How I'm Living Intentionally

So I haven't posted on here for a while now as it's taking a lot of mental effort for me to integrate it back into my routine, I felt drained of energy, creativity and drive after our wedding and honeymoon, but I missed my blog, so I waited until I got into the swing of married life before beginning again, things aren't always the same after marriage but I'll talk more about that some other time. After a big life box like getting married gets ticked off my mental 'todo in life list', it's made me reflect a lot on what I have done so far and where I'd like to be in my future.

I read a lot of non-fiction motivational/entrepreneurial books and I've heard a lot of people talking about living intentionally, and while it's all good in theory, it's all about how to put it into practice. One quote that has really struck me this year is 'how you do anything, is how you do everything' It made me realise that every area of my life is affected by my values and beliefs; having unclear intentions allows your circumstances, caring what other people think of you, and negative, lazy thoughts to control your actions which can then ripple into every area of your life, making you become sloppy and undisciplined, doing things to please others and not working on what you want, or just generally not knowing which direction to aim at in life and drifting aimlessly through it.
I'm not saying that to live intentionally you need to put in 100% energy and concentration all the time, but you do need to focus on what you are aiming for. Are you aiming to be a lazy person who has all these cool plans and ideas but never does anything about them? Or are you going to get your bum in gear and be the person you want to be? You need to figure out what your values and beliefs are, and your goals need to align with those otherwise they will never happen. For me, one of my values is putting in as much effort as I can, so no on a Friday evening after a week of work, I wont be as energetic during my workout as I would on a Saturday after a lye in, but I WILL try to put in the same amount of effort.
I believe that for me to be the best version of myself, includes working out regularly and eating healthily, so when I reach for a cupcake or a glass of wine, I know not to go overboard and eat 6 cupcakes or a whole bottle of wine as it goes against my values, ...and when I do over indulge it's usually some sort of self sabotage which is a whole other thing that I need to work on.

This quote really pushed on my pain points, the thoughts I have when I know I'm doing things that go against my goals, like putting things off, being lazy, messy and not trying my best, or being too run down to perform at my best.
I would often meticulously plan out my calendar, trying to fit in all of my goals and everything on my to-do list, once I could see everything fitting neatly into their allot time slots it felt like it was practically all done! The only thing was, I then had to actually do it, and this is where my perfect plan would always fall apart ...or I would pretend I was wonder woman for a week and run myself into the ground trying to get everything done. I have always been impatient with myself and restless so piling goals onto myself just felt right.
Now I have decided to take the slower route, incorporating a good habit one at a time, one that works towards one or a part of one of my goals. I have started this process with a workout routine as it is one of my major goals to get fitter and continue working out for the rest of my life, so I problem solved why I always failed at this goal before and did everything I could to prevent more failures. It's not a perfect habit and one I know will never be perfect, but that is how I am now approaching any new habits, and so far it is going well!
I will continue with this goal and begin to add others to it as I go along, a bit like spinning circus plates! ...Anyway, my next goal is to become consistent with my blog! Wish me luck!
(All the photos are from our honeymoon in America)

Making Life Simple: My Workspace

I wanted to start a new series of Blog posts about how I am simplifying my life. Up till a few years ago I have always loved owning many possessions, planning lots of goals and tasks and wanting to try many different things and ideas. This is all great but it has filled my life with unnecessary crap! I feel like I don’t know exactly what I like or what I want to do, what my style is and just having time to even figure that all out. I have felt like this for a few years which is why I started pursuing my Blog and YouTube channel to help me figure out what I like to do. I have also been slowly decluttering and clearing the physical clutter from my home and really simplifying my calendar.

I thought  I would show you how far I’m up to as I feel like I’m actually making some progress now. I felt like the most important space for me was one where I spend a lot of my time at my desk, I have only focused on my desk for now and not the whole office space as it is rammed full of wedding decorations at the moment! 
Here is the before...

I knew I wanted the area to be clean and tidy and just a lot more serene. The shelves above my desk have been a feature at every desk I have ever had, wherever I have lived and so it just felt natural to do it in this flat too, but I found that I would quite often spend time rearranging the shelves trying to make them look pretty and styled, so I just got rid of them, It feels so much lighter and airier without them! 
Here is the after...

I repainted the walls white to freshen them up a bit and decluttered my desk leaving only a few essential items, along with a candle and plant to add a slight bit of interest, and that is how far I have got to at the moment. I plan to add a few subtly coloured framed prints on the wall behind the computer, or maybe a few hanging plants or a shelf for some carefully selected items. I’m not sure what to go for yet as I don’t want to make it too busy again. 

I made all of the things I stored in boxes on the shelves fit into the drawers, by throwing a lot of things I was’t using out.  I painted the printer storage cupboard that I made from some old Ikea drawers we no longer needed (going to make a curtain to cover the printer) There are a few things left to do to make this area really nice but a the moment I am really loving the simplicity of it, and its the one calm and clear space that I can go to to be creative.

I Had to Take a Break

It's been a little over a month since I uploaded a post on here and it's because a lot has been going on for me. In January I was so excited to start blogging and making videos on my Youtube channel (having thought about doing it for years) I didn't want to wait until after my wedding so I attempted it all at once alongside planning our wedding. I knew doing it all at the same time would be stressful and I was prepared for that, I knew it might affect my consistency in being able to upload something on the same days each week while still prioritising my wedding, but I wanted to get started so I could start getting better at it. However, the thing I wasn't quite expecting was the anxiety, I thought I had had anxiety before in my normal day to day life, and at school when things like deadlines were looming or being in social situations like parties, I always slightly grind my teeth and feel tense in my back and shoulders. Recently I felt like I have experienced a deeper level of anxiety and having always thought of it like a close relative to depression I thought I knew what it was, but as I have been feeling so happy and excited about everything happening in my life right now, I didn't know how to cope with this random intense anxiety, so I took a break from blogging and filming.

I feel so much better now, but it got to the point where I wasn't sleeping for entire nights in a row, and then one morning I slept through my alarm clock and was late to work, I felt awful as our team has shrunk in the past year due to cuts so I am much more depended on to be on time. Missing my alarm wrecked my sleep as the anxiety from possibly missing it again made sure I wasn't going to get a good nights rest. I was also eating terribly as I wasn't preparing things in advance as it wasn't my priority, meaning I had to grab things on the go or eat whatever was in the fridge, or what wasn't and just go hungry. I started to feel generally run down and achey and eventually my mood fell quite low as I felt like I was failing, I had piled too much on myself with too high expectations too fast and I wasn't coping so I stopped doing everything except going to work.

I already have respect for YouTubers and bloggers who upload and post regularly and consistently as I know it is a lot of work. I haven't been in charge of my own work since university 10 years ago so I'm not used to managing myself, especially with a full time job and a long commute! My job is enjoyable with lots of opportunities that challenge me, but working for myself I realised you will never get pressure from anyone like you do from yourself, and when you don't get it right your mind can tell you some really hurtful things that can break you down so quickly. As a teenager I feel I suffered from mild depression for many years, and so I have always been wary of what I need to do for myself when I start to feel low, but it's taken me a while to figure out my anxiety as I don't believe I have ever truly felt it to this capacity. Don't get me wrong I am no expert on my depression, sometimes I will have a bout of it for weeks for absolutely no reason, and can't shake it off, so its all a learning curve and will be for the rest of my life as I am continuously changing and challenging myself.

To help with my anxiety I have been concentrating on getting back into a routine, and also adding more time to spend looking after myself. As our wedding is fast approaching its the perfect time for a bit of self care for me, I'm getting back into working out, I'm being much stricter with my Paleo diet and making sure I'm eating and sleeping enough. I'm preparing more things in advance and scheduling things in my diary so I get the important things done (so I don't lay awake worrying about them). My life and mind is just a little bit busy at the moment, and will be at least until after our wedding (although I love a good project to work on in my spare time!) So I'm just making the effort to be as healthy as I can and also taking time to meditate and calm my mind as well as recovering my body with yoga in the evenings before bed. Im prioritising my physical and mental health before anything because I can't do anything without them. Im happy to be back blogging (in my scheduled time!) and starting to feel like I'm getting a lot done, and back into lovely long nights of sleep!

I love to discuss this topic as depression and anxiety can seem such a mystery sometimes and when all the usual things to cheer you up don't work what do you do?

Trying Dior Makeup for the first time

I know it seems silly to post about something like this as you can find endless reviews of Dior makeup all over the internet, but as I have been a strictly drugstore make up girl all my life I thought I'd share my very first experience of this high end brand. I have admired Dior from afar for quite a few years but I could never justify the price tag, having got a mortgage pretty young at 25, only a few years after having a decent wage and previously being in full time education I could never afford it.
In more recent years I have made room in my budget for high quality skin care as it is a huge interest for me (as I'm always battling oily skin issues) I always said that I would love to wear a Dior lipstick on my wedding day and now that it is finally on the horizon, I allowed myself to purchase one.
Initially I didn't think the price was too over the top as I'v bought a few other lip products just below this price range, but I don't really like wearing lipsticks so I'v often wasted my money in this area, the only lipstick that I love right now is my bareMinerals 'Kitty'. With the launch of Dior's new lip balms I thought these would be perfect for what I want to wear on my wedding day; I wear lip balms on a daily basis and want to look as natural and have just an upgraded look to my everyday makeup. I like to have fun with my style and loved the look of the holo pink on other people so I made a bee line for it once I got into John Lewis.

Of course the packaging is absolutely stunning and something that drew me to these lipsticks in the first place. When I tried it for the first time it was exactly what I wanted, it feels just like a balm and has a hint of pink with such a fine glitter that it just looks ever so slightly shimmery

The other products I wanted were eyeshadows and a blusher, I chose these on a recent trip to Westfield where I was also given this adorable make up bag, mini lipgloss and clear nail varnish. It's little extras like these that will keep me coming back for more. I chose quite a bright coral colour as I love these kind of pinks, not sure if they work with my skin colour that well but I feel very special applying it. It is very pigmented which took me by surprise as I'm not used to this kind of intensity, but once I worked it into the skin and blurred the edges it gave a flattering rosiness to my cheeks.

The last item I bought was the eyeshadow palette, it comes in this beautifully zipped fastened case with five different shades, the one that caught my eye was the sparkly colour 010 of course. I wear a lot of brown shades on my eyes day to day and so I thought this would be the perfect capsule palette that I could also take with me on holidays. When I got round to actually trying it and was over the initial falling in love with it, I discovered that the shimmery shade wasn't quite as intense as I would have  liked, the light brown shade 567 is quite pearlescent and not something I would usually use for a base colour but just gave a more polished final look. The darkest brown colour 693 is so pigmented so I didn't need a lot for my crease but I love it as it is so extreme, the purple 777 doesn't look too purple on the skin which is good for me as I don't particularly like purple, but I swatched this in the store before I bought it to be sure. The pearlescent white 713 is just a lovely light colour that I will use in the inner corners of my eyes. I want to experiment a lot more with these shades as I feel I can get quite a glam natural look if I go a little bit lighter with the darker colours and really try to amp up the shimmery shade with a wet brush, but maybe keeping it slightly muted for my wedding will be a good thing as my dress is going to bring all the shimmer to the party!
Not sure I will keep the little brush inside the eyeshadow palette as it moves around and I'm scared it will break the shadows while in transit!
Overall I'm really happy with my purchases and can't wait to try more Dior!

Guests Hate Coming to Our Home!

Guests hate coming to our flat, as soon as people arrive I’m always saying "Oh yeah, milk" we don’t ever drink milk in our flat. When I offer people a drink we don’t have a lot on offer, we also never have snacks in our home either because we WILL eat them as soon as we see them, so it’s just dangerous to have them around. I love to eat the paleo diet which consists of fruit, veg, meat, nuts and seeds. I want a better reputation as a good host amongst my family and friends so Iv made a little guest kit that I can raid every time someone pops over, we will actually be able to offer them tea! 

As I said it is dangerous to keep snacks in our house so to stop or maybe prolong temptation, I decided to freeze them BEFORE they are even cooked! I made biscuits and cookies, prepared them to bake on these cheap oven trays, covered them in film and put them in my freezer. Iv made wheat free ones too as people have different dietary requirements. You don’t have to make the dough yourself, most supermarkets do ready made dough that stays in your fridge,  I froze them as it means it is all ready to go if guests arrive, and it also means minimal mess! They can be cooked in 10mins and cool enough to eat in another 10mins, and make your home smell awesome.

Next we bought a few cartons of long life milk which can be kept in the cupboard, I always have one ready in the fridge so it’s cold. I did the same for drinks, we hardly ever drink fizzy drinks or fruit juices so I bought cans and cartons, to make these less tempting I keep them under our kitchen cabinets that’s tricky to get to so we aren’t tempted ourselves, and put ice in a glass to cool them down (we always have ice because we love having cocktails) Their one portion size means we don’t have a big bottle or carton of drink left over for us to finish. We keep English tea bags in a sealed plastic bag as we hardly ever use them as we drink fruit or herbal teas ourselves. Instant coffee always seems to go mouldy before we get round to using even half of it up, we enjoy a good quality fresh mug of coffee and I'm sure this is the one thing that our guests do appreciate, and we have many varieties to offer!

It can be hard to follow a diet like the paleo diet as many people just don’t understand why, especially as I don’t have any food intolerances or allergies, most people hear the word diet and think we are trying to loose weight. I love being paleo because it makes me feel energised along with so many other reasons. But I don’t push anyone else into doing it and want to make people feel comfortable in my home, plus I’m not paleo 100% of the time as I’m very fond of fondant fancies and all cake in general, I have a massive sweet tooth that just can’t be quenched by paleo foods all the time so I try to be paleo at least 90% of the time. I don’t have a particular cheat day either, I just make sure I’m fully prepared with my meals and snacks, so I often don’t often crave non paleo foods, but if I do fancy something non paleo, I just get it when I can, it’s usually a kinder bueno or a whole box of fondant fancies (yes a whole box! I said it was dangerous to have these things in our flat!)

Taking Care of Yourself so You Can Take Care of Everything

This year I went all in, in terms of my goals and I knew I would hit the wall at some point, however, I don’t want to stop. Saying that, I haven’t posted much the last few weeks after the end of January because I felt exhausted, mentally and physically. I’m having trouble sleeping due to pure excitement from wedding planning, blogging and YouTube (stupid I know). I may be spreading myself a bit thin at the moment but this is all an experiment for me, trying to get the balance right, but the thing way out of balance at the moment is my own self care. I don’t just mean that I haven’t been plucking my eyebrows or doing a weekly face mask (er which I haven’t actually) but I haven’t been ‘filling my cup’.

I’m drained of opinions because I haven’t been doing much except commuting to work, and eating rubbish (fondant fancies are a massive weakness for me!) not that I want to completely cut out eating rubbish, I mean treats, but lately Iv gone to far, and have been basically living on what the corner shop, petrol station and quick hungry trips to Tesco where providing with a few home cooked meals made by Adam (containing no vegetables, yes that’s a dig to make more vegetables Adam but you ARE an amazing cook!)That food mixed with little sleep has left me feeling quite lethargic as a result.

So last night I went to bed early, I got a camomile tea, took my makeup off, put on an audiobook and sat listening to that while massaging my feet over a tennis ball (omg soo good! Try it) it had been taking me a few hours to get to sleep the last few weeks but last night I was off as soon as the 30min timer on my audiobook had finished and I slept like a baby. I also prepared the both of us salads for lunch and eggs to take for breakfast.

I made a rule that my work comes before any house work, so that I can do blogging, editing, planning etc as soon as I get home, I can go straight to my desk with a nice cup of mint tea and get on with things which is good as I would usually not sit down till I had dinner. I would come home and start cleaning in a fury as soon as I got in and then sit exhausted in front of the computer, too tired to work so I’d watch YouTube and then be too tired to get ready for bed, so I’d get to bed much later. I give myself deadlines for blogging but there are no deadlines for a clean home, the dishes can wait (although I can’t stand it building up, luckily Adam and I are a team and he steps in when he sees I’m buried under my work) I try to be done with my work by dinner so I can spend a bit of time with Adam. Then I prepare our meals for the next day and do a quick clean of the flat and things like dishes and washing clothes, and I will rush the cleaning to get to bed asap, (this is another good tactic for me as I could clean for days!) I try to be done with all the cleaning on weekdays so that my weekends are free to film as this is when I have the most light during winter, I’m quite slow with the whole process at the moment so I usually need a whole day to make a short video. I also do wedding planning, sometimes food shopping and Adam and I spend at least one long evening together and usually have plans with friends or family at least one day at the weekend. I’m finding sharing my time quite easy as I have another rule that family and friends come before work, and this just motivates me not to leave things to the last minute as plans could crop up and then I’ll have nothing to post (which has happened a few times) I don’t get upset, I accept it as a learning curve and just try to be better next time, I also use the extra time to relax and plan what else I could blog about.

For now though I’m concentrating on getting good sleep and better food as I will begin working out more seriously in March to get ready for my wedding as I want to feel my best. I also know from my past experience that I function at my best when these three things are in place so it’s a win win. It always comes down to this in the end though, and sometimes it is a struggle to be motivated enough to do the best for yourself. Being self disciplined is the key and slowly turning a good thing into a habit. I try to reward myself after Iv done something I don’t want to do or feel lazy about, even simple things like not having the juice I’ve made until I rinse the juicer or not putting my jacket down, I try to do a one touch rule and put it straight away. With bigger things, I just try to get the worst things out of the way first as I have the most energy for them, I try not to think about how much I don’t want to do it and just get on with it, it’s when I start thinking about how much I don’t want to do something that I then begin to talk myself out of doing it or just keep putting it off. I feel so good ticking big or horrible things off my list and then I can get on with the fun stuff!