August Favourites

August has been a very good month for me. There were no spells of depression so to speak. While I was anxious about certain aspects of my life, they didn't get me down. Here are the little things that made a big impact on my mental health this month. 

Going to Dublin Zoo, eating ice cream, and generally enjoying the sunshine and good moods. It was an amazing day out and I have so many beautiful pictures of the adventure. This one is my favourite photos!

Treating myself and my little sister to hot chocolate in Costa was a nice treat. I love being able to spoil the little one. 

Love, No Matter What

Netflix have a whole lot of TEDTalks on their site at the minute. One I stumbled across was a TEDTalks series about learning to love both yourself and others.

With my ongoing August Ambition, this was exactly what I needed! There are 7 speakers with 7 different talks ranging from 5 mins to 25 mins in length.

Do you want to feel inspired? Well, here are my favourites for you to have a look at.

Andrew Solomon: Love, No Matter What

The Anxious Girl's Guide to Dating

One of the realest grown up challenges I'm facing is dating. Like, how does this happen in the real world? Is it possible to meet someone on the commute to work? Should I give Tinder another go? (The answer to that last question at least is no.)

All of the pressure of being 23 and single despite my life plans to have been engaged by now (I can confirm these life plans have changed dramatically thanks to some common sense, being fabulous as I am and usually happy with singledom), sometimes gets to me. Like, when you just want a cuddle. Or someone to buy you flowers just because. All of this culminated in the below Tweet.

Not even my friends took my plea seriously. As evident by the lack of RTs.

But then I was emailed by Hattie Cooper (click on her name and check out her blog!) who has a little self help book out called 'The Anxious Girl's Guide to Dating'. And I thought, 'what perfect timing in the midst of my quarter life crisis!' You see, like Hattie I have anxiety. Thankfully, it doesn't impact on all aspects of my life and mainly centres around social anxiety. However, social anxiety is like the opposite of 'not extreme' when it comes to dating. So I gave the book a read just to see what little things I can do to improve my social interactions as a whole. And it ties in with my August Ambition to read more self help books! 

"There was a small part of me that took pride in not “needing” to be in a relationship. But there was an even smaller, softer, yet somehow louder part of me that often marched up to me in the middle of the night and shouted that I wanted to share my life with someone.  I wanted to talk with someone about my day."

My Thankful List

As part of my August Ambition, I want to practice being more thankful for the little things that make a difference in life.

Here's everything I feel thankful for today:

- Waking up to sunshine

- Getting a seat on the Luas

- How my 52 Blue blog post touched people

- My work colleagues asking me about my weekend

- Having a nail file in my bag when my nail chipped

- Having a busy week to look forward to

August Ambition

In my July Favourites post I mentioned that I intend to take action this month in order to be better able to protect myself. It all sounds a bit wordy. Because I hadn't exactly decided what this was or what it meant when I wrote it.

Here’s the thing, I’ve had a fairly easy Summer. Yes, there have been highs and lows, but I’ve managed.

But I’m anxious about what will happen after the Summer. Some post-summer blues if you will.

August Book Read

How is it the end of August? How has my summer ended already? *insert sad face emoticon here*

Well regardless of how much faster time passes with the older you get, the end of the month spells my monthly Book Review.

The Popular Novel:

The Fault In Our Stars, John Green

You know the plot. Either you've read it already, seen the film, or at least been subject to the hype that surrounds both. Even my mother said 'I saw an ad for that' when I described the book for her.

Basic Plot: Teenage girl (Hazel) has cancer. Teenage girl meets teenage boy (Augustus) in recovery from cancer. They fall in love. But they're kids with cancer, it was never going to end 'Happily Ever After'.

I knew all of this. I didn't start reading the book blindly, in fact I knew exactly how it ended thanks to a spoiler from my loving younger sister. It also wasn't the first John Green novel I read, so I knew to expect his emotional telling of teenage love.