The Happy List and A Bit Of Life Lately

I did wonder whether it was right to do a happy post this month, because amongst many great moments were some incredibly sad personal ones for my family. You can either look at it that life has been very unfair to you and brought bad things to your door, or that life has been very good to you at a bad time by making you smile and laugh just when you needed it the most.

So here’s to happiness and silliness. After all you only get to live once so you might as well try and do it with a smile on your face:

1. Kitty alarm clocks

Since I have finally learned to sleep through Sookie’s early morning meows, she has developed another tactic. This involves paw tapping the sheets pulled up around my face like she’s knocking on a door. When this fails to work the tapping moves closer until she is gently tapping me on the nose with her fluffy paw pad. If I still ignore her, she’ll eventually stick her face in the gap between the sheets and my head and start snuffling at my cheeks and eyelashes. I try to stay still and pretend I’m asleep but it’s just too hard not to burst out laughing!

2.  My new perfume

Remember me mentioning in my London shopping post that I fell in love with Happ and Stahn’s 1842 Rose Alba perfume in Anthropologie? Well of course I went back and bought it! Not only does it smell as delicious as I remembered and has real staying power, but it also has the cutest bottle. The lid is a pincusion and it came with dainty little pins. I realise that this doesn’t serve any real purpose other than to look pretty, but it still makes me smile every morning.

3. Blogging at the pub

My friend Marcus is an up and coming photographer who runs f22-photography.co.uk and recently decided to start a blog. He asked me if I’d help him get started and I was more than happy to spend an evening at the pub discussing my favourite subject. We brought our laptops along and swopped knowledge on blogging, photography, cameras and editing. It has been a great learning curve for both of it and we’re now meeting up regularly. I can’t wait to share with you some of the exciting future collaborations that we’re planning. 

I’m also really happy that I helped Marcus become official photographer at two upcoming events, so if you’re going to the #BigBloggerConference on the 22nd August or the Scarlett London #bloggersfestival on the 5th September do say hello to him and get him to take your picture! Oh and say hi to me too of course!  

Finally, please give him a follow on Twitter to make him feel loved, he’s new! @f22_photography

4. Flowers in bloom

My garden has gone a bit cray cray with flowers sprouting everywhere. If I’m completely honest with myself it’s a bit of a bloody mess but I’m going to pretend it’s an intended ‘natural’ look right now (a bit like my current hairstyle…) The never ending supply of blooms is keeping my house looking lovely though!

5. Favicon

 I found this really easy tutorial for creating a Favicon so I had a go at making one of my own. Words cannot express the sense of accomplishment over something so small. Since no one will ever see it properly since it is so teeny tiny, here’s my little feathered friend in all his glory!

6. Magazine

On Wednesday I got a lovely tweet from Gemma (@lifesacatwalk86) to let me know that she’d seen me in the August edition of Velvet Magazine (which you can read online here). I knew I was going to be featured at some point as I’d been asked to provide a quote for the article, but it was a lovely surprise to hear that it had gone up and that people were actually reading it! 

7. Winning