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.