Simple Sundays - A Favourite Pastime

I've Posted so much today!
I haven't done a Simple Sunday in a while, and today is such a simple sunday that I couldn't pass it up.

I was in London from Wednesday to Friday for work. I don't know about you, but having a few hectic days followed by two completely non hectic days is such a weird experience. I don't really know what to do with myself.

Whilst I was travelling down, I started on one of the next books in my reading challenge list. I'm not sure what made me want to read this book, as at first I was a bit sceptical, but I pulled it out on the train and pretty much had to force myself to stop and get some work done. I've wrote a quick update on it which will be posted soon in the reading challenge tag.

Anyways! I've now finished the book and I've become a little obsessed. I love that feeling of being so into a book series that it sits constantly at the forefront of your mind. I haven't found a book like that in a while so I'm very happy. There's honestly no better feeling. Books can have such power.

True to my habits, I've started sketching the characters. I don't know if anyone else does this, but I tend to build up this image of what certain characters look like then try my darned hardest to project that onto paper. There' something very satisfying about seeing characters slowly take physical form in front of you.
I sat until two this morning doodling away. I'm very happy with them, but I'm not the best at showing people what I draw. I'm still a bit self conscious because I tend to see flaws in everything I do. I've posted one, which you can see above. Im still not great at drawing hands, so I've tried to include this in each of these sketches so I can get my practise in.
I tend to have to tell myself a lot not to be embarrassed by what I create. It's definitely a confidence issue. I have to mentally yell at myself to be brave and upload stuff. Theres a little voice in my head that's scared people will judge or tell me it's not good. Which hey, it might not be.
I draw/paint for myself in the end. Which is why it is so rare for me to upload anything to big ol' internet. The internet can be a scary place, after all.

I know I'm not the only one who suffers this. There's a lot of negativity out there, and I for one just try to avoid that as much as I can. It can make it difficult to want to put ourselves out there and not have our say. Today I'm feeling brave, so I'm embracing that.

I know I've rambled on a bit about something so minor as posting a picture, but it's a topic I'm constantly debating with myself about, and I wanted to say my piece.

hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

Simple Sundays - Early Mornings, Baking and a Bike Ride.

My parents left this morning! Bright and early at 9am.
This of course meant I myself was up at eight and I'm paying for it this evening. I was so close to having an afternoon nap but managed to pull through. Life is so hard, right? ha.

I bought a bike a while ago so that travelling to and from work at night became less of a scary-wander -down-back-alleys-waiting-for-something-to-jump-out-at-me ordeal. Today I eventually got round to getting a helmet and light so I'm safe and visible whilst out. Don't want any stray cars hitting me as I'm riding about!
I did a practice run to and from work this morning. I have a route I'm used to already, but that path isn't very accessible via bike. Most of it was downhill on the way TO the office. The way back is as you would imagine, very uphill. I struggled.

I always love days when I actually wake up early and get out of the house to do something, but those don't seem to happen very often when it's not a week day. I feel like I've gotten so much done and it's only 6pm. I'll be ready for bed in a bit!
After fighting the urge to sleep I made some puff pastry bites with my own tomato relish, avocado, bacon and mozzarella. They were actually fab and I'll post a recipe up at some point. Such an easy snack to make.
And because I'm prone to something sweet along with my savoury, I made cupcakes. They look at bit grey in the photos but they're actually a lovely shade of pastel purple. They taste pretty fab too.

Now what do I do with my Sunday evening? I'm tired but not ready for bed. I'm not hungry but I have a mound of cupcakes to eat. And for the first time in forever I'm pretty much all caught up on my tv!
Might be best to just call it a day and watch a movie in bed.

Hope y'all have had a nice pleasant Sunday afternoon.

Simple Sundays - Puddings, Sorting and Furry Knuckles.

Don't you just love productive days?
I woke up with every intention of having a lazy day. I wanted to lie on the sofa, maybe play Mario and catch up with some TV. In the end I sorted out my entire wardrobe. I've found that most of my clothes are sitting untouched now because it's been too cold, so it was nice to swap out all my flouncy shirts for cosy jumpers. Bring on the maroons, navy blues, mustard yellows and evergreens.

I also made a Jossy's Lemon Pudding Delicious from the Leon Baking & Puddings book. This recipe is beyond tasty. I cannot put into words how tasty this recipe is. Light and airy but soft and sticky underneath. The recipe calls to put the soufflé dish in a tray of water whilst in the oven. I've never tried a recipe that does that before, so I was a bit wary. I found it hard to stop eating it though, so I think it turned out great!

This weeks purchase included jewellery. For anyone that knows me well, I don't wear jewellery.  That's not to say I don't like it, just that I get fed up of wearing it very easily. I really loved this though after seeing it on Etsy. Also, how weird does my hand and arms look in that photo?

And that's all for this Sunday. It's been a fairly uneventful week, but I suppose that happens every now and again.

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend!

Simple Sundays - Halloween and Bikes.

A very non spooky Halloween indeed.

I absolutely love the holidays. I'm a huge sucker for decorating and dressing up. I love buying presents at Christmas and decorating the tree; it's a tradition my mum saves for me coming home. I like to buy pretty easter eggs at easter and I love to dress up at Halloween.
This year I didn't dress up. Not even the tiniest of halloween extras. Fair to say I was pretty gloomy about that. I considered hosting a little party in the flat, but trying to get people to come up to Dundee has always been a bit of an issue. Unfortunately I didn't know anyone who was having a party either.

I wasn't alone though! A late night text to my friend on Thursday turned into a lovely little spontaneous trip to visit me on Friday night. I've found since living here that not a lot of people come to visit, it's usually me going to them, so it was a nice change to have someone up here.
In true Fiona and Cassie fashion we made some dinner, chatted about a lot of nothing and after playing some terrible game on the Playstation made a Skype call to our third musketeer in Australia.
The next morning Fiona helped me buy my 'first adult bike'. Now that the nights are getting darker I feel less safe walking home from work. I haven't had a bike since I was back in primary school, and I honestly can't remember the last time I rode one. Must be about the same time!
What they say is true, you really never forget.
My next step is to buy a helmet. I've had this weird fear of helmets since I was very little. My mum bought me this excellent Winnie the Pooh helmet, but one of the first times I tried it on she managed to catch the skin under my chin in the clip. She did it a few times actually, and every time there was a lot of crying and panicking. To this day I put my hand under the clip and keep it loose before I pull it secure. I'd like to point out that it was always an accident! My mum didn't have some weird mission to make me fear helmets for the rest of my childhood!

Today I'm looking over all these odd random little videos I've managed to accumulate over the past few weeks and am considering what to do with them…

Hope Everyone is having a nice weekend.

Simple Sunday - Life "Cleanse" and Over Thinking.

This weekend has been about staying in and get rid of all schedules for a small moment. The last few weekends have been pretty packed full of travel and visiting friends and family. I was honestly starting to forget what my flat looked like in the daytime. However, dull gloomy mornings in autumn are a definite bonus for me. I think I actually prefer the darker mornings over a bright summer start to the day. Not sure what that says about me.
So here's to the peaceful weekends! The weekends where it's acceptable to sleep till midday, lie on the sofa and watch rom coms or cheery happy movies that don't require any mental effort. Then maybe make a favourite dinner, catch up on your saturday programs in the evening and maybe if you have the energy go for a wander around town and buy that dress you've been eyeing up for a while. Hey, it's nearly payday, right?

Last weekend I was a no show on here as I was down in Glasgow visiting some friends. Seeing friends you don't hang out with very often is always an interesting experience. You sort of build up a humour and way of talking with people you see regularly, and when in the company of others it can come across completely different. I'm making it sound like something bad happened and I assure you that's not the case.
I just sometimes wonder what kind of impression we leave on people once we've left. We only experience maybe one or two nights of each others company every year and I wonder if opinions change afterwards.
I'm perhaps being too cynical about this and even as I'm typing, I'm wondering if I should even keep it in.
I will.

And with that lovely thought, I'm off to enjoy the blissful comfort of the sofa and perhaps eat a generous bowl of ice cream!

Simple Sundays - Back to the Country.

This weekend I was visiting my parents. I always say I'm going 'home' when I head back to my mums, but the reality is that I've not lived there for about 5 years now. There's something about your parents house that will always be 'home' isn't there? It's where you grew up, and it's where you experience that feeling. You know the one, it's comfortable and safe. I don't think I'm going to grow out of saying that anytime soon.
I have some photos I'm going to post tomorrow as I'm just in the door and am too tired to be editing anything.
This weekend was really fun though. I went into Braehead with my mum on Saturday to go shopping for ski clothes for me. I've been saving up for a while, as I really wanted to buy myself a nice ski jacket for my holiday in January. I wore my mums last year and it was just a bit too big for me. I had only planned on getting the jacket, but by the end of the day I had a jacket, ski trousers and a shiny new helmet. All kitted out and ready to go! I then found a £20 note on the side of the street and took my mum out for some lunch! A good day indeed.
Today I went for a lovely walk through the country, took some photos and hopped back in the car to drive back up to Dundee!

Apologies for the brief post. I'll make it up another day!

Simple Sundays - Life update.

I really love Sundays because they are the only day of the week where I actually get a chance to relax. I think posting on Sundays might be a good idea. More likely than not, I'll have some free time to sit down and write about anything that's happened this week.
I've posted twice today, but this was mainly because I was too tired to write up anything when I got in last night. Ideally I would have liked to post that yesterday. However, lucky you gets two posts today!

I thought it might be nice to do a quick life update, like what I used to do on here a few years back. Since then I've graduated and have been working at an app company as their lead designer. My first year in a full time job was maybe a bit different from most peoples experience. We struggled to get an office so work involved signing in on Skype every morning for a catch up. It was a difficult way to work and did ultimately take an impact on my mentality. Nothing too serious, just some bouts of sadness or cabin fever. I'm quite a sociable person and rely a lot on my peers, so having no one around me for a while and no outlet or routine was a struggle. I think this was because I had been constantly surrounded by people for 4 years whilst I was at Uni, and the contrast between that environment to living alone and a new job was distressing.
Luckily I have some pretty amazing friends who I could talk to and they helped to pull me out of that when it got to be too much. This July we managed to eventually move into a space and since then it's been much better. After a year of working from home, getting back into the routine of waking up earlier and leaving the house actually improved my work and rekindled my love for design again. It was slowly sucking the passion out of creating for me, and I'm glad to have found that again.

I've also been living alone, like I mentioned earlier, and that's been a new experience for me too. Since my time at uni I've lived in a flat with 6, 5, 8 and finally 2 others in different years. Each year had it's pros and cons, but I think living in my own space has been far more exciting. Apart from all the negatives I've spoke about already, there are huge cons to having your own place. I don't think I'd go back to sharing again if given the choice!

There have been so many other exciting things that have happened, but I think trying to fit anything else in at the moment might be information overload! Right now I feel like I'm in a much better place than I was last year, and that's why I felt I could talk about it openly on here. This blog was always an outlet for me in the past, and as previously stated in another post, I'm really looking forward to having that again.
Hence post galore! and perhaps an overuse of the word post in this post.

I had an adventure of my own on Friday which was a new experience for me and something I'm planning to write about soon, but for now enjoy my foody day out from yesterday and my tiny little bald patch in the picture above! I bought that jumper yesterday and I think I'm in love with it already.
AUTUMN IS HERE.

Simple Sunday. (I'm back?)

I left Blogger a while ago to post elsewhere and focus on work in my final year of Uni, and since then have kind of forgotten to keep this space updated.

'IndigoTeacup' is a name I've left behind. I feel a bit sad about this as it's where I used to go speak my thoughts.
Thats not to say I haven't been active on the internet though, and I'll link in another post to some of the other places I frequent to update.

I'm going to try posting on here again. I use my other blog for work related/design posts, but I'd like my old space back to talk about day to day life. I used to find a great amount of joy in blogging, and I can't quite put my finger on why I lost that love. I think it's still there, buried away.

I'm going to start off with my weekend and see how it goes from there!

Yes I'm going to write about yoghurt. I bought this stuff on a whim the other day and it was honestly the highlight of my day. So thick, so creamy and ridiculously tasty. I'm aware I sound like an advert, but it just that good.
I'm not a huge yoghurt person, but over the last few weeks it's been my go to choice for breakfast. I usually just buy some plain natural yoghurt and add some cut up banana and honey. I swear by this combo.

I'll be on the look out for other flavours of The Collective Dairy, their russian fudge and luscious lemon looks fab.
Can't believe I've just given you a yoghurt review. Stay Tuned folks!

 I also just found these today. This was a gift from my mum from a while back. I never really use cases for my glasses because they pretty much stay on my face all the time! But I can't deny that this is cute.

Another new experience from this past few weeks has been trying out various Lush products. They're so popular already and I think everyone is pretty much in the loop about what their products are like, but I had never tried their bath bombs before and was pleasantly surprised. After getting over my initial fear that my skin would turn a vivid purple after looking at the colour of the water, I think they're pretty fun. The one pictured below is called Space Girl. This was actually the least exciting of the three I bought, the best being the Big Blue. My bath has been some amazing different shades of blue and purple! Will continue to experiment. 

I went shopping today and got me some new dresses! I love autumn because all my favourite types of prints come in. Lots of woodland creatures and fall colours. Autumn has always been my favourite season for clothes, so I'm really looking forward to next month when all the shops will start to really get all their autumn stock in.

For now here's a wee teaser, will post better pictures at a later date.

Check out those racoons!

I'm going to finish up there! I think thats enough yoghurt and bath bomb chat. Here's a picture of my miserable looking face, incase anyone is curious. I also just love the collar on this top!