The Shopaholic Series By Sophie Kinsella

MEET BECKY BLOOMWOOD, AN IRRESISTIBLE HEROINE WITH A BIG HEART, BIG DREAMS --- AND JUST ONE LITTLE WEAKNESS .. (Goodreads)

About a month ago, I decided that I wanted to read the famous Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. It seemed like a very teenage kind of book at first but I felt like I was missing out on something good. So I got the books and after 4 weeks, I finished reading all 7 books.

I enjoyed the series so much. I fell in love with Becky Bloomwood and her quirkiness. I thought she was a cute character that was very child-like in her dealings with people.

Basically the seven books follow Becky Bloomwood as she moves through life. Becky has an addiction to shopping and is known for royally screwing up everything she touches. The book follows Becky from the time when she is a small-time financial journalist and travels with her as she meets her big-time husband, moves to New York, gets married, has a child and as she attempts to break into the fashion industry.

I really loved this book because of the way Becky thinks. I felt like it was a lot like the way I think. I see and hear things and immediately start thinking of how amazing it would be if I was famous and if I had my face everywhere.

I think I mentioned how I saw a lot of myself in Becky in one of my Sunday Summaries.

The book isn't very intellectually stimulating and sometimes it can be a little cheesy and predictable. There is the traditional thing that goes wrong and the miraculous saving of the day at the last minute in every book. At times, Luke says and does things that seem unrealistic and very cheesy but hey. This is a romantic story too.

Anyway, if you haven't read it, you really should because it's just wonderful and it will really make you laugh. I read some of the reviews of this book too so let me just say right now that if you can't enjoy a funny and simple book, then don't read it. It's not meant to be a serious read that makes you think. It's just fun.

In other news, Sophie Kinsella replied me on Twitter and she retweeted a tweet with a link to this post!!

Purchase the books at The Book Depositary using my special link Here. 

Simple Hair Care Tips

I like looking for little tips online on how I can improve the health of my skin and hair. And I don't mean looking for which products to use or which fruit will make my hair magically fabulous. I mean tiny things and changes that one can make in their lives that will make a difference. They are all things I've just learnt from my hairdresser or from experience. So obviously I am in no way an expert.

1) Wash you hair in cold water

When you wash your hair, wash off the shampoo with lukewarm water and then wash off your conditioner with cold water. Or as cold as you can manage. It makes your hair shinier. Also remember that washing your hair with hot water is actually really bad for your hair. No matter how nice it feels.

2) Wash you face after washing your hair

If you're like me and you wash your face and hair while in the shower, then wash your face after washing your hair. This is a bit of a skin and hair tip really. Just think of this. After washing off the shampoo, you might get some of the dirt and grease that was in your hair on your face from washing it off. So wash your face after you've washed off the shampoo.

3) Don't read a book while drying your hair

I'm pretty sure everyone sometimes gets bored while drying their hair. I do too and once I started to read a book while drying and I ended up over-drying my hair and having really frizzy hair all day. So focus on the drying. It will save you a lot of heartache later on.

4) Comb out your hair before your shower 

Did you know that your hair is more brittle when it is wet? That is why many experts don't recommend combing your hair immediately after a shower.  So comb your hair out and detangle it before a shower and you will find that after the shower, your hair is slightly less tangled. If you really must detangle your hair when it is wet, use your fingers or a wide-toothed comb.

 Or just drag a brush through it anyway...I won't deny doing this a couple of times...Okay maybe more then just a couple of times...

5) Let your hair air-dry as often as possible

Everyone knows that heat is bad for your hair. In fact you shouldn't be using heat on your hair everyday (I'm talking about curling and straightening irons). However, blow-drying your hair is important and pretty much everyone has to do it. It's unavoidable especially if you are going out. So I learnt that one way to minimise the heat used is to firstly not blow-dry your hair if you are not going out or doing anything that would require dry hair (And what would that be Cam?). So at night and on the weekends, I simply towel dry my hair such that it isn't dripping wet then I let it air dry. I don't know if this is the best way because my mom likes to nag at me about leaving my hair wet. But I think it's a good way to reduce heat on your hair. Alternatively, you could buy a hair dryer that allows you to control the heat and things like that.

Or use a heat protectant which I know nothing about anyway.

Feeling Anxious

I have slightly less then an hour before I am meeting my friends to film our first project for our Location Production class. I wanted to write because I have been feeling extremely wired up and anxious ever since Saturday night and I just can't shake the feeling.

On Saturday night, I started to feel a bit queasy and my stomach started to hurt. I knew that it was because I was teaching Sunday School the next day and I was nervous about that. Don't ask me why. After teaching, I thought I would feel better. However, the nausea and pain still stuck with me all day. Last night, I couldn't relax and go to sleep. I was in pain and I tossed and turned for a good 2 hours. This morning, I woke up at 6am and couldn't go back to sleep. Now, I'm sitting in my school's  food court and I'm trembling and feeling pretty crappy.

So I decided to write about it. Even as I type this, I can feel myself starting to relax a little. I'm honestly so tired. Anxiety, especially having it for such a long period of time consecutively, is exhausting. Quite frankly, I don't want to do today. I have filming till about 12pm or so then I have Rock Climbing at 3pm till 5pm. I just want to go home. I feel awful. I'm freezing cold and every muscle in my body seems to be on red-alert for no reason at all. I don't want to talk to anyone right now. I don't want to socialise. I am the producer for this filming project and that means that I do a lot of the organising and logging and things like that. It means I have to be very people-y today. I just don't think I can do it. The only way I can't get through today is to shut down.

When I'm hyper-stressed, anxious or tired, I tend to shut down. I will number the things I have to do in my head and I will keep talking to myself. I won't talk to anyone but myself and I will tick things off in my head till I'm finally done and then I will go home and collapse. I will basically fall into myself till I am done. It's my coping mechanism. I obviously can't do that all day today though so I will most likely just have to suck it up and manage it myself.

Honestly, this post isn't going to help anyone but me. This is a post for me to feel better. I just want to post it because I want to and I can't really explain it but sometimes even the act of posting my feelings make me feel better. I have a headache, I'm still in pain, my heart is racing and I'm shivering. I feel like crap but somehow I have to function today. Ugh.

Sunday Summary: Exciting Things and More Books!

Hello readers! I've been feeling pretty uninspired lately so I've taken to writing little half posts and then refusing to finish them or even post them for that matter. I am currently feeling a bit creative so I thought I would take the time to give you a rundown of my week. Also I just took pictures for a small little post that I'm planning and I'm quite pleased about that.

♥ I have become a promoter of Body Blendz! I've been emailing them back and forth all week and today I was officially welcomed aboard as a promoter. I'm so excited! You can check out what they have on their website by clicking here. Or you could just refer to the picture I put here. Aren't the little packages adorable? I'm getting my first one about next week or so.

♥ On Tuesday, before lecture started, one of my friends asked me if I have a Goodreads account. I've had one since 2012 but quite honestly, aside from the pesky emails, I have no clue what Goodreads is all about. So she told me all about it and I went online and fixed up account properly and I'm so excited about it because it is perfect for me. I usually stalk the Amazon Kindle bookstore to find new books to read but now I have Goodreads and I am very pleased with it. Also I was able to add a widget to my blog so now you guys can see what I'm reading currently.

That control on the brushstrokes though. I should be an artist.

♥  I have decided that I want to do more book reviews here. I read so much and I really should. I think it would be fun.

♥  I finally watched 'If I Stay'! I read the book but I didn't go and watch the movie in the cinema because I don't really like watching movies in the cinema (I know I'm strange). Especially if its a book that I love that has been turned into a movie. I like the freedom of watching it by myself so I can pause it and rewind it and fangirl and cry to my heart's content. Basically the book made me cry and the movie made me cry even harder. Not many movies can reduce me to tears so yay for that!

♥ I'm almost done with the final Shopaholic book! I've spent the last 4 weeks reading the 7 Shopaholic books and I'm sad but also pretty excited to start reading other books. I recently cleared out all the old books in my kindle and put in a whole lot more. I can't wait to get started.

♥ My brother's O'levels end tomorrow morning and I'm so excited! We can finally go out to the beach and stuff to take pictures and we can have family dinners out and breakfasts at nice places after church (instead of gross Macdonald's take aways) and go shopping and go on holidays. I'm so excited for that. My brother's exams (and mine last year) have meant that my family has been pretty stifled and constricted in terms of going out and stuff like that for the past 2 years. We actually haven't even been out properly together in almost 2 months. And we usually eat out as a family at least twice a week. So I really miss that and I can't wait to get back to family weekends.

That's it for my summary. I feel like there are lots of exciting things happening in my life and school is also getting a little bit heavier so that's interesting and sad at the same time because I feel like Instagram and blogging is taking a small backseat. Of course I know that it is the right way to go about doing things so I'm not really complaining.

The Fear Of Growing Up

Do you ever fear growing up? Fear the responsibility that it brings? The knowledge that you have to function on your own. Knowing that you can no longer run crying to anyone because you had a bad day? When mistakes bear a much greater price tag then a simple bad grade. I fear that everyday. I fear that one day, I might look up and find that I'm too old to be sleeping with a teddy bear. Too old to be experimenting with life. That I'm too old to be spending all my time on my laptop. Too old to be able to make innocent mistakes. That one day, someone might look at me and ask, "How old does she think she is?"

C.D.

(Another) Yankee Candle Haul

Hey guys! Guess what! Today my mom and I went to Yankee Candle again! Ever since I went there for the first time last month, I have become a total Yankee fangirl. I love the candles that I got at my last visit and I just had to have more even though I haven't even finished one candle...Err...Opps? (Also Yankee is getting festive! Look at the Christmas bag omg!)

Oh check out my haul from the first time I visited Yankee Candle here.

So today we got 6 candles. 1 of them was the Apple Cider one which is my absolute favourite. The other 5 were new scents. 

1)  Cranberry Pear

So the first candle I got was the Cranberry Pear one. The guy that was serving us was really nice and chatty. He was great at sales. Anyway, he was trying to recommend some candles to me and I told him that my favourite scent was the Apple Cider one. So he gave me some of the spicier scents to try. I really liked this scent. It was very strong but still sweet. It was a lot like the Apple Cider one in fact. Though it was rougher in some ways. Like Apple Cider is the female version and Cranberry Pear is the male one.

2) Midnight Jasmine

We got this candle for my dad. He wanted a jasmine scented candle. Honestly, this candle was not my cup of tea. I thought it smelled very flower-y and quite frankly, it smelled like old people. So yep. That's that. Hopefully my dad enjoys that...

3) Luau Party

This scent was such a funky scent. It really screamed 'beach party'. Well okay. Maybe not screamed... Luau Party smells fresh but also slightly tangy. The smell is strong which I like. I like the scents that really make you look up and notice that there is a scented candle burning. So this is really one of them. I would say that this is good for an afternoon party or a tea party. Or even just a quiet read on a Sunday afternoon. Basically, it's a very afternoon and outdoor-sy candle.

4) Lovely Kiku

I picked up this candle initially because of the colour. My favourite colour is purple so I was immediately drawn to it. When I smelled it, I thought it was amazing. It was very sweet and feminine. It was strong enough to be noticed but light enough that it didn't make you feel stifled. I often feel stifled with floral scents so I think this manages to be flower-y but not overpowering which is great.

5) Margarita Time

This candle was actually for my brother. He said he wanted the same candle that we got him the last time. Except that I didn't really like that one because the scent wasn't strong. It was practically not there. So I pretended that I didn't know what it was and got him this green candle. I was hoping he would give it to me because the smell is very feminine and fun but...he still wants it...So bummer for me. I did try... So this scent is nice and strong but not overpowering. Again, this candle is very outdoorsy. I don't associate it with some of the cosier scents. It's more of a day candle. 

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Overall, I'm really happy with what we got. That said, there were a few that I wanted but we didn't get. I wanted November Rain, Bahama Breeze and Island Spa. Unfortunately they only have them in the giant jars which I didn't want. I mean, I love the jars. I do. If it were up to me, I would buy all the cute jars. But they are so expensive. And I feel like the smaller candles are so much cheaper yet they last a good amount of time and are exactly the same. Plus small candles mean that you have an excuse to pop into Yankee Candle more often ;)

Also, this last picture was taken with the help of my mom. She saw me taking
pictures and took her little 'Stitch of Love'
 hanging thing and gave it to me to use as a backdrop. It was so cute.

By the way, if you're wondering why the themes in both my Yankee candle haul posts are more on the leafy and outdoors kind, it's because my mom loves plants and my dad loves fish. So we have quite the forest in our home. I love it honestly.

Alone

Yesterday you woke up with an empty heart. You put on your best clothes and did your hair up the best way you knew how. As you critically examined yourself in the mirror, you resigned yourself to the fact that you wouldn't stand out. You weren't pretty. You couldn't do your make up like the rest of them. You would never reach their level. But you tried anyway. You struggled to lift your head. Commanding your reflection in the mirror to be strong, you quickly walked out of the house. Your heart was beating wildly. You could feel every atom in your being contracting. Screaming at you to turn around. But you kept your head up. You kept moving.

Finally there, you sought out the familiar. Only to find that somehow they had all moved on. In the months you spent alone. In the time you spent finding yourself, somehow, everyone had moved on. Without you. All that time you spent refusing to acknowledge it. Well you couldn't hide anymore now could you? Because there they were. Right in front of you. The product of months spent seeking solitude. You weren't one of them anymore. Somehow along the way, you became the outsider. The enemy. How naive could you be? The world will never wait for you to catch up.  What the hell did you do? It was all perfect! Why the hell did you have to screw it up once again?

C.D.