertation in. It feels like much longer but I think that is mostly because I have been really busy. But more importantly: I've been busy having fun at long last.

It's been quite the action packed weekend and thanks to my new uni timetable I now have Fridays off which makes life even better.

I spent Friday going shopping by myself which is always such a treat. I love taking the time to browse slowly and just generally peruse at my leisure. I also got myself a new bag, some new sunglasses (for generally being fabulous) and a new thermos flask for surviving long days at uni. Naturally I have forgotten the thermos today. Well done Amber.
After I had finished wasting all my student loan I spent the afternoon reading which is something I rarely get time to do at uni as there is always so much going on. My book of choice was The Wrong Knickers by Bryony Gordon and I have actually already read it. Its such a funny book and any girl in her twenties can identity with it.

Friday night was a Disney themed house party being hosted by one of my friends. Yes that's right I did say Disney. My excitement could barely be contained. My girl friends came over for drinks and to get ready (always the best part of the night) and the party was a great laugh. I drank a little bit too much wine and ended up getting a taxi to Jareds. Apparently I was very drunk and being quite annoying but oh well. A girl deserves to get drunk with her friends once in a while.

Saturday was spent recovering with Jared being lovely to me because I was feeling rather fragile while watching loads of films. By mid afternoon (and copious amounts of ibuprofen) I was feeling much better. I spent several hours pampering myself for an amazing date night with Jared. Was really nice to spend some time together.

Sunday mostly consisted of food starting with an all you can eat breakfast and ending with a dominoes order. There goes my eating healthily resolution! Then just snuggling up in my onsie watching Harry Potter before bed. Got another action packed week ahead.

The Happiness Project

So some of you might remember a few weeks back when I was still in the midst of exam/dissertation hell I wrote a post about all the things I was planning on doing once it was all over?
Well now that it has all been handed in I just thought it would be nice to share the positivity and happiness of all the fun things I've been up to.

In my head, I have called this 'The Happiness Project'. Please nobody laugh at how lame that sounds, I just think its important that we all focus on doing the small things that make us happy. In the rush of everyday life it is so easy to get caught up on all the stuff we need to do and this makes it hard to do the stuff we really WANT to do. So I'd like to share with you guys my busy week so far which I have tried to fill with as many fun things as possible.

In a way, this is the whole theme of my blog, in that I try to celebrate the small everyday joys in life. It can be tough sometimes, and recently things have been tricky for me. This post is about how you have to sometimes be nice to yourself and be proud of your achievements, even if they seem small to others. What is important is learning to respect how you feel and understanding how to make yourself feel happy. So while the things listed below are actually very mundane, for me the time I have spent with people while doing this has made all the difference.

Went on a fantastic date night on Friday to Turtle Bay which has got to be one of my favorite restaurants. This was partly a celebration of me finishing exams (and my dissertation although I had not handed it in) as well as Jared's birthday. A big happy birthday to him <3 I got pretty sloshed on Prosecco before we even got there and then continued with the wine throughout the meal. It was nice to get merry though after so long of having to be boring. The food as ever was divine, and I had pulled jerk pork for a starter followed by Mo Bay Chicken (chicken in creamy sauce) with sweet potato fries. Jared had their goat curry which was also delicious and as always I was getting food envy. The only problem with Turtle Bay is all the food is so good I always want all of it. 

On Monday as we all know, I handed in my dissertation and this was the same day as the start of the new semester. My new modules seem to be fun so far which is good. As soon as lectures were finished I headed straight to Boots and treated myself as promised. I bought my new Clinique Sonic Brush as mentioned here and a new Long Last Lipstick in a colour called Rose Shimmer. It's much pinker than the lipsticks I usually wear but I wanted a change. So far I am obsessed with it. I think after all that hard work I deserved it. And I feel better now I've rewarded myself.

I did have a whole day of Netflix planned yesterday but this has had to be postponed due to my boyfriend being called into work at the last moment. Will be doing this at the weekend instead and I am really looking forward to some vegging out. We've made a whole list of movies we want to watch and I can't wait to get stuck in.

Yesterday, instead of watching Netflix I went to the gym and actually enjoyed it. I haven't been in so long it was actually fun. Fingers crossed for me becoming a super fit gym fanatic. It could happen.

After the gym however I undid all my hard work by meeting my flatmate for lunch at Wild Lime where the food as ever was delicious. Plus it was nice to have a catch up as I have hardly seen anyone recently.

I spent the afternoon having a really good sort out of my room and threw away a whole bag of rubbish. There is something so soothing about having stuff back in order and clean isn't there? Had a lovely relaxing bath before heading out on a bar crawl with the rest of the geologists in order to celebrate our freedom.

So there is what I've been up to so far. Can't wait to carry on having fun over the rest of the week!




Pictures: my own and the top one is stolen from Pinterest. 

Trip to Mangoes for Cordelias birthday

A massive happy birthday to my flatmate Cordelia! Feel like I'm posting about birthdays a lot but apparently all my friends have theirs close together.

She started her birthday in style with a trip to Sobar which was great fun. Sobar if you could play good music like that all the time I would go every week like I used to. I had to leave earlier than I would have liked as I had a massive load of work and errands to do the following day. 

We started the day off with everyone nursing hangovers and blowing out the candles on the delicious carrot cake baked by my flatmate Nicola. Then after a frantic day of scurrying around getting stuff done we went for a lovely trip to the Thai restaurant mangoes. 

Despite living just down the road from this little place for over two years I had never managed to actually go, even though many people have recommended it to me.  I think I've always been a bit put off by how busy it is (always a good sign with a restaurant) and felt like I would never get a table. 

The decor is lovely and I like the cosy intimate feel of the place. It's actually much bigger than I had realised as it has an upstairs and substantial area behind the restaurant you can see from the street. 

The food was sublime and I had deep fried beef. Enjoyed every bite! I hope to go back in the new year, I feel like it would make a really fun date night. 

My Birthday!

 Now in case I hadn't milked the fact it was my birthday enough, it was finally the actual day!

I went home for the weekend to see my family and we had a lovely meal out at a local pub, getting very drunk on bubbly and just generally being rowdy and mad.

I received some absolutely beautiful gifts, mostly of amber jewelery which is all stunning and I cannot decide what to wear first. My mum made me an incredible basket of happiness (alcohol and chocolate). Also had some generous money gifts (big thanks to relatives for that, I am totally skint at the moment, so MUCH appreciated thank you!). My boyfriend bought me a beautiful ring (FYI we are NOT engaged, its just a casual ring that I had my eye on) and put up with my mental family for the weekend.

Spent the Sunday messing around on the farm with the horses, trying to get better at archery and attempting to shoot ducks with the air rifle. Proud to say I won this :D

Afraid I didn't take that many pictures as I was too busy having fun but there are a few. Big thank you to my parents, I had the most incredible 21st. There I said it, I'm old now. Its official. Heres to getting a million cats and being a mad old lady.

Wild Lime Birthday Meal

Went out to Wild Lime Bar for my birthday meal. A massive thank you to all my friends who made the effort to attend. we had a lovely evening with yummy food and even tastier cocktails.

After the cocktail party the night before it was a great chance to catch up on what went down the night before!

Had myself a fantastic pizza and some scrummy cocktails. The others had really incredibly looking burgers, kebabs and hot dogs.

Everyone had a chance to sample the really great cocktails they do there.

If you ever get the chance to go to Wild Lime I would recommend it. The cocktails are two for one, the food is yummy but reasonably priced and they also have a great breakfast menu which is even better when hungover.

Just a few causal pictures of the evening. Had such a lovely time and so grateful to have such wonderful friends.

Trip to Bedford for my cousins 21st

Had a fantastic day yesterday visiting my cousin for her 21st birthday. This is particularly significant for me as we are only 6 weeks apart in age. We had a really lovely day and enjoyed a scrummy meal at The Flying Horse which I would highly recommend.

It was well worth getting up early to get the train home, despite missing the bus and having to run the 20min walk to the station with a heavy bag that was moments away from splitting only to arrive and find the train was delayed. This is why having a car is very high on my wishlist because you don't have to rely on shitty public transport.

As I had overslept I literally only had time to shower and my plan of doing all makeup and getting changed on the train went out of the window as instead of catching the little local service from Southampton to Salisbury that nobody ever uses I stupidly decided to get a train that went all the way from Portsmouth to Cardiff and was only THREE coaches long. What is this madness? As a result it was rammed and I didn't dare move or I would have lost my seat next to a man playing his music far too loudly and crunching cheese and onion crisps at whatever ungodly hour I was up enjoying this stress on a Saturday morning. Managed to go from this mess to looking not to bad.

It all turned out ok though, I got ready at lightning speed and we had a fabulous day. A big Happy Birthday to Stephanie! Can't believe you're 21 or that I will soon be too!