This week has been super stressful. I have moved, unpacked and organised my new flat. I have been to many an interview. And, I have had to try and figure out and adjust to all my new surroundings. I apologise if my content has been a little dry over the past couple of weeks - I have been a tiny bit preoccupied. However, don't fear, I am back now. 

One of the main things I have forgotten to do this week is to eat proper meals. Personally, I am a snacker. I love snacking on stuff. When I am watching TV, writing a blog post or right before bed, I always love a good snack. 

However, if you have been following me for a while, you would know that I have been a vegetarian for about four months now. It wasn't until I started avoiding meat products, that I realised how much my snacking life revolved around it. Certain crisps contain animals fats or meat extracts, most sweets have gelatin in them and items like mini sausage rolls or scotch eggs are not veggie-friendly. 

So, along my vegetarian journey, I have been trying to not only not eat meat but also, eat something healthier.

The items in this post were gifted by BuyWholeFoodsOnline, who must have somehow known that I was forgetting to eat full meals at the moment. They let me pick out a few of my most favourite vegetarian snacks.

Firstly are these Organic Cashew Nuts. Now, when you stop eating meat, your body tends to start lacking iron. Having low iron can make you feel tired and have paler skin than normal. However, iron is so many things other than meat and most these other things, are actually a lot better to have in your diet. Cashews are one of them. Nuts are on my favourite, go-to snacks. These Organic Cashews are roasted, lightly salted and extremely moreish. 

Next, BuyWholeFoodsOnline sent me these Sunflower Seeds. To say I love sunflower seeds would be an understatement. They are one of the most versatile product to have in your cupboards. Find salads boring? Chuck some sunflower seeds on it. Your granola is lacking something? Add the seeds. Fancy a light snack before dinner? SUNFLOWER SEEDS. 

I may sound biased - it is because I am. 

Another one of my and my boyfriend's favourites is honey. In my house, we can never have enough honey. I couldn't stop myself when it came to trying this honey, to say that is has lasted this long in my house is a miracle. Honey, again, is extremely versatile. However, I do always have it in the cupboard for another reason.  Honey has antiseptic and antibacterial properties. Rather than taking paracetamol or ibuprofen for a sore throat, put a spoonful of honey in your cup of tea.   

On a side note - This jar contains 900g (A MASSIVE AMOUNT) of honey and it's only £10.99. 

Aside from me forgetting to have full meals this week, my overall vegetarian journey has been truly amazing. It's been easy and more than that, it's been inspiring. I have been getting so creative with my food and trying out so many other things. 

I have a few honourable mentions for my favourite snacks:

Grow is a collection of short stories all about the foster care system in England. My parents have been fostering children for many years and as their child, I have witnessed many things. Grow focuses on four, individual children and a moment in time, which I remember vividly about having them in my families care. 

This book's aim was to look at both the positive and negatives of foster care and how my parent's dealt with every situation with love and professionalism. 

Right now, the book is available to purchase on Blurb, but soon, it will be up on Amazon!

This post is going to be short and sweet!

But, if you want to buy a copy of my book, click the link below and help support a young, aspiring author!

Thank you so much for your support!

I want to say this is an open love letter to writing. I want to say that writing is easy and being inspired is half the talent, but it really isn't. As I am writing this post, I am sat in Starbucks, trying, for the third day in a row, to write more than 500 words of my creative piece. Before I shut down my laptop and head home to crawl into bed and watch rubbish tv. 

I don't know who needs to hear this...but writing is hard. And you are not the only one who finds it hard to focus. 

At this moment in time, I am not really sure what this blog post is going to be.  I usually write posts with sarcastic humour filtering through it. But when talking about something that is as close to my heart as writing, I feel that it should be more of a serious post. Something, I am extremely bad at, being serious. 

I guess I'll start by giving some top tips...

Although I should warn you, I am definitely using this post as a form of procrastination. That's right, I have hit that wall where actually writing about writing is still better than actually writing. 

Also, I am definitely not qualified to write about this topic, just so you know. 

Probably one of the easiest things to do is to change location. If you spend all your time writing in your bedroom, then move. Put on some clothes you feel good in and head out. As I said earlier, I am sat in Starbucks and not even my local, yes, I took the train and headed to a different coffee shop to force myself to write. However, I am not sure that it is working considering I am writing a blog post instead of my actual work.

In theory and with a little more willpower, this will definitely work. I hope...

Take a break where you can. If you feel your brain is getting tired then take a small break, walk around, go get a drink or a snack. Just stop looking at your work for a few minutes. At the moment, I am experiencing word blindness with my work. For everyone that doesn't know, word blindness is where you have been writing for such a long time, that the words you are putting down on the page no longer seem too make sense or appear good anymore. You lose a lot of confidence in writing that is normally fairly easy to you. 

If you want an embarrassingly accurate example, earlier, I wrote 

"She got good hair"

Got good? GOT GOOD? I am literally a third-year creative writing student. Not only is that sentence not grammtically correct. There is also a million better words to use other than 'good'. You see what I mean?

This can (hopefully) be solved by short, regular breaks. Or you could just be like me and work for an hour then reward yourself with a four-hour break. 

However, I don't think this is the best way to work if I am honest. 

That one line that you think isn't that good, that one character which is a bit annoying or that one passage that doesn't quite fit the rest of the story. Well, at least you tried it, if it doesn't work, so be it. Try everything.

 When you are a bestseller, literally no-one will know that your romantic novel once included killer zombies but you were made to take out because 'they didn't quite fit the romantic theme'.  Not everything you tried will work - which is completely and utterly fine.  

The one thing that is really helping me get through my creative piece, is how the final product is going to look. When it is all together in a book with my name on it, I will have accomplished something amazing. Honestly, you have to work hard for everything. Even though I often want to delete/burn/throw away everything single piece of my work, I know all the tears and frustration will be worth it in the end. 

Keep writing, you will get through it eventually. I hope... 

I will keep you updated on whether I make it or not.

Thank you for reading!

I don't know if this is just because I love cheese, but honestly, it's so expensive. When I lived at home with my parents, the cheese was just always in the fridge. I could go to the fridge and make a cheese sandwich and not have to worry about how much money it was going to be to replace it. Honestly, this might just be me (because I love cheese a little too much) but really, cherish the cheese you have right now. It really is a large part of my shopping bill.

Okay, so I was told this before I moved and I actually do have a funny story to go alongside this reality. So, before I moved out my mum taught me how to use a washing machine. When I got to university, it was fine. My whites go on a whitewash and my colours and darks go on a coloured wash - easy right? I started to get a little bit...overconfident. Basically, I thought it was all a myth. Whoever had been telling me that colours and whites couldn't go together was lying. It would fine. So one day, whilst putting my wash on, I chucked a white sock in with my colours. Just to see what would happen. Nothing. The sock came out white and none of the other colours had affected it. Interesting I thought - very interesting. I was convinced it was a lie. Why would people lie about not being about to put colours and whites into a wash?  - I thought. Anyway, a couple of weeks in my second year of university, I heard a scream from my communal kitchen. Literally of my best friends clothes had turned pink. Somehow someone had put some coloured sheets into her light wash and literally all trousers, t-shirts and socks had turned a wish-washy colour of pink. And needless to say - she continued to wear them. But I, however, never put colours and lights together again. 

My mum couldn't have been the only parent to yell at my siblings and me when we would put empty packets of food back in the cupboard instead of binning them. I used to think it was funny - what was the problem with an empty packet getting put back? But now I get it. It is one of the most annoying (yet mild) inconveniences in life. It takes two seconds to throw something away, so why don't you just put it in the bin which in fact is probably closer than the cupboard? I get it Mum and I am sorry. 

Finally and probably one of the hardest lessons I had to learn, there is no washing up fairy. You have to all your own washing up otherwise, you won't have plates or mugs. I don't really know what else to say about this, other than I am shocked that isn't one.

Hello there! I have an extremely interesting blog post for you today! 

So, before Christmas, I sent a lovely tube of my spit to a company called Living DNA. Now, I have, like many people, questioned my origins. Where am I really from? What makes me, me? 

I have seen many influencers take part in DNA tests to figure out where they are from and it really inspired me to do work with Living DNA.

Okay, let's start from the very beginning. What was my knowledge about my origin before I started looking into it? Hardly anything is the short answer.  I know that both my parents are British and that I was born in Poole, Dorset. But that is pretty much where my knowledge stops. Hence why I wanted to actually take this journey. 

Something I was worried about when looking into having my DNA tested was the process that is involved. A lot of companies make it seem really complicated to simply learn who you are as a person. Which frankly, I don't have the time for. But Living DNA  made it so simple. They sent over a booklet which gave me all the information I needed. Everything was also marked with labels and numbers to make it clear which order to do things in. 

After thoroughly reading the booklet, you simply take the swap out from the airtight tube and rub it on the inside of your mouth. Attach a label with your name and address (which is also provided) and it then, send it off. 

They also give you a free t-shirt for using them! 

Check them out here.

*Drum roll please*

I am extremely white and British...

Here are my overall results:

So I am nearly 100% from England and my family actually has some distant relative in Ireland, which is nice to know. Living DNA made the information really easy to understand by using maps as well as graphs. 

To break it down even further:

The majority of my ancestors are from England and Ireland but I also have some Kurdish, which after much research (and please correct me if I am wrong) is Turkish. Now, obviously, it is only 1.1% but it's still extremely interesting. Which is also similar to Asia. Only 1% of me is from Asia. This is why I wanted to do this test, I wanted to see where else my family hailed from. I knew there was more!

I loved this test. Living DNA genuinely has to be one of the best brands I have ever worked with. Thank you Living DNA for helping along with this journey. Another thing that Living DNA offer, is your mother's DNA. I chose not to share it on this blog post because it isn't my information to give away. However, I will definitely be informing my mother about where she is from! 

I highly recommend doing this! And if go with any company, I do recommend Living DNA. They were lovely over email and genuinely made the process so easy. Their link will be below and so will the pictures of me in their free t-shirt to show support to their mission and company.

Thank you for reading! Go find out who you are!

Check out Living DNA

*This post is sponsored but all opinions are my own