SS: Sunday Saves (#51)

Happy Sunday! I hope you’re having a lovely weekend so far! So with this week being Mental Health Awareness Week, I thought it was quite suited that my Sunday Saves would be themed around Mental Health. Just to add, there were so many bloggers addressing Mental Health Awareness Week which I think is fantastic and it was so hard to choose just three posts to feature this week.

1) The V Nice Life (High Functioning Depression)

A lot of society have painted depression with one paintbrush stroke but depression can take many forms and Sarah talks about high function depression which she suffers from. I didn’t know a lot about the high functioning side of depression so it’s a fresh perspective on the condition, so if you’re not too sure what exactly it is either, I’d recommend Sarah’s post.

2) Parenting, Pasttimes, Prosecco (Has Mental Health Tested Your Parenting Life?)

Having a mental breakdown has only happened to me once or twice in the past year and I can completely understand where Sarah is coming from. It really is just built up over so long and you become completely uncontrollable. It’s a horrible feeling that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I think it’s fantastic how Sarah has written about her experience and especially being in her family situation at the minute, she deserves a medal.

3) All About Aoife (YA Mental Health TBR List)

I loved the idea of this post! Aoife has put a list together of the young adult books she’s hoping to read soon but they all have a theme based around mental health. She even gives you a little description of each book too, so you don’t have to go look up each one to find out what it’s about.

Well that’s all from this week’s Sunday Saves! I hope you’ve all had a good week and if you have any posts you think I should read, please tweet me over at @RetroSnowflake.

 

(Blogmas Day Four) Christmas Bucket List!

It’s Day Four of Blogmas! Today I wanted to share my Christmas Bucket List. Now these aren’t resolutions, goals or anything like that; I just wanted to create a nice, attainable list to work with over the Christmas period. I’m off for about a week and a half so I don’t want it to go to waste, so that’s why I’m adding potential activities to do over this time.

1) Enjoy a hot chocolate.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while or you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I can’t eat cocoa. I’ve done two full blog posts on my intolerances so I’ll have them linked here and here. So having a hot chocolate isn’t as easy for me; there’s nothing I would love more than to walk round the Christmas market with a cosy hot chocolate. I have the next best thing, well when I say ‘the next best thing’, it’s actually so much nicer. One of my favourite restaurants in Belfast, Tony and Jens, make the greatest hot chocolate ever. It’s made with cacao instead of cocoa and they use a natural sweetener rather than sugar. I only discovered this about two weeks ago so I will definitely be back before Santa comes!

And yes, it’s as good as it looks!

2) Watch my favourite Christmas film on Christmas Eve.

Now I don’t want to go into this too much because I’m planning on doing a full Blogmas post on ‘The Santa Clause’ which I’m sure you can guess, is my favourite Christmas film. Every year I watch it on Christmas Eve, it’s a tradition I have because I don’t necessarily watch it with the family. But hey, as long as I have my cup of tea, I’m a happy bunny.

3) Get more sleep.

Aah sleep. You and I have a very rocky relationship don’t we? A five hour sleep is a success in my eyes, I’m pretty bad with getting the recommended eight hours. But since I’ll be off for Christmas for about a week and a half, I can’t wait to catch up on sleep but not go overboard on lie ins (I do plan on still getting up early!).

4) Spend more time at the gym.

The gym at Christmas is a dream! It’s emptier than usual and because I’ll be off, I’ll feel like I have more time to go,  I can even go early morning or at lunch if I want to. The gym will feature in an upcoming blog post so I’ll link it here when it’s posted. My workouts have been lacking so I can’t wait to get back on track with them over Christmas.

5) Clear out my bedroom.

There’s the potential that I could be moving out in the New Year so Christmas will be the ultimate time to have a massive clear out and I need to down size, majorly! So clearing my room out isn’t a want, it’s a must!

6) Have a baking day.

I used to love baking! I had my little Sunday routine where I would go to the gym, head to Tesco for the food shop, I would make my favourite energy balls then to top it off I’d make the next weeks lunches. As we all know, life happens and my routine slipped (and I had a new Sunday routine for a while, which I loved just as much) but I’m hoping to bake lots of healthy sweets over the Christmas period since I won’t be able to eat all the amazing Lindt and Roses sweets.

These are the energy balls I used to constantly make. I would say I got very obsessed with them for a while. No regrets!

7) Start a new television show.

I love TV. I’ll openly admit that I’m more of a television girl than a film girl. In saying that though,  I probably haven’t seen most of your favourite shows. Orange Is the New Black? No but I want to. House of Cards? No but I want to. The Walking Dead? Scandal? Making a Murderer? Can you see where I’m going with this? There’s a new programme that has just started on Channel 4 called ‘This is Us’ so I can’t wait to start that because the trailer looks like my type of show. Even though I haven’t seen it, if you liked Parenthood, I think you’ll like this.

8) Make time to read.

If you read Blogmas Day One, you’ll recognise this photograph. I have quite a few books to read and what would be a more perfect time to read them than over the Christmas holidays?

If you’ve done a similar list, please tweet me over at @RetroSnowflake or in the comments below. If you’ve missed any of my other Blogmas posts, you’ll find them right here!

(Blogmas Day One) What I’ll Be Reading This Winter

Happy December and yes, Happy Blogmas! Now, I know what you’re thinking, isn’t Blogmas meant to be blogging every day in December until Christmas? Yes, but I’m changing it up so I’ll be blogging every other day for the whole of December. I’ll be here with a brand new post every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. They won’t all be Winter or Christmas themed, I’m mixing that up too.

I’ll be starting Blogmas off with reading. I have always said I wanted to read more and with the Christmas holidays coming up and the most relaxed atmosphere around this time of year, I’m going to sit myself down and try my best to get through my collection of books I have stacked up but haven’t managed to get through yet. I’ll probably not get through them all but a girl can try!

What will you be reading this Winter?

SS: Sunday Saves (#21)

I hope you’re having a nice Sunday so far (or Monday or Tuesday or whenever you read this). I’m back with another Sunday Saves discussing reading routines, acceptance and mental health. As always, if you’ve missed any of my other Sunday Saves, make sure you click here to read them all.

1. Bambi’s Blog (My Reading Routine)

One of my latest blog posts this week was about a subscription box that I signed up for to encourage me to read more, “Book and a Brew” so coming across Emily’s post about her reading routine seemed perfect. I haven’t laid out my perfect reading routine or even laid one down at all but Emily post really lays out a foundation that anyone can build on so I’m excited to see what will work for me.

2. Keeping Up With MJ (Acceptance)

Acceptance is such a huge part of my life; it’s a part of my life where I haven’t actually accepted myself. So how is it a huge part then? Well, I know I need to accept myself and I want to, I’m just struggling with that a lot. I’m finding it hard to move past mistakes that I have made and I have thoughts in my head about myself that may or may not be true so it’s trying to come to terms with that as well, then I will be able to make progress with being able to seek acceptance within myself. MJ’s post is something I know will help me in the future and it’s always one to come back to it if you find yourself struggling with that part of your life.

3. Road to Recovery with Amy (Welcome to Road to Recovery)

In my opinion, we can never have too many mental health bloggers and we can never have too many blog posts talking about mental health. It’s something that we all have and sometimes some of us do struggle with it. I think what Amy is doing is fantastic because it’s showing people her road to recovery when it comes to dealing with her mental health as well as letting people know that they’re not alone because many of us are going through the same thing.

This week’s Sunday Saves seemed pretty short this week but I loved all three posts as always, I related to all three completely. Remember to follow all the blogs featured this week; Sunday Saves is all about discovering new bloggers!

My First “Book and a Brew” Box.

Even hearing the name, “Book and a Brew” got me excited. It’s probably one of the most self explanatory subscription boxes out there. It comes with a (hardback) book and (a box of) tea! What could be better?

I’ve spoken on social media many times about wanting to read more because I want to expand my writing past my favourite actors autobiographies and I want to read more books that I wouldn’t necessarily pick up on first glance. This subscription box helps with exactly that; you don’t get to choose the book or even the genre, it’s a total surprise and you don’t get to choose the tea either. If you’re a book lover, I can honestly say this box is for you! One of my good friends introduced me to this box and I’m so glad she did (despite the fact I haven’t even started the book yet!)

It comes packed in tissue paper with a little “book and a brew” sticker on top (as you can see above!) alongside your box of tea. You also get a little information page about the book that was chosen this month and a description of the tea that was chosen for the month. You also get cute little Brew Quiz cards that you can tweet the answers to the tea company themselves.

This month’s book is called “The Fair Fight” by Anna Freeman. The information page describes the book as “a gritty Georgian tale” and in turn, the Fruit Punch tea by the Brew Tea Company also “packs a punch” matching the description of the book. This isn’t a book I would have picked up admittedly but I’m excited to read it and see what I think. If I like it, great! And if I don’t? At least I read something outside my comfort zone, therefore expanding my reading even further.

For an average hardback book, you would pay between £10-£15 and a good box of tea can cost up to about £7 or so; this box costs either £12.99 (if you sign up to the subscription service) or £14.99 (if you want to buy a one off box) so you are pretty much getting a free box of tea each month, which is phenomenal.

If you want to find out any more information about this UK based company (but they do ship to most of the E.U too!) and more about the box, you can click right here!

I hope you enjoyed this post and I’m sure I’ll be posting about my progress on the book throughout my Twitter, so make sure you check back. And this wasn’t a sponsored post, I paid for this myself with my own money and as always, all opinions are 100% my own.

SS: Sunday Saves (#13)

This Sunday is probably one of the best Sunday’s because it means I don’t have to go to work this entire week! If you can’t love that, what can you love? In this week’s Sunday Saves, I’ll be talking about Twitter chats, reading and living your life to the fullest!

1. Anne Smiles (An Active Summer #HealthHour No.4)

I’ve started talking to Anne just over the past few weeks, all because I found out about #HealthHour. If you don’t know what Health Hour is, it’s a Twitter chat hosted by Anne about health related topics on Monday nights at 8pm. It’s the first Twitter chat I’ve ever looked forward to every week and even though I’ve only taken part in two so far, I love connecting with everyone. Anne posts recaps every week of the previous chat, to tell people what we had been talking about and to give an insight into what questions were asked. So if you’re into health, fitness and food, you should join in with us!

2. Momentarily Dreaming (8 Ways To Do More Reading)

I’m always looking to read more, I think it’s really important for everyone to take a step away from social media and take a minute for yourself with a book. (I should really listen to my own advice sometimes too!) Even though Sam’s post is from last year, I only just found it this week and she gives some quick tips on how to read more. I think the tips that would work for me the most would be taking time away from social media, setting an amount of time for reading each morning/night/day and setting myself some goals. Everyone who reads my blog, know that I’m a goal setter, so these are perfect for me.

3. Always Inspired Life (Top 10 Goals To Create A More Meaningful Life)

In Alina’s post, she talks about leading a more motivated life and I couldn’t agree more. If you’re living for someone else, not doing what you want to do or just going through life in the easiest way you can, I don’t believe you’re truly living. Being yourself, working on yourself, taking chances and being passionate are just some of the ways she mentions in her post, and I think it’s so refreshing. There’s so many posts out there on “being a better person” but this post isn’t like that, I love the way she has written this one, it’s honestly such a lovely read.

That’s all from this week’s Sunday Saves. My favourite thing about Sunday Saves is exploring new blogs, connecting with new people, finding out about different things that I might not have even known before and most importantly, to always keep learning. You can find me over at @RetroSnowflake on Twitter if you’ve found any new blogs or even want to send me your own blog. Have a lovely week!

Why I want to read more.

Reading is such a huge part of life, whether we want to admit it or not, we read every single day. We read databses in work, we read Twitter and Facebook, we read magazines, we read billboards, we read the ingredients on our foods in the supermarket. Reading is everywhere but the reading I’m focusing on is novels.

Why don’t I read?

I wish I had a truly good reason why I don’t. But I can’t give it to you. I’m tired, I don’t have time, I have other things to do, I need to be in the mood. Yes, all valid reasons, but I don’t want to put off reading forever. I’m always going to either be tired, or not have the time or have other things to do. I have to learn to priortise my goals in life.

If you read my latest Sunday Saves, I mentioned a post by Sweet Passions 07 and she talked about making time for reading and it’s something that I want to bring into my life and into my daily routine. 

So what am I going to do to fix this?

1. I’m going to set a time.
   I get really tired when I start to read. That’s why the only time I truly read a book is when I’m about to go to bed. I’m going to try going to bed earlier for a start, and bring a cup of tea with me, and see how that goes first. I think setting myself a goal for half an hour a night isn’t too much and very achievable.
2. Read through the books I have before I buy any more.
   I’m onto Rob Lowe’s second book “Love Life” at the minute, and I think I have about five new ones sitting back at home waiting to be read. If I give myself that limit of a “No Book Buy” until those ones are finished, it’ll possibly urge me to ge through those faster.
3. Expand on my reading genres.
   I’m a non-fiction girl. As I said, I’m reading Rob Lowe’s second book, and the majority of books I have read have been autobiographies which is great and those are my favourites but I want to expand out more. I’m not a Harry Potter girl (Don’t kill me!) or a Lord of the Rings (I know, I know) or even Game of Thrones (I know, don’t kill me). I just want to find books that I enjoy, and I don’t want to force myself to read a Game of Thrones book if I’m never going to enjoy it.

I’ll check in in a month and update on my reading progress!