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Productive Things You Can Do In The Next 5 Minutes

Productive Things You Can Do In The Next 5 Minutes

If you couldn’t already tell, I’m a sucker for productivity hacks. I love feeling productive and often feel a little bit anxious if I even let 5 minutes get away where I’ve done nothing (that’s a post for another day because that’s definitely not a good aspect of my personality).

Anyway, we all have those 5 minute blocks of time where nothing is going on. Waiting for the bus or the kettle to…

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I Failed

This year was the year I was going to get fit and healthy. At the end of 2019 I decided my new year’s resolution was to look after my body better; to eat better, drink more water, exercise more. You know, the general stuff people say at New Year.

So to promise myself that I was taking this seriously I thought I’d try one of my favourite Instagrammers challenges. I adore Chelsie from The…

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5 Things To Stop Doing in 2020 (To Improve Your Mental Health)

5 Things To Stop Doing in 2020 (To Improve Your Mental Health)

Stop Making Yourself Smaller

I mean this both figuratively and literally. Literally, stop living your life around food, exercise and body image. Just stop. It’s not worth it. Your body is capable of so much, wild things, but do you have to push it to those limits? Nope, not if you don’t want to. Yes, if you do. Sorted, thank you.

Now, let’s talk about the other kind of making yourself…

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Morning Routine for Shift Workers

Morning Routine for Shift Workers

I love a good morning routine blog post or Youtube video. Curiosity truly gets the better of me and all I want to see is what other people do when they get up in a morning. Is that weird, maybe, but I like it.

However, my day job means that a morning routine isn’t really that realistic and sometimes I feel like a failure for not managing a yoga routine, planning my day, writing six pages in…

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One Year as a Newly Qualified Nurse

One Year as a Newly Qualified Nurse

I recently hit a pretty big milestone; I managed to make it through a whole year as a qualified nurse (without losing my registration). That’s a joke but I can honestly say there’s not a day passes at work where I don’t panic about it. The past year has been a rollercoaster ride. Being a mental health nurse is filled with so many highs and lows and my brain usually feels like mush by the day of…

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Hello Again,

It feels strange to be back in this oh so familiar position of a blank screen staring at me while I scroll longingly through every social media platform waiting for inspiration to strike. But what better way to return than some form of re-introduction.

I’m Rachel. I live in the South West of England. I like coffee, pizza and books and I long to be a proud owner of a dog called Alan, but we’re…

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Putting Alternative Milks To The Test. And The Winner Is...

Putting Alternative Milks To The Test. And The Winner Is…

I’m a simple girl with simple pleasures. As you all know, I love a good cup of coffee. I’m happy with an Instant (no snobbery here), I’m happy in a coffee shop, but I’m happiest when I’m in the comfort of my own home, cradling a nice hot cup of my own creation.

Milk has always been a foe of mine. I hated it as a child and I still hate it now, except I can make some allowances (like when it’s…

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4 Ways To Quit Social Media Falseness

4 Ways To Quit Social Media Falseness

Social media is a tricky trickster isn’t it? You don’t even log in to anything anymore, you just type the first couple of letters into your URL bar and up it comes. That’s when you’re faced with utter information overload. Opinions stated as though they are fact, edited photos on edited backgrounds, it’s impossible to tell whether you’re looking at something real or entirely curated?

At the end…

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Dear 2018,

As Kylie Jenner put so eloquently two years that 2016 was going to be the year of realising stuff, 2018 has been my realising things year. At the beginning of 2018 I wrote myself six goals in the front of my Fearne Cotton Happy Journal.

I will become a registered mental health nurse.

I will get married.

I will get a great job.

I will run 10K.

I will move to a new area.

I will go abroad.

I…

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Beating The Winter Blues with Tempur

Beating The Winter Blues with Tempur

Every year the same thing happens. September rolls around and I feel the weight of sadness that Summer is over. Then as the year speeds up in that way that only happens in the lead up to Christmas, something darker takes hold. For some, this presents as the “Winter Blues.” Feeling lethargic and miserable as a result of the dark nights and cold weather is pretty normal but if you find that just…

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Review: One More Chance by Lucy Ayrton

Review: One More Chance by Lucy Ayrton

Dani hasn’t had an easy life. She’s made some bad choices and now she’s paying the ultimate price; prison.

With her young daughter Bethany, growing up in foster care, Dani is determined to be free and reunited with her. There’s only one problem; Dani can’t stay out of trouble.

Dani’s new cellmate Martha is quiet and unassuming. There’s something about her that doesn’t add up. When Martha offers…

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Review: Every Colour of You - Amelia Mandeville

Review: Every Colour of You – Amelia Mandeville

Truthfully, I read this book out of curiosity. I’ve watched the Mandeville Sisters on Youtube for a number of years and have always enjoyed their content. So it was especially lovely when I saw that Amelia had written a book, after watching countless videos on how she wanted to be a writer. After a wave of Youtuber-cum-novelists, it’s refreshing to see someone who has dreamt of this for a long…

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Small Victories: Why We Should Be Celebrating Them

Small Victories: Why We Should Be Celebrating Them

According to my drafts I actually started writing this post almost a year ago. So that must make this the longest I’ve ever worked on a post. If by longest I mean I wrote an intro, left it a year and came back to it…

Anyway…

Don’t you find that life is all about the ‘big?’ I’m 25 and at this age, it feels like if you’re not getting engaged, getting a mortgage or getting pregnant then you don’t…

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Is Young Adult fiction all it's cracked up to be?

Is Young Adult fiction all it’s cracked up to be?

2018 was the year I was going to experiment with my reading a little more. 2017 was full of non-fiction and thrillers so I wanted to branch out and test the waters with some Young Adult fiction.

I can’t tell a lie, I had a lot of preconceptions about Young Adult lit. Partly because I don’t think I’d read any since I was about thirteen and partly because I amwas a bit of a literature snob. You’ll…

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Slowing The Pace

Recently I read a quote which said “Strange, what being forced to slow down could do to a person.” It’s from a Nicholas Sparks novel and I instantly agreed with the sentiment. I’ve just moved to a countryside town in Somerset, from Leeds and before that Sheffield. Although Sheffield is a city, a lot of people agree that it doesn’t really feel like one. It’s more like a friendly town with the…

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Berlin's Best Coffee

Berlin’s Best Coffee

My recent trip to Berlin, like my life, was coffee fuelled. I’d heard about how good the coffee scene is in Berlin so I was really excited to check out the local’s top picks and we found A LOT of amazing places that I want to share with you.

The Barn

Oh The Barn, I well and truly fell in love with you. As well as being situated across from an independent magazine shop (THE DREAM!), The Barn…

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What I Learnt From Veering Off Track

What I Learnt From Veering Off Track

In 2015 I graduated from my languages degree and commenced a degree in Mental Health Nursing. In the last three years I’ve explained myself a thousand times over, why I didn’t pursue languages, why the change from one career path to another, why uproot myself to a new city and start over rather than getting a job in a field I was good at. It felt like people were mystified that I was deviating…