I literally can't believe that it's February already, where has the last month gone? I always feel like I haven't achieved very much, so I'm going to start this month by getting things done. January always seems like the month where you're in limbo a little bit, a bit lost that it's the start of the new year. 

However, I got a lot done on my to do list and I can now get down to serious business. Making way for the more important things now the "admin" is out of the way so to speak!

You will probably have read my Day Zero Challenge post from the beginning of the year. It's something that I'm making my way through until over half way through 2017. But I feel like I've already ticked off a substantial amount in January already, so here is what I have done so far:

• Write a personal mission statement
• Keep a "my day in six words" diary for a month
• Sort out my pinterest
• No alcohol for one month
• Declutter my wardrobe/chest of drawers
• Write a travelling bucket list
• Write a weekly weight loss post in January
• Write a letter to myself to be opened at the end of 1001 days

That's already 8/101 done, which may not seem like a lot but since I have over two and a half years to complete the challenge, this is actually a fair amount! I have a few more that I want to get through in the next month or so, meaning I'll be back with an update soon enough.

Don't forget to check out my original post here.

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Z is for...Zoo

I’m just going to start by saying how much I love going to the zoo. I’ve never been one for animals but ever since we got dogs I’ve been a lot more open to the idea of them! We went to New York Zoo a while back which was great, they had baby snow leopards that had just been born which was really cute! 

Longleat Safari Park has to be my favourite hands down though. We did the safari in my car and I was a little bit concerned that the monkeys would attack my car but fortunately they didn’t! 

Giraffe Selfie anyone?

I’ve been to a few others recently but this year I’d quite like to go to ZSL London Zoo and also London Aquarium!

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Y is for...Yes

I just want to apologise for not doing one for X, I tried very hard to think of one and the best I could come up with was X-ray and I’ve never had to have one but I didn't want to waste a whole blog post on that, if you have any other suggestions for X please let me know!

Onto Y, this year I want to say yes to a lot more things. I’m always so hesitant and I find myself saying no a lot. I want this all to change! I do find myself a lot busier these days and I obviously do need time for myself, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do any writing…but there are still things that I know I could say yes to, so here’s to say yes more. 

W is for...Writing

I know a lot of the time I talk about how writing for the last 7 months has been so great. And it really has, I think if a lot more people wrote down how they were feeling a lot more then the world would be a much better place. You wouldn’t even necessarily need to share it with anyone but I’m sure you would feel tonnes better just to let it all out a little bit. 

There have been several bits of writing that are still sitting in my drafts which I will probably never get round to sharing with anyone but the point is that I felt so much better by writing down how I felt and it doesn’t even take that long to put a pen to paper to let all your worries out.

V is for...Visit

If you’ve read my Day Zero Challenge, then you will have seen that I want to visit so many places, it’s not travelling so to speak as I want to visit my sister in Nottingham (hoping that she’ll let me…!) for example. I wouldn’t call this travelling so it’s more that I’m taking a trip to visit people. I’m excited about all the good times I’ll have by visiting places. Obviously there are so many more places and things I want to visit than the ones on my Day Zero Challenge list, these are just the ones that seem to be most achievable that I would be able to afford. I’d quite like to visit Disneyland at some point soon (hint, family, hint)…

U is for... Understanding

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that some people can be extremely judgemental and inconsiderate. I mean obviously I knew that people can be like that anyway, but when you are trying your best to help people and they are still extremely inconsiderate towards you, it makes no sense to me! I normally like to imagine the situation if the shoe was on the other foot, how would these people feel if I treated them like that? I’ve learnt the value of being nice whenever I can, especially if someone is trying to help me.

The moral of the story: treat others how you expect to be treated.

Day Zero Challenge

Happy New Year you beauts!

I got my inspiration from this blog post here. This Day Zero Challenge is to do 101 things in 1001 days, roughly 2.75 years. That's plenty of time right? I'm going to be doing a mixture of personal goals and fun things that I want to achieve. I'm going to be doing this instead of doing my New Years Resolutions, even though a lot of these are things I want to do this year, it's just a bit nicer to have projects that I can keep going for longer. 

Start: 01/01/2015

Finish: 28/09/2017

Key:

Incomplete

In progress

Completed

Personal:
1. Write 5 Letters to 5 people who changed my life
2. Write a personal mission statement
3. Cook a roast dinner for my family
4. Keep up a savings jar
5. Make a uni scrapbook
6. Write bad memories on a piece of paper then burn it
7. Completely rewrite my CV
8. Go to the spa
9. Do something different for a holiday
10. Go to a concert
11. Go to the Theatre
12. Find 50 things that make me happy 
13. Keep a "my day in six words" diary for a month
14. Create an inspiration board
15. Create a photo collage
16. Create an inspiration book
17. Create a memory jar
18. Sort out my pinterest
19. Sort out my emails
20. Keep my car cleaner (it's white so it gets dirty so quickly)


Purchases:
21. Get a new Phone
22. Throw away all my underwear and start again
23. Throw away all my makeup brushes and buy new ones
24. Buy a Camera
25. Buy a pair of heels (I threw all mine out)
26. Buy completely new bed sheets

Health and Fitness:
27. Do the couch to 5k running plan
28. Do a 30x30 challenge (30 minutes of physical activity for 30 days)
29. Detox January - no alcohol, no bread, no dairy
30. No alcohol for 1 month 
31. Track my progress - take a picture of myself on the 1st of each month
32. Lose 3 Stone
33. Get myself a good workout regime
34. Write a meal plan and actually stick to it for 1 month
35. Find a skincare regime that works for me
36. Get to a healthy BMI

Sell, save and earn:
37. Create a strict budget and stick to it for 4 weeks
38. Make a product to sell on Etsy
39. Only make birthday presents for my family for a year
40. No paying for meals out for a month
41. Save £100 in 1 month (this is hard for me)
42. Do my weekly shop in £20
43. Create a budget and stick to it
44. Get out of debt

Style and beauty:
45. Buy myself an expensive dress when I lose 3 stone (over £50)
46. Get a manicure
47. Get a facial
48. Get a massage
49. Declutter my wardrobe/chest of drawers
50. Get a hair cut (I NEVER ever get my hair cut)
51. Get a spray tan

Travelling and Exploring:
52. Visit my sister at her Uni in Nottingham
53. Visit Paris
54. Stay in a B + B
55. Visit Ireland
56. Go for Brunch
57. Go to a festival
58. Write a travelling bucket list

Career:
59. Get promoted to key holder
60. Get promoted to supervisor

Blogging:
61. Join postcrossing and send 5 postcards around the world
62. Do another blog challenge
63. Reach 30,000 hits on my blog
64. Go to at least 2 blogger events a year
65. Write a weekly post about weight loss in January (January 2015)
66. Improve on my photos
67. Learn HTML
68. Advertise on another blog
69. Design my own advert
70. Get my own Business Cards

Fun:
71. Apply to the GBBO
72. Visit a Zoo
73. Visit an Aquarium
74. Attend the Spring Good Food Show
75. Attend Eat Well Good Food Show
76. Go to the cinema 10 times
77. Read a book my mum or dad recommends to me - Gone Girl
78. Make a playlist of my favourite songs
79. Write a letter to myself to be opened when the 1001 days is over
80. Take a picture for each letter of the alphabet
81. Open a cookbook to a random page and make that recipe
82. Take a photo of the same place for every month for a year
83. Turn the previous challenge into a calendar
84. Make at least 10 things I've pinned on pinterest
85. Write a cookbook
86. Walk around Salisbury Cathedral
87. Learn to knit
88. Bake a Giant Cookie
89. Buy someone my favourite book
90. Bake a Christmas Cake
91. Restore a piece of furniture
92. Have a picnic in the park
93. Go on the London Eye at night
94. Make a Baked Alaska
95. Host a dinner party

Charity:
96. Raise money for Mind Charity
97. Do Race For Life
98. Send a care package to my sisters
99. Donate some clothes to charity
100. Start a yearly donation

101. Write a new list for the next 1001 days

What do you think of all this?

And again, here's to the new year, there's no looking back now...

End of 12 Day Blogging Challenge

Day 12!

So it’s the end of my 12 Day Blogger Challenge and it’s been really nice to write about topics that I don’t normally write about, like my favourite things and even makeup which I know nothing about!

Just by answering a few questions each day you already know more about me, but not only that, it’s given me a break from what I would typically write on here. I’ve had the time to think up new ideas and I certainly can’t wait for the New Year to bring some of these ideas to life!

This is more of a catch up. I started a proper diet again a few weeks ago. Less carbs, less bad fats and plenty more fruit and vegetables. Despite not losing huge amounts of weight, I feel better in myself and that counts for more right now because if I’m eating better now then it will make it a lot easier for me to cut out more bad food in January.

It’s the small steps that lead to big changes!

3 Things I’m Loving:

Day 11: Three things I'm Loving

1. My Job

I really feel like one of the luckiest people that I have a job I love. I’ve worked with some really great people and it hasn’t even been 2 months since I started. I’ve got a good deal here!

2. Christmas

This build up to Christmas is great and so exciting. Taking part in doing up my work place for the Christmas season has really lifted that Christmas feeling.

3. FOUR

The fourth One Direction album (sorry, really not sorry), I wonder how long it took to come up with that name!

A Day in the Life of Me!

Day 10: A Day in the Life

My typical day starts really early at the moment, most likely at half 4 to 5. It’s completely crazy but I don’t mind all that much… I get to do things I love the most when I get into work at 6am and still get to do customer service when the store opens, it’s the best of both worlds!

So typically (my ideal scenario too…) I would be ready and at work at 6am, and I would start my shift by tweaking the windows or displays around the shop to make sure that it is up to date. Over the Christmas period this happens nearly every shift as some stuff sells out or we have a lot of certain products.

Other things I may do is replen of stock, moving stock to different positions around the shop or helping out with admin. The first 3 hours goes so quickly and before we know it, the shop is being opened!

Then it’s purely customer service and selling to the customer, it’s pretty great to be honest. It’s made even better by working with an awesome team! Time flies when you’re having fun right? Because this is completely the case for me, an hour can go by in what feels like a matter of minutes.

So 8 hours later, I go home completely exhausted, catch up on TV, eat dinner and then it’s a super early night for me ready for the next day.

Sure it doesn’t sound like the most exciting day but I wouldn’t want it any other way and I definitely wouldn’t want to be sat in an office all day.

Basic Cupcakes

Day 9: Teach us a Tutorial

I do a lot of recipe tutorials so I'm going back to basics on what I know best - cupcakes!

To make 12 vanilla cupcakes, you will need: 

6 oz self raising flour

6 oz unsalted butter

6 oz sugar 

3 eggs

A few drops of vanilla essence

I've said before that it is easiest if you have an electric mixer but not everyone will!

Preheat the oven to 160C, it needs to be lower or the cakes will burn on top and not cook. 

Using a handheld whisk, beat the butter and sugar together, at this stage you need to trap in lots of air as this will help the cake to rise, and make it light and fluffy (technical terms here...). 

Then you need to whisk in the egg followed by folding in the flour and vanilla essence. 

Now at this stage it is crucial to be very careful when you fold in the flour because if you are too harsh then you will knock all of the air out and be left with pancakes. 

By now the oven should have warmed up nicely, so spoon the cake mixture into cupcake cases and pop in the oven. 

I will often stay in the kitchen and watch them like a hawk to get them perfectly right. It should take around 20 minutes. 

Transfer them to a cooling rack and decorate in any way you wish! Here are a few ideas to get you going

Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing

'Healthy' Cupcakes