Twenty-One

This week I've celebrated a bit of a mile-stone birthday - the big two-one. Well, when I say celebrated, I mean more attempted to ignore it. 21 really was not a birthday I was looking forward to, in fact I have been dreading it for the last couple of weeks. However, 1 week in and I can confirm that the world did not indeed end as I thought it would. Indeed, being 21 and 1 week is not actually that much different from being 20 - who's have thought it? I would even go as far as saying I like the idea of being 21 (just as long as I don't get any older!) it's got a little grown-up sparkle to it that I quite like.

Anyway, I had a lovely time at the weekend with the 'surprise' party my Mum and Auntie Flute threw for me. 'Surprise' because I accidentally let myself in on the secret several weeks beforehand, but that's another story.

There was much bunting, cake and an abundance of embarrassing photographs and lovely people there to share it which made me a very happy girl. I have also commandeered the decorations and photographs for safe keeping, just in case.

The beautiful rose from the top of my cake which I'm saving

Whilst I'm telling you about it I would like to take the opportunity to say a big, well earned thank you to my Mum and Auntie Flute (and of course my Dad!) for arranging such a lovely surprise. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank everyone, especially my Mum and Dad for giving me such lovely presents - I feel absolutely spoilt rotten!!! This year was definitely the year of the craft/cook book which will keep me amused and well fed for years to come. I really cannot wait to share some of the amazing books I received this week with you, but for now I shall just leave you with a couple of photographs unearthed from this weekend...

See, I was a cutie once...I wonder what happened!

Happy Tuesday,

aLittleBlonde xx

Edit: I just worked it out, turns out I'm only really 18 plus VAT :)

It's the final countdown...

So this week marks the beginning of my final year. Excited? Mmm... A little bit very terrified? Umm, yeah...

It's hard to believe it, but this is the year when not only do I get to chose all my modules (bar the one compulsory one), but they also let me loose on real people. Yes that's right, aLittleBlonde is being released into the world (with some academic supervision I may add!) to conduct her own experiment! Right now I'm still very much at the rabbit in the headlights, 'oh my gosh what am I going to do' stage, but I'm hoping that feeling will begin to subside over the next couple of weeks as I talk with my supervisor and attempt to get my ideas in line and on track. As of today I do have a little bit of an idea, although I seriously doubt my little idea will actually even remotely resemble the finished project that will hopefully be just a somewhat distant and hopefully painless memory come this time next year.

So it's the start of a new academic year, one in which I have convinced myself that organisation will be the key. This is going to be THE year, in which I am going to get EVERYTHING done, whilst experiencing manageable levels of stress and still finding time to cook myself proper meals and indulge in the occasional baking session to boot. It would also be good to squeeze a little bit of crafty time in there too, but I think we can both see where this is going...

Despite the excitement and stresses a new academic year can bring, I think we can agree that there is one thing that everyone looks forward too - new stationary!

It's the new pens, the pads of clean blank paper, the folders waiting to be filled with notes...

...and look, my first roll of washi tape!

I really am a bit of a sticker addict too.

And do you know what one of my favourite parts is? The ceremonious filling in of the academic diary/wall planner. I have to say I did have a bit of a moment when it came to writing this rather grand word on my wall planner though.

Come July, barring flood, fire and disaster I will hopefully have three little letters after my name. Wow. That really is pretty cool, you've got to admit it.

Happy Monday,

aLittleBlonde

I'm back!

That's right, after two weeks in sunny and then very rainy Cornwall and a week working/recovering I am back and ready to get back into my bloggy mojo!

I did attempt some blogging whilst I was away and have a fair few photos and pretty things to show you, not leat to mention the now finished mystery project, but without enough reliable wifi to get my phone and ipad to communicate with my blogger dashboard it was beginning to feel a bit too much like hard work. I do however have several posts drafted out and ready for assembly just as soon as I hit upon the winning combination of a real computer, reliable internet and some spare time.

So what have I been up to since I last spoke to you? Well...
I've shared the back seat of a car with 2 basset hounds, received far too many sloppy kissess from said bassett hounds, had breakfast on the beach, explored many a seaside town, visited the town where Doc Martin is set, painted my toes blue, cut myself on a Krispy Kreme wrapper, become a member of the national trust, eaten many many pasties, read a really good book, finished my mystery stitch, started learning to drive, been to not one, but 3 craft fairs, made gingerbread men in August, finally watched Dirty dancing for the 1st time, played the ukelele a bit... I think that will do for now!

I shall link up as I post about these things, although rest assured there won't be a dedicated post for each of the above - I'm pretty sure the incident with the Krispy Kreme wrapper won't quite stretch to a full post, or at least a very interesting one anyway!

So, I'm off to sort out a few of those posts, download my photos and just generally come back to the real world (we'll ignore the fact that I've been back for the best part of a week, shall we?) Apart from anything else I still have a lot of posts from other blogs to read through. On logging in to bloglovin' when I got back I discovered in excess of 240 unread posts. Impressive, huh? Even now I've still got over 100 still waiting to be read. It doesn't help that I also keep finding new ones to follow, but I'll be damned if I'm going to just press the 'mark as read' button on any of them. What if I miss something good?

Happy Tuesday,

aLittleBlonde xx