Benefits of living with your parents!

I have lived at home for the past 32 years and have seen our home change and change over time. Once upon a time, our kitchen was so small and narrow to the point where 3 people was enough in the kitchen at a time. We always had a decent size living room where as a child I would practise my gymnastics to mum extending the kitchen and making it wide to fitting a breakfast table. Now, we have extended our patio further to have the advantage of still keeping a decent size shed for our belongings but on the other hand, having the space for sun loungers, sun umbrellas and barbecue parties. I have to say, I am looking forward to Summer now.

At 32 years old, most people are either married, getting engaged, having kids. I would prefer to get a place I can call my own and what I’m aiming for is to BUY. I’ve put BUY in capital letters to emphasize this is my final aim. Rent is not option. Don’t get me wrong, I would never turn down my nose at people who do rent, my sister has been renting for the past 4 years and I’m proud of her but eventually both us would like a place we can all our own.

So, I’m giving myself at least 5 to 6 years, maybe even 7 of living at home and saving as much as possible. I’m not going to bore you with statistics and figures, but the average young singleton adults my age will not have the opportunity of owning their own house until mid 40’s.

I want to say I wish the government can do more to help people like myself or there were more schemes to help but I suppose you have to deal with what you have and appreciate what you got. I don’t know where I would be without the foundation of my parents. I feel I’m truly blessed.

This is what I call the benefits of living at the family home.

Having the ability to love one another, getting the support from your parents and I don’t mean taking money from them, lol, but they possess the strong will power to keep you on the straight and narrow at all times regardless whatever age you are, having long evening talks about present, future or even past, remembering memories and photographs that we once had in the old album. This is why I like living at home, this is why I like coming home and if I ever get a dream home of my own I would like it to be like this one for another 32 years or more.

 

 

First and Foremost, my last January Saturday

It’s pay weekend and I’m feeling very relaxed. It goes to show you, after a busy week at the office, all you want to do is relax and chill out. First and foremost, my original plan was to get up early, get my nails done and catch up with my close friend at the Design Museum. That would of been my ideal Saturday. Instead this morning I woke up early and got my nails done, did some shopping for the week and came home. I really wanted to see my friend today, but unfortunately due to the nature of my neck pain, I decided to do couple of things close to home and rest for the afternoon. Not the ideal Saturday I had in mind but something always creeps up at the last minute. Instead to sooth my neck, I’ve been putting some Voltarol gel on it to numb the pain, hopefully it will make it easier for me to turn my neck lol. It’s amazing how muscular pain creeps up on you.

Its always a nice feeling when your seating in doors, you know it’s very cold out and watching through the window at the dark afternoon sky outside, I just count my blessings I’m surrounded by the comfort and warmth and of course the lovely comfort of a cup of tea. Where would I be without my tea! I’m afraid to even think about it.

For the rest of my comfy Saturday evening, I have chosen to relax in and chill with mum. Currently she’s lying on the couch and I have to force her to go upstairs and sleep, this woman is stubborn lol but I guess that’s where I get it from lol.

Movitation and Instinct

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel I miss that creativeness I used to hold so dearly. Putting pencil to paper and paper to the table. What’s stopping me, why can’t I start and I have no idea. I believe it’s due to lack of motivation. I need to stop moaning and get that motivation back. So for the last two days I’ve been off from work and I’ve been concentrating on things that need to be sorted out such as sorting out repayments for student loan, organising language courses in Spanish and French, contacting the RED driving school to book my lessons, even going through ideas to re-invent my label. Loads of things to do and so much time to do it in.

So I feel I am getting my motivation back slowly, but surely. Things take time at the end of the day but I am willing to put the effort in. I believe the best thing to do is focus on one thing and the rest will follow. Motivation and instinct is my key words for this January. Yesterday I put that into action and focused on things which is on my list to do. In the afternoon, I visited a good friend of mine and her gorgeous baby boy and another good friend came round as well. It was a nice afternoon. It was about focusing on things that make me happy and enjoying myself.

2016 is a fresh start to make this happen and this is what I aim to achieve.

 

 

Celebrate Xmas In Style

As you all know November is coming to a close in a week’s time and the amount of things that arises in your social calendar. It can get overwhelming. If it’s not your usual Christmas party which you get glammed up for,  it’s the buying of the presents, making the effort to visit Winter Wonderland with your friends, wrapping of the presents and of course the food shopping list. So much things to do in the month of December. The one thing on my mind is deciding on frocks to wear for my Christmas parties. I say Christmas parties as plural because this year in particular I have two parties in my diary. The main head office party and my warehouse Christmas party in Northampton.

I have a few ideas in mind such as Harvey Nichols, ASOS or Missguided. Like any other girl, I have chosen to look different outside of work than turn up to the party in work attire. Some people might say it’s just a work party, but I choose to make an effort because I have been at Harvey Nichols for nearly a year and its the first time in a long while where I feel happy and enjoy what I do.

So why not Celebrate In Style.

Check out my ideas for party frock season in December:

                 ASOS Beaded Mesh Bodycon dress £180            

        ASOS Closet Tie Back Pencil Dress £50.00

              Missguided Monochrome Midi Dress £28

                     Missguided double strap midi dress purple £30  

                

 

                  A: FINDERS KEEPERS –  Atlas black cut-out stretch piqué dress – £132.00                     B: KARL LAGERFELD – Louise Black eyelet embellished dress – £295.00                           C: DKNYPURE – Tonal grey printed crepe dress – £250.00

How can you decide when there is so many styles to choose from, what’s your opinion, what do you think!

  

 

Time to shut off and enjoy your weekend!

I cant tell you what a busy week it has been, I’m sure you can agree when I say none stop queries coming in, issues to solve from the week before and at the same time more work comes in but it’s all about dealing with it and how you master to get things resolved. Towards the end of my week, I had to say enough is enough it’s time to say, “this will be arranged on Monday”. There comes a time when you just need to say “time to shut off and enjoy your weekend”. That’s exactly what I did yesterday.

Now it’s the weekend and the temperature of the weather has dropped, I am choosing to stay in this relaxing weekend and catch up on things such as buying presents online and avoid the Christmas hustle and bustle crowd of Oxford street. I might take a peak uptown around Black Friday after work and see if I can get some bargains but I’ll see how my week plans out. There is one thing I wanna share with my readers, I am really looking forward to Christmas. Already the colleagues in the office are getting prepared for the festive season by putting on your usual Christmas carols.

Sometimes you need to think who cares about work when you have Christmas carols playing in your head. Season to be jolly and joyful.

 

“Own Individual World” – New Trend for the week

Waking up in the morning, feeling refreshed and picking out your day outfit is very important. It tells you a story that you want to show not only everyone else but to yourself. Its your story about your own individuality. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I am not a morning person, I can be moody and not speak, but I think that’s my way of still trying to wake up and motivate myself to go to work. But something happens when I put on my outfit for the day, I suppose you can call it a sense of re-freshness, the feeling of seeing faces that make you smile on a daily basis, the thought of going into work and enjoying what you do, feeling positive you have matched the right outfit for the day and you have used the right accessories to work with the final look. I feel it’s something I can be proud of because I am showing the world Me.

Currently my looks that stand out for me at the moment are either Fashionista, Comfortable and Relaxed, LBO (Little black outfit) or Sport Luxe with a twist, but on the other hand I am open to incorporating more looks to my palette. I was looking through my emails today and I came across an email from Topshop. It’s subject title was “Work-wear gets personal” which was about Personal Shopper Charlotte Smith giving us viewers five fresh different looks to revamp your work-wear.

One look which inspired me was “The New Suit” look. Brightening up your day with refreshed colours, cinched waisted skirt, origami detailing, and to finish the look with edgy ankle boots. Now, this sounds like my type of look, but I have never been a person to copy but from what I have seen, I have been influenced.

So tomorrow morning, I am going to add a new look to my palette, but this time it will be called my “Own Individual World”. It’s too early to tell what I will be mixing and matching together but I promise to do a couple shots of what this generation calls Selfies lol

Keep you posted xoxo

Parka Parka – My love this Winter

For the past few weeks since I’ve come back from the glorious sunshine, I had to adjust my love of style to my love of Winter. Every morning, I wake up to a dull morning which tells me this is the time to scoop into my winter wardrobe and pick out a warm jumper and trousers and not leave the house without my winter coat and scarf. It’s that time of the year when everyone is prone to colds and flu and to shield myself as much as possible, I prefer to be BANG on trend and protect myself from the brisk cold London weather.

I was cruising on Instagram a few days ago and I came across a gorgeous khaki parka jacket from the lovely Harvey Nichols. My eyes literally lit up, because the only thought which was going through my mind is how great I would look in that jacket. That was my first initial thought that came to mind. Winter is finally here, so why not make the best of it with this “must have” piece.

It’s getting colder as the days go on and at the same time I am confident this gorgeous jacket will not only keep me warm, but turn my style presence up a notch and keep me on trend throughout the wintery weather.

On the other hand I love fashion, but sometimes fashion kills your pocket lol. I like to scope and see if there is any better offers around. Harvey Nichols is selling this parka for £5,085.00.

See picture below:

Okay, lets not mention why this jacket is so expensive but what your paying for is the quality as they say, the 100% raccoon fur, 100% fox fur, and the brand name which is Mr & Mrs Italy. But don’t let this put you off, there are many replicas out there which will not only protect you from the cold weather but still provides the customer with good quality clothing, because I believe this is what a customer wants in a purchase.

So I checked out some potential parkas for this winter. Let me know what you think…….

River Island Faux Fur Trim Detail Parka – £130.00

Parka London Lara Hooded Coat In Waxed Cotton – £285.00

ASOS Parka With Detachable Faux Fur Liner – £85.00

Stylist Sunday, Why not write about it!

Sundays as they say is a time for family, home cook dinners, cleaning and relaxation. Today, I decided to engage in something different. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up the Stylist magazine and one of the articles which intrigued me was the Stylist live show taking place at the Business Centre in Angel, London. Today, I attended the event and had a great time. The day was flourished with workshops, shopping, champagne and nibbles to choose from and glamorous fashion which controlled the hype of the show. I couldn’t ask for anything else on a Sunday.

Everyone was so nice, the staff was polite and attentive. One of my aims was to see the workshop ” How to get your fashion business off the ground”, ladies were queuing over an hour to sit in this workshop so at the time I was disappointed that I didn’t get to take part due to the full capacity of the workshops. Have no fear, the workshop which inspired me more to book my ticket was “How to write your first novel”. I made sure I had a seat and waited in the queue for an hour and a half, it was worth it. It was about Laura Barnett’s experience and novel debut on “The Versions of Us”.

This was very inspiring considering lately I have had a buzz for listening to my thoughts and feeling free to writing them down. She talked about having the confidence to persevere, not giving up, capturing that moment and writing it down, trusting in your first instinct, observing and having an eye for detail is very important. It was amazing to listen to someone which has achieved having a normal day to day job but at the same time achieving a passion and succeeding to it’s full potential.

This inspired me to start something. Just take an hour out of my day and start writing. Who knows what it will bring in the future.

Highlights from today:

  

Ideas that come Around! – Idées qui viennent autour de!

It’s funny how you have an idea, but something else pops up out of the blue which you either need to pay money for, double booked an event or plans for dinner with a close friend. This afternoon I had the idea of treating myself to a little trip to Paris for a few days at the beginning of November and actually seeing Paris properly. The last time I saw Paris was 2006 with my last boyfriend for the Balenciaga exhibition and haven’t been back since. This time I want to explore the beautiful city and eat croissants, pain au lait, say bonjour and au revoir to the natives, visit Arc de Triomphe, Galeries Lafayette and see the Mona Lisa. But there is a big BUT coming my way, my sister put the idea into my head about Christmas and what presents we want to get for our loved ones. I still had the idea I was buying for four people only, but due to new friends in my life it would be crazy not to add them to my Christmas list.

This leaves me questioning what to do! My original plan is to go for the four days, but I might reduce to three days instead and still have enough money to play with for Christmas or scrap the idea and treat myself to a spot of early Christmas shopping in Birmingham for a weekend.

Decisions, Decisions, what to do! What a dilemma!

I suppose deep down apart of me wants to finish my holiday year with a BANG, so why not treat myself to a little Serena Van Der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf moment in beautiful Paris for a few days. You only live once love.

You decide! xoxo

Perfect time to rise my butterfly at lightning speed!

Last night I was sitting up in bed and reading my horoscopes for the week. I am a Cancerian so technically I am a Summer baby. Can’t get enough of the sun. Sometimes reading horoscopes is full of baloney, but there are times it can be right on point such as the one I read last night which mentioned tips such as:

• The perfect time to reunite with your friend,
• Turning into a social butterfly, well I do go out a lot. lol
• Writing a project or a being part of a creative collaboration which could take off at lightning speed.

The first point is very special to me, because the horoscope this time was correct, I have reunited with someone that’s very dear to me and I have known this girl ever since we were 16 years old. It was so many years ago that we drifted apart and it was about stupidness, but I also believe we needed the time apart to grow, be more independent. As the years went on, we were not students anymore. We were young women trying to make a name for ourselves and live our lives. I confessed to my friend the other day if feels like I have lost 3 close friends this year. Each were different in their own way and had their faults, but on the other hand, I believe I have gained back something more special my friend Waisam and it was the perfect time for us to reunite.

Being a social butterfly has always been my thing, I love going out with my friends and having a good time and in the past I have taken that for granted which has brought me to the realisation not only has 2015 turned out to be one of my best years, but each of us has made an effort to meet up and see each other which makes me very proud these girls are apart of my life.

I consider writing my thoughts and reflections down as way of getting the words out of my head, it actually helps me to think a lot clearer and motivates me to putting in the effort and having my mind focussed on more interesting things. The thought of getting people to hear what I have to say is a powerful thing and hopefully who knows, maybe in the future I could put my creative juices to work and collaborate with others and listen to their thoughts and reflections.