This summer, I’ve been trying to be a bit more adventurous with what I wear – now that the heatwave seems to have (finally) drawn to an end, I feel like I can experiment a bit now that I’m not sweating constantly.
And last week, my family and I went to a market in a local town and I spotted this gorgeous elephant print floaty top on a stall and it was only £10! Elephants are my thing so whenever I see anything with elephants on it’s difficult to leave behind.
When I got it, I didn’t think I’d get much wear out of it – it’s very long, my sister described it as looking like a hospital gown and she was right. But with these high waisted plus sized jeans from ASOS, I actually loved it – I could pull it out so it was still airy and light but I loved the contrast of having it tucked in.
It’s comfy, it’s perfect for summer because it’s so thin but it would also be perfect for the transition months because it’s so easy to layer. I’m excited to figure out other ways to wear this top and I feel like being excited to wear an item of clothing isn’t a bad thing.
I have a pretty awful relationship with my body – I really don’t like my appearance and I’m very aware of my attitude to food and desperately trying not to let it develop into anything worse (I talked about it a little bit in an instagram post the other day).
I don’t want to make every outfit post about body image, but talking about the clothes I’m wearing involves showing how they look on my body and that takes a lot for me to feel comfortable sharing – the truth is I don’t feel comfortable sharing them. Every photo I edit to include I pick apart every last possible flaw about myself. I don’t look at my body a lot and the image of myself I have in my head is a fair bit slimmer than what I actually look like so sharing the pictures with my tummy pouch and my big arms and my face that can’t just seem to manage that sultry, moody face without looking like I actually want to commit murder.
And I hope that other people don’t see those things when looking at the same photos. There’s the little part of my brain that says ‘don’t be stupid, everyone thinks you’re disgusting’ but then I think ‘well maybe they don’t’ and then I think ‘who are you to be cocky enough to think that’ and it goes on and on. Maybe I shouldn’t share these things, but if I read a post about someone who thinks the same way I do then it would be incredibly reassuring. But already I’m thinking ‘but no one cares enough about your writing to be reassured by it’.
Long story short I really like this top and I wanted to share it. Long story long I have a tricky relationship with my body and maybe sharing it is helping?
I was fully prepared to start this post with something along the lines of ‘there aren’t as many favourites this month because I’ve been busy and stressed and there’ll be a post about it next week’, but when I actually got round to planning it all, I actually thought of ten favourites pretty easily which made me really happy. Let’s not do this awkward ‘so here’s my favourites for this month!’ and just start.
I’ve been obsessed with this album ever since it came out but I wanted to save it for the new series of monthly music blog posts I have planned, but I couldn’t not include this song. When I first listened to it I knew exactly in what situation I would like to cover it but then I had to face that situation and it was all very sad (I know, I’ve talked about it enough) – I just couldn’t leave this song out of my favourites for this month because I absolutely adore it.
being in a musical!
Not really a physical thing I can photograph but my friend is part of the drama and performance society and with the dance season coming to an end and talking about how much I miss musical theatre, she suggested I audition for the musical. These auditions happened literally two days after the last dance competition of the season because apparently I don’t like giving myself any time to breathe! But we’re doing a medley of five musicals and they’re a brilliant selection of musicals and I’m really excited.
Now, I’ve always been a stationery lover – when I was in primary school there was literally nothing more exciting than buying a whole new pencil case. Since starting my bullet journal back in January, I’ve been desperate for a bigger variety in colours of fineliner to colour code and just make my journal a little bit prettier. I found this pack on Amazon for a really good price (considering if you buy the 20 pack in WHSmith it’s normally upwards of £20) and I sent a link to my mum to show her one of the things I was going to buy once I have more money and then she treated me to them.
I’ve been showing literally everyone I know, I’m very excited about these pens.
I was having a browse through boohoo and I found these shorts – they’re gorgeous and their name made me laugh so I added them to my basket (at this point I was adding a lot to my basket). I then placed a huge boohoo order and it all arrived and I couldn’t be happier – not only does the name ‘flippy shorts’ still entertain me, they’re really comfy and because they’re plus sized they’re really flattering and make me feel happy and comfortable wearing them. Cannot wait for summer to wear them properly!
David the 4th
I’m not sure how much I’ve mentioned this, but I have a collection of cactus’s called David – it started with a felt one I bought from Tiger, then I got a real succulent from Ikea, then I bought a ‘make your own cushion’ cactus (again from Tiger) and now, the newest addition to my David family – David IV, the cute, aesthetic, fake plant from Primark. I’ve decided my room for the new house in July is going to have an elephant, space aesthetic and I’m going to have lots of plants and flowers. I’m so excited to have a room I can actually decorate, it’s going to be so good.
elephant light
I got a bit homeware happy when I went into Primark at the weekend but when I saw this fairy-light-esque copper elephant I knew I needed it for my elephant, space, plant aesthetic. I have no words for how much I love elephants and literally anything with elephants on it is destined to be in my life. Except an elephant candle, because I don’t want to burn an elephant.
cookie dough ice cream
Like I keep mentioning – I’ve faced a very sad death this month (I know I sound like a broken record and I hate it too) but I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to continue my (minimal) attempt at healthy eating and losing weight right now. I’ve had a lot of ice cream this month. I have ice cream in the freezer right now as I write this on April 4th at 2.18pm after saying I was going to stop eating everything I wanted in April. March was both a good and bad eating month – good in terms of how much ice cream and chocolate I ate, bad in terms of how much weight I keep putting on and and my consequent self-esteem. I’m trying to get a handle on that in April.
From sad, over-eating to mindless, cartoon comedy. I’ve been a fan of the asdf movie series and their creator, TomSka for about seven years now and asdf movie 10 came out on April 1st, actually so not really a March favourite but I’m including it anyway. It’s mindless, it’s quotable, it’s got a song to accompany it and it’s the same short-skit comedy that I’ve loved through asdf movie 1 through 9. Thoroughly enjoyable watch and worth 2 minutes 15 of your day.
nose piercing
I got my nose pierced two days after my last dance comp and three days after my nanny passed away so it was a combination of ‘I won’t have to take it out for comps’ and ‘fuck it, you only live once’ – that day was a very brave day for me, with auditioning for a musical as well. I wasn’t sure how I’d look with a nose piercing but I actually love it – the flower crown filter on snapchat makes me look as indie as I feel and I have further become the model image of a ‘white girl’, but like a plus sized version.
family
Now for the soppy bit – my family are brilliant, but I don’t see them that often and I wouldn’t have described us as particularly close just because as me and my cousins have grown up we’ve not seen each other nearly as regularly as we used to and we just missed out on continuing to get to know each other, I guess. But with everything that’s happened, I’ve seen more of my family in the last month than I have probably in the last ten years and it’s been amazing – we’ve found new common ground and we have a group chat on WhatsApp now. Jokes aside, I’m so grateful for my family and I hope this will mark a new start in making sure we make the most of each other while we’re still here.
I wanted to end this post on a family note but wow it got a bit depressing. I know I’ve been banging on about this family thing and over my other social medias I have talked about it a little bit – I’m not keeping it a secret on my blog but I do have a full length post planned to go up next week where I want to talk about it in more detail, so I don’t want to end up repeating myself. Sorry for being so sporadic and unreliable on this blog – it’s a little bit of a reflection of my brain and mindset right now.
Thank you for reading and sticking with me – it’s very much appreciated.
sophie counts clouds 