Sunday 15 January 2017

I AM ENOUGH









I've done a lot of reading these past few weeks and I don't mean books, I mean blogs & websites with articles that mentally prepare you for the new year, new you kind of thing - don't get me wrong though, I love reading that kind of thing and it does truly inspire me.  

When I was reading one article, I came across the statement 'I Am Enough' and it really made me think, so much so that it inspired me to write this post. I Am Enough, to me sounded like such a bold and overconfident statement, someone whose totally sure of themselves but then I thought, well what's wrong with that?  

I don't think I would be wrong to say that I'm not the only one who doesn't feel they are 'enough'. I'm constantly putting myself down in my head - I'm not skinny enough, I'm not pretty enough and I have to admit that's exactly how I felt when I first looked at the photos i've included within this post. I think it's really easy to constantly feel not enough, to not be good enough, to not have enough money, not own enough possessions, not enough followers - but how did I get to the point of comparing how many likes a photo gets to how good life is. I feel like part of me has become so influenced by social media, where personally I feel like I'm meant to look a certain way and have this perfect Instagrammable life. Don't get me wrong I love posting on social media and writing blog posts, I wouldn't do it otherwise but I do need to remember that you can't put a number of likes or followers on real life. 


I have so many things in my life to be grateful for that it's time to push my silly worries aside, re-gather some confidence in myself and remember that in fact... 

                                       “I am Enough”


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Tuesday 3 January 2017

OUR TRIP TO EDINBURGH


As an early Christmas present, James booked a long weekend for me and him to stay in Edinburgh. We both haven't had a holiday this year and felt this would be the perfect mini break for us. 

We flew from Heathrow early Friday morning and the flight up there was so quick, I've actually had commutes into London that have taken longer. The timing of our flights meant that we had pretty much 4 full days we could spend in Edinburgh. James found us a perfect apartment where we actually ended up having two bedrooms, two bathrooms with a living area, kitchen and balcony - it was great and about a 10 minute walk from the castle. 













On the first day there we visited Edinburgh castle, which was really interesting and has some amazing views.



 On our first evening in Edinburgh we had dinner at Zizzi's which was just across from our apartment. The food was delicious and it was nice for us both to enjoy some drinks too. 

 We did so much walking whilst we were in Edinburgh that our average daily steps was around 20,000. This really helped to cancel out all of the calories we were consuming from the cafe's and christmas market food stalls. 

  We found a cat cafe called Maison de Moggy, not too far from our apartment and got up early one morning in the hopes of getting in. We were completely unaware that so many people had already pre-booked this experience but were still lucky enough to get in as two people had dropped our that morning. You are given a one hour time slot but this soon flies by, the cafe also offer cakes and coffees whilst you sit and play with all the cats. It sounds like a weird experience as i'm writing this but it was really fun and I'm glad we managed to get in. 
 We did eat a lot of rubbish whilst we were away so one night we decided to get some 'healthy-ish' ingredients and make use of the kitchen we had in our apartment. 
 Coffee and Cake before our mountain climb up to the top for Arthurs Seat. 

The views from Arthur's Seat were incredible! 


At the bottom I said that it didn't really look that difficult to climb, halfway up and I can tell you that it was, especially as I'm so unfit at the moment. It was super windy as well but we did manage to FaceTime my family from the top and show them the views from where we were standing. 


Getting back down was worse than climbing up, the whole experience was pretty funny and terrifying at the same time because I really don't like heights. It was really steep so I spent most of my time sliding myself down this mountain on my bum. 

We had a really amazing few days in Edinburgh and would definitely love to go back. We had many suggestions of places to go from comments on my Instagram photos so that gave us a list to work through.

The places we visited / things we did were:

-Edinburgh Castle 
-Underground Ghost Walk
-Arthur's Seat
-Lights Festival 
-Christmas Market 
-Harvey Nichols Chocolate Lounge 
-Mary's Milk Bar 

Lots of Love 
Amy xo


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Sunday 1 January 2017

NEW YEAR, NEW GOALS & RESOLUTIONS


HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So, it's the start of a New Year and I think it really is time for a new me, as stereotypical as that sounds. I'm writing this because I can use it as my list to look back on over the year, see the things that I have achieved and the goals and resolutions I still need to work on. 

2016 was a really successful year for me but I plan to make 2017 by far my best year yet... 


LOSE WEIGHT

This time last year I know I felt exactly the same, I hated the way I looked and decided it was really time to do something about it. However, after that losing weight over a few months early last year, I have now put it all back on and more. I've never really found any diet that's stuck - the way I lost weight last year was by monitoring calories on MyFitness Pal, however I became really bad at this and still am, constantly feeling guilty and not really wanting to add in the foods I'm eating. I know a lot of people wouldn't consider me to be overweight, however I know myself when I look in the mirror I just don't feel good about myself anymore. Clothes I've always loved and worn are just becoming so much harder to squeeze into and they just don't look the same and more importantly I don't feel good about my body image, which is why most days I end up wearing all black.  

For that reason I have decided that this week I am starting Slimming World. I have heard so many great things about Slimming World and after seeing my cousin lose over 2 stone, I thought I would give it a go. I'm so excited to get started and get back to feeling good again. 

EAT BETTER / LEARN TO COOK

Another reason I really am excited about Slimming World is it will give me the opportunity to learn how to cook properly and eat properly. Since starting my job back in August my eating habits went  downhill, I started skipping breakfast - opting to breakfast biscuits and quick sugar filled bars instead just to eat on my drive to work. As for lunch, I would never take anything in and instead go and buy something either from our canteen or one of the high street fast food places, such as Gregg's or M&S - to be honest there's nothing wrong with that but for me I'm constantly tempted by the quick and unhealthy option. 

The plan from here onwards is to take in breakfast and lunch to work, fruit and yoghurt for breakfast is really simple and I can have that at my desk and I am excited to learn the best options to prepare for lunches and dinners / snacks. I've already noted down a few recipes to try but if you have any healthy recipes, I would really love it if you could share them with me! 

EXERCISE

Again because of the lifestyle change with my blog, I now get very little exercise and that's something I want to change. Even if that means going for a 20 minute walk on my lunch break to get my steps up for the day, it's something I need to do. The company I work for encourage a healthy lifestyle and run fitness clubs at lunch and after work so I think I should sign up to one club this year at least. Also I used to love swimming and that's one sport i'm good at so I will try and do that once a week. 


WEEKLY BLOG POSTS

Blogging isn't something I'm a pro at, lets be honest yet it always surprises me to see that people do actually read my posts. You may be able to tell, as I do go on a little bit, but I've started to write like no one's reading, using my blog as a little space I can share all my thoughts and ideas. 

I do love writing and sharing posts though so that's a new goal for me, to get at least one post up a week, if not more. I would love to be a daily blogger but I'll just see how my target of blogging weekly goes so far.

SOCIAL MEDIA

That being said, I really need to up my social media game too. This will be something that is going to be involved in my job everyday too so I will start doing more research into top trends and attempt to post something daily on my social platforms. 

TRAVEL MORE

My job now means I travel a lot more and I'm so excited to visit different places. The last place me and James visited was Edinburgh in December and we plan on doing lots more little trips this year. Nothing is booked yet but I plan on writing a separate post about the places I'd love to visit. 

GET OFF MY PHONE AND MEET PEOPLE
My business idea of SN:APP (connecting bloggers & photographers) is still something I'm working on in the background and although it might never happen due to finances, I do really want to at least have the opportunity to meet more people from the blogging community and connect people together. I would love to work with other bloggers and get to know you guys personally. It would be so nice to build relationships with new people but without social media for once, face to face - let's grab coffee, take blog photo's.. how knows, I just need to learn to have fun without my phone sometimes. The ultimate goal this year would be to plan and run a networking blogger event but I've already got so much I want to work on so I'll take this one goal at a time. 


GET ORGANISE / LET'S DO THIS! 
So I've been de-cluttering my room whilst I've been off and i've learnt that I am a bit of a hoarder- realising this after finding about 5 different bags of bags - I mean I love nice shopping bags and they're always handy but I soon realised this is a little crazy. I've binned the lot, something stuff has gone to charity shops - i've sorted old clothes, shoes, homeware and some pieces are up on Depop and Vinted. This is all part of my mission to become super organised this year.


COMING SOON

Ok, I think I've really gone on quite enough in this post, so I'm going to leave it here. I will be doing separate posts based on some of the things I have discussed today, keep your eyes peeled for those. For now, have a great week! 

Lots of Love 
Amy xo 




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