My "BIG" Sister, Confident and Proud

I'm going to talk about my Sister Michelle. Society would say she is morbidly obese, I hate this word to a passion it's an ugly word. It gives an impression of stereotypical overweight person who has a condition and all they do is EAT EAT EAT, you shouldn't go near them or sit next to them on the bus, if not controlled properly could lead to a degree of various health issues which I will not go into this very second. This is not the case!

For a long time, my sister has been between sizes 26/28, now she has gradually gone down to a size 22/24. Some people may say she has a long way to go or she could shed some more weight off just to avoid health problems. My sister's reply to that is I don't go out of my way to lose weight. I'm a BIG BLACK CONFIDENT WOMAN, why do I need to be stick thin like what you see in the magazines?  I love my rolls that is just me. I listen to those words and feel proud, because I believe she is a role model in my eyes when it comes to Plus size women in the UK.

I can’t really comment about plus size women everywhere else, but I will say this, it is incredible where we have approached a time in society where more people as in women are embracing their curves and it’s showing in the newspapers, magazines, even catalogues. Curves is beauty and it's an amazing thing. 

There are more opportunities in terms of clothing for plus size people amongst the Retail Industry, more selection for them to choose from compared to 10 years ago or even longer than that. She used to say to me there is more shops for you Char, more choice. Now the Fashion and Retail Industry is for ever changing, there is more selection of shops and online sites/pages even influencers on social medias showing ideas of what to wear and how to wear it. All dedicated for the fuller woman and that is a blessing to all Plus Size women.

Most of the time I see my sister, once, twice, three times a week, what can I say we always have a lot to talk about lol. The more I see her, the more I can tell she is slowly losing the weight and that is not due to dieting, watching her calories intake or weighing herself every week to be disappointed with results. This is about being ACTIVE. Some people may say losing weight is a simple process to achieve, you eat less and more exercise, but I believe you must be willing and motivated to make that change come to life.

As young girl, she was involved in many sports such Swimming, Netball, Ballet, she even did Gymnastics, so from a young age she was a very active child, always up for anything and still to this day that has not changed. Nowadays her fitness schedule for the week is sometimes Monday she will do treadmill or use other apparatus in the gym, Tuesdays is Aqua Aerobics and Thursdays is Zumba day. Sometimes I join her, because I enjoy the classes. It’s an activity we can do together and socialise with our regular Zumba girls. My sister has energy for everything and anything. She adores being active as do I, but she does these sports for the share fun and enjoyment. I believe it’s working for her in a positive and healthy way.

I have understood for a long time my sister will always be big, she was meant to be big and she believes that too. That's called LOVING AND RESPECTING YOURSELF. She has never looked at herself and utter the words, I'M MASSIVE, I DON'T LIKE MY SHAPE. She has always been positive, confident, outspoken about her size and more importantly blessed with excitement how God has created her.

Friday Morning Indulging

Since being off from work for the last 2 days, it has been a major blessing. Friday morning I had the opportunity of attending my first sample sale organised by my company. Managed to get a lot of nice extra treats for myself. The question is did I need to buy anything more, NO, but I wasn't about to 

miss this opportunity so I booked myself three tickets, one for Friday morning at 07:30 am, at midday and yesterday midday today. 

With the 7.30 slot, I found myself flying out of bed at 05:45 am, it was like getting ready to go on holiday and I'm just waiting for the cab to pick me up. Unfortunately the only thing I had to look forward to was the gifts I'll be holding in my arms once I'm in the queue to pay for the purchases.

When i finally got to the Sample Sale and out of rain, it wasn't your typical fight-to-the-death sale to buy items, it was civilised, it flowed very nicely, everyone was in good spirits regardless of how early in the morning it was, everyone took their time looking through the items including myself. There was a huge selection of tops, jackets/coats, I would say a few hoodies, loads of tops and trousers and a wide variety of accessories from beanie hats to laptops bags and weekend bags.

I, on the other hand walked away with about 4 tops, 4 bags, 1 baseball cap, 1 sweater dress. All came to £140. I was very happy with the amount spent and happy with the experience. Just to let you know not all the items was for me, I actually managed to treat the fam with a few pieces as well, which will not be disclosed in this post. Who knows when the next one will be, but I took the advantage. It's Christmas after all.

Check out my purchases below.

Spirit of Christmas

As the days go by, the afternoons get darker and the nights get colder, I feel its coming to reality that November is officially coming to an end. It's the time for the festive season to begin and lets not forget we are couple of weeks away from the year 2018 coming to a close, but lets not leap forward to hasty. Lets enjoy the festive season and all it has to offer such as the remaining sale bargains from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shopping for prezzies for your love ones as well as yourself, taking a visit to your storage cupboard up in the loft and getting out your stylish sparkle of tinsel which makes you smile every time you look at it.

       

There is something even more better than tinsel and presents, the one thing that brings it all together. The Christmas tree. 

It represents longevity, virtue and solitude, it's a part of the "Three Friends of Winter." along with plum and bamboo tree. 

Every year around the first weekend of December, its tradition for myself and the family to take down the curtains, spring clean the pictures and ornaments around the house and start putting up the decorations and the tree. Obviously every family has their own traditions, but this one has been mine for over 30 years and I'm happy every year to be apart of it. I wouldn't miss this weekend. Its one of my favourite weekends of the year because its something we do regularly together as a family. We play music in the background, have a laugh. At that moment, that's you when you really get into the spirit of Christmas. It brings me joy every year, the food will be consuming and drink will be gulping down.

If I know my sister well, I know she has a Christmas list on standby on her computer and ticking off who and what shes bought already, my mum she hasn't bought anything yet but still has ideas and likes to organise a day to buy all the Christmas presents she needs to buy. As for myself, every other day I'm on the computer adding things to my basket and when I say basket I mean the plural version as I have many baskets in many sites. 

This year I chose to buy presents for 7 people. Not gonna mention any names but that is the budget for people. In terms of expenditure, I have not set a budget in place, but I'm going to try and not go too overboard as the one big lesson to have in mind especially around Christmas time is to not just think about yourself, think about others.

Monday morning blues! Have no fear, Michelle Obama is here

Mondays is always such a hard start to the week, with the congestion of schools kids on the bus to the people sitting opposite you on the London Underground in a mood. You can see the expression on their faces all they are thinking about is I'm late for work, do I really want to go into work or my favourite comment is I wish there was an opportunity to spend an extra day in bed and when you finally get to work, speaking from my experience of my morning yesterday as soon as I was on my way not only was it a total squeeze fest on the Piccadilly line, as I walked into work, I apologised to my manager for being late, sat down and the inbox was full of orders to place. At that point, I thought Char, don't even sweat it, it will eventually get done. So the first thing I did was get a cuppa of tea, which is usually favourite of mine in the morning and two gorgeous tasty Madeleines from home. Not much of a breakfast, but it was a nice treat to start my Monday off nicely.

As the day progressed, I decided to switch up my routine instead listening to music why not listen to a couple of inspirational podcasts during work. You can always rely on music to send you to another world and dream but with podcast you can always pick up interesting facts and learn from other people's skills and personal experiences. Today I listen to few inspiring speakers but the one which caught my eye was Michelle Obama speaking to The Oprah Winfrey regarding her memoir of her novel BECOMING by MICHELLE OBAMA which she discusses in detail about a humble beginnings from where she was raised in the South side of Chicago, Illinois to her being married to the 44th President of United States of America, being able to balance and adjust to the change of coming from normal working lifestyle to having a full fledged, armed security team around you every where you went and being able to be a strong mother and role model to her two girls. 

I will say this again, even though I was busy with work and half of my acknowledgement was focusing on every detail of that interview between Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, it was so compelling, touching and inspirational. She is just a normal woman, trying to be best she can be, she didn't let the presidency go to her head, she remembered where she came from and without a doubt always stuck to her roots. She has voice and is not afraid to let her voice be heard. 

As you all know, my girl Michelle and I'm gonna talk how I please in my blog lol. My girl Michelle Obama will be coming to London in the next week and half on the 3rd December and she will be holding a talk down at the Southbank centre. Unfortunately I could not get a ticket to the event due to the tickets sold out in less than 20 minutes. For those of you have got a ticket enjoy the talk if your able to attend. On the other hand her memoir is out now and is selling like hot cakes. I have already told my sister that I definitely want this book for Christmas than anything else. I'm already smitten by this memoir and cant wait to read it.

The Substance that provides a new Light

When it comes to Make Up, I've never had the confidence to use the tools women use in today's society. As you are all aware, Make-Up has been around since day dot. I'm talking about BC days mainly used by Ancient Egyptians and Greeks as an earliest form of rituals in certain cultures. Today it's used in every society around the globe.

Coming from myself, I know the basics such as how to apply a simple lipstick, eyeliner, mascara etc. I have never been the girl or should I say the woman to use foundation or highlighter. I suppose as a kid my skin was always messed up on certain areas of my body because I had eczema like every other little kids does. So I guess you could say I was scared to apply something like foundation on my skin, I was afraid my skin will flair up. So I never got to experiment.

In the last several years, the Make up Industry has grown tremendously due to the digital age we live in. You have bloggers, fashionistas and celebrities creating make-up tutorials on social media such as your Insta, Vloggers on YouTube such as Danielle Peazer, Nia the Light or Kaz Crossley from the Love Island showing their tricks of creativity which I have to say is a blessing, because you have women like myself who doesn't wear make up often is actually learning new tricks and new tools to bring out your face in a new light. When I say new tools, I mean concealer, highlighter, primer and many more.
Now some of you are probably thinking, Char, these tools are not new, but back in the early nineties, there is no way you heard people utter these words. The most you will hear is lipstick and mascara. Instead of using the word make-up, I'm going to use the word substance, because at the end of day that's what it is a "Substance" that gives women a new light, a glow, transforms them into someone different and not the person who woke from their bed early hours of the morning. 

This substance provides boost of power and new release of confidence to women. It's about transforming your self into not a different person but a new representation of yourself. 

I'm 35 years old and till this day I have never walked over to Selfridges or Harrods make up stands and asked to test out their make up products, the most I would do is ask for directions lol, maybe it's about time I test out these Make-Up stands.

As the Festive season is upon us, I feel I would like to take the plunge and experiment a little, see what my face can really look like if I doll it up. The one thing about myself is like to look different when I go out, it could be different shoes, different clothes or even if I put a hint of eyeliner around my eyes and this makes a major difference.

FOCUS is the key Ingredient to Achievements

Wowwwwwww, can't believe how fast this year has flown. Already we are at the end of September and roughly in 24 hours it will be October. Soon we need to start thinking about ideas for Halloween nights out and preparing for Christmas, but at the moment that is too much shit to even think about.

At the beginning of the year I said to my mum and sister there are two things I want to achieve for this year - 1)  - passing my probation for my new job, 2) - passing my driving test. Currently, I've achieved one of them which I feel the need to pat myself on the back and say helllllllllll yeah, I'm making achievements. Celebrate "good times", said Kool and the Gang. Now my focus for the end of  the year is to win that pass for my driving. Nearly everyday I try to encourage myself that I'm gonna smash this win, because I'm close and the improvements are happening, just need to nip those silly mistakes in the bud and focus. FOCUS is the key ingredient to achievements, which is what I try to believe everyday I wake up.

Another task I'm trying to focus on is reducing the amount times I use my debit card and try to budget myself £200 a month, that's £50 a week. My mother's theory of this is anything I don't use in one of the weeks, that money gets carried over to the next week. The average person will automatically think, "hey, I have more money", but think about it, that extra money could go towards something you need for next week, next month or even in the next several months. So that's my mindset at the moment and I'm actually doing well. It's a nice feeling to leave your card at home and make sure you have money in the purse. Plus it stops me from spending money excessively during the week in Starbucks, Sainburys, Boots, all popular shops around me where I work and I'm tempted to take a walk to at lunch time. INSTEAD, I'm making the effort to bring food from home and cut down cost which works out for me in the long-run.

As the title of this post reads "FOCUS is the key Ingredient to Achievements", lately I've been having thoughts and day dreams about igniting my creative side, most people that know me, know that originally I am a Fashion Designer and I love everything about Fashion and product, but today I wont be talking about Fashion. This is about creative writing, which is why recently I have decided to get back into blogging because I'm starting to believe its one of my talents which I can add to under my belt. I love writing even if I'm writing a text to a close friend and we are discussing something personal, I go all out with the long texts and get carried away with offering my advice to them. I suppose I like helping people, its my nature, but I also believe it's bringing a side out of me where I like to express my thoughts and embrace my feelings. So, for next year, I have decided to treat myself to a short course in Journalism. See what I can get out of this baby, as in my head and who knows in the next few years I could be on the way to writing a novel. Well, will see! I'll keep you all posted of my whereabouts.

On the upside, its nice to back on the blogging tip, hopefully this time I will be able to keep it up and entertain.