10 Day You Challenge - 1 Picture of Me!

Sad times people! The last day of my 10 Day You Challenge and today I will share one picture of myself with you all. It's a photo (I believe) I have shared on my blog before and it is also a photo that I am immensely proud of...

This is a picture of me while I was abseiling (read: dangling!) 165ft from underneath the Forth Rail Bridge, raising money for Scottish Autism. I like this picture a lot because it shows what I can do when I put my mind to something, that it pays off to try new things and how it felt so good doing something for others. I always look at this photo and smile :)

Christina xo

10 Day You Challenge - 2 Songs

Hey there readers :)

Today's part of the 10 Day You Challenge involves me sharing 2 of my favourite songs with you. This is a pain in the hole considering I love my music and find it hard to pick 2 favourite artists, let alone songs! But, in the spirit of the challenge, I shall give it a go... in my own way of course. I'm going to pick 2 songs that make me laugh and hopefully you'll like them too!

1. Game of Thrones - Key of Awesome.

This is what I actually hear whenever someone plays Payphone by Maroon 5. I love anything by Key of Awesome, search for them on Youtube and enjoy some of their many hilarious parodies!

2. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - Thrift Shop

Yes I am incredibly late to this song's party. I love it though, a funny tribute to the joys of thrift store/vintage/charity shop trawling. I used to get laughed at for going charity/vintage shopping, but where I stayed in Glasgow you can find some real gems :) and thissong reminds me of the fun of shopping there!

(Interestingly, Key of Awesome actually has a parody of this:)

 

Hope you enjoy my random song choices!!

Christina xo

10 Day You Challenge - 3 Films

Hi there everyone!

Today I'm going to share 3 of my favourite films with you, and why I love them so much. I'm not that big on movies really, so picking 3 was a bit of a struggle, but here we go...

1. Up. I love anything from Pixar, but Up is a particular favourite. I can't watch it too often though, because I literally cannot stop crying for the first 10 minutes of the film. It's my favourite scene because it's such a beautiful glimpse into a love story, but I always cry because it's so sad. Even though it makes me cry, I love that it illicits such a strong emotional response from those who watch it.

2. 500 Days of Summer. I love Joseph Gordon Levitt in this, he's so funny. Normally I'd love Zooey Deschanel too but in this her character is just annoying and so horrible to JGL. But that's why I love Zooey Deschanel as an actress; she's versatile and able to play different roles. This is my favourite scene from the film and it always makes me giggle.

3. Princess Mononoke. This is one of my favourite anime films so far. It's about forest spirits and Gods vs the encroaching civilisation and developments of society, but visually it is stunning.

Hope you enjoy these 3 films, so what are your favourite films?

Christina xo

Weekly Spending Ban Update

Hello Spending Ban fans!

Last week I did a bumper update detailing how badly I broke my ban when I was in Glasgow at the beginning of the month (in my defence, Kirkcaldy is piss poor for shopping and Glasgow is the biggest shopping city outside of London... go figure.). This week I have been much better... because I'm completely skint! Which is good because I can't spend money if I don't have any.

This week I'm lusting after B. Pure Micellar Water from Superdrug...



Mainly because I'm about to run out of my Clarin's Water Purify that I use for removing make-up, and do not want to shell out £19 when I could be getting something as effective for a tiny fraction of the price. So my wish-list currently stands as follows:

1. Dior BB Cream
2. Chanel VitaLumiere Aqua.
3. Dr Jart Premium Beauty Balm.
4. MAC Lipstick in Chatterbox.

5. Lancome Genefique Youth Activator.

6. Illamasqua L'Imperfection Nail Polish in Fragile.

 Marks and Spencer's Limited Collection Multi Blush. - I bought this last month.

 Sleek Aqua Collection.  - I bought this when I was in Glasgow last time. 

7. B. Pure Micellar Water. 

 

What products have you been lusting after this week then?

Christina xo

 

10 Day You Challenge - 4 Books

Hello readers!

Today's part of the 10 Day You Challenge is a good one: 4 Books. Although having to choose just 4 is really difficult; I love books too much! I'm going to choose 4 books that have made an impression on me through life and my studies and share them with you...

1. Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays. I studied this in my final year at school and discovered the brilliance of Tennessee Williams. His plays are absolutely brim-full of imagery and symbolism and focus on the death of Southern values in America. My favourite is A Streetcar Named Desire, but I'd recommend reading any of his plays. If you're feeling particularly lazy, there's a film version of A Streetcar Named Desire starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh which is really great.


 

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!”

2.  On Beauty - Zadie Smith. This was one of the novels I wrote about for my dissertation and it follows the lives of the Belsey and Kipps families. It focuses on issues of race, the clashes between liberalism and conservativism and also looks at what we consider beautiful. I loved reading it, made my dissertation (slightly) more enjoyable.



“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.”

3. Lanark: A Life in Four Books - Alasdair Gray.  This is one of the best novels to come out of Scotland, and it's bit realist and a bit dystopian fantasy. The books are out of order in the novel; we start with Book 4, then books 1, 2 and 3 follow. Books 3 and 4 focus on Lanark, who exists in a dystopian fantasy city called Unthank, while Books 1 and 2 focus on Duncan Thaw, an artist living in Glasgow (The idea is there's supposed to be parallels between the 2 characters and their stories.


“You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes of changes.”

4. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte. This is my favourite romance novel, in that it's not very romantic in a lot of ways. Mr Rochester is a total arse for large parts of the book and before Jane finally stands up for herself I found myself shouting at her: "Say something! Speak up ya big jessie!" But that's the joy of a great book, it pulls you in and makes you feel strongly about what happens to the characters. Jane's passionate speech to Rochester is one of my all-time favourite scenes in literature.

 

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”

Gets me every time. P.S. Don't watch the film Jane Eyre, the Michael Fassbender one. It's awful. If you want to watch a decent adaptation, the BBC adaptation with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens is brilliant and has me in tears every time.


Are you like me and have 4 books that mean something to you? Share them with the world!

Christina xo

10 Day You Challenge - 5 Foods

Food glorious foooood!

Hey readers :) today's part of the challenge is about sharing 5 foods and I'm assuming it's my top 5 favourite foods, so I really hope you've eaten today, because I'm probably about to make you really hungry...

1. Bacon. Preferably crispy smoky bacon. I love it on sandwiches, in fry-ups on burgers, and especially with pancakes and maple syrup. Nom. This reminds me of a song...

2. Blueberries - Blueberries are my favourite fruit, always so juicy and refreshing. I love them on their own, but also in muffins, in porridge and especially in my speciality cheesecake: Blueberry and white chocolate mascarpone cheesecake on an amaretti biscuit base, with a blueberry and amaretto reduction. God bless Masterchef...

Some of my famous blueberry muffins :)

3. Steak - Sorry vegetarians, I am a bonafide red meat-eater. Direct your moral outrage elsewhere. Preferably at Morrissey, he likes that sort of thing :P I like my steaks medium rare (i.e. still bleeding a little in the middle), in a mushroom and red wine sauce with some chunky chips. That would probably be my death-bed meal.



4. Cream cheese - Random one, but I love cream cheese, especially now that most companies have made different flavours too. Sandwiches are a lot more exciting with some nice cream cheese instead of just spread or butter (and a bit healthier too). Om nom nom...





I haven't tried the chocolate one yet, but it looks pretty good...

5. Pizza - I love pizza in all its forms. Dominos, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns - they're all pretty naff compared to a real Italian pizza, although I also find when I'm in Spain they make excellent pizza too. At home, I like ordering from a little takeaway on Kirkcaldy High st called Elevenses (they're great when you have the drunk munchies.) and my favourite kind of pizza is a Frutti di Mare (i.e. a seafood pizza.)




Oooh... really want a pizza now... damn...

Those are my top 5 foods, what do you think? Any fave foods we share or do you think I'm just weird?

Christina xo

10 Day You Challenge - 6 Places

Hey everybody!

Sorry for the short hiatus with my 10 Day You Challenge; I was staying at my parents' on Tuesday before heading to an exciting work-related meeting on Wednesday. I'll explain more later, as both places I went to feature in my post.

Today is all about 6 places and I'm taking this to mean that I can talk about 6 places that are important to me. Not necessarily favourites, but places that have some meaning for me. And now my 6 places are...

1. Glasgow - I harp on an awful lot about how much I love my home city. But there's the clue: it's my home. It will always be my home; where I was born, grew up, educated (both in school and in life) and where my family and friends mostly live. It's just where I want to be :)



I grew up somewhere just outside the middle left of this picture, in Glasgow's West End. That's where I was on Tuesday, having a girly pub-crawl with my mum around the West End.

2. Puerto Mogan, Gran Canaria - Last year, the lovely folk that deal with taxes realised that Kris was due a tax rebate... to the tune of £1300! And Kris decided that the best way to spend was to book our first holiday together and we settled on Puerto Mogan on the southern tip of Gran Canaria. This place has a lot of significance in Kris' family; Kris' dad remarried here (on a boat in the Atlantic, mega romantic :P) and we could see why; it's an absolutely gorgeous little fishing town. I would love to go again, Kris and I had such a relaxing time and we loved every second.

 

Sorry if this picture shows up huge, couldn't find a better one!

3. Home - The little flat I share with Kris in Kirkcaldy may suffer from the fact we live in, y'know, Kirkcaldy, but it's ours and it's a lovely flat. I will be sad to leave it when we eventually move, but I see it as the first place Kris and I started to build a home together and a symbol of the stage in our relationship where we became even closer and stronger together as partners (in crime haha!).

This was Kris in our kitchen sharing our first Christmas together alone (I had to work Christmas Eve and Boxing Day so we didn't get to go home but we still had a fab Christmas together!)

4. Crianlarich - Kris' dad and step-mum live in Crianlarich, where Kris' dad runs a guest house. It has to be one of the tiniest towns in Scotland (but it's signposted everywhere) but it's played host to a lot of great memories for Kris and I. My first weekend away with Kris was here, the same weekend we decided we were officially a couple and also when I got my degree results (a 2:2 in English Lang and Lit!!). It is also where Greg and Charlie (Kris' dad and step-mum) had their blessing ceremony for family and friends after their wedding in Gran Canaria.


This is the blessing party outside the Crianlarich Hotel (I believe it's a Best Western, and it's well worth a stay if you want to explore Loch Lomond) and that's me in the flowery pinky/reddy dress behind the beautiful bride Charlie!

5. New Struan School, Alloa - Yesterday, I visited the specially-designed school for autistic children which is run by Scottish Autism (charity I work for), New Struan in Alloa. I'd been invited after meeting Scottish Autism's Director for Education at a conference (nicest guy ever and loves going to gigs :P) and he gave a tour of the school and I met some of the 40 pupils at the school. It is an amazing place doing fantastic work; these are 40 pupils with the most challenging cases of autism in the country and all the children there are well supported. The staff are passionate and the work they do is fantastic; it made me see how much difference a great support package can make in someone's life, and I can imagine it helps families and siblings as well. It's made me realise I want to do even more to support Scottish Autism, so fingers crossed I get that chance!

If you want to find out more about New Struan School, please click here :)

6. Barcelona - My first holidays abroad were spent in Cambrils, a fishing town outside of Salou (which is now a horrible 18-30s hole). One of the trips we went on was a tour of Barcelona, visiting the zoo, the Nou Camp, Las Ramblas, La Sagrada Familia and the fountains. It's a beautiful city and I would love to go back again as an adult to explore. :)


So those are my 6 places :) I would love to see what your 6 places would be, feel free to take part in the challenge if you wish!

Christina xo