Hello you gorgeous sun-kissed lot! Well, I imagine with the "heatwave," (and I say heatwave with a completely serious tone because bloody hell it is WARM) most of you have spent your time in your gardens, stuck to crap plastic furniture, enjoying a few drinks and basking in the glory of the summer and the patriotic spirit of the World Cup. At any rate, you're probably more tanned and toned than my pasty Casper-looking self, so you can all take comfort in that fact at least. As some of you may or may not have noticed, I've been absent from my blogger duties over the last number of months, and my life has been going through some massive changes - both exciting and absolutely petrifying. Over the summer and beyond, I have some absolutely fabulous (if I do say so myself) content coming up, as I immerse myself in my quest to take my blog to the next level. Before I do that however, I thought I'd give you all a brief overview of what I've been up to over the last few months with a little chatty catch up!

First of all, after days, weeks and months of coursework, research, drafting and studying I have FINALLY finished my undergraduate degree. But more importantly, I graduate in two weeks time - AND I'M ONLY BLOODY GRADUATING WITH A FIRST CLASS HONOURS! Okay, now that's the boasting out of the way, onto the more heartfelt stuff. I've talked at length about the pressure, abysmal pastoral support and complete lack of motivation I felt in my latter years of high school when it came to my grades and future. I was told in my penultimate year of higher education that if I went to university, I probably wouldn't make it past first year, and that average grades would not see me through to the end. After that, I gave myself a good kick up the arse and worked said arse off to even get to university, and once I made it into that lecture hall on day one, everything changed. I have never felt more confident in my abilities, academically nurtured or supported than I have in the last three years, and once I realised, "Hey, you know, I might actually be good at this whole English thing," I made it my goal to prove every teacher, academic and scholar who told me "no" wrong. 

I thought graduating with a first was only a wild fantasy that I never genuinely believed I could ever achieve, especially after almost crumbling under the weight of my final year. But, taking time away from social media and managing to find a balance between work, my social life and my studies has paid off, and I couldn't be more proud of myself. I've been accepted onto the master's course for English Literature at my current university, and I start in September. I'm excited to take the next step in figuring out my future, and for possibly the first time in my life, I genuinely believe that I have a future ahead of me. I will never again say that I am incapable of achieving great things, as I now understand that with a lot of hard work, determination and self-belief, I AM able to make myself proud and capture fantasies that may seem out of reach.

However, as the academic year has drawn to a close, sadly so has our time at our beautiful little coastal student apartment. My boyfriend and I moved out at the start of the month, and we've been back at our respective parent's homes for about three weeks now. It is really difficult adjusting to being on your own, with your family again after spending so much time in your own company, and with your partner. The good news is that, come September we will be living with our housemates again, as we did in second year, and after that we are planning on saving as much as we can to put towards a house that we can finally call our own. In other exciting news, we celebrated our 7th (!!) anniversary two weeks ago in a low-key way, with a lovely dinner and casual night in watching Bob's Burgers. Who said romance is dead? We are also planning a proper trip away to Florida! So we have much to look forward to together as we move into the future. 

Some of you may also remember that I recently spoke about being on the pill for a number of years, and how it began to affect my physical and mental health seemingly beyond repair. I took a six month break from it, and recently began taking it again to see how and if it truly is the cause of my mental health and physical problems. Over the last month, my mental health hasn't been as traumatic as it was when I started to wean myself off of the pill, and my mood imbalances and psychotic episodes are lessening in severity. However, physically I am in a lot of pain and now I'm worried that I have done irreversible damage to my legs, arms and other body parts. After I complete the current strip I'm taking, I am going to head back to the doctors and see what can be done to alleviate my health anxiety and physical issues.

On the subject of physically, I have recently started to really think about my diet, exercise regime and how it makes me feel inside and out. I've gained almost a stone in a year, and my relationship with my body is at rock bottom. I snack too much, my portions are huge and I feel lethargic and tired all the time. Much of this has to do with increasing my hours at work, leaving me with little to no time to prepare myself meals, minus sticking something quick in the microwave. The other issue is being back at home, where I'm stuck in a family that pay little to no attention to what they eat, instead eating what they want, when they want it. Starting this week, I'm immersing myself in a whole new approach to my lifestyle - going veggie, cooking healthy meals for myself and realising my limits when it comes to food, snacking on healthier choices and exercising every day, with a combination of cardio, muscle workouts, yoga and dance. I'm recognising that my relationship with myself has broken down, and I'm trying my best to get back to that healthy, happy girl in a way that suits me and that I can recognise what I need and why I need it.  I'm going to focus on this for at least a month, and I will keep you all updated on my progress!


As for the future of "creativity and positivity," I have a lot of varied and exciting content lined up over the next few weeks. During the course of my exams I really fell out of love with social media, viewing it as a distraction from what needed to be done. Now that's all behind me, I have more time to dedicate to my photos, my social media and most importantly my blog. I plan to completely revamp my page and other important things by September at the very latest. Until then, I'm concentrating on more thought pieces, and less contrived "I'm posting this because I feel pressurised to put something out there so I don't get left behind," posts. I'll still do the odd brand collab, and beauty post, but I really want to focus on what makes me happy, which includes fashion, thought pieces, feminism and personal anecdotes. I'm excited moving forward, and I hope you all are too!

Well, I think that's everything covered, and that's you all caught up on the inner workings of my life. I hope you all enjoyed and hopefully I'll see you back here for more posts!

Until next time,