It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

In the immortal words of Noddy Holder, "IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!"

 

Okay, so technically Christmas Day is the 25th, meaning there are still 14 days to go, HOWEVER it is finally December and, as far as I am concerned, its Christmas.

 

I LOVE Christmas, it is without a doubt, my favourite time of year. As soon as the decorations go down at the end of the season I already start to think about how long it is until they can go back up again. There is just so much to love about this time of year, the songs (personal favourite is Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin' Stevens), the films (Miracle on 34th Street, the scene with the deaf girl melts my heart every time),  the food, it suddenly becomes perfectly acceptable to eat ten times more than usual and I always make sure I make the most of it. The decorations are so pretty, the lights on the houses, the tv, the traditions that you might have in the family, mine have plenty and I wouldn't change them for the world! Not forgetting the Christmas jumpers, I have three, some call it excessive, I say I am dedicated. And so much more! No matter what is going on at the time, when December starts I start to feel that little bit happier and it takes a lot more to get me stressed and annoyed, which after previous events is a welcome change!

 

I returned home for the holidays on Friday and the decorations went up on Saturday causing me to go into excitement overload. The last week of term is worth a mention though, it was one of the best weeks in a long time, it was so good to relax a bit after the stress of term, spend some time with those closest to me, eat lots of food and party lots! I also got to exchange Christmas presents with a few people, it was so exciting to see them open their gifts and their reaction to them. I also got some truly lovely things, showing just how well my friends know me.

 

This week I did the rest of my Christmas shopping and I am now pretty much finished! Wrapping presents also makes me really excited, I love to spend time trying to make them look as pretty as possible. I raided card factory for pretty gift wrap accessories and they did not disappoint.

 

So now, with my Christmas eve candle burning, I think it is time to watch 'The Santa Clause' and write my Christmas cards whilst continuing to get ridiculously over-excited!!!

 

Let me know what you love most about this time of the year, I would love to know!

The Most Stressful Week of My Life

This week, as you can see from the title, was the most stressful week of my life. I had an interview on Friday, for something that I have wanted for a very long time and its safe to say I did not deal with it very well! This week was full of me crying, moaning, getting ridiculously angry and moody at everyone and just general panic. I feel extremely sorry for anyone who had to deal with me this week, how no-one slapped me I don't know.

 

For the interview I had to take a maths test, something I haven't done in four years. Maths has never been my strong point and when you haven't done something for that long it is very hard to get back into it. This meant that most of my stress came from my inability to do what was the considered the most simple calculations. In the end the test could have been a lot more horrific, however I still have to do another one in two weeks time which is just as terrifying.

 

The actual interview wasn't great, I feel that I made a real mess of it in the end, probably because I spent so much of my time freaking out about it instead of just getting on with it and preparing myself. So we shall wait and see what happens, but I do not hold out much hope, I am just glad its over! The one good thing about the experience is I really learnt who my friends were. When I was in complete and utter meltdown and feeling at my most vulnerable it became very obvious who was there to support me. I have learnt a lot about some of my 'friends' this week, with some really letting me down and others being there by my side the entire time, even when they probably hated me for the way I behaved! I am so grateful for the support I received and am now repaying them all with Cadbury's chocolate snowmen, and a promise that I will be there for them if they ever need me.

 

In happier news, this weeks marks the start of CHRISTMAS. My decorations went up a long time ago as university Christmas starts rather early. However this weekend I went to Birmingham Christmas market with a few friends and the celebrations officially began. I spent far too much money on clothes in the Bullring and the market was so pretty with lots of really nice things, I got a really cute snow globe with two snow men in it. This week is also the end of term so we are going out for a Christmas meal, exchanging presents and spending the week celebrating that we made it through the term! It is going to be a very good week. And of course, tomorrow is the 1st of December, meaning advent starts. This year I have three advent calendars, you can never have too many! I have a milky bar chocolate one, the Yankee candle one which I am so excited for, a candle everyday?! Its perfect! And I have this chocolate bar that has the date and a little Christmas picture on each tiny square, it is unbelievably cute!

 

I hope you have a great week and start to get into the Christmas spirit!

 

So many advent calendars!

Its too cute to eat!

 

10 Reasons to Love Your Bed.

As I sit here in my bed drinking toffee flavoured coffee and wait for my friend to get up so we can watch America's Next Top Model, feel free to judge us, I often judge us too, I am just thinking about the value of bed. So here are my top 10 reasons as to why bed is the best place in the world, excluding Disneyland. Disneyland is definitely better than my bed.

 

1. It is so comfy.

2. It is so warm, something highly valued in a student house.

3. You can decorate it with bedding and throws to suit your needs, for example mine currently has a throw with reindeer all over it. 33 SLEEPS TO GO.

4. Despite the fact you leave it every morning it welcomes you  back with open arms at the end of the day, or the middle of the afternoon, and all is forgiven.

5. It is an extremely good storage holder, don't know where to put something? The bed is always the answer.

6. It is the best place to lie and think about everything in the world. Though the shower is a good contender for this.

7. You get to sleep in it. Sleeping is the best part of my day.

8. It is multifunctional. Need somewhere to sit? The bed. Want to watch some tv? Go and sit in bed. Need to do some work? The bed is a pretty comfy place to be.

9. It looks after all of your belongings. For example, it always keeps the tv remote and phone safe for me so that when I have lost them I know where I should look first.

10. And finally the word 'bed' looks like a bed, which I think is pretty cool.

Speeding Through Time

Nothing much has really happened this week, I seem to have found myself completely surrounded by essays and I feel like I am spending every minute of the day trying to get some work done. Consequently this has left me desperately trying to think of something to write about and coming up with a big fat nothing.

 

It has left me wondering where this week has gone, I cannot believe the week is almost over, yet I honestly feel like I have nothing to show for it, apart from a huge dent in my bank account (a result of buying far too many Christmas decorations) and another, extremely bad, finished, essay. Yet thinking about it, this whole term is going so fast. I am about to go into week 7 and each term is 10 weeks long. WEEK 7?! I have only just moved in! Its crazy how fast time is going at the moment, I feel like if you blink you may just miss a huge moment. I feel like I went to sleep on the first night and woken up to find I slept for 6 weeks, its crazy. However, I like to think if the time is going so fast then you must be having a good time and there must be lots of things going on. I am sure that is the case for me, just at the moment I cannot think of the last thing I did that didn't involve me writing an essay.

 

No. Wait. Yes I can. I went to Costa yesterday to get one of their Christmas drinks. Sticky toffee lattes are delish! Though I drank it feeling guilty that I was not sat at home writing about the reasons the mortality rate declined in the nineteenth century.

 

So now it is Sunday evening and I am faced with a whole new week, and a whole new essay to write. However this week is going to be SUPER exciting as our university Christmas officially starts on Tuesday as it will be 25 days till the end of term. I will be blasting out the Christmas songs and putting up the decorations, there has also been a discussion about the possibility of a mince pie or three. Also I am going back home for a weekend away with my family, something I am also looking forward to, that and the fact going home gives me a good excuse to get a Starbucks as it is on the way home. I need to do a full comparison of Starbucks' and Costa's toffee latte variations!

 

So I guess that's it for now. I will leave you with a picture of my sparkler from Wednesday and a promise to think of something better to write about next week.

 

 

Happy Halloween

After my extremely poor effort last week at dressing up as Vanellope I felt I should try slightly harder with Halloween. This does mean that I ended up with a witches hat and fake blood, because those two things definitely go together. Fact. I need to get better at this costume thing.

I have never really bothered with Halloween, its too close to Christmas as far as I am concerned and Christmas is a HUGE deal with me, so by the time Halloween has arrived I have already started getting stupidly excited about the festive season and Halloween seems to get forgotten about.

 

The one thing I do love about this time of year is carving pumpkins. I insist on carving one every year and this year was no exception. So it was a trip to our local supermarket for the perfect pumpkin, we also somehow ended up looking at Christmas decorations, I don't know how that happened. It took FOREVER as we couldn't decide which one was the perfect one, we did eventually make a decision only to get home and realise that when it was on a flat surface it tilted forward quite a lot. *sigh*. However that didn't stop us and we soon got thinking of ideas. I find with pumpkins a face is slightly boring and overused so I always try and think of something different, so this year we went for a slightly evil looking sorting hat from Harry Potter and I was quite impressed with the final result.

 

The final result

With the pumpkin done, I had to get thinking of a good costume. I ended up skipping the fake blood as it said on the packet it could stain your face for a few days and I had to go to work today so it was a risk I wasn't willing to take. Somehow I think stewarding a Charlie and Lola play with fake blood on my face is not the best idea ever. In the end I just wore a lot of black, a witches hat and A LOT of make-up, I even drew a cobweb on my face. Dressing up really is not my thing, but it was good fun to try!

 

I hope everyone had a fantastically spooky Halloween! I am now off to get ridiculously over excited about Christmas!

 

I did get creative with my noticeboard!

 

Vanellope Von Schweetz

This week I went out with the Sociology society at Warwick dressed as Vanellope Von Schweetz from Wreck it Ralph.

 

We went to the student night, Pop, where they play a lot of cheesy music and in all honesty, can only be enjoyed if you are VERY drunk. We went circling, something that apparently every University does, but only Warwick call it circling. Basically a society stands in a circle (hence the 'circling', get it? We are so original) and then you play drinking games and drink purple, otherwise known as snakebite. Tastes disgusting but gets you very drunk and is nice and cheap. The joys of student life.

 

The theme for our circle was Alphabet. Everyone had to come dressed as something that began with the first letter of our name. As a massive Disney fan I felt Vanellope was a good option and was a fairly easy costume to get together. In the end my costume was a pretty poor effort, I basically wore a green jumper and stripy socks, but it was the thought that counted, right? I think the universe was conspiring against me as I was trying to get a costume together. I ordered a green jumper from Boohoo which when it arrived I hated. It was a shame as it had the potential to be a really good jumper but the fit really didn't suit me, something that is always a danger with online shopping. I decided to return the jumper but that meant I had less than a week to find a replacement, It is also worth noting that the service at Boohoo was amazing, the delivery time was really quick and the jumper was really cheap, it is a shame I didn't like it.

 

So, the next place I looked was H&M, I always find them a bit hit and miss but I figured it was the best place to look for a cheap, plain jumper and I was pleasantly surprised! They have had some really nice things in there recently, and I picked up a really nice mint green top for £7, bargain! And I will definitely be wearing it again, so definitely a success!

 

The only other thing I needed were green and white stripy tights, that are extremely hard to find, in the end I compromised and went with knee high socks. However, stupidly, I sent them to my home address, not university and the latest delivery date was the day I needed them for, luckily they arrived at home the day before and my family immediately sent them out to me so they arrived the next day, but that was a few stressful days when I realised what I had done, I will definitely pay more attention next time.

 

I am fairly sure that the final result looked nothing like Vanellope, but I did have a really good night and it was a lot of fun to put the outfit together and see everyone else's costume. It also gave me an excuse to dress up as a Disney character, in fact you could argue I was a Disney princess. Vanellope turns out to be a princess in the end, so that definitely counts....doesn't it?

 

Oh and I definitely had to look up how to spell Vanellope in order to be able to write this post, who knew it would be so complicated?!

Basically twins...

 

I will try harder next time.

Home Comforts

After another terrible week I made the last minute decision to go home. So I packed up some stuff, threw it in the back of the car and then on Friday afternoon, I ran off from work and drove the two hours it takes me back to the familiar surroundings of my house. It was the best decision I had made all week. The only exception was possibly the decision to have garlic bread at the pub on Tuesday, it was the best garlic bread I have ever tasted. But that is a completely different matter!

 

What is it that makes home so reassuring? I don't know. Maybe its the fact that when I woke up on Saturday morning I had this strange sensation of being ever so slightly too warm, instead of peeling back the duvet in the anticipation that I would freeze the minute I did so. One of the main problems of being a student is the inability to be able to afford heating. Or maybe it was when I got in the shower I felt actual water run onto me, instead of some pathetic dribble that I have lean back into to feel any water at all. Or perhaps it was the amazing food on offer, and someone else cooking it for me. Or the comfort of waking up in my bedroom that I grew up in. Or possibly, and most definitely the most important reason, the fact that I was able to hug my mum, annoy my brother and be reassured that I had someone who cared about me right next to me. Within an hour of me arriving home my oldest friend was sat on the bed next to me and we were chatting and laughing away, all the stress of the past two weeks gone. Then I spent the evening on the sofa next to my family and just felt completely content. Of course this doesn't mean I hate university, I am also surrounded by those I love at my house there and do feel extremely comfortable there. But there is something about "home", its familiar, its safe and its comforting. I have not stopped smiling all weekend and just feel so much more relaxed then I did two days ago. Hopefully now I can start a new week tomorrow and feel slightly more positive about my degree and be less of a nightmare to be around, though I am not making any promises.

 

I suppose if all else fails, I could go back to that pub at university and get their garlic bread...