February Favourites

Hello to you,

The first week of February was already so much better than January, I felt more alive, more motivated and more energetic. It may have taken longer than I thought but I was finally ready to tackle the year of 2018, woohoo!

Wilde Like Me by Louise Pentland

Rating: 4/5

I finished it! It may seem like a while ago, I originally talked about this book in my (...) favourites and promised I'd do a book review. Well, the book review is now up and ready to read. It'll give you some more detail about the novel created by Louise Pentland and an insight into my thoughts and feelings on the book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a modern day fairytale read with a strong female lead. The book is full of motivational quotes, relatable characters, an insight into the life of motherhood and single parenthood, a beautiful representation of the dynamics of female relationships and a lot of female empowerment. I love this book, Robin Wilde is relatable on so many levels and I think most people can identify with her.I'm always a fan of mental health awareness and appreciated how Louise carefully described the complex feelings and emotions involved.

Homemade Oatmeal Cookies

Rating:  5/5

Last months favorites included some of the co-op irresistible range cookies. These can be quite expensive if like me you are tempted to eat a whole packet in a day. I decided to do some digging into oatmeal and raisin cookie recipes, to see if there were any simple dairy free and/or vegan recipes. There are tons out there on the internet, in blogs and cookbooks. I didn't take copy a recipe straight from someone else I mixed up a couple of recipes together and figured out the right ratio of ingredients I needed. Its so much more cost effective to make them myself and they taste that little bit yummier too! (obviously the one batch I made to photograph is the one that comes out darker than the rest, no they're not burnt. haha).

Gotham

Netflix.com

Rating: 4/5

I'm Late to the party on this one. Gotham has been around for a while, (since 2004)  it's essentially the prequel to Batman, following the adventures of detective Jim Gordon and the life of a young Bruce Wayne in the aftermath of his parent's murder. I had tried to get into this series a few years back but a quarter of the way through season 1 episode 1 I stopped watching. I started rewatching it because I had seen an episode my dad was watching in season 3 and it had me hooked, so I started from the beginning working my way through to that episode. If you, like me, switched Gotham off at any time during the first season, try it again because season 2 and 3 make up for season 1. There are so much character development and depth to each of the roles and as crazy as it sounds you even start rooting for the villains as you get to know them as individuals and understand their backstories. It was also lovely to see Morena Baccarin, who plays Leslie Thompkins, in another kiss ass feminist role ( I loved her character Inara Sara in Firefly) in fact most of the women in Gotham play very important, independent and strong characters.

My Instagram Feed

Rating :  (this isn't something I feel I can rate, but let me know what you think in the comments)
I finally got my Instagram account (@thebashleyy) in order using certain to help me edit and upload the right pictures at the right time. It's the first time I have actually had any type of theme running through my feed. It just so happened that the colour scheme was green, and I have plentiful pictures with shades of green. I have also been sticking to the same filters and edits on each picture that I upload. I use a 10px border around each photo. I find it very satisfying to have an Insta theme and easy to follow.I'm not sure which colour will go next but I did enjoy fishing out all of the green pics I could.

My Confidence and Courage

Wasn'treally sure how best to capture this, I feel this cute postcard from paperchase does the trick. I have been really impressed with myself this month I must say. I have been on top of my schedule for the first time this year and It's making me feel empowered. Sure some people may think I'm not doing much and am living life at a snails pace, but I couldn't care less about those people. I am getting better everyday and so far everyday of february I have got up and out of bed, I have been going to meetings and therapy, I am volunteering and frankly I'm being the best version of myself this year and it's really rather exciting. So I'm just doign a proud little happy dance in my corner because I'm bossing it at the moment, and I have been worried I wouldn't be able to. Go me!!

What have you been enjoying this month?
Thanks for Reading
XO