December Advertisers, A Little Update & A Happy 2014!

Evening fellow birds! It feels like I've been away from my blog for ages! I'm aware I posted the other day, but I haven't been in my usual routine of taking photos and planning posts and have had a good week off from doing anything blog related.  I reckon it's the longest I've ever 'been away' from my blog - and I say that in quotation marks because I've still been reading everyone elses - I've just taken a teeny-tiny step back from mine over the Christmas period.  Needless to say, you can take the girl away from the blog but you can't take the blog out of the girl - I'm itching to get back to writing regularly and back into my usual swing.  Post-Christmas blogging mojo = back in business!  I have a few 'best of 2013' posts planned as well as a standard 'What I got for Christmas' post - so keep your eyes peeled for those in the next week or so. Maybe a little late on the bandwagon with the Christmas related post - but better late than never, right? Plus - it will give you a sneak peak of what to expect on my blog for the next few months - I'm in beauty blogger heaven with a few new beauty bits to test and try!

Anway, rambling aside, it's time for my final monthly advertisers post (for the time being)... I'm now in my final year of uni so balancing advertising on top of that has become a little difficult - I've been keeping too many plates spinning at once for quite some time! Fear not though,  if you ever want to advertise with me in future, I'm reopening my slots very soon - I'm just taking a little break!  Without further rambling from me, I shall pass you onto the lovely folks who have been sitting in my sidebar for this festive month of December. First up is my exclusive advertiser of the month - the lovely Becks over at thenotsosecretdiary - 'A London lifestyle blog with a bit of everything in between'...

Becks | thenotsosecretdiary

Blog | Instagram - @becksdobson | Bloglovin' | Twitter |

thenotsosecretdiary is a London lifestyle blog, with a bit of everything in between. I started writing it just as I moved to Paris four years ago...now it's all about the endless adventure of living in the capital city this side of the Channel. With a whole host of posts on what I get up to, what I wear, who I've been dating and - mostly, at the moment, where I've been eating, it's a little insight into the not so secret life of a 24 year old city-dwelling singleton.  I'm a writer/account manager by day, a blogger by lunch break/weekend and a fly-by-night in the evenings. Living in the best city in the world and dreaming of others, thenotsosecretdiary is my little bit of London and beyond.

Beky | Beky Lou 
Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | BlogLovin'

My name is Beky and I started BekyLou in late September of this year; I've had an overwhelming response it's become such a huge part of my life.  BekyLou is a beauty, fashion and lifestyle blog in which I share all of my beauty fashion loves and lusts with you all, review products and also mix in some personal lifestyle posts such as 'My Journey with Anxiety and Depression', which has been my most viewed and most personal post to dare.  I'd love it if you could take a peep over via my links above and follow - I'm aiming for 200 Bloglovin' followers by the end of January!

Bethany | What She Did
Blog | Twitter | Instagram @whatshedidx | 

Hi!  My name is Bethany and I'm a 23 year old blogger based in Cheshire. Whilst my main passion lies in fashion, I also love beauty and lifestyle too. Because of this my posts tend to be quite eclectic giving you insight into my views on fashion, my fave beauty buys and my fave hotspots!

Chloe | Chloeabelle
Blog | Twitter | Instagram | SheSaidBeauty | Email: ChloeH42@hotmail.co.uk |

Hello, I'm Chloe & I'm the blogger behind Chloeabelle.  I've just turned 21 & I'm from Scotland - Glasgow to be precise.  Chloeabelle started out as a wee hobby but became more of a huge passion since November - I can't believe I've been writing my blog for just over two years - blog birthday last & I have loved every minute of it - it's hard to think what I would be doing if I didn't have my blog! - boring.  I have been a lover of make-up since I bought my first black eyeliner inspired by Avril Lavigne & decided to take a Make-up Artist course in 2011 for some extra tips & tricks.
Chloeabelle is mainly about Beauty & my lifestyle - who doesn't love to have a nosey into other's lifes ;) but I do throw in some fashion OOTD's for a mixed variety.  Blogging has dusted off the cobwebs on my photography & artistic skills & also improved my writing skills too. Chloeabelle has given me some amazing opportunities with blogging events where I have met some amazing people, who I can call my friends & the brilliant & friendly blogging community over on Twitter - you are all the best!  I adore my followers & would love to say thankyou for sticking around :) Thankyou for taking the time to read this & visit my blog, I love finding & reading others, so don't hesitate to leave a comment or a tweet with your blog link or even a Hi :) I love talking to new people.

And there we have it, my final advertising bunch for a little while! I've loved offering advertising - not only does it mean I get to discover new blogs too, but I've also made some amazing blogging friends from it as well!  I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and don't get too merry tonight for New Year's Eve!

Are you doing much for New Year's Eve tonight?!

Advice To My Teenage Self & Silly Things We Did At School

Me last year on my nan's boat in Norfolk | Quote - Oscar Wilde | Frizzy-mess hair courtesy of - The Wind.

Every now and again, I like to type up a little (what I like to call) 'slice of lifestyle pie'.  This post wasn't planned - spur of the moment n' all that..  I haven't edited so do forgive me for it being a little rambly and rather lengthy, but I know a few of you enjoy my diary/life related posts and I often sit down with a cuppa to read things like this on other blogs (apologies to those of you who prefer no more than a couple of papargraphs ;)) A while back, I saw posts like these floating around the bloggersphere yet never decided to do one myself.  You know when you have one of those reflective moments in life (getting a bit deep here..get the goggles out!) when you think back to your younger days, think about how you've changed as a person and things you would change if you had the chance?

Me and my best friend sat on my bedroom floor (we never sit on chairs, always the floor..we have done since we were 12) on one of our many girlie nights the other week, and looked through all of our notes and letters we used to sneakily pass to each other at school in our lessons. We kept a big stash of them in an envelope and now and again, like our own little time capsule, we open this top secret envelope and look back on our younger days. It was a right hoot, let me tell you.  It really took me back to being a teenager again and how carefree our lives actually were - even though some of what we said in these letters really made us cringe, it was fabulous to look back and reminisce. All the little notes we have kept are written on torn out pages of our school books and planners (and believe me we used every last inch of those little torn pieces of paper) we folded them up into teeny-tiny little squares within an inch of their life, so they were as discreet as they could possibly be.  I still remember the sheer horrifying, gut-wrenching moment when our english teacher snatched the note we had been writing back and forth for the whole lesson from our hands, and threatened to read it out to the whole class. After a few whimpers from the both of us and the exchange of looks on our faces, we spent the whole lesson on the edge of our plastic chairs. He never did read that note out, and for that I am eternally grateful (thankyou, Mr Brandreth, in the very unlikely case you're reading this), but we never got that letter back.  I can just imagine him going home, finding it in his suit pocket and thinking to himself what a strange pair of students we really were.  We used to make up our own languages and words and create secret 'code names' for boys we both liked. I used to vandalise her pencil case with 'I love ? IDST' (If destroyed still true..who remembers that fabulous little abbreviation creation!?) and 'Sarah smells' - every single young teenager cliche you can think of, we did. Skip foward a few years and at 22/23 we are still the best of friends. I still tell her everything, we still sit and gossip about male species and er..related subjects, and we still giggle at things we used to giggle at when we first met (we still crack out the made-up words now and again).  There's nothing like a friendship where you can still whip out the same jokes you used when you were younger and still cry tears of laughter years later. 

Although my days at school were happy ones, and I wouldn't change them for the world, I wouldn't like to go back to them now.  I know people say your school days are the best days of your life, and although this is true in the sense that you have nothing to worry about except deciding the route which gives you the best possibility of seeing a certain boy between lessons, school-life is like living your life in a little bubble.  You can't get away from the 'popular crowd', the bitchy gossiping and even the class bully no matter how hard you try.  When I was at school I remember thinking that the way things were in that building was reflective of how things would be when I 'grew up' - and I wish I'd have known how things would be in a few years time. Saying this, I loved school - I really did.  Mine was a little rough around the edges at times, the type of school where it was the 'in thing' to do anything and everything besides doing your work and the popular crowd was made up of some pretty colourful characters, but I still turned out just fine (I'm not saying it was gang-land or anything, but you get my drift..) Here's a few little tit-bits I would tell my teenage self if I had the chance to now..
 

| Stand up for yourself gurrrrl! |

Sometimes, you'll wish you stood up for yourself a little bit more - but in the end you'll be glad that you stayed true to yourself and didn't cause a fuss. That inner confidence you have is never going to go away and in a few years time you'll see it to it's full potential. But I wish sometimes that you'd told some people exactly what you thought and spoke your mind a bit more. Don't be so polite that you come across like a doormat to be walked all over. Don't worry though, in a few years time those people won't matter at all, and you'll even have the chance to prove some of them wrong. Remember that time when your cooking teacher went crazy at you, made you give up your lunch hour to wash up all the pots that someone else 'forgot' to wash up and you got the blame for their laziness..(even when you'd already done your pots and pans)? You didn't want to cause a fuss so you just did it anyway, albeit with a bit of a huff and a puff, a scowl on your face and a few muttered curse words under your breath, but you still did it. I admire your attitude towards certain situations and I'm glad you knew when it was best to keep your mouth shut, but your future self would have told that woman politely where to shove those pots and pans.

 | Continue to work hard |

Keep working hard, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I'm so glad you didn't give in and fall in with the wrong crowd. The 'popular crowd' might be popular in school but when they leave, trust me, you'll have the last laugh.  You also have some serious thankyou's to owe to your art teachers - they are the one's that gave you the confidence to get where you are now and if it wasn't for them, you'd have been stuck struggling to understand that Psychology A-level you attempted to take.. (that career wouldn't really have gone very far would it? Not when you struggle to write the name of the subject correctly..let alone write an essay on it..) And please stop messing around in your Geography lessons.. looking back now I feel so sorry for your teacher...

| You're a good judge of character - for goodness sake - use it |

There's a few friends you will have that aren't good for your well being at all - I'm so glad you let go of them but I wish you had done it sooner.  Don't let the people who don't care about their education and their future pull you back. They might think they look ever-so popular and amazing now, but in a few years time you'll realise that it's really not worth it and that the tables turn very quickly.  There's one friend who you'll still be close to in your 20's and one that will be a friend for life - you already know who she is - I'm so glad you didn't let that one go because you still have the same amount of giggles now than you did when you were 11.  

| Stop caring so much what people think of you |

Who cares if a certain boy that takes your fancy doesn't feel the same back!? In a few years time he will actually send you a message asking you to go out for a drink (#truestory) and you will show him the same courtesy that he showed you. Stop caring so much about what people think of you, there's plenty of time to be grown up about stuff, and try not to let words effect you so much. It's still your greatest downfall now. Nip it in the bud now, please.

| Don't wish away your teenager days |

You have a fabulous opportunity to enjoy yourself every day and not have to worry about work - use it.  Never again will you have the chance to spend time with your best friends every single day of the week and finish the day at 3:00! Make the most of it! 

| Stop worrying |

You'll always be a natural worrier, this will never ever change, but you'll soon realise that things don't matter half as much as you thought they did.  Also, stop worrying so much about your panic attacks - you will go through a very tough time with them but you're going to come out the other end so much better and you'll learn to cope with them. Stick with it. Things will get better. I promise you. I wish so much you'd known this a few years back. And please stop obsessing over boys.. jeeeeez woman! 

| Please stop plucking your eyebrows |

For goodness sake, stop plucking your eyebrows. You'll regret being so tweezer-happy with them in a few years time when you have the worst arches in the world, trust me.

| A little fashion/beauty advice... |

That fake playboy bowling bag you got from the market that you think looks amazing? IN.THE.BIN. Burn it. Attach it to a breeze block or something and throw it in a deep expanse of water. Just get rid of it! Nobody looks good with a bowling bag. Your future self will be so embarrassed (#cringin'ell!). Your mother was right, that metallic white eyeshadow looks awful (as does that eyeliner you apply round the back of the garages when you know she can't see you applying more makeup) And those synthetic hair extensions you thought looked amazing. They don't. What on earth made you think that having black and pink stripes in your lovely blonde hair looked nice in any way shape or form?

So there we have it, I could go on but these are things I'd love to tell myself should I have the chance.  I'd love to tell my teenage self about how things are now, about my journey so far but I've enjoyed being a little bit indecisive at times and letting things work themselves out.  

What would you tell your teenage self if you could go back now? Any of my memories remind you of your own school days? If you decide to do a similar post, do let me know - I love a good reminisce, me! @Beth_BirdsWords.

A New Chapter...

Today, I said goodbye to something that has been a big part of my life and worked my last shift at the shop I've been working in for the past 4 (and a bit) years, and it's been quite a strange day to say the least. I started there as a weekend girl when I was still at college and I remember my first day like it was yesterday! I remember going to grab some lunch on my dinner hour and not having a clue where to go or what to do with myself, and I ended up with a Greggs sausage roll and a donut, awkwardly sitting on a bench because I didn't want to disturb anyone already in the tea room (don't we all just hate that awkward introductory period when you start a new job?!) After college, I made it a full-time thing and enjoyed my 9-5s, 5 days a week (what a way to make a living..Dolly Parton wasn't joking..) and became 'part of the shop furniture'.. for a good 2 years I honestly thought it was where I wanted to go with my life. But then the little niggle started and I haven't shifted it ever since... making the decision to go to uni was the beginning of it.. and here I am a year or so later concentrating on a completely different career path.

I decided that I wanted a change for 2013, and I knew if i didn't make the change now then I would have gone through another year of umming and arring over the job pages of the newspaper, wondering what else could be out there. It was a very big decision for me, and a rather scary one at that, as I'm leaving before I've found something new (cue lots of gasps and 'are you sure's' from family and friends). Admittedly, I'm a natural worrier and doing this has just been a massive leap into the unknown for me - It could either make or break me and I could well find out that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.. but I'm determined to turn it into a positive. I get attached to places and people very quickly and changing things I'm comfortable with doesn't sit right with me.. So I'm now in the ever so horrible position of trawling job sections of papers and job websites looking for something new.. I forgot how horrible it is trying to find a job, and it's even worse knowing I've put myself in this position. But hey-ho! We live and learn... This said, I'm so set on making this work for me, and I really needed a new start this year. I'm so serious about what I now want from life and I just wanted to step back, think about it all and concentrate on that for a while. I suppose that sometimes in life we all have to throw the dice a little and do things we are unsure of, otherwise we would never progress..

My wonderful colleagues suprised me at the end of my shift with a lovely card and presents (wrapped beautifully in bird patterned wrapping paper..they know me so very well!) I really wasn't expecting it and as soon as I'd served my last customer they all presented it to me and I was honestly so amazed as to how thoughtful they had been.  They're all aware I write this blog, and they'd treated me to some Benefit goodies ('Big Beautiful Eyes contouring kit' & 'Go Tropi-Coral' containing High Beam, Cha Cha Tint, Coralista Blush and Coralista Lip Gloss!)  I'd mentioned in the past how I hadn't tried much of their stuff - so it was a lovely suprise and I was totally over the moon about it - they had thoroughly spoilt me! The card was just the best bit though, and I'll keep it forever and ever. They'd all written their own message inside and it just reminded me of how many good times I've had in that little shop over the years with all of them. I've had many a giggle, with both the staff and my customers, and I know that I'm just going to look back on that stage of my life when I'm older and be glad that I stayed there for as long as I did.  It's given me so many life skills and bags of confidence I wouldn't have necessarily gained out of another job, and on the whole it's really shaped me as a person.

Needless to say, it was such a challenge battling back the tears when I hugged everyone goodbye at 5:00 this afternoon...it's very strange how your colleagues become your little work family isn't it?.. If any of you are reading this.. I shall miss you very much... and I thoroughly look forward to sharing a beverage or two with you at my leaving do (although now i'm living off my student loan & 'rainy day savings', the drinks are on you ;))

Keep your eyes peeled for my Benefit goodies popping up on my blog in the near future!
♥