February Favorites

So it is nearing the end of the month again and I decided that since I haven't done a monthly favorites for a while that it's about time that I did. There have been quite a few things that I have been loving this month, from beauty to books, so keep reading for a look into what has been tickling my pickle this month.

Beauty

I have been drawn back to my trusty Mac Creme de la Femme this month. Back in summer this used to be my everyday lipstick but was traded out for Rimmel 107 during the autumn months. Since the weather is getting nicer and it's beginning to go into spring then it is the perfect lipstick to add a subtly hint of colour to the lips.

I have been using a new face powder this month and I am pretty sure that there hasn't been a day where I have been wearing makeup that I have not used this powder since I got it. The Seventeen Miracle Matt Pressed Powder is simply brilliant, I have never found a drugstore powder with such a great durability before. I can dust on a bit of this powder in the morning before school or work and my face remains shine free for a good 5 hours at least afterwards. And at £3.99 it is hardly going to break the bank.

Skincare

After a couple of moths of varying products I seem to have a pretty goof skincare routine down now as a result of a few new great products I have picked up. The products that I personally think have been a saving grace for my skin recently are a few from the Body Ship Tea Tree range. The three that I use religiously are the Skin Clearing Toner which is great for oily skin as it completely mattifies the face and leaves it feeling clean and fresh, the Skin Clearing Lotion hydrates the skin and also helps with shine control and I also swear by the Blemish Fade Night Lotion. It initially doesn't appear to have any effect but after applying and leaving to soak in, your skin just feels so much smoother. 

Obviously I have to insert  a few sneaky lush products in here as well. This month I have been obsessed with the limited edition Valentines lip scrub The Kiss. It tastes like cupcakes. That should be enough for you to understand my love of it. Also I tried out the Blackberry bath bomb for the first time as I was intrigued by the fact it contained bergamot oil which is said to be a natural anxiety remedy and lets just say I will certainly be picking up some more soon. 

Haircare

What a surprise, more Body Shop products. When I was down in Glasgow earlier on in the month I obviously stopped off in one of their stores and made the mistake of smelling the banana hair products. I say mistake as I am pretty sure no shampoo will ever measure up now. I absolutely love the smell of artificial banana, you know that banana milkshake smell, so I feel prey to the pretty smell and picked up the shampoo and conditioner. While undoubtedly a more expensive option considering the size of the product and my insanely thick long hair, I cannot get past how good this makes my hair feel.

 Book

Just yesterday I started reading Fractured by Dani Atkins and while I haven't got that far into it yet I am already loving it.

Tv

During my days off ill this month I decided to check out the spin off show of Grey's Anatomy that features one of my favorite characters Dr Addison Montgomery. Safe to say in the space of two days I watched two seasons and am now well into the third and still loving it.

So that is everything that I have been loving this month, feel free to leave some things that you have been loving in the comments.

You are the sun

There are those rare and beautiful moments in life where we feel nothing but pure elation. We are excited for the future, happy about where we are in our lives at that present moment and proud of how far we have come. We have everything to look forward to and good memories to look back upon and friends that are pretty damn great. But when we exude this happiness, to share our own enthusiasm, there will always be somebody there to give us a metaphorical slap on the face and burst out happy little bubble. And personally, those type of people are my least favorite type of people.

For a little while at school this afternoon I let the excitement about moving to a place that I lover overtake me. My classmates and I were enthusiastically trading ideas on university life, how to get all our belongings down there and how they were pretty damn sure that out of our whole year that I am the person who is the most excited. And I know it, I am well aware of the fact that I light up whenever I talk about it and even you will be able to tell from the many a blog post relating to it that I am writing at the moment.

However later on today I was explaining all of this to my grandfather, who I am exceptionally close to, and he coldly informed me that he still doesn't understand how my parents are 'allowing' me to move away. That I will be all alone in a massive city, miss my family and inevitably move home so there is apparently no reason to even go and I should just live her my whole life. I didn't even know where to start trying to argue with him.

Nobody, least of all my parents, have any say in where I move and what I choose to do with my life. That is my decision. But my parents are great about it, I have always been incredibly ambitious and they are aware of how much I live Optometry and want to do this course. Aside from that, I am perfectly aware that I will be moving to a city where I know nobody but so will thousands of other people my age who will all be in exactly the same boat and looking to make friends. I will have 5 ready-made new friends when I move into my halls of residence not to mention others I will meet during freshers and that are doing the same degree as me. And my family, of course I will miss them. But moving away doesn't mean that they will no longer be my family, there are ways to keep in touch and I will be home regularly.

I understand that he is just worried about me and unprepared for the fact that I am no longer a 3 year old girl, but I don't know whether I'm more upset about the fact that he doesn't understand that I am my own person now and that nobody can make my decisions for me or that he suggested I stay in this town that makes me feel claustrophobic and stiffed living an fulfilling life.

I guess what I am trying to say here is do not let anybody else ruin your happiness. Do not let anybody else tell you what you should be. The word is full of sharks and shark have teeth. Don't be a minnow. Be a damn shark. If something makes you happy then go and do it. Don't let what anyone else says or thinks stop you. Understand that these things may be a mistake but they are your mistake to make and your mistake to learn from. This is the time in our lives to make mistakes. To do stupid crap. And to learn from it all to ultimately make us better people in the long run. 

In which I realise that maybe things will work out well after all

For a long time in my life I quite honestly didn't have all that much to be particularly optimistic about. I have had my fair share of battles and my body bears the scars to prove it, some of them physical and others not so much. I refer to these as the 'dark and twisty's,' and yes I got that from Grey's. There was an extensive period of time in which I honestly didn't think that I would reach a point in my life where I was genuinely excited about the future but alas, that time has come.

Since I started High School I have been working my butt off with the intentions of getting into University but for a long time I had little idea what I wanted to peruse as a degree there, then in January last year my eyes were opened to the world of Optometry (pun not intended) and for the past year I have been putting every ounce of energy into getting into an Optometry course in Glasgow.

 In December last year my slaved over UCAS application was sent away and I spent the weeks following freaking out over the fact that my ultimate goal to become an Optometrist wouldn't be achieved due to the 'dark and twisty's' causing my exam results to be a little below where I had expected. After two months of waiting to hear back I had all but given up.

But this Monday while I was at work I happened to check my emails, as had become routine every time I had a chance, and shockingly I had received an offer to study Optometry in Glasgow next year. To be perfectly honest it still hasn't kicked in yet, not only am I going to be moving to city that makes me feel alive, I am going to be doing what I love. I get the chance to move out and learn how to be my own person without my parents, be myself and let my hair down every once in a while.

I still have to get an A in higher history this year but my hopes are high and let me tell you something, I will be working my ass off to get that god damned A. Getting in is so close and there is no other option other than achieving an A in history. 

There was a moment in school today where the sheer immensity of this began to hit me, that this moment that I had been dreaming of since I was a little girl was actually beginning to come true. In a few short months I will be packing up my life and moving down to a city populated by over 600,000 people. I will be simply a part of a crowd. I will know nobody, I can make an entirely new fresh start. I will no longer simply be my parents daughter, I will be my own person with my own life that I am in charge of.

Review: The Edge of Never by J A Redmerski

2.5/5 stars

As usual, I bought this book quite a while ago and have been putting off reading it after seeing a few rather questionable reviews on goodreads, but in the end I just decided to give it a try for myself to see what the controversy was about. The book...it was ok, nothing to write home about but not terrible. It did that thing where it was average the whole way through then had a tear-jerker of an ending that makes you think the whole book was great when in actuality only the ending was and that really gets on my nerves.

So we have Camryn Bennett, a 20 year old who is fed up with her monotonous regular going-nowhere life where she works at a department store. Her boyfriend Ian died from a tragic car accident while they were in high school, her parents divorced, her brother Cole went to prison for killing a man during a drunk accident, and her best friend since second grade accuses her of being a lying bitch. So basically her life is shit. She decides it's time to quit living for everyone else...and start living for herself. And so she does. She sets out to leave North Carolina on a road trip to Idaho. When she gets on a bus and starts her new found self-discovery...everything changes.

I don't know whether it's just because I've been in a major reading slump right now or what but to most people this book it like marmite: you love it or you hate it. But this book, it was just a bit 'eh.' It was nothing special. The first half of the book was in all honesty a bit of a drag but all of a sudden it picks up pace and then lets be honest, if the author cut out a lot of the first half of the book and instead developed what was the potential for a remarkably good ending that fell short, this could have been a much better book. 

I disliked the protagonist. I vehemently disliked her. Cam is the kind of perfect girl men start fights for and best friends get jealous of because their boyfriends have wanted her from 7th grade. I could NOT understand what guys saw in this waste of human cells. I'll refrain from saying more about her, because she's just not worth the effort. Check out this little gem : "My hair is the kind of blonde some girls pay a salon a lot of money to have, and it stops just to the middle of my back. I admit I was lucky in the perfect hair department." Camryn is a fucking idiot. There's no nicer way to say it. She thinks every girl who isn't her is a slut, every man who she doesn't fancy is a rapist and believed depression was something people made up for attention.So she decides to do the most mature thing ever and run away, destination unknown, on a bus without telling anyone. Because, apparently, running away from problems that aren't so problematic if she actually talked to people is the answer to everything. By page five, I'd rolled my eyes hard enough to irritate a nerve, thanks to little gems like this:

Instead of sitting around dreaming up new sex positions, as Natalie often does about Damon, her boyfriend of five years, I dream about things that really matter. What the air in other countries feels like on my skin, how the ocean smells, why the sound of rain makes me gasp. 'You're so deep, Camryn' Damon always says.

Andrew is absolutely sweet and swoony and really helps Cam find herself along the way, but I couldn't overlook all the other things in this story that were predictable and really bothered me to give this a higher rating. If you're looking for a coming of age story and don't mind a somewhat predictable plot with a big bow at the end ... this might be for you.

Sharing the love

As you will all undoubtedly know by this point, I am slightly (insanely) in love (obsessed) with Grey's Anatomy. I love the way in which the characters story's intertwine so flawlessly and that it is a show not centered around one or two people but instead a whole host of people and a wide array of problems are tackled. 

One of my favorite things about the show is that sometimes, usually a few times per episode, a character will say something that hits you so deep it makes you have to take a break and reevaluate things a little. At least it's that way for me, so I decided to share with you some of my personal favorite quotes from the show. 

T5W: books that take place in your country

It has been a while since I last posed a t5w post but hopefully life has settled down enough now so that I have a little more time to spend making blog posts. Top 5 Wednesday is a discussion hosted by GingerReadsLainey over on youtube in which we post our top 5 books of a certain topic each Wednesday. This weeks topic is my top 5 books set in my area/country or region. I live in the North East of Scotland so its safe to say I am very limited as to the books that I have read which are set in my area, so I think I'm going to have to broaden this a little to just be books set throughout Scotland. This week has been a really difficult week for books with only one being an obvious choice to me, but without further ado here is my top 5 books that are set in my country.

Harry Potter Series by J K Rowling

Everyone and their mother has read Harry Potter but many people tend to forget that Hogwarts is actually set in Scotland and in fact you can visit and go over the famous Glenfinnan viaduct that you see the Hogwarts Express go across (you know, the one with the flying car?). There's also Loch Sheil which was used various times as a backdrop for Hogwarts and Steall Falls in Glen Nevis which were used for the filming of the dragon battle scene in the Goblet of Fire, and close by is where they filmed the backdrop of the Quidditch matches.. J K Rowling herself wrote parts of the Harry Potter books while in The Elephant House cafe which still remains in the heart of Edinburgh, you can even visit yourself and grab a cup of tea. There is also a Potter Trail Tour that you can go on in Edinburgh which visits this cafe along with the grave in which Rowling got the inspiration for Voldemort.  

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

The world famous play by Shakespeare is set remarkably close to where I live, with some mention of a small town thats roughly 10 minutes from where I live.

The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith

I couldn't talk about Scottish books without putting in something with some relation to the Loch Ness Monster now could I? 

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Yes, I know, I haven't actually read this book yet but I'm grasping at straws here. I don't tend to read a lot of books set in Scotland because one, there arent many, and two, it kind of sucks here so why would I want to read about it? But I have heard fabulous things about this book series and plan to pick it up soon.

On Dublin Street by Samantha Young

Another one that I haven't actually read yet I'm afraid but it is another that I have heard good things about and plan to pick up in the near future. 

The Grey's Anatomy Tag

So I have decided to undertake the seemingly massive task of doing the Grey's Anatomy tag. I'm going to keep my answers short and sweet as this is a long tag, so lets get going.

1. Favorite male character?

Mark Sloan

2. Favorite female character?

Oh gosh this one is hard, its a toss up between Cristina, Callie and Addison

3. Favorite friendship?

Hands down Meredith and Cristina

4. Favorite couple?

Lexie/Sloan

5. Least favorite male character?

George O'Malley

6. Least favorite female character?

Jane Doe/Rebecca Pope/Ava

7. Least favorite friendship?

Izzy and George

8. Least favorite couple?

Cristina and Burke

9. Favorite actor?

Patrick Dempsey

10. Favorite season?

Season 5 

11. Favorite actress?

Kate Walsh (Addison) 

12. Least favorite season?

Season 8

13. Favorite quote?

'We screw boys like whores on tequila, then either try to marry them or drown'

14. Favorite episode?

Either the one where Derek proposes, the one with the candle house, the post-it marriage or the one when Derek draws on his and Meredith's bedroom wall

15. Least favorite episode?

The one where Derek is shot and Meredith miscarries 

16. Favorite surgery?

The Judy Dolls

17. Favorite place in the hospital?

Nurses Station 

18. A scene that made you cry?

Denny dying, realising George is John Doe, Cristina operating on Derek after the shooting, Meredith drowning, George in his army uniform and Izzy in the prom dress, the singing episode when Callie is in the car crash, Lexie and Sloan dying, Cristina leaving, Cristina telling Meredith that she is the sun and Meredith almost dying during child birth.

19. A scene that made you laugh?

Cristina dancing with Burke and the one where she sings Like A Virgin in the morgue

20. A scene that made you angry?

Basically the whole Ghost Denny and Izzy situation and when Teddy's husband died

21. Most epic Grey's Anatomy moment?

'Choose me. Pick me. Love me.'

22. Character you miss the most?

Cristina, Sloan and Addison

23. Favorite season finale?

Candle house. 100% the candle house.

24. Saddest death?

George's death was horrible but I didn't really like him that much, but seeing all the home videos of Sloan when he dies was brutal

Lets make this new chapter full of adventure

Everyone gets the urge to just run away and start afresh every now and then, it's human nature. I know this sounds cliché, but I believe everyone is allowed a fresh start. Everyone is allowed to walk away from a past that did not support their sense of self, so that they can find their ultimate purpose. The power is not in the anger about the past. The power is in leaving the past behind.

If there's one thing I have learned in my life its that sometimes it's just best to walk away. You can't make people be who you want them to be, and when you come to the realisation that the people you have surrounded yourself with your entire life are not the people you have built them up to be in your mind and don't act in the way that your subconscious forces you to believe, it's best to walk away. All my life, since I was a little girl, if someone was doing something that I didn't want to do I would simply walk away and leave it behind me. Now I'm just ready to do that on a larger scale. 

I'm ready to move on and be someone different. In the past year I have changed on so many levels in a way that never fails to scare the everloving crap out of me, but it is this change that has led me to love who I am. I have changed for the better and I have accepted who I am but I feel that now what I need is the room to flourish and to be this person, no longer shoved into the little box that has been built up around me the depicts who I used to be. 

I need to smash this box down, rip out of it, and that's not something I can do here. I need to cut myself loose and move away from here to some where bigger and less stifling. To somewhere I can thrive. The idea of being stuck in the place my entire life is one that I do not want to live out.

I'm tired of being someone afraid to take risks because there is a chance that it might be a mistake. I want to make mistakes. I want to go out there and do stupid crap because maybe all the things that I've been afraid to do my whole life wont be mistakes and if they turn out to be the wrong chocies then ok, I will just learn from them. I tired of being someone who's biggest concern is making other people happy. I want to be a little selfish sometimes. I want to do what makes me happy and say f*$# it to the rest occasionally because I deserve to be happy. I want to get tattoos because I love them, I want to be able to do things because I want to and not stop myself from doing them as a result of other peoples opinions. 

And deep down I know its ridiculous. I know that moving away wont solve all my problems. I know that all I'll be doing is effectively running away from them, but in this running away I will ensure that these problems are no longer mine. I long for the day when the biggest problems and drama I have in my life are about stupid inconsequential crap that everyone worries about like boy drama and short lived spats in the workplace. 

When I move out in September I want everything that I take with me, bar the obvious things like clothes and makeup ect, to be new. New bedding and ornaments and pillows and crockery. I know it's stupid, to expect that surrounding myself with new things will allow me to be a new person but sometimes that's all you need to feel a little different. Changed. Better.

I'm simply done with a place that holds all these memories of a time that I would like to move on from, no not forget as that would be stupid as then I wouldn't be able to learn from the mistakes made, but to move on. I want to live the life I have always imagined for myself and I can't do that here with the constant fear that I will regress into the person that I used to be. 

I want to take this opportunity in both hands, grasp it tight and make the most of it. I sometimes say that I want a chapter break, a time for life to pause, to allow me to take count of everything going on in my life when things get too much. Right now however, I'm done with chapter breaks. I feel like the past few months of my life have been like those bridge chapters in books, the filler ones that simply build up to the big thing. I don't want this new chapter to be a filler chapter. I want it to be an adventure.