Calorific!

As a total food lover, I usually over-eat, especially whilst I am at uni. This means that I am now about a stone and half over what I should be so this is my aim: to shift some good old belly-fat!

Start Weight: 10 stone 12 pounds

Height: 5"4

Weight Aim: 9 stone.

Calorie daily intake to maintain weight: 2254

Calorie daily intake to lose this weight: 1504

Keep me reminded of these goals please!! Will keep you all posted.

X

Easter Celebrations

Sorry for lack of posting, I am in my last month of university and my life has literally become: Sleep, Food, Tea, Work, Food, Tea, TV, Work, Food, TV, Insanity, Tea, Food, Sleep and so on...

But thought I would update you on Lent. ITS OVERRR!! And I hope you all did well, if you gave up anything for Lent yourselves. For my part, it was tough but I managed to complete Lent without having a mug of tea, and it feels so good! By the end people were asking me why I didn't just give, but I wanted to complete something well, and feel proud that I managed it!! It was also a matter of self-control, which I usually fail at, so it was good to have some achievement in this.

But most importantly, what I think now, is the day that Lent ended. Not because I could finally enjoy a mug of hot tea (although that was good), or enjoy my friends wedding and dedications, but because Easter Sunday represented for me, the time when Christ died for me (and you all) and then rose again, all so that my sins and rubbish could be fixed and forgiven! Its wonderful news.

I hope you are all well, I have had a lot of profile views, but not any more followers, please click the follow button if you see this and haven't already!!

HAPPY EASTER!!

X

Confessions of a tea-drinker

Thought I would update you on how lent is going.

As I said in an earlier post, I decided to give up drinking tea for lent this year, as frankly, I have far too much of it.

It has actually been more difficult than I imagined, having replaced tea with hot water or hot chocolate, both of which I like, I still miss tea an awful lot! I usually come down for my toast at breakfast, go to the kettle, get out a mug and find- "Oh No! No tea for me, hot water it is!" or so on. Luckily we have run out teabags in the house anyway, but it has still been a struggle.

We have 2 weeks left until lent finishes, and although it has been tempting, I am glad that I have so far managed to steer away from tea. It has bought me an unintended source of satisfaction so far knowing that I can complete something well.

How is Lent going for you all? Comments please!

Yorkshire Glory!

Today, me and my friend Katie went and explored one of the wonders of Yorkshire: Castle Howard. Having already been once before, I was looking forward to it as I know its beauty. To get there, we had to get an hour bus through the countryside which was, to say the least, very bumpy. BUT we did get to see some very young lambs and calves as we whizzed through the countryside- soo cute! Similar to the ones on Lambing Live that has been on the BBC this week actually.

Having finally arrived, we headed to the main house. More like a Manor, Castle Howard is a huge beauty, and me and Katie were rather excited. Katie saw a lake, and kept on calling Colin Firth to arrive out of it.

The interior of Castle Howard is decorated beautifully, the with birds painted on wallpaper, and marble statues placed everywhere. Unfortunately, the main dome was ruined by a fire in 1940, so it was re-constructed, but some of the original paintings were lost.

We then payed for a rather expensive but yummy lunch, and having stuffed ourselves on chicken pie and cheesecake, walked around the grounds for the rest of the afternoon. It was truly lovely, the sun was out, the daffodils were in bloom and spring is really in the air!

I really would recommend going to Castle Howard. I have been twice now and both times the house and grounds have really spoke to me of the workmanship and beauty that God can create, through man and nature. Go, I tell you, go!

Adios for now, but here's a few pictures of the place :)

Beautiful wallpaper
My dream bookshelf!

Past times

This afternoon I have been taking some time out from university work, and have instead been enjoying the 1995 version of Little Women. Such a wonderful film, I watched it many times as I was growing up and used to pretend that I was in fact Jo.

The 1995 film version of the novel is a wonderful adaptation, and I particularly loved the acting of Clare Danes, Winona Ryder and in fact the whole family. The scene which shows Clare Dane's character, Beth, is particularly moving and I can't help but end up sobbing every time I watch it.

Watch this version if you can. I hadn't seen it in a while, but watching it this afternoon I remembered again why I love it so much.

Farewell amigos,

Library musings

Sitting in the library, trying to do some work for an essay due in tomorrow.

BUT: I keep getting distracted- what a surprise!

Four guys are giggling like girls in front of me, looking at something on their laptop.

And I can't but help nebbing.

Also, I have been looking at curly hairstyles. Since I had a hair-cut-disaster, Ive been waiting for it to grow so I can get it re-styled to something that is presentable without a headband.

In the meantime, I am looking at pictures of curly hair, if you could find any decent ones I would be forever grateful!!

Here's a couple or three:

All pictures from hair.becomegeorgeous.com

Now on with some more work...

xx

Gustav Klimt, inspiration

I've just been looking over some wonderful Gustav Klimt paintings, here's a few from the delicious selection that I looked at.

P.S: This post seems to be getting a lot of traffic, what do you all think? Aren't his works beautiful? Comments please! X

Lent.

So I decided to give up tea for lent. As an avid tea drinker, this has become a quest and a mission, but I am managing ok. So far I have been able to stay off the normal tea, and have only had green tea twice. Considering I usually drink around 3-5 cups of tea, I think 40 days of no tea should be a fantastic detox!

5 days down, 35 to go.

Talk to me, what else are people giving up for lent?

What I'm watching

The Apprentice:

This hilarious business competition has bought me a lot of laughs. The quote of the week this episode (10), was from Alan Sugar when he was trying to curb Stewart's 'enthusiasm':

"a fly's got enthusiasm but that doesn't stop him head-butting a window!"Apart from not really making any sense, this just simply made me laugh.

But the best this series came from Alex: "If I was an apple-pie, the apples inside would be orange". Classic!!

A is for...

A is for animals, Africa

B is for books, beach, the Bible

C is for colour, cats, the cross, chocolate, countryside

D is for duvets, dogs

E is for eggs

F is for friends, family, food, films

G is for God, growth

H is for the Holy Spirit

I is for ice-cream, internet, Ipswich Town football club

J is for Jesus

K is for kiwi fruit

L is for love

M is for music, mayonnaise

N is for noise, Noah

O is for owls, oooooo

P is for picnics, peace, postcards, perfume, POP-corn

Q is for quiet

R is for red, reading

S is for singing, scarfs

T is for toast, tea, trombones

U is for umbrellas

V is for violin

W is for water, warmth , stevie Wonder

X is for x-rays

Y is for Yahtzee!!

Z is for zebras

Oh Austen...

So I am a Pride and Prejudice fan. Whether you agree with me or not, it cannot be mistaken that Austen's words are well loved:

"He's a fine as gentleman as I ever saw. He simpers and smirks and makes love to us all."

"I shouldn't know your locket if I saw it- I care nothing for such baubles."

"I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with you as ever."

"How long have you been in love with him?'. 'I believe I must date it from when I first saw his beautiful grounds at Pemberley!"

"My feelings are...I am ashamed to remember what I said then...In fact they are quite the opposite".

"...such I might have been if it were not for you. Dearest loveliest Elizabeth."

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Also I do not see why we can't enjoy both film and BBC productions, as well as the novel. :)

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School

This week, I have become a secondary school teacher!

Not really, but I have been observing, and it has opened my eyes. I am 20, yet one asked if I was 15, another 24, another married and then finally I was asked if I was inspecting! Think they must of thought I was Ofsted or something ha! No child, not quite.

I sat in listening to classes of excitable year 7's (and the rest), depressed year 13's doing coursework, non-uniform day (which was even more crazy), drama classes, music classes, general studies. I was mainly there for the english as that is what I am looking to do, but it was interesting to see other subjects as well.

Anyway, I wont bore you any longer with this,

Hope you are well, (whoever you are)

Adios!

Soul in Music

Henry James- and his Love.

As you probably know by now, I am an English Literature student. Part of this means studying authors I wouldn't necessarily read if otherwise. Enter: Henry James. I am ashamed to admit that before this week I had never read anything by him, and Oh! what I have clearly missed!

As part of a module I am taking this term, Early 20th century writing, I read James's The Beast in the Jungle this week. It is a romanticised love tale, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, once I had got used to Henry James' writing style. It tells of a man who spends his life looking for something, with his female friend, May. The most terrible part of this story however, is that he doesn't recognise her love until it is too late, when she has died. (If I had been on my own in the house when I read this, I probably would have sobbed).

The theme of waiting is prevalent through this tale, as we find that May waits for him to recognise that she loves him. This recognition made me wonder how many of us go through our lives waiting for the recognition of love from that person we love? I am thankful to say that I do not include myself in this, as I have been lucky in love and have not had to wait all my life to find that special relationship and a recognition of it. Yes, 'the power of love' is great, but I wonder whether many people have actually been as consumed by it as our Mr Marcher here was by the not knowing of it?

And yes, I know Mr Marcher is a fictional character, but I do believe that Henry James was trying to convey a possible realistic situation.

I wonder.

Likes

So I realised that it is all very well and good reading a blog about someone, but wouldn't it be better if you a knew a little more about me first? So without assuming you want to know, without being egotistical and annoying like that, here's some basic facts.

My likes:

1) Spending time with my loved ones. (You know who you are, enough said.)

2) Music; music of the soul, and that which tells a tale- Funky deep stuff, Folk and Country tales, Classical emotions and Gospel- God-loving worship. Favourite artists include: Stevie Wonder, Kirk Franklin, Tim McGraw, Alison Krauss, Faith Hill, Joan Baez, Nanci Griffith, Joni Mitchell, Amp Fiddler, Relient K, Paulo Nutini, Jamie Cullum, Afro Strut and many more. Music is a wonderful thing, it fills the soul with a strange feeling, you can cry to it, laugh to it, dance to it, chill to it. It is not greed to enjoy spending time with music, it is a gift given which I intend to enjoy more of.

3) Literature- (yes, I am an arts girl)- The classics- Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare, and more recent authors- Toni Morrison for example. Literature is, (or should I say arts in general?) like music in that it brings out the genius that is the soul. It is also extremely wonderful as it has culture in it that we cannot imagine- there is soo much depth to it and I take my hat off to most successful writers.

4) Film nights with my pals. Recently, me and my friend Emily watched part of Notting Hill. The writing is so witty I laugh every time I watch it. "Oh I don't believe it. My life ruined because I don't read Hello magazine." Classic.

5) Having a relationship with my Lord God, who is a God of Love and more than a guy in the sky. "Yeh, I said it," in the words of Stevie Wonder at Glastonbury this year!

6) Travelling. Unfortunately this year I have been unable to travel, as it became time to get a job and earn some dosh. In the past though, I have visited quite a lot of Europe as I got to go on tour with my then Youth Orchestra.

So there you have it! Some of my 'likes'. Forgive me if this has seemed that I have assumed you would be interested, but hopefully my writings in the future will make more sense now you know some of what I am/hope to do.

Logging off now, time for bed, work tomorrow!

Love

"Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho stretched from sky to sky."- Anon

What a beautiful poem.

Interesting People.

The other day I met the most interesting man on the train to York, I still can't get over what a successful life he'd had.
The strange experience began on my way to York- it was a busy train so I was forced to take whatever seat I could get. Thankfully, the man next to the free seat was very friendly.
For a while we just sat minding our own business, however, we soon entered a very long but intriguing conversation.

This man, around 80 or more I would say, ended up telling me his life story, which was amazing. At 18, he signed up to the Navy (this was during WW2). He quickly explained that you could either volunteer to sign up and have the choice of which force you went into, or be taken and signed up and not have the option. So he volunteered, and was in the Navy for 7 years.After this, he became a teacher for 15 years or so,and enjoyed it. However, he told me that he had "always had a bee in [his] bonnet" and wanted to work on a nature reserve. After he had got bored of teaching, he decided to follow this bee and go into the nature reserve buisness. After trying to get a job form many reserves, he wrote a letter to (what he called) English Nature. I realise now that it must have been the National Trust or something like that, anyhow, they replied in a form of a 'polite' letter saying that thankyou but he was not the sort of person that they employed.
Still reading? Good, cause this is where it gets interesting.
After failing to secure a job working for a nature reserve, he managed to somehow get a piece of land 5 miles long, from a local council. He turned it into a nature reserve himself, for many years enjoyed lecturing people about the reserve and showing groups of children the nature that evolved. He even wrote a book about the nature reserve.
One day, the same company that had declined his application wrote to him asking him if they could quote his book when they were writing their own official book!
With a wife and three 'successful' children, (one with a tudor house in sussex and a second house in france, and one who makes more in a day than his father ever made in a year), I wondered how this man had managed such a life? I also wondered what 'success' actually is? Is it all these things, or should it simply be how happy you are?