Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

I moved my blog!!

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So at the end of last year, I decided I wanted to move my blog from Blogger to WordPress. I initially started by transferring Twice the Mum (sort of testing out the water as to how easy it might be) and then I finally found time to move my own blog!

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I am now settled into my space, working on my layout (but mostly done) and starting to think what this new year on my blog will bring. I am behind on my Disney Countdown, my Monday Round-up and a couple of reviews too. I will be attempting to catch up with those as soon as possible, before updating with my new year goals for both my blog and my life.

I hope you’ll all bear with me for the next week, as I double check everything is working and get back into the swing of things!

Spring Clean Your Life!

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So last week, we entered into Spring, officially. The weather does seem to have improved a little, at least in temperature, though we are getting early April showers too! Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about weight loss, about appearance and about myself generally.

Now before you all think I’m being extremely selfish, I don’t mean it in that way at all. However as a mum to two young girls, for a long time now I’ve never really bothered to put myself first – for me time or pampering. As such I realised I’ve become a little too nonchalant with the effort I put in at times and with Spring already here and Summer on its way, I’ve decided to Spring Clean my life!

The first step is definitely to get on board with some weight loss. I’ve been yo-yoing on it since the beginning of the year but I really need to put some effort into trying to lose some weight. My friend Nat and I have decided we will be blogging about our weight loss in a feature called Weight Loss Wednesday, over at our new parenting and lifestyle blog – Twice the Mum. We’re hoping that making ourselves publicly accountable will motivate us to stick at it.

However on top of that, I want to try some pampering luxuries that I’ve never been bothered to try before.

I’ve been a Lush addict for quite some time now, but I’ve never taken the time to try any of the other companies that people rave about. Soap and Glory, Benefit, Mac, Urban Decay, Barry M, to name but a few. I’ve also been stuck using Lou Lou Blue as a perfume for probably… gosh… over 10 years?

I’m going to broaden my horizons, probably spend a whole lot more than I should, but finally find some little luxuries that are all about me!

So please, if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears! In the upcoming weeks I’m going to try at least one nail polish from Barry M (I think the new silks range, or perhaps gelly ones!), hopefully buy an Urban Decay palette that I really wanted and didn’t justify spending the money on, and maybe even get a new scent! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the best products from each brand I’ve mentioned (and even ones I haven’t) and point me in the right direction of where to get them for a good price!

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Hair we go again!

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know I’ve been having a few hair dilemmas recently. Not that it bothers me particularly, but hey… you got to document it right?

In October 2013, I dyed my hair black for a halloween murder mystery. I used Nice and Easy semi permanent, though unfortunately it did not wash out… ever! By January I was pretty bored of being black haired. I wasn’t too fussed it hasn’t washed out, but it was just very dull! I decided that perhaps if I added an ombré effect, it might become a bit more interesting!

Though I originally planned to do the standard dark to light ombré, while in the shop I spotted a red version. I tried this out but to no avail! Now with the bug to do something different with my hair, it wasn’t long before I got the other type of ombré dye and tried that instead. Sadly that didn’t work out either and just gave me the odd ginger and blonde patch underneath! Finally I resorted to a hair dye stripper and while I wouldn’t say it was 100% successful, it did at least shift the majority of the black!

Finally I thought I was finished messing with my hair, but apparently not! My best friend Nat text me, saying she was bored with her hair. Jokingly I suggested she dyed the tips pink and next you know, we’re both doing it!

Dip Dying your hair is super easy. First plait it in low bunches. Place your bobble where you want to dye downwards from (make sure they are level in the mirror!). With a hair bleach/lightener, apply dye to hair under bobble. Make sure you really coat it, being careful to get it all on the insides. Cover with tin foil so it isn’t messy while you wait! (Note: when looking for a hair bleach/lightener, make sure you purchase one that states “x” levels lighter, not just a blonde dye).

When your 30 minutes (or whatever the instructions tell you) are up, rinse the ends very well. You should have blonde ends now, or at least very lightened ones. To really benefit from the colour you’re adding, dry your hair at this stage and apply the next dye to dry hair.

My friend Nat picked the dye and she wanted pink. Sadly you don’t get many permanent pink dyes and at short notice she couldn’t find any. As such we ended up with semi-permanent but eventually when this fades or washes out we can always re-do it. Anyway, apply the colour hair dye, exactly the same way – from the bobbles down. Again wrap in tin foil so its less messy while you wait.

When your time is up, rinse out, use the conditioner etc. and you’re done. This is the finished look! Of course there are ways to vary this and different things you can do, but you get the jist.

I’ve now washed my hair a couple of times since and its actually gone red. However it doesn’t especially bother me and I still like it. I know I’ve messed around with my hair a lot recently and when I bleached it in the first step, it really only lightened a little (and even then was gingery!). The fact the dye was only semi permanent, mixed with my original hair colour, is probably to blame for its transformation to red. I have no idea what colour I might dye the ends next, if I decide to change!

 

New House – #1 We are moving

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Though its something we’ve been pondering for a while, its now official – we are moving. I am leaving my beautiful, cosy and well loved village of Saxilby, to move to a house I can’t exactly say I’m in love with, in Gainsborough.

Those of you who follow my blog regularly, will probably know that I live in a lovely little village that I’m very happy in. I’ve lived in five different houses here and every time I move out of the village, I end up moving back. However the time has come to pack up the boxes once more and move to my partner’s house in Gainsborough – a house which needs a lot of work.

A long story short is basically that my partner has a house he bought (i.e. a mortgage) located in Gainsborough. I have a house I rent in Saxilby. For the last six months we have been living in mine and yet struggling to pay for both. We’d considered moving to his house several times, but to be honest its a house that needs a lot of work doing on and is also the place I had my car and handbag stolen last December (less about that said the better). As an alternative we decided to do up his house, while living in mine, taking the next year to get it ready to sell, basically re-doing the whole house (I really am not lying when I tell you its a huge work in progress – originally bought as a project house and having had hardly anything done to it since). However as time goes on, finances, changes to jobs and so on, its become more and more viable to move into his house and only pay one lot of bills. We’d been doing up the loft room anyway, with a view to starting at the top and working down, and so far its taken us about 6-7 weeks and we’re not even done with that one room. Its not been an easy decision to make but it has now been made. For the next year we will live in Gainsborough, do up the house and then sell it. When it finally sells we will move back to Saxilby, hopefully buying a house there that can be ours for life (or whatever that means these days).

I’m definitely glad about the decision and I feel that its the right one, but that’s not to say I’m a hundred percent happy with the decision. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, even before we move in. Right now the place is not only badly decorated and finished, its also full of clutter, mess and really quite dirty. Its also very much a boys house, not a family house. We plan to move towards the end of July and as such we have a lot of things on our “To do” list before then. Right now we need to finish the goddamn loft room, so we can move onto the lounge and outside garden as priorities. The girls room will also be one of the most important to sort out. I’m fairly confident that we’ll get everything done, but at the same time I do know its a really huge job. Our lives are going to be a bit upside down for the next year or so, but I’m hoping it will be worth it in the end. What I could really do with would be a Man With A Van, making the actual moving process easier, in preparation for the nightmare of doing up the actual house itself!

To end on, I googled up our new house. I found some creepy stalker information (like the 3 times its been sold and how much for) but also some pictures. Figured I’d share them with you as I document our transition from our current house to the new one.

This is from Google streetview, taken 2011

These are all floor plans of the house. They’re obviously still accurate as not much changes with regards to a floor plan and they are done after the loft conversion anyway – FYI a really badly done loft conversion.

Finally I’ll leave you with this picture of the lounge which I also found. I can absolutely assure you that it doesn’t look this nice any more…