Enchanted Forest

After years of it selling out on me, I finally managed to get some tickets for the Enchanted Forest. It's this amazing sound and light show in a forest in Pitlochry. It's sold out for the rest of the run this year, but I highly recommend that you all go next year. I think the plan is to spend the weekend up there next year in a cabin. Just hopefully not in a Cabin in the Woods type situation. So yeah, next October we're doing a big road trip up north for another night in the magical forest. 

Why I Quit Facebook And You Probably Should Too

It’s been over a month since I deactivated my Facebook account.

I guess you could say that I’m somewhat of a social media addict. I spent my teenage years arranging my top 8 friends on Myspace and writing every little detail of my life on LiveJournal. And these days I still have an array of social media accounts including Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. 

For the past few years, I've used Facebook pretty religiously. It was the first thing I checked when I got up in the morning, and the last thing I would look at before I went to bed at night. I enjoyed posting pictures from my holidays, checking myself in when I was at gigs and keeping up to date with what my friends on the other side of the world were doing.

However while that side of Facebook was great, I found there was a darker side of it that was starting to make me feel really unhappy.

I know that Facebook only shows you the edited version of what people are doing with their lives. And let’s face it, the majority of the time it’s the parts that people want to brag about. It wasn't like I had nothing to brag about myself. I have a great job, an amazing family and supportive group of friends. However even with all that going on, I was starting to feel like everyone was leading a much more exciting life than I was.

Then there’s the issue of relationships. If you’re lucky enough to be in one, then Facebook can be a wonderful thing. But if you've broken up with someone, then there can be nothing worse than seeing that person you used to date all loved up with their new girlfriend. Even if you're friends and no longer have feelings for them, there's still a part of you that’s going to feel slightly weird about the whole thing.

I've also lost count of the number of my friends who have sat on Facebook waiting for their crush to appear online, only to then get upset when they don’t talk to them. And if there is someone on your Facebook who you like, then you can send yourself crazy overthinking the motive of every girl who likes their latest profile picture or comments on their status.

There wasn't one particular thing that made me decide to finally delete my account. I had previously deactivated it for a week here and there, but always ended up going back.

This time though I was starting to realise how much anxiety I had over things I was seeing. Then it got to the stage where it almost seemed pointless to keep my account active when I was hiding so many people from my timeline and purposely not looking at particular profiles.

So after a month of being logged off, do I actually feel different?

I definitely feel like it’s good for my mental wellbeing as I’m no longer worrying about what I see and comparing myself to others. I also feel like I'm making more time to actually talk to my friends, rather than just reading what they're doing online and thinking that counts as catching up.

It's not a decision for everyone, and I still know lots of people who love the site. But maybe this has given you something to think about next time you find yourself upset over something you've seen. Or when you realise that you've wasted an entire evening comparing yourself to the people from school that you really don't really care about anymore.

There's a much wider world outside of Facebook, and it's about time we put down our phones and started to realise it. 

Meat Free Monday

In a bid to try and post more about food I thought I would attempt to post something each week for Meat Free Monday. The weekly event is about encouraging people to skip meat for one day each week. Even though I skip meat every day, I thought it would be a good weekly point to get me posting more.

So here was my dinner from tonight. I made the very simple, but delicious roasted sweet potatoes with humous, roasted chickpeas, salad and peppers. It's also an attempt at me trying to get my eating back on track to three proper meals a day. Yesterday I only ate a bagel and some toast which isn't exactly the healthy diet I should be on, even if my eating habits were completely influenced by my hungover state.

So here's to trying to eat healthy and getting into some sort of decent shape.

Not That Kind of Girl!

I still remember the first time I watched Sex and the City. I was convinced I had found a show that spoke to me in ways other TV shows hadn't before. I had just got into university to study Journalism, so naturally I thought I was going to be the next Carrie Bradshaw. I imagined I would live in a studio apartment in a huge city funding my life by freelancing for some fashion or music publication. 

That was until Girls came along. The HBO show which launched in 2012, focuses on a group of twenty-sometimes living in New York. It not only stars Dunham, but she's also the writer and creator of the show too. It gives a much more realistic view of young women living in New York through unpaid internships, awkward sex and challenging friendships. 

Since then, Lena has been put onto a put on a pedestal with people really feeling like she's some kind of voice of their generation. She may have joked about it through her character Hannah during the pilot episode of Girls, but in real life she really is thought to be one. And I have to admit, I am definitely one of those people. So when I discovered she would be writing a book, I knew without even opening it that I would love every page. 

Lena writes with the open and raw honestly I could only dream of having the guts to do myself. Her book of personal essays and advice details her life through her childhood, long therapy sessions, OCD and string of dates and relationships. She talks so candidly about her sexual encounters in the way I don't think I ever could. It's the sort of information I shared with my best friend this morning, but wouldn't want the world to read. Not only because they don't really care about it, but also because I don't feel like I can talk about other people in that way, even if I only have the most complimentary of words to say.  

"The end never comes when you think it will. It's always ten steps past the worst moment, then a weird turn to the left."

"What a goon. He's lucky to know you, but too stupid to ever realize it."

The book is also full of advice and words that feel like she's climbed into the head of every confused twenty something women who is questioning their life at the moment. 

"Don't put yourself in situations you'd like to run away from."

The above advice that ends the chapter entitled, "A Guide To Running Away For Twenty-Seven-Year-Old Women". It's one of the best pieces of advice I took from the book, especially since I found myself in quite a few situations I wanted to run away from this year. I'd almost have an anxiety attack on the way to certain events, then spend a lot of time hiding in the toilet or outside the party because being inside gave me that sick to the stomach feeling that I shouldn't have to feel. Maybe next time, I'll think about how worth it is to spend hours feeling that rubbish about myself when I can spend time with people outside of those situations. 

She goes onto detail different versions of running away, a lot of which I've tried when needing to escape my own thoughts. Whether it's "listening to a Taylor Swift song about dancing in the rain" or "Going radio silent, then saying you lost your cell phone somewhere in your bed".  

Another great piece thing she said in the book was this - 

"I decided then that I will never be jealous. I will never be vengeful. I won't be threatened by the old, or by the new. "

I would love to think that I could take on board, but I realise it will take some work. Jealously and over thinking situations is probably one of worst qualities. It's embarrassing to admit that I constantly feel threatened by other women.  I have such low confidence that I generally feel 95% of the female population are funnier, smarter, prettier, fitter and more interesting than I am. Even when I'm with someone, I assume that there's someone they think is better than me. It's not a feeling that I enjoy and it's certainly not one I would entertain if I could help it. 

Overall, this is one of the best books I've read it years. With 20 odd pages bookmarked, I feel like it's the sort of book I'll go back to for advice and reassurance and I stumble through the rest of my twenties in a general state of confusion and self doubt.