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

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

100 Happy Days (Day 41-50)

Day 41: Buying tickets to see an Ed Sheeran concert

Day 42: Watching “White Collar” with my cousin

Day 43: Going to Brownies and watching the Brits

Day 44: Meeting Pierre (the dog I am walking), making mash potatoes, and making cookie dough

Day 45: Eating my cookie dough, watching “Beauty and the Geek”

Day 46: Going to Gregg’s and getting a cheese and onion pasty

Day 47: Getting a mango passion fruit juice and a cookie from Starbucks

Day 48: Talking to my mom and grandma

Day 49: Going to a psychology class

Day 50: Walking Pierre and going to Brownies

Year of a Lifetime

Hey guys,

Sorry I have been MIA for so long. March has been super super busy. To catch you up a bit I started a bookkeeping class at the beginning of March that is for 5 weeks as well as a psychology class that is also 5 weeks. I also got a little job walking a dog three times a week. The dog I am walking is a little jack russell who’s name is Pierre. I also went with the girl guide group I am volunteering with to Hyde Park, Imperial College, and the Science museum for them to earn some badges. I think at the end of that trip all of the leaders where more tired than the children. I also went to see “Focus” with my new friend that I made on my trip to Stratford-upon-Avon.

I also tried a Cornish pasty for the first time on Saturday as well as sticky toffee pudding. Since I have been here I have also tried a vegetarian percy pig for the first time as well as a jaffa cake. When I first came to the UK I also tried custard which I really took a liking to. Now that I have tried all of these new things I will be making my cousin try them when he comes to London. With mentioning that I am getting ready for my younger cousin to come to London in about a week time. I am trying now to come up with things I think he will really enjoy seeing and doing in London and the surrounding areas. It is his first time in Europe so I really want him to just experience as much as he can in the two weeks he is here. I also am getting ready for my sister to visit me in about two weeks time as well as get ready to go on a little weekend trip with them to Ireland!!

When my cousin and sister are here I am also looking into going somewhere for a day trip. I am not sure where we would go yet but when I was looking at a Buzzfeed article I was quite interested in New Forest, St Albans, and Canterbury. If you guys have any suggestions on where a good place to go for a day trip is then please let me know. I just want him to see somewhere beautiful outside of London that gives a very British vibe and somewhere that you would never see something like this anywhere else in the world. Also if anybody knows some really cool places in London to go please let me know. I am making a list of things we need to do and see but I am always looking to add to the list.

I think the past couple of days have been the busiest all month so far so I shall give you a brief overview of what has happened. So things really got busy on Friday. I walked Pierre on Friday then went to cousin’s house and ended up there for something like 7 hours I think. He is starting a business and needed some help with just scanning things. So I ended up scanning about four books and quickly learning you need to save them about every 50 scans in case something happens and they all get deleted… I also had to swap phones with his friend which I wasn’t too keen on as my phone is like my life. So we ended up swapping phones and my sim card went in her phone and her’s in mine. The next morning I had to get up at 6:45 to meet my cousin at 8:30 when he was going to start filming a commercial. Well I woke up at 6:45 and then was like I’ll just lie here for 5 minutes with my eyes open and then get up. Then what felt like 5 minutes later my next alarm to leave the house went off! I jumped out of bed and was also supposed to meet a family friend later that day so I checked my email, got ready, and was out the door. When I checked my email though I realized my cousin had asked if I pick him up some notebooks. So I frantically was running around looking for places open that sold notebooks on a Saturday morning and picked some up and was off. I was then a little lost finding the place where he was filming and he wasn’t answering his phone but eventually I got a hold of him and was okay. Later that day I had to go meet a family friend and needed a phone but the reason I swapped phones was because my cousin needed an iPhone 6 which is what I had swapped for so I had to leave the phone with him and he brought me an old phone to use for the day. The phone was okay but I soon realized that the date on it and time was way way off. It said it was June 6th 1980 and was about 6 or 7 hours off. I made it to meet my family friend though even though I was about 10-15 minutes late. Later that night my cousin was supposed to swap the phones back and pop by my house to drop my phone off as on Sunday I have my bookkeeping class and need it for a calculator. I never heard from him though and it was starting to get quite late so I messaged him and he told me he still hadn’t swapped the phones back yet and it was about 11pm. He then asked if he could just drop it off sometime tomorrow so we decided we would meet where my class is and just do a quick change off and I would keep going to my class. So I set my alarm for 8am and woke up the next morning and thought oh it must still be early as my alarm hasn’t gone off yet. Then it hits me… The phone says its 2 am and I check my laptop quickly and its 9am! This is when I was supposed to leave. So once again I book it out the door and make it to the station where my class is by 10 which is when my class starts. Lucky my cousin was there and gave me my phone back right away and when I got there I really hadn’t missed anything. I think they had just listened to an accounting rap song. Ya I didn’t miss much. The point of this though is just to tell you how hectic my last couple of days have been. I was so excited to just have today off and sleep in and stay in my pjs and chill.

When I was with my family friend we went to Pinner and drove around which was quiet nice. I always look at houses like those and just think about what I would have to do with my life to end up with something like that one day. I think it would include a lot of university and a number of years of slaving away at work.

In other news I’ve realized when I sleep with my heat on I have the weirdest dreams. I think I will make a separate blog post on that though. Today I was watching “No Camera’s Allowed” and have a lot of motivation to do something that is a once in a lifetime type thing. I am looking for things in the UK to do and just Europe in general that are once in a lifetime type things so that when I go back to Canada I can say I have done all of these things and have made the absolute most out of my time in London. If you guys know or have any ideas of things I could do or see that would be a once in a lifetime type thing.

Anyways I feel like I have rambled enough for now and I will defiantly be posting quite soon as I have still been doing my 100 Happy Days and need to put up.

Ashley x.

Stratford-upon-Avon

Hey guys,

I know I haven’t posted anything in a while but I’ve been quite busy. Last weekend I went with a big group of people to Stratford-upon-Avon. I was preparing the night before for this day trip as we had to meet and leave quite early in the morning. We met in London and took a coach to Stratford-upon-Avon which arrived there by about 11 am. I met a couple eau pars and sat next to them on the bus. I quickly made friends with the one eau par and spent the day in Stratford-upon-Avon exploring with her.

When we got to Stratford-upon-Avon the group walked through the city and saw the birth house of Shakespeare, the theatre, a church, and many more iconic sights. The weather wasn’t always in our favour as it would hail on and off but for the most part it was nice weather and so nice to see all of these buildings and landscapes. It was great to get out of London for the day for a change of scenery.

Around 1:30 the group split up for lunch and to have some time our own to explore. During this time my new friend and I went into Shakespeare’s birth house and walked through the house and garden. We were lucky that when we had lunch it was raining but once we were done and ready to go and explore the weather held up for us. We explored the town a bit and went into Shakespeare’s birth house but did not have enough time to see any of the other houses which was somewhat disappointing but we thought that we may just have to come back again to see the rest.

Near the end of our day trip we saw a shop which sold many Harry Potter items. In this shop you were able to send Hogwarts acceptance letters as well as other letters from either Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic. We also spotted a Peter Rabbit store which brought back fond memories.

Around 5 pm we all got back on the bus to London, which was longer than I think leaving London took, my new friend and I sat next to a guy from Spain who we started talking to a bit. Coming back into London we arrived around 8 pm near Piccadilly Circus and the group was then going to go out to the pub. My new friend and I both headed to the tube station though as she had to meet with other friends and I had to be up early the next day to meet with some people. 

I think all in all Stratford-upon-Avon was a great place to visit and has so much history that you need more than a day to explore all of it. I do wish though that we had a car to go out and see more of the houses as only 3 of the 5 (I think) are in walking distance and the others are just outside of Stratford-upon-Avon. It was so lovely to just get out of London for the day and see something completely new that you wouldn’t see otherwise. It was an experience I will never forget and hey I made a new friend out of it.

Ashley xx.