Attraction: Not Having a Type.

One question that comes up in a multitude of ways over the course of your life is: "What's your type?" or "What sort of guy/girl do you usually go for?" I've been asked this a number of times over the years by friends, and once or twice on websites that allow you to ask people things anonymously -i.e. Tumblr and Formspring- and I've never found myself able to answer them properly.

I can list a number of personality traits that I look for in a prospective partner. I can also list a number of morals and beliefs I'd like my ideal partner to have. And I can list a range of other things too -such as hobbies and their taste in music, films and comedy- but I can never find myself able to say what my 'type' is when it comes to physical attraction. There doesn't appear to be one figure I prefer to others, or a certain type of nose that I can't resist, or even a height that I favour over others.

Zacky Vengeance, who will be getting a mention a little further on.
[Source]

Now I'm not going to go on to say that I don't have a type because I don't think looks are important. That would be a lie. Looks are important, but only to an extent. I personally feel that you need to be physically attracted to someone as well as attracted to them in other ways in order to have the best possible relationship. What I'm trying to say in this post is, that although looks are important, there isn't a type of look I go for.

I'm currently dating a weightlifter. He's about 5ft8, muscular, has short, brown hair, has facial hair and brown/hazel eyes. But my two boyfriends before him were the complete opposite, and both in different ways. One was a tall, lanky, 'emo', with a big, dyed blonde fringe, and blue eyes. The other was a tall, indie boy, of a normal build, who had shortish curly brown hair and brown eyes. So there's quite the mix in my small dating history.

The ever so handsome Chris Evans. Again he will be mentioned a little further on.
[Source]

My lack of a 'type' is also incredibly evident when you look at my two 'celebrity crushes' -I really hate that term, there's just something cringey about it. The longest serving on my list is the one and only Zacky Vengeance. As you can see from the picture I've included he doesn't really match up physically with any of my exs. Then, right up there along side Zacky is Chris Evans, and I think it goes without saying that Chris Evans is nothing like Zacky or my exs in terms of appearance.

Over the years I've tried piecing common traits together and always come up with nothing. Sure there are features that I like -such as dark hair and blue eyes, and being around the six foot mark- but having those things doesn't automatically make me attracted to that person, and not having those things doesn't necessarily mean I won't find that person attractive either.

I guess I'm even more indecisive than I originally thought.
-Hannah. :)

Post Secret: An Introverted Proposal.

A few weeks back I was checking the Sunday Secrets over on Post Secret, as per usual. And, if my memory serves me correctly, this was the first post up on the page. The extent of this man's love and understanding was really heart warming and I knew right away that I needed to save the images and somehow find a use for them. His proposal touched me so much that I couldn't just let a week's worth of Post Secret viewers see it; I needed to show this to as many people as I could. 

Later on I decided that I would simply make a blog post, with a short introduction and then allow the images to speak for themselves. There is no way of guaranteeing that as many people will see this as I hope, but at least I'm sharing it with you and anyone else that visits my blog and sees this post.

Enjoy!

-Hannah. :)

My Life: Seeing Friends and Being Social.

In my personal experience, being an introvert makes my experience of a 'social life' quite different to what people seem to assume a good and normal social life is.

I am more than happy spending time on my own. On days where I have nothing to do -no lectures, no seminars and still three meals worth of food in the house- I spend about 91% of my time alone in my room, and another 6% either in the bathroom or kitchen. Even when there are other people in the house, I'm happy to be by myself and never feel the need to go and socialise with the people who are in. At least not for my benefit anyway, which is why the remaining 3% of my time is spent downstairs interacting with anyone else in the house. And I am more than happy to spend most of my days in this way. Yes, I get bored occasionally because I run out of things to do; but I always find something in the end. And that is usually how almost every free day in my life is spent.

Then I have phases where I really want to go out and see people. I'm not going to lie, this social phase of mine is usually an annual thing that occurs during the summer break when I have lots more free time than usual and when more of my good friends are in closer proximity to me. But even when this phase of mine is at its peak, my social life is nowhere near as busy as the base-rate of some of my extroverted friends' typical social lives. Some of my extroverted friends always seemed to be out doing something all year round; whereas I'm the person who's more willing to be social for a six to eight week period during July and August. By that I mean during my summer breaks I'm slightly more likely to initiate discussing the possibility of meeting up with people, whereas for the rest of the year other people initiate it and invite me along to stuff. Then depending on my mood and if I feel like I've had a satisfactory amount of 'me time' that week, I'll tag along.

Total digression: I read a statement somewhere that was along the lines of "Introverts don't get ready for a party; they gather strength for a party." In terms of me individually I would say that that statement describes me astonishingly well. Getting ready for a party, or any social gathering for that matter, always involves a lot of mental preparation in my experience. I also find I sometimes reassure myself as well if I'm feeling particularly nervous about the event for whatever reason(s), be it the type of event or the people that will be there etc.

Anyway, now that I've indulged my random, little memory, back to what I was originally saying...

I'm currently at the peak of my 2014 social phase. Now some of you may be expecting me to talk about a whole week's worth of socialising, but the thing is last week I only left the house three times. Leaving the house three times in a week to go out and meet with another person is what the peak of my social life is like. That might make some people laugh -to be quite honest when I realised that I chuckled to myself a little bit- and think that I can hardly claim that to be a social life, but to me it is one. And now the majority of my friends have gone back to their universities, so I can no longer easily indulge my slightly increased sociability -although I do have three plans in the works with some of my friends who are around for a bit longer- and I'm not really too fussed about it. Even when I'm feeling more social and would like to go out and hang with some of my friends, I'm still quite happy to spend the day at home in my own little bubble.

Do any of you guys have these sort of phases? Or the reverse if you're an extrovert?
-Hannah. :)

Self-Control: I Have Loads of It, Until I See Something That I Really Want.

In most situations I have fantastic self-control. But sometimes things that I want get the better of me. Sometimes these things even break down my self-control when I'm trying to make an effort to save for an amazing, yet sadly distant, plan.

A beautiful pair of mint Bose headphones nearly got the better of me the other day. It even got to the point where I wrote out an estimate of all my expenses during Term 1 and how much I would be likely to have left over at Christmas. Even after I'd done all my calculations I was still considering it, even though I knew it was a stupid thing to do, and wouldn't benefit me as much as an extra £150 at Christmas would. Finally though, I talked myself out of ordering them -showing my mum the page and her slightly outraged expression towards the price also helped a bit too.

But today two pairs of Vans got the better or me -it would've been them and a pair of Converse if it weren't for the fact the Converse are on my birthday list. I thought about it long and hard; although this time without covering a page in my notebook with calculations. I'd spotted the Vans on the Office website this morning and ordered them this evening, so it's fair to say that quite a few hours went into this decision.

One pair are a duplicate of a pair I currently have. I'm sure that has a lot of you screaming, 'What the hell is wrong with you?! You already have the exact same pair; how can you justify that as not a waste of money?!' and I understand where you're coming from. This was the decision that took up the most time, and I decided to order them in the end as the pair I currently have are four years old; they're a bit on the tatty side; and they didn't end up looking too great when I recently tried washing some stains out of them. So I figured the pair I have now aren't going to last too much longer, and as they're my favourite pair of shoes, I couldn't bare throwing them away without getting myself a replacement pair, if they were still available. That might not justify my purchase to some of you, but it was enough to break me.

The second pair are just a plain, basic, black, slip-on pair. I justified ordering them for the following reasons -which I will admit aren't as good as the ones above-: they're simple but so, so nice at the same time; they'll go with everything, in every season; Vans all have arch support, unlike a lot of shoes these days, which is great for my messed up foot; and I figured the more shoes I have with arch support the sooner my foot will heal and the less likely I am to mess it up again. As I said, these reasons aren't quite as justifiable -although maybe the arch support ones?- but I really liked the shoes so it was a bit easier to justify getting them to myself.

The only annoying thing -that makes me regret my order a little bit- is that I'm now £81 out of pocket. That's £81 I could have potentially saved over the next two years to contribute to funding my trip to Boston -the plan I referred to at the beginning of this post. As punishment to myself though, for doing this, I am not stepping foot inside a clothing shop -at least not purchasing anything from one anyway, with the exception of maybe a really nice top for my birthday drinks- and I'm not doing any online shopping until 2015. I might even extend that ban until the end of Term 2 depending on how much I manage to save up over the rest of 2014.

Am I the only one with this spending problem? Let me know in the comments if you too share my weakness for things you decide you desperately need, even though you probably don't!
-Hannah. :)

Oil and Baby Cream: My Unusual Skin Care Routine.

There are a lot of posts on a multitude of blogs, and a lot of videos on a multitude of YouTube channels relating to various people's skin care routines. Depending of the posts you read and videos you watch, you can often be presented with a number of products suitable to your skin type, but not to your funds. I've watched a great deal of these sorts of videos, as a number of the people I am subscribed to have posted them, and I am usually faced with such products.

Now, when you have skin as problematic as mine, it is never guaranteed that these products will work. So often I judge these supposed miracle products as too much of a risk in terms of potentially being a waste of money. Also, as I'm a student I don't really have much money to spare on these products anyway. So, because of this I have to seek out high street alternatives.

I've found a fair few good alternatives in my time. But my skin gets used to them pretty quickly and in a month or two as the bottle or tube has a third of its contents left, or less, and my skin is totally unresponsive and back to the way it was before. Although there is one product that I found at the beginning of the year -another item of mine that upon hearing of it I had searched four or five shops for until I found it- that has yet to fail me -really hoping I'm not jinxing myself. That product is the pink Garnier moisturiser from their 'Moisture Match' range. It's the one for dry to very dry skin. And although I love this product, this is all the face time it is getting -although it might get some more in a future post- as it's not the reason I have decided to write this post.

Groovy Food's Organic Virgin Coconut Oil. ♥

I have decided to write this post because of two new arrivals in my life that have absolutely nothing to do with skin care.

The first, and least bizarre of the two, is coconut oil. Virgin coconut oil is my saving grace! After two days of applying it twice a day after I'd washed my face -once in the morning and then before I went to bed- my dry skin was noticeably better. A week and a half later, using the same routine, my skin looked amazing and was super, super soft and hydrated. If you have really dry skin then I highly recommend you give virgin coconut oil a go. I honestly can't put into words how great it is!

Not only does this smell like white chocolate,
but it sort of looks like a pot of it too.
Well, until you read the label.

The second, and strangest, is Waitrose's Baby Bottom Butter. It sounds ludicrous I know, but hear me out on this! Now that I'm at university, and my mum has discovered Facebook, she loves sending me links to money saving ideas and websites. One day she sent me a link titled something along the lines of "12 Cheap and Easy Beauty Hacks". I clicked on it, and on this list was the Waitrose Baby Bottom Butter. I didn't think much of it until later my mum reminded me about it and then added that one of her colleagues went to buy it, but her local Waitrose had completely sold out of it because so many women were buying it. That really got me interested, so the next time we found ourselves in a Waitrose we brought a tub of the stuff each. And just like the coconut oil, this stuff is amazing! I now usually use this in the morning as it's a better base for make-up than the oil, and it keeps my skin feeling smooth all day. Another thing I love about this product is the smell, it smells exactly like white chocolate -I sometimes wish I could eat the stuff.

So if any of you reading this have dry to very dry skin, I really, really recommend you try one of these out. They continue to work wonders for me!
-Hannah. :)

My Thoughts: My Life Experiences.

It struck me just now that not a lot of people have similar life experiences to me. I don't mean this in terms of big or memorable life experiences like travelling the world, sky diving, swimming with dolphins or whatever. The life experiences I'm referring to aren't as grand, exciting or positive.

If you read my post relating to internet cut backs in my family home, you will know that I have an autistic sister. She is currently downstairs having a 'melt down' in a fit of rage as a result of a repercussion for breaking one of the new house rules -15 minutes less on her Xbox later on tonight for saying five or more of the banned swear words. It is this 'melt down' that got me thinking, "Not a lot of people I know have to deal with this sort of stuff." Yes, people have siblings, and yes when their siblings get upset they witness and hear how they display their emotions. However it's not quite on the same level as the things I'm used to seeing and hearing.

I don't particularly want to go into any details about it as I don't think it is necessary or appropriate. But I did want to write down and share the amount I felt comfortable with.

Reflecting back on my work during the school holidays, with everything currently happening in mind, I think I've laid a finger on one of the hidden reasons why I enjoy my job so much. Aside from all the obvious reasons for loving my job -all of which are just as valid as the coming one- the more personal one I've just discovered is that it allows me to meet other people with similar experiences to mine. My job, on top of allowing me to help special needs young people and children, allows me to meet and bond with workers who know what a bad day in my life is like.

My job allows me to meet the people I have never found before, the people who totally get it, and I'm thankful for that.

Introverted Favourites: August

August has been an incredibly busy month for me; more so even than the month of my exams at university. It has also been a very diverse month in terms of how my time has been spent. It is for these reasons that I thought I would end the month and begin the new one with a list of my favourite things from this month, ranging from things that I have done, purchased and encountered.

First up is a beauty product that I have been waiting somewhat-patiently for a month and a half to be released; and that is the new range of Revlon ColourStay Moisture Stains. As soon as I saw they were on the Boots website I went straight to one of my nearest Boots stores to see what they had to offer from the twelve colours in the range. They had a total of six, four of which I had the names of jotted down in my Notes app and wanted to try out. However after swatching them on my hand I only though two of the shades would suit me. They were '050 - London Posh' -a shimmery nude, so within my comfort zone- and '015 - Barcelona Nights' -a lovely fuchsia colour that is slightly out of my comfort zone. Later on in another Boots store, as I've mentioned in my previous post, I then found '025 - Cannes Crush' a gorgeous peachy coral colour that I was determined to get my hands on since hearing about the range and seeing the first swatches.

I have become somewhat of a lipstick fiend as of late -although looking at my collection I mainly seem to stick to Revlon products with the occasional Rimmel exception- so while I was at the Revlon stand I took the opportunity to see if they had any of the ColourStay Ultimate Suede range. They only had three colours though, which I was a bit disappointed about, but in terms of my bank account I guess it was for the best. The shade I had in mind to try out was called 'Couture' but that wasn't one of the shades they had in stock. So, not wanting to miss out on trying the range I went for quite a bright red shade called '093 - Boho Chic' which I have since fallen in love with. It has fantastic staying power, even when eating and drinking!

As Boots were offering a '2 for £10' deal on Revlon products I thought that four items for £20 was more justifiable spending than three items for £17.99. Because of that I went ahead and got myself another lipstick. It is the colour '415 - Pink in the Afternoon' in their Super Lustrous Lipstick range and it has become my new staple lipstick. The colour is gorgeous!

Moving on from beauty, another of my favourites this month is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Since getting the DVD the day after it was released I've watched it at least three times. Two of those viewings being consecutive. Honestly, it is just such a great film! It is without a doubt my favourite film -although lots of people are saying Guardians of the Galaxy might change that; but I highly doubt it will. I hope those aren't my famous last words.

A constant favourite of mine that is worth noting this month is LUSH. LUSH is a fantastic shop, with a whole host of amazing products, and brilliant staff. Every single LUSH store I have been in -in particular the one I went into while in Glasgow- has blown me away with the excellence of their customer service and their ever so friendly employees. I always leave LUSH stores with a smile on my face and my spirits lifted a little higher thanks to the members of staff.

LUSH's Twilight bathbomb, before and after being submerged in bearably hot water.

Keeping along the lines of LUSH another favourite of mine this month has been super relaxing baths. After getting back from my residential I was in serious need of some intense relaxation; so as soon as I got home I ran myself a bath with a tonne of bubble bath and some Vanilla Cupcake scented Yankee Candles lit on the side, and thus a habit has been born. Since then I've indulged myself with three more relaxation baths and mixed things up a bit each time. By mixing up I mean things like switching the bubble bath for a LUSH bathbomb; adding some more candles to the room; and having my iPod playing in the background. My bath at home has now become like my own little safe haven. I have a feeling I'll miss it sorely when I head off back to university in late September.

Lastly, something that I've enjoyed throughout August is my job and the people I've met through it. I will admit that there were a number of moments that really tested me. I definitely dealt with more than my fair share of shit, but I held myself together. Don't get me wrong, a few cracks started to form every once in a while, but I quickly sealed those little buggers up! Also, I'm not going to lie to you, I'm incredibly proud of myself for sticking with it all. And overall I had a good time for the most part; which is about 90% thanks to all the wonderful workers I met and worked with. I met such lovely people and got on so well with them. The majority I hadn't worked with before -although a handful I had- and they were all just so lovely, welcoming and supportive. I can't wait until Easter when hopefully I'll get to see some of them again.

So those have been the majority of my favourites this month. Let me know what some of your's were in the comments? I'd love to hear!
-Hannah. :)