A is for Anxious

Hello! Least consistent blogger here.

I haven't posted anything since January, but today I'm going to ask you to be patient with me while I try to write about something that's really personal to me. This is the third time I've sat down and turned on my laptop with the idea of writing this blog post in mind. It is also the billionth time I've thought about doing so, always brushing it off. There is so much I want to say, so many words floating around in my head, that I'm definitely struggling to let it all out. I have always said that I never understand what's happening in my head until I put pen to paper because writing about something allows me to see it from a clearer perspective. In other words, writing about it makes it real, and I wasn't sure I was ready to see this come to life.

Am I ready now? To be fair, I don't think you're ever ready to do anything, but sometimes you just have to go ahead and do it anyway. The reason why I decided to sit down again today was because for the past couple of days, after a long while, I've started feeling a little bit more like myself - whatever that means. To be honest with you, I don't remember what I was like before I started worrying like crazy about every single thing that has ever happened to me or will happen to me in the future. I have always been a worrier, and as such, I am very familiar with the ways in which my body responds to stress or rough times. Over the years I've learned to anticipate it and deal with it before it's even happening. My body asks me to slow down and I have no other choice but to obey. The problem is that lately the over-worrying business has been taken to the extreme.

Although it's not exactly true, I feel like almost everything that could possibly go wrong with me has gone wrong over the past few months. After a while refusing to do it (because I'm FINE, mom, I've been sick for two months but IT'LL GO AWAY), I went to see my doctor. She decided to run a complete blood test, which came back clear. I am perfectly healthy. Then what on Earth is happening to me? Why do I feel ill all the time? Why do I keep feeling anxious that something's going to go wrong? Why am I so sleepy all day and then unable sleep at night? Why can't I just focus? Why am I so moody? Why am I so f!$/cking sad? Why does my body keep failing me? "That's just you being anxious. You're just nervous. That's caused by stress and over-worrying. You're okay. You just need to relax." That has been the answer to all of my questions lately. Then the doctor asked me if I was going through a rough time, if there was something going on causing me to be so stressed, and I lied to her and said that I was just worried about uni, which happens to be true right now but wasn't at the time. As far as stressful situations go, I was feeling perfectly fine. The semester had just finished, I'd passed everything with flying colors and I'd spent the previous months taking life easier than I ever thought I could. Or so I thought. 

It is hard enough to deal with stress when you've got reasons to feel uneasy, but irrational worry is a whole different thing. It can't be stopped. It turns your life upside down. For someone who wants to do so much with her life, there have been days where even going to class has been difficult. Some days I literally have to remind myself, out loud, that I'm okay, just to make sure that my body won't freak out on me. I have pieces of paper with quotes on my wallet. I'm using meditation apps. I'm wearing a chakras bracelet when I haven't believed in these things since I was a kid. I am doing everything I can think of to make myself feel safe. It takes a lot of effort on my part, as well as an awful lot of herbal tea, and while I will gladly do whatever it takes as long as it's beneficial for me, it's something incredibly terrifying to think about in the long run. But as I said, things seem to be looking up now. I'm holding on to that instead - at least for now. I'll worry about the future when it becomes the present. One day at a time.

Hope you're all having a great March.

See you soon... maybe.

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2014 Entertainment Favourites

I should've made sure I had the time to post this before 2014 ended, I know. I'm late. What's new?

As the homebody you already know I am, I always have a million things to watch, read and listen to. People always ask me, "Oh, don't you get bored if you stay home?" Please. How could I ever get bored with the amount of good things I have to entertain myself with? There are new albums and books coming out every week and either new or old tv shows I always wanted to give a chance to waiting for me. Now, it is really hard to make a list of the things I enjoyed the most this year (I have good memory, but this post would be endless), so I just put together a few of the things I could find. Notice that not everything I've been into is pictured above because I don't have a material copy of every single book or tv show that I love -and not enough tablets either to show you more logos-.

As far as music is concerned, the first album I got obsessed with last year was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' The Heist, which I do have a copy of (obviously), but I chose not to include it in the picture as I've talked about it a million times already. Just for the record, I still think it's amazing. I saw Fall Out Boy live last year, as well as Macklemore, and they blew my mind, so I just had to include the album I listened to over and over around the date of the show, Save Rock and Roll. Then, a few months later, Ed Sheeran's X came out and I thought I had never listened to something so genius in my life. I usually get tired of the albums I listen a lot to, but this one's still living on my phone. It's so so good. Then last month Santa Claus listened to my prayers and got me Ella Henderson's Chapter One. I am so in love with her voice, you don't even know. It's probably the best album ever by an X Factor artist. Absolutely great. And last but most definitely not least... Taylor Swift's 1989. Hands down, album of the year. 

Choosing the books I wanted to talk about was the hardest task ever as 1) I read quite a few books that got to me last year 2) I don't have a copy of most of them. Pictured above is The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell, which I'm currently writing an academic paper on, and I decided to include it simply because I'm not used to enjoying the books that I have to read for class that much, yet I loved this one. The one next to it is We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, which is the best YA novel I've ever read. Saying too much about it would be giving things away, so let me just tell you that when you find out what happened in the novel you will want to throw it out the window, Bradley Cooper style. My favourite book of the year is probably one of those books you read about and think "Alright, this may just be the biggest cliché ever..." but it turns out to be wonderful. Clichéd? Yes, a little bit. But it's a really cute story without being incredibly cheesy. That is You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane. (I'm still daydreaming about Ben.)

Lastly, TV shows! I find it so hard to follow new shows because at some point I always end up forgetting to watch a certain episode and then I have to catch up and ain't nobody got time for that. That's what happened to me with How To Get Away With Murder. It is absolutely amazing and that's why I'm including it, even if I'm still stuck on episode 4, because it's the only new show I've gotten into this year. As you may know, I have also been obsessing over Criminal Minds with my sister, which I still think is genius and I still watch every weekend. However, the show of the year has to be Breaking Bad. Yes, I do know it ended in 2013, but I only just got around to start watching it back in November and boy, is it great. I'm currently halfway through season five and I'm torn between "I want to know what happens" and "I don't want it to end". Even if you don't think you're into tv or movies about drugs, just give it a go. You will most likely love it.

As a bonus that I hadn't even thought of until I finished writing about tv, the movies I enjoyed the most in 2014 were, no doubt, The Wolf of Wall Street, Gone Girl and an early 2000s flick called Whatever It Takes. I know there must have been some really good ones this year that movie geeks would be outraged that I haven't mentioned, but I have to confess that I don't watch nearly as many films as I'd like to. First of all, because my salary as a nanny does not allow me to go to the cinema that often (yes, mainly because I spend all of it on makeup, clothes and books, so what) and second, because I'm too lazy to watch them at home. I always think, "God, do I really want to spent two hours sitting here watching something? No, I don't." And then I watch eight Breaking Bad episodes in a row. Smh. (Hey, there's a New Year's resolution! Watching more films!)

Looking back at my favourite tv shows and and movies, should I be worried that most of them have something to do with breaking the law? I mean, there's a lot of murder, drugs, money and psychopaths. I see a pattern there...

Ha! What did you read, watch and listen to in 2014? 

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Goodbye 2014

 Madrid, August 2014

I don't know how to begin this post without repeating what you've heard a million times by now, so I'm just going to go ahead and say it: 2014 has flown by. I cannot believe it's been twelve months since the last time I sat down to reflect on another year. 

Very often, I label things in my head as good or bad. What I like and what I don't. What's good for me and what's not. I always need to know that the villain is a real villain and I can't sympathize with a hero that's doing mean things. If you're a good friend, you behave like one. Most things are in black and white in my head, because that makes it easier for me to understand how I feel towards someone or something. However, I'm not sure I can fully label a year as good or bad. I keep hearing people talking about balance and that's always been an interesting concept for me. I'm attracted to the idea that we have to go through the worst to appreciate the best. It's not exactly fair, I suppose, but I like to think that balance exists, whether we like it or not, and that good times will always come.

To be perfectly honest with you, I also think that it all depends on your attitude. That's why without counting neither my curses nor my blessings, I'm going to say that it's been a good year. This year I don't want to look back and think about the days I've been sad or lonely or miserable, days that we all have. When I'm old and wrinkly and I'm rocking my chair back and forth thinking about the good old 2014, I'm going to think about the lessons I learned and the good memories we made. Trying to sneak into fancy hotels. Watching the sun rise from the beach. Tracking flights at 1 am. (Not so) early mornings spent lying in bed searching stuff on twitter, then falling asleep again. Crazy audio notes. Blogging more. Realizing that there's really no point in worrying so much about everything. That it's okay to be sad, upset and afraid and you have to allow yourself to feel all of it. Finding myself a little bit more every day. Finally coming to terms with who I am and what I want (and what I don't). Growing. Accepting. Moving forward.

I am a completely different person than I was twelve months ago and I am a completely different person than I will be next time I sit down to write about my year. And that's alright. Hopefully, next December I will tell you more or less the same thing: that bad things happen, but they will never be more relevant than whatever makes you smile. I'm happy. I hope you are too. And I hope 2015 is the year of your life.

Happy new year!

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2014 Beauty Favourites

And here I was thinking I shouldn't even bother doing a Beauty Favourites post because there would not be enough things to talk about...

First and foremost, I'd like to say that I know most of these products did not actually come out in 2014, but I chose them based on what I've been reaching for the most this year. Some of them are things I've purchased over the past twelve months, while some of them are now all-time favourites and will probably feature in all of my annual favourites until I turn 80 (hello Kate Moss 107). I will not go into too much detail for two reasons: one, I have talked about or want to talk about in the near future about some of these products in a separate post. Two, I have two academic papers to write!

Rimmel Wake Me Up Foundation (201 Classic Beige)

While I don't really understand the big buzz around it (yes, it's good, but that good? Hmmm...), I admit it's one of my favourite drugstore foundations at the moment. The coverage is great and the lasting power is actually quite impressive, although I'm not sure about the anti-fatigue effect and radiant glow it claims to have. Personally I don't see it, but it's a great foundation nevertheless.

Maybelline Fit Me! Pressed Powder (350 Caramel)

Until a couple of weeks ago I'd been using a Catrice pressed powder, I don't remember the details, but I dropped it and it ended up scattered all over the bathroom floor. Classic Tania. The next day, my desperate self went to the store and picked up the only powder they had in my shade - which, surprisingly, turned to be great. It is a matte powder so you won't become a disco ball in the middle of the day, but it does not make your skill look dull in the slightest. It's a win-win.

Sleek Blush By 3 Palette in Sweet Cheeks (Candy Collection)

I got this in the sales a couple of months ago and boy, am I glad I did. You need to be very careful when applying the product, especially the bright shade on the right, because otherwise you'll end up looking like a clown. I learned that the hard way. But once you get the hang of that, you will fall in love with it.

Rimmel Match Perfection Concealer (060 Natural Beige)

Ladies and gents, meet my new best friend. When I read on the tube that it was "skin tone adapting", I rolled my eyes. Skin tone adapting concealer? Yeah, right. Well, it turns out it wasn't false advertising after all. It looks quite yellow-ish when you first apply it, so that's kind of scary the first time, but it blends so well with your skin, even if you're not wearing foundation.  I've been using it since May and I'm not planning on trying a new one.

Makeup Revolution Girls On Film Palette

Makeup Revolution are the brand of the year. I think we can all agree on that one. They make such amazing products and they are so incredibly affordable that you just cannot stop buying things. A personal favourite of mine is the Girls On Film palette, with twelve shimmery shades and six matte ones. I rarely ever wear eyeshadow to university but with such wearable shades this palette makes me want to make more of an effort.

Makeup Revolution Redemption Palette Iconic 3

 Alright, the Naked 3 palette is absolutely beautiful. The shades are stunning, the packaging is incredible and we all know Urban Decay make some of the best eyeshadows out there when it comes to pigment and staying power. The thing is, when it first came out, I wasn't sure I was actually going to get much use out of rose gold toned eyeshadows. Do I want to spend 45€ on something I don't know if I'm going to use at all? The answer is no, I don't, so when the Iconic 3 palette came out, apparently being a dupe for the Naked 3 palette, I thought, "Well, it's so affordable that I'm just going to get that one and if I see that it's something I'm going to wear a lot, then I'll get the real thing."

I haven't even thought about buying the Naked 3 palette again. Do I need to say more?

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion

The lovely girls at Sephora gave this to my mum when she got me the Naked 2 palette for my birthday last year and I haven't used any other eyeshadow primer ever since. It is a bit dry so you need to be quite quick working your eyeshadow, but it is incredible. Sadly it's running out now and I'm going to start using the Shadow Insurance primer by Too Faced. I'll keep you posted!

Sleek True Colour Lipstick in 797 Smother

As soon as I saw that shade on the website I knew I had to get my hands on it. I don't have MAC's Rebel, mainly because I have many lipsticks with similar shades, and I think this could actually count as a dupe. I know it looks incredibly dark in the tube, but looking at the swatch you can see it's actually more of a deep pink/purple colour than a vampy shade.

Rimmel Kate Moss Collection in 107

Isn't this everyone's favourite lipstick? It is mine. I love it so much I think I might just get married to it and we'll just ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after.

KIKO Velvet Mat Satin Liptick in 614 Dark Berry

While the 107 one is my favourite lipstick ever, I don't actually wear it every day because as you know it is quite a dark red. This one right here is the one I reach for the most. It is deep without being over the top, so I can easily get away with wearing it every single day.

Rimmel Lasting Finish Lipstick in 077 Asia

As I have said a thousand of times before, I've never thought I could pull off a nude lip. My skin is way too dark for most of the shades. What was my surprise when I found a nude shade that didn't make me look like I'd been dead for months!  (More to come on this lipstick in the next few weeks - stay tuned!)

Topshop Lipstick in All About Me

I got this in London back in September 2013 after spotting it in one of Zoella's videos and until this summer I wasn't sure I was actually going to wear it much. As you can guess, I'm a dark lips kind of girl, so I don't own many bright lipsticks (alright, I do, I just don't really like them that much). Well, say hello to the lipstick I wore all summer!

What have you been loving in 2014?

Any of what I mentioned?

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Six Christmas Songs

Ho, ho, hooooo!

I know I said I would start posting on Wednesdays and Sundays but given that it's Christmas Eve tomorrow and most people will be busy spending the day freaking out about what to wear, including me, I thought it'd be a good idea to move it forward to Tuesday just for this week. I wanted to write about something festive today and my first idea was a Christmas gift ideas posts, but haven't we seen a thousand of those already? Plus, don't you all have your Christmas shopping done by now? You should, at least, if you don't want to end up on the naughty list this year!

I'm sure you all have seen a few posts on Christmas songs as well so I know this won't be ground-breaking material, but I felt like sharing with you a few songs I've been listening to this season. Some are new, some are classics, but I hope you enjoy them all nonetheless.

Baby It's Christmas - Travis Atreo & Colton Haynes

All I Want for Christmas Is You - Love Actually Version  

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Michael Bublé

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town - Mariah Carey

Santa Tell Me - Ariana Grande

Jingle Bells - The Vamps 

And as a bonus track, here's One Direction playing classroom instruments (yeah Zayn, smash that triangle!) and singing Santa Claus Is Coming to Town in festive jumpers. Enjoy!

What Christmas songs have you been listening to this year?

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

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We need to talk...

No, I'm not breaking up with you.

When I wrote a blog post back in October saying that my week long break from blogging had accidentally been extended to ten days, I really didn't mean for it to go any further. However, I was fully aware of the weight my final year of university might put on my shoulders and before we started classes I had a very serious chat with myself: I had to learn to take things easy and start doing what my body and mind asked me to do - which surprisingly I'm becoming quite decent at. I often joke that this semester is turning me into the laziest version of myself, but really it's just me trying to keep myself together (...okay, and maybe being a bit lazy too). That being said, and as much as I love blogging, once I started feeling a bit overwhelmed by the thought of having to sit down and write I simply stopped posting.

To be quite honest with you, I've been finding it hard to write in the past few months and not only for the blog, which I hadn't even tried again until thirty minutes ago, but also for myself. I always say that I don't really understand what's going on in my head until I put pen to paper, and it's absolutely true, but not even the worst headaches have made me want to write. I have been turning to my friends a lot, which means I've been sending ridiculously long text messages complaining about boys being idiots, work being stressful and me being a soon-to-be spinster with five dogs. Alriiiiiight, I'm 20 and I have one dog. Whatever. You get the idea. My point is that I've never been one to openly talk about my problems like I've been doing lately, so it's nice to be able to open up for a change - even if my notebooks are now really sad and hate me for it. 

I'm rambling. 

The reason why I'm sitting here writing all this instead of watching Breaking Bad, which is the only thing I've been doing with my time lately, is that I want to get back to blogging. Yes, again. For the millionth time. Initially, the idea is to start posting twice a week, possibly Wednesdays and Sundays, and maybe I can squeeze another one in between every other week (especially more personal posts - you know I like those). It's definitely not an overwhelming amount of work, at least not until I start my second semester at uni in February, so I should be able to keep up. And if I don't, feel free to tweet me saying I'm the least consistent blogger you've ever met.

Lastly, thank you for being so patient with me. Over the course of the past couple of months I've seen the number of views and followers grow, just when I thought that the outcome would be the opposite. Thanks a million. I'll make sure Santa gives something extra special to all of you. ;) xx

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"The Queen of the Tearling" by Erika Johansen

Hello everyone,

it's been quite a while - 10 days to be exact! Initially I planned to take a week long break from blogging simply because I had an important exam to prepare, among other things, and I thought it'd be better if I just focused on that for a few days. However, my computer has been a bit of a douchebag for the past few days and I could not access my blog (does that ever happen to you? I was worried I'd lost it!), but thankfully it's all good now. Wehey!

I'm here today with a book review. I know they don't seem to be the most popular posts among my readers, but this is a book that I need to share with the world. It took me about a month to read it, which is a long time for me, but I want to say beforehand that it did not have anything to do with the novel itself, but rather with me being a lazy reader towards the end of the summer. It is the first book of a trilogy that claims to be the "female version of Game of Thrones" but since I don't watch the show or have read the books, I can't really tell you if that's accurate. What I can tell you, though, is that it is brilliant. 

In a nutshell

The Queen of the Tearling tells the story of Kelsea Glynn, who, on her nineteenth birthday, is forced to face her destiny and head back to her place of birth to inherit a wrecked and corrupt kingdom. Everyone expects her to be like her mother: vain, careless and definitely not a fighter, but Kelsea could not be any further from that. She is an unruly teenager who is ready to get her kingdom back to its feet. The question is, will she be able to or will she die before she even gets to put a crown on her head?

Thoughts

I genuinely loved it. The storyline is really smart and well-thought and it made me incredibly happy to see how the author made Kelsea deal with the most serious issues of her kingdom, such as gender based violence, rape and so on, in such a graceful manner. I really liked Kelsea as a queen, mainly because she was very clear ideas of what she doesn't want her reign to be like (nothing like her mother's, that's for sure) and she actually does something about it, which I think is admirable given the situation. However, she also frustrated me so much sometimes - what's with that obsession with the Fetch?! It's definitely not one of the most relevant things about the book, but the way she handles her feelings towards him, if you can even call them feelings, just upsets me. As for the rest of the characters, I liked some of them so much that I just wish I could read about them every single day of my life (hello Mace, hello Pen).

I was so ready to give the book 5 stars on Goodreads (yes, despite Kelsea's love choices, because that does not change the way I feel about the novel itself), but then I read the ending. I don't want to give too much away in case any of you want to give it a go, but I was so ready for something that didn't happen. I desperately wanted a final conflict, a scene where Kelsea finally confronted her enemy/enemies. Sadly, that didn't really happen, which was a bit disappointing. Anyway, I loved the book as a whole and I'm now looking forward to the next one. Hurry up, Erika Johansen!

Have you read The Queen of the Tearling?

What did you think?

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