Blog Round Up 2014

Well hello there stranger - and a happy New Year to you! You may have noticed that I have been M.I.A for the better part of December - there should be a post explaining all, coming up in the next couple of weeks, but even though I'm an incy wincy bit late I would still like to share the lurrrve and put up this little round up of my favourite blogs from 2014. 

SO, let's get down to business:

Vivianna Does Makeup - a legendary/award winning beauty blog that has fuelled the majority of my  makeup and skincare purchases this year. Warning: Enabler alert! Personally I'm not one of the readers that seems to get hot under the collar about sponsored content, I figure as long as she's being open and honest with her viewers, then girl, it's all good.

Highlights: Daily posting made it near-on impossible to narrow it down to three favourites so in true Anna-style I'm going to cheat and leave this one up to you! 

Hayley-Eszti- Whenever I feel myself slipping into dangerous negative nilly territory I pay a visit to Hayley's blog. Hayley puts her naked heart and soul into her writing with bona fide conviction, and always inspires me with her unfaltering positive attitude, despite everything she deals with, as a chronic illness sufferer, on a daily basis.
Hay, you ma role model <3


Highlights: Santa baby, slip a hot man under the tree, for me, Perfectly imperfect, My life with memory loss 

Meg Says - One of my highlights of 2014 was getting to know this lip stick lovin' beauty & lifestyle blogger. I've thoroughly enjoyed taking a #teabreak each week to catch up on everything Meg has had to say. She's a true example of beauty rooted much further than skin-deep; always going that extra mile to flip someone's frown.

Meg Says has very recently branched out into YouTOOB territory and I have every faith that 2015 will be a year chockablock with success for this glowing writer.

Highlights: A family summer holiday in Portugal, New job - blogging for a living, A day in the life of an ME sufferer

Katharine and M.E - The best thing to come out of starting this blog - my wonderful new friend, who I just couldn't imagine life without! Although I am maybe a smidgen bias Katharine is easily the most selfless, giving and compassionate person you will ever meet, and her blog is a true reflection. This year Katharine turned me into someone who uses multiple exclamation marks, but in September she upped the anti by giving up gifts and a big do to donate her 21st birthday to ME Research UK and raised a remarkable £1,500!!!!!! We are so proud of you. 

The world needs more people like you Katharine, keep on shining  <3




Highlights: Turning 21 and raising £1,500 for ME Research UK, What 2014 taught me 

Spoonie Sophia-  I'm not sure who should be writing this one: me or my muma! Regardless of who is in fact the biggest fan of Soph's recipes (it's me, hands down), if you are looking to learn more about incorporating a plant-based diet into a healthy lifestyle, or want to dip your toes into the vegan pool, this is the blog to follow.  Sophia shares her journey in taking control of her health and managing her chronic illnesses using her diet. Both Sophia's blog and instagram are decorated with the most creative and bright photographs that will really inspire you to give her made-easy recipes a whirl.

Highlights: Reaching body confidence, Raw vegan banana & chocolate tart, Gluten-free mince pies

I started my blog mid 2014 with a heart full of hope and I feel so blessed to have met such beautiful souls along the way. We should all feel incredibly proud of the positive and friendly blogging community we have goin' on, and continue to inspire and encourage one another throughout the new year. 

Have you found friendship through blogging? What were your favourite blogs last year? 

Be-you-tiful

Body confidence was something that I contemplated blogging about when I initially planned 'Smell the Roses', but it's bubbled to the surface lately after the release of the song 'All about that bass' last month, causing bloggers to type eagerly away at their laptops in a frenzy to join in with all the nitty gritty. 

These days 'real beauty' or 'real women' are terms that are thrown around as often as 'skinny' and 'petite' and while I'm very fond of the whole born-beauty metaphor, I struggle to feel comfortable with the common misconception that we look to the use of the word 'real' as a positive affirmation of body image.

In my early-mid teens I was somewhat of a late bloomer, my jeans hung loose across my hips and I wasn't yet busty enough to fill the cups of a AA. For a long time I didn't really take too much notice of that fact that I resembled a much more similar shape to my best guy friend than that of the majority of female peers. I can't seem to pinpoint exactly when I became body conscious; I just remember feeling more and more unformed and inadequate as a woman.
For a few years I willed my concave stomach to curve so that my tops might hug me in that way that they 'real'ly should. I felt no place of comfort amongst my friends, who were busy bickering over who would win the award for the chubbiest arms, as they labelled me confident for not sharing in their puppy fat years, innocently overlooking the guilt I felt for my inability to be good enough; to be womanly.

Isolated by these nagging feelings I decided to ask myself why I felt so meagre, solely because I didn't slot comfortably into the 'real' beauty category. I was real, I didn't participate in any fad diet, or restrict myself to sucking on one watermelon segment a day, nor did I take up my Grandma's suggestion of supplementing my smarties with chicken fillets. I was just me, flat chested, straight up and down - little me.

This skewed definition of beauty is no more healthy than that of which it was designed to counteract, yet we open-heartedly applaud anybody who chooses to rock this mantra. To me, there's some disunity about it all. 

What seems to be deemed too tough to chew is that insecurity does not discriminate. It does not favour those who are conscious of weight, height or skin, it affects every-body, regardless of size. We could have the juiciest of J-Lo curves, the tiniest waist band, but there would always be that one thing about ourselves that we struggled to feel confident about. So why is it that we are so quick to assume that skinny is equal to happiness? 

I don't dispute that women with love handles, gapless thighs and spare tyres are sexy, and that they should attempt to attain hollowed middles and sullen cheeks, rather that they are just as beautiful as those without. The slimmer girls among us are in no way unremarkable because we have less booty to shake. 

So, if we have to cling to the word 'real', then let's not relate it to any physical attribute, instead that gentle moment when a woman knows her own body and accepts her naked self, feeling empowered and confident in her skin.

Nowadays when I look in the mirror I see something pretty special. So although I will always hold a slight distain for the wrinkles that gather across my forehead, and the knobbliness of my knees, I really like having blue eyes and it may not be Kim K's but I have been blessed with a damn fine derriere - there, I said it! So, with that in mind, I'm asking you to have a kind look at yourself and leave a comment below to let me know which of your features you feel are simply too good not to share - let's celebrate each other <3 

BE YOU TIFUL

A Spoonful of She

This post has been stacked up in my drafts for quite a few weeks, eagerly awaiting it's publish date, but today I'm finally able to share with you some very exciting news. For a short while now four of my spoonie friends and I have been embarking on a rather special project... a la YouTube. You guessed it - we are starting a channel together!

Since deciding to embrace my inner Carrie Bradshaw and starting a blog, earlier this year, whilst equally significantly becoming an avid viewer of the Michalak clan, I've often wondered what it would be like to start my own YouTube channel. It was an aspiration that sat quietly at the back of my mind; saved for a rainy day. Aside from feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of putting myself out there quite so boldly, I didn't think that the pressure of weekly filming, editing and uploading would be something that I could take on given my health limitations.
Unbeknownst to me, Hayley and Emma were mulling over a similar situation and got to talking about how we could wiggle around the obstacles, and sure enough a light bulb moment ensued. The suggestion that we group together to run a channel seemed to be the obvious solution and a natural progression from blogging. Uploading one video every five weeks sounds a great deal more manageable and I'm pretty certain that it will be a whole lot more fun sharing the experience with four of my lovely gals.

After countless WhatsApp message alerts we came to realise that the channel shouldn't be focused solely on living with ill health but rather everything that we share in common: beauty chats, foodie videos, vlogs and essentially anything else that five regular girls, who just happen to have a chronic illness, should want to upload. With this in mind we decided that the name, A Spoonful of She, should embrace the idea that we are sharing a 'spoonful' of our lives, hobbies and adventures.

They say that when life gives you lemons to make lemonade, so when life gives you a chronic illness I think the best thing that can happen is making beautiful friendships with those who truly understand and learn to laugh just as a hard as you did before.

We hope that you are just as excited as we are for the channel to hit your computer screens in the new year and that you'll be keen to get involved and show your support!

Find the girls here: Emma, Hayley, Meg, Sophia

What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?

The fear of failure is all consuming, it is the biggest barrier to our happiness and self fulfillment. But what if failure was no object? What life-changing decisions would you make? 

Fear of failing essentially boils down to a fear of shame. If we let it, failure highlights the limit to our capabilities, it makes us wonder about others' opinion of us, even our own opinion of ourselves. But in reality, failure is no more final than success and it is actually a crucial part in the learning process. 

We might not like to admit that there are often times when we don't even consider trying in case we stumble. We miss out on opportunities to flourish and become the person we would really like to be, choosing security instead. The only way to break the cycle is to decide that what we want to do is more significant than the anxiety. The key is to reinvent ourselves, move out of our cramping comfort zones and launch into whatever it is that we have been so stubbornly avoiding - the place where the magic happens. Failure is inevitable in a person's lifetime, but we don't have to let it signify the end of the road, just an unplanned change in direction. 

This is not my first attempt at a blog, in fact it's the third, simply because each time that I've chosen a template and hit the publish button on my first or second post the ugly self critic has reared his head and I've retracted it for some small reason or another. But this time I decided to give myself a little nudge and an almighty pep talk to encourage me to realise that perhaps the biggest mistake I could make would be that I was too afraid to make one. 

Who knows where it'll take me <3