Day 20 - Temperatures and pain pills.

This picture shows exactly what kind of day I have had. Started before I went to bed last night, shivering despite the flat being 20 degrees. Finally fell asleep until 3am when I woke up roasting, shivering and clammy. So, after having to call in sick to work, I spent the day in bed.
Had to make a quick trip out to get a thermometer and Migraleve though, which was quite a feat. Got to the chemist, sweat pouring down my face and unable to control the shaking. How embarrassing! Poor pharmacist didn't know what to say. You know when you buy certain drugs they have to ask you certain questions? Well, I got asked if I had a fever (stood there with all the sweat and a thermometer in my hand kind of gives that answer away), he then went to ask if I wanted the big or small box, to which he suggested I get the big one. Clever man. This was then topped off by having to buy toilet roll from Tesco on the way home. Must of looked like a right jakey.
Oh and if you are old enough to be living away from your family, do not feel ashamed to want your mum to come make you feel better. It's perfectly natural. Maybe crying when your boyfriend leaves for work is a bit much, but hey... I'm fevery and needy!

Day 19 - Sleep!

My favourite thing ever. Ever. Seriously. Ever! It is verging on an addiction. When I was submerged in depression and the wrong medication, I slept all the time. About 14 hours a night then all throughout the day I had to nap. I got tired being awake for a half an hour. Obviously, this is not the happiest example of sleeping, but none are. Oversleeping is just as bad for you as undersleeping. I wish I could sleep less, but I get very grumpy and eventually start to feel physically sick, even if I am only awake 12 hours. Can't get much done this way as you might be able to imagine!
I love dreaming, this might be why sleep is so welcoming to me. I can do anything. The best thing is flying. Flying dreams are the very best. Apparently, the easier you can fly in your dreams, then the higher esteem you have. It kind of makes sense for me. At the start of my flying, I struggle and question whether I can do it or not, then I give it a shot and more often than not, succeed.
All this talk of sleep has made me tired! What a surprise!
Goodnight my dears. I shall try and do a better job at blogging everyday!

Day 18 - Living with the Opposite Sex

Many of you will know how big of a deal it is for me to live with someone I am so close to, but here I am, doing it all again. This time though, it's lovely. I'm older, wiser and a bit thinner! Yippee.
We have a lovely wee flat to live together in. We move in on Monday! Eeee! Enough sop, more logistics. The only things I have found tough so far is the fact that he works mainly evenings, I work days, meaning we hardly see one another, he is super tall so when he showers he leaves the shower head up too high for me to reach and he hogs the duvet. I am sure this list will grow, and his will too, but you know, that's part of the fun, right!
He is far cleaner than me, and very good at not cluttering. Which are things I find hard. Mainly the cluttering thing, I am a horder. I have birthday cards from my 1st birthday. That's a bit rediculous! However, I will follow some female steriotypes and I will keep the kitchen as my own!
That's the thing I am most excited about really. I get my own kitchen, I get to decide where the stuff goes! Bring on the kitchen!
Oooh don't worry, Max. I am kidding. Seriously, stop crying...

Day 17 - The Unnamed Husky

So, not long after Giraffie came into my life, I was given the lovely Husky. I still haven't thought of a politically innapropriate name for him yet. Or her. Who am I to judge. If you can think of any then please, let me know!
I was given Husky after my contract ran out at my last job. Best job I've ever had. Loved it. Sadly, I had to leave, but at least I was given Husky out of it! It has just occured to me that a 22 year old, blogging about stuffed animals is not cool. What a life I lead...
I blame it on the fact that I move on Monday so all of my stuff is packed away, meaning I don't have any objects to photograph.
For your sake, dear reader, I hope my life gets a little more exciting!

Day 16 - Giraffie

Oh my, I am so bad at this blog thing! I have been ill once again. Getting sick of it now, constant headaches and sleepy and weak 100% of the time. Sucks.. However, onto the important business...
Giraffie and I were meant to be! He came into my life injured and very ill. With a big hole in his back I had to take him home to my nurse-mother who sewed him up and kept him overnight for observation. Thankfully, he pulled through and we have been inseperable ever since!
He has such beautiful eyelashes for a boy giraffe. Do you know why? 'Cos they live in very dry conditions so it helps protect his eyes from dust and dirt. I hope you didn't think that was going to be a joke, because it was awful. Talking about jokes, at my work the other day we all found out we have a common love of awful jokes! My favourite was:

"Ask me if I am a tree."

"Huh?"

"Ask me if I am a tree!"

"Are you a tree?"

"No..."

I laughed for a very, VERY long time.

Day 15 - Another Sunny Day

Another lovely day in Edinburgh. Went out, had this BBQ and shall be spending the next wee while near the toilet. So, this is exceptionally short today!
Well done, Zoë... Well done.

Day 14 - Edinburgh

Edinburgh has always been put on a pedestal to me. I lived here until I was 11 and to be honest, I had a pretty awful time. I was bullied in school which stuck with me until a couple of years ago. We then moved to East Lothian which was nice enough, but had nothing to do if you were between 11 and child bearing age (which could be anything in Dunbar really...) We would go into Edinburgh or Haddington at any opportunity to see movies, friends and hang out, or go to the festival when it was on. Then, after The Wonder Years of Dunbar Grammar School, all my friends went off to University in either Preston, Edinburgh or Aberdeen. This was a complete shock to the system as I had taken a year out to work out what I wanted to do and to give my mum a hand with childcare so she could finish uni herself. Seeing them all being super independent and living a life they chose made me want it too. So I looked into college, accidentally applied to Aberdeen and left.
This is when Edinburgh started looking particularly appealing. Aberdeen is not quite the place for me. The people, I loved (most of them) the grey, not so much. I am a colourful person, and I need to be kept in those surroundings!
Moving to Edinburgh took a lot of hard work and patience, but it has been brilliant. Days like today prove that to me. A day off spent by a paddling pool with my friends and a few beers. Lovely! I like being a girl who can choose her own meals, TV shows and music decibels. It keeps me the sane and level headed person you all know and love!
Also, it's a pretty city. What with its castles and tram lines...

Day 13 - Celebrations.

This is going to be pretty short. I am writing this while watching Moulin Rouge, one of my very favourites!
Rebecca and I are celebrating, she found a flatmate to take over my room! So, we splurged out and bought a carton of Spanish Red Wine; Vino Tinto! That, there, is true class. Don't worry though. That colour in the glass is because we decided to make Sangria rather than just drink the wine on it's own. We have some standards!
I've never really been a wine drinker. It normally makes me go a bit nuts and I tend to get too drunk too fast. Lately though, I have been very well behaved on wine!
So here is to growing up and being able to drink wine and also to not having to worry about my flatmates not being able to afford out flat!
Happy Wednesday everyone.

Day 12 - Flowers

Very sorry for my lack of a post yesterday. My working and 'partying' lifestyle really took its toll on me. So instead of posting, I went to bed. I thought that instead of just doing one post, I would do two to try and keep it up to date with my numbers! So today (but yesterday), I have taken a picture of some flowers (as you can see). These particular flowers happen to be my favourites, crysanthemums. I have just Googled it to see what the flower is a symbol of. I thought I could maybe tie it into the writing here, but it turns out it means death... Wonderful. What a light hearted blog that would be, huh?!
Instead, I shall write about my days of flower arranging. It all started off as a favour to a friend, but turned out not only did I love it, but I was good at it. I was just coming out of my "I can't do anything right. I'm useless, where is my rotton fruit and dog water?" stage. So finding something that I actually enjoyed and got pride out of was really a big deal.
I love the way you start off with a bit of Oasis and slowly watch the green foliage take shape around the not-quite-foam substance. Then when you can see no more to cover you throw in some colour. Yellows, purples, blues and reds make the arrangement come to life and even give it a bit of personality. The best part is when you look over it and realise that YOU have made this. YOU! The girl who couldn't remember her name at one point, the girl who could barely string a sentence together without completely switching off! It really was a fantastic and healing thing for me. However awful and cliche that sounds!

Day 11- Holidays.

This is an example of the quality of picture from my phone. Not great. So bad I tried to make a pact with myself not to upload pictures taken on my phone onto here, for it would really bring down the tone. Or at least the tone I pretend it has in my head.
For some reason, the picture really reminds me of being on holiday. I was sat at a bus stop after quite a nice evening of South Park, nachos and a cinema trip and saw the light shine through the leaves of a tree which had fairy lights hanging down from it (as above). It filled me with that feeling I often get when i take a second to sit and take in the surroundings on holiday.
One of the most memorable holidays of my life is actually one when i was around 4 or 5. We had a family holiday to Majorca. I remember seeing my first lizard run up a wall (still a sign to me, even today, that I am away from everything stressful and mundaine) and playing in the pool with my cousins. I remember crying at the airport because I did not want to leave. If I ever experience such sad emotions in a goodbye, I will know it was something really special.
Since then, I have spent countless summers in France with my nana and papa, a beautiful weekend in Oslo, a three week jaunt to America and a few more moments here and there. These have been fantastic times and memories, however they have not come near that tearful farewell I gave Spain. I'm still holding out for that to happen again.

Day 10 - Food.

Ahhh, food. One of the greatest things nature has given us. Whether it be vegetarian, vegan, wheat free, dairy free, carnivorous or even raw, it is always going to heighten moods worldwide, if done right. It can also provoke anger and even bring you to tears, at least, these have happened to me. I don't know if it is just me, but there is nothing worse than getting something you have been craving and it just not matching up to the taste you had made in your head. This is one reason why I love cooking, I will just keep slaving over a boiling stove, developing blisters on my fingers from the gas and the constant stirring, until I get the taste just right. I do not joke when it comes to food! Having said that, one of the best meals I have ever made myself was one i whipped up in about 15 minutes. My family had already eaten their dinner of fish pie. As I don't eat fish, I decided to give it a miss and throw something of my own together. However, at the end of the month, in a family of 5, ingredients start to become a rarity. I chopped, grated and poured some bacon bits, onions milk, white wine, cheese and garlic into a pot, boiled some spaghetti, and hey presto, I was in carbohydrate heaven! Sadly, despite MANY attempts, I have been unable to recreate this concoction. It comes out too sour, too alcoholic or just plain runny! It breaks my heart every time.
One of the best things about the flat I live in right now is that my flatmate loves to bake. When I say bake, I mean experiment in the oven. Oh, and experiment she does well! She is also the bonnie lass who encouraged me to get a blog that other people could actually read and maybe get some enjoyment out of. She has her own blog about her baking endeavors here: Got Love, Can't Bake.
I will soon be living with a life-long vegetarian. This pretty much makes me a vegetarian too. As someone who used to live by the motto "No meat, no eat" I should find this tough, but instead I am going to embrace the opportunity to let my cooking skills take over and try and find something as satisfying as a chunky, medium rare stake, but with less blood, iron and death. Having just thought about this properly, the faint memory of what a fry up tastes like. On a day off... In bed... With the strongest tea a human can keep down...
I may have to go and think some stuff through.

Day 9 - Little Boxes.

These boxes are not made of ticky-tacky or stone, they are simply cardboard. Inside these little boxes are around 200 DVDs. These DVDs are my most prized possessions. How sad!
I am in quite the exciting place right now. I just got my first salaried job (for some reason this makes me feel awfully grown up) and I will be moving into a new flat with my fantabulous boyfriend in just over 2 weeks! I got so excited about this flat thing that I have already packed the vast majority of my belongings.
I have now got packing down to a fine art. I have moved, let's see, 12 times, 13 times on the 4th of June! What an unlucky number. I hope that the number will work in my favour rather than stack the odds against me! Luckily, 13 seems to have never had an effect on me before. New chapters, however, have had many a different effect on me. They either go very well (moving to Edinburgh) or they go horribly wrong (Moving back to Aberdeen the 2nd time) I do have my bets on things going well this time. With a patient other half beside me in a cheap flat with maybe a bunny but hopefully a kitten, how could anything possibly go wrong! (Famous last words, I hope not!)

Day 8 - Family Hands!

Knights, Munros and Reimanns; sounds like med-evil, Scottish war tribes. Fortunately, you have nothing to worry about, it's just my family! Three sets of twins, a bunch of adults, generations apart, a couple of teenagers and some children thrown in there for good measure. In theory, these age groups do not tend to gel well. However, in this case, we all get on like a house on fire. How weird is it to think that if we had all just come together, say, in a cooking class, we would probably not give each other a second look, but being thrown together with these people has been more than just luck for me, it's pretty much kept me upright the past few years. If I got the chance to choose people to be my family, it would be these guys.
I always find it weird when people say they don't really know their cousins. Minnie, Becky, Teddy and I pretty much grew up in each others pockets, or rather they grew up with me in theirs, I suppose. I really hope they look back on it all with at least a fraction of the fondness I do. The past few years have really shown me how much I need my family, as well as how much I mean to them. My Aunty Vicky in particular. She and my mum have been outstanding all through my illness, even when I felt all I deserved was a dog bowl of puddle water thrown at me along side a basket of rotten fruits.
Guys, I hope after how much I have blabbed about this blog tonight, you take the time to read this and realise how much you mean to me. I tried to describe my gratitude at Christmas but got too teary eyed and couldn't quite get it all out. So here, have a photo and a whole day!

Day 7 - Lady-bug Trio

OK, first off, I am going to admit that I did not take these pictures today. I have not had a chance to stop today and was unable to find anything decent to photograph in my mad rush between places and dull train journey. So I thought of putting up my first failed personal challenge. I love lady-bugs and get giddy like a child when I see them. I decided to take photos of every one I came across, which was a decision made at the end of summer. Hence there only being 3 pictures. Drats.
I did actually see one the other day. I got giddy, grabbed my camera but when I knelt down, I realised it was a very dead and squashed one! That's what I get for wearing non-prescription sunglasses, I guess.
One of my first pets was actually a lady bug. My friend Kaye (wonder what she's doing now...) and I adopted one and kept her in a lovely Tupperware box, equipped with leaves and a Coca-Cola cap of water. We let her out for a walk one day on our hands and she made a run for it! Kaye ran up and down the street for what felt like hours screaming her name (which I have totally forgotten). Eventually, we found her. Everyone said it wasn't the same bug, but a mother knows her own baby when she sees it! Especially after the trauma of not realising they could fly and have it producing those hideous wings before your very eyes and nearly escaping forever.

Day 6 - Cats!

As far back as I can remember, I have always had a cat. The first was called Patsy. She was when we lived in a high rise flat in Edinburgh. She seemed content, but kept jumping off the balcony into the vast happiness of everywere but the house. My family have always been fairly loud and boisterous, so I don't really blame her. I would probably do the same had I not been part of the lovable loud bunch.
The next to come were Maggie and Bart. The sneaky siblings. These guys were more for pest-control than anything else. Never-the-less, they fit right in. Maybe because they were family themselves, they understood that living with people was not always easy. These guys were with us as a unit until this time last year when Bart had to get put down after battling some strange illness. I'm not sure if it was because April and May suck anyway, if it was because I just got out of hospital or if I just missed him, but I cried for days on and off. Maggie got awfully sad too, she is often found asking for cuddles and attention, which is totally out of character for her.
The kitty in the image is Juno, the new kitten of Max's family. She is absolutely beautiful and very happy at all times! Totally nuts too. They want to have a litter with her, so watch this space. Zoë is on the hunt for a cat!

Day 5 - Handbag

I never thought I would need a handbag. When I was younger, I always saw myself as a very practical person, and having a bag full of stuff I don't need just did not fit into the vision. Then, one day I woke up with a dozen handbags! Now, I'd like to point out, I did not accumulate 12 handbags in one night, I just had not realised how many i had bought, been given or found.
This skull one is my favourite of all the handbags. It also happens to be the one that cannot be bought! You see, my insanely talented Aunty Jacqui made me this for my 21st birthday. She gave it to me the day after my incredibly messy birthday party, which consisted of me drinking until 4am, having to be driven to the airport at 5am, to board a plane with Max. Poor boy had to virtually carry me through the checking-in process, put up with me leaving my belongings in security (not the place you want to leave your stuff, especially after having just been searched) and then screaming at him to give me my boarding pass, only to be told I had been given it already but had lost it...
So having forgotten my ideals of being practical, my sensibility to try and stop drinking before boarding a plane and also the 18th and 19th of October, I gained a glorious handbag that puts the other 11 to shame! That's all that matters, right?!

Day 4 - Wristband

In August, my dad is cycling from London to Paris in aid of The Anthony Nolan Trust. This particular charity is very important to our family. My Uncle Russell, my dad's big brother, had leukemia and found a bone marrow donor through this trust. He recovered but unfortunately contracted MRSA and passed away.
My dad is 43 which means he has been unable to be on the donor register for the past 3 years. So instead, he is going to do this huge cycle to raise money. Telling this story reminds me of why my dad has been my hero since a very young age. He will do everything he can for his family, or anything that is important to him, even if it results in being chased down the street by people who drew on our car. Now, he is cycling however many miles for a fantastic cause. If you have any spare change lying around, please, donate to this amazing man and amazing cause!
Neil Munro Charity Cycle Fundraising Page

Day 3 - Notepad

Skulls. Anything pirate. Another one of my not-so-minor obsessions. After completely re-booting the last blog post, I came to the decision that writing pen to paper is far better than typing out my blether. What better way to use the skulltastic notepad I was given for my birthday. Don't worry Mum, it hasn't just sat in the corner gathering dust. I have used it, so far, for my zombie survival project, (which fell into the same creative hole as my Rorschach inspired childrens book) my autism evening course, Spaced inspired screenplay and Pokemon Protection League. It is sort of my creative cabinet. I put things in, look at them from time to time, wonder what i was thinking then forget the things ever crossed my path. This project is far more 'me' and far more personal than anything I have ever done, or even thought I would do for that mater.
Now, thia may look like two objects, notepad ans pen, but one does not simply work without the other. I normally have a very lovely pen that I do all of my writing with, but I left it at home. Luckily, a girl on the train overheard me ask Max for one and got in there first. What a gem.


(I may re-take the photo when I get my pen back, photographing on a busy train is not the ideal surrounding...)

Day 2 - My Figures.

I may be a 22 year old woman but I often feel like an 8 year old tomboy, especially when it comes to toys and movies. I would rather see an action packed, superhero movie over a rom-com with the latest 'hunk' in it. Don't get me wrong, when a hero is played by a hot man, that is a plus! Movies are my go to when I feel anything more than sleepy. Good mood? Pop on Little Miss Sunshine. Bad mood? Nothing beats a touch of Fight Club!
This is were the action figures come from. Alongside these, I own a little bit of Tarentino, Pegg and even a touch of the musical icon, Lennon.
Our current flat, which I have less than a month in now, had the Pulp Fiction guys guarding the alarm. I felt this had to be done after my flatmates dad set off the burglar alarm, after not even 10 minutes in the flat. The alarm went off all day, until a man came in, typed the most straight forward password known to man into the system, tipped his hat and walked out. The decision to put them here made our humiliation feel slightly less, no idea why or how this worked, it just did.
Goes to show, films and their characters really can work wonders on your mood!

Day 1 - My Camera.

I feel it is fitting, starting with the object that I will be taking most of the pictures with. Sometimes I might come across something with my phone and use that instead. Trust me though, you will be able to tell the difference!
So, this camera came to my being after a very unfortunate series of events. Moving too fast in a relationship and moving in with someone you don't know nearly enough as you thought you did, breaking up and becoming, what can only be described as; homeless. No pity though, I brought it on myself. All starry eyed and thinking I was ready to be a grown up. Oh how wrong I was! All I wanted to do was to play in the snow and eat pick-and-mix in the shower.
However, for all the grief that the experience brought me, it also handed me two of my favourite things; my camera and my, soon to be, live in boyfriend (don't worry, I have thought it through this time! He lets me play in the snow and will just have to cope with the shower snacks).
The deposit I finally got back from the flat where people go to grow apart was as good as gone when I set eyes on this beauty. It just so happens that I bought it the week I met Max's family for the first time, but that's another story for another day.