Its been a while since I've felt motivated to blog, motivated to put fingers to keypad to churn out a legible stream of words. Or even to turn that section of my brain on that makes me come up with new ideas for posts.

But if there's ever anything that can inspire me to write, it's writing about things I believe in, or am inspired by, or am thankful for. And there's one main thing that not only encompasses all of those things, but allows me to show my gratitude in a way that they'll see.



Hello to the blog girls, the blog squad, Satans minions, Mrs Felicia Bang Bang, the complete pie and all the other names that there's been.

I know we've talked about this in the faithful WhatsApp group lately, but I wanted to word my thanks a bit more eloquently, share the love.... basically copy Gwennan without copying her.

It's an amazing thing to find a group of people that you can totally relax and be yourself around, tell your secrets and TMI things to and not get a 'wtf' in return. It's even more amazing to find that around people you've met 2/3 times.

I'm so thankful for everything you guys do, for Satan for bringing us all together, for Hannah for being insanely cool and my fashion inspo, for Gwennan for knowing everything and for Effi for being an actual real life girl boss.

For never going 'as if you're still moaning about that', or telling me to shut up when I'm ranting about the pettiest rubbish. For never mocking me for being uncultured or not knowing where anything is (though so glad we all live in Leicester). For celebrating good news with me, cheering me up when there's bad news, listening to the same old 'FFS' moments over and over again and being as excited as me to fix them. Also for putting up with videos of my awfully messy room which are always followed by responses such as 'that makes me feel sick'.

For being able to go from talking about GDPR (idek if thats right) and big events in the News to aubergines and how it's glutens fault. For educating each other, discussing proper problems and the usual wtf do I eat for tea thats 0 calories, not salad and will take less than 10 minutes to cook.

For roasting me for my typos, terrible geography and Mel antics.

For all the inside jokes, the XS SNKR Q, Sue Pringle, Pure Golf, putting people in the fridge, pies in tins and tina's in pasta.

For teaching me constantly. I've learned so much in the two years our groups been formed I feel like I knew person. Though I still have no idea where Leicester is or where Hannah lives. I've learnt where CPH is, that Quorn Nuggets are better than McDonalds, that I am the fussiest eater in the world, what SEO means, and different types of HIIT workouts.

My timehop is popping up with the tweets when we first started talking to each other two years ago. If you asked me 104 weeks ago if internet friendships were a real thing, if I could ever be bffls with people I see twice a year I would have told you to jog on. But here we are, still laughing, still smiling and still being as supportive as ever.

Long may it continue till we're offering supportive advice on how to knit a scarf and the best types of zimmerframes.

ps. h8 u all <3

So as many people will know I'm sarcastic, hilarious and often informative over text. In the past few weeks I've really learnt where I got this from.

Inspired by Gwennans 'Things I Text my Mum' post, I decided to do it the other way round and show all the times my Mums come to advice for me about cooking chickens and whether to get bread out the freezer.

most flattering picture of anybody ever.

Spoiler, she has never asked me for advice on any of them things.
(Note, the top four were sent at 7:20 in the morning when she believes I should be up and enjoying the morning air... I disagree)

Hello wake up xxx

Get up  xxx

Vvvvvvvv

Boooooo

You've got 1p??

They will come after him too I've seen can't pay take it away

My Danny dyer is my hero

Oh your out of bed

Jack's not unemployed he's 9 !!!

No I can't eat I've had some honey

God this has been  very long and painful chat to which I have solved nothing but wasting precious time of mine

A daughter

Really !!!!!!

I don't think he needs to know that !!!!!

You know I fell off my bike and bruised my leg ?

Email from the queen ??

Oh wow remember it so well. You went off to get a duvet and blanket and we covered ourselves in newspaper



And what have we learnt from this? My Mum uses punctuation excessively.

So I was planning on writing this post for my 2 year Melberryy Anniversary which was a while ago now (22nd February if you're interested), but I still wanted to mark it somehow.

To get it out there, I've not had a very good past 5 weeks. Lots of things around me seem to have started crumbling, I've had to deal with a lot of time on my hands (which is something I struggle with) and to top it off my MacBook finally bit the dust and Apple can't fix it because it's vintage. Hence the lack of posting on here, social media, life.



But anyway, I'm desperately trying to keep this post positive.

2 years ago now, I was still in my 'newbie' phase of writing a blog, blasting out introductory posts and taking part in all of the twitter chats I could get my hands on. Since moving to London back in July 2016 (jfc) this has all slipped a lot, and it's probably something to do with the lack of time and money not spent on a crowded tube train.

But starting a blog is what I like to call one of the miracles of my life, it's opened so many doors for me, made we realise something I love and taught me SO much. I've also managed to meet the worst people in my life aka The Squad, if I write much about them atm I'll cry so I'mma just link in to Gwennans emosh post here.


I also helped organise the BloggersPitP with these gals, met loads of other fab bloggers and worked with brands I'm very proud about. I've worked with the wonderful Talking Tables, who's props were used in this post (and were gonna be for a Valentines Post but hey, who needs technology to work these days) and helped the Squad with a surprise decorated barn for my 24th birthday.

I've learnt some stuff about HTML, SEO and Non follow and follow links. I've had the misfortune to learn what shadowbanning means, how to find out you've been shadowbanned and how to sulk about it. I've redesigned my blog, which is something I'm still working on to make it JUST how I want it (when I have a working laptop obvs), teaching myself things as I go along.

One of my New Years Resolutions this year was to decide on a direction for my blog and that's something I'm still working on. To be honest, I'm still trying to decide on a direction for my life. And that's OK.

Here's to another year. 

I love me a burger.
A steak, pork belly, carbonara. I'm of the solid belief that a bacon and sausage sandwich can cure anything (including an absolutely stinking hangover). Only in November I ate 16 burgers in 52 hours.



So it might seem weird that I decided, pretty spontaneously, to become a pescatarian for a month.
I was inspired in a way by Hannah and Effi, neither of whom eat meat, trying to lose weight and this devastating story my Dad told me about one of the pigs at the monastery he works at.

To be fair, he told me that story in late November, and I didn't give up meat until January. Because, mainly, I am not ready to give up pigs and blankets, but also I knew I wouldn't stick to it through Christmas so was pretty pointless.

ANYWAY

I had my New Years Day meal of beef roast (slightly cheating I know) and that was the last piece of meat I ate until Feb 1st. I accidentally ate a bit of beef gelatin in some sweets on the second but learnt a lesson there. So, what did I learn?

It's a lot easier to be healthy. 
OK, bare with me here. I know there's lots of unhealthy vegetarian food, I'm also not going to pretend I didn't go to McDonalds twice and Nandos once. And I probably ate 10 peoples body weight in salted popcorn from the corner shop (I actually ate them out twice) (God, that sounds wrong). But I found it a lot easier to say no to the super unhealthy food. Offers of a takeaway in the flat didn't interest me because I couldn't have chicken, I walked past McDonalds without being tempted every lunch because I hate filet of fish and there's only so many cheese bites you can have. I found it a lot easier to just say no, because none of the food interested me as I couldn't eat meat.

I could NEVER be a vegan
I've always respected Effi, and other vegans ofc. But I've never respected them more. I found it hard checking sweets for gelatin, so I can't imagine how hard it is to check things for dairy, meat and other traces of completely random things. Also, I massively replaced meat with cheese, in particular halloumi, so I don't know how I'd have done it otherwise. I'm pretty sure that Woolwich Tescos has probably got excess amounts of halloumi in stock now I've stopped eating it. Soz Tesco.

I didn't miss meat as much as I thought
Don't get me wrong, when my flatmates cooked a massive fry up after a heavy Saturday night I had to leave the kitchen because I would have started dribbling otherwise. I did get cravings for KFC a lot, and weirdly ham which I don't really like. But I did OK without it. I'm also quite a fussy eater, and everybody says that I don't like anything with flavour... and really, the ain't wrong. No spice, no seasoning and no sauce... nothing apart from garlic (which I'm pretty sure goes with everything).But eliminating such a big part of me realised I actually do like more things. Tomatoes in soup, meditarranean vegetable mix, courgettes, aubergines... and re-realised that mushrooms can improve any meal. And now I can have it, I'm really quite meh about it.



I felt so much better
I felt like someone had spring cleaned my insides. My mum is coeliac and I've been convinced I am slightly for months as I can easily bloat out to look 16 months pregnant with twins in about 0.3 seconds. Let me tell you, when I wasn't shovelling meat into my gob I felt sooooo much better; less bloat and I felt like I'd dropped 10 dress sizes to washboard abs. My skin cleared up, my nails grew, my hair felt great, I actually felt more energetic and with it too... new year, new me. FOR REAL.

So whats the verdict?

After this pretty much glowing review of Vegge-uary (doesn't have the same ring to it does it?), it might feel like I'm heading towards a big of reveal that I no longer eat meat.

But I'm not.

Don't get me wrong, I pretty much only had a positive experience of not eating meat. But I know that restricting my diet isn't the way to go. Tell me that I can never eat an apple, and all I'll wanna do is eat an apple, and my willpower isn't strong. I only really managed this because I was being stubborn. Classic Mel.

But what I have decided to do (after the next week where I'm just enjoying having a sausage roll for brekkie most mornings), is to dramatically cut down on my meat intake. I'm going to stop buying meat regularly to eat at the flat, and mainly save it to eat if I'm going out or for a treat.

And you know what, every little helps.

Every morning as I stomp off to work, probably just missing the bus, probably cold, probably forgetting one glove, my headphones or, you never know, my head, I think about writing this post.

HEY GUYS
I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth since last year. I've just been too busy setting up my brand new Bullet Journal!



Woohoo.
If you saw my post last year about my Bullet Journal, you'll know I was all about using different colours for everything, making it pretty and colourful and obsessed with making it perfect. That's why it's taken me so long to get this post up tbh, it's still not finished but I realised I'd always be making improvements.

Anyway, shall we take a look inside?

First thing first, I've stayed with a Leuchtturm 1917 because they're perfect, and I've gone for green this year because I want to be Gwennan. I've also taken a big step, and made my BuJo black and white (and might throw some greyscale in) because tbh, I think it's gonna make it a lot easier. Last year I stopped filling stuff in because I didn't have the right pen at the right time and then I gave up. So this time I brought a ten pack of black pens, have one at work, one in my bag and several dotted around my room so that I always have one on hand.

And I think it's really gonna help.

 So I've got my pretty generic start to the year pages, and some resolutions I want to achieve this year. I didn't want to do anything I couldn't see myself achieving, and wanted to try and make a few small changes as well. (ten points if you can spot the typo on this page I JUST saw right this second). I left some space as well so I can add more if I think of them later on in the year.


As you'll be aware if you've read my sleep walking post that I struggle with my sleep, and I've been to the sleep clinic already to try and sort that out this year. As such, I really wanted to carry on my tracking of sleep, and hopefully by the time it gets to December it'll all say 'Slept Through!'

Similarly I wanted to track my mood, to see how much my anxiety effects me. I've been struggling with feeling out of it a lot recently and on edge, and I thought if I tracked those days I could sync it up to what I did that day and see what effects me. Basically a mind doctor innit.

In theme with me trying to make 2018 the 'year of change', which iI know is cringe af, I found this really good book on my Kindle that sort of made it all seem 'doable'. The book contains 52 changes that can be broken down to one a week to make it all manageable. I've decided to give it a go, and written the first half in this part of the journal to keep a track of them. I also write them in each weekly but you'll see that later. The book is called '52 Small Changes: One Year to a Healthier Happier You' if you're interested.


Even my pics that I'm sticking in this year are black and white.
Thats a solid joke, it was pure coincidence and I messed up the page and I like to so.
I got a Kindle for Christmas to help make my 2 hour commutes slightly more bearable, and it's my aim this year to read 24 NEW books. I'm two weeks into January and I'm already on my third so I'm doing OK. I like having a track of all the ones I've read and also how much I liked them, which I'm also doing on Goodreads. (God I'm even making myself think I've got my sh*t together)


Here we are, this is my favourite spread of my whole Bullet Journal. I got the inspiration from a Facebook Bullet Journal group I'm part of and I absolutely love it. I'm trying to teach myself a lot of new things in 2018, and Duolingo is something I can do on the bus to and from work every day. Each box indicates a completed lesson, and the top right squares are fluency, each box is a %. I'm really looking forward to filling this page out and ya know, getting better at French.


 There were a few things I wanted to complete which I didn't know if I'd be able to complete in the next 52 weeks. So for this I wanted to create a 100 things in 1001 days page, of long term goals that I can tick off as I go and transfer into Bujos to come. Because, unless you can't tell, I love a list. It's full of things from 'Make an Omelette' (because I cannot make one for the life of me, they always turn out as scrambled eggs) to 'Go to Oslo', silly things that will be fun to tick off to things I'll have to work at.


And then we get to the actual journal part of it. I have a monthly page for each month all together, which really helps me to plan my months ahead, remember birthdays, important dates, and in an ideal world, holidays. It makes me feel like I'm actually organised a head of time.

For my monthlys for January, I've chosen this layout on a double page spread. On the right my week is split into two columns, tasks and events, and lets me plan what I need to do, people to see and where I need to be. On the right is what I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner (I messed up this week lol). Above it is the small change I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on for this week, and at the bottom is my water tracker. Each 'water droplet' stands for a litre of water. I drink a lot of water. Like excessively, and I kinda wanted to see how much excessively I drink. This doesn't include tea, coffee, coke etc, its just water and tbh it's mainly just what I drink at work.

And that's it for this year. I've also brought across a couple of pages from last year that I haven't photographed, including TV Series and Movie Tracker, Blog post Ideas and Measurements.

What do you think? What's in your Bullet Journal this year?

Right keep this a secret but I actually feel like I'm getting a bit old no?



I genuinely thing it was only yesterday I was 21, able to handle my drink (and more importantly my hangovers) and could eat a whole pizza without instantly putting on 4 stone. But here I am, almost 25. But anyway, a lot has changed this year, and I wanted to do a bit of a summary.

So here we are, 14 things I've done this year:

1. Started asking for help more
2. Went on holiday to Florida
3. Started liking myself a bit more
4. Lost a lot of weight
5. Got in a relationship and put it all on again (and some)
6. Became a Tinderella
7. Made some brilliant new friends
8. Went through a few different jobs
9. Became a lot stronger
10. Met up with the Blog Squad and had a ball
11. Got out of something I was unhappy in, and decided to make a change
12. Started spending time on self care, and knowing what I need when I need it
13. Started teaching myself a lot more things
14. Celebrated a year of blogging

I feel like 2017 has been a year full of changes, both good and bad. It's been a tough year, but I for one feel like I've come out of it a lot stronger.

What have you done this year?