Week 4 (Jan 25th) Why I Blog

I Blog because I enjoy it. When I first started blogging way back in 2010 I hated it and was glad it only last a semester at college. 

But then I decided a few years later that I wanted to give it a proper try, and though I did delete about a 18 months worth of posts I started all over again.  

Though blogging can be tough at times I still really enjoy it. I do it for me rather than anyone else I don’t mind if I don’t have the same opportunities as other people who blog or have a large audience. I’d rather blog about what I want than anything else. 

Best of Me Nicholas Sparks Book Review

Book: Best of Me
Author: Nicholas Sparks 
Pages: 204
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing. 
Publish Date: September 5th 2006
Start Reading Date: January 1st 2019
End Reading Date: January 5th 2019
Good reads Rating: 2*


I wanted to have read this last year but just didn’t. This is one of two Nicholas Sparks books I haven’t yet read.  

I’m sorry if you like this book. But so far I don’t. I’m about 100 pages in at the moment and don’t like it. 

By the time I had finished the book I had skipped the end of chapters to start the new one. 

I kinda felt cheated by the book because I know that Nicholas Sparks can write some absolute amazing books. This just wasn’t one of them. 

Week 3 (18th Jan) How I Started Blogging

I started blogging way back in 2010, for a college elective. But soon decided that I didn’t want that blog after I finished that course. It served no other purpose than for that class.  

I did start blogging properly on this blog I want to say in 2013 time but decided to start a new, in 2015, I just looked at my welcome post from back then and I said I wasn’t happy with how my blog was leading up to that point. In last half of 2015, I really didn’t do that many posts. 

In 2016 was when I properly started blogging, and when I would do makeup stuff, but it soon turned it to reading and book blogs rather than makeup. And ever since I’ve mainly done that, with a few other things mixed in. 

And now it’s 2019, I’m still blogging, and honestly I wish I had kept the posts that I deleted. But hind Sight is a wonderful thing.  

I Was Recommenced A Book But Enjoyed Another More

This has been a post that I’ve wanted to post for months, 


- Recommend: Animal Farm
- Enjoyed: The Great Gatsby 
I remember someone on YouTube recommending Animal Farm, but it wasn’t until I saw it at my local bookstore in 2014, as a part of a 3 for $10 that I picked it up with The Great Gatsby and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that I actually picked it up. 

When I read it I hated it. I don’t know if it’s because I had no idea what the hell was going on, or because it just wasn’t good, I hated it. 

With The Great Gatsby I just fell in love with the book. It flowed well for me. I did see the movie before I read the book which I don’t normally like to do, but when I did read the book, I didn’t see the actors, or hear there voices.  

- Recommend: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before 
- Enjoyed: My Life Next Door
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was such a highly recommend book when it first came out. Everyone raved how good it was. But I found most of it boring as hell. I hated the short chapters and the shallow main character.  

Where as My Life Next Door was a cute, easy flowing, romantic love story. I felt that it flowed much better. 

At first I thought it was because I read To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and then My Life Next Door right after but that’s not the case. I re read both books in 2018, and had months between reading them and felt the exact same way. 

- Recommend: The Fault in our Stars 
- Enjoyed: Looking For Alaska
I’m not saying TIFIOS was a bad book it’s not, but everyone and their wife was recommending it. Even I did. But when I picked up Looking for Alaska I fell in love with it much more than TIFIOS, and it’s not as recommenced as TIFIOS, which I think is a shame because it has a slight edge on it. 


- Recommend: Fan Girl
- Enjoyed: Since You’ve Been Gone 
For me Fan Girl was awful when I first read it. It was the book that made me not buy recommended books at full price anymore, that and the fact new books are so highly priced.  

With Since You’ve Been Gone I felt more connected with the characters than in Fan Girl. 


- Recommend: The Notebook
- Enjoyed: Safe Haven
With The Notebook it was the movie rather then the book that I was constantly recommended. When I picked it up as it had a further discount on it. Sure it was romantic and cute and well written I just didn’t like it. Where as with Safe Haven I felt more connected with the characters. Not because of the story lines but because I could see them out of the page better. 


- Recommended: If I Stay
- Enjoyed: Just One Day
I liked If I Stay a lot, it was a really good book, I liked the characters and the struggles they went through but for me Just One Day was perfect. 

Week 2 (Jan 11th) How I Blog.

Most of my blogging is done via my phone. I’m not an organized person in general, but what I do works well for me. 

Each month I have a folder that is specific for that month. In that folder the first thing I do is title posts for Top Ten Tuesday (TTT) and Top 5 Wednesday (T5W) and the day they are supposed to be released on my blog.  

I also have post titles of things I want to blog about. These post are varied both on topics and days they are released. 

I also have folders for other things such as my books reviews, Netflix review. 

What happens when I don’t post a blog in the month I wrote it, is that I carry it over to the next month, and post it when i feel its right. 

I do it this way, because then I can edit post throughout the week/month and make it How I want it. Things such as TTT and T5W that are weekly things I can bullet point what I want to say, what books are on it that come to mind right away and edit it throughout the week. Though sometimes they do over lap in their topics curtain times, such as January’s topics and December’s topics. 

There are also times when I want to do post on curtain topics, that I wait until it’s an appropriate time. Such as this year I want to do a series all about PCOS, but the right time to do it is in September for PCOS Awareness Month. 

When posts are complete I’ll put it on to my blogging app, and add the photos of what ever I am talking about, or that are appropriate. When I have everything set up via my phone is when I go on to my laptop and edit everything even more. 

I get the font of text i want, along with moving pictures around, bold what needs it. 

The Truth About The Rochdale Sex Ring by the Girl Who Stoped Them

Book: The Truth About The Rochdale Sex Ring by the Girl Who Stoped Them 

Author: Girl A

Start Reading Date: December 15th 2018

End Reading Date: December 18th 2018

Good reads Rating: 5*

I knew that it would be a hard book to read given the nature of the book but I never imagined it would be this hard.  

I totally felt for Hannah (Girl A) throughout the whole book. She was used and abused by someone she thought was her friend, and raped by those who should have known better.  

I really felt for most of the people involved. Hannah and her family, though there were many arguments between them and Hannah would run away and stay at Harry’s house with Emma and those she thought were friends, her parents kicking her out when Emma came to call though Hannah didn’t want to go. To the other underage girls who had been abused by the gang who didn’t think anything was wrong with what was happening. I even felt sorry for Emma.  

In my review on GoodReads for the book I said that it’s a book that should never have had to be written but I am glad that it is. I say that because the girls shouldn’t have been in the position to be abused by the men that did abuse them. That these men should have known better.  


I think that it’s a good book to have been written because it shows just how easy it is for these men to pray on young innocent girls.  

I really felt for Girl A because as much as she wanted love she also wanted her parents to see that not everything was ok, and that just once for her to be believed by them. I am not blaming the parents, but if it was me and I had found out my daughter had been raped, and it coincided with someone always being around I would have been a bit suspicious of that person.  


Girl A showed how strong she was knowing how much danger she was in, and that she kept fighting though it would have been easy for her to just stop everything.  

January 2019 TBR

Welcome to the first TBR of 2019, 

- At First Sight 
* Nicholas Sparks
At First Sight is one of two Nicholas Sparks books I haven’t read yet. So here’s to 2019 and hopefully reading it. 

- Last Night At Chateu Marimont 
* Lauren Wiesburger 
I love The Devil Wears Prada and have had Last Night At Chateu Marimont sitting on my shelf’s for 5 years nearly and haven’t even attempted to read it. 

Week 1 Meet The Blogger

Welcome to a new series that I am putting out onto my blog weekly.  

I don’t know what it’s going to be called or what specific day it will go up, but I wanted a new kind of post that I do weekly

I was looking on google for inspiration for this year for my blog and something I saw was a 52 week challenge. As I was looking through I liked different suggestions on each posts, and put them in what order I wanted to do them in.  

This is week One. Where I will start the series. This one is called ‘Meet The Blogger’. I did a post all about me, so let me tell you a little about me. 

I’m Lauren, I am 29 years old, I was born in March 1989, which makes me 30 this March, it also makes me an Aries and I was born on a Wednesday. And if the nursery rhyme is to believed I am full of Woe. I was born in Somerset England where I grew up for just over 8 years, before moving to Hampshire for around 5 years, then East Sussex for a further 5 years, when at 19 I moved to Canada where I have been living since. 

I am in love David Beckham, I cant remember a time when I haven’t been in love with him. 

I believe in Gender Equality over Feminism. 

I love True Crime Podcasts from the UK 🇬🇧. 

I have never voted. 

I have a phobia of feet, big dogs, small dogs, the ocean and weirdest of them all armpits.  

I’ve had many nicknames, including bearhead and holdz. The nickname I hate being called is Loz

People always mess up my name wanting to call me Laura. 

I prefer Harry Potter over Twilight.  

I love rollercoasters, but hated being on a motorbike 

Resolutions

I’m not someone who makes resolutions that have to start on January 1st, I make them more a year long Thing. I set them out at the beginning of the year and at some point throughout the year I hope I get to them. 

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Like when I gave up smoking 12 years ago I said "At some point this year I want to quit smoking" and I did. In May I gave up smoking. It lasted two years and it was hard but I did it.  

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So that’s what I am doing for 2019, setting out how I want the year to go.  

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1. I want to eat more healthy. Which is hard because I am the fussiest fat person I know when it comes to food. I put it down to the fact that I worked in kitchens as a teenager and got into bad habits. I can’t remember the last time I ate breakfast constant days in a row. I know I have unhealthy habits when it comes to food. 

Also having PCOS I gain weight so easy, and harder to loose.    

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2. I want to loose weight. Kinda goes hand in hand with the first thing but I want to exercise and eat well, and loose a bit of weight. 

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3. I want to understand PCOS more. 
When I was 23, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS for short, in effects 1 in 10 women, is the most common factor of infertility, it’s a leading factor in weight gain, diabetes, hair loss, hair growth, missed or irregular periods. And while I know the simple things I want to understand it a lot more.  

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4. I want to save money. I am someone who loves spending my money when I get it. But I want to save some each week. I want to start small and save what I can, when I can. 

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5. I want to have a massive sort out of all my belongings. I live in a one bed apartment and have a lot of ‘stuff’ I don’t want to go minimalist or anything but I want to let go off a lot of things. 

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6. I want to cut down on the amount of plastic I have and use. I am someone who can’t put unexpected realizations on them selfs. I would much prefer to cut down then to cut out completely.