Where have I been?

Hello lovelies! 

It's definitely been a while since I've blogged, 8 months to be exact, but life has kind of been in the way and to be perfectly honest - blogging has just not been on my agenda.

However, I have quite a lot of time off this summer and I suddenly have the urge to blog again. I don't know how long it will last this time but we shall see.

So I thought I'd welcome myself back with a little update as I always do.

I haven't really blogged in 2016 so it feels like I have a lot to catch you up with but at the same time, nothing crazy has really happened.

I'm still living in Central London, I have a completely different job than the one I had at the beginning of the year, my job has its ups and downs, some of the ups being that I have made so many friends, I get to travel quite a lot around the UK (I'm staying in Leeds this weekend) and I get to work at some incredible venues! 

What else has happened?

I recently got back from a trip to Lutry in Switzerland with some of my friends and it was the most beautiful place I've ever seen (expect a blog post soon!)

Earlier in the year I went up North to spend some time with my family including my grandparents which was so relaxing. 

Other than that I feel like this year has just been a year of me exploring a little bit more, not so much in a travelling the world sense, but I feel a lot happier in myself as a person, I have great people around me, my anxiety is better than ever and I find myself doing things that I would never have dreamt of doing this time two years ago.

I'm going to try to get a lot of posts up over the next few weeks as I kinda just feel like writing and rambling, I don't know where it will go but I'm quite excited.

Stay tuned.

50 Things I did in 2015!

I´ve seen a couple of these posts floating around and I love the idea, it´s a great way to reflect on the previous year on what you´ve learnt and achieved. 

When I thinkk back on 2015 it wasn´t the best year of my life, but writing this post has forced me to think about the good things that happened throughout it.

1) I moved house and I couldn´t be happier. London finally feels like home

2) Met my wonderful boyfriend

3) Spent two weeks at home - I rarely visit my home town and if I do it´s usually for a few days, but in August I visited for 2 weeks and I loved every second of it

4) Took a trip to Brighton - I would happily live there

5) Also took a trip to Southend 

6) Started to learn Portuguese - As my boyfriend is from Portgual I am slowly trying to learn the language, it´s not easy!

7) Baked more - I really got into the swing of baking, cookies mostly...

8) I went to Paris - I´ve wanted to go to Paris since I could remember, it was incredible!

9) Quit my job - twice!

10) Stopped eating meat for 5 weeks - I don´t eat too much meat anyway, but I challenged myself to give it up for a month in October 

11) Got a gym membership

12) Cancelled my gym membership

13) Ate my way through London´s food markets

14) Lost 10lbs!

15) Went to Winter Wonderland

16) Saw Zippos Circus

17) Switched meat for fish - although I didn´t make the full change I probably only eat meat 2 times a week now

18) Rediscovered my love for books

19) Rediscovered my love for London

20) Watched The Nutcracker on Ice

21) Met Pippa Middleton!

22) Had a surprise birthday party where all of my family came to London

23) Got better at working out

24) Surprised my family by visiting on Halloween

25) Went to Disneyland! My childhood dream finally came true!

26) Finally saw the Broadway theatre production of "Of Mice and Men"

27) Fell back in love with pizza

28) Saw Noel Gallagher 

29) Got drunk, fell asleep on the tube and woke up lost

30) I stopped letting people take advantage of me

31) Said goodbye as my best friend moved to San Diego

32) Tried to cook - no I cannot cook, but I did try!

33) Lived alone in London - since moving to London I have never lived alone, but in 2015 I did for a couple of months, I hated it!

34) Made some life long friends

35) Spent Christmas in London without my family and actually assisted in cooking Christmas dinner

36) Rewatched all six seasons of Gossip Girl

37) Went to Carding Mill Valley - so beautiful

38) Got drunk at a wine tasting on more than one occassion

39) Tried new cuisines 

40) Played tennis in the streets of Paris

41) Took a very long blogging break
42) Took my first spin class
43) Ate too much cheese
44) I really got into reading Thrillers
45) I put myself first
46) I actually took my work holiday
47) I went on a bike ride around quiet London on Christmas day
48) I walked around London until I was lost
49) I fell in love with tea
50) I fell in love

Cheerz!

One resolution I always try to make is to take more pictures and print those pictures!

The amount of pictures I´ve lost over the years of not backing up phones/computers is ridiculous so I always try my best to print them so I have them forever. 

I was recently contacted by a company called Cheerz, a photo printing company who offered for me to try out their products. After looking at their website and downloading their app I immediately loved their style and the products! 

They have everything from magnets, posters, DIY books, polaroids to framed pictures (all at very affordable prices!)
I think these are great absolutely great as gifts too! I know my sisters will love these!

I opted to try their signature ´Cheerz Box´, which is basically a small cute box with up to 30 polaroids inside. You can connect the app to your Facebook/Instagram and Dropbox and select the pictures you want to print and even caption them. 
The delivery was less than a week and the pictures all turned out great (no dodgy blurry ones or cropped out heads!)

I was so pleased with the outcome and have already recommended to all of my family, it will definitely be my go to printing service in the future, especially as the app is so easy to use!

Cheerz were lovely enough to give my readers a discount code on your first order so on any order over £8 you will get £4 off! 

Just enter "JODE2O" at the checkout and you will get £4 off your first order!

(Visit their website here)

Happy Sunday!

Quitting your job...

A bit of a rambling post (yet again) today, about a subject that affected 2015 for me a lot and I wish I had a little more advice on back then.

In January 2015 I quit my job for the first time ever. It was such a horrible experience and I never want to relive it. In November 2015, I quit another job, the second time around, I felt nothing but relief and happiness.

Lets rewind a little, in 2014 I had been working for a company for a year, at the time I didn´t realise I was being treated so badly. After a recent promotion I was being expected to do things outside of my job role, and although I was more than happy to go above and beyond for a job I had a feeling I was being taken advantage of. 
In January 2015 I finally quit that job, it was the first time I had ever quit a job (I have usually had to leave jobs because of moving etc.). It was such a difficult decision for me to make but I knew I had to. I remember feeling so guilty after getting a promotion and then leaving, but enough was enough and my boss made me feel horriblly guilty for quitting. It took a lot for me to do that and I hoped that would be the last of it...

A month later I had found a new job and I was ecstatic, I was finally free of a place where I felt uncomfortable and unhappy and I could relax a little. 
However things quickly took a turn for the worse and I found myself back at square one. Doing more work than should ever have been expected of me, going home and worrying about work every night and being miserable and generally unexcited about it.

The second time around things were much easier, I didn´t feel guilty whatsoever, I knew that work should never take over my life, in particular my personal life and I knew that in time I would find a job that I was happy with.

I´m not saying that the second things get hard within your job then quit, not by any means.
But if everyday you are spending your life thinking and worrying about work then maybe you need to re-evaluate. It´s so easy to get caught up in work and to let people take advantage of you just because you´re a hard worker, but trust me when I say that there are more opportunities out there.
You should never feel guilty for leaving something behind that makes you unhappy.
For me it was just building up the courage to actually quit, but once I had I felt so much better, and you will too!

What I´m Reading this January..

It´s been a while since I´ve written a post about books, I read much more in the Winter than any other time, probably because I spend much more time at home. I´ve read a lot of great books lately and I have a lot on my Amazon Wish List to read in 2016, however I thought I´d write about the books that I´m reading this month.

The past year or so I have mainly read thrillers or crime novels so you will find that all 3 of these fall into those categories.

Kimberly McCreight - Reconstructing Amelia 

I haven´t started this book yet but I plan to start it this week. This has been in my Amazon basket for around a month and I have been excited to read it. It´s a thriller about a girl who jumps from a building and dies, whilst her mother is greiving she receives a message saying ´Amelia didn´t jump. The story sounds great and I can´t wait to get reading it to find out what happens!

Caroline Kepnes - You

I rave about this book a lot to everybody I know but it is definitely up there with the best books I have read, and I am currently reading it for the third time! The writing style is different to any other book I´ve ever read and it actually is a real page turner. The story is written in first person from a man called Joe. I wont give anything away, but this book is seriously creepy and definitely not for the faint hearted, it is a story of obsession and written in a very crude way at times. But it is seriously addictive. 

Alex Lake - After Anna

I finished this book a few days ago and also enjoyed it. Again it is a thriller (a little less intense than You). About a young girl who disappears and is returned with no memory of where she has been a week later. I read this book very quickly as I wanted to know what had happened. This is a great book to read on a cold, rainy night whilst cuddled up in bed.

Let me know what you guys have been reading and if you have any book recommendations feel free to leave them in a comment as I´m always looking for new ones to read!

Happy Sunday!

Winter Bailey´s Hot Chocolate

One of my favourite things about Winter is hot beverages. In particular, hot chocolate.

Over the years I have tried so many different kinds of hot chocolate, peppermint, orange, caramel, brownie, you name it.

My particular favourite for the past two years since trying it at Hyde Parks Winter Wonderland is a Bailey´s Hot Chocolate. 

I am obsessed with them!

Obviously they are super easy to make but I wanted to just show you how I make mine incase you wanted to give them a taste (you´ll never want a regular hot chocolate again!)

You will need, Hot Chocolate powder, milk (any kind is fine, if you want to be super indulgent, use half milk and half pouring cream for a thicker drink), Bailey´s, whipped cream (optional)

- Slowly heat up the milk on the stove, be careful not to boil, the lower the heat the better

- Whisk in the hot chocolate, around 2/3 heaped teaspoons

- Add Bailey´s I add a double shot (50ml) but use however much you like

- Whisk until slightly frothy

- Pour into mug, add whipped cream, marshmallows/chocolate chips or whatever takes your fancy

- Enjoy!

2016 Goals

Hello lovely people and a huge happy new year to you all!

I absolutely love new year, not so much the day itself as I´m not really much of a party animal, but I love the time of year, I always feel so motivated and fresh and like anything is possible.

I try to make new goals for each year, not so much "resolutions" but just things I want to try to do in the new year, I think it´s a great way to look back and see what I´ve achieved and to get an idea of the type of things I want to do in the future.

That being said here are a few things I´d like to do in the new year...

Take more pictures
I try to do this every year, but 2015 in particular I have been so bad at it, I want to try to take my camera out with me more to capture moments and hopefully have more memories to look back on.

Travel more
Again I try to do this every year, whether it´s around London, around the UK or around the world. There´s so much I am yet to see and I really want to try to explore even more in 2016.

Get back into blogging
As you may have noticed, in 2015 I barely blogged at all. I had a lot going on and kind of just forgot about my blog, but hopefully after a very long break, 2016 will be a very blog related year. I already have a lot of posts planned, but hopefully I will be blogging more than ever with even better content.

Maintain weight
I couldn´t have new years goals without including one about health and fitness. I lost quite a lot of weight in 2015 and feel much happier with my body than I have in a while. I really want to maintain that throughout 2016 and hopefully post lots of tips and food related posts over on my beauty blog. 

Be a nicer person 
This is a very personal goal for me. I do feel like I am a nice person already, but there is always more a person can do to be better. I hope to give up my seat on the tube more often, call my mom more, compliment people more, swear less etc. I really want to try to be a better version of myself in 2016.

I have a few smaller goals that I hope to achieve in the upcoming year but for now these are the goals I am focused on.
Let me know if you have anything planned for the new year and anything you´d like to improve on.
Thanks for reading.

It´s been a while...

Hello guys!

Long time no blog!

Seriously, it´s been almost a year, how crazy is that.

I have been fairly busy, that´s not really my excuse, it´s more that I haven´t had anywhere to blog from, I no longer have my computer, my Kindle broke and I never want to blog from my phone. Hopefully in the new year I will invest in a laptop but in the meantime I have had a lot going on and I felt like writing another chatty blog post as a little catch up.

Okay, so I haven´t blogged since March. It feels like I´m catching up with an old friend who I haven´t seen in a while.

Lets start with the boring stuff.

WORK

In my previous post I mentioned a new exciting job that I had recently got. I started that job at the beginning of February and worked there until the end of November. I met so many amazing people there that will be life long friends, I learnt a lot through my experience there and had a lot of great times, however towards the end I really started to be unhappy and made the decision to leave. 
A few weeks ago however I began ANOTHER new job! A job that will hopefully present me with a lot of opportunities and I´m very excited about the future.

RELATIONSHIPS
Also in February I came out of my three year relationship. Although we ended everything on fairly good terms it was a very difficult few months. We were living together and at that time life was very hectic and stressful. I have since then got a new boyfriend who I am very happy with and on good terms still with my ex boyfriend.

LIFE
So other than going through a lot of drastic changes this year I have also done quite a bit, I made it my mission this year to see more of London, after a horrible 2014 of suffering with terrible anxiety I would very much stay in my comfort zone and only really visit the places I knew. This year I have seen so much more and really started to enjoy living in London again. 
I also visited Paris this year for the first time, I went to Disneyland and lots of great things, that was definitely a highlight of 2015. 
I made a few beach trips in the UK throughout the summer also.

In general it´s been a bit of a crazy year, and I´m really hoping 2016 will be a lot more relaxed and steady so I can just enjoy all of the great things that come with it.
I will try my best to get back into blogging. Watch this space.
Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and hopefully a better new year!

Since I've been gone...

Hello everyone!

So I feel like it has been a while since I just sat down and rambled on about life and I think that it's long overdue.

I've been pretty absent on the blogging front for around a month now, and a lot has happened. 

Firstly, I quit my job back in January. I've never quit a job before in my life (other than when I moved to London and had to), but I felt like I was being treated unfairly there, and after around 2 months of getting a promotion I felt that the extra responsibilities were taking over my personal life as well as work. It was a really difficult thing for me to do that I'm not going to delve into today but that was how my year began.

I knew that going in to a new job, that I wanted to take a step back a little bit, not get too involved in something until I was certain it was a perfect fit. 

Towards the end of January I had an interview for a new job, one closer to home and a brand new business! Exciting.

I knew going into this job that I would be helping with the opening and that it would require a lot of my time. I started my new job at the beginning of February and went straight into working 90 hour weeks. 

I was exhausted the whole time (still am), it was a complete change for me, new people, new environment, new way of doing things, it was impossible not to get myself completely involved.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing necessarily, but the past month I have kind of let it over take everything else in my life. I have no time for my friends, family or boyfriend at the moment, as well as getting on with my day to day life. It's difficult.

I love the team and I love the place as of right now, but I'm definitely going to see what the future has planned.

For now I'm taking it day by day, hopefully the outcome is something positive. 

Until then, I can only apologise for being rubbish with my blog, 2015 I wanted to be a lot more consistent and that hasn't happened so I'm sorry!

This post has no meaning I just felt like a ramble.

Thanks for reading, hope everyone is well!  

London Feature | Visiting London?

London is a very big and very popular city, that hundreds of thousands of people visit every single year. But if you are planning a trip to London, whether it's a family holiday or an educational trip, I've compiled a list of things you should probably know before you do come. 
Things that I wish somebody had told me before coming here, and mainly ways to stop you from being shouted at by people on their way to work!

- Beware of pick pockets. 
They are everywhere! And they know a tourist when they see it, if you are in central London especially. Ways to avoid them include, not keeping belongings in pockets, but always in a bag preferably with a zip that you keep an eye on at all times! Don't leave things unattended ever! You will not get it back, I promise you! Always carry cards rather than cash, and try to limit the amount of possessions you do take out with you if you can. Don't let them ruin your trip!

- Do you research
In London there are thousands of food places, tourist shops, tourist attractions. Some great, some bad. 
When it comes to eating out in London, I'd advise downloading the Tripadvisor app beforehand. It's a very quick way of seeing what other people have said about the place before eating there. There are some very bad place in London and they are tourist traps. They are sometimes cheap for a reason. Tourist shops are the same, there are thousands of them selling that same 'I Love London' jumper, have a look around before buying things, you may save some money. 

- Never buy tickets for anything on the street
If you're planning a trip to the theatre whilst in London, nine times out of ten you will probably see people trying to sell you tickets at amazing prices dotted around Leicester Square. Never buy from them! It's worth paying a little bit more to assure the tickets are legit!

- Always keep left in tube stations
A simple rule that Londoners live by and get very annoyed at tourists for not doing. You will save yourself many sighs and angry looks by doing this. However, keep in mind that it is the right on escalators. Confusing I know! 

- Beware of 'homeless' people
I'm not by any means saying that all of the 'homeless' people are not homeless. But I can assure you that not all of them are. If you are prone to feeling guilty everytime you see a homeless person, then be prepared. They are everywhere in London, and if you give money to every single one you see, then prepare to be penniless by the end of your day.

-  Never leave baggage unattended
I briefly touched on this, but especially in Central London I cant express how important this is. Tube stations can sometimes have emergency evacuations because of this! 

- Check the weather
Kind of an obvious one I know. But London weather can be completely unpredictable. I know it's known to be cold, but it is also prone to completely changing throughout the day, one minute rain, the next minute sunny! Always carry an umbrella and take a coat just in case. 

And lastly, enjoy! It's a great city with a lot of history, it's crazy busy and tiring, but as long as you don't mind crowds and take some of these tips with you, you'll love it.