Journeys Are My Diary

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

September Round-up

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sept

Watching: I watched so much this month! Here’s the list; Jessica Jones (Series 1), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Series 1 & 2), Shadow Hunters (only a few episodes so far), The Shanara Chronicles (Series 1), Containment (weekly episodes), GBBO (weekly episodes), X-Factor (weekly episodes), The Purge 1 & 2 movies, The Smurfs, Criminal Minds (Seasons 2-11 and started 12), Suits (Season 6, weekly episodes), New Girl (weekly episodes), Designated Survivor (weekly episodes), plus the usual Casualty, Holby City and whatever else I normally watch! I of course started watching OUAT when it restarted too!
Sewing & Making (for Closet Geek): The second September started, so did Halloween orders. I’ve mostly been making Wendy dresses, but there has been a few Belle and Briar Rose thrown in there too. I also made a Jane dress for Liv to take to WDW and a boys Peter Pan costume. Other than that, it’s been the usual bows, pencil cases, bunting etc.

And in other news…
– Megan started Secondary School (which was major news) and Lily went back to school.
– Amy and Liv came to visit for the weekend.
– Nat moved out.
– Megan started helping me out with Closet Geek. It was hard work the first time but on her inset day she was a massive help.
– I ordered Rent on DVD and found out my Patronus on Pottermore was a Red Squirrel.
– It got cold. Like suddenly. Summer is definitely over.
– I watched a TON of TV this month (mostly Netflix) and worked pretty much constantly due to the amount of orders pouring in.

Looking forward to in October:
– I want to say orders calming down but I know they will still flood in for most of October, for the Halloween rush. Even when they do calm down, I have prep for Christmas Market to do but even still I would like to make a start on that.
– Half term. We don’t have anything planned but its nice when the girls have a week off as I don’t have to turn out every day and occasionally get a lie-in.
– Mine and Chris’ anniversary. It’s not really a big deal and it’s not for a wedding or anything, just dating, but this October we have been together 4 years.

The Best Entertainment Apps to Download Right Now

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Now with smart phones and tablets taking over the digital world, it’s more important than ever to stay on top of things. Although we have our basic apps to take care of the every-day basics, we’re often left using our devices as means of entertainment. However a few weeks without checking the charts, or asking ‘What’s new’, and we feel lost. That’s where we come in to play. We’re bringing you the best- old and new- apps to download right now. Your social life might take a hit, but who wants one anyway? Especially when you can cosy up in bed with your wide selection of apps to keep you occupied, right?

New Apps to Consider:

The Pickle Index

The Pickle Index is a story-based game that allows you to play a host of mini games. The narrative involves a dictatorship, and it’ll leave you hooked for days. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Sports Apps

Whether you like it or not sports has, and always will have its place in the entertainment world. With Wimbledon, Euro 2016, NBA Finals and many more major sporting events taking place, browse the sports entertainment options. You can keep up with statistics, highlights, games and special features. If that’s not enough there’s dozens of slots to pick from on brilliant casino and e-sports sites.

Genius

Have you ever been left up at night, listening to music, questioning the meaning of life? We all have. Just what did that artist mean, we wonder. Well, Genius allows you to look at the meaning behind over 1.7 million of your most favourite songs. Whether it’s that significant R&B song you can’t get out of your head, or that hard-hitting rap verse, you can find out exactly what Alicia Keys and Drake have been telling you via your headphones all along.

Soon

We all still crave some old-fashioned entertainment, right? Whether you’re looking to organise the old, or new, entertainment you want to explore, Soon is the app for you. It lets you make a list of things you keep saying you’ll see to ‘soon’. Whether that be television shows, films to analyse, books to read, songs to listen to, it puts it all in one place. If that’s not enough, you can explore the things that everybody else is planning on doing. What’s not to like.

The Moron Test

The Moron Test allow you to play a host of games, and challenges, and ones that really test your basic intelligence. It’s great fun, but even better to watch as your friends and family struggle to master the basics you did with ease [obviously]/

Netflix

Netflix is still the king of entertainment apps. You can watch it via your iPhone or iPad, and the app recommends TV shows and films based on your preferences. There’s new series, exclusively owned by Netflix, and many movies, or kids’ shows you’ve been dying to watch again. Netflix has, and always will, be the king of entertainment apps.

Enjoy your entertainment-filled summer, guys.

 

TV Binge – Making a Murderer

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If you’re anything like me (and I hate to admit I’m a bit of a sheep) when the internet starts talking about something or other, I want to know what they’re on about. Sometimes I miss the original wagon (like Orange is the New Black, I binged season 1, when 2 came out) but occasionally I’m just late and I run to catch up! Last week and the week before there was a lot of fuss about something called “Making a Murderer”, a tv series on Netflix and of course that meant that I had to find out what everyone was talking about!

The show is a 10 part documentary, all about a man called Steven Avery. It follows through the story of his life – his original arrest, wrongful imprisonment and eventual release. It then goes on to cover a murder he was arrested for, his arrest again and his now imprisonment again.

I have to admit, a part of me doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. The documentary was pretty interesting but in parts it dragged and when you were binge watching, some of it was a little repetitive. However the story line itself was fascinating and I completely see why it lead people to speculate as to whether or not Steven (and in turn his nephew) were really guilty or not.

I personally, don’t think he was. Obviously this is going to split opinion and of course the documentary was definitely biased towards showing his innocence rather than proving his guilt. However I genuinely don’t think Steven is smart enough to commit this sort of a crime, let alone his nephew being involved.

Whatever you do or don’t believe after watching it, its definitely an interesting in watch. I read this week that there is a possibility of a new series, documenting from where it picked up onwards – but I suppose more time will need to pass before that happens. If Steven is innocent, will he ever get the chance to prove it and be released again? I suppose that would make for a good series. However if he doesn’t get that chance or he really is guilty, then I don’t suppose there is much more that can be said!

Guest Post – Fat, Sick but not dead thanks to Joe Cross

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This is my personal story on how Netflix changed my life for the better, yes TV made me fitter.

I was 32 years old at the time and worked in an office all day. Little time for exercise but plenty of excuses why I couldn’t go to the gym or lose weight. I had eaten my way through too many of life’s indulgencies and was fast approaching the 18 stone barrier. I’m a tall chap but still 18 stone wow how did that happen?

I had become oblivious to my appearance and poor lifestyle choices it was all second nature by then. Takeaways were a daily option and I never really did anything but eat what was put in front of me. Even the buffet joints were scared to see me (I wish I was joking).

Joe Cross Changed my life

A friend, a really good friend told me about this documentary by a guy called Joe Cross on Netflix  who had been in a similar situation to me and had changed his life by juicing for 30 days.
So with little to stop me watching it I logged in to my Netflix account and started watching it. Straight away I had a bond with this Joe guy, he had a disease too but other than that our lives had seemed to take very similar paths. He was a businessman I was a businessman, he’d over-indulged, so had I.


Joe went on to explain the power of juicing and I had tried every fad diet there was but it all comes back eventually so after watching it I went and made my first juice.

It tasted ok, I didn’t rely on a recipe so the balance was a bit off, lots of kale will do that for you (ughhh)

So my journey in to juicing started

I quickly found some great juicing recipes online and bookmarked a website called Vitality4Life just because they had everything I needed. I was quickly becoming addicted to juicing. I did a full reboot for 2 weeks to begin with and astonishingly in just 3 days I had already dropped a massive and unbelievable 15lbs. I’ve never lost that much weight so quickly, not ever! Over the next 2 weeks I was done to less than 16 stone, 2 stone gone that’s like a small child or medium sized dog.

Unfortunately after 2 weeks of juicing 4-5 times a day my poor old 1980’s hand-me-down Kenwood juicer/blender died. I was gutted she had become my best friend, because of her I had lost all this weight.

I started to do some research online and on that Vitality4Life website found a juicer comparison video.

I hadn’t known there was such a thing as a cold press juicer but after watching the video and doing some more research realized this was the juicer for me. I ordered the Oscar NEO 1000 cold press juicer from their website which arrived the following day.

What a difference a cold press juicer made

It’s not just sick looking it’s a belter of a juicer. It makes juicing easier too. Dead simple to clean afterwards and is a lot quieter to my beloved Kenwood (RIP).

Nearly 12 months on and I am now 13 stone or just under depending on my week (still have the odd takeaway) so that’s 5 stone I’m free of. To put that in perspective that’s the equivalent of a dining room table, solid oak front door or your entire collection of pots and pans.

I’m rebooting when I need such as after Christmas or before I go on holiday but really as long as I keep juicing pretty much daily the weight stays off. I still eat but just less junk and I’m not yo-yoing all over the place.

I hope that you find this blog inspiring, juicing really isn’t a fad and I owe it all to Joe Cross, my friend who recommended his documentary and Netflix, oh and my two juicers.

Orange is the new Black

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Have you seen all the fuss about Orange is the new Black this week? Apparently its the thing to be watching right now…

Well I’d never even heard of it before this last weekend. That was until it flooded my Facebook feed, with people saying how they were festing and gorging on the new season of it on Netflix. Of course, you wouldn’t be human if that didn’t at least make you a little curious, and so I decided to see what all the fuss is about.

We have Netflix and of course because its all the talk of the town at the moment, the option to watch it actually came straight up as I looked in. Two Seasons apparently. Both with 13 episodes.

In order to write this post, I actually looked the TV series up on the net. IMDB has it with an overall rating of 8.5. Wikipedia tells me that its a TV series, first released onto Netflix on July 11th 2013, based on memoirs of a Piper Kerman, called “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison”. Knowing that now, makes me realised that the show (at least in part) must be based on facts, not just fiction. I’m not entirely sure if that makes me like it more or less…

So far, I’ve watched 3 episodes. They are titled; I Wasn’t Ready, Tit Punch and Lesbian Request Denied. For a comedy, I wouldn’t say it has had me laughing especially. Perhaps I’m just not far enough into it, or maybe I just don’t have the right sense of humour? But either way I’m not sold as yet. No doubt I’ll continue watching and see what happens, but I don’t hold out much hope.

Do you watch Orange is the new Black? What do you think of it?