Treasured In… April

2021, books, Favourites

Hello!

Another month, another round of favourites – things I bought, watched and eaten that have made me happy in the last month the share a bit of positivity on the internet!

But we all know I like categories and lists so I couldn’t just manage a list of nice things – gotta give it some structure!

Purchase

I mean, I moved into a new rental house so I didn’t buy it per say but I paid a deposit on it and spent probably more money than I should have on new things for said house… but it’s pretty, it’s got a nice garden and it’s got more than two windows! The kitchen and living room are in separate rooms and I can work from home without my boyfriend playing video games in the background! So that is top of the list.

But also shops re-opened and I accidentally bought 5 new books but I spent less than £20 which is pretty good value!

Recipe / Food

Sometimes the food you love is the old favourites – my comfort food is either a jacket potato drowning in butter and cheese or pasta drowning in butter and cheese (I’m sensing a theme and it’s carbs as a vessel for butter and cheese…) and both of these have been great this month for comfort food and easy food whilst we’ve been unpacking.

But then we really treated ourselves this weekend by buying a small leg of lamb and cooking it in the slow cooker and wow it might have been the most expensive piece of meat I’ve ever bought but it was incredible. Not going to become a common purchase by any means but it was delicious.

YouTube video

I’ve not watched loads of YouTube this month, but here are some of my faves!

Books

I actually haven’t read a single book this month – the first weekend in April was the Easter bank holidays so I spent all of it packing, the following weekend we moved and my books have all been in boxes since then.

I looked out a few to tide me over until I get proper storage for my books, but I decided I was going to read ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’ by Reni Eddo-Lodge, but turns out that’s a bit heavy when you’re anxiety is sky high about moving house!

So I thought I’d share the books I bought on my first trip into our new home town since the shops opened:

In a 3 for £5 deal from The Works:

The Start of Us, Hannah Emery
The Flatshare, Beth O’Leary
It’s Now or Never, Carole Matthews

And in a buy one get one half price deal from Waterstones,

Good Girl, Bad Blood, Holly Jackson
Lore, Alexandra Bracken

Did I need 5 more books when I’ve just admitted I haven’t read anything in April? Probably not but books bring me joy and I’ll make up for it in May I’m sure.

Something to watch

Other than continuing my Marvel Cinematic Universe marathon with my boyfriend (and thoroughly enjoying it), I’ve not watched too much this month because I’ve been trying to do a writing challenge so listening to music instead, but in the past couple of weeks I’ve spent about three days absolutely binging ‘The Good Doctor’ on Sky Go (thank you to my wonderful friend Beth for sharing her login with me!) and I absolutely love it.

Learning so much about autism and watching how it’s represented on the show is fascinating – autism is a spectrum, so it presents differently in every autistic person, but seeing how it manifests and how the other characters treat Dr Murphy is really clever.

And it turns out I really like medical dramas – I’ve been watching clips of House, Greys Anatomy and Chicago Med on Facebook and I’m definitely watching House after I finish The Good Doctor.

As the country starts to open up again, lockdown 3 draws to a close and Spring crawls into Summer, everything is starting to feel brighter and like there is a life beyond covid. I’m hesitant to let myself get too excited about it all, because we said the same last year and look where we are now, but I’m definitely making the most of nicer weather.

Things are still a bit scary, but they’re looking in the right direction I think!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

a little house update!

2019, interior homeware, lifestyle, photography

Hello!

What a whirlwind few weeks it has been! We picked up the keys to our new rented house about three and a half weeks ago and all of our belongings were delivered three weeks ago but actually, we’ve unpacked all the boxes and everything is feeling a little bit more homey!

I’ve put up fairy lights in almost every room (the bathroom doesn’t need fairy lights, the kitchen might be next though…), I’m slowly putting up pictures and finding homes for everything. Obviously we still need to ‘live’ in it to get used to it all and find homes for everything, there’s a few items of furniture that we can’t afford to buy just yet so that’ll take time but we’ve not been in for a month yet!

The kitchen is complete unpacked – the cupboards as a bit bare but we’ve got all we need, we’ve got all the ingredients for dinners and I’m making my packed lunches but as we live here we’ll build up a collection of seasonings and baking ingredients and more ‘long term’ cooking things. But the kitchen is done – after five days with no plates just having slightly fuller cupboards is really reassuring.

The living room is where I started – it was the first place I put fairy lights up, I spent a long time thinking about where I wanted the sofas and where the TV would go even though we don’t have a TV aerial downstairs (which is ideal…), trying to fit in a desk, figuring out how we’re going to store everything and deciding we need an IKEA trip soon.

That was mostly my decision but if my boyfriend doesn’t want to come then that’s fine.

We also bought a new TV for the living room… We definitely shouldn’t have, we were trying to set up finance with Currys PC World but it was going to take too long so we decided to just pay for it and suffer the consequences. We’re working it out!

Moving on! I want to get a shelving unit for the upstairs hallway because I think it would be the perfect place for my record player and other ornaments. I think I want to get a corner shelf so we can use it for storage and decorate it up a little bit (did someone say fairy lights…?).

The bedroom has so many nooks and bits to explore – starting with the main room, we’ve got the bed in the middle because I think that means we’re grown ups now (and no one has to climb over the other to get out of bed in the morning). The bed was kindly #gifted by my mum for my birthday (lol as if I would actually be gifted anything) and has ottoman storage underneath so at the moment we have spare duvets, blankets and bedding under there but there’s so much space we’re definitely going to have room for so much more down the line.

We each have a bedside table that my mum had going spare and I’m actually struggling to find enough things to put in them? I might swap my drawers out if I can buy a smaller bedside table and use the drawers under my desk downstairs that would be really convenient but for now it’s housing my current read, my phone charger and my glasses overnight!

Onto the first wardrobe (I know, the built in wardrobe and storage in this house is actually amazing) – this is my wardrobe because it’s the bigger one and my boyfriend decided that it would make more sense for me to have it.

I’ve unpacked my clothes but on the shelf side I want to get something to divide everything up a bit – I think maybe some IKEA Units and some drawers but I’m really not sure what to do to sort this out to be honest – any recommendations would be fantastic! Other than being huge, it’s a pretty average wardrobe, nothing too special.

My boyfriend’s wardrobe however it pretty cool – it’s a bit like a walk in wardrobe/changing room. It’s got a hanging rail, a little cupboard (that doesn’t have any shelves but we put an IKEA unit in there because we have a fair few…) and it even has it’s own light! With the wood panelling wallpaper I genuinely think it would make an amazing changing room. This is where basically all of my boyfriend’s belongings are and it makes me feel a little bit guilty that I have so much stuff.

The last (and potentially most exciting bit) is what we’re calling the alcove – it was a mutual decision to make it my little make-up/get ready corner. I’ve put an 8-square IKEA unit that I’ve dotted a few of my bits around but not really organised it properly yet. I shouldn’t have bought the vanity unit from B&M but I was feeling sad and I wanted to have somewhere to put my make-up and it really finishes the alcove! I don’t have to justify it but I also feel like I need to reassure my bank account. I’ve put lots of fairy lights up, I’ve set up my cloud light, I’m starting to decorate a little bit and I can’t wait till I’ve got a couple of months pay under my belt and I can start buying bits and bobs to decorate.

I’ve got so many ideas and I’m so excited to finally get everything unpacked but I’m also glad we’ve got the time to not rush it. We keep throwing ideas around and making plans and then saying ‘we just need to live in it first’.

Slowly, it’s all coming together and I love it so much.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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we FINALLY moved!

2019, goals, lifestyle

Hello!

I wanted to post this on the day we moved but it turns out even when you’re not doing a ‘full move’ (i.e. it’s just a couple of car loads of stuff, the rest of our things are coming at the weekend) it’s still a really busy day! Unfortunately blogging didn’t happen, but here we are a couple of days later.

It’s only been a two months round journey but here we are! My boyfriend and I have our own place – a rented, terraced, one bedroom house in High Wycombe with a fireplace in the living room, a cute little garden and incredible built-in wardrobe storage and I’m in love.

Let’s have a little recap of our journey so far – my boyfriend got a job on his graduation day in 2018 on the condition that he had to have a full driving license. Cut to a year later and he passed his test, I passed my test, I had decided to apply for a masters and we wanted to move to Reading – we went to property viewings in and around Reading, we saw a flat that we loved and we paid the security deposit that evening with a set move in date of four weeks later.

Shock horror, that did not happen.

Three days before we were due to move (and the day before my birthday, might I add) we were told that flat wasn’t safe to move into and the move in date had been pushed back two weeks. However, Lucas (the boyf) still started work and my uni course still started so we spent the best part of a week living in a hotel room then our friend Nick very kindly gave us his spare keys and we stayed in his flat in Reading until we could figure out what we were doing.

It was then that we started to think that Reading wasn’t for us – High Wycombe is where Lucas works and overall, Reading just wasn’t as convenient for my commute to uni or anything. So we went back to viewing properties – and the first viewing we arranged was for this house that we loved and I went that afternoon and it was like fate, it was perfect for us. We saw another flat that was nice but it just wasn’t the house.

The thing that really solidified the decision for us was that we knew where we wanted a Christmas tree to go. We could picture ourselves living here – we wanted to put fairy lights in the bedroom and tinsel on the stairs and if that doesn’t say to us that it’s the right place for us then I don’t know what will.

So we put our application in, paid our security deposit, then initially got rejected by the landlord who didn’t think we could afford it, we then reapplied with some more information (we begged) and we got approved! Then we sorted all the referencing, planned the move in date and everything went to plan. The letting agent was generally much more friendly and much more open about setting a realistic move in date and the work that needed doing and it was just a much more pleasant experience that didn’t feel like fighting.

And here we are! If you have any questions about renting in the UK or anything like that please do let me know! I’m sure I’ll post more updates when we’ve unpacked and started doing as much decorating as we can in a rented property – there’s going to be more shopping, I want to do an Ikea and a B&M trip, I bought a washing up bowl and a drainer and a worktop saver today. It’s all a bit grown up but I kind of love it as much as I resent how much it costs.

I’m starting to feel a bit more relaxed now – everything is slowly falling into place. We’re getting there. I’m getting there.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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October Goals 2019!

2019, goals, student

Hello!

I swear September just didn’t happen? It’s gone before I could really settle into it and it really has been an absolute whirlwind – mostly stress and busy-ness and driving more than I could have possibly imagined driving. I didn’t achieve many of my September Goals because everything was just so manic but I’m rolling with it and using it to make my October Goals more successful! Let’s jump straight in

1. Plan time and stick to it

Having gone back to uni full time and knowing I need to get a part-time job as well as dealing with trying to rent a house and car insurance and hire cars etc, I know now more than ever that planning my time and sticking to it as much as possible is crucial to making sure I get everything done.

Whilst we’re waiting to move, it’s going to be hard and stressful because I’m so overwhelmed but I can only try my best and that’s the important bit.

2. Less frivolous spending

September was tough – preparing to move, then not moving, and having birthday money and sad spending, my bank account is in dire need of a rest.

I’ve been good at taking packed lunches to uni and trying not to spend unnecessarily but when someone suggests Wetherspoons it’s hard to resist! It’s a work in progress but October is a fresh slate and I can only learn from my mistakes!

3. Plan for NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo standings for National Novel Writing Month, I’ve been doing little writing challenges all year to ‘train’ for it and to be honest I don’t feel ready at all so over October I want to plan what I’m doing, plan some backup writing and maybe some prompts for the less inspired days, make sure my account is all set up and link to the ‘planning time effectively’ goal to make sure I can actually give it a fair shot!

4. Move house!

I’ve only mentioned it about three billion times but moving has been a journey and HOPEFULLY (cross all your fingers for us!) we’ll be moving in the middle of October and I need to plan everything.

Prepare for lots of house content! Hopefully! If we actually get to move!

5. Play Overwatch on Switch but moderately

Overwatch is my favourite video game and thus far I’ve only really enjoyed playing on X Box (PC gaming just isn’t for me) but they announced earlier this year that they were releasing it on Switch and I preordered it immediately and I can’t wait for it to come out but it’s meant to be the day we move into the new house so I need to make sure I don’t get caught in a loop of avoiding all my other responsibilities to play this game. Because that’s what happened when I got Pokemon Moon and it didn’t do well for my uni work.

But similarly I also want to give myself time to chill and enjoy this game so that’s important too!

And that’s the plan for the month! A lot happened in September and I feel like I just need to strip it all back, but it might take until November before I feel really settled in our new place and can relax a bit but that’s when the assignments are really going to start piling up so we’ll see how that goes.

Any tips, tricks or words of encouragement would be much appreciated right now because I am a ball of stress!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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I’m moving! | life update | diary 7

2019, lifestyle, student

Hello!

Time for a little life update / little insight into what I get up to day to day at the moment I think!

August has been manic – in July I was accepted by Oxford Brookes University to study MSc Digital Media production, so I knew I’d be moving back to uni and I spent a lot of time wishing it was August to get the ball rolling.

Then my boyfriend passed his driving test, then I passed my driving test, then we arranged a few property viewings in the Oxford/Reading area and then we attended four viewings and by the evening of the second day we’d put a deposit down on a river-facing ground floor flat that we’ve fallen in love with?

So the August I’d been yearning for has literally flown passed – I can’t believe it’s nearly September, we’re moving in like three weeks and I feel over-prepared and in no way prepared at the same time.

My life at the moment is generally working 9-10 hour days in my mum’s office to save for things like hoovers and bed frames and other necessities for an unfurnished flat (I’m so glad I bought sofa’s on gumtree when I was at uni) and then making lots of lists of things I still need to pack, household bills I need to look into and listing all the places I need to change my address.

Really I’m in my element – it’s something I can take responsibility and ownership for and I get to make lots and lots of lists. I’m excited, but it is a little bit daunting too, especially financially – I’ve lived with my mum for a year and part of me feels like I won’t adjust to adult life again, along with the fact my boyfriend is about to start his new job and I think I’m going to be alone most of the time, it does feel a little scary… but I’m trying to focus on the exciting!

I’m going to make a video all about the steps between paying the deposit and picking up the keys nearer the time but it’s all moving very quickly – there’s no free weekends between now and moving and there’s a lot to fit in, but I think I’m on top of it and I think I’ll have enough money to buy essentials (I hope).

Having a birthday literally three days before we move is probably going to come in handy too!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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