Thursday 7 July 2016

Alice tattoo 5th sitting, and maybe a little life update

I'm neglecting my poor blog again! And I feel like all I have done this year is repeat myself about how I need to blogore often! But there it is. Life just happens sometimes and I need to stop beating myself up about things I do/don't do/feel like I should do...

When I last mentioned what's going on in my real life, I mentioned my PMDD and anti-depressants. I had a little review of the treatment last week, and whilst I felt like the medication was helping, I still had an awful couple of days when I was ovulating, so my doctor recommended that I take them every day instead of just 10-14 days out of the month.  I'm actually ok with it. If it's what I need to do to feel better and to be the best possible person (mother, wife, friend) that I can be while I am experiencing this difficultly with my hormones, then I am all for it.

I think maybe I will do a wedding preparations post, because I am supposed to be going shopping for craft supplies with my auntie next week so we can sort out all the DIY decorations I have planned.

Onto the most dramatic change then, I finally have Chess coloured in!!



Safe to say I am pretty much in love with him. I like to imagine Stephen Fry's voice on my arm like some sarcastic guardian angel.

Friday 3 June 2016

Alice in wonderland sleeve tattoo: 3rd and 4th sittings

So I thought I would post some update photos on my Alice in wonderland sleeve tattoo, of the last two sessions because I didn't post about it the last time. The main reason was because normally the artist takes the photos when we finish for his Facebook page, and then I just save those for my own purposes, and last time he didn't take any because there wasn't too drastic of a difference that could be seen since the last time because a lot of the session was spent doing black shading between the hearts and a bit of colouring in the tree branches and mushrooms.  First I show you a before picture from the second sitting.


Here's what's new:





I'm more than happy with the way it's going, even on the first sitting it was better than I could have ever imagined and it just keeps on getting better. It's funny because this time around Rob had to work so I was there on my own (Rob normally comes in with me even though he gets bored, he just really likes being in tattoo shops because it's such a familiar atmosphere for him, ha) and I really enjoyed it. It was two hours that were purely self indulgent mummy time, spending money on myself and getting to just sit there happily swimming in my own thoughts. I think the hair metal Ben was playing definitely lifted my mood though... lol. I just really enjoyed the sitting this month. Anyone else out there find their pain place a nice head-clearing place to be?

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Up and down...

I just can't seem to get it together with blogging this year. Since the puppies were born I just sort of dropped off of my blog and for that I apologise. The last of the puppies went to their forever homes two weeks ago now, excluding Odin because we are keeping him, so since then we have been transitioning him from being a litter member to a family member of the household. And for some reason I decided it was a good time to potty train Reegan so I have not only been running around after a toddler but a mischievous puppy too, feeling like I'm just trying to get everyone in the house civilised enough not to poo or wee indoors. Lol.

In my last post I mentioned that I am currently very happy. That is still the case but it's just a little more complex than that. For five years I have lived without sleeping pills or anti-depressants and I was feeling pretty confident in my abilities to function without them. But lately my cycles have been pretty intense, causing erratic and shocking mood swings. In the throes of these negative waves I have frightened and shocked myself. I have felt the urge to self harm and behave in other self destructive ways, feeling as though I should punish myself to gain control over these emotions. The thing is, when I'm fine, I'm completely fine. When I'm not I'm at rock bottom again. In one of my more severe mood swings I called my mother in a panic and she drove and hour to me just to get new to stop crying, and convinced me to go to the doctor. Who thinks I have PMDD - pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder- basically a severe form of PMS. So I am trying out just taking anti-depressants during my PMS symptoms to see if that helps.

Who knows. I'm writing this in the middle of the night because I have a stinking cold and my dear other half is snoring his pretty nose off. Good to be back though.

Friday 22 April 2016

Running away from me

I don't know how it's suddenly almost five months through the year, but here we are. Time really has run away from me ever since we moved into our own place, probably because I'm feeling more contented and fulfilled in my life than I ever have before. I do have a lot on my plate still, and obviously life isn't perfect, but as I like to say about my Sunday roasts it's a constant evolution towards perfection. My own peculiar perfection that is.

Already the puppies are five weeks old and in only three short weeks they will be leaving us. The thought of letting them go fills me with so many emotions. Ultimately, I will be sad to let them go because I love them all dearly, but we are happy to have found nice families for their forever homes. They have all come into their own personalities so much the past two weeks or so, to the point where when two of the girls aren't wearing a collar I can tell them apart by personality alone. Well, I can because I know my babies better than anyone else does! Poor Inca has had enough of playing mummy now, they are almost fully weaned and she only spends time with them at night (although if she can drag her bed out of the puppy pen she will!) and when they go outside together she has started to show interest in playing with them. As soon as they go for her nipples she doesn't want to know and makes a quick exit.


The beginning of April marked my 22nd birthday, which actually I wasn't all that enthralled about. I felt like it was crossing a line into true grownuphood  (yes I made that up) and I don't think I like it!


This week we had a meeting with two wedding vendors about the food and the marquee, which has made me feel a lot better about how close the wedding is getting. October 1st is looming and by the time Rob and I are married we will have a two year old daughter. Reegan is only just 20 months now but she just seems insanely grown up all of a sudden. Her vocabulary is expanding daily, her sponge like little brain learning new things constantly. She can count to twelve on her own, and grasp concepts like the weather and communicate her feelings about it. Example, "Raining mummy! Stop rain! No! No rain!"
I was having a bit of a mood swing the other day and when Reegan saw me crying she said "Sad!" And gave me a hug. Needless to say that was all I needed to cheer me up!

Funny story, we took her to the amusements when we were on holiday, and when the whack a mole game thing she was playing finished she said "Ah fucks sake!" Completely of her own initiative. We do try to mind our language around her but nobody's perfect! LOL.


I'm really enjoying parenting a toddler now, but having such an independent child is tugging on my ovaries a bit. I'm really wanting to have another baby soon, but we are set on waiting until we are married now, for a few reasons. I have a friend and a family member who have both recently had babies and it's making my broodiness so much worse! I joked when the puppies were born I was going to start lactating again. Maybe it's the lovely fertile spring behind all these feelings? Who knows!

Thursday 7 April 2016

I'm back!

I felt like after nearly four weeks away from blogging, I have really missed writing. I kept getting this niggling feeling, this itch I couldn't scratch, a feeling like there was something I should be doing but couldn't remember what. I realised that itch was blogging, even though after the puppies were born I made an unofficial decision to take a break for a little bit. Taking care of all of our dogs, as well as my almost-two-year-old  (when did this even happen?!) and all of the other things I have on my plate this year. I still have a lot of wedding planning to do, as well as a reupholstering project I'm doing for the pub on the side of my part time job. I was supposed to be taking my theory driving test soon but I lost my provisional licence so that's going to have to be put on hold too. That and I've barely done any revision whatsoever, I've always found it difficult to motivate myself to study.

So everything I've been juggling has been getting on top of me just a little bit. I haven't been leaving the house much because I can't leave the dogs unattended for too long, so whenever I've actually had to go somewhere Rob has taken a half day at work or one of our friends had come to sit with them for me. As a result of not leaving the house so much, I've been relying on the TV a lot more to entertain both me and Reegan, which in turn makes me feel like a rather lazy parent. I also haven't felt like wearing makeup or clothes other than leggings because I feel as though I have to reason to bother making an effort just to do housewifey shit. All this just means I haven't had as much to blog about in my life in general.

I've rediscovered a little of my inspiration now though,  and I'm hoping to get right back into blogging now! I feel like I've missed a lot of other people's stuff going on, so I'll try and get reading and commenting now!

Thursday 17 March 2016

The puppies are here! A first time breeder's experience...

As most of you know, we (well, fh decided to really) made the decision to breed our Doberman bitch Inca finally. To be honest it's something we have been considering for a couple of years now, and since she isn't working anymore (who knows we may start again) it seemed like a good time. We waited months for her to come into season (by normal standards she was due in October but she seems to have a longer cycle than most) and she finally came into season in January. We found a lovely stud dog to mate her with and she happily obliged (lol).

So after five weeks of waiting we got her an ultrasound scan last month to discover four perfect sacs each with a wriggling puppy bean inside. Little did we know there were three more hiding in there! She's been behaving like she might go into labour since last weekend and every night last week we went to bed betting there would be puppies by morning, so Monday morning I really wasn't expecting it to happen because it was daytime. We were just pottering about our daily activities and I popped my head into the dining room where we have the whelping box set up, and there Inca was with a look of terror on her in her eyes and the head of a puppy protruding from the birth canal. So I instantly went to sit with her and made a hasty phone call to Rob to come home immediately, I was shaking and adrenaline was pumping! It took a further ten minutes for Freyja to be born, and although Inca cleaned her up quick and nipped the umbilical cord she wasn't that interested in her until puppy number two, Helga, was born. Then she had a little while snuggling with the two of them until she was ready to birth the next pup.

Black pup Freyja, brown pup Helga

Then Ziggy came along, another black female, with a tiny bit of meconium staining coming out with her waters. I was a little concerned until two hours later puppy four, Odin was born breech. So that explained the longer gap and possibly meconium so I felt ok that he was born safely.  Unfortunately I was not prepared for the devastation of the next male, Bjorn to be born dead. It was awful. He also came out breech and I had to gently help him come out as he seemed slightly stuck. As soon as he came out, his mouth tongue and nose pale and white, we knew he was gone but Rob still tried his best to revive him. He wanted to bury him immediately but I didn't want to bury him at all. I sat there cuddling him on or kitchen floor, sobbing, trying my best to love him as much as I could before he had to be buried. I just needed to feel like the tiny pup had experienced some sort of love before we laid him to rest.
Sorry if you guys didn't want to see this.  I just didn't want Bjorn to be forgotten.

After Bjorn came little Lagertha, the brown runt of the litter. We were surprised for her to be born because it had been another two hours in between births and we were starting to wonder if she had finished. Suddenly though we noticed more contractions and suddenly she popped out like a little furry lightening ball! Another twenty minutes or so later and the seventh puppy Ingrid was born, also quite quickly with only a couple of pushes.


I have to say, I'm feeling quite proud of Inca, for birthing seven puppies in as many hours, with a relatively straightforward labour. She stayed relatively calm and quiet throughout the whole thing and as you can see from this photo she was positively glowing.

We had some teething troubles getting her not to sit on the puppies and crush them, as well as some gentle encouragement to feed them because she's the type of dog that prefers to curl herself up into a ball to sleep. For the first two days we supervised them all almost constantly and it was bloody exhausting, but gradually she has been getting better. Until this morning when we came down to find poor lifeless Freyja had been squished. We had been up with Inca several times in the night and thought she was doing OK,  but accidents do happen I suppose. I just can't get over the guilt of feeling like we could have done more to prevent it. We buried her next to her brother Bjorn without Inca noticing.

So evidently it has been quite the emotional roller coaster for us the past four days or so. I'll post more updates soon if you guys would like that.

Getting them all to feed at the same time was quite the victory.

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Makeup rules? Eff your beauty standards!

For most females, beauty and cosmetics is something we become aware of from a very young age. When it comes to wearing makeup there are so many things that people say about it, from your grandma to your older sister to beauty magazines there's always someone trying to tell you what to do or that you're doing it wrong. Regardless of their intentions or their credentials, who's to say they're right? Alternative and goth subcultures specifically are known for rule bending looks on the more extreme end of the scale with heavy coverage foundation and dark rimmed eyes, black lips and shaved or extremely manicured  brows. Not to say that everyone belonging to those subcultures will be sporting those looks mind you, because whilst makeup is a big part of thelse kinds of looks in isn't the defining factor of identity for goth etc.

So I thought I would do a little debunking of these so called rules, just to let you all know that you can carry on expressing yourselves no matter what the world is telling you. Because obviously you need me to tell you that. 

Eyes or lips. 

It's like the old "legs or boobs" rule, you can only get one out or you risk looking like a slut. I don't beleive in either of these viewpoints, because, hey, people should be able to express themselves however they see fit. I mean picking eyeshadows and lipsticks that compliment each other can be intimidating but when all you're wearing is black you can't go wrong, right? 


Match your lipstick to your nail varnish

Who in the real world has the time for this much thinking ahead?! Get real.

Don't tweeze above your eyebrows, only shape underneath for a natural brow

Personally,  my natural eyebrows are pretty horrific. They are huge and messy and have long coarse hairs, which I trim with scissors and then pluck the shit out of them, top and bottom. I feel like there is a huge obsession with eyebrows in the mainstream beauty world at the moment, and it really really baffles me. Ten years ago thin brows were fashionable and sought after, and now you will see articles slating the thin brows in favour of youthful bushy ones. Each to their own I suppose, but again a lot of goths tend to shave their eyebrows and draw them on everyday in fun shapes so as to make upkeep easier.

The link  for this picture is actually from one of those eyebrow articles

Only wear warm or cool colours based on your skin tone.

Argh makeup is supposed to be about freedom and creativity why must we impose so many rules like this?! I don't actually know if I have warm or cool skin, nor do I know how to tell for someone else's skin, so I think most people are highly unlikely to look at your average Jane on the street and say "wow that eyeshadow is NOT working for her warm skin tone at all". I think everyone should be free to experiment with colours and not be restricted by skin tone, eye colour or any other classification that means green eyeshadow is off the table for them.

Apparently this  is how you would know which one you are

Don't wear eyeliner or mascara on your bottom lash line

OK,  I don't know who the hell thought this one up.  Without eyeliner on at least my top and bottom waterline I feel naked, and I tend to put a lot of black on the bottom lash line to match the upper lash line or it feels unfinished. According to some beauty know-it-all's it can make your eyes look tiny, but without mascara on the bottom lashes I feel it can look very top heavy. Some people like heavy eyeliner ok!

Stay away from dark eyeliners

Well we don't want to risk looking goth now do we? How tacky. If you really must wear one make sure it's only at night time on a very special occasion, during the daytime just cover your eyes in glitter instead for a lovely fresh disco ball look.

Source

Avoid false eyelashes for everyday use

Sorry to say, false lashes are just too much for daytime wear. Only the very skilled in false lash application can get away with it, and even then individual lashes are vastly preferable to strip lashes. Well people, I must respectfully disagree. In my opinion, mascara just doesn't do much if you have average eyelashes. False Lashes just add so much more dimension to a look. They just make it so much more awesome. Can you tell I'm an addict?


Source

Heavy foundation is not for every day

So they say that full coverage foundation is just for night time and special occasions (again with the special occasions!) It is recommended you use a foundation that is a shade darker than normal to accommodate your (gasp!) suntan. Some people have skin issues and things they want to cover up, and personally I like pale foundation with full coverage to cover as many of my freckles as possible. Most people that work at beauty counters in shops try and match me a foundation that is much to dark for me because they are going for the freckle shade and not the colour underneath. Surely if my whole face looks tanned my freckles will dissappear? Ha. No thankyou sir. Not quite your white grease paint but not far off.

In conclusion, please don't tell me I'm wearing to much makeup. Sit the fuck down and let us paint our faces.



Friday 26 February 2016

Alice in Wonderland sleeve tattoo: second sitting

So I've been a bit absent from blogging this month. Sometimes life just gets in the way I suppose. We are quite busy at the moment preparing for a litter of doberman puppies who will be joining us in just about 3 weeks or so, that's right, our dog Inca is confirmed to be carrying at least four puppies in her squishy belly right now! We took her for a doggy ultrasound scan last weekend, and straight away we saw four perfect sacs each containing a wriggly little puppy bean. So I can't leave the house too much at the moment because firstly she is very emotionally needy at this stage, and secondly because we have now adjusted her diet and she needs to be fed roughly every 3 hours during the day time.

The other issue I've been having is my wisdom teeth again. Last weekend the pain got really bad and I ended up not really eating for the best part of three days, so I had an emergency dentist appointment on Tuesday  (after being miserable at work on Sunday and Monday much to my co-worker's disappointment). I'm on antibiotics for my gums and cheek issues and I'm waiting for my referral letter from the dental hospital so they can hopefully take them out for good. Yay!

My latest tattoo sitting was this week also, as those who have me on Facebook will have seen. (If you don't have me on Facebook come find me!) To be honest, even though this time around was only a two hour sitting, normally well within my tattooing tolerance timescale, I found this sitting not so enjoyable. Not that being tattooed is ever that enjoyable a process anyway! I think just physically and mentally I was a bit too stressed out to deal with it this week. But enough of my moaning,  take a look at the progress!





This sitting was just adding in some heavier blacks and shading on top of what was already there, but it's made a big difference to the detailing. Ben also took a couple of closer pictures of the inside of my arm even though he didn't work on it this time, but you can see the white rabbit and the bandersnatch in better detail in them.



There's another post I've been working on for nearly two weeks now, I'm aiming to get it out soon! Bye for now!

Saturday 6 February 2016

Outfit post: Victoriana Frock Coat

As most of you know, I've recently moved house and still haven't properly organised everything yet. It's only been  three months.... ha! One of the great things about finally having our own space is finding old stuff that has been sitting in storage forgotten about, and remembering how in love with said stuff I was and still am. I found a big box of old clothes that I packed away when I was pregnant with my daughter, back when we lived in a caravan.  Sigh. I miss that little thing! Although some of the items I found were (and probably will forever be) too small, I'm at peace with that and have a lot of clothes to donate to charity shops. I hope someone else will find them, fall in love and wear them with pride.

One of my best re-discoveries was my Spindoctor frock-coat. It's a tough one to wear though, because it's not quite warm enough to wear as a coat and much too warm for the summertime, so I wear it most in Autumn and Spring when the weather is milder and I can get away with just wearing it as a jacket. When it is really cold though I can wear it underneath my long coat.

Why do I always do photos BEFORE hair and makeup?! Don't even ask about the socks...


It's quite the statement piece on it's own, so normally I would wear a short skirt and simple vest underneath. In fact, I think I actually wore it over this outfit here:


 You can't even see it really but it is just a velvet mini skirt and vest. It makes a nice update on Reegan though, who is now one and a half. What! I have a toddler now apparently. Things have been difficult with herthe past couple of weeks, while she has quite a good vocabulary for her age and I try my hardest to always listen and understand her we are struggling with communication and boundaries at the moment. It's only natural but it's still challenging!

Friday 29 January 2016

FOTD Friday: earthy eyes

Lately I have been doing a lot of wedding makeup practice, because even though I think I'd like to have it done professionally on the day I need to know exactly what it is that I want. I think I'm going to be very fussy about it... Oh dear! I need to look my best but also need to look like myself, and feel comfortable in my own skin. So most of my practice runs have been some sort of smokey eye with Matt colours and no glitter. I love glitter but for some reason I just hate the idea of having disco ball eyes in my wedding photos.... I have no idea.

So here's the look! A brown smokey eye using colours from Urban Decay Vice pallet and Younique Addiction pallet no2.




Product list:
Urban Decay eye primer
Urban Decay Vice pallet
Younique Addiction pallet number 2
Remington naturalites doll lashes
Lancome Teint Idole foundation shade 005
Younique concealer shade Scarlet
Natural Collection blush shade Sugar Plum
Pretty Zombie matt lipstick in shade Dahlia

Thursday 28 January 2016

Alice in Wonderland sleeve tattoo: first sitting

I remember as a young teenager always watching shows like LA or Miami Ink on a Saturday morning with my friends, and I couldn't wait to be old enough (and out of school) to be able to get tattoos and piercings and look like Kat Von D. I got my first tattoo booked a week before my 18th birthday and my best friend sketched it up for me. I've been pining after a sleeve tattoo for years, specifically of the Tim Burton aesthetic, and the  when the Alice in Wonderland film came out I knew that was what I wanted.

I booked the tattoo on Halloween last year and yesterday was my first sitting. I am so incredibly happy with it already and can't wait to see what it will look like finished, it's already better than I ever dreamed it would look.






I had it done by a local artist called Ben Boston, he drinks in the pub where I work, he's a lovely guy and super talented. The sitting was 2 hours,  with 30 minutes to draw it all on freehand (except for the white rabbit which he stencilled) and then an hour and a half to tattoo it all into place.

And yes, it will be finished in time to ruin my wedding photos ;)

Tuesday 26 January 2016

Proper English Tea etiquette: my way vs the High way

As I like to think of myself as quite the English Rose these days (albeit a spiky-thorny black one) Afternoon Tea is a most fitting passtime. What many people don't know, however, is just how many unspoken rules there are when taking your tea. Now I know most of them I don't feel I can ever take tea in public again. I've compiled a nice simple list for you so that you will behave most appropriately when attending an afternoon tea, as opposed to the most rude mistakes I have obliviously been making my entire life.

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Just where do you think you are going? 

Some say High tea, some say Royal tea. Some say three o'clock or four o'clock tea. If I am quite excited I will say we are having tea in a fancy voice, to indicate that we aren't just having a cuppa. In fact, just Afternoon tea is the correct phrase. High tea and Royal tea are popular with tourists, but high tea was only for servants, who would dine at 6pm after the upstairs had been given their Afternoon tea. So unless you want to be dining with the servants on ham and ale down stairs you'd best be calling it Afternoon tea, and if you're having Champagne only then may you refer to it as Royal tea. The best kind of tea is tea with alcohol obviously.

Source

What on earth are you wearing?

I think most people know that the dress code is smart casual. Smart jeans or trousers and a shirt are recommended for men, and apparently it's the perfect excuse for a lady to dress up, as long as she's not in evening wear of course. Heavens! I'd usually be dressed to the nines in a corset and lacy blouse with a victoriana skirt, and probably some sort of headdress, looking most improper of course, but not at all scruffy.

Smart casual? From my point of view. 

How do you pour?

Personally, I pour my tea first after brewing it for as. Long. As. Possible. I like a builder's brew me. Ahem, daintily of course. And just a smidge of milk to lighten it. My MIL likes to put the milk in first and then the tea, which just makes for some milky ass tea all round. It's great if that's what you like, but apparently this practice is also wrong. Milk first marks you as a commoner because the milk would have to be used as a coolant before pouring boiling tea into cheap clay cups, thus causing theme to crack. Fine porcelain and bone China would not require such measures.

Holding the cup

Sometimes I like to hold my pinkie in the air and pretend I'm posh, you know like you used to do as a child messing around? Wrong. Sometimes I like to hook my middle finger into the handle and act like a one handed professional tea drinker. Sometimes when I feel like I need a hug, or I'm cold, I feel that it is ok to wrap both hands around ones drinking vessel. Also apparently unacceptable behaviours, you know you are supposed to meet your thumb and index finger in the handle of the cup and try not to drop it. Right.

Source 

Stirring one's beverage

Rather than plopping in your sugar and frantically stirring until the tea splashes and your spoon has it's own clinky beat, one should consider sacrificing dissolved sugar in favour of a simple back and forth swishing motion from 6 to 12 o'clock. And for goodness sake, do not let your spoon touch your cup. NO LILLY NOOOOO!

Source


I hope you enjoyed my little tea how-to!

Friday 22 January 2016

FOTD Friday: red and black Christmas eyes

I have a little stash of makeup photos built up so that I always have something to post about. This one is the look I wore on Christmas Eve to go shopping in, with that long black velvet dress featured in the outfit post with the belt.




I used two of the Sugarpill pressed eyeshadows, Bulletproof (black) and Loveplus (red), with a shell-pink to blend out with and highlight my brow bone. For some reason I didn't wear lipstick that day, which I regret now because I think it would have looked better!

Wednesday 13 January 2016

Outfit update on that belt you've been looking for

Just wanted to show you guys the final outfit I talked about on my previous outfit post That belt you've been looking for. I showed the belt and the dress separately and a couple of days before Christmas  I wore it out on a shopping trip and this is how it looked:



Just like I imagined. Woop woop!

Saturday 9 January 2016

Bring on the new year

It's finally time to come back to blogging now that the holidays are officially over.  I have missed writing but I do like to take a break from technology etc at this time of year, to just fully immerse myself in my friends and family and focus on the love and laughter around me. It was our first Christmas spent in our own home so it was a really special year for us, and we hosted a few people for dinner and friends for drinks later on Christmas day. I still can't beleive I managed to cook a roast for eight people and the only casualties were the three wine glasses I smashed when trying to serve prosecco.



Reegan is finally understanding the whole concept of presents and unwrapping them, and after every gift she would demand 'open!' And insist that the toy needed to come out of it's packaging. We are usually quite minimalist when it comes to birthdays and Christmas with her though, for various reasons but she seemed to really enjoy her little green ride on tractor that her daddy picked for her.

After all the madness of food and family and presents, we drank even more and spent hours playing Cards Against Humanity. If you haven't played it then I strongly suggest it, it's hilarious and very offensive at the same time. Perfect for our bunch. New years eve was spent with a friend and her boyfriend, our first proper couple friends who we tend to double date with often. We ate cheap party food and played Settlers of Catan,which I haven't played in years and since I was the only person present who had played it before and couldn't remember how to play properly it took us about two hours to really get into it. We did some small fireworks in the garden and even though poor Inca was safely locked in the front room she had a bit of a panic and tried to dig under the Christmas tree. It's odd because she's never had much of a problem with fireworks before (hot air balloons are her nemesis) she also calmed down pretty quickly when the last of the neighbourhood fireworks finished.

So now that it's all over I'm diving headfirst back into wedding planning because our wedding day on October 1st is looming. So far I have left to book a marquee, a bar, the food and then just DIY bits and bobs for decoration. We also have to save up twice as hard because we could be faced with eviction in September if we don't have the money to buy the house we are living in. So it's all stressing me out a bit at the moment. I kind of wish we could just skip straight to the wedding and be done with it.

I'm starting a new tattoo this month though so I have that to look forward to. Happy new year everyone, who's ready to take on 2016?