Oreos & Gin

 Hi everyone, My favourite season is here! To celebrate, I've made a desktop wallpaper with a list of my favourite things of this season. If you would like to download it (for personal use only, please), Here's the link . I try to honour each season and live my life guided by them. I feel more in tune and appreciate the best bits nature gives us this way. Also, I need the seasons to help with my plants as a gardener !  Do you love Autumn? What are your best bits?

 If you didn't know this about me, I LOVE the cinema! I go pretty often, and film premiers feature heavily in my planners! So after lockdowns, the cinema industry is struggling to get back on its feet. Cineworld is even teetering on bankruptcy. As an unlimited card holder, this is such sad news, and I hope they can pull through. However, it is not all bad news as the film industry has some corkers coming up!  After the D23 Expo , there are a lot of good films coming out of the Disney/Pixar studio. I will not be listing them here, but I've popped a link you can visit to see. I'm incredibly excited about The Little Mermaid coming out in the Spring (2023).  Talking about Disney magic, This next film has been 30 years in the making. I'm excited to kick off Halloween 2022 with Hocus Pocus 2! It's being premiered on Disney+ on September 30, 2022. I'm away for work but I will be catching up with my hubby when I get back. I'm scared of the Sanderson sisters 🤣. Ther

 As most of you know, I live with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA for short). Every year, The National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society ( NRAS) does an awareness week where they, along with members of the community, try and raise awareness of this condition. I t is so misunderstood. I try to do my bit, especially as a thirty-something woman living with this.  This year's theme is "Fact or Fiction".  They have created a mini quiz to test your knowledge of RA and give you a chance to win some prizes!  So What are you waiting for? Give it a go and tell me how you did! I'm an open book, so if you have any questions, whether about the condition itself or about my lived experience of it, Please do not hesitate to ask me!  If you are newly diagnosed (or think this might be what you are dealing with). First, you should know that things can only get better from here on out. I remember how bleak things seemed back then for me. Also, do not get fobbed off. Evidence shows that early inte

Okay, so since the last time I wrote here, I have realised something about myself. It's bloody obvious when I look back, to be honest. I'm Neurodivergent. I thrive off Dopamine. I get overwhelmed very quickly, and once something doesn't hold my focus, we can kiss goodbye to me engaging. This is the same reason I can't ever stick to a skincare routine - Good props to me still doing the daytime one, though; nighttime is another matter altogether. Since I realised this and other people affirming my thoughts around this, I know the reason why I am successful in life is because of the systems I have in place. I'm now at a point where I am intentionally working with the wiring of my brain rather than beating myself up. So what does this mean for this space? I'm going to write as much as I can. I have missed having a space to write for myself. What can you expect? I know over the last few years, this blog has focused on my chronic illnesses - because it was cons

 Hello!  Seashell made from Sand It has been a long time since I've written here. My creativity seems to die each time I struggle with my day-to-day life. This past year has been a corker, to say the least. I don't know if I've outgrown writing in this space or just needing a fresh start somewhere else. THIS was meant to be my fresh start, so I know running away and beginning anew won't do.  I want to write more. The irony is I write as my day job. But I mean a different kind of writing. I want to write about the changes in me as I head directly towards my mid-30s. Nothing makes me feel old, like my eldest turning 10 nearly a month ago.  Life feels overwhelming, and I'm just starting to breathe again, so I have time to explore what it means to live in my body, mind, and soul in the 21st century.  I have lots to explore.  So stick around!

  Happy New Year!  What a year 2020 was. I’m hoping that the last year's relentlessness would reduce and I’ll have more mental space to nurture my writing this year.  I was amazed I managed to do two freelance articles when I was deep in the postpartum phase. That was quite hard on me, but I am self-aware enough to notice why I put myself through that.  It’s as though I wanted to remind myself that I could still do it. Knowing that for the next year at least, I will be grappling with my identity once more.  So with all the hope of a new year, I am setting the intention to write more and by correlation, make this blog more active! I am also going to journal as regularly as I used to. Since the birth of my daughter, my self care has gone down the pan. I’ll going to be trying to reclaim that.  Thank you for coming along!

 My memories for last year on Facebook are thin. But today was a MASSIVE day in our lives. One we will never forget.  After feeling absolutely rotten for 3 weeks, and having missed my 2nd cycle, I decided to test because well that’s the only thing I hadn’t done to provoke its arrival - that pregnancy test didn’t even waste time and a very bewildered me, walked into our bedroom to show Mark. We spent the day poorly and shocked to our cores. We looked at each other and said “F*CK!!! “ a lot 🤣🤣 Our amazing daughter was on her way!  The next few days were a blur. Drs visits & an early scan were I was told I had options if I didn’t want to go through with it (I’m glad we live in a country where that’s the case btw) but in my heart I knew, I loved that little fetus already.  Then there was worries and conversations with specialist pharmacists over the water due to my meds - thankfully I had switched from a more toxic one a mere 6 months earlier.  Oh and the fact that I’d been drinking