50 Things That Make Me Happy

Hey All

Leanne from a Slice of my Life in Wales asked if anyone wanted to be tagged in this. As I'm currently in the middle of revision and a busy period in life I thought it would be a great chance to take a time out.

Last year I did the 100 happy days thing. It really was great to do this as even on a crappy day it makes you find something happy and after it I really enjoyed doing it. So here are my 50 things (I'm sure I'll start scrapping the barrel towards the end!)

1. Revision being made easy by the discovery of youtube videos on the topics
2. Street food places (as I type this L and I are off to street food circus in a few hours)
3. My other half bringing me wine bribes to revise
4. Sales (yesterday fat face had a great one)
5. New make up
6. New hair (my hair is always changing!)
7. The fact I've booked my first tattoo
8. Piercings
9. My nieces
10. weddings
11. Tea
12. Being bought tea in bed! (there is nothing better on a weekend morning, ok maybe there is but it's pretty good!)
13. Planning holidays - I love organising the perfect trip
14. Kickboxing
15. Quiet times with a good book
16. A cwtch
17. Candles
18. Planning the future
19. My family
20. Eating out
21. Working out
22. Cocktails
23. Pretty Dresses
24. Pretty shoes
25. PJs and duvet days
26. Music
27. Awesome friends
28. Random days out
29. Going on holiday
30. Weekends away exploring new places
31. Spa Days
32. Afternoon Tea
33. Sitting in the garden on a summer evening
34. A bunch of flowers
35. Smells that remind me of happy times (this is a weird one but I love it when a smell triggers a memory!)
36. Rings (my favourite jewellery, even better when they have a meaning behind then)
37. My Lady Charlotte Rodology Necklace
38. A blanket (I love a blanket for when I'm on the sofa!)
39. Baking
40. Cooking
41. Cider
42. Photo memory books
43. Clean bedding
44. Live Music
45. Going for walks
46. When you get the perfect winged liner
47. Completing challenges I set myself
48. That I've got to see the northern lights
49. Naps
50. Having different colour hair.

That was actually quite hard to do!

Let me know if you've done this tag. 

Love M

xxx

2014: The Round Up

So a very Merry Christmas to you all!

Hope you are all having a lovely day so far and looking forward to your Christmas dinner as much as I am...

Today's post is a bit of a round up of my year in pictures, I was hoping it would be an easy post to write and read but I seem to have been up to a lot in the last year!

One of my favourite pictures from the year of myself (in a non up myself kind of way - good way to start a post!) is the one below, I finally fitted into a dress that I've had for a while without looking like a right pig. I really liked this dress from M&S Limited Collection when I bought it but although the zip did up it never looked right and I certainly didn't feel comfortable in it.

My actual weight hasn't changed much but my composition of muscle and fat has changed and hopefully will continue to.

Going to the gym initially was something to stop me gaining weight and to get me active again whilst at uni doing my masters. Now it has become habit I enjoy going a few times a week and it feels weird if i don't go; hopefully throughout the next year I will see further improvements as I plan to work harder and push myself even more.

Next up was my first ever festival, Glastonbury. 

I'd also never stayed in a tent before so it was a lot of firsts all rolled into one and I loved it!

I saw so many bands and ate so many different meals it was GREAT. I'd love to go back again but I've no idea what the future holds and the tickets completely passed me by this year, maybe I will have to try another festival.

Not long after I went to Edinburgh on a hen weekend and it was AMAZING. We went to the dungeons and wandered around Edinburgh shops for a bit and also went to the zoo, as well as karaoke and a night out - so much fun and I can't wait to go back to Edinburgh again as it was so beautiful.

I can see exactly why JK Rowling managed to write Harry Potter in a place like this.

A few weeks after this I spent a long time making a decision to leave a job that I thought would be a career that lasted years, if not the rest of my life. It was a massive and scary move to leave a job that I knew I would never be able to get again as they are like gold dust. I also didn't have another job to go to, and leaving a job (albeit one that made me feel like shit) was a pretty risky and some might say stupid move. Thankfully it has all worked out for the best and I have a new job now that I love and feel so much more comfortable and happy in and am really looking forward to the future there.

Around the same time there was a lot of other things going on in my life; my mum was also ill and had to go into hospital to have a tumour removed so it was stressful and definitely taking a big leap into the unknown. Thankfully everything is ok, her recovery has been pretty good and fingers crossed it's all over now and she can enjoy her early retirement (and make me extremely jealous with all of her holidays!).

I'm so unbelievably proud of myself and M for completing a Tough Mudder challenge in August; it was one of the hardest things I have ever done before both mentally and physically and the relief of getting to the finish line was overwhelming. But we both managed to do it and get there to claim our tshirt and most importantly, the headband and the pint.

We've just signed up for another for next year to get the green headband so I feel like comparing it to childbirth (not that I know what that feels like) but in the way that the pain doesn't seem to last as long as the feeling of triumph! Training begins after the Christmas food is out the way.

In fact leaving my job, my mum being in hospital and Tough Mudder all happened within 4 days so it was a pretty stressful, crazy and emotional few days and I'll be grateful for that to never happen again.

I've also been on a lot of walks around Wales that I am really looking forward to doing more of in 2015. My dog loves joining me and with views like this who can blame him?! It has certainly been an active year.

Beauty wise a few things have changed too. I had highlights and ombre in my hair so many times my hair was unrecognisable from its natural state. After a summer in Glasto and multiple hen weekends it certainly took a bashing so I've decided to go back dark again to my natural colour. You can see the massive difference in the photos above! I'll be staying dark for a long time now.

I kept telling myself I'd be restrained in 2014 and not buy so much....I did a lot better than previous years but seemed to have 2 rather large splurges at the end of the year. Oops!

I managed to use a lot of points, vouchers etc to get these and even cashed in a few Back to Macs this year so I definitely can't complain. The Pulp Fiction collection has been a firm favourite of mine and Nars is my latest favourite brand as I've been so impressed with everything I've tried from them.

2014 has been a massive whirlwind and for the first time since I started working at 16 I actually have time off over Christmas; and I'm not just talking the UK holidays, I have a whole 10 days off!

This year I'm really looking forward to spending the day with my family, eating a lot of good food and of course our annual Boxing Day walk on the beach (yep, you read that right!)

Having such a busy year has been both good and bad but I'm keeping everything crossed that next year will be happier and more successful than ever.

What are your plans for 2015? Do you have any hopes and dreams or resolutions to complete?

I'm having a little think about mine before publishing them next month!

L xxx

10 Tips to Live a Happier Life

Hi there pals!

I recently wrote about my choice of 'happiness' by quitting my job which was essentially taking over my life without any benefit to myself whatsoever. (see here for more info!)

I've been reading a lot about happiness recently and have seen lots of articles and debates about it. What is true happiness? How can you achieve it?

Happiness is different for everyone, but there are a few key things everyone should try to add a little but more happiness to your day and your life. There's no point living a miserable existence for the sake of it!

In fact even the Pope has recently released his own top 10 tips for happiness, although in my opinion a lot of his are very similar and a little too, shall we say boring?

Here's my top ten tips for being happier:

1) Take care of yourself, have some 'me' time. Sleep, pamper, curl up in bed. Stuff your face with chocolate and don't speak to anyone for a whole 24 hours if you don't want to. It's important to be alone with your own thoughts, it gives you chance to know what you really want. If not, go and get your nails done as a treat, spend an hour in the bath until you're wrinkly and if all else fails, life is always better with a tan! Just make sure you save some time for yourself.

2) Connect with others and do something to help them, particularly those who are already important in your life. Always make time for your family and friends, they are the people who are and will be there for you when you really need them. Even a text, phone call or a snapchat can be an easy way of communicating with them and brightening their day and it will make you happier too. It can be great to have a bitch fest too, just to get your bad day, nightmare colleague, irritating partner etc all off your chest! Catching up in any way possible will always make you feel better.

3) Learn new things, be curious, read, ask and question everything. There's nothing worse (and I'm talking from experience) than having a bored mind with nothing intellectually stimulating to occupy yourself with.
I'm someone who loves to read, loves to learn and I'm generally quite a fast learner, having that taken away from me made me so unbelievably unhappy that I couldn't even see a way out. Since I've taken back control of things I've been reading so much more and finding everything interesting again. It's good to relax but it's also good to keep your mind busy too.

4)  Revisit old things. I've had a huge clear out recently which is something that I try to do regularly as I just have far too much stuff and seem to be a bit of a hoarder! It's great to declutter and make more space in your room/house. But aside from that, look at old photos, make a scrapbook of some of your favourite memories, reminisce with friends over coffee or cocktails about your school days or holidays you've been on. Memories are all you have that nobody can take away from you!

5) Get active, get outside. I'm a firm believer that exercise is a massive factor in happiness. I would never have said this years ago but it truly is the main thing that keeps my stress and food intolerances at bay. I now think that there really is no excuse for you not to get some exercise in a few times a week; whether it be walking, dancing, running, swimming or any kind of exercise class or gym that you can find. I find that mixing it up and doing different things is the best way to go about it, hiking up a hill getting tonnes of fresh air, seeing new scenes and following it up on the way back with fish and chips is one of my all time favourites things to do! Fresh air literally works wonders, get out in it.

6) Move on, live and let live, there's so many sayings I could list but sometimes there's just nothing you can do but walk away from something. Whether it's your job like in my case, your relationship, a friendship or any number of things, sometimes it's best just to move on and leave it all behind. The negativity can drag you down and it's not worth it when you could be having such a better life. Surround yourself with happy people who support your choices.

7) Cut down on the social media. I'm a firm believer in taking pictures on a night out and sharing them with my friends; but constant photos, tweets and statuses can't truly mean you're having a good night? I almost always tweet a picture on the night, it's lovely to be able to share your new dress, hair etc with your friends but for day to day life sharing every meal and constantly comparing yourself to other people's feeds isn't healthy. Social media is a portrayal of someone's life as they wish you to see it not how their life really is. Take a break from it for a few days, and you'll see that really, you're not missing anything.

8) Set yourself goals, make plans for the future, be organised. It can be great to just live each day as it comes but if, like me, you want to get loads done in your life it' a good idea to make a loose plan. 

9) Don't take life seriously. Throw those shapes on the dancefloor, have an eating competition, pull faces in photos. I haven't done any of these things in a long time, it's high time I had a little more fun with life and wore something crazy and danced like a loony!

10) Choose your own path; never give a fuck what anyone says you should or shouldn't be doing. They don't know you, they don't know what you want and you should never do something to please somebody else who wouldn't do the same for you.

If in doubt; refer to Harry Potter:




L xxx

Happiness

Evening lovelies!

I'm having an impromptu chill out evening at home tonight and am trying to get my posts in some kind of order again. I'm normally an organised person and have my posts ready and the photos edited and uploaded so I always have a variety of things I can write about but recently I have completely lost my time and mojo.

Although I've been super busy with hen weekends and glastonbury festival I've also made the really MASSIVE decision to quit my job. This was something that I worked so hard to get and spent 5 years at uni for, which is a position that I imagine a lot of people are in nowadays.

After a few long months of being totally bored out of my mind with nothing intellectually stimulating to keep me going I told my boss I was considering leaving and he attempted to stall me by saying they would sort it out but unfortunately nothing materialised. I've spent too long trying to get them to teach me things and give me a chance to do something more than the basics.

It was making me so unhappy and I hadn't realised how much I'd changed my life for a job.

I'd had to buy a car when I started the job as it was an hour commute either way to get there, which put me in a difficult position financially as I didn't have enough money for one by myself and had to borrow from my parents. The journey time plus the extra hour of my new shifts added 3 hours onto my day compared to before.

I hadn't realised the impact this would have on me long term, and slowly but surely my cinema and food trips after work dwindled and let's not even go there with the cocktail evenings! I couldn't ever attend blogger events as they almost always started at 6 and I could never make it back to Cardiff and park up in the shopping centre before 6.30 so I had to miss them.

With training for Tough Mudder i couldn't even get to the gym as regularly and my life basically became that of what I thought was an older persons; essentially my job was ruining my life and it wasn't even worth it. Not for the rubbish salary, the poor amount of training and definitely not for the amount that it was changing my life.

I'm 26, broke, living at home with my parents and totally hating it all. I realised there wasn't much I could change about it all apart from my job so I decided to hand my notice in and just be done with it. I am now a few weeks away from potential unemployment with a few thousand pounds worth of debt to my parents and then the usual student debt and the potential of a mortgage being some way off in the distance (20 years at this rate!) which I can tell you now is A LITTLE BIT SCARY.

But like the above picture, I need to wake up and live.

I have a lot of plans that I would like to fulfil such as travelling and I honestly cannot describe how much I want to go everywhere and see everything. Money is of course something that will put a serious halt to these plans but I'm hopeful that I will get a job soon and be able to start saving some money again.

My attitude to life has completely changed since I've handed my notice in and I'm already so much happier. Maybe its just the prospect of leaving and the excitement for possible future prospects or maybe it's just the relief of having finally made the decision but I can only hope that I can find a job soon that interests me and help get me out of my horrible hole of debt!

It makes me wonder how many other people are in the same position as me. Did you get your dream job only to find out it wasn't what you were hoping for? Have you had a job that promised you so much more than you were actually given?

Did you find out much later that the promises they made weren't likely to turn up at any point?

I have no idea what's in store for me now, but I know that I've made the right choice and that choice was happiness. So I'm sat here in bed snuggled up with my windows open, watching Bad Neighbours and eating chocolate shoes and I have to say, I'm feeling pretty happy with that.

Everyone needs a bit more happiness in their lives don't you think?

L xxx

100 Happy Days

Evening all!

Hope you've all had a great weekend. As some of you may have seen L and I started 101 things in 1001 days list when we started the blog. They come to an end this October. One of the things on my list was to do a project 365. I've run out of time to complete this now so when I saw 100 happy days I knew it was something I wanted to do.

I'd seen the hashtag on my twitter, facebook and instagram but it wasn't something I'd looked into. When the link for 100happydays.com popped up on my facebook yesterday I had a read.

I love the idea of finding at least one thing each day, no matter how insignificant it is, that makes you happy. I think sometimes we can let life get in the way and stop to appreciate the small things. I let weeks pass and cross them off as a bad week and let myself be moody. 

On the site it states 71% of people don't complete it. Many stating being too busy. This made me think it's time to step back and really start appreciating the little things.

Day 1 for me is Bristol Temple Meads train station. After a lovely weekend at home it's great to travel back to Wales to catch up with friends!!

Day 2 is leaving the gym. My Monday gym sessions are one of my favourites. I love the classes and they always make me feel better.

The final point of my 101 things was to be happy with where I am, for me this is the most important of the list and I finally feel like I'm getting there. I feel like I'm starting to find myself again and what makes me happy and this little project will only help me along the way.

I already feel more positive. I know happy on a Monday just isn't right!

Can you find a little thing each day for 100 days to make you? Let me know if you decide to do this. 

Love M

xxx