Weekend shenanigans

Ever have one of those weekends when you wake up on Monday morning questioning whether or not any of it actually happened? 

Saturday started quietly enough, a lie in, some netflix then a trip to gym to jump in the jacuzzi.  I went for lunch, and then got ready for a night in a castle.

Yes, a castle!!

With land around it, and deer roaming free.

And sheep.

And more deer.

I was picked up, outfit in bag, by two goddesses fully dressed in glitter, sequins, corsets and fancy tights!

We made our way to the castle to find a gaggle of girls already there and ready to party.

We got dressed in our finest and proceeded to the dining room (table sat 20 +) and then had a few nibbles and some champagne.

Then it was time for a burlesque lesson. 

We learned how to shimmy and shake, how to bump and grind.  We learned how to make an entrance into the room, and how to look suitably coy if people are watching us!

We learned the ancient art of nipple tassle twisting.

We learned striptease.

We laughed a lot.

We sang.

We lost all our inhibitions.

We put on a performance for each other with our new found skills.

We praised the other girls in the group for their performances.

We celebrated our inner goddess and our femininity and we revelled in who we are as women.

And we agreed to go to London and be in an amatuer show in Soho.

Then we drank more, feasted on venison from the estate and more excellent food.

Then we sat around singing, dancing, chatting and growing as women.

The party quieted down around 3 or 4 am, but the hardcore stayed up til even later.

I got home around 6pm, thoroughly exhausted and amazed at what I had learnt about myself. 

If you ever, ever get the chance to learn burlesque DO IT!!

I'm feeling sentimental today

Ever have one of those days when you start thinking about the past, and wondering if you made the right choices?

I'm a firm believer in the choices (good and bad) that you make in your life turn you into the person you are today.  That without those bad choices and decisions the person reading this blog (and the person writing it) wouldn't be the person they are.

So what if when I was 16 I had a kid?

So what if I trained as a teacher, but now work as a secretary?

So what if I invited a girl to stay with me for a month when I had never ever met her IRL?

We need to make choices then cope with those choices.

We can't make the decisions then go crying back to mummy saying that wasn't what I wanted. 

All decisions have consequences, some of them good, some of them bad.  But there are always consequences to our actions.  As adults we have to deal with those consequences.  So we should learn to deal with them early on.

Parents stop making things so easy for your kids...its ok if they mess up and get a bit embarrassed.  Its ok if they fail a test.  Thats how we learn.  Let then say sorry.  Let them go back to the shop and bring back that chocolate bar that "fell into their pocket".  I feel if we learned earlier on in life that its ok if everything doesn't go our way we will be much better adults.

I look back over my life cursing some of the decisions I made.  But I know that without them, I wouldn't be me. 

Holiday blues

Well yesterday I was down in the dumps.  Everyone and their dog seemed to have a holiday booked and I was all "nope, no holidays for me" and being VERY Debbie Downer.  Today I grabbed that holiday bull by the horns and just booked a holiday.

EEEEKKKK nine weeks tomoro I go off on my hols with R.  A week in the sun (hopefully) with all inclusive food (and drink). 

So now its the exciting time.

I need to sort out a holiday wardrobe.

I need to plan a few things I want to see and do when I am away.

I want to day dream about the sun, and the water and the lazy days by the pool.

I want to think about what type of food I might eat.

I need to calm the heck down!

I am bouncing now because I have booked my holiday.

So, have you been to Majorca?

What do you reccomend I see and do?

I was there in October last year, but we got as far as the beach (it was a girls holiday). 

This year its just me and R, so we will do a bit more exploring.  EEKKK

We saw Caves of Drach last year.  Which scared me!

And we went to a pearl factory

So, what do I see this year?

St Patricks Landing

This is what I did on St Patricks Day.  What did you do?

https://youtu.be/-ca_g7sn_BE

York Viking Festival

So I go to York next week to a big viking festival.  I have been getting my kit together as I want to be warm, and well, we aren't wearing ordinary clothes!

I have a fine linen dress, a heavier linen dress, and last night I made myself a wollen tunic. 

I was going to make a wollen overdress, but I decided to try and kill two birds with one stone and make a tunic I could theoretically use when in the battle arena.  (I haven't done this yet, but I hope to one day, so it won't hurt to be prepared!)

So in York I am going to try and buy some new kit.  I have been told that anything and everything viking kit can be bought there.  So I have to decide what I will buy.

Should I buy a sword or an axe?

Do I want a leather quiver?

Do I want new boots?

Would I like a viking vanity set of earcleaners and tweezers?

If you have been, please feel free to point me in the right direction. 

I need to find a way to save money

How does a person save money?  It seems all I do is spend it.  Between Christmas and going out for NYE etc I am skint, and I don't get paid for another fortnight!

I'm trying to spend as little as possible, I have avoided the sales, but I'm still watching my bank account details going down and down.

I can only keep going, trying every month to save a little bit more, and hopefully next year I won't feel so behind in my savings.

I want to be able to have 3 or 4 months worth of money saved for "just in case".

I already have a holiday fund started.

So its another account I need to set up for emergency.

Every little counts, and if I can even put in £50 a month minimum standing order, with any additional money left at end of month put into the acct I think it will soon build up. 

How do you save?

Do you have any emergency fund?

OUCH

I have been hitting it hard at the gym.  I have been four days out of the last five.  I am sore.

My legs hurt in places I didn't even know there were muscles.

My shoulders hurt.

My tummy hurts.

And I am complaining a lot.

HOWEVER I will be there again tomoro.

And on Saturday I am doing 2 hours in a charity spinathon to raise money for Women's Aid.

My resolution is to work harder (and smarter) at the gym this year.

That and I want to get a 50,000 MEPs T shirt.

Are any of you using Myzone?  Do you have a belt?

I love mine.  It records my heart rate, tells me which zone I am in and gives me points as to how hard i worked out.  It rewards effort and not fitness.  Each person's belt is fitted to them, and to their fitness level.

I have 20,000 or so MEPs so far (I started in May 2014) and I want to have 50,000 by the end of the summer.  I WANT MY T SHIRT.

Its one of those "I earned it" T shirts, like an Insanity T shirt.  I can't buy one, I only get it if I earn it.

Well I will!

I hope.

What are you doing?