So Much Has Changed!

 Hello everyone,

Lately I've been in such a reflective mood, which to be perfectly honest usually makes me so sad but this time all the thoughts have put the biggest smile on my face, and really been appreciating everything and everyone I have in my life. I think this is mainly due to the fact that we're in May. MAY!!!!! I swear the new year was just last week, I cannot get over how fast this year is already going but so much has happened and I have so many exciting things planned that I'm just having too much fun. I have so much to talk about that this post is probably going to be really rambly so I'll break it into sub-sections and just hope you all keep up. 

Friendship is something I take very seriously and as odd as it sounds I've spend years choosing out the right friends for me and I can honestly say for the first time in a very long while that I am 100% happy with my small, but solid, circle! This time last year I considered my 'best friend' to be a girl who I spent a lot of time with in college and we left we decided to go out for her birthday and since then we would go out clubbing or just be getting drunk. Don't get me wrong I've got some amazing memories with her that I will always look back on because I was having fun but I came to the realisation a few months ago that she wasn't doing me any good as a friend. We would talk everyday without fail, which was pretty draining as she would only ever talk about herself unlesss I had some gosssip, but it was all just too much for me which sounds incredibly selfish but I like friends to actually ask about my life without wanting all the seedy details. I had a massive argument with her in January time, she done something that she had given me such grief about so she became a massive hypocrit but she was expecting me to be fine with the choice she made (it was a really dumb choice, but because I had already been through it I didn't want her to get hurt) and ever since then our friendship has been somewhat questionable. The final straw with this 'friend' was when I went out with a group of friends and I had a faaaar better time with them because it wasn't a night filled with drama, just fun and laughter. Thankfully it's been a pretty easy friend-split as no arguments has happened or no bitching on social medias, that usually happens with a lot of girls, we simply just fizzled out.

It's not all sad though as in the past year I've made the most incredible friend, I honestly have so much love for my chummy that people think we're borderline lesbians..I can assure you we're not, we're just extremely close and for some strange reason she actually enjoys spending time with the oddball that is myself! She had only started working with me last April and it took us until about July/September to have a real conversation, she had assumed that I wouldn't like her but also recongnised me from school as I was a year above her, I knew I wanted to have this girl as a friend when we had a thrilling conversation about wands and we just blossomed from there. In Febuary we booked up to go to Disneyland together, which was such a big step for us as we hadn't really spent a lot of time with eachother outside of work, and as Disney is something that was both on our bucket lists it kind of made sense we go together. This time in 4 months our little weekend away in Paris would have been and gone but so many new memories will be made that we'll look back on when we're old ladies talking about our past..yes chummy, I'm expecting that to be a thing. In the past year we've had so many good days out and shared the experience of seeing Adele together, along with my longest best friend (more on him later). The only month that I haven't planned on doing anything with her is November, we have a pretty full and exciting year!! It's funny to think that I can't imagine not being friends with my chummy and we only met just over a year ago. 

On to my longest friend. He has been there for me through such sh*t it's unreal and I honestly adore him in a non-romantic way, even though after a few too many tequilas one of our friends made us have an awarkward conversation with eachother as I had confessed I had a bit of a crush on him in the past but it wouldn't work, thankfully we had a little chat and drew a line under it. I'd love to say I couldn't imagine my life without him but sadly we fell out for roughly a year during college, all because of my idiot of an ex. The ex in question was one of the biggest mistakes, obviously it's all I wanted at the time so I was too blind to see that he was a controlling, manipulative boy. Long story short the ex threatened to 'kick the sh*t' out of my best friend so understandbly he had to get away from that. Safe to say the relationship went downhill very fast after that and I ended that as quick as I could. Rebuilding my friendship was hard but the struggle was so worth it because we're closer than ever! 

Love has always been a tough subject for me, I'm basically the ugly duckling. Growing up I was always the girl who befriended the guys for my female friends to try and get into a relationship with, I was never the girl, just the friend who always seemed to be there. Now I like to think I've blossomed into a more human like person with some good qualities that a romantic interest may like. As I'm writing this I feel like I should retitle this section into 'sexual quests' or 'romatic failures' as I've only ever been in love twice, I've said 'i love you' to a few people and complete strangers in nightclubs but I've never truly meant it. The first guy I really fell in love was someone I used to work with and I was obsessed with him ever since we met and then he turned out to be a secret sweetie so I fell even harder. It's strange to say that I felt the feeling of love because he was my top crush for a solid 3 years and then we started dating..plot twist!! Never in my wildest dreams did I think he would find me remotley attractive let alone become my boyfriend. This may sound odd to a few people but he's the guy who really dug me out of my shell as if he, of all people, could like me then christ I can't be as half bad as I imagined. We weren't a thing for very long at all - we dated, became official, met the parents and broke up all within just short of two months. But he was always the guy on my brain. Some of you could possibly know all my feelings about him if you read my 'Boys on the Brain' post (click here to catch up). Sadly we don't speak anymore which kills me a little bit but after our last conversation where we had a little heart to heart I'm fine with that because I know there's no hard feelings there and even now when I see or hear his name I get a little smile because honestly without him I wouldn't have the confidence to think it was even possible that a guy could like me, so thank you to my ex for unkowingly helping me bring on new adventures.

After we broke up I took a good 3-4 months feeling sad about the whole ordeal, he wasn't my first break up but he was definately the hardest, but then I felt like I needed to get back out there as I was feeling lonely and just wanted some male attention. I started going clubbing a lot more, 2 or 3 times a week if I could, just to meet guys and that's when I realised that with a drink in me I can walk up to boys and have a pretty good flirting game..leading to my success in pulling guys at clubs. Not exactly I'm proud of but I loved the idea of kissing guys you had just met and then not even knowing their names (weird, right?). In the space of about 6 months I had a few sexual encoutners, I would say love interests but we all know what was happening, until November. 16th November everything changed. I was flying off to Lanzarote for a bit of winter sun on the 19th so my friends and I decided we would go for big night out as I had to be away from them for 2 weeks, it was honestly an amazing night influenced by probably far too much alcohol! At one point the club was pretty dead and there was just my friends and a group of guys on the dancefloor, I'm suprised I remember the night so clearly if I'm honest, but I kept noticing some of the guys looking over so naturally I assume they was after my big boobed friends..after a few more drinks I decided to just go over and dance with them, one of my friends followed then next thing I knew I was lip-locked with the guy I would choose out of the group..win for Shannon! He asked for my name but obviously couldn't hear me so asked me to right out my name instead..he then pointed out he was on his contacts so could I put my number down, only the lucky ones get my real number or I type in any random digits. A few hours after he had left the club he text me saying his name and it was nice to meet me. Little did I know that he would turn out to be the lovliest guy and I actually felt guilty about going on holiday as I could only think about him, we spoke non-stop for the whole time of my holiday and arranged a date for when I got back. The cinema date went awful and I was gutted but somehow he didn't care and wanted to see me again. I won't say all the details mainly because I can sense a few people would be falling asleep by this haha! Aaaanyway, we've seen eachother ever since and have been in a relationship for nearly 3 months, I've never been able to see a futre with any guy in the past but with him I can and I can't wait for any adventures that happen along the way because aslong as I have my friends, family (including the cats) and my boyfriend I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!!!

Nothing else has really changed in the past year apart from I got my first tattoo and spent a lot of money on concerts, fun days, clothes and food.

The past 12 months have been crazy but I've loved every moment of it and learnt who was important to me, I feel like I've really set myself up for a good future with the people I have around me. All the pieces are just falling together and I can't wait to see what happens within the next year. I can say for certain that I want time to slow down slightly though because I'm enjoying myself too much for life to just speed past me.

Hope this very chatty post wasn't too long for everyone but I honestly have missed blogging so hopefully it won't take me months to update this again.

Feeling Loved.

Hello everyone, 

Well I didn't think I would be writing a post like this for a long time but here we are, I couldn't dive into writing up some hauls or anything else as I just had all these feelings and thoughts of how lucky and happy I am lately. This will basically be a list of all the cute things that my boyfriend has done for me recently so I 100% don't blame you if you don't want to continue reading this, it's just a little something to document my feelings for the future.

November. The month I met him, whilst being slightly intoxicated, in the middle of one of my favourite weekday clubs..typical Essex love story. We danced, we spoke, we exchanged numbers and then we kissed. I thought that this would be a typical drunk thing and never speak to each other again until my phone flashed, about 2 hours after going home from the club, with a text saying the standard 'nice to meet you' and we spoke constantly for the next few weeks, even when I flew off to Lanzarote! We arranged a date for when I got back, The Good Dinosaur was a perfect choice for two Disney nerds like us, he was so gentlemanly and just everything I would want from a first date.

February. Fast forward a little bit and here we are, lets start with the 13th as this was the day that I got the cutest surprise and our relationship officially started. I always work on Saturdays and I just really wasn't feeling it on this particular day, I was in such a good mood but I wanted to go and live my life not be stuck in work. Anyway I'd been working and keeping myself busy to try and make the time go faster when one of my favourite women who works there comes into the kitchen grinning from ear to ear and told me to come out into the seating area, usually she would find a good looking guy and come tell me so I was expecting to look for some eye candy, when I looked up I saw my guy standing there holding the cutest bunch of flowers with a little, dopey smile on his face. Now I don't really know what my reaction was apart from smiling like an idiot and just saying this was all cute, to be perfectly honest I was just in utter shock I still can't believe he planned that all out..anyway long story short he gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers and asked me to be his girlfriend. Of course I said yes!

Valentines Day. The day of love started off, for me, with a 6:30am alarm to get myself to work and the person who was 'in charge' on that day is also a woman I have a slight disliking to..brilliant start! After a pretty mediocre shift, I mainly just spoke to one of the guys about random topics, I went home and had a lovely Lush bath to unwind and to get ready for the night. My boyfriend picked me up, bonus points to him for actually meeting me at the door instead of getting a message and him waiting in the car, and then he drove to the cinema where we went to see Deadpool, as we pulled up snow started falling! Luckily the weather didn't set but he did offer me to wear his coat, I felt too bad and let him keep it as we were both freezing though. As for the film it was absolutely brilliant and I loved every second of it, when that had finished we drove back to mine where we just cuddled and spoke about anything that came to mind. It was a pretty perfect night. 

This sounds like the biggest cliche in the world but I honestly feel like the luckiest girl! Never has a guy treated me like a true princess, it's so rare to find someone who doesn't just want sex and cares about the relationship as well as me, and that makes me feel so loved it's unreal, also he makes all the bad relationships and guys I've been through so worth the heartache. It's just the little things like we went out for dinner the other night and I insisted on splitting the bill and he just said I've got this and even when we're just watching a film I can see him out of the corner of my eye just looking at me, watching all my facial expressions but most importantly he remembers everything I say even from our very first conversations together. He's never heard me say this but I want him to be in my life for a very long time as it's just natural and easy, how real relationships should be. 

I'm so excited for our story to continue.  

The Best Day.

Hello everyone,

Now I know I've already posted today, please do check that out here if you haven't already, but I've just been having such a good day..I'm finally starting to feel like myself again after feeling a bit 'odd' for a while now.

Through Febuary one of the things that I want to start doing is to do things that scare me. I'm usually the biggest wimp when it comes to speaking my mind and there's been something that I needed and wanted to say to my ex for a very long time, yesterday I finally got the courage to write out all my feelings to send to him. I wrote my message out in the notes of my phone and edited the mini essay a fair few times, just to really pinpoint what I wanted to say in one swift message and I think I felt more comfortable doing it like that as I could prepare myself all day for his reply. Now I had the plan to send it at 9pm, thanks to Facebook having that creepy location thing I could see whether he was still at work, I didn't want to bother him or for him to show any of his work pals..8:54pm and my phone buzzed. It was him. I immediately felt sick and was confused to why he had messaged me, it's like he knew I was going to lay my heart out there. Anyway, long story short he said we needed to talk and it wasn't as much of a conversation like he said as he never replied to me. But I explained that I understood there was no hope in us getting back together, as he doesn't want to, and in his message he said 'I really think you need to move on', he was right! I never really gave myself a period of time to properly get over him as I was more focused on my grandads passing, which happened a few weeks later, which was more important to me but not allowing myself enough grieving time for a broken relationship just made me make some pretty poor choices last year. What he didn't know is that I had moved on physically, I'd been with other people and I'm now happily seeing someone so things are looking good in that respect but I hadn't moved on mentally. Until today. After our little chat I instantly felt better, although I do feel slightly guilty for telling him about my current guy because that seemed to have either shocked him or pissed him off but I needed to let him know that I weren't sitting around waiting for him. I woke up this morning with such a clear mind and felt as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I've finally moved on and can let him go..I honestly feel amazing about that!

Work has also been amazing today. One person who will probably be reading this will no doubt be shocked I'm saying all this, usually I'm a bit moody in work and just moan the entire time..even though she knows some good parts of the day because I've been texting her my little adventure, but I'll get to that. I started work at 6am today meaning I had to be out of bed by 5am..I forced myself out of bed almost 20 minutes late but I done a full face of make up in record timing and was even early to work so I already felt like I was winning. I had an hour to myself in the department where I just spoke and sang to myself whilst defrosting cakes but after I had finished putting out bits and bobs and setting up for customers to come in I just felt really content. In my hours break I had a productive writing session for tomorrows post, stick around for that one, then when I got back I managed to do minimal work as we weren't busy at all. I even had a good conversation with woman who has recently been nicknamed as Voldemort! Our dishwasher chemicals were running low and there was none in the store, we rung around to local shops to see if they had any we could have and one store did which is about a 20-30 minute drive away, I was bored doing nothing and didn't feel like scraping plates so I voulenteered to go and collect the chemicals which I was allowed so about half an hour after ringing around to get permission to go I was out of that store. I got to the other one and was greeted by the most beautiful man, he was so polite and made small talk with me then he offered to carry the heavy chemicals to my car..thank you to the gorgeous face and funny personality, he brightened my day a lot! By the time I had drove back to my store, set up the dishwasher to run properly again and had my break I only had 15 minutes left to actually do work..result!

Being on a roll I thought I would arrange a few things for my next days off. Thursday I have the guy that's hopefully sticking around for a bit coming to my house for a movie afternoon, usually I go to his which is fine by me but I think he secretly wants to bump into my family to see my awkwardness! Monday I have a fun shopping spree planned where I'm just going to smell all the deliciousness from Lush and run around the Disney store..I can never contain my excitement in there!

I then ended my day by having an amazing gym session and now I've got tomorrows post to take photos for and edit. Hope you enjoyed this little bonus post, I'm just so happy with how this day is going that I had to share it as I geniunely feel happy now..hopefully no more fake smiles for a while!