Life Lately - On Turning A Year Older, Being Away From Home and Sensing A Change

It seems as though the older you become the busier life gets. Not a complaint I am making rather just an observation. I'd rather be busy than sit and watch time whittle by, however the last few weeks have been exhausting: hectic for both brilliant reasons and stressful ones too. Suddenly I find myself another year older, 23 sounds so much older than 22? Especially when it feels like turning 18 five years ago was just in the blink of an eye. I feel as though I've hit an age now whereby I need to take the future ahead of me seriously because time is vastly on my tail. When I think about the next five years I realise that a lot could happen.

Guilt Free Cookies

For the last few weeks I have been experimenting around with these ‘guilt free cookies’ a great snack for when you fancy something a little sweet but still want something was some kind of nutritious value. I wont call them healthy as they do contain sugar however the basis of these cookies can contain as little as four natural ingredients: oats, banana, coconut oil and maple syrup. You can also add in optional extras along the way. One A few of these cookies ahead of a workout satisfy my hunger for hours and keep me feeling energized. Plus they taste lovely!

Taylor Swift 1989 World Tour in Hyde Park

Saturday was honestly the best ever. A day involving Taylor Swift perform in concert was always going to be incredible but add in a park and an amazing summers day and we had a recipe for perfection. For months now I had been crossing my fingers that the unpredictable British weather would be kind to us when June 27th came along and it must have worked because it was beautifully warm and sunny all day which made it all the more special. The day started in Soho at Bill's for brunch: I had poached eggs and salmon washed down with a tasty jug of Pimm's. It was delicious! With full stomachs and giddy heads from the Pimm's me and my friend made our way to Hyde Park.

Current Crochet Project - Paired Popcorn Cushion Cover

There is a lot of alliteration going on in today's post title! A year into being taught how to crochet and I have yet anything to show for it in my possession- for a while I stuck to the safety of making baby blankets; a couple of friends were having them and it was a good excuse for me to crack out the pink and blue wool to have a practice of my new skills. So I decided my next project would be something for myself and I got the inspiration for this from Kate aka gh0stparties bedroom tour - her style is incredibly tasteful in my opinion and I got a lot of ideas from watching that!

50 Facts About Me Tag

As I have decided to transition my blog away from purely beauty topics I thought that the '50 Facts About Me' tag would be the perfect opportunity to share a bit of information about myself. I feel like this is a good starting point to take things back to basics and tell you a bit about who I am if I'm going to be sharing more of myself on this blog.

An Honest Reflection Of The Last Six Months

At the start of this year I promised that my blog was going to be more than just a beauty blog: if you don't know what I'm on about I'll link the post here. Back in January I thought that I was ready to turn my blog into something a bit more personal, I looked forward to sharing pieces of my life through this outlet... but as it turns out just a few weeks after writing that post I was about to have the most emotionally challenging month of my life to date. Even though I had known for so long that it was coming, it was not something that I was prepared for. And I certainly was not prepared to share it on my blog.

25 Before 25: [Number 15] Get Another Piercing

So I thought it was time to throw in a bit more of a lifestyle type post as I promised I would be doing more of those on my blog this year. And I thought an interesting topic to get the ball rolling would be to share some of my 25 Before 25 bucket list goals/achievements on my blog. My 25 Before 25 list is something I think I've briefly mentioned before on my blog, basically at the start of last year I decided instead of boring old New Years Resolutions I would do a bucket list of 25 things to do before I'm 25. I'm twenty three this year just in case you didn't know, so I've got a couple of years to go to get the list under my belt!

As you can probably tell from the title, number 15 on the list was 'get another piercing.' Now when I wrote this list a year ago I was imagining with that it would be something along the lines of another ear piercing as I'm not really very adventurous when it comes to piercings/tattoos. However as last year progressed I began toying with the idea of a nose piercing. I love the way that nose piercings can look on some people as it adds a little edge without being too obnoxious, but I was a bit scared it wouldn't suit me.

I ummed and ahhed for a good few months, until then finally in December last year I decided that yes I was going to get my nose pierced. I waited until after Christmas and the New Year was over as I thought it would give me something to look forward to in January as not a lot of excitement usually occurs around then does it? So as usual I asked my Dad to come along with me - sometimes I get a bit faint when I get pierced so didn't want to be on my own. Surprisingly though I didn't feel faint at all, it was over in a flash and I was expecting it to hurt a bit more than it did. Not even an 'ouch' was uttered.

I was really pleased with the position of the piercing and relieved that it looked okay but in my mind I had my heart set on quite a small, discreet piece of jewellery and the original stud that I had it pierced with was not small nor discreet. So when the six week healing period was up I was more than eager to get it changed and now I've got a tiny little stud in I'm very pleased with how its turned out! I can now add nose to my small list of piercings (ears, tragus x 2 and belly) and tick that little goal off my bucket list. I'm not going to rule out another possible ear piercing one day in the future though...

QOTD: Have you ever made / completed a bucket list?

A New Perspective

This blog post has been on my mind for a little while now, and given that we are in a brand new year what better time to finally put my thoughts into action and write it down in a post. See I'm trying this new approach to things from now and it will as a result have an impact on my blog, hopefully I see it as quite a positive change. My blog here is almost a year old and it has been a space for me to ramble on about makeup and related subjects which for the most part I have enjoyed a lot - it was a good outlet for me. However I want my blog to be something else now, other than just another beauty blog.

 Now I'm not saying I'm never going to talk about makeup ever again on here because I am, its still a keen interest of mine, however I need to take a back step from all the makeup and all the beauty blogs and YouTube for a bit. I have a few reasons for needing this change of perspective. I used to blog years ago just for the pleasure of writing and documenting my life, and I'm at a stage now where so much is going on I think it would be good to go back to those old ways.

If you follow me on instagram you may have seen a recent picture I posted declaring that I need to 'buy less shit' this year, and really this couldn't be  a truer statement. By this I don't mean that I think what I buy is shit - I (mostly) buy lovely quality products and 50% of the time they are well researched and thought out purchases while the rest of the time I buy on impulse for the sheer thrill of it. I just want to try and be a little more savvy about my spending and control the never ending wanting and not let it control me. I also hope that in doing this I can just try and enjoy and use what I already have more - which is plenty to keep me going for now!

I know that if I'm totally honest, this time last year I wasn't in the best place with myself. I was unhappy in a retail job, on the brink of breaking away but just waiting for the right time. I was lonely and hung up on someone. Basically I was lost and didn't really know my place. In the end I was going out and buying nice things on a binge to make myself feel better - and while it sort of worked for a bit, it totally spiraled out of control and I was ignoring what the real issues were.

Fast forward to January 2015 current day Grace and I feel like my head is screwed on a little tighter now. Hopefully I've got most of that crap stuff out of my system and I'm ready to look forward to the bigger picture. I'm more driven than ever to continue growing my business, although a lot of that is out of my hands and will probably just come in time. I have quite a few long term goals and I'm driven to one day be able to achieve all of those.

So instead of every single post being about the newest lipstick or the newest nail polish, I'm going to be throwing in a lot more personal posts that come from the heart and speak honestly about the things that are going on in my life. Sure not everyone wants to hear about that and if I lose a few readers then so be it but I'm not afraid of change and I'm excited to see where this new perspective on my blog takes me.

The First Day of Twenty Two

 

It was my birthday last week and I thought that I would share a few pics of what I got up to. I used to do posts like this all the time on my old blog as I'd take my camera everywhere with me, but somehow it feels a little weird doing it on here...  I've clearly got out of touch with it. In the name of my birthday though I decided to lug my big camera around with me and here was what I snapped.



 Like any other day, my morning started early around 6.30 which is the time that the pugs wake up and for breakfast I had toast and this super summery smoothie made from raspberries, banana and almond milk! I'm so into my smoothies at the moment!

After breakfast I opened my presents: food takes priotity over everything for me clearly. My most exciting present was easily my Nike training shoes - I mean look at them! I'm not sure of the exact name but I'll leave a link to them here. I did pick these out a few weeks ago so I knew I was getting these however it was a tough choice between these ones and an orange/turquoise pair in the same style. I haven't actually purchased proper training shoes for about four years so these were well overdue considering how often I'm down the gym. Not only are these super fun and gorgeous to look at but they're comfy and lightweight, in love.

My mum took the day off for my birthday so mid morning we headed to Whitstable harbour for a coffee and nose around. We stopped off at the cutest cafe called the Harbour Garden cafe which I'm pretty sure I've also talked about before on my old blog. I haven't actually been to this cafe for a few years now but I remember liking it a lot from everything down to the cute red and white table cloths to the open layout meaning you can have your drink and sort of watch the world go by.



Mum and I both had a bit of a chocolate craving instead of coffee so ended up ordering hot chocolate which came in the most unusual way. We were presented with these huge round cups of steaming hot milk and what looked like a square chocolate lolly which you swirled in the milk to create the hot chocolate. I'd never had hot chocolate like that before, and once I got over the initial surprise at dunking a chocolate stick into milk it was quite a fun idea. It also made for a really tasty chocolatey drink.

 

The fish market along from the cafe seemed to be quite busy with people milling around and so we wondered in to take a look. Sorry if pictures of seafood grosses you out but I happen to love it, and years ago when we went to Whitstable regularly we would always be buying nibbles from the fish market to try so it felt like old times going back in and picking something out. We got a little pot of anchovies to take home and then to some crab claws to try, and these were delicious - very delicate they didn't have that overpowering seafood taste like some things tend to have.

 

The rest of my day was taken up at home, I saw my family as some of them popped over to wish me happy birthday. We sat in the garden from late afternoon to early evening eating birthday cake made by my grandma (lemon drizzle) which is my usual birthday request, and drinking cups of tea. 

It was a pretty low key relaxed day but it was probably one of the nicest birthdays I've had for a few years now. I still got to dress up and put a nice new outfit on last night as I went out for a meal then to celebrate :) and if you're wondering where the beauty related birthday items may be... well I'm taking my birthday money up to London this week where I intend on picking up one or two (or something like that) things....

Grace x

21 Things About 21

1.  Making new friends and discovering people in your life in unexpected places.

2. Driving my convertible with the roof down at every opportunity I had.

3. Getting a new piercing. (Tragus in both ears.)

4. Becoming obsessed with Taylor Swift.

5. Feeling like I was floating a couple of inches above the ground from the constant flurry of butterflies in my stomach during that summer.

6.  Visiting The Isle of Wight on holiday with my family.

7. Screaming my guts out at Alton Towers / Losing my theme park virginity.

 8. Purchasing my first MAC lipstick. And now look where I am... F.Y.I it was Snob if anyone was interested.

 9. Getting a new car. In October I made the bitter sweet decision to sell my convertible for a normal Mini as I knew I would need a more sensible replacement for my job this year.

 10. Moving house. Another very bitter sweet moment for me was moving house for the first time last autumn. I still find myself ocassionally thinking how strange it is that we don't live in that same robust house that will always have a place in my soppy old heart.

11. Realising that butterflies are deceiving and that they can bring you back down to the ground again.

12. Learning that being single for the first time in years, isn't as bad as you imagined it would be.

13. Going to see Taylor Swift. Best. Thing. Ever.

14. Gaining weight. Losing it again. Story of my life? But more importantly becoming stronger and fitter. Although this is something that I still work to improve on continually.

15. Quiting my part time job of over five years.

16. Qualifying as a foot health practitioner. Definitely a defining moment and something I'm so proud that I managed to achieve and I did it beside my mum too.

17. Starting my own buisness.

18. Blogging (again!) This blog was born in February and I've loved having it as a hobby once more.

19. Stumbling across the world of YouTube - I was instantly hooked.

20. Feeling excited and impatient about my future all at once.

21. Savouring saying 'I'm 21' because let's face it, you only ever get to be 21 once. And it really wasn't all that shabby.

Its time for me to say goodbye to being 21. I wonder what the next year of my life has in store for me....