Dating & Dresses

Right, I have to admit to feeling a little smug at the moment, as I received a few compliments for the dress below that I happened to wear on a date last week!

Dress: Etam via E-bay, Necklace: Can't remember, Shoes: Ebay

There are several reasons for the smugness, not least that the compliments mentioned were from my date.  The dress made me feel exceptionally girly like I have NEVER felt before in my life, it cost me a WHOPPING £5.20 (inc. P&P) off Ebay (yeah, I was ripped off, right?) and although I admit to being a little nervous (I was expecting it to turn out like the Karen Millen dress disaster I ordered at the same time) it turned out to be beautiful.

The only downside I can mention to this is that the neckline of the dress is very low, and has a slight tendency to gape a little at the front showing a glimpse of bra.  Naturally this wasn't the look I was going for on the date, and unfortunately I had to make do with using a hair-grip to attach the inside of the neckline to my bra to stop it, as I had no safety pins to hand.  I think I'll be buying some in future!  Other than that, the fit was beautiful around the waistline and the skirt was beautifully floaty!

The other downside of the dress is that I kind of feel like I've set a precedent, and with another date being arranged I now have to decide what to wear for that! Somehow, jeans and a t-shirt just don't seem to cut it any more *sigh*.

ST x

Life Wisdom from Girl Code [from BuzzFeed]

Good grief, BuzzFeed have done it again!  Well, OK, the ladies at Girl Code have done it again - seriously, , if it's the last thing you look at on the internet, EVER, check this out:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/24-important-pieces-of-life-wisdom-from-the-ladies-of-girl-c

I'm not 100% sure what this program is all about, but from the BF piece I'm gathering it's a bit like the American version of Grumpy Old Men (remember that?) but for the average 20/30 something.  Broaching subjects from sex-with-the-ex, to dieting, this selection of gifs had me in stitches!

Favourite quote:

"It's good to be with other people that do the same thing as you 

and bond with them and know you're not a complete weirdo"

ST x

Women, Tattoos and the Internet

OK, this is my first post on this type of subject, so be nice!

I have been looking through the internet a LOT recently, to find some inspiration for numerous tattoos that I am considering getting throughout the course of... well, my life, really.  I have also been reading some powerful blog posts and getting an idea of things from a feminist perspective.

In doing both, I have noticed that a lot of professional shots of tattooed women on the net are highly sexual.  I get it, that there are tattoos women have that are in places that standard clothing will cover up, and when proudly displaying someone's ink you want to show as much of the artwork as possible.

However.  Is it really necessary to put them in such alluring poses, against walls, on beds, some with ridiculously high pleaser-heels, and pouty expressions reminiscent of page 3?  Yes, a back tattoo more than likely will require the owner to go bra-less for a photo, however it does not follow that, if female, she needs to be wearing skimpy knickers - a pair of jeans will do just fine!

Google the term "tattooed men" and the story is a little difference (yeah people, I said a little, ok!?) Most of the pictures are of men in poses that would not be out of place in a clothing magazine.  Naturally there are a lot of 'shirt off' sites (like I said, if that's where the ink is...) but the images seem to be a little more conservative.  There are lots of shots of men bearing back tattoos, but very few include a view below the waist.

But, let's not do the internet a complete injustice, there are a few pictures of men in some VERY provocative poses, but the quantity I'd say less than half that of the female equivalent.

Tattoos are sexy, but are we celebrating the art of the ink, or the body they're attached to?

Whether we are celebrating the body, or the ink, the question is why is there such a discrepancy in how the subjects are depicted?

ST x

Warwick Folk Festival

Well, what started innocently enough as agreeing to a few sets with my local Samba group at the WFF this weekend, has now turned into a camp-over (not the sappy hand-gesture type, although I did over-use this joke a bit last night at rehearsal).

This is great, I've had my tent for nearly 3 years and never used it, and I've decided to forgo my holiday to Devon for rather boring, "logical" reasons that I won't go in to here!

Not so great - I have nothing to wear!

No, no, no.  I mean this sincerely, all the clothes in my wardrobe are either winter-warmth, or massive, or in the case of my "new-to-me" summer dress (recent charity shop purchase) completely see-through and in need of an emergency trip to Marks & Spencers for a slip (yes, yes I know).

Pyjamas?!  In this heat, and sharing a tent with someone I've only known briefly for a few months!  My god, what do I do?

Mild panic-rant out of the way, thankfully it's only for one night so I'm sure I'll work something out.

ST x

The Hanger-on...

So recently, I started looking for another job, and when I scored a few interviews I had a mild panic that I had absolutely nothing to wear.  Then I realised that I still had this gem of a grey pencil skirt from Pilot, that I'd had in my wardrobe for, oh I don't know, decades!

The strange thing about this is, that I bought this skirt in a sale/charity shop (hey, it's been that long I honestly can't remember) over 10 years ago, and it never really fitted me properly - but for some reason I never thought to give it to charity, or sell it at all despite the numerous times I've "emptied out" my wardrobe and drawers!

Ten years later, the even stranger thing, is that as a size 10, this skirt (a size 14 on the label) is now only just slightly big on me, but hey ho.  Interviews are over, I have the job, and better yet I still have a perfectly wearable skirt for work now!

It must be fate!

Dustin Hoffman - Tootsie and Self Image

I will put it out there that I've never seen the film Tootsie, but after being pointed in the direction of the below link by This is My Body Project (who do great work on promoting positive body image) it is now firmly on my "To Watch" list.

http://www.upworthy.com/dustin-hoffman-breaks-down-crying-explaining-something-that-every-woman-sadly-already-experienced-3?g=2

In this interview, Hoffman speaks frankly about the need to look like a "proper" woman, not a man in drag or overtly strange, or noteworthy in any way.  He also speaks openly of his disappointment when he was shown the finished product, when he realised that he didn't look anything like what society had instilled in him as the image of a "beautiful woman" and was told there was nothing that could be done about it.

Dustin's reaction to his realisation that this feeling of disappointment, sadness, and unworthiness was something that most women tend to go through on a daily basis, is what made me want to give this man the biggest hug EVER.  I cannot put this in to words, but the link shows it all.

We are ALL beautiful, interesting, fabulous wo(men) in our own right, no matter what shell we reside in.  It's about time we, and society, started believing that.  I hope that more people (not just men!) come to the same conclusion that Dustin did, that

ALL people are created INTERESTING!

Dustin, I salute you!

ST x

Now go and tell yourself you're AWESOME!

New (to me): Black & Pink Dress

After the Ebay purchase disaster, I really thought that lady luck was against me this week when it came to dresses; luckily I turned out to be wrong.

I decided to go for a wander around some of the local charity shops in Kenilworth this afternoon, and came across this gorgeous little gem

Initially I was reluctant to try it on, as I've been unable to find a strapless bra I feel comfortable in, however this dress turned out to fit so well that I don't actually need one!  As it was less than ten pounds I felt it would be a sin not to take it home, so I did, and teamed it with some black patent kitten heels (M&S) for the picture.

Now I'd love to find out where this dress is from, but all I have is the label at the back which holds no clue for me, so if anyone knows what make this dress is, I'd really love to know.

In the meantime, I hope it won't be too long until I find an occasion to wear this dress!

ST x

Sugar or Sweetner

I've come across another article via @TheJeremyVine on Twitter;

In this article in the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/diet-soda-health_b_2698494.html on Food and Diet Industry "Secrets", it states;

"One animal study found that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. When rats were given the choice between mainline cocaine right into their veins or sweetened water (in fact, they used an artificial sweetener), they found that sugar was eight times more addictive than cocaine. Even the rats already addicted to cocaine switched over to diet drinks!"

What confuses me, is that it makes the claim "Sugar is more addictive than cocaine" and then goes on to state clearly that the experiment was not conducted with Sugar, but in fact, Artificial Sweetener - something clearly branded by all its manufacturers as an alternative to Sugar!  Earlier in the same article it was advising people to drink sugary drinks as opposed to sweetened Diet drinks, so clearly there is an established difference there.

Just saying, a little bit of consistency would be nice.

I think this article contains too much information on too many different areas of this topic.  I felt, by the time I got half way through, that it lacked lost consistency and instead was just focused on bombarding you with a mass of information.

ST

You Win Some...

Well, one out of two isn't bad I suppose!

The Karen Millen dress bought off Ebay, it would appear, was just not meant to be.  First of all, the postage was late, and I got a card stating the seller had not put the correct postage on *sigh*.  After paying the fee, and a little bit more wrangling than I thought was necessary, I finally got the seller to agree to refund the extra cost I'd incurred.  Job done.

So I pootled off home (as you do) with my new bargainous Ebay purchase, eager to try on this shiny KM dress that looked pretty nice in the ad... to find that I had, in fact, bought a tent:

Of course, I had the red-eyed blinkers on at this point, and didn't realise that my baps were in the wrong position, so after a mini rant on twitter "mumble mumble mumble Karen Millen, mumble mumble, crap, mumble mumble Tent" I went out - cos I was busy, ya know!?

On my return later, I decided to try the dress on again and see what could be done, and in the process of rearranging bappage to fit in with the miniscule boob-area (KM obviously didn't cater for someone with a slightly more ample bosom when designing this dress) I then managed to break the strap.

So unfortunately, a dress that would have been relatively well presented with a sash round the waist and a bit of bap-rearranging, has now been rellogated to the "what do I do with this" pile.

Any ideas!?

ST

(P.S. No, I wasn't planning on wearing this with the stripy socks, though they do look pretty swish!)

BlogLovin'

You can now find my blog on BlogLovin' should you wish to.

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/8738667/?claim=39znmngrxde">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Fashion vs Finance

I'll admit that I've never really been one for designer brands for one of two reasons.  I find that a lot of them tend to treat their target market like walking advertisements (I'm talking Bench, Abercrombie, Superdry etc...) and the other is the price. However...

I went to Bicester Village with a friend of mine at the weekend, and we wandered into the Karen Millen store, where I saw this little beauty;

and of course, I made the fatal mistake of actually trying it on - despite the £145 price tag... I fell in love!  I have never wanted a dress (especially a dress) so badly in my life and it looked exquisite on, but this brings me to my second dislike of designer brands.  The dress was in a sale; unfortunately the £145 tag was the sale price.

So this lush little outfit remained un-purchased, as for its price and style I don't think I'd have got the wear out of it that it really deserved.  However, this has opened my eyes a bit to the benefits of designer - the fit and feel of the outfit was unlike anything I've (personally) tried before, and it felt really well made...

So...

Next post will be (hopefully a positive one) about the new (to me) Karen Millen dress that I bought for less than £10 on E-bay!

ST

(Image from KM website of course!)

Food Fail - Bread vs Toaster

After a brief shop today, I returned home and went to use the toaster;

Pic 1; too long to go into the toaster width ways.
Pic 2; too tall to toast a whole slice in one go!

Massive #foodfail

Bread 2 : Toaster 0

ST
x

Self Love and Shorts

We went out for a meal yesterday for a friend's birthday, and I finally managed to pluck up the courage to wear my new High Waisted Shorts (Next, second-hand courtesy of flea-bay).  My aim with these is to go a bit Monroe-esque, and the next stage will be some suitably retro/vintage (still not sure on the terminology!) tops.

Now, even though the weather was warm and the sun was shining, I still felt unsure as to whether I should even wear this outfit considering the amount of flesh on show - so I stuck the pic on Twitter and FB as you do (hehehe, nothing like a bit of self-validation is there!) and luckily all the responses were positive.  

However!  This particular response from a friend stunned me completely;

"I know everyone is saying congratulations on looking so thin and you look amazing now... But. When did you not look amazing?"

And you know what!?  He's SO right!  Why am I any less or any more amazing than when I was big, eh?!  The fact is, I'm not any more amazing now than I was a few years ago - I am now, and was then, all sorts of awesomeness.

My advice - tell yourself YOU ARE AWESOME as many times a day as you can.  Be positive, and be 100% convincing when you say it... it won't be long before you start to believe it!

ST

x

The Royal Horse - Leamington

Yet another "plastic pub" has opened near Leamington, a part of the Hungry Horse chain, we now welcome The Royal Horse.

On the face of it, it looks no different than any other new pub, and interior is pretty much the same too; the décor is nice, seating is nice, and "nice" is really the only adjective I can conjure up.  I'm not a great fan of these places, they tend to have very little in the way of atmosphere, or personality.

I have to say that the service is friendly, the people who sorted us with tables and food were polite, and had smiles (always great to see, and unfortunately a bit of a rarity these days).

Food wise, I have to say I was a little disappointed.  I ordered the Black and Blue Burger, which when it arrived looked pretty good - a decent sized burger, nice portion of fries, with coleslaw and barbecue sauce for dip.  I lifted up the burger 'lid' and was happy to find some onion rings in there, and a decent helping of the cheese sauce, though upon tasting the sauce contained next to no flavour, and I was grateful of the barbecue dip for all the wrong reasons.

Food Love, Body Love

OK, so I went to Pilates (hey, I'm not on a health kick, and I'm not on a diet, but I'm still a healthy girl, mkay!?) and once again, whenever we stop behind to talk to our instructor, we always end up on one of 2 topics.

1/  Food, which always entails the bloody C word (Calories) or Health content.

2/ Figures - no, not the numbers (I'm not Sheldon from Big Bang here!).

Now in terms of the food - BRILLIANT, I absolutely love this topic; especially when it swings around to my favourite Thai Restaurant (Totally Thai in Warwick) but then, then it always seems to get ruined when it sidelines into the "oh yes, Thai food is much better for you than [insert alternative here]" - I swear, my brain all but switches off at this point!  Who cares?! If it's tasty, eat it, and love it for what it is!

Topic number 2?  Well, really!  After one Pilates session, the topic of figure came up (again) and someone said "well let's face it, no one is ever happy with their figure are they?".  Actually, YES! Jeez, even when I was fat I never had as many hang-ups about my body as these people seem to have (and yes, I managed to get up to a size 18, which at 5ft nothing is quite a hefty weight to be lugging around).  But one thing I learnt as I lost it, is that you only have 1 body (well at least until they perfect brain/personality transplants) and that body deserves to be looked after, well respected, but most of all LOVED no matter what shape or size you happen to be.

If you spend all your time looking for faults, and listing the bad points, you're never going to be happy with anything, and this goes for both your body, and the things you choose to feed it with.  Case in point, the quotes for both 1 & 2 were courtesy of the same woman who is a size 8-10, and has a figure most people of any age would be very proud of!

Enjoy your body, enjoy food, but most of all, ENJOY LIFE.

 

Why Should Food be the Enemy?

After seeing a plug for yet another "This is why you're fat, and here are the foods you should stay away from" book, I had a flashback to the 'food wheel' at school.

I can't actually remember if that's what it was called, but when I was a kid, at school we were shown a wheel split into the food groups that a human needs, and each was made up of a collage of things that fell into each category.

As far as I remember, bread, sugar AND carbs were on there, all things that the above so-called "Self Help" book decided are bad for you, according to Jeremy Vine (@TheJeremyVine) on twitter.

No one food group can provide the nutrients that a human requires, so for a BALANCED diet you need to include all three of these things too; sugar, bread and carbohydrates.  And before you start; Fruit contains sugar, Vegetables contain carbohydrates, and bread is pretty unusual to include on it's own, though I can possibly guess (and kind of agree) that the preservatives included in mass-produced stuff might be the answer to its inclusion.

It's a shame to blame food for being the reason people are fat, but I'm also interested to know what else this book claims is the cause.  I admit that I've not read the book in question, "Why We Get Fat, And What to Do About It", by Gary Taubes, and will  definitely not be paying for the "pleasure", however if anyone wants to sling a copy in my direction I'll happily read it in order to give a more informative response.

From a lover of food who has just eaten carbs, bread AND sugar for breakfast!

ST x

Ideas for Eggs

I couldn't go without posting about possibly one of the most delicious, nutritious creations ever devised by Mother Nature - The Egg, coupled with possibly the best ever website in creation, Buzz Feed!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/emofly/eggs-in-exciting-holes

I have never, EVER seen so many excitingly random things to do with an egg, and so much inspiration for different ways to cook them!

My personal favourite idea is definitely the Muffin Tin (example above), as it offers so many variations within the one idea, my favourite so far probably being the bacon option in the picture.

For other exciting holes (ahem!) to put your eggs into, check out the link above!

I just need to buy a muffin tin now!

Oh and FYI; Eggs contain;
Protein
Iron
Vitamin A
Vitamin C
Folate
Calcium
Potassium
Vitamin B-6
Vitamin B12
Magnesium

The Rediscovery of: Bagels

Have to say that I've got vague memories of disliking Bagels.  I distinctly remember trying them and being unimpressed.

However recently my brain has been telling me to give them another go, and on a recent trip to Morrisons (other supermarkets are available) I bought two sorts to try again - hey, they were on offer!

1/ Sesame Seed bagels - my god, these are absolutely lush!  Especially cut in half and toasted!  Surprisingly sweet, they still go quite well as an alternative to standard toast with a full English Breakfast!
2/ Cinnamon and Raisin... Need I say more, just add butter, they're like a different variation on toasted hot-cross buns!

So I guess you could say I'm a convert to these wonderfully stodgy, flavoursome, fantastic-when-toasted Os of yumminess.

Go forth and Nom.

Image courtesy of thesun.co.uk (ya I know, but it focuses delightfully on the sesame seed one!)