All Time Favourites: Tv Shows :)

Tv takes up quite a percentage of my free time and I am not ashamed to admit that. Similar to books, I love to get completely lost and indulged into a different setting, whether that be in Albert Square or in Rosewood. I watch A LOT of television and for me to write about everything I watch would take me forever, so, I have compiled a short list of my all time favourites that I could watch over and over again (some of which I already have).

 

 

I have about nine television shows that I could watch constantly on repeat. One of the shows that fall into this category is definitely Law & Order SVU. The show is currently on it's 16th season and I have seen every episode at least three times! I never get fed up with this show no matter how many times I watch the episodes because the storylines are brilliant but quite disturbing at times - perfect for a psychology student!

 

Criminal Minds is of a similar genre to Law & Order SVU and you never, ever get bored because the storylines are so unpredictable and always keep you on edge. Criminology is an area of psychology that I am interested in and criminology is the basis of this programme. Each serial offender and storyline is so cleverly thought out that doubt about people you know in real life surfaces. The central characters are so incredibly different and unique that it makes it near enough impossible to pick a favourite, you just love them all.

 

 Pretty Little Liars is currently on it's 5th season and at the very beginning of the show it was more 'teenage drama' storylines but now it is all about the murders and the mystery which makes the show even more gripping. You could come up with twenty different theories to try and solve the Pretty Little Liar A mystery and still not be right because the show is thought out incredibly well.

 

I first watched Casualty when I was around four or five years old and since then I have not missed a single episode. Growing up I did want to be a paramedic and then emergency medicine doctor which is probably what sparked my interest in the show despite not actually going on to study medicine.

 

EastEnders is another show that I have watch since early childhood and I can fully admit to becoming quite attached to some of the characters over the years. EastEnders never fails to test the boundaries when it comes to storylines, from baby snatching to murder.

 

From the ages of 11-15 I was really into horror films which is probably why I started watching The Walking Dead and do I regret it? Definitely not because the show is AMAZING. I introduced my brother to the show as well who was only ten years old at the time and he loved it. Each time a new episode airs we watch it together, which is pretty much the only thing he will do with me now that he is seventeen. The slaughtering of the living dead just makes life better.

 

A relatively new show that was introduced via Netflix is Orange Is The New Black and I have seen all episodes of the currently released seasons twice. Netflix releases all the episodes of a season at once in June, so once you have binge watched them it's back to the waiting nearly a year to the next season is release. A short description of the show would be lesbians in prison but do not let that put you off watching it because nobody that I have recommended the show to has regretted watching it, even with the explicit content.

 

A show from my childhood that hasn't lost its appeal is H2O: Just Add Water which is about three girls who live in Australia and stumble across a magical cave that implements a little magic into each of them; as soon as water touches them, they turn into mermaids. I don't care how old I get or how cheesy this show may be, I like it and it's a good show that has a good chance of cheering you up.

 

Supersize Vs Superskinny is another 'strange' show that I watch constantly, I guess it just appeals to me. I watch a lot of documentaries and I think that's partly why I like it. As a psychology student, there are various things that affect people psychologically as well as physically that particularly interest me. One of those topics is food and I never tire of watching episodes because you pick up on something each time you watch.

 

Desperate Housewives was introduced to me by my friend Laura and I am so glad I listened to her (she will love that). I finished all eight seasons of the show in six weeks (during exam time) which just shows how good the show was. Each season has a new mystery and has you gripped from start to finish. The show has the right combination of humor, drama, mystery, heartache and highlights the importance of friends and family. The development of the central characters throughout the season is great as well. The only thing I have to fault Desperate Housewives on is that between two seasons there is a five year jump which I am not keen on at all. Despite this, if you haven't watch it then you definitely should.

 

 

There you have it, my all time favourite tv shows. Quite diverse in genre I know but I would recommend each show to absolutely anybody and I've had no complaints from people receiving my recommendations so far. Thanks for reading about my all time favourite shows, keep an eye out for more posts soon xxx

 

My 2015 Lent Challenge :)

I am in no way religious and I don't have anything against people who are religious but I choose to take part in lent to give myself and extra challenge.

 

I started giving myself this challenge about 4/5 years ago when I decided to try and give up chocolate, crisps, sweets and fizzy juice. I completed this challenge and then decided that each year that followed, I would add on another item to give up. Those items included cake, biscuits, cheese and takeaways. Throughout the years I discovered that I was in fact allergic to chocolate so I could no longer eat it anyways and therefore couldn't count it in my yearly lent challenge. About a year and a half ago I also gave up eating cake for good so I no longer count that within my challenge either.

 

Over the years, this challenge became easier and easier for me despite giving up more things. However, this year I decided to give myself a real challenge and give up something that is often eaten daily, bread. At first my mum wasn't very keen on me giving up bread as well as everything else but she came round to it once I showed her how easy it was to have meals that didn't contain bread and explained how it was only for a short time. So this year the things I have given up for lent are sweets, fizzy juice, crisps, cheese, takeaway food, biscuits and bread - as I no longer eat chocolate or cake anyways.

 

So far this challenge has been relatively easy, touch wood! I haven't had any major cravings and haven't felt any hungrier than normal even though I don't expect the rest of the challenge to continue in this way. As lent continues, I do expect this challenge to become a lot harder but I am 100% completely determined to do this and fully believe that I will. I will also do another blog post at the end of lent with an update of how I found the challenge and whether or not I manage to complete it!

 

 

I would love to hear all about your 2015 lent challenges and how you are finding them. Keep an eye out for more posts soon xxx

Childhood Favourites: Books :)

I haven't posted as much as I would have liked to this month, I've just been extremely busy with university and volunteering. To make up for the lack of blog posts, I am going to do a double post today. As a child I read a lot. I would devour book after book. I remember at primary school we had fortnightly trips to the library which I loved, but it wasn't enough, so my mum would take me to the library every other week as well. Another thing I remember from primary school is that when we had finished a book, we would have to fill out a fun book report sheet and put them in our folders (to try and encourage reading), most of the children in my class would fill out maybe one of these fun report sheets a week but I was nearly filling out one a day! I have always loved to read and still do and I thought that I blog post on what I used to love reading would be perfect!

 

 

Early Childhood

 

My mum would read to both me and my brother every day and night before bed and we both absolutely loved it. When we were really young, the go-to books were almost always the Walt Disney Ladybird Classics (top right). Every single book in that collection was owned by us and had it's own place in our rooms on our bookshelves. Because of this, my parents created a personalised Disney book for me, The Little Mermaid starring myself, Stephanie and Sarah (friends at the time) and Stuart received a Batman version. As I grew older and learned to read myself, I would read the books to my brother and we would make up our own versions of the stories. Winnie the Pooh and Beatrix Potter both had there place in everyone's childhood, for me that place was at my nana's house on her big armchair or in the spare bedroom when I would stay the night. She would read me the stories of Peter Rabbit and Winnie and then I would fall asleep to the accompanying VHS tape. I remember opening the Alice in Wonderland Jigsaw Book one Christmas and instantly going for the pages with the Jigsaws on them and completely forgetting about the story itself. I absolutely loved Barbie when I was little and when my mum gave me the Barbie as Rapunzel book, I carried it almost everywhere with me for around a month, I must have read the book at least twenty times!

 

Mid Childhood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I could read before I went to school, so when I did go to school and we had fortnightly public library trips, our own school library and bookshelves in each classroom, I absolutely loved it. I had a pretty rough time in primary school so reading became my way to escape. Animal books where a particular favourite and I had plenty of them! The Animal Ark, Puppy Patrol, Twins at St Clare's and Sheltie the Shetland Pony Series kept me occupied for hours at a time, I would finish a story a day with these books and often had audiobooks of them to listen to as well. My Secret Unicorn series was one of my all-time favourites which is why I still own all the books in the series to pass on to a child of mine in the future. One of the things that I loved the most about this series was the fact that the main character who owned a the horse that turned into the unicorn at night was called Lauren. The first time I read Ballet Shoes, I was about 7 and it took me quite a long time to read because the writing was so small and it was a good couple of hundred pages long but when I did eventually finish it, I loved it and became obsessed with Ballet as a result. It quickly became one of my favourite books and still is to this day.

 Later Childhood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I found the transition to high school quite difficult so reading was still my way primary way of escape. Television and writing also became ways of escape. Besides Harry Potter, Jacqueline Wilson was a must have for pretty much all pre-teens and teenagers. I own all the Jacqueline Wilson books and would often stay up all night finishing her books. I remember when I bought my first three books of hers in a shop in the local shopping centre; Dustbin Baby, The Illustrated Mum and Secrets, I had saved my money up for three weeks. Those books where quite lengthy but nevertheless finished within five days of purchasing them. The only thing I really liked about high school at first was the size of the library and the variation of books it contained. I started reading different genre's of books including fantasy. The Inheritance Cycle in hardback is one of the best purchases I ever made, the books are amazing and don't really have an age limit. It took me a whole month to read Eragon (the first book in the series) when I was twelve but it was most definitely worth it and certainly didn't put me off reading the other books in the series. I would recommend this series to absolutely anybody even if you might not think it is your preferred type of book. The Darren Shan Series was also a childhood classic for me. Images of me reading these books on a beach in Spain comes to mind and I read six of the twelve books whilst on a family holiday. These books where originally my brothers but he wasn't reading them so I thought I would. They have just the right amount of adventure and horror in them to make them very enjoyable to read and gripping from start to finish. Another genre that I began to read was crime and young adult. Catherine MacPhail books occupied quite a bit of my bookshelf when I was about 13 and I was lucky enough to meet her and for her to sign my favourite book of hers; Roxy's Baby. It has quite a sinister story line involving a pregnant teenager but was gripping from beginning to end and I read the book in one sitting. Quite a lot of the books I read from the ages of 12-14/15 involved teenage pregnancy when I think back, what can I say, I was a unique child.

 

 

I hope you have enjoyed the first in hopefully a series of Childhood Favourites blog posts in the future. Thanks for reading and I'll have more blog posts up soon xxx



January Favourites :)

I cannot believe that January 2015 is over already, this year is flying by so far! January for me was reasonably eventful, with four family birthday's, volunteering, two university exams and then going back to university at the end of January, it's safe to say I was kept well and truly busy. Despite this, throughout the course of the month I did find myself absolutely loving a few different items.

 

A purchase from last month and a rediscovered item from one of my drawers are the first things I am going to talk about as I have been wearing them both constantly! I have trouble getting to sleep normally but even more so this month and something I have found to be helping is an eye-mask I had purchased a while back from New Look. This simple little thing has not only been allowing me to fall asleep a lot quicker, but to stay asleep as well. The thumper jumper I purchased from Primark for a measly £2 has been worn nearly every day since I got it. It is so soft and oversized, keeps me warm and looks cute as well which is always an added bonus. 

 I decided to switch the type of shampoo & conditioner that I was using from TGI Catwalk to TIGI Bed Head instead and so far I love this product, from the way it makes my hair feel to the sweet smell it has.

 Nivea is a staple company for me when it comes to skincare and they never disappoint. One of my aspirations for 2015 (which I have written a blog post on) was to develop and stick to a proper skincare routine. Three of the products that I use are the Nivea Make-Up remover, Exfoliating Scrub and Night Cream which makes your face feel incredibly soft when you wake up in the morning.

 

Kylie Minogue is a music artist that I heard a lot around the house growing up so naturally she became one of my favourite artists to listen to. Back in November 2014 I was lucky enough to see her perform live for the second time (the first being in 2011) and she certainly did not disappoint. Since then I have been loving her music even more, especially her most recent album 'Kiss Me Once'. Jessie J is also one of my favourite artists and I was lucky to be able to purchase a ticket to see her this month but unfortunately her concert was postponed until next month, however, that didn't stop me listening to her constantly the past four weeks and having her newest album 'Sweet Talker' playing all the time (not pictured).

 

Make-Up wise Rimmel London has definitely been creeping back into my collection. I was becoming less keen on the foundation I was using previously by the day and decided to start using the Rimmel Lasting Perfection Foundation in Ivory that I received for Christmas. This product is much better than the foundation I was using before, giving me more coverage and moisture at the same time. The shade also fits my skin colour a lot better than the old foundation as well, which is a difficult thing for me to find in a foundation as I have very pale skin. Paired with the foundation is a staple that I have been using for years and it is the Rimmel Stay Matte Powder in 001 Translucent. As for eyes and nails, something extremely affordable and really good value for money is the H&M Eye Shadow Duo with a slightly shimmering gold and a brown colour, paired together, a very natural but pretty smoky eye look can be achieved and from New Looks nail polish range Pure Colour, the shades 'Sweet Rose' and 'Shell Pink' can create a lovely Rose Gold shade when used together. 

 

Another thing I have been loving this month is candles. I have about 6 generously sized candles and a lot of smaller ones from various companies that will last me right through until spring time (I hope). This month in particular though I have been burning the Yankee Candle scent 'Vanilla Chai' with a Chupa Chup candle my friend did not want in the Scent 'Cherry Frenzy'. I love anything that smells of cherry, spices and vanilla, so these two candles where perfect for me to have. The two scents burning together create the perfect wintery smell for my room, a great scent for after Christmas that isn't to strong but is powerful enough to fill a whole room with the delicious fragrance. I will definitely be burning more of these candles before we exit the wintery season I think.

 

 

Tying in with my resolution to become a little healthier and fitter are my final two favourites. Strawberries seem to be in season at the moment as my fridge is constantly full of them. I have been eating strawberries with my breakfast, lunch and as a snack in the afternoon sometimes as well. I have also been doing a lot more walking outwith walking the dogs and I have been absolutely loving it, especially when the scenery looks like it does! (right). Where I live there are two reservoirs very close and they are both currently completely frozen over and look beautiful. I will admit I do have the temptation to stand on the ice but I promise I will just admire the views instead.  

 

 

Thank you for reading about my January Favourites despite how random some where and I'll upload another blog post soon xxx