Why I Can Never Enjoy ‘Down Time’

I love keeping busy. This is handy, because I pretty much always am.

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day..

I have a full time job, but I only actually work 3 days most weeks, opting for 12 hours shifts over a regular 9-5, and this gives me quite a few days off in the week, which is great, right?

To the untrained eye, yes, but as well as my job, I also publish 5-6 new blog posts a week here, as well as running two small businesses on my own, both of which involve designing and creating the products that I sell, so my days off are dedicated to those commitments first and foremost.

Any blogger reading this knows exactly how much time and effort goes into blogging. A single post can take hours to make perfect, from the writing to photography and editing, and even when the post is live, then comes the promotion. In fact, I reckon its not inaccurate to say that probably 50% of a bloggers work is done on social media, rather than in the actual writing. There’s the tweet scheduling, Instagram posts, flatlays, PR emails, networking in the community and so much more.

Then comes the small business work. I have stock and supplies to order and products to design and create, then there’s packaging and post offices runs to go on, and again all the promotion work that goes alongside it all.

Great things take time..

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do but it can be exhausting. I often feel like my work is never done, or there’s more I should be doing, so if I ever take time out for myself, I end up feeling guilty, or feel like I’m forgetting something important. For this very reason I feel like a lie-in is a waste of time, I can’t just sit and do nothing and if for whatever reason I can’t get any work done – hello creative blocks.. – I end up feeling guilty and stressed.

I know that this probably isn’t healthy, and I’m trying to work on it, but I just really want to be successful in the things that I do, and for me success comes from hard work. I don’t expect things to just be handed to me, and I’m more than happy to work for what I want and I just hate wasting time..

Does anyone else suffer from this problem, or have done in the past?

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October 27, 2017Lottie 2 Comments

Apparently Glasses Aren’t Cool

I’m gonna straight up admit that I will probably rant through this whole post.

I am a proud wearer of glasses. I was 5 or 6 when it was first discovered that I was short-sighted; I was in year 1 of primary school and I was the only person in my class who needed them. I remember the conflict between being annoyed about needing them, and the novelty of having them. I had a bright yellow case that popped open at the press of a button.

I grew up with glasses on my face. My eyesight grew steadily worse, and my style in glasses grew steadily better. I went from round pinky-purple frames (aged 5-7) to blue ovals (aged 8-14) before I started discovered the classic black square frames that I’ve worn to this day.

Never once have I ever considered wearing glasses to be a problem. Sure, I have to awkwardly balance 3D glasses on top of my regular ones at the cinema, I occasionally have to take them off for some rollercoasters, and I wear them into swimming pools so that I can actually see, but I’ve just grown accustomed to that. I have no memory of what it feels like to wake up in the morning and be able to see clearly straight away – unless I’ve fallen asleep in them! – and I forget that normal people can actually see what they’re doing in the shower.

Yes, typically glasses are associated with nerds or older people, but I remember the days when girls in my secondary school were cutting out the 3D part of 3D glasses to wear the frames, and its pretty safe to say that over the last 10 years or so, glasses have become as much of an accessory as they are a necessity.

Both my mum and my aunt got laser eye surgery years ago. I remember my mum having to wear these crazy plastic things over her eyes that made her look like a fly, and I remember them raving about the results. Mum even offered to pay for me to have it when I turned 18, but I didn’t want it. My glasses are part of my look, and I’m quite open about the fact that I prefer how I look with glasses on to without. It was still a relatively new procedure when they had it done, but now laser eye surgery is becoming more popular and advertised, and this is where the spark from this post came from..

The first advertising campaign that came to my attention was for Acuvue contact lenses, and featured BBC presenter Sara Cox. Billboards and bus stop ads were created using phrases like ‘[glasses] wasn’t the look I was going for’ and ‘If I didn’t wear contact lenses.. I wouldn’t be as confident or outgoing’. This stuck a chord with me. I have always been happy wearing glasses, and the implication that glasses isn’t a ‘good look’ isn’t one that I feel companies should be using to try and sell their products. This was just the start though..

While watching some light afternoon TV, I found myself having to pause and remind an advert several times because I could not believe what I was hearing. Optical Express, a UK-wide laser eye surgery, have created an advert that has left me truly offended. As part of their ‘real people experiences’ style approach to TV advertising, the ad describes people wearing glasses as ‘unattractive’, ‘tired’, ‘old’ and ‘restricted’, while post-surgery you can feel ‘free’, ‘sophisticated’ and ‘happy’.

I actually felt my face go red with annoyance. How any company can be degrading to those who have absolutely no say in their eyesight is beyond me. Its like telling someone in a wheelchair that they’d be cooler if they walked around.

I am not restricted. I am not unattractive. I am not unsophisticated and I do not look tired or old. What I am is thoroughly annoyed. Sell your surgery to someone who cares.

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July 18, 2017Lottie 2 Comments

Getting Out of my Comfort Zone

For someone who puts a great deal of their life and opinions online, in reality, I can be a painfully shy and awkward person, and I can really struggle with low confidence and self-esteem.

My blog, and the community of people that I have met through blogging has played an enormous part of bringing me out of my shell, and while it might sound silly, I actually surprise myself with some of the things I’ve achieved. So I’ve decided to push the boat further!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been coming up with a list of things that I want to do, or start doing, to push my comfort zone limits and boost my confidence – call it a comfort zone bucket list, if you will..

Take part in a different Twitter chat every week

I’m so bad at remembering Twitter chats! I used to make such an effort to take part in a few, but over the last year or so I just haven’t had the time and lost my confidence a little. I always see a bunch of great chats going on, or being promoted, so I’m gonna make a real effort to try some new ones out and get chatting to some more lovely bloggers!

Post a photo in a swimsuit on my blog/social media

Last year was the first year in a LONG time that I wore a bikini in front of my friends, and it felt so good, but I definitely think my body confidence has dropped again since the start of this year. I absolutely LIVE for seeing people on Twitter and Instagram strutting their stuff and loving their bodies in summer outfits and swimwear though, so I want to become one of those girls.

More Insta-vlogging

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot more vlog-style Instagram stories – unboxings, general chats etc – and I’ve really been enjoying them. It might not seem like much of a step for confidence, but I have struggled with listening to the sound of my own voice for as long as I can remember; the reason I tend to turn to a keyboard rather than a microphone is courtesy of the lisp I’ve had since childhood, and while in day to day life I forget it exists, when I have to hear myself back it can be hard for me.

Sharing more workouts

This year I have LOVED my Glass Slipper Camp series. I had so much fun creating the workouts, filming and writing these posts, and better still is the great response I’ve had from my amazing readers, so I want to do more! They might not all be blog posts, maybe photos, Instagram stories or even live streams from the gym, I just want to share more of my fitness journey and show what I’m capable of.

Post more selfies

On the rare occasion I do stop to take a selfie, it rarely gets shared. Normally it’ll sit on my phone for a little while until I decide to do a photo clear out and then will get deleted along with the random screenshots and weird photos that appear in my camera roll courtesy of strange Whatsapp group chats. No more! Now its time to put my face out there, whether people appreciate it or not..

Blog more about what’s actually going on in my life

The last time I did a Twitter poll asking what content people would like to see more of, the unanimous winner was ‘Personal/Life’ posts, and while I feel like I do publish a lot of post where I witter on about topics that pop into my head, I haven’t posted much recently about what’s going on for me at the moment, and change will be afoot very soon so I’m gonna make sure I’m sharing a lot more.

Experiment more with makeup

While I can go weeks without putting on any makeup (other than my eyebrows, duh), I do love doing my makeup. And while I love playing around and trying different looks with makeup when I’m sat at home, I rarely push the boat out when it comes to my day to day face, so I want to mix things up a bit more; find the courage to do brighter, bolder looks, wear different lipsticks etc.

If you have any tips for getting out of the comfort zone, drop me a comment, and if not, wish me luck!

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July 3, 2017Lottie 2 Comments

My Blogging Break

This has probably on the whole gone unnoticed, but there has been a lack of any new posts for the last week due to my decision to take a little blogging break. Well, I’m back!

A week may not seem like much of a break for some, but the fact is since October 2015 up until last week, I published at least 5 new blog posts a week. In fact, since October 2015, I have posted 525 blog posts, which averages out to 25 posts a month. Posts have been written come rain or shine, hell I even tend to post daily when I’m on holiday! And while I’m super proud of this achievement, the fact is I’ve never taken a break in all that time.

You may have remembered back at the end of April I ummed and ahhed about taking a break – hell, I even shared my pro/con list! – but even then I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The decision was finally made, however, following a week of pretty poor blog stats, and while I try not to take a bad week to heart too much, it was my worst week for blog views for quite some time, and this time I did take it personally. That, combined with being so busy doing overtime at work to save money, and feeling a little bit down about life in general, I figured now more than ever was the right time to do it.

I’m not gonna lie, I did not find it easy.

To me, it felt like failure. I tried to focus on the benefits of the break, but after two days when I didn’t find things getting any easier, or any more creative juices flowing, I started to worry that it would be more than a week of this torture.

I tried to sit down and write, but I couldn’t find words. I had a few ideas, but while normally I spill the contents of my brain without much thought to the matter, my fingers just weren’t moving over the keys, and I was just staring at a blank screen. Writing and blogging has been such a big part of my life, I was now starting to feel like something was missing. Being a blogger is part of my identity and I was feeling lost without it. I tried to think of ‘easy’ posts; lists, product reviews, the stuff that I can normally bash out fairly quickly, but even then I couldn’t do it. It all felt forced.

Some things, however, did me some good. I spent a day scrolling through my blog to add to my document of scheduled tweets, re-discovering some old favourites in the process. I stopped obsessively checking my blog stats, and that probably did me a world of good. I went to the gym, I ate healthy, and I binge-watched TV.

On Saturday afternoon, I finally managed to put fingers to keys and managed to write two posts. It was time to be back, and if I’m a honest I’m actually a little nervous, but I’m hoping getting back into things will be smooth sailing! There are going to be quite a few changes in my life over the coming weeks and months, but this little corner of the internet of mine will always bring me so much happiness, and I hope you’ll continue to share it with me!

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June 26, 2017Lottie 12 Comments

London After Terror

Yesterday, I went on a little day trip to London. It was something that I’d had planned for a good few months, and I was really looking forward to it. Then the attacks happened.Even after seeing the news of the attacks all over social media before going to bed, it never once occurred to me that I shouldn’t still continue with my trip, but when I woke up in the morning and read more and more tweets about the situation, I started to feel a little nervous about my day, but I still did my makeup, put on a nice dress and walked in the sunshine to the coach station.

I must admit, I’m always a little cautious when I’m in London. I know the underground system well, and I have no issue getting around, but after having my purse stolen about 18 months ago, I tend to stay a little bit more alert than I used to, and yesterday was no different. I walked from Victoria coach station to the main train station, went to Costa to grab some breakfast and sat people watching while I waited to meet Sarah. And what did I see?

I saw Londoners and non-Londoners, all going about their Sundays as if it was any other day. I didn’t hear anyone panicking or worrying about their day, and I didn’t feel like the station felt any different to how it has on every other trip I’ve made to this place. I saw families with small children enjoying the last day of their half terms; running, laughing, smiling. I needed to see this. I instantly felt calmed by the calm of a Sunday in London.

The recent attacks in Manchester, London, and all over the world are horrifying. It breaks my heart that innocent lives are being lost, and it breaks my heart seeing innocent people blamed for the actions of a few sick people, but we must remain strong. While we still continue living our lives, and loving those around us, they will never win.

I saw someone on Twitter refer to the scene in Harry Potter when Dumbledore dies, and everyone raises their wands to outshine the Dark Mark in the sky, but there’s another quote that for me seems more appropriate:

‘You have a power that Voldemort has never had. You can love.’

Don’t let terror defeat love.