Rachel Sarah XO

Hey you guys!

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas. I spent mine in my new onesie on the sofa, buying lots of things from the sales, obviously.

This year I didn't really ask my parents for a lot because since I have my own income now, if there's something I want, I'll get it on payday. So these are more things they've spotted and thought I'd like or if I've wanted things for ages and couldn't bring myself to buy them because of the price or whatever. Let me just say, I hate surprises so a lot of the gifts from my parents, I picked out, haha.

Just a disclaimer which I don't really feel I should have to do but whatever, I'm not bragging, I appreciate every single gift I got given. And if you're anything like me, I love seeing what other people got for Christmas. I literally sat and watched about 9 What I Got For Christtmas 2014 videos this morning.

Let's get right into it!

My little sister bought me these and I love them. I know it might come as a shock, but I do like things other than Disney (I know, how weird!) but I knew I was possibly going to be getting a lot of Disney stuff for Christmas so I asked her to get me the Mia Wallace Funko POP figure (Pulp Fiction is one of my favourite movies) and the Kick-Ass 3 Graphic Novel, I've read the previous 2 and the films are in my top 5 favourite movies ever. The Adventure Time colouring book was a bit of a surprise, I've been kind of into colouring a lot lately so that was a super sweet present.

I went over to my best friend, Shauna's house on the Sunday before Christmas and we exchanged presents. It was all neatly wrapped on red polka dot paper and in a gorgeous Disney Princess gift bag (yes, I'm saving that for next year.)

I didn't notice a theme until I'd opened them all up but I was very impressed. I'd spotted the Minnie mug and soft toy in the Disney store a while back but I couldn't bring myself to spend £15 at the time on a mug. But I loooove them. Thank you, Shauna! (She also got me a gorgeous blingy triangle necklace which will be in the jewellery section of this blog post, so look out for that.

I've come to realise that I've organised this blog post very badly, oh dear! I've started so I'll finish it I suppose, haha. The cute Christmas Minnie is from my parents. I kind of gave them a list of things I'd spotted online that I really liked and they went and bought it. This was one of them but on it's own it was £20 (ouch!) but if you spent over £20 at Disney Store Online then it would be £9.99 on it's own, so that was one hell of a deal and my parents had gone way over the £20 mark, hahaha. She's so fluffy and the velvet on her dress is so soft, ugh. I live for soft toys.

The Bambi slippers were a present from my grandparents (well, kind of, my grandparents are getting on a bit and can't really go anywhere so they send my mum money for me and my sister and either mum gets us presents with that money or we pick some things out before Christmas) I found these in Primark for £8 and I was just madly in love, I had to get them. I always find a way to get slippers every year for Christmas, haha.

The Magical Unicorn Poop shot glass and the 'How About A Nice Tall Glass Of Shut The Fuck Up' pint glass were gifts from my parents. They know me so well. And the Pinocchio DVD was from the money my grandparents gave me. I saw it in Primark, the same trip I saw the Bambi slippers on.

Oh god, do excuse this god awful photo. I couldn't get them all in frame or in focus apparently, sorry!

The Eeyore notebook and Minnie Mouse Gift Set were gifts from my auntie and uncle on my dad's side. We usually give them a rough idea of things we like and this year was 'just anything disney or makeuppy' The Eeyore notebook is just so pretty I never want to use it, it's got these cute Eeyore pictures on the corners of each page and gah I love me some Eeyore, but it's just too cute.. Hahaha. The Minnie Mouse toiletries set has a little perfume, a body lotion and a body wash (I think), the perfume smells really lovely (I haven't smelled the other ones yet, oops.) My auntie and uncle also got me the cutest necklace ever (again in the jewellery section of the blog post, look out for it) and cute little eyeshadow palette from New Look. The Anna and Olaf mug is from the Disney Store and is gift from my parents (I picked that one out also, oops)

Oooh, the popularly mentioned jewellery section.

So, let's start with the gorgeous Ariel necklace, shall we. That was a gift from my auntie and uncle and funnily enough, I was going to buy a necklace very similar on payday but I stopped myself because I knew Christmas was soon, I absolutely adore it. The next two are gifts off my parents, the bracelet is a bit hard to see but it's an elasticated bracelet with pink blingy bits all over it, very cute. (I didn't even know about these ones!) and the last one is a present off my best friend, Shauna, she knows how much I love triangles. It's got 3 chains like 3 separate necklaces but there's a clasp connecting them all, so cute!

Okay so you see that Sleeping Beauty journal on the left? It's possibly the most perfect thing I've ever laid my eyes on. If I didn't get any other presents for Christmas, I'd be totally happy with just that. It was £12 from the Disney Store (yikes!) and it's from their Limited Edition Fairytale Collection, and it was also a gift from my parents. Thank you Mum and Dad, I love it!

The Minnie Mouse agenda on the right is a gift from my auntie and uncle on my Dad's side again, it super adorable. The whole book has a matte feel to it and you can enter your own dates on it! At the top of each page it says "Date:_____" NO MORE EMPTY PAGES. I hate that, when I get a daily journal/diary and it has set dates for each page. Like hello, maybe I don't want everybody to know I can't stick to writing in a diary? Hahaha.

These are both gifts from my parents (which I may or may not have picked out, as I said, hate surprises.) I found the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark box set on Amazon! Unfortunately it's not the Stephen Gammell edition of the books like I thought originally but still great stories none-the-less! And of course, Red Dead Redemption for Xbox, I've wanted this game for ages now but just never got round to buying it. I haven't started it yet but it look pretty good from what I've seen (Let's Play's on YouTube are very helpful.)

These are presents from the Secret Santa we did at work. So there's a lady at work called Fatima and I call her my work mum. Ever since I started she's looked out for me and she's just so lovely. So I was her secret santa, I got her some cute earrings and an Along Came Betty gift set. And it turns out she was my secret santa also! The budget was £5 by the way. She also got me some Frozen chocolate lollies. So, the Frozen handwash, I bought this for myself at the weekend previously from Poundland and it smells so lovely so I was really pleased to get that, there's so much of it in the bottle too! She got me a more appropriate cup for work (all I drink at work is squash, and I ALWAYS smash the glasses at work, so a plastic cup works perfectly, and obviously, it has Minnie on it, so even more perfect). And then the gorgeous Disney tin with most of the Disney characters all around it, which was once filled with very yummy cookies that I may or may not have already eaten, oops!

You know your obsession is bad when everybody at work knows about it too, haha!

So these are all gifts from my parents (except the Pure Colour palette which is from my lovely auntie and uncle.)

So, I got the gorgeous Smokey Eye Palette from the Holiday Keepsakes Collection by MAC. LOOK AT THAT PACKAGING. I got a Paintpot by MAC in the shade 'Painterly' (cult classic?) I also got some Real Techniques brushes, the buffing brush I got with the core collection that I got for Christmas last year has completely fallen apart, bless it, so I got the expert face brush and the eye starter kit. I also got a MAC lipsick in 'Flat Out Fabulous'. My auntie's sister was wearing that lipstick at my auntie's wedding and it just looked gorgeous on and I've been lusting after it for ages now.

And finally, my auntie and uncle got me one of the eyeshadow palettes from New Look's new make up line, Pure Colour. I've been wanting to try these out for a while now, so now I have the perfect opportunity! The colours are lovely too.

So my 'main' present I suppose is from my auntie and uncle on my mum's side and my parents (I got this before Christmas with the money I was given by my auntie and uncle and my mum put a little bit towards it also.)

So the bag I'm using everyday for work is a Primark bag, I bought it in September, it was £10 and it's falling to bits so I desperately needed a new one. I spotted this ages ago in my local alternative/emo/goth shop when I was buying my polka dot 50's dress for the Christmas Masquerade Ball fundraiser for work. It's buy the brand, Banned, it was £30 and it's a gorgeous black faux leather bag with a big sugar skull on the front. I absolutely adore it.

I just want to say a huge thank you to anybody that bought me a present or gave me money. I'm so appreciative of everything I got and I love you all very much. :-)

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas! Let me know what you got for Christmas in the comments below.

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

13:45 1 comments

19:00 No comments

20:18 2 comments

Hi guys,

I haven't posted since July, I have a good excuse, I swear! (Okay so maybe not.) I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, I swear. So I've been working for 5 months now and I've been panic attack free for 4 months, yeah I'll explain that in a little bit.

So I'm working for this amazing charity called Leeway, they support victims of domestic abuse and I'm really loving it. I'm doing it as an apprenticeship, so I'm supposed to go to college once a month (I don't go, college is still a huge no no for me but whatever) and I do my NVQ work in Business and Administration and I see an assessor, it's all fun and games. It's so nice to have a routine, I wake up at 6:15am every morning, get on the bus at 7:10am, get off the bus, walk a mile to work and I get to work at 8:45am. Yes, I'm getting the bus now and managing to stay on it for over and hour without having a panic attack. It's so weird.

My first day of work was so weird. I hadn't explained my anxiety at the interview so the first thing I needed to do was make my supervisor aware, she was super supportive and she gave me loads of options I could take if I felt panicky at work. So first day was over and not one panic attack. Second day came, I was meeting more people on my second day than on my first and it was a bit overwhelming and I was a panicky mess, they all turned out to be so nice and I knew I had nothing to worry about. Third, fourth and fifth day came around, and I still hadn't had a panic attack. The only one I can recall was one morning on the bus, there was a whole load of students sat around me and I just felt incredibly uncomfortable, I got off the bus in my town and my mum ended up driving me to work, that was the last time I had a panic attack. Most people at work are aware of my problem and they're all super nice about it and I wouldn't feel like such an idiot if I had a panic attack. I think because I'm so busy at work, I don't have time to be feeling anxious.
I work the reception desk at work, I have to greet people from external agencies, on my first week I was avoiding meeting external people like the plague. Now I'm much more confident with meeting new people (adults, still not cool with meeting people my own age) and now I can answer the phone wiithout panicking about who's on the other end of the line.

It's safe to say I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm probably never going to be totally okay around people my own age for the time being but because I'm working in a place where the majority of the women there are 30-50, they're obviously a lot more mature and that's totally fine.

As for blogging, since I'm working 5 days a week, I leave at 7am and get home at around 6pm-7pm, I'm not finding much time for blogging, bearing in mind I also have to fit in my NVQ work whenever I have time to myself, so evenings and weekends. On the plus side, I now have a working laptop. That was another factor of me not blogging, my laptop totally just crashed and didn't want to do anything, I'd load it up and everything would just crash, so I had nothing really to blog on, but now I have a lovely new bright pink HP laptop, it's hella fast and does everything I need it to, so I may be blogging more frequently now, we'll see.

So really, these last 5 months have been pretty flippin' cool. I'm a much happier, positive person and I'm super proud of myself for not letting my anxiety ruin this opportunity for me. Good job, brain.

I hope you're all doing fabulous, it'd be cool to hear what you've been up to these last 5 months. :)

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

10:20 2 comments

Hey guys!

This month has been pretty bad in the way of anxiety and health things but it's been awesome at the same time and I shall explain why.

So the month started off with intense anxiety about my teeth (super random, I know) but I've always been anxious about my teeth and dentists. I woke up one morning and my teeth felt pretty loose (they didn't actually move at all), but they felt really insecure in my mouth, I then noticed that my two bottom front teeth had shifted a tad. I plucked up the courage to go to the dentist, and my dentist diagnosed me with TMJD (Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction), basically she took one look at my teeth and said "Do you grind your teeth?" and I was like "Mhm, yep" and she said "Yeah, you've got the typical looking teeth of a grinder." I also explained to her that my top two front teeth constantly felt like someone was punching my in my mouth and she said that it's a perfectly common symptom of people who grind their teeth, because you're putting so much pressure on your teeth when you grind them, it can cause problems to the nerves in your teeth or something and it can hurt even when you're not grinding. I wasn't even aware of my teeth grinding problem until my mum told me that when I fell asleep on the sofa once a month or two ago and she could hear a crunching/grinding noise, obviously it's gotten pretty bad if it's caused my teeth to feel so weird. I've caused some damage to the joints in my jaw because of the constant grinding. My dentist is making me a night guard though so hopefully when I next see her which is next month I think, I should be able to get my grinding under control.

If you could see the state I was in the week before going to the dentist, I absolutely pity my mum. I was having panic attacks on and off for 5 days, I couldn't stop crying and I cried so much I caused my whole upper body (particularly the joints and muscles because of the tension) to be in pain for the whole week afterwards. It generally wasn't a good couple of weeks.

But then things got a bit better! By the next week, my teeth were feeling a lot better, my pains had gone, I'm still grinding my teeth but I can't help that since I do that whilst I'm asleep but generally everything was a whole lot better than it was the couple of weeks before.

Things then got even better. I was invited to go to a job interview in Norwich (closest city to me, it's like 20 miles away) for a domestic abuse charity. The role I'd applied for was an apprentice admin and finance assistant. Not sure why I even thought that was a good job for me, I can't even add up but whatever, haha! I walked into the office building and signed in, waited in the reception area whilst trying my hardest not to have a panic attack, got interviewed by two ladies, and then got worried as the interview had only lasted 15 minutes which only seemed about 5 minutes as I was sat there. Got told I'd hear whether I got the job or not that day or the next day. Went back to the car park to tell my mum how it went (was pretty convinced I messed it up beyond belief), I then spent all evening waiting for a phone call. Hardly slept at all that night. Woke up at 9:30am, and spent all morning staring at my phone pretty much, then I finally got a phone call 3 hours later and it was the woman who interviewed me, I GOT OFFERED THE JOB, WOOO. Obviously I said yes! I've been unemployed for 9 months so I would have said yes to anything but this is a job I really really really wanted, so I was so excited. It's still a shock. I think I start on Monday 4th August, although I'm not entirely sure. I know I have to go into work then to discuss salary and the days I'd be working and what not, so that should be fun!

This month has been incredibly interesting, good and bad but I'm so exciting to see what next month is going to bring.

I hope you're all doing okay, let me know how your month has been. :)

That's all for now,
Rachel. xo

00:00 1 comments

11:27 2 comments

Hey guys!

This is a blog post I've been wanting to do for a while but after spending the last few days on Tumblr, it's just confirmed that this is a blog post that needs to be done.

So what do I mean by romanticism of self-harm and suicide? What I mean by that is that self-harm and suicide has suddenly become 'glamourous', if you can call it that. It seems to have become a trend to make a Tumblr account and reblog nothing but triggering images of fresh cuts and suicidal quotes with no trigger warning. With popular TV shows like Skins and websites like Tumblr that do a pretty good job of making self harm and addiction seem like a tragically beautiful thing, it's no wonder so many teenagers are considering self harming. It's crazy to think someone would go onto Tumblr, search the 'depression' tag and go "you know what, I've never self harmed before, it looks so beautiful, I might try it." I'm sorry, but self-harming is not something you plan out weeks ahead, you don't keep a diary of days when you need to self-harm, it just happens.

Then there's the group of Tumblr users who go even further promote self harm by posting pictures of their own fresh cuts on there. People who self-harm as a form of release would often never dream of showing off their scars in the fear of someone questioning them about it, but these pro self-harm blog owners will just post pictures of their cuts, add a 'tragically beautiful' caption and be on their way. No consideration for others, no trigger warnings or better yet, it would make Tumblr a much nicer place if all the pro self-harm blog owners were never allowed to make another blog again.

It's making an entire mockery of the destigmatization of mental health. It's putting us all in a category of 'attention seekers' and 'drama queens' because there's a minority of people who think it's another trend that they can jump on the back of, but this is a 'trend' that's been going on for too long.

This is a very good example of why self-harm and suicides within teenagers are so high. There's a small percentage of people who do for attention, there's a percentage of people who do it because they think they're some kind of artist and it makes them more edgy and cool if they self-harm and then there's the people who genuinely self-harm because they have depression, low self-esteem, a horrible family life etc, they are the people I feel for, those are the people that deserve the real help. This whole 'self harm is a beautiful tragedy' trend needs to stop before it gets out of hand.

Self-harm and suicide is not beautiful. Self-harm is an absolutely horrible thing to have to go through and I wish I could help every single person who's ever been through it. You're so strong. And I'm so sorry that there are people taking your strength away from you just for attention.

Here is are some charities and helplines that you can talk to if you're feeling at risk of harm or suicide, please talk to them. They're there to help.

PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide): Call on 08000 68 41 41 or text them on 07786209697.

Samaritans: Call on 08457 909090.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

That's all for now,

Rachel. xo

14:19 No comments

Rachel Sarah XO

About me

Follow Us

INSTAGRAM

recent posts

Blog Archive