100 Happy Days extra (100+)

Day 101: going to a comedy class

Day 102: Hearing about my sister’s first day at work, talking to my mom, and getting my first car

Day 103: Getting mail from my mom and getting stuff from the body shop

Day 104: Walking Pierre and talking to my mom

Day 105: Talking to my mom, walking Pierre, watching White Collar with my cousin, going to Brownies, and getting a badge at Brownies

Day 106: Going to see a play with a friend and going to an after party

Day 107: Filming some sketching with a friend, talking care of Pierre, and getting Subway

Day 108: Babysitting Pierre

Day 109: Going to a workshop and getting ice cream

Day 110: Babysitting Pierre, taking to my friend, mom, and sister

Day 111: Meeting up with a friend, talking to my mom and sister, and seeing my sister use and like the present I got her

Day 112: Going to Brownies, making cupcakes, and talking to my mom, dad, and sister

Day 113: Talking to my mom and grandma and having a funny conversation with my sister

Day 114: Going shopping, making cupcakes, and talking to my mom and sister

Day 115: Going to Ascot, hanging out with my friend, getting a couple complements on my outfit, talking to my sister, hearing about my friend’s dog, and getting an amazing dessert

Day 116: Talking to my mom and sister, getting to sleep in, and start making plans to see my cousin

Day 117: Getting into my freshly washed bed, trying a hair mask, talking to my mom, sister, and cousin, and making a craft for Brownies

Day 118: Talking to my mom, sister, and friend, getting ice cream, and walking Pierre

Day 119: Going to Brownies, seeing the Canadian badges they are going to get, walking home with a friend, talking to my mom, sister, and cousin, and getting lavender scented candles

Day 120: Seeing Pierre, getting to use my new umbrella, and watching White Collar with my cousin

Ascot (Victoria Cup)

Hey guys,

So something super exciting happened last weekend. I went to Ascot to see the Victoria Cup!! I’ve always wanted to see a horse race and go to Ascot so when I knew I was coming to England for a year it was a must see on my bucket list. I had looked at races before but just had nobody to go with me. When I found out my friend actually wanted to go too but she had just never heard about it before I took the opportunity to go with her. We decided to go on May 9th (Saturday) as we both were free and it was the last race while I am still here. We met up a couple times before to pick out hats and make sure we had our outfits all together before we went to the races. When the day of the race came I was super excited. We both got all dressed up and met up on the train heading to Ascot. When we got there there were a lot of people as well as people selling and buying tickets.

We got into Ascot racecourse and it was like I had walked into a dream land. As a horse lover already this was like the top of the top for me. It was defiantly one of the top highlights of 2015 already for me. The grounds by themselves were amazing. We headed up to see the racecourse and I was just blown away. It was huge! It was so green and just more than I could have ever expected. The racecourse itself was massive to what I thought it would be. I had only seen a few races on tv before and was never a huge racehorse fan. I am defiantly more into the jumping side of things. Ascot just blew my mind though and defiantly made me rethink racing.

 

When we got there we had quite a bit of time to kill before the first race started. We decided to explore the grounds and just get everything out of Ascot that we could. We also decided that we would try to place a bet just to saw we’ve done that at Ascot as well. For the first race I placed a bet on number 10 and my friend on number 9. After that we went to the parade ring to see the horses before the race. We watched them walk around and the jockeys come in and mount their horses and head to the race. We went to the racecourse as well and the race started. It was once again amazing. When you are sitting there and there is such a competitive atmosphere and you are invested in the race it just takes the whole thing to another level. When you watch the race it seems like it takes forever for the horses to come close enough to the finish line where you are sitting and there is so much tension built up on which horse will win. It feels like time just stops while they are racing. After they cross the finish line and you look at the clock to see that it has only been about a minute and thirty seconds from when they started it just boggles my mind.

 

My friend’s horse she bet on won the first race so we went to collect her winnings and started talking to a couple of guys in line and convinced ourselves to try betting once more. Each time we bet we only bet £2 but it was just the feeling of investment in the race that just made it all the better. We both went for the same horse this time and the races started again. We didn’t win but it was still a sight to see. We also bet on the fourth race, the Victoria Cup, neither of us won again but it was a lot of fun. There were six races that day and after every race they would have the horses, riders, owners, and trainers all in the parade ring and award their trophies.

 

I don’t want to go on too much about this but it is something that I really love and have a passion for. This is defiantly something I am so happy that I got to experience. Ascot will be something I remember forever and have very fond memories of. Of my time here Ascot is defiantly one of my top five things that I’ve experienced since I’ve been here. I highly suggest if you are ever in England when there is a race at Ascot and you have the opportunity to go that you should take it.

All in all I had a wonderful magical day at Ascot and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Ashley xx.

100 Happy Days (91-100)

Day 91: Getting ice cream, talking to my mom and sister, and making plans to see my cousin

Day 92: Getting a new vacuum, meeting with a friend, talking to my cousin and mom

Day 93: Walking Pierre

Day 94: Going to a class and making a new friend there, hanging out with my cousin ( watching basketball, having dinner, etc)

Day 95: Hanging out with a friend and buying a hat

Day 96: Working out, making chocolate chip cookies with coconut oil

Day 97: Getting ice cream and seeing my dog try my grandma’s dog’s new toy

Day 98: Going to Brownies

Day 99: Talking to my sister and mom and watching the last episode of Glee

Day 100: Walking Pierre, talking to my mom, having a dress I ordered arrive in the mail, and having my mom pick up things for a Canadian night at Brownies

Definition of Success

Hi guys,

This post is going to be a bit different but I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I only have about 3 more weeks in London before my mom comes to help me pack up to go home. I am starting to think if there is any last things I want to do while I am in England before I go home to make the most of my time here. I am also starting to think more and more about what I am going to do when I get home. When September rolls around am I going to go to university or am I going to be working or travelling? The thought of this scares the crap out of me.

The dictionary defines success as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose” and “the attainment of fame, wealth, or social status”. I don’t totally agree with this definition. I defiantly don’t agree with the latter part. When I think of success I think of moving forward in the direction you want. I also think of what I want and what I consider success. I think success is different for everybody. I can say I want to be successful when I get older but what does that really mean. I know when I get older I want a house and a car and so on but is that really what success is. I know I want to do something I love with my life. I want to do something I am passionate about and something I can put my heart and soul into and care immensely about. I want to do something positive that makes other people feel positive as well. I want to be proud of what I do and confident in myself as I do that.

I, like many people, see celebrities or millionaire businessmen or women and think oh I wish I could have what they have. In reality I don’t really want what they have. I don’t want fame and money doesn’t matter that much to me. Of course you can’t say money doesn’t matter at all because of course it does to an extent but in the whole of things it is on the bottom of my list of worries. I do want to be successful and want to be respected and known for my work. This to me is so much different than fame. I want to be well known for my work in what ever profession I choose but I do not want to be famous. I want to be able to live comfortably and be able to travel, even if it is for work. I just want to make the most of my life. I want to be able to think back when I am old and just say “ya I did that and it was awesome”. I don’t want to ever think back and regret not doing anything. I don’t care if what ever I did sucked at least I can say I tried it.

Your life cannot be compared to anybody else’s when measuring your success. I struggle a lot with this. I don’t compare my success with my sister so much as with my cousins. Growing up I was compared a lot with my older cousins. The thing I learnt from this was, that since my cousins are 4 and 8 years older than me, I can’t compare myself with them or else it will just make me feel worse about myself. You cannot be expected to be accomplishing the same things as people significantly older than you. In my family on the other side there was also quite a competitive cousin rivalry. My cousin was always made out to be the smart one who would make something of himself where as my sister and I were just the pretty faces or the one who could make people laugh. I don’t take making people laugh as a bad thing at all in fact I love being able to do that. To see people smile because of something you said just makes me feel good about myself. I do struggle a lot with being known as the not so smart one though. I find when it comes to school I do struggle but when it comes to other life skills or communication skills I thrive. I think being academically smart doesn’t mean everything. Being compared to somebody over one skill set just isn’t fair. Everybody is different and has different skills and strengths. Just because one person is good at something doesn’t mean everybody is good at that one thing. If that’s how the world worked it would be such a boring place.

Bumps in the road happen and there is nothing you can do about it. I am in the process of learning about this one in particular.  When something goes wrong it is not the end of the world. There are so many different paths to reach a goal and just because one person goes a certain way doesn’t mean you have. Lately my mom has been telling me “after high school everybody starts going on their own path in which ever direction they want to go”. Where I am right now this is a bit of a struggle for me to deal with. I know everybody goes there own way but linking back to comparing yourself is where I struggle. When I hit a bump in the road I defiantly don’t want anybody to know about it. I start to think why, why me. I just think why do I suck at life so much. I constantly see things that give me motivation and inspire me but why do I feel like I could never do that or I just don’t have the resources or the knowledge to do that. I think if I truly wanted to do something I could figure out how to get the resources or some place to go to gain the knowledge. I get stuck in a rut sometimes which without outside motivation I sometimes find very hard to get out of. When I do finally get over that bump in the road though I have an overall feeling of pride and accomplishment. As hard as it is to get over that bump or out of that rut in the end it is always worth it.

I don’t want this to be super long and lecture ish but this is just something really relevant to me right now. I just want to add that I don’t think success defines you as a person either. You can be super successful but just be a horrible person. If I truly had to choose I would rather be a great person with little success. I can hope and try my hardest though to be the best person I possibly can be and work to gain the level of success I hope for.

Anyways I am done now. I hope this makes sense and doesn’t just sound like a load of mess on a page. I will try and be better at posting things; I know I’ve been terrible at posting for the past while. I am sorry about that. I am still doing my 100 Happy Days and will try and post more update type things as well.

Ashley x.

100 Happy Days (Days 81-90)

Day 81: Spending the day in Dublin, seeing the sites in Dublin, and trying Guinness

Day 82: Going grocery shopping with my sister and finding mozzarella sticks

Day 83: Going to Windsor and Eaton with my cousin, getting Costa with my sister, getting Shake Away and dinner with my cousin

Day 84: Getting Costa with my cousin, taking a nap, and talking to my mom and sister

Day 85: Working out and talking to my mom and sister

Day 86: Buying flowers, buying an oyster necklace, and getting a caramel cream frappuccino from Starbucks

Day 87: Working out and talking to my cousin and watching White Collar together

Day 88: Making two new friends and seeing another friend, making pancakes, and working out

Day 89: Talking to my mom and sister

Day 90: Doing well in a class I am taking and talking to my mom

Ireland, London, family visiting, and things up to now

Hey guys,

I feel like I haven’t written an actually update type post in a long time but March has been super busy. I will try and be brief when writing an overview of March and the beginning of April.

The beginning of March started off with a book keeping class I took as well as a psychology class, an anthropology class, and a class on CBT. I started walking a dog, called Pierre, three times a week as well. I helped take the girl guides on a trip to the science museum, Hyde Park, and Imperial College. I continued to help my cousin out with a business he is starting up as well as my other cousin and sister came to visit me. My cousin was here for two weeks and my sister for one. While they were both here we took a quick weekend trip to Dublin, Ireland. In Ireland, we were only there for two full days, we went to Cobh, Cork, Blarney, and of course Dublin.

We arrived in Dublin and the next day we took a bus tour to see Cobh, Cork, and Blarney. We walked to a see a beautiful church in Cobh which was at the top of the hill and there was a pier at the bottom of the hill with some Titanic things. We only had two hours in Cobh but it was quite a pretty town and the coloured buildings reminded me of Iceland. We then went to Cork which was bigger than Cobh but was also quite pretty. Cork is reminded me more of towns in England as it had some brick buildings and had a high street with some of the same shops as there are in London. There was a market called the English Market which has tons of things to see. My sister and I got a jam for my mom and my grandma from there. It was something that I think is defiantly unique and something that will always come to mind when I think of Cork. We had about an hour in Cork and then were on our way to Blarney. We were dropped off on the grounds of the Blarney stone house and castle so we went and saw those. We climbed up to the top of the castle (I think it was) and saw the Blarney stone. None of us kissed it but we did get to see it and there was a beautiful view from the top of the castle where the stone is. We then walked along the grounds and saw the house, which was closed. I thought the house looked beautiful though. We started to head back to the entrance of the castle grounds and spotted a waterfall which we stopped to take some pictures of. We then went to the market there which was a huge building that sold a ton of things such as sweaters, trinkets, and home supplies. That night we got back to Dublin and went to Temple Bar and had some dinner before heading back to our hotel to get ready for our next and last day in Ireland.

In Dublin we had a full day of sight seeing and trying different restaurants. We started off our day having breakfast at a place called Lemon Crepes. It was delicious. We then went to try sea salt ice cream at Murphy’s which was super good. We went to St Stephan’s Green, Trinity College grounds, shopped/walked down Grafton Street and O’Connell Street, saw the post office with the bullet holes on O’Connell Street, walked along the Liffey, and went to the Leprechaun museum. We also tried Guinness while we were there. All in all Ireland was great; it was a great break from London and a really nice change of scenery. I defiantly want to go back to Ireland someday and see more of the country. While we were driving the countryside looked beautiful and I defiantly want to see more of the Irish countryside. I also love the Irish accent. I don’t know if it is just because I am now so used to the English accent that it doesn’t phase me anymore and the Irish is just slightly different but I love it.

My cousin’s last day in the UK we went to Windsor. After dropping my sister off at the airport I met him in Windsor. I defiantly felt somewhat lost without my sister here anymore and just alone. I know my cousin was still here but it’s just not the same as having your sister with you. Windsor was a good distraction for me and a way to spend some quality time with him once more before he went back home. We walked to Eaton and back to Windsor to have dinner in a pub that I always go to every time I am in Windsor. We had a good time there and defiantly ended his trip on a high note.

Since my sister and cousin have left I started walking Pierre again after having two weeks off. I also met up with a leader from GirlGuides as I am supposed to run part of the session during the next meeting. I have also met up with a friend twice as well as made a couple new friends through her. I also started another class that is two weeks long and is about comedy as well as YouTube. All the people in the class as well as the instructor are very nice and we all get along pretty well. I met a lady in that class and we were talking about maybe meeting after this class is finished to make a couple videos while I am still in the UK. I also met with my cousin who lives here once more. He came over to my flat and helped me with making sure I do not have anymore bugs come into my flat. I have had some bugs come into my flat as the weather has been quite nice recently and I am terrified of them and just very particular on cleaning after they have touched anything.

This whole time I have also still been doing my 100 Happy Days so I will be posting another update on that soon. I know I seem to always be like oh I’ll post something soon but I never do. I started writing this post about a week ago and just never finished it until now. I am going to try to be better about posting more frequently and not just my 100 Happy Days. I find if I post right after or a couple days after something has happened I can give more detail and know exactly how I felt experiencing something rather than now trying to reflect on things that happened in March and up to now in April.

In other news I have booked a couple other trips that are coming up in May that I am super excited for. I will tell you more about those trips closer to the time that they happen. I am also super excited for May in itself as lots of different things are happening. I have my birthday in May, which will be the my second birthday ever that I will be in the same country and city as my cousin here, my mom will be coming to see me, and I have two different trips planned.

Anyways now I am going to make a promise that I will post more frequently than I have been. I may also do another mini haul type post as when my sister was here I picked up a bunch of different little things. I will think about what types of things I want to post. If you have any suggestions on what type of posts you want to see let me know. Anyways thanks for reading this and I will post something very soon.

Ashley xx.

100 Happy Days (71-80)

Day 71: Getting two new books and taking some Instagram worthy pictures

Day 72: Walking Pierre and getting fries

Day 73: Going to an anthropology class and getting mint tea and a banana nut muffin from Starbucks

Day 74: My sister arriving in London and going to Nandos

Day 75: Going to the Victoria and Albert museum and having a pasty

Day 76: Going to psychology class, shopping, getting a Five Guy’s burger and a raspberry cheesecake mocha frappuchino

Day 77: Watching “Into the Woods” with my sister and cousin

Day 78: Hanging out with my other cousin, seeing “War Horse”, and climbing the lion in Trafalgar Square

Day 79: Going to Ireland

Day 80: Going to Cobh, Cork, and Blarney

100 Happy Days (61-70)

Day 61: Getting my phone back from my cousin who borrowed it, and making chocolate butterscotch cake

Day 62: Watching “White Collar” with my cousin, and talking to my mom and sister

Day 63: Hearing my cousin won £10000 for his business, and seeing his promo video as well as a video he made to tell everybody he had won

Day 64: Talking to my cousin and going to Brownies

Day 65: Having tortellini for dinner and talking to my mom, sister, dad, and grandma

Day 66: The smell of my new laundry soap (lavender and camomile)

Day 67: Having hash browns and toast with Nutella, banana, and strawberries

Day 68: Going shopping and making blueberry banana buttermilk loaf

Day 69: Making homemade mac and cheese

Day 70: Making s’mores at Brownies

Mini Haul

Hey guys,

I thought I would do something a little bit different today. I am going to do a mini haul type thing. I’ve gotten a few things over the past few weeks in preparation for summer. If you guys like this kind of thing let me know and I can do more like it. I really am making this mini so there will only be a few items here. So lets start!

First thing I got was an orange shirt. I don’t tend to wear a lot of colour especially bright colours so I thought I would give orange a go. This is from New Look and was £7.99.

While I was in the Bahama’s earlier this year I realized I don’t have a lot of swimsuits. I spotted some really nice ones at New Look and picked them up. So the first one I got the top and bottoms. I don’t have one in this colour so I thought it would super cute for summer. The top was £14.99 and the bottoms were  £7.99.

The other swimsuit I got was only the top, as I couldn’t find the bottoms that matched and I liked. This top was £7.99 and I have always wanted a top like this.

The next thing I got was a new bag as my old one broke. I am quite picky when it comes to bags because I know I will have it with me everyday and everywhere I go. My bag also has to fit everything and anything in it. I ended up getting a bag that is quite similar to my old one but has a bit more room in it. It is from Accessorize/Monsoon and was £29.

I have been looking for a neutral eyeshadow that I can wear everywhere for either day or night. I was looking at different YouTube videos as well as reviews and decided to go for the Sleek i-Divine eyeshadow palette in au natural which was £7.99. I absolutely love this palette and will defiantly have to try other palettes from their range.

So that’s it for my mini haul. I have my sister coming to visit me soon and we will probably do some shopping. If you want me to do a haul type thing after that I can, just let me know.

I will be posting a couple other things in the next couple days before my cousin comes to visit me. I will try and post something while he is here but I have to see how much time I have. Anyways I hope you enjoyed this and I’ll post more really soon.

Ashley xx.

100 Happy Days (Day 51-60)

Day 51: Walking Pierre

Day 52: Seeing “Focus” with my new friend, walking Pierre, and shopping

Day 53: Going to the Science Museum, Hyde Park, and Imperial College with Brownies

Day 54: Having really nice sunny weather

Day 55: Going to bed with freshly washed bedding

Day 56: Walking Pierre

Day 57: Going to Brownies

Day 58: Listening to Ed Sheeran and getting excited about the concert I will be going to

Day 59: Walking Pierre, and hanging out at my cousin’s house

Day 60: Hanging out with my cousin (I got to do his hair), seeing a family friend and her dog, trying sticky toffee pudding and a cornish pasty