Hi everyone!

I'm back at it and I'm able to start blogging more regularly - again I apologise for the lack of posts, its been a manic few weeks! Anyways lets get onto the post!

So this last month you may have seen me posting on social media and including on here about something called a Dechox (not a detox, theres a name difference!)

The Dechox challenge was set up this year by the British Heart Foundation. The challenge was to cut out any form of chocolate or anything with cocoa in it out of our diet for the whole month of March to raise awareness for heart problems. If you accept the challenge, you can set up a Just Giving page and try and raise a bit of money for the charity.

I took on this challenge with my friend Aimee as we thought it would be something fun to do and see how long we could go without chocolate. If you know me, you'll know that I have a HUGE sweet tooth and I would normally have something sweet at least twice a day (I know my dentists love me!) So taking this on would test how I would be able to cope without having something to enjoy which I would normally have in my diet! Oh, I forgot to mention that we decided to cut out biscuits, sweet and sugary snacks - even more pain!

Lots of people thought it was a dumb idea to do or that it wasn't much of a challenge or people would make a joke out of it. Firstly, I thought that people who made a joke out of it was pretty sad. Its a challenge for charity, even if it wasn't a big challenge, we were still doing it to raise money and awareness for something that means a lot to me!

The British Heart Foundation means a lot to me due to my grandfather, mum and one of my closest friends having heart conditions. My mum was told about 5 years ago that her heart isn't at the best condition like everyone else's. We found this out because she frequently kept getting heart palpitations and her blood pressure was high and all these other weird problems. So, when we found out she had to go to Papworth Hospital and have an operation where they burn away at the heart and try to slow it down (I can't remember all the details!) However, she had to go through this operation twice. It was a worrying time and I would've love to had the support which The British Heart Foundation gives to people and families who have to go through this. Its a tough time and theres always worry, so thats why I took on this challenge!

So me and Aimee decided to do a joint Just Giving page and have a target of £100 to raise by the end of the month:

We managed to beat the target of £100 a few days ago! I'm so happy that we were able to do it as at some points of the month we were worried we wouldn't get any money!! But we have, and I want to give a HUGE THANKS to everyone who donated! The month has been tough some days believe it or not, but I'm now seeing the end of it and it hasn't been all bad! Just a 2 more days to go without chocolate and I cannot wait for Wednesday - I'll be sinking my teeth into a nice Kinder Bueno!

See you in the next blog post,

P.S do you like the Easter layout?? Found it lying around on my laptop and it is Easter this weekend!!!

Hi everyone!

So sorry for the lack of blog post yesterday - I do have a valid reason, I promise! I've started training for a new job and it goes on for everyday after college for around 4 hours. By the time I get back, theres no time to write or come up with anything that's of high quality - which I really hate doing as it begins to get boring to read for you guys. The training has been really fun so far and I'm getting more and more excited to start working. But unfortunately for you, you won't be expecting a weekly blog post for the next 2ish weeks. I would love to spend more time doing it, but I really have 0 time at the moment to fit everything in (it may sound like a poor excuse - sorry!) I'm going to try out a new hair tutorial some time this week and if all goes to plan I will be posting that next Monday providing I write about it on Sunday!

Again, sorry for the lack of posts - my blog game will look up soon!

(P.S I'm currently typing this at college - so my signatures going to very boring due to no images!)

See you in the next blog post,

Grace x

Hi everyone!

(I've seen this little tag type thing appear all in my YouTube subscription box, and I thought it was a cute idea - little lame but I wanted it to feature on the blog!)

The challenge is to define YOUR life by 5 different emojis - my favourite feature about having an iPhone in all honesty;) lets get into it:

So those were my 5 emojis which I think explain me fairly well - what I wanna know is what ones would you choose to explain you? Yes I know a pretty lame post, but i thought it was quite a fun idea!

See you in the next blog post,

Hi everyone!

It's finally Spring - my favourite time of the year for many reasons: lighter evenings, warmer weather and of course - my birthday;) This weeks Talking To Myself, is aimed around those who are currently going to interviews for colleges and just aiming it around what to expect when going to a completely new environment! Also, I wish I knew these things when I started going to a new learning environment when I started - so heres a heads up;)

Don't decide your final college/sixth form on who out of your friends are going there - if they're really true friends, I promise you will see them as much as you did when you were all at school together. You don't need to follow what they're doing as sometimes the environment there might be perfect for your friend, but maybe not for yourself (did that make sense?) You'll soon realise who matter to you the most and who will make the time to see you - luckily I have many of my friends who I see VERY regularly - they can't get rid of me THAT easily!

You will see people around the same place who went to college with you, even those who you didn't really speak to! Even if that is the case, you might possibly start a friendship with that person from your last school, or improve it. However, that isn't always the case - don't feel like you NEED to know everyone from your last school, especially if you weren't that "pally pally" before - most of the time, they'll be friends with someone new and you will probably be forgotten about. Its not all bad, I'm sure you'll be better off anyways. 

Don't worry about the popularity, you've started somewhere/something new - you're old enough to realise that being popular isn't that much to worry about. Plus, you'll hardly see the people who cared about it so much anyways.

Don't worry, in the end you WILL gain new friendships with complete strangers. They'll slowly come, but once you've gained a few friends from your classes - you will meet others through them and your social circle will blossom, give it time!

This is one tip that I try to keep to when doing work - keep on top of it as and when you get it, especially the small pieces of work. I feel this saves up time for when you have something big to complete in the next week - it takes off a lot of stress from the big assignment and you'll be able to focus more on the more important stuff!

That being said, don't take too much work on at once, ensure you can do it at the best of your ability! Spread it out over the different days if you can or maybe study in your free periods etc so you can focus better!

Remember the days where you absolutely HATED school uniform? Well, looking back now that was probably the easiest thing about going in everyday. When you start college/sixth form you get the responsibility of having to dress yourself differently everyday - that means that you can't be a outfit repeater etcetc - no that's just total rubbish! 

The first few weeks, I'm sure you'll make a total effort to do your hair and makeup and wear all your nice new things even when you're in a classroom for the day. Like I did, you'll keep this up for a good few months, but then you'll get to a point where you just can't be bothered and stick to leggings and a hoodie - which is fine because no one cares how you look! It's got to the point where I just don't really care how I look, half the people don't know me so theres no point worrying!

(I do miss uniform though - less washing!)

In all honesty though, you will love this new start of your life - even if the first few weeks don't go as planned! You will find your feet in the end and remember: everyone is going to be in the same boat! I started my current college knowing no one from my old school that well, no one in my class lived where I lived and felt like I was not going to make friends with anyone! But now, I love college - the people I've met, the course I'm studying and realising how much my friends from my old school mean to me!

See you in the next blog post,