(Blogmas Day Fifteen) 8 Surprisingly Interesting Things 2016 Taught Me

It’s Blogmas Day Fifteen! So as I explained at the beginning of December, I’ll be blogging until the end of December with Blogmas, rather than just until Christmas Day.

Today’s post is 8 Surprisingly Interesting Things 2016 Taught Me and this is Part One of Two. Part Two will be the 8 Life Lessons 2016 Taught Me and that one will be more serious because this year really has been such a massive year, mentally and emotionally for me, and I wanted to address what I really have learned.

 I was missing out when I chose not to listen to Lady Gaga.

For years I refused to listen to Lady Gaga for no actual reason, I have no good plain reason why I wouldn’t listen to her. My friend Leonie then told me how amazing she was (and that I needed to listen to her) and I listened to her latest album, bought it about a week later and now I’m making my way through her back catalogue every morning on my way to work.

Musicals are wonderful.

Leonie gave me my first experience of musicals and I can’t believe I was so against them before (Again, what’s with the pre-judgement?). I had only really seen the hype and annoyance around High School Musical and I just wrote all musicals off because of one film. It was wonderful though; I really respect the actors who can sing, dance AND act in front of a live audience, it’s memorising to watch.

Vegan cheesecake is the best cheesecake.

Being gluten free, you think that you’ll never have a cheesecake again. Thankfully there’s a plant based cafe in Belfast who make the best vegan, gluten free, refined sugar free cheesecakes and I believe they are quite literally a slice of heaven.

Being by yourself gets easier.

Date yourself. Treat yourself. Love yourself. Respect yourself. Take yourself out for a cup of tea once a week, give yourself a manicure, let yourself read a book for a few hours, watch a dozen episodes of Friends in one go. Be by yourself and embrace it.

5. There’s nothing better than making your own dinner from scratch.

Using Deliciously Ella’s cookbook for the majority of the year, it’s an amazing feeling knowing exactly what has went into your dinner that night, you feel this sense of accomplishment making it yourself and you feel better after it too.

Tea with milk really is a British thing.

When I went to Italy, they had more black tea or cold tea. I didn’t have a single tea with milk. When people say milk with tea is a British thing, it really is true. They don’t seem to do it a lot in Europe! (In my experience anyway).

I prefer being blonde than red (for now).

Before my Dad’s wedding, I decided to do something different with my hair and go back to my original brunette but add in blonde too. I used to have blonde highlights when I was younger but it didn’t take me too long to dye my hair back to red then. But now, I really love the blonde and brown, it’s like a new lease of life!

Getting up at 5:30am really is incredible.

It sounds crazy doesn’t it? It’s not, trust me. There are so many more benefits than negatives. You feel better once your body gets used to it, you get so much more done, you feel like you can concentrate in work better and I personally felt more motivated for the day. You have to make sure you go to bed early the night before! (One of the reasons I haven’t done this in a while!)

Thank you for keeping up with Blogmas so far! Check back on Wednesday for a brand new Blogmas post.