Happy, DIY Beauty and Sick Days #LittleLoves

Welcome back to another outing of Little Loves, a little later than normal this week as I’ve had a poorly boy at home with the latest sick bug doing the rounds at school. The downside of the temperatures dropping is the inevitable transition into norovirus territory…the upside is a day at home watching movies and getting a bit of Autumn craft on with your Mum 🙂

Despite the sick bugs, we’ve had a very nice week really – is it too early to say the Winter word though? It’s starting to get really, really cold! On the positive side, we often get the best night skies here in the wintertime – in fact last night I missed an outing of the Northern Lights while I was in my bed! Here’s a photo of what we expect to see a lot more of over the winter. Let’s face it, people, we can take the cold weather for a little bit of this! 🙂

READ

The darker evenings are providing plenty of opportunities for cosying up with books and television, and in a bid to relax more, I’ve also been taking a LOT of baths over the last few weeks. Happy by Fearne Cotton, all about finding joy and letting go of perfect, has been lovely bath time flicking material and just the kind of thing I’ve been in need of. It’s full of good advice and exercises on staying healthy mentally and all in all is just a lovely, positive, happiness-inducing read 🙂

WATCHED

This weekend we went to see Thor: Ragnarok at our local cinema – I have to admit I can take or leave many action movies, but some of the Marvel films are really very good. This one kept my attention and also had some very funny moments. An afternoon visit to the cinema without Mum napping is always a very good sign indeed 🙂

WORE

This week I’ve been ‘wearing’ this essential oil blend recommended to me by a health therapist. I had some saliva tests done a while back that indicated my cortisol (stress hormone) levels were really rather high. Not a good thing for your health in general and something I really need to get on top of (see lots of baths and relaxing under ‘read’ 🙂 ) You pop some of this onto your temples a few times a day and it’s meant to help naturally lower cortisol. It’s too early to say yet if it’s working but I can confirm that it does smell like a particularly delicious, well known sweet!

HEARD

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed that I missed out the ‘heard’ category in last week’s round up. I’d like to say this was a deliberate attempt at something but the truth is I actually just forgot. I’m not really in the zone with podcasts just now and I’m finding background noise in general quite distracting. Having said that, I did listen to this Sara Tasker podcast with Dolly Alderton talking all things writing – anything with ‘book deal’ in the title and you can count me in!

MADE

In an ongoing bid to try to remove anything nasty from my beauty routine, I tried my hand at making some DIY nail polish remover using white wine vinegar and lemon juice at the weekend. You can just tell by the smell of normal nail polish remover that it’s pretty toxic, can’t you? But, sadly, yet again, my attempts at home made health were doomed to failure (remember the Saukeraut? Let’s never speak of it). My concoction wouldn’t take my nail polish off with any amount of rubbing and so it’s back to the good old drawing board. I might just give this Natural Nail Polish Remover (which gets great reviews online), a try instead 🙂

AND LASTLY…

Last night (before I went to bed and missed the aurora!), I had a lovely evening at the new writers group I mentioned on here a few weeks ago. For quite a long time now my life has focused on doing the things I need to do, and the things I felt I ought to, leaving very little time for hobbies, socialising, or anything that seemed like it could be surplus to a busy life. It’s taken me a long time to realise that hobbies, creative pursuits and social contact can actually really help to top up your energy. Having said that, reading your poetry aloud to a room full of near strangers can still make your heart beat pretty fast!

With all this in mind, here’s a poem I read recently that really struck a chord with me. Hope you have a great seven days, blog readers, and don’t forget to make the most of that wild and precious week ahead!

Gx

* This post contains affiliate links which mean that I will receive commission should you choose to purchase something via them. This enables me to earn a small income from the time I spend on blogging and does not in any way affect the price you pay.