May Wishlist

31 May 2014

A short and sweet wishlist this month. I haven’t actually seen much that I’ve wanted that have been wishlist worthy except these wonderful babies. So without further ado…

May Wishlist




1. Michael Kors Selma Satchel Bag. First we have the MK bag. I know everyone and their mother has one, but it’s just so gorgeous and practical! I saw someone with it in beige and I loved it, but I think Navy is a better colour for me!

2. Kate Spade Metro Cream Watch. I’ve never owned a watch. I’ve really never felt the need too. I don’t feel the need now if I’m honest, but whilst browsing the ASOS website I came across this beauty and now I am thinking – first watch? I love the colours and the watch overall just looks very dainty and cute and can basically be worn with most outfits.

3. Prada Candy Leau Florale Eau de Toilette. So Prada have a new perfume out based on the ‘Candy’ scent. I love Prada Candy, it is sweet, but not sickly, and it is just such a beautiful smell. Two years ago this was my go to summer scent. I am intrigued by this floral version. If I’m honest I don’t think I will like it, as I’m not very much a fan of flowery scents, I like sweet scents, but I’ll have to give it a whiff at some point!

4. Linda Farrow Projects Smile Round Sunglasses. These glasses scream ‘try hard’ to me, but I cannot help but love them!

 So I told you that would be short and sweet! I look forward to the next month and lusting over items – have a wonderful Saturday.

Operation Room Makeover!

27 May 2014

So my room is undergoing a makeover and I am so frikkin excited. Not going to lie, suddenly living at home isn't so baaad.  Like I said, I am so EXCITED; I finally have more space in my room and new furniture (a dressing table with a mirror, a new bed and a new wardrobe). The best bit about all of this is the placement of my bed – right next to light switch (hello lovely level of laziness).

Of course this means I can also redecorate and just put my own touches on the room. Before it was crowded with all my mum’s junk, now I just have space for me!

I absolutely love looking at interiors and of course this means I have a whole Pinterest folder dedicated to them. Because I am still in the process of moving my clothes and everything back I have looking through my folder for bedroom ideas. I thought I’d share some of my favourite ones – just to pass on the inspiration!

P.S a lot of these are white because I love that look and I've chosen all white furniture.




I love how the lights are used in these pictures. 


 I love the colourful pillows in this.  

 I am so in love with the flowers on the wall, will have to look up some craft projects for this. 






 I love the colourful bedsheets here. 

I also love the white sheets and accessories here. 

Add me on Pinterest and check back here for when I do start to put my own personal touches on my room!

I worry therefore I am...

24 May 2014



Today I want to talk about anxiety. More specifically the lovely little gem that is Origins Peace of Mind. £13 from their website.


I have tried and tested this baby since February, so I'm 98% sure I know what I'm talking about. It's taken me about 2 years with help and education to realise the sensations and feelings I have as anxiety. I actually suffer more from social anxiety than general anxiety, but I find this helps with general anxiety a lot. Now don’t get me wrong I'm not beyond help (at least I hope not) or a severe sufferer of anxiety, but I do have it quiet bad. I am quite the sceptic, so I am inclined to think that these things would never help me. But oh boy was I wrong; I actually have to put my head down in shame.

There are times when I'm just typing away at my laptop and then ANXIETY. There are times I am getting ready for work ANXIETY. There are times I know someone is going to call me in the next half an hour ANXIETY. I could go on but I think we can see that I'm clearly panicked by the oddest things. But popping this stuff on my neck, wrists and earlobe has been life changing. For me I think it's a combination of putting this on and then forcing myself to do another task or distracting myself and then before I know it - my anxiety is gone! It has a cooling sensation when you apply it and then a bit of a mint smell. But it doesn't hang around for long.



I really don't want to say anymore than my experience of it because everyone is so different and there is no guarantee it is bound to work for everyone. But I really wanted to share it because I do feel like if it can help me, it can help anyone. Thankfully I wouldn’t say I am dependent on it, most of the time I manage my anxiety quite well, but for other times when it’s overwhelming me I know I can rely on this little gem. I still have the same bottle from February and I think this is mainly because I forgot about it for a while, but I do think it is really good value for money.

In any case if you're looking for something to calm you down in those moments of terror - this has my seal of approval.

Img Credit: 1

Summertime Sadness

18 May 2014

On Friday I fell hard. Call it sadness, moodiness, depression, whatever, names and labels mean nothing with this feeling around. All I know is I had the black dog and it was not letting me go. I will say quite simply I am not happy with where I am at the moment, and perhaps on Friday that just hit me really really hard. No amount of positive thinking was getting me out of this, so I decided it was time to ride the crap feeling wave. So I took some time to myself and didn't want to see anyone. Whether that's good or bad I don't know, but I made that choice. But when a friend I haven't spoken to in over a year and half, and haven't seen for even longer called me out of the blue this afternoon - I went out. Complete whim, it was sunny and I was sick of sitting indoors feeling sorry for myself. And perhaps it would just be nice to be with someone who really doesn’t know what a mess I've made of my life lately!

So I went and now I'm back and happy that I went because I had a wonderful time. I can feel the black dog simmering down right now. There is something about the sun that makes everything better and even I could look past my body issues to feel relaxed. I don't have any words of wisdom for anyone who maybe reading this and wanting to know how to deal with these moments. I just keep hoping that my resilience pays off one day. Aside from that look at my day in pictures - I ate yummy food, ice cream and had cocktails!

Chilli burger, onion rings and mac and cheese at Byron! There were some courgette fries somewhere...

 Drinks at Coco Bamboo

 Becuase I am a child this makes me laugh. 

Chin Chin Labs have a new creation - 'the brown-wich' and it's good, even if the name isn't so good! 

Going out was good for me today. For me it quietened down those doubts I had about myself. I can be okay, I can be “normal”. I hope you’re all enjoying your Sunday and just because of the topic of this post I am including these links Rethink and Mind for all your mental health information and needs. 

Book Review: The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a 50 Year Search / Philomena

15 May 2014

I am back with another book review! I'm not going to lie this is text heavy and believe me it was longer than that so bare with me! Last weekend I finished two books (one of them being this) that I just have to write about  because I love them – so look out for another one soon! 



Title: The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a 50 Year Search / Philomena
Author: Martin Sixsmith
Genre: Non - Fiction, Biography
Page Numbers/Length: 484 pages
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publish Date: 17th October 2013
Format: Kindle

So what’s it about?

When she became pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a “fallen woman.” Then the nuns took her baby from her and sold him, like thousands of others, to America for adoption. Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Philomena’s son was trying to find her. Renamed Michael Hess, he had become a leading lawyer in the first Bush administration, and he struggled to hide secrets that would jeopardize his career in the Republican Party and endanger his quest to find his mother. A gripping exposé told with novelistic intrigue, Philomena pulls back the curtain on the role of the Catholic Church in forced adoptions and on the love between a mother and son who endured a lifelong separation. 

(pulled from Goodreads.com) 

My thoughts:

First things first – I purchased this book on the Kindle (yes damn those Daily Deals) which is the film tie-in edition of Philomena. You may very well recognise the title as the film with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan fronting the cover with a bright yellow background. The film was released last year. What I have titled above is the original book title and the film title. The other details of the book correspond with the Kindle edition which is the version titled, Philomena. For the record Goodreads list the book at the longer title so on my Goodreads account it’s under that, and should you chose to look for it on there you will not get confused. Now let’s get stuck in.

 I bought this back in December and it has just sat in my Kindle bookshelf whilst I overlooked it for others. What a terrible move - I loved this book and I’m really surprised that I love this book. The reason I am surprised is because it is a book about a normal person. Let me paint my reading history briefly. I read fiction – I have no interest in real life people. I read fiction, fiction and more fiction. Saying that how awkward is it that that my last book review was also a biography?! ANYWAY, I’m a sucker for the creative mind and I feel, fiction allows for that, much more than biographies. So back to the book in question. It is about Michael Hess, originally named Anthony Lee, who was adopted from Ireland by an American family, who took him to live in America. The wonderful thing that Martin Sixsmith does is make this true life search an amazing narrative. Admittedly I don’t read biographies often so I don’t know if actually they are all like this, but this surpassed my expectations. I feel like Martin brought Michael to life he didn’t just simple dictate the highs and lows of a man life, he gave his readers a living, breathing man that they could really imagine.

The story takes you from Ireland to America. We have a teenager mother in 1952 who is sent away to convent and then forced to give away her child. Originally Michael wasn’t meant to be adopted, it was his best friend, a little girl named Mary, who was being taken away but their bond unbreakable at the mere age of 3 saw that the adoptive family took them both. From then on Michael and Mary are brother and sister and join a family of three boys.

Michael is well behaved throughout his childhood with his new family in comparison to his sister Mary. We soon learn that Michael is struggling to deal with the fact that he has been “sent away.” Michael we learn is very lonely and carries around with him a great amount of guilt. We also learn that he feels completely rejected from his birth mother and it is these thoughts that stay with Michael throughout his life. He is well behaved because he is scared of being sent away again. As Michael gets older we see that the biggest part of Michael’s guilt is that he is gay. His family is religious and Michael himself was also religious too and he thought this sexuality was a sin.

The book takes you through political America and we see Michael carve out a career within law and politics for himself as he rubs shoulders with the President and other political members. At this point Michael has accepted his sexuality but has hidden it from the outside world, including his adoptive family. Michael in the end was a lawyer for the Republican Party who were known for their homophobic views, and so for my Michael admitting he was gay would mean social exclusion. We learn throughout the story that perhaps Republicans are not so homophobic, but I guess it is the face you show to the world that matters the most. It is also at this time that AIDS started to become prominent in America and the gay community and the book delves into how it affected the people Michael knew.

We see Michael fall a bit wayward during the story – he pushes those who love him away from him, delves into a darker side of sex and is promiscuous. Despite this Michael does have long term relationships that are filled with love but we see time and time again how he destroys a relationship with his self doubt. In the end we do see Michael destroy himself and for me I just really understood his struggle.

What is most stunning about this story is the narrative; it is pieced together as if the Sixsmith plucked Michael out of his head. But Sixsmith didn’t, he conducted such wonderful researched and I feel he painted a story that was so very close to Michael’s real life. He painted us the story of a man whose life was dramatically changed by Irish Catholic Laws and the story of a man who never felt he was enough. You will always feel sorry for Michael as he struggles to place his identity and find his footing in the world. Michael tried twice in his life to find his mother and he doesn’t ever get to meet her, what is devastating is how close he came to her. Sadly he never got to know that she was searching for him too. Michael and Philomena’s story is sad but their stories highlight two very important parts of history in Ireland and America.

The only thing I would say is that the book is about Michael. The title of the book seems to suggest otherwise. Philomena has the beginning and the end, but essentially this is a book about the life of her son. There is an overview of how Martin Sixsmith got to write the story because of Philomena’s contact with him, but don’t feel that the book is about her because it talks largely about the life of her son. As for the film – I have no idea; it may very well show a different story, it is titled ‘Philomena’ after all. But for me this story was perfect as is and it truly makes me wonder about the stories we all carry inside of us.

Rating:
4 out of 5

Img Credit: 1 | 2

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