Progression.

I wish I could say the last eight months were crazy busy and I had absolutely no time to keep up with this blog of mine. 

We all know that would be a lie. And why lie? Is it a crime to say that I had lost the passion for this tiny minuscule little blog? I hope not. To be completely honest, I had almost given up on it. I didn't feel like I had anything really interesting to say. 

I'm not a fashion blogger, style blogger, beauty blogger, lifestyle blogger, food blogger, diy blogger, travel blogger, mommy blogger, oh how the list of things I'm not continues. It's hard to create "content" when you are a nothing blogger. Yuck, even typing that makes me feel all sort of icky. I guess I tried to be a lifestyle blogger, my "tagline" even suggests the sort of things you might find here. 

However my lifestyle, while probably quite common, isn't really one to write home about. See. I'm not even witty, just look at my hilarious attempt at a pun! Anyway, I digress. 

Most of my time is spent working, and when I'm not at that special hall of torture I'm on my sofa drinking tea, googling a variety of topics and getting lost in wikipedia. A selection of my Google searches today have been dead man's hand, arguing with thermometers lyrics, graduated in the back mens hair and my personal favourite gnome puns. Olly has just given this post a cursory glance and has suggested that I get a better hobby than googling things. The boy may have something there.

My point is, this isn't really an aspirational lifestyle, hell, some days I don't want this lifestyle. I want more. I want everything. It's hard to put parts of your life on the internet, regardless of readership, when these parts aren't as effortless as they seem or don't reflect how you really feel. 

As I'm also planning mine and Olly's impending nuptials I'm torn between oversharing absolutely every detail and keeping things private. To be honest I'm barely sharing things with the people involved in the wedding. At  T-Minus 138 days we haven't discussed the food menu, which Olly's Dad is doing, for either location of the day. 

My Mother, whom I love dearly, looks as though she is going to have an aneurysm every time I answer one of her questions about the big day. In fact when we told her about a particular aspect of the day, I can't remember which one now, it might have been our honeymoon, she stopped breathing and then complained about pains in her left arm... 

Despite the confusion of how I want this blog to progress, I definitely want some sort of record of this period of our lives. I want to be able to post things about my life, our life, our adventures and maybe someday even about the children we hope to have. I did contemplate a new shiny blog where I wasn't held back by the expectation of Past Nicole (it turns out she can be quite awkward and often poses problems for Present and Future Nicole) but it felt such a shame to just remove all evidence of this person that once was. 

Anyway, now that's all out there and I've broken the block, maybe I can move forward and try to share some of the happy things that the future holds? For now, here's a picture of one of my adopted cats. Enjoy.

Transition.

1. Give It A Name 2007 2. My 21st Birthday 3. After getting our 5 year anniversary tattoos 

4. At Hayling Island 5. Last Christmas 6. Reading Festival

August is always a big month for us, with our anniversary and Olly's birthday mere days apart.

This August marked the start of a massive transition.

The last picture was taken with exactly one year to go before our wedding, not that I'm counting down. Or anything. Not at all. However, now the fun begins. Prepare for me to get crazy. Everyone has been warned.

Tonight also marks the last night in our flat. This moment is somewhat bittersweet. I am very much looking forward to a space for just me and Olly, but at the same time, I will miss my flatmates. I don't think I've spent so many nights laughing. The only argument we have ever had was about sugar consumption, and even that ended in comedy. 

Unfortunately, Olly's birthday is today as well. We have spent the day packing up last minute bits, cleaning and loading a van full of our somewhat excessive amount of belongings. However I did make him breakfast in bed and ply him with presents. This will be his last birthday as an unmarried man. A weird realisation.

So for this evening, Olly, my dear flatmates and I are having a quiet celebration with a few beers and ciders to celebrate it all.

Here's to transition.

Recently

 

• A few weeks ago, Olly and I had the same day off so we decided to run away to the beach, meet our friend and play a game of mini golf and enjoy the sunshiny day.
• I discovered a new blog by Catherine and fell in love with the foods she makes. I made the Carrot Cake Oatmeal and have eaten it most days since I first tried it. I am in love. Says the girl who tried to make oatmeal for her breakfast before and hated every bite. 

  

• One rare morning when I had plenty of time before work, I started being followed by a hobbling cat. As it got closer I realised it only had three legs and was desperate for my attention, which I readily gave. I felt so bad walking away... He was so adorable.
• We're planning our honeymoon and we quite like the idea of going to the good ol' US of A. Which made me think about my passports. I am very lucky and when I was little, my Mama registered me as a US citizen. This means that I can get a US passport and need no visa! I've been meaning to find this piece of paper for a while so that, if I can, a potential move to America can happen! So exciting!

 

• My dear friend went through my diary and put little challenges for me throughout the next few months. Some of them will be hard and some are just silly! Today I was supposed to wear red, which I kind of failed at! I was wearing a burgundy jacket though, so I suppose that counts!
• My Mama has just taken a train to my Oma's house in Germany and some of the messages I've been getting from her have been quite random. Such as how to change her layout from timeline to be the old one. Her faith in me is quite amazing, if rather misplaced.

Plans for the best day.

Now that the deposits have been paid, I am happy to say that Olly and I are OFFICIALLY getting married!

Here is a quick peek of both of the venues. I am absolutely in love with them.

Ceremony venue from the gate.

Reception venue from the stage and undressed.

See, I told you it was a peek! Now we're just getting things sorted. I have designed the save the dates and invitations, so just need to get them printed up. However we need to finalise the guest list before we can get them all printed, certainly not looking forward to that!

The Evolution of Pink Hair

Two weeks ago today, I dyed my hair pink.

It took two days, four boxes of bleach, two bottles of Stargazer Baby Pink dye and a tub of intensive conditioner.

It turns out I have a lot of hair. We ran out of bleach the first night and had to make a dash to Boots the next day!



I'm a very impatient person, so I didn't wait for the bleach to turn my hair completely white. This has resulted in some sections being very pink while others are slightly more peach. In short my hair originally looked like a fruit salad chewy sweet. Not an entirely bad look, but not exactly the one I was going for.

However, I have since washed and conditioned my hair a couple of times and also subjected it to sea water when I spontaneously swam in the sea fully clothed. This has resulted in the beautifully soft pink on the bottom right which I am in love with! The roots are starting to come in, and that is a total bitch, but I love it! I'm going to wait a fair while before I bleach my hair again, this time I *will* be patient and wait out the bleach. I'm going to buy the bleach later today to take advantage of the awesome Boots Jubilee Points offer, 10 points per pound? I'd be mad not to! Also might take this opportunity to buy a new memory card as both of mine have been misplaced (I blame Olly!) and I miss using my DSLR. She's been mightily neglected!

Tiny Photo Round Up + A Pretty Awesome Announcement

As predicted, last week was indeed epic.

My hair was dyed pink. I turned 26. I watched a sunset on the beach. I went to a different beach the next day and swam in the freezing sea. I had a London adventure. I ate sushi. Olly and I booked our wedding venues.

Yes we did. It is official. Well, I need to email the venues for the contracts and pay the deposits, so still somewhat unofficial. I have booked three weeks of holiday.

24th August 2013, it's finally happening.

End of Radio Silence.

So many things have happened since my last post on, ahem, VALENTINE'S DAY!

Well, not that many, but things are about to get interesting up in here if all goes to plan.

The next week is going to be epic.