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Tuesday 26 January 2016

Let's Talk About Stress


This was a hard post for me to write, I'm opening up about my anxiety and how I have dealt with it. "OH Katie your such a cliche I hear you say?" I find reading others people thoughts and experiences on anxiety so interesting and helpful why of course I had to add mine to the bunch, no judging please, just love.

Yes we all stress, I can practically hear you roll your eyes. Stress is one of those words that is so widely used and thrown about by people in every which way, it stresses me out just trying to determine the meaning of this elusive word.

Weekly, I see friends tweeting about their uni-related stress to which I cannot relate never having gone to University myself. I see my coworkers stress over workload daily, or whos going to be voted out of celebrity big brother next. But I stress about being in closed in spaces with a lot of people, or getting a massage or going to the hairdressers, this stress comes unintentionally and completely unexpected. Stress turns to anxiety, Anxiety turns to crippling fear of the unknown to the point where you don't want to leave the safety borders that are your bedroom walls.

How is anxiety, one of the most common mental illnesses, still one of the most misunderstood problems that affect people. With those lucky enough not to suffer from anxiety or panic attacks, comes a great amount of ignorance (or so I have experienced) and a lot of questions for example "why is this difficult for you?",
I don't really have any phobias, spiders and flies bother to me but they don't set me off in a state of panic like a quiet restaurant. No creepy crawlies just don't do the trick for me, it's the places most people love to be or go that can really send me into the fight or flight mode.
No I don't want to go to the cinema with you, not because I don't want to see the new really awesome film out or am a bad friend. I just don't want to end up having to leave 20 mins in and ruin your time because my heart was beating so fast and loud I'm sure you wouldve heard it.
My go to response when I get this feeling is flight, I run away from the problem instead of battling it head on so I will leave the cinema, I will go home whilst everyone orders another drink from the bar or cancel on a shopping trip with a friend. It's unkind of people who don't understand anxiety to laugh, say your'e being silly or call you a wuss.  And I've experienced it all especially by those closest to me who have known me forever. I haven't always been this way so I guess it would come as a shock to you when I don't want to do things I would once be happy to do. But that still doesn't make it okay.

If you're reading this and anxiety also affects you, please know that I understand all those crazy feelings you have and there will be others around you who also will understand. It feels lonely and so loud at the same time. Ignore the thoughts in your head telling you panic, and don't listen to people patronising you over something you can't control!
Something you can control is how it makes you feel affterwards. If you sit around moping all day like I did, I'll admit I never left my bedroom for almost an entire summer and I felt like crap. I soon realised I can feel anxious but then I can get over it. 5 Minutes of bad feelings shouldnt affect the rest of my day and I chose to do something. I chose to make myself enjoy life regardless of whatever crp was going on in the back of thoughts.
A favourite quote of mine is "If you always strive to choose happiness- every day you wake up and say 'I am going to choose not to let the outside influences of the world affect my mood!' I promise you will live a happier life."- Shay Carl Butler

I find my anxiety is something I can easily open up and talk about, I found the best thing to do was to talk to my loved ones and my close friends about it, If you tell people you have anxiety, it doesn't educate them about it but it gives them an understanding to your personality and your needs. I am able to go out and if I feel not so great and want to go home I can give my friend the look and she knows and completely understands why I need to do what I need to do. It keeps me sane having others knowing how I'm feeling and making a concious effort to see if I'm okay. But I know for some, there couldn't be anything worse than opening up about this and sharing their problems. There is a fear that you will burden people with your problems, I like to put myself in their shoes. If a friend opened up to me about some problems, perhaps they too have anxiety or maybe they've been trying to cope with depression, I am so happy they feel like they can open up to me about it and I can make a concious decision to be there for them and offer help whenever needed.

Anxiety is not the end of the world! I will not let it control me or my life. By making changes like exercising, eating healthier and breathing more conciously, I have learnt to cope and enjoy going out although I believe anxiety is something that can not just be overcome.
Please feel free to leave comments, words of advice or general thoughts. It's nice to chat  x




Monday 11 January 2016

Stuck In A Blogging Rut

Do you, fellow blogger or everyday internet dweller, ever find yourself  asking the question 'What do I want to do?' and after so long you realise you've been spending months not being able to find an answer to that question? Time passes, roots grow back and you still find yourself asking and not actually doing. That is how I have found myself sitting here asking the same question again. Abandoning my blog since June and my only excuse is well I don't know.

I find it funny that we, as people, for some reason have a need to justify each decision we make, to ourselves and especially to others otherwise it feels like waste of time, the wrong decision?
A woman at work came into the kitchen the other day whilst I was making a cuppa and went for a mince pie. Everyone had brought in all of their leftover Christmas treats to empty out the cupboards so it was free for the taking, but she still felt the need to justify her decision to me to eat it. I wasn't sure if she wanted my approval or that I might not jump on my new years diet high horse and say 'Whoa there! Did you know there's 64866258 calories and 900 grams of fat in one of those bitesize pastry devil cakes?" whilst I smirked  holding my cup of chamomile.
But I guess that's my best representation of what I am trying to do but failing miserably to put into best words. I guess I need the approval that I can go back to my blog after such a long hiatus and I feel the need to justify why.  I need to take a big fat bite of the hypothetical mince pie and not care what anyone else thinks.

In a new house and additional cat in tow I find myself, quite literally, find myself again. But it's OK to lose your mojo sometimes. Its OK to feel lost and doubt yourself.
I'd like to do things that make myself happy and not what everyone else is happy for me to do. I need to make time for my blog as I enjoy doing it and I like being able to express myself in a way that I have never found an outlet for before. Sometimes it's scary sharing personal thoughts online as you never know who might actually be on the receiving end, be it a friend, family member I struggle to keep in touch with, a colleague (yikes) it could even be myself in a decade or so reading back, whoever, wherever you are I hope you're happy and take the leap!

One of my new year resolutions was to make time for my blog and here I am making time. I hope I can last :)





Katie
x






Sunday 7 June 2015

Beauty Essentials and Beauty Regrets with Drugstore Junkie!


I'm doing a collab post this week with the very sweet and lovely Katy from the Drugstore Junkie Blog. I first came across her when randomly clicking through bloglovin one day and instantly loved her blog. We have very similar taste in make up and write similar posts so I thought it would be fun to do my very first collab with her!
We decided to write about 3 products we cant live without and 3 products we regret buying as all girls will have those staple go to products they can always rely on and we all have the beauty blunders where we go crazy in the local drugstore and buy everything we can get our hands on and some will inevitably end up in the bin for begin completely rubbish. I have done this many a times.



To start off both of our 6 beauty essentials are;


KatieAt the top of my beauty essentials list has got too be my Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. This is the best thing for chapped lips. For years I swore by Cherry flavoured carmex and I found this about a year ago and couldnt understand how I had never come across this! I like to put it on at night when my lips are feeling particularly dry or chapped and they are so smooth by the morning! Would recommend to everyone and you can find it cheaper on allbeauty.com





Katy: My top beauty need is a boring one which most people have it is the Mac Studio Fix foundation in a shade NW15, I've never ever found a foundation which matches my colour so well and has such a good coverage as I have some discolouring on my face which I hate. Also it lasts ages! I never ever throw it away without scraping every last bit out with the pump tube it might be more expensive than drugstore at £25 (if you order online with p&p) but you can't beat it. 


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Katie: Garnier's Micellar Cleansing Water is a product I find myself obsessing over when I run out. I always repurchase it when it gets below a quarter full now so i never have to worry but when I first used it, when I just wanted to see what the fuss was all about, I ran out and really noticed the difference when I had to go back to wipes for about a week (naughty me).
This lovely product just gets rid of all my makeup and all the muck that ends up on your face, I especially love it because it doesn't have a scent!





Katy: This is quite a recent discovery! The W7 In The Buff eyeshdow palette I don't think I can express my love from this if you love neutral shades and long lasting pigments but don't want to spend £38 on the Naked 2 palette this is for you and they range between £5-7 depending on where you buy it! I love the shades and its actually left my MUA palettes in sulking in the drawer, I reach for this everyday without fail!


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Katie: I had to include Lancome's Grandoise mascara. I have spoken about this twice before so I wont't drone on about it but as I've said before its the best mascara I have used. I got my first one at Christmas and just repurchased a new one so it lasted pretty well! As a beauty enthusiast I managed to save all my Boots points from buying way too many Barry M nail varnishes and Rimmel concealer sticks I was able to afford the £27!




Katy: My last one is my favourite at the moment and its Mr Blanc whitening stripes these are amazing! I've even subscribed monthly I noticed a difference from day one and so did my boyfriend. I think they are so cheap compared to some whitening stripes which do nothing! These are £20 a month or they do different amounts for different prices.

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And our 6 beauty regrets are:

Katie: No7 is such a disappointment for me and I will have a rant now... 
The brand as a whole is a complete let down and overly priced (sorry if you like No7). When I was looking for a new foundation one day I thought it would be nice to go to my nearest No7 counter and try their skin match device thingy. This was before I tried any of their products and to be honest I wish I hadn't. 
As I had been to the gym before I went my face was still quite flushed (I look like a beetroot when working out) so the very nice lady offered to do the skin match on my neck instead of my red cheek. The device done its thing and somehow assumed my skin matched the palest shade that they stocked. 
I am nowhere near as pale as the shade but the lady still pushed that I only buy in that shade so I felt pressured to get it! It ended up being the Essentially Natural Foundation in the shade Calico. It's terrible colour and consistency wouldn't blend onto my face properly and looked streaky and felt sticky. I will never buy or use anything from them again.




Katy: My beauty regret is the Schwarzkopf POWDER'ful volumizing styling powder. First of all this didn't work for me at all, all it did was matte my hair up and made me have to wash my hair every time I used it, it gave me some volume but really it went greasy and went flat again. This  wasn't cheap either it was near the £5 mark at least when I bought it. 

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Katie: Another massive let down for me was the Rapid White Express Whitening Strips. These are a 7 day whitening process but I have had it in my dresser for the last 18 months. As I drink a lot of tea and coffee I thought i could do with some whitening strips just to brighten my teeth. I was excited to use them and they seemed easy to use but as soon as I applied the strip to my teeth I could immediately taste what seemed like a whole roll of aluminium foil in my mouth. They are meant to dissolve within 5 minutes and you shouldn't let your lips or gum touch the strip. After about 8 mins of sitting looking possessed by some teeth whitening demon it was obvious the metal tasting gel wasn't dissolving and I ended up spitting it out. I cannot describe the vile taste enough for you to understand not to buy these!




Katy: Okay so this isn't a bad buy for £1.99, it's the Natural Collection Eyeliner. It's perfect if you want to experiment with eyeliner but I overall prefer felt liners, I think they are so, so much easier to apply as they are literally like a felt tip pen. I can't fault this at all though because it's £1.99 I just don't like the application and after getting into make-up I've found different brands I like. 

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Katie: My last regret (although I could go on but must refrain) is the Schwarzkopf got2b Texturizing Salt Spray. I love the oil from this collection but the salt spray just didnt agree with my hair. Where it says beach matt it really means "MATTE" like matted hair, like really bad matted hair. I bought this for my holiday last year forgetting how my hair battles  with sea water as it is, I'm shocked at myself for wasting £5 on this. It is still full!




Katy:
My last beauty regret I've had for maybe even longer than a year or so, it should really go into the bin but it's here anyway before it does. It's the 2true Bronzing Powder this is only sold in Superdrug and it was when I was really getting into make-up on a cheap budget I can't remember how much it was but its literally orange on my face and does not blend whatsoever, I wish this brand was good but it honestly isn't, nothing I've bought from this range has ever been any good.

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Katie
&
Katy
x


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