7 Things I Love About Summer

Hello everyone.

I hope you've had a lovely, sunny week! I also hope you had the chance to read my first post in the Mollie'sThoughts series (if you missed it then there is a link HERE) and enjoyed it. If you don't know what this series is, it is (going to be) a collection of posts where I talk about issues that I feel very strongly towards for example yesturday's was about being your own bestfriend. If you'd like to follow these posts, look for the titles containing "Mollie'sThoughts".

Now, back to this post. 7 Things I love about Summer. There are  of course lots more than just 7 things I love about summer but I don't want to keep you here all day so here are some of my favourite things about summer- in no particular order.

1. Summer clothing - namely dresses and playsuits.

(Clockwise: George at Asda, Primark, Ebay but maker is "Influence", George at Asda...cheap and cheerful. My kinda thing.)

I love that in the warm weather, dresses and playsuits become a practical item of clothing because I just love them! They keep you cooler whilst still looking stylish. I'm always on the look-out for new summer dresses and playsuits as I think they look cute and girly and can be dressed down for daytime and glammed-up for evenings. I am particularly fond of ones with prints on mine (if you can't already tell...).

2. Summer music

 I find that in the Summer months I tend to listen to music a lot more. I think it's because my taste in music is very swingy and summer-y anyway so the songs seem to fit the surroundings better in the summer. For me, there's nothing like listening to a bit of Eliza Doolittle whilst walking down the sun-streamed beach!

My personal favourite artists/songs include:
-Eliza Doolittle (all of her songs)
-Corinne Bailey Rae (all of her songs)
-Nicki Minaj: Starships
-Caro Emerald: Riviera Life
-A Fine Frenzy: What I Wouldn't Do
-Ariana Grande: The Way
- Taio Cruz: There She Goes
...to name but a few.

3. All the beautiful colours

I love seeing the grass look greener, the sky and sea looking bluer and the flowers looking brighter. It's a beautiful sight to behold and I can't resist taking a few snaps of the beautiful views and sights around Arran. Well, I say a few, but I often see something that catches my eye and end up taking about thirty photos of it - no exaggeration. Everything's just so gorgeous!

4. Waking up and going to bed with the sun still shining

I'm not one of these people who want to block out the light in the morning when I'm trying to have a lie-in or who curse the sun's brightness when trying to get to sleep. In fact, I'm quite the opposite! I love getting up early to watch the sun rise and I will happily have my curtains wide open whilst I'm trying to sleep. You see living in Scotland, we don't always get much sun so I always make sure to make the most of it. Also, there's nothing like waking up with the warmth of the suns rays tickling your nose.

5. Bright and pastel summer nail colours

Clockwise in top photo. MUA in Bold Blue, Coral colour from a Boots "Colour Unlimited" boxset, MUA in Ameretto Crush, Rimmel Lasting Finish in Pear Drop and OPI Nail Laquer from a special Spiderman edition boxset.

There's something about having coral, powder blue, mermaid green and peachy pink nails that just makes me so happy. I love Spring/Summer because the pastels and neons come out to play and though I'm a sucker for deep reds and auburns in the Autumn/Winter months, there's nothing like having a pop of colour on your pinkies. Unfortunately for me, we are not allowed to wear nail varnish where I work and so on my days off I make the most of it by throwing on some bold beauties.
My personal favourite look from the colours above is painting my ring finger nails in the Bold Blue by MUA and painting the rest of my nails in the coral colour from the Colour Unlimited set from Boots.

6. Beach days

There's nothing like kicking of your flip-flops and walking bare foot along the beach with the sand between your toes and the sea washing over your tired, warm feet. Or building sandcastles (you're never to old for a good sandcastle) and sand sculptures and burying your feet in the warm sand just to have your toes peep out whenever you wriggle them. Bliss. It's also great fun to swim in the sea in the summer because despite the often freezing temperatures of the water, it is often a refreshing and welcomed relief from the heat. But see if that seaweed comes anywhere near me...

7. Spending time with friends

Last, but definitely not least. I don't know about you but I always seem to be much more sociable during the summer months. I'm like a hedgehog who's come out of hibernation and is ready to mingle with my prickly friends though, I'm glad to say my friends are much smoother than your average hedgehog.
Wow. That got weird fast.
Anyway, my point is, there always seems to be so much more to do in summer and with the days getting longer there's all the more time to do these things. I'm privileged to have made some really great memories already this summer and I am treasuring every moment of them. My time with my friends is all the more important to me just now because pretty soon they'll be leaving the island and going off to do their own thing whether that be uni, college, a job etc. whilst I'm staying put - or at least that's the plan just now.
I've been blessed with some truly amazing friends and I cannot express how much I love and cherish them being in my life.

***

So that's everything I love about summer in a nutshell! Well, my main favorites anyway! I'd love to hear your top 7 favourite things about summer too! Feel free to leave a comment telling me yours.
Until next week, I hope you have a great couple of days and make many happy memories.

Mollie

♥

Be Your Own Bestfriend | Mollie'sThoughts#1

Hello my lovely readers.

This is technically a "bonus" blog today as it is not yet Thursday (when I usually upload) so I am technically not late. Technically.

As promised I am writing my first installment of "Mollie's Thoughts" today - how exciting! - and I thought I would begin  by talking about something we should all try to focus on -being your own bestfriend.

(This is not my photo but I found it on various instagram pages so I'm not sure where it's original source is.)

Being your own bestfriend is something we have all heard about from inspiring youtubers and celebrities and read about in the occasional motivating articles we find in magazines. It is not, however, something we always put it into practice. 

Being your own bestfriend isn't vain or selfish in anyway and it doesn't mean sending our friends packing just to sit in a corner and hug ourselves -even though hugs are the best. It's about putting your wellbeing and your happiness first in order to maintain your mental health and to prevent you from feeling rubbish about yourself.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, we can have those days where we look in the mirror and just don't like ourselves. We begin to point out our flaws and re-live everything we've done wrong and everything that we'd like to change. It's when the little voice in the back of our mind speaks up and tell us we're not pretty, we have no friends, we have no talent, we can't achieve our dreams etc. and if we're not careful, we can begin to believe it. 

So let's think about this for a moment. Let's imagine that we said the things we tell ourselves to someone else. Imagine you told your bestfriend that they were fat, ugly, useless, alone etc. Do you think they would still be your bestfriend? The answer, unless you have a one in a million, should be no. We would never tell our bestfriend cruel things about themselves and yet we can quite easily sit and say those same hurtful things to ourselves. Nobody wants to hear that; nobody should have to hear that. So why do we do it to ourselves? Why do we make ourselves feel rubbish when we're the only person that we are guaranteed we will always be around? Why do we bully the one person we're going to spend every minute of our lives with? Life would be so much easier and we would be so much happier if instead of being our own worst enemy, we became our own best friend.

So instead of dwelling on mistakes we've made, let's learn to laugh at ourselves and learn from them. Instead of telling ourselves that we look terrible today, let's tell ourselves that we'll try to be extra beautiful on the inside. Instead of treating ourselves and our worries with little respect, let's make ourselves feel special and learn to love our quirks, flaws and weaknesses equally to our strengths - just as we would a friend. Because that's what being a friend is all about; accepting and loving the other person for who they are - flaws and all.

Let's give it a go! I challenge you (once you've finished reading this post) to write down 10 things you love about yourself (either in your diary, on the back of a bus timetable or even better, in a comment below). It can be anything from your smile to the way you make a mean cheesecake - anything. You deserve to know everything that makes you special and who knows you better than you? 

People come and go in our lives, but we will never be without ourselves so why not make life better by showing ourselves some love?

Mollie

♥

The Busiest of Bees

Hello everyone.

I know… I did a terrible thing and did not do last week’s post. I am very sorry. It’s been a little hectic though and I shall fill you in with everything from the past two weeks. 
But before I go on I would like to say that last week my blog's page views reached 1000! Thankyou to everyone who reads my posts and follows my blog, it means a lot.

Now, in my last post (if you can remember that far back…) I talked about lots of exciting things coming up including a sleepover with friends, party and of course the school show and my Highschool Leavers Do. These are all of course now over and done and were a lot of fun.

The three performances of the school show we did I am glad to say went off with only a few glitches here and there (as is accustomed) and everyone who came to see it were very impressed. It was amazing to be a part of- especially as it was the last ever school show that me and my friends will be in due to us now having left school. *sad face*

Though I had a smaller part as a maid to one of the protagonists it was so much fun. My role mainly involved fluttering on and off stage a lot with a few lines here and there and delivering tea. Basically, I was a waitress. I'm a waitress playing a waitress-trust me. I did however have one scene I very much enjoyed which included my character becoming very stressed by all that was going on in the story of the play and so she runs off-stage with her apron over her face. The audience always laughed which was an amazing feeling however I’m sure they would have laughed more if they’d seen the trouble I had coming to a stop once I ran off-stage with a not-so-see-through apron over my face.

Serving the tea and cakes.

The school shows have been a big part of my highschool time and are where I have met and bonded with my closest friends so when the curtains closed for the final time there was a little sadness in my smile.

This sadness I’m afraid to say did not only come from the end of the show. Last Monday one of our dogs, Bonnie, began to show signs of being ill and after taking her to the vet on Wednesday we found out that she had a womb infection.

 In my family, our dogs (which are huge leonbergers..google them!) have become as much a part of our family as me and my sisters so we were naturally all very emotional. This emotion was heightened following Bonnie’s operation to remove her womb when we were told she also had anemia and there was little hope for her recovering.

Last Sunday morning, the day after my Leavers Do, my mum called my friend’s house where I was staying that night and told me the heartbreaking news that Bonnie had died earlier that morning. I was speechless.

I’m sorry to include this sad event in my blog but it is of great importance to me and so I felt I should include it.

Bonnie was one of the puppies from our other two dogs’ litter. She was the last pup left to be sold but never was as she was just too precious so we kept her.

She was a beautiful dog with the kindest, gentlest nature and she will leave a big paw print on all of our hearts.

On a happier note, the other main event that took place last week was of course my year’s Highschool Leavers Do (not in anyway affiliated with Arran High School). This Leavers Do has given our year more trouble than you would believe. To begin with our Head Teacher was more than a little unsupportive of our plans. This is because every year he plans for the school to organise a 6^th year leavers do right before our exams when we haven’t even officially left school yet and are too busy studying to have a party and so every year he falls out with the present 6^th years when they politely refuse and organise one for themselves-hence my previous comment in the brackets. Our Head Teacher was so against us doing this-as he has been with every sixth year- that he told the school office to refuse any help to us with contacts etc. and tried to arrange another staff event on the day of the Leavers Do we organised so that they couldn’t attend. This plan luckily failed but goodness me it’s been some work. Are all Head Teachers that stubborn? Suffice to say he and the Deputy Head teachers did not attend our Do.

Anyway, this is why we have had to all organise it ourselves (and pretty successfully I might say). It took place at a hotel on the island owned by the parents of a girl in our year which was convenient. It included a meal and dance in a beautifully decorated room with everyone in our year plus all of our teachers. It was truly lovely as we were able to see teachers who had left the school/retired. There were also photographs taken for our island’s newspaper and some professional ones which we could buy. Me and my friends very nearly missed these photographs however.

As I have mentioned a few times I work with three of my bestfriends at a café/shop on the island in the main town and so this means we can’t all have the same days off. Therefore me and my friend Kirsty were working the day of the Leavers Do. Luckily our lovely manager told us we could leave early to drive all the way to the other side of the island to get ready and go to the Do so long as it wasn’t too busy and as typical luck would have it about ten minutes before we were supposed to leave the place was packed. I don’t think I’ve ever made coffees and taken orders as quickly as I did then. However many many customers and about half an hour later we were on our way. This left us with an hour and a half to get ready which if you know me then four hours is pushing it. We did get ready in time though and with the mandatory ‘photos for the parents’ taken we made it just in time for the professional photographs. Phew.

After the photographs we mingled with old teachers before sitting down at our tables for the meal and speeches. The food was lovely as was the company. After that the music came on and the dancing started. I say that but to begin with the only people on the dancefloor were me and my friends. That didn’t stop us from busting some moves though. No shame.

Our amazing now retired English teacher

 Our table. Number one..quite fitting wouldn't you say? :P

 The clan.

This week has been slightly less eventful as I have been working but I did have a much-needed sleepover with friends which was intended to be a Disney Film Night however after catching up and taking photos we ended up watching only one Disney film. Successful mission? ... hmm. We are rescheduling for another though because you are NEVER too old for Disney.

Just chilling.

Makeovers anyone? Typical girls.

I think that covers everything of interest that has occurred in the past two weeks. Some happy occasions, some not so happy but what all of these events have sparked are some beautiful memories in the school show, the Leavers Do and the life of our beautiful Bonnie.

I hope you’ve had a lovely few weeks and I will definitely see you next Thursday. Promise. With love,

Mollie

♥

The First Day of Summer

Hello everyone.

So, following my last post which was a little deeper and thoughtful I have decided that once a month I am going to build up a series of posts under the heading “Mollie’s Thoughts”. (Please leave your jokes about how that time scale may reflect how little I do some thinking…)  These posts will address those issues I have strong feelings for and that really matter to me such as, the idea of living for you, not to please others as discussed in my last post. Is that something you would be interested in?

Anyway, back to business. This week began with the first all-day rehearsal on Sunday for the school play I’m in (The Importance of Being Earnest) which is something I look forward to every year when I’m in a school show as it used to give us some hope that school was nearly finished for Summer and also it is a time when everyone in the show can mingle and chill out whilst doing something that we all love – acting in the play. I especially love it this year as I am doing the play with my best friends.

The weather was really beautiful on Sunday as it has been on-and-off this week and so after rehearsals me and my friends decided to go for a swim in the sea for a few hours and it was lovely.

Up until then, on sunny days I have always been working or completing art coursework but Sunday was the first day when I could relax and enjoy one of the hopefully many to come sunny days and so for me it was the first day of Summer.

 Speaking of the school show, it only yesterday dawned on me that it is in fact less than a week away. This time next week we’ll be performing our second show and in true show business manner, we are not feeling very ready. I am now beginning to count my blessings that I have a smaller part! I cannot wait though and would like to encourage any Arran readers to come and see it at the High School on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday night – or even all three if you’re of a particularly theatrical demeanour.

On the topic of not being ready, I am ashamed to say that I have only just finished editing Fiona’s video in the past few days following her Butterfly Tree Tea Party a few weeks ago (You can read about the day HERE). It was not an easy task I can tell you because the software I was using kept crashing and so I had to re-load everything and footage kept refusing to upload etc. but it is now done and delivered and it will be up on my channel tomorrow sometime. 

Me and my parents visited Fiona and Pete (her husband) an hour or so ago and they seemed to really like it so it was all completely worth it! Especially if it can be used to help raise more money for The Butterfly Tree Charity! A copy of the video is even being sent to the charity in Zambia! How amazing is that? Lots of excitement there.

So that’s pretty much everything in my life this week for this life post - well, everything of interest, even though I’m sure you would love to hear about what I had for dinner last night or how many hours I worked this week.

I have lots to look forward to this week - the school show as I mentioned, a much needed sleep-over/catch-up session with my friends, a party on Saturday and next weekend my School Leavers Do! I shall have much to report in my next post. Until then I hope you have lovely sunny weather and have a great week.

Mollie

♥