365 57-63

057 Hitting up Mornington Crescent to see Taking Back Sunday. 

058 This might be my favourite photo of me ever! 

059 Murakami makes my heart happy!

060 This is going to be a "Look at all the rubbish I ate this week" week!

061 Primark haul being filmed for a new video soon!

062 Rich was given some chocolates as a thank you at work. Yum yum!

063 Pancake day! Turns out I'm amazing at making them!

Pixar Pyjama Party

Hey you! Yes, you! Do you love Pixar? Do you love blogger meet ups? Do you love retro sleepovers? Then my Pixar Pyjama Party on March 22nd sounds right up your street!

Don't panic- I'm not inviting strangers into my home or anything weird like that! It's a public event at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, London that involves showing 7 Pixar films back-to-back all through the night. I thought it would be fun to organise a little informal blogger meet up around it. 

All the details are here. Just be sure to let me know if you're coming because I might have a little treat for each attendee! 

OOTD outtakes

I've been meaning to create one of these posts for the longest time! Anyone who takes outfit posts will be faced with a whole bunch of terrible pictures that are immediately shoved into the recycling bin. I tend to get a bit silly and restless when taking outfit photos, and I've been saving these for a while now to create a post.

They're in chronological order so you'll notice the first ones are absolutely awful!









The photo above was taken when I got home from the last day of my first year in teaching. Look at the relief on that face! 

 

I'd love to see your horrible outtakes (if you've kept them, that is!). Let me leave you with this cracker from my (usually lovely) brother!

 Hope you don't have nightmares now! Sweet dreams...

5 tips for getting the most out of Twitter chats

Ah, Twitter, you wondrous thing of beauty! Where would we be without Twitter? It's the first site I check when I turn my laptop on or pick up my phone on the commute home. It's the site that brings in third of my traffic and I put this down to the amazing network opportunities. Thanks to Twitter, I have been given PR opportunities and even appeared in the Metro! One of the best ways to network with others on Twitter is through the Twitter chats. 
For those who don't know, Twitter chats are usually an hour long and have a dedicated hashtag. Just search the hashtag, join in with whoever's chatting and be sure to use the hashtag in your own tweets so others can read them. I wrote a list of all the Twitter chats I join in here, so you can find out what time they are. Psst: I'm the host of #fbloggers! Mondays 8-9pm GMT.

Of course, there are etiquette issues, and also some tricks to getting the most out of the chats. Here's everything I've learned over two years of joining in!

February in Review

Favourite outfit

I love my Topshop sale dress! 

Favourite book

I definitely appreciated The Great Gatsby more the second time I read it.

Favourite day out

I found it so difficult to choose just one favourite but I essentially settled on my trip to Camden and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Myles. 

Other favourites

It was amazing seeing Taking Back Sunday at the Koko.

Helen and I had great fun at the Voucher Codes Swap Shop Party. 

A great couple of days in London (again!) to attend the Schwing Along with Wayne's World.

A delicious Valentine's Day lunch! 

 I rifled around through a box of childhood items. 

It was my boo Leona's birthday! 

 After mine, I wrote down what to expect from an MRI scan.

My wedding plans are coming together!

Phew! February has been a busy, busy month! 

101 in 1001 XV

#12 Attend a blogging event

I had a lovely time at the Voucher Codes Swap Shop Party! 

#26 Take my little brother to a festival/ gig

Ok, ok. Visiting a West End show isn't exactly the same as a rock gig, but this is the furthest I've taken him on a day trip. I reckon it's only a couple of years until I'm allowed to take him to rock out! 

#71 Buy my wedding dress

The first part of my wedding dress has been bought! Eep! 

#96 Read 75 books

Only 3 books this month. I've lost track of how many I've read now. I think this makes 55. Only 20 left! 

#101 Watch all the films

I know it's a travesty but I hadn't seen Moulin Rouge until this month. It's visually stunning- and I loved the ending- but I couldn't really get into the storyline. It's a shame as I love both of Luhrmann's other big films. 

After giving up on Ian McEwan's novel, I decided to give the film adaptation. I really don't like Keira Knightley, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Again, the ending was gorgeous for me. If you've seen both of these films, you might spot a theme in the type of ending I appreciate! 

I haven't watched Cabaret since I was in uni, and I remember being fairly underwhelmed by it then, although I love the soundtrack. I decided to give it another go but I found much the same problem: The musical numbers caught my attention and left me in awe, but the rest in between seemed like filler. 

We also watched American Hustle. It was a bit slow really and it didn't quite grab my attention, but Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were great. (Of course I'd seen all Jennifer Lawrence hype on the internet, but I really had no idea who she was before this)

Word of March: Talk

Source

I'm not much of a talker (although Rich would disagree!). I've always been a little socially awkward and afraid of talking to people, although once I know them well, I never shut up! Luckily for me, in this day and age, the need to talk in person (or on the phone, which is one of my most hated things to do!) has diminished, so it's a lot easier for me to communicate.

Having said all that, I want to push myself this month. This is going to be the month of talk, both offline and on. Let's take a look at my goals.

• Talk to a whole bunch of real-life people at the Pixar Pyjama Party. 

I'm gathering a bunch of bloggers to come to the Pixar Pyjama Party at Prince Charles Cinema at the end of the month. I'm hoping there'll be a fair few people there- I'd love to meet 10 new bloggers!

• Maybe talk to some of my inspirations.

Twice this month, I will be attending presentations at the Southbank Centre by two of my inspirations, Grayson Perry and Malala Yousafzai. If I get the opportunity to talk to them (which I know is very unlikely), I'm going to bite the bullet and go for it! 

• Reply to blog comments every Sunday

A few weeks ago, I started replying to blog comments every Sunday since I was finding it difficult to stay on top of it. It started off well, but I've had such a busy week that I've fallen behind. I'm definitely going to get back on it! 

Hopefully, this will push me to talk more in my life!