3rd June - Diet Diary

So today Russ & I went for a massive food shop as that time came where too many things needed replacing. Oh Tesco how expensive do you want to be? We normally shop in Aldi but Tesco have a much better rang of everything :( So £96.00 down we have a ridiculously healthy fridge.

So today for breakfast I had shredded wheat with a little bit of sugar -  calories

Mid day snack of prawn cocktail crisps - 130 calories. ( anyone else noticed they've made the packets tiny now? Probably to make it seem like they're full instead of completely empty like the old packs!)

Lunch time - I made a bacon vegetable salad (I hate regular salad bleugh!) I used spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans and sprouts, with pancetta and a couple of new potatoes.  -  calories

Dinner - We will be having chicken breast, with sweet potato fries and baked beans! Mainly because I've already used my achieved my healthy 5 a day already and fancy being naughty.

Exercise-wise = I am taking the puppies for a walk each this afternoon so about 1 hour of walking and I'll be doing my 30 day shred routine again which burns around 130-140 calories.

My Fitness Pal tells me I only have to work out to burn 940 calories a week to lose 1 pound a week in combination with a healthier diet of 1200 calories or less.

My aim is to be slimmer by my 21st birthday & graduation!! :)

2nd June - Today is a new day!!

So I've been really depressed lately about my weight, I mentioned a few months ago that I hated how much weight I had put on but with all the university stress, I had no motivation or energy to do anything about it. So whilst I'm sat around applying for jobs, I'm going to start today!

I've done well so far, I woke up motivated, not just for exercise but in general. I suffer with depression clinically, and it often comes in waves so some days its just difficult waking up, let alone going for a jog. I'm doing a 5 day trial at the gym by me soon, I just have to buy ink for my printer to print it off! But today I'm getting the house all sorted and getting our life back on track as it all got ahead of me during the last wave. I'm going to be using my fitness pal to calculate my calories & i'm going to use my blog to keep a track of how I'm getting on! Because now my laptop is fixed I have no excuse :)


It's now 1.30pm - I've had breakfast and lunch!

Breakfast - I had an egg and two pieces of toast - 222 calories

Lunchtime - I had spagetti with a stilton and parmesan sauce (naughty) - 524 calories.


Dinner - I had breaded cod with broccoli, cauliflower, mange tout and baby sweetcorn.

I did have a late snack - naughty! I had low calorie ice-cream with some sprinkles!


I did my 30 day shred workout which I started today, and I did a tone-it-up arm workout! Feeling very good about myself :)

Irritated with ASOS!

Mini rant alert! I ordered my benefit moisturiser from ASOS last week, and since I've moved I added in my new address whilst placing the order and then checked out. What I was not aware of was that even though you select 'add new address for delivery' it doesn't automatically send to that address. So even though I've moved to a different city, my moisturiser was being delivered to my old address. So immediately in the morning when I realised I contacted the customer service team - who only operate on twitter, lots of conspiracy about how they don't like to speak to customers on the phone. Easier to stop speaking to a person online than hang up on someone on the phone..

Anywhoo, it had only been 12 hours since I placed the order, and my package was still being packed for delivery. 2 days later, it was despatched & I was told that they were not able to change the address. Even though the bloody package was in their possession for 2 days. Simply don't send it out. I asked to cancel the order, because at ASOS you pay straight away even before receiving the package. After a long winded and angry series of tweets, they said they would attempt to contact the individual courier.. of which I've heard nothing. They told me I would need to get in contact with the current occupants myself. Even though they apologised for the mistake their system had made, it's bloody ridiculous. My life is pretty much crap at the moment, and all I wanted was a new moisturiser to try & sort my skin out, and not even that can go right! Plus unhelpful customer service drives me crazy!!

Really need to sort themselves out - will definitely be driving to the nearest city to purchase my moisturiser from house of fraser instead of bothering to order with them again. Meant to be for convenience, and it's just caused massive stress. Now I have to go through the irritating process of contacting my bank and making them get my money back.

xoxoxoxox

What does the future hold?

I had an amazing dream last night, so much so I snoozed my alarm three times and Russ left me to sleep an extra hour as I refused to wake up! What was this dream about? Well something quite broody actually, I dreamt that we had a baby, and she was 2 weeks old at the time. The entire dream consisted of using going shopping for her new outfits, according to my dream self I only purchased two onsies for her, and she'd been living in them for two whole weeks - evil mother. She had short blonde curly hair (like Russ when he was younger) and green eyes, very adorable...

It's not a surprise that I then woke up saddened that it was not reality and that Russ had not impregnated me. I mean I'm 21, but my news feed on facebook is full of people who have got pregnant younger than I am, and are living with babies and posting all their snaps of their happy little family. So a girl is definitely going to be feeling a slight tinge of jealousy even if she has two puppy babies of her own. This led to an hour of me walking round like a mother looking for her child, until Russ told me 'not for a few more years Lauren', then I had to go for a jog with Ella to get it out of my head. We had a lurvely time, I love walks with Ella through the country, we walk for 95% and jog for 5% but it gets my heart rate up and she loves the little bursts of running. Plus it's a beautiful day so I'm feeling much happier!

Anywhoo! What does the future ACTUALLY hold for us?

Well as you may know we moved into our new rented house in March, and we're staying here for at least a year and a half till September 2014. Then the road in unclear!! Which is exciting & terrifying at the same time. I am doing a masters in Applied Child Psychology which takes 1 year and ends in September, which will prepare me for doing my Phd, till then I have to find somewhere that focuses on my speciality and apply a year in advance?! HAHAHA - stress. Whilst Russ is maybe applying for masters, but thinks he will just work full time for a year and save up money for his studies :) it will be strange if we're both not studying because that's all we've ever known each other to do!

No luck as yet with the temp agency, they've called me about a few jobs, but never got back to me. Slightly disheartening, I did apply for a job which I thought would be lots of fun, and hopefully they will get back to me - fingers crossed please!! Plus I need to get back to taking photos now that it's becoming sunny again, for some reason when it rains I lose all motivation to take snaps of how depressing life is! Here's a couple of photos for you :)

Here's Linky sitting on the back seat for the first time! Russ' mum came to visit, and we took Lincoln to a massive car boot sale, he did amazingly well considering he's scared of people sometimes and he let lots of children stroke him :) very proud of my big baby!

As I said Russ' mum came to stay with us for a weekend, and on the Saturday my mum also came to visit. Together they helped us create a window seat for our Lounge! It's a pastel silky pink to tie in with the theme and it's so comfy and padded. Amazing was two ladies can accomplish when they put their heads together. 

My patchwork quilt is also on it's way, very exciting! I am having a break from it, as soon as my exams finished I got really into doing my patchwork, but then Russ' mum visited and told me my stitches were not strong enough and that I needed to re-do them, see how many there are?! Not impressed :( But! At least almost 1/7 is finished, there will be 6 more sections like this, and they will then be stitched together to make a quilt. I felt like this was the easiest way to make the quilt without having a massive piece to work with :) Very excited!!!!

Lots of love,

Lauren :)

xoxoxoxooxox

Update on Animal Testing!

Wayne from Goss Makeup Artist on Youtube posted a video recently that explained that in the EU all make up brands have to be manufactured without using animal testing! This limits them from testing on animals and also anyone they source from testing on animals. This is fantastic news and means that we in the UK do not have to worry about animal testing, because any product they sell to us legally has to have not been tested on animals to be legally sold. This is amazing news for anyone like me who loves the big brands like MAC and Estee Lauder's companies! Wayne explains that this is why MAC have released fewer limited collections recently whilst they are adjusting to the new manufacturing laws.


Heaven's have answered! Thank you government organisations for seeing that something is wrong, and doing something about it for once. Brilliant news!

Wow...my last post was at the end of March, it's now the end of May. Whoopsy.

I apologise for my absence, I say that so frequently on this blog, but unfortunately from March- now I have been completely distracted by work for my degree! I had to hand in my final copy of my dissertation, which now I'm extremely worried about! I felt like I had done really well, but now it's been a month since handing it in, and we do not find out our grade until mid-June so doubt is beginning to set in! I also had my exams this month, and was working like a maniac to prepare myself for them, I revised in a way I never have before so I might do a post about that because it worked ridiculously well for me. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, and not everyone will be able to do it, my boyfriend is quite annoyed that he can't but I did not feel nervous for any exam, and felt so confident afterwards which I have no felt before so great time to feel good about my work in my last year of my degree! SO now I have completely finished university for my undergraduate degree! I calculated based on my previous assignments so far, that for half of my degree, I have scored 68.9 on average, which means I am 1% below a first honours. So annoying, but hopefully with my dissertation and exams worth so much, maybe I did well enough to push it over the edge! Fingers crossed, but I'll be very happy with a high 2:1 as thats what I need for my masters course.

Wow - it's hailing outside and it's May, what is happening to the world! Where is the sun? In Britain we had a week of beautiful sunshine during revision time - typical. And then it went away, and now it's just rain, hail, cloudyness. Absolute terrible; so disappointed mother nature come on, we need some bright sunshine to lighten up these dreary times! Anywhoo I noticed that I've had over 1000 views to this little blog, which made me so happy! I was very surprised considering I barely have subscribers and no-one really comments, so I always feel like I'm waffling on to myself. Alas, I will continue to talk to whoever is out there reading :)

Now as my degree has come to an end, I feel very weird because I constantly feel like I need to be doing work, or have reading to do, which I clearly don't. I've even emailed my course leader for my masters asking for a reading list, it's terrible! This may be due to the fact that I also quit my job recently. I had a horrible boss, and could not really stand working in that horrible environment any longer, so I bit the bullet and quit. I am registered with a temporary admin agency who find you receptionist/admin work so I have some sort of job. However, when I signed up, I said I need two weeks till my exams are over and then I can work full time for you. They then rang me three times in the last week about several jobs, all of which I had to reject because I had exams like I had previously told them. Then this week, they've only called me about one job and said that they had to send CVs off for a candidate to be chosen...now I feel like I have no purpose in life, no drive. So I thought, I'm going to do some work on my blog. In my research for my future career path, I've been quite scared about the prospects. I do not attend a red-brick university, so how likely am I to be accepted to one for a phd course? I have no idea, so I thought, instead of worrying, I'm just going to prepare myself to be excellent in what I do, so that when I do apply, I know it's not based on my abilities but simply my academic background (aka, where I come from) that affects whether I get let in! Which I think is likely to happen, so I'm trying to prepare myself.

I didn't know whether or not you would mind if I wrote a few posts on here about psychology and things I find interesting when I research? Just thought it might be interesting to learn a few random bits of information you might not know unless you study psychology! Well because no-one ever comments really I'm going to take that for a yes and start uploading some!

Also it was Ella & Lincoln's 1st birthday this year! Ella was 1 on the 27th of April and Lincoln was 1 on the 5th May! It's so strange we adopted them at such different stages in life, yet they were born a week apart. SO glad to have them both in my life now at least! But I do get sad that I couldn't give Lincoln a home until he was 6 months old, he must have gone through such hard times until then, I mean he is still scared of a lot of things, and he has scars on his beautiful face that you only notice when he has his head snuggled into your lap - yes he is very spoilt but after being alone on the streets for half his life, I think it's all he deserves! :)

P.s. Been majorly obsessed with Elementary & Hart of Dixie lately, I finished the Elementary season and oh my lord, brilliant. I love Lucy Lui as an actress and I'm glad she's in something I can watch all the time! Also Hart of Dixie, is just addictive in terms of the southern feel, I keep slipping into a deep south accent which is really annoying my boyfriend because I'm British & it just does not sound right. However I do get ridiculously annoyed by Zoe Hart thinking she is in love with George even though she's only kissed him once, not had enough interactions with him to warrant full blown love. Now I understand why young children think they are in love all the time, because the media makes it seem like a tiny thing that is achievable after one date. That is infatuation, difference. The word love is thrown around way too much, but more of that later! Finally, I have become obsessed with patchwork! I started making a patchwork quilt, I'd had the bits for about 8 months but now I'm finally getting around to making it & I love it! Here's a picture of it a few days ago, it's bigger now but I'll write a post about it! Because I love it too much not to share! I might also try the tone-it-up way of life, or just simply more healthy but maybe when it's not too rainy and I may actually like to go outside.

Have a great day!

xoxoxox

My lord I apologise for my Absence!

My life has been chaotic the last few weeks let me tell you that! So I apologise for not writing any posts but my lord have I been busy. With what you ask?

I moved house with my boyfriend this weekend so for the last two weeks I've been living in purgatory! Literally all our furniture was packed away and we were eating off the floor for the last few days. When we finally moved our landlord couldn't move into his new property so had to keep most of his furniture in the house. Luckily he's moving beginning of April and then the house will be completely ours, but just had to happen really didn't it! There is never smooth sailing in my life I can tell you that!

Also - I found out last week that I have a sister. A SISTER! That no-one ever told me about. She found me on facebook and just thought I was a relative of my dads. However, turns out she was his child from a previous relationship and she never met him. My mum didn't know either so it was a massive shock to us, grandparents however knew everything and were going to tell me when I was 21. Really changes your perspective on family when they keep a secret for 20 years. I now worry whenever my nan rings me because our last few conversations have always included; 'Lauren, Gemma wants to know about this...so theres something you should know' As if every event in my life seems to have extra history that I am unaware of. Cray cray life!

All this has happened during the last few weeks before my dissertation is due; thats in less than 2 weeks. I have my feedback from my supervisor but I need to finish it all off. I have all the tools to do it, but it's pretty hard to concentrate when you're second guessing your life & your worldly possessions are in boxes. Hopefully my life will be completely organised tomorrow & I can start work again. But today... I have a job trial at a new restaurant in Loughborough where I'm living.

I'm so nervous! I have been a waitress for 4 years, but I'm still worried I'm never good enough. This is often what happens; plus my anxiety is constantly sky high; I'll definitely have a panic attack on my walk to work tonight - 100%. But for now I'm going to try & be productive until then :)

Russell is now asking for some moral support in the kitchen because he does not want to cook Lunch alone. MEN!

Here's some instagram snaps from the last week for a super quick update on my life! They have been uploaded in a random order so I'm going to quickly go through them, randomly.

Here's a funny snap of me & Russ on our last night in the old house. Thank god! Was an absolute nightmare moving out - I have a detest  for our old estate agents. They are horrible people! I paid £200 for my carpets to be cleaned & they're saying that damage that was 'written in the inventory' is our fault as the estate agent 'forgot to write it in'. Money-grabbing Assholes. 

This is me today! My hair feels so much better condition since I haven't used heat for the last 3 weeks! I have been just washing my hair every other day, then leaving my hair in plaits over night so it's dry by morning and has a nice wave to it! Although you can tell my routine is all over the place because today it was straightened and I felt terrible hahaha. 

Last night Russ was at work & I was having a night in by myself with the puppies. Strangely it was heaven, I watched Psychic Sally for the first time. I love trashy tv, and it's interesting to see so many people believing in the paranormal! 

Oh Linky-bear. This was our second day in the new house, we were unpacking and Lincoln had gone missing. We found him asleep on our bed - you can see in his eyes that he knows he's done wrong! Cheeky puppy. 

This is from Sunday, when Ella & Linc had their long walks. Lincoln was all up in my grill about wanting cuddles where as Ella was snuggled up in her bed avoiding the drama :) so cute! My pups are so photogenic! 

So that's it! Again i'll try to be more organised with my videos but life got quite dramatic all of a sudden! 

Much loves.

xoxoxoxoxoxox

The Latest Obsessions...

Random post alert! 

• Private Practice - Lord! Grey's Anatomy has been on hiatus for a month, so I filled my crack addiction with this show - it's spin off. It's overly dramatic, the characters can be highly irritated but my lord I am obsessed! I feel like my life is so calm and tranquil, that I thrive watching this made up horror show that is their personal relationships. I mean Violet - would not be allowed to practice psychiatry. She is overly involved in both her patients and other people's patients lives. 

• Malteaser Bunnies - nomnomnom! Whether it be normal Malteaser Bunnies or mini bunnies! I don't care, these are delicious bundles of joy. I get a glowy feeling every time I eat 7 of these bad boys. (I have a food addiction...may be why I've put on so much weight. hell no only live once!)

• Halo 4 - I'm a very girly girl. But there is nothing I love more than shooting someone in the head on a virtual game. I know it sounds sadistic, not like I'd wander round with an assault rifle shooting people. But the hunt is hilarious, I die so often. I'm an absolute failure at it, but every time I get 8 kills, I'm so happy but realistically my boyfriend gets 30, he's awesome, I suck. But I love it! Addicted.

• Plaits - I have been trying really hard for the last few weeks to stop using heat on my hair. I have badly damaged hair & I have no idea why it's suddenly so bad. I had highlights about 5 months ago, and about 3 inches of hair cut off. And I have dyed it like a dark blonde a month ago. But it's just so dry! If I tried to curl it, my ends would look dead. So I've been washing my hair every 2 days, and plaiting it before I go to sleep. So I wake up with dry wavy hair. Hence no heat involved. Hopefully if I keep doing this it will help prevent anymore damage. I wanted nice hair for my 21st birthday but who knows if that will happen! Any advice would be very much appreciated :) 

And those are my random current obsessions! 

Here's another random, updated photo of Ella & Russ. I took it to show the lady who gave me Ella how much she's grown since her old pictures :) Safe to say I can no longer pick her up without causing myself damage! 

xoxoxoxox

Get To Know Me Tag :)

Dissertation handed in! I thought to ease myself back into things I would do a tag for you guys :)

1. What time did you get up this morning?
Just gone 10, we slept in way too late, but hey it's Sunday!

2. How do you like your steak?
I rarely ever have steak and if I do it's Medium well! So there is no blood but it's not too chewy!

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Me and my boyfriend went to see "this is 40" on Wednesday! It was hilarious & it deepened my love of Leslie Mann - Absolute beaut of a lady! If I look like her when I'm 40 I'll be extremely happy!

4. What is your favorite TV show?
Grey's Anatomy hands down!

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? 
I think San Francisco :) or a suburb of New York!

6. What did you have for breakfast? 
Weetabix! nomnom

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
I love Italian - pasta junkie, but I also love my Chinese!

8. What foods do you dislike? 
Onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers! Fruit!! Ugh, anything crunchy that shouldn't be! haha

9. Favorite place to eat?
T.G.I Fridays!

10. Favorite dressing?
I do not eat salad therefore, I do not use dressing.

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive?
I have a Peugeot 308 :) it's my grown up car, upgrade from my little Renault Clio

12. What are your favorite clothes?
I love being cosy, I think I spend 80% of my time is spent in Pyjamas!

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
Definitely Hawaii & Australia

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?Half full! But on my depressed days, my glass is empty wahhh!

15. Where would you want to retire?
Australia. Keeping my wits about me for the spiders would keep me young!

16. Favorite time of day? 

Midday :) I'm a morning person so by then I've done loads and will be very happy.

17. Where were you born?
Birmingham, England

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?
I don't really watch sports. Whenever the Olympics is on I love the gymnastics! But I hate football/rugby - boring.

19. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?

Anyone!!

20. Bird watcher? 

My mum is, but I'm pretty sure she uses her binoculars to stalk the neighbours more like haha

21. Are you a morning person or a night person?
I used to have insomnia so I was always a night person, but recently, if I get enough sleep I'm definitely a morning person. I'm in bed by 10 hahaha granny.

22. Do you have any pets?
Yes I have two puppies; Ella & Lincoln.

23. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? My dissertation is in! Wooooo! Plus I'm moving house in 12 days eek.

24. What did you want to be when you were little? 
A doctor. Until I was in year 11 and realised it's bloody ridiculously hard to get into university for! Haha hello getting a Doctorate another way, woop Psychology!

25. What is your best childhood memory?
Probably random days with my dad, fortunately I can make new memories with everyone else, he's the only person who's memories I cherish :)

26. Are you a cat or dog person?
Dogs fo sho! Although I do love cats but they're too independent for me. I love that my dogs adore me and come for cuddles

27. Are you married?
Not yet...

28. Always wear your seat belt?
Yep only because my car makes a very angry noise when I don't wear it hahha.

29. Been in a car accident?
Not a bad one. My mum once drove into a van when the lights changed to red. He was not happy, a girl in the car claimed to have had whiplash. I hadn't even realised anything had happened; drama queen!

30. Any pet peeves? 
Definitely developed one this week - people who do not pull their weight & cruise on by on the hard work of others. HATE!

31. Favorite Pizza Toppings? 

Pepperoni!

32. Favorite Flower? 

Red roses :)

33. Favorite ice cream? 

Ben & Jerrys Cookie Dough definitely!

34. Favorite fast food restaurant? 

Burger King definitely.

35. How many times did you fail your driver's test?

 Once - I had a panic attack and hit a curb straight away coming out of the test centre. It was a nightmare and I had a horrible man.

36. From whom did you get your last email?
Probably a lecturer :)

37. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? 
Umm Miss Selfridge! I love everything they do, but it's ridiculously expensive.

38. Do anything spontaneous lately?

I went on a spontaneously shopping trip to Primark last week!

39. Like your job? 

I don't have a job yet...sadness :(

40. Broccoli? 

Soft! But liked in my household.

41. What was your favorite vacation? 

Florida or New York!

42. Last person you went out to dinner with? 

My boyfriend Russ :)

43. What are you listening to right now? 

Hercule Poirot unveiling who the killer is mwahaha

44. What is your favorite colour? 

Umm Pink!

45. How many tattoos do you have?
Three :)

46. How many are you tagging for this quiz?
I don't know anyone to tag ahh!

47. What time did you finish this quiz? 

20.48 - time to pick Russ up from work :) oooh it's snowing!

48. Coffee drinker?
Not anymore. It used to affect my insomnia aahhh plus I hate the taste. 

Red bull however is my crack. 

Hope you all enjoyed this post! 

I'll be writing more posts this week now that my workload has got much easier :) 

xoxoxoxoxo

Where Have I Wandered Off To?

I must apologise to you all for my lack of posts this week! 

At University, it is dissertation draft deadline week, which means that we all have to frantically work on our dissertations to get enough of it done a month before our actual deadline so that we can get some good feedback from our supervisors! Because there is no point handing it in half finished, otherwise the other half you write might be rubbish and you would never know! 

So I've done about 3/4 this month, I think I've written about 5,500 out of 8,000 words. All that I have left is to discuss my findings, which should be about 3,000 words but probably will be cut down because of how much it took me to write about everything else haha! So I'm doing well, hopefully it doesn't have too many corrections :) 

 I think the draft is a great idea; some people keep complaining that if it's not due in till April they shouldn't have to have it finished by March. From my experience, these are the people who go out all the time, barely do work and think it's an inconvenience that our lecturers are trying to help us before it's too late. Driving me loco! Mini rant but it is really annoying me how in the final year of our degree people can still believe they can coast?! As in, not do any work and expect people to do it for them. There's a girl in my group who has done probably a twentieth the work everyone else has done this term, and she moans that she's too busy with her dissertation - funnily enough she's one of the people moaning about drafts - seeing a pattern? Have no idea how to cope with the situation; everyone moans about her not working and we all have to compensate to make up for her lack of effort; but because we're now so close to the deadline, there isn't anything we can really do about it.

So yes, I'm working a lot at the moment so I haven't had time to write any posts :)

But I will definitely be updating you on everything next week after the deadline! 

xoxoxoxo

February Goodies!

It's nearing the end of February, it's been a horrible month with one day of sunshine and lots of work. So I decide after a long day at university, that I would buy something nice for myself. I started looking for foundation; I normally purchase high end for foundation, I'm not too snobby about make-up but I always think you get what you pay for with foundation, as normally if I buy one from a boots brand; they end up not lasting very long so I have to re-apply in the day, and therefore, they don't last a month. So I buy normally from MAC or Illamasqua. But I saw Wayne from Gossmakeupartist talking about a boujois foundation that is half the price I normally pay, so I thought hey might try it out. Love it! Yes I've only bought it today, but it feels so soft, and really reminds me of a Chanel foundation I had as a sample but refused to buy because it was too expensive. Whoop love me some cheap dupes!

Boujois Healthy Mix Serum - £10.99; Maybelline Colossal Mascara - £7.19, Revlon Balm Stain in Honey- £7.99 & Revlon Lipstick in Pink Pearl - £3.99 (Boots offer - Buy One Get One Half Price)

I also picked up a couple things that almost cost the difference between what I normally pay for foundation and the cost of the boujois one! :) so I got two lip products and a mascara! I repurchased the Maybelline Colossal Mascara as I've tried it before and loved it in the waterproof version. It has a lovely bristle brush, I have a weird hate for plastic brushes as my water line is very sensitive :). I also bought two lip products from Revlon; a balm stain  in Honey, it's a lovely rose shade, very much your lips but better! I have a dark plum version in Crush which is a great texture, but it fades to a bright pink which scares me so I thought I'd try a more neutral colour :). I also got the lipstick in Pink Pearl which is a similar shade, but with more golden brown undertones, making it a tad more bronzy! I love doing darker, brown eyes during the day lately, and really need a nice neutral lip product to go with them :)

I am aware that Maybelline and Revlon are listed on my previous post as using animal testing in their product testing; after further research, I found that they only use animal testing when the law requires; this is similar with a lot of brands owned by Estee Lauder. So I will continue to buy products from there, but in the future I'm going to try to buy the bulk amount of my make-up from the brands listed as not using animal testing :) as I said it is difficult to ignore all brands! 

Hope you enjoyed this post :)

xoxoxox

25 Random Questions Tag :)

I have been in major work mode this morning, so I thought whilst my lunch is cooking, I'll do some procrastination & write a blog post all in one! I love tag posts & I saw this one floating around years ago, so felt like I'd fill it out! 

Question 1: Do you have any pets ? Yes I do! I have two puppies; Ella is 10 months old & she is a Carpathian Shepherd, and Lincoln is 9 months old (still very much has a baby mentality!) & he is a golden labrador & german shepherd mix :)

Question 2: Name three things that are physically close to you: A textbook on Child Psychology, my Iphone which is dead because I'm too lazy to find a charger and my vase of fake teal flowers :)

Question 3: What's the weather like right now ? It is not very nice...it is quite windy, very cold and there's a chance there may be snow as I keep seeing small flakes floating around.

Questions 4: Do you drive ? If so, have you crashed? I do drive, I passed my test when I was 18, the day before I moved to University, very fluky. I have never crashed funnily enough, had a few near death moments where lorries have veered into my lane though!

Question 5: What time did you wake up this morning ? I woke up at 9am. Quite late but its Sunday & I've been very productive this morning :) 

Question 6: When was the last time you showered ? I showed straight after I woke up for some reason. I had a very strange dream and felt like I needed to be refreshed before I did anything so I let Russ deal with the puppy morning mayhem whilst I had a relaxing shower :)

Question 7: What was the last movie that you saw ? I think the last movie I saw in the cinema was Les Miserables which was amazing. But as I mentioned the other day, Legally Blonde is my go-to favourite movie of all time, sadly. So I watched Legally Blonde 2 last night :) 

Question 8: What does you last text message say? I have no idea because my phone is dead :( 

Question 9: What is your ringtone ? You know I used to love using songs for my ringtone but now I just use the standard ones on the iphone & I think it's a piano theme or something?

Question 10: Have you ever been to a different country? Yes :) I've been to France, Belgium, Spain, Greece, USA - Florida & New York. I'm not sure if I've been anywhere else but they're the main ones I remember :)

*Just got distracted by a weird sound - Lincoln is upside down snoring away in the cage. (he was having a MAJOR hyper moment, and would not listen to me, he knocked the ironing board over, so I put him in Ella's cage for a time out, and he fell asleep, perfect!*

Question 11: Do you like sushi? No I weirdly don't! I really wish I did, but when I go to Yo Sushi all I have is Katsu Chicken. That is delicious, but I can't really get to grips with raw fish. 

Question 12: Where do you buy your groceries? I usually get them from Sainsbury's because I like collecting nectar points hehe!

13: Have you ever taken any medication to help you fall asleep faster? Nope, my mum made me take something for back pain once that was like 'hospital strength' that she used after an operation and I snored like a baby after that!

Question 14: How many siblings do you have ? I have an older brother called Nico :)

Question 15: Do you have a desktop computer or a laptop? I have a laptop :) A mac book to be precise, but I am looking to get a desk top for when I start my masters, purely because I don't think my macbook functions well having all my documents on it. & I miss desktops and having the sims! 

Question 16: How old will you be turning on your next birthday? I will be 21! My birthday is actually on the day of my graduation..awkward.

Question 17: Do you wear contacts or glasses ? Neither.

Question 18: Do you colour your hair ? Yes I do :) right now it's a sort of very dark blonde/light brown.

Question 19: Tell me something you are planing to do today: I am planning on finishing off my introduction for my dissertation which has been a nightmare and I have already cleaned most of the house, but finish that & I aim to walk both dogs separately on my own wah :( 

Question 20: When was the last time you cried? Lord I don't know, I'm really emotional so I cry all the time :')

Question 21: What is your perfect pizza topping? Pepperoni hands down! 

Question 22: Which do you prefer, hamburger or cheeseburger ? I'm not a huge burger fan, but when I do have them, It's always with a strong cheese like Stilton :) Don't think I've ever had a hamburger..

Question 23: Have you ever had an all-nighter ? Yeah I used to have insomnia during my first year at University and throughout that summer, so I'd stay up all night and go to the gym really early like 5am, and do my food shopping before anyone was awake. Very refreshing and beautiful mornings, but bad for you! 

Question 24: What is your eye colour ? They're green but they sometimes vary as some days they have more gold in the inner ring. 

Question 25: Can you taste the difference between Pepsi and Coke? Hell yes people who say there is no difference, clearly have not been addicted to diet coke haha. Pepsi has a lot more sweetener in, so it takes bleugh always leaves a coating on my teeth. furry! 

So that's all the questions! Feel free to copy this template and write your own response maybe on your blog? :) 

Thanks for reading & I hope you're having a fabulous weekend! 

xoxoxox

Beauty Without Bunnies!

This is a campaign by Peta in regards to the use of animal testing by cosmetics companies.

As the mama of two beautiful puppies, I feel very open saying I do not understand why in today's day and age, cosmetic companies feel the need to use animals to test the safety of their products. A vast amount of companies have already begun using alternative methods that bypass the use of animals in their testing. It truly baffles me why others can't take their lead considering the extreme implications it has on the lives of animals. Animals do not even have the same reactions to products that we do, so why do we think testing products on them will ensure we do not have bad reactions? - simply ridiculous!

I mean look into their eyes...

Feeling the love yet?? 

So I thought I'd provide you with a list of the cosmetics companies that do and some that don't use animal testing! You can provide your support to the Peta campaign by boycotting companies that condone animal testing and supporting the companies that are against it :) 

Make-up brands that use animal testing:

♥ Bobbi Brown
♥ Bumble & Bumble
♥ Caudelie 
♥ Clearasil
♥Clairol
♥ Clean & Clear
♥ Clinique
♥ Dolce & Gabbana
♥ Dove
♥ Elizabeth Arden
♥ Estee Lauder
♥ Garnier
♥ Gilette
♥ Georgio Armani
♥ Gucci Fragrances
♥ Herbal Essences
♥ Jo Malone
♥ L'Occitane
♥ La Mer
♥ Lancome

♥ L' Oreal

♥ M.A.C Cosmetics

♥ Max Factor

♥ Maybelline 

♥ Neutrogena

♥ Nice 'N' Easy

♥ Olay

♥ Pantene

♥ Ralph Lauren Fragrances

♥ Redken

♥ Revlon

♥ Shu Uemura

♥ Tom Ford

♥ Vidal Sassoon

Yes I know that may seem like alot. Unfortunately it really is a majority of beauty companies out there that still use animals in their research. This is because most beauty brands are owned by a few big corporations, including L' Oreal and Estee Lauder. Just think when you next walk into MAC, is that £14 lipstick worth the pain that animals go through? In my opinion, it really isn't, so here's a list of beauty brands that do not test on animals :).

♥ Anastasia Beverly Hills - perfect eyebrow products.

♥ Aveda (Owned by Estee Lauder but independently use alternative testing)

♥ Barefaced mineral cosmetics

♥ Burt's Bees - alternative to vaseline ;)

♥ Dermalogica - great skin care.

♥ E.L.F Cosmetics - cheap and cheerful, yet still able to avoid animal testing? hmm.

♥ Essie - nail varnish in an array of rainbow colours anyone?

♥ Gosh Cosmetics - Provide me with my favourite liquid eye liner

♥ Illamasqua - Amazing british brand

♥ Laura Mercier - silk creme foundation anyone?

♥ Liz Earle - My favourite skin care brand who test on human volunteers to avoid animal testing!

♥ Lush Cosmetics

♥ NYX Cosmetics

♥ Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics

♥ OPI

♥ Origins - brilliant skincare

♥ Palmer's - thank god we can still use body butter.

♥ Philosophy

♥ Sally Hansen 

♥ Stila - the in the light palette can stay!

♥ Smashbox

♥ Tarte Cosmetics

♥ Too Faced Cosmetics 

♥ Urban Decay -  Hallelujah, I do not know what I would have done with all my palettes...

♥ Wet 'N' Wild.

So there are still a lot of brands that do not test on animals! Yay guilt free make-up and skincare! I did read another blog post on this topic and they list certain brands as 'not testing on animals unless required by law'. These brands include; MAC, Estee Lauder, Avon, Bobbi Brown. Please note that Peta still marks these companies as using animal testing in their research.

Here's the link to the blog for further schmoozing: 

http://beautyfool.com/animal-testing-beauty-brands-that-do-not-test-on-animals/

I try not to do deep posts but I watched Legally Blonde 2, where Elle Woods goes on a campaign to ban cosmetics companies from testing on animals and I got slightly passionate as my puppies napped around my feet. I know there is little that we can do to change the law regarding animal testing, but what we can do is avoid the brands that openly use animal testing, and support those that have chosen to use alternative methods to avoid harming the beautiful animals of the world :) 

I hope this post opened some of your minds regarding animal testing, and perhaps you feel as passionate about it as I do and will join me in my change!

Thank you for reading!

xoxoxoxo

Mid Month Mumble - February 2013 :)

So this month has been full of trials and tribulations! 

Our little family have gone through a variation of stressful events, including Lincoln developing a skin condition, Ella getting a bladder infection and peeing all over the shop, trying to find a house and keep up the hard work on our degrees. 

This month I realised my university discriminates against small people! This is the bathroom mirror in one of the buildings. I mean I cant see beyond my forehead, trying to fix make-up halfway through a  full university day is a bloody nightmare. But I have finally finished my research in my schools, it was exhausting but so rewarding! And I've started analysing the data for my dissertation! Such a relief to be on the way to getting it finished but my deadline is in two weeks so still lots of stress on the way. But it's okay because I have my favourite movie to get me through it;

Speaking of University! I have big news - I applied for a Masters course at my University and was offered a place the very next day! I was so proud - and accepted the offer! So beginning September this year, I'll be studying for a Masters in Applied Child Psychology :) SO EXCITING! 

I know it's a fun loving film, but her hard work comforts me that being geeky and working my ass off is  worth while and possible whilst still remaining fabulous! 

This month also saw me buy my first Yankee Candle Tumbler! I've always been a jar girl, because I think they're meant to last longer, but I do like that this one burns and doesn't stick to the sides, which is such a waste in my book! This smells absolutely beautiful, I keep in the kitchen to trick people into thinking I bake...

I also had to pick up this birthday card, which I will never be giving to anyone and may in fact get it framed! I love Marilyn Monroe, I know she's a famed beauty icon, and it's very cheesy! But I just love that she's a curvy woman that is recognised as truly beautiful by all. 

I do hate this month for weather, although it's a lovey dovey month the weather has been awful and really gets me down. Constantly cold, mostly foggy and/or rainy, plus the weird amount of snow we've had is just unusual. It really annoys me that every I walk out the front door I'm slapped in the face by freezing cold wind. Nightmare! 

So tonight I am having a lovely Friday night in watching Legally Blonde and writing on my blog! I love writing posts for here, and love that people have actually started commenting! This is exactly why I started writing my blog, to find a new way to speak to people and write about my life. Gave me major butterflies :) 

p.s. I have also been majorly obsessed with wearing my hair in chopsticks. Tad overdone. I also tried to dye my hair a dark blonde, and it went light brown. Fail, packet dyes are absolutely rubbish. Haters gonna hate. 

xoxoxoxo