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Our dates aren't always exciting & adventurous but what matters is that we spend quality time together.

Our dates aren’t always exciting & adventurous but what matters is that we spend quality time together.

So today is Friday which in the Davies household means date day! Every week Paul and I set aside at least one hour to do something fun together. We don’t have to spend the whole day together, but since it also our day of rest we can’t do *anything* work related. That’s not really relevant at the moment because we’re both to sick to do any university work anyway. Knowing that this is the one day we don’t have to feel guilty about not working though is a big bonus, it’s really brought back that Friday feeling we used to feel as a kids.

Today I woke up feeling awful, and I mean really awful. My arms were aching a lot and I felt completely exhausted. This isn’t really different from how I’ve been feeling for the last fortnight or so, but it just felt a bit worse this morning. As usual, I have no idea why since all I have done for the last week is rest. Anyway, my health having dictated that going out was off the cards, Paul and I agreed to revert to our secondary plan, a mug decorating date in our lounge. The plan is to get all of our duvets and pillows and make a big comfy fort to get me out of bed and then use Sharpies to decorate a mug to give to each other.

Date 1 (66)

Even though this is a slouchy, not much effort, low energy kind of date purposefully, I still want to make an effort to look nice, in the same way I would have when Paul and I first started dating. Up until recently, I would have known that doing my hair and make up was off the cards and so would have just moped about my appearance. Now, however, I have begun to develop a low energy and pain make up routine that I can do even when I have bad days like this. Since writing out the routine and taking photos would not only take a long time but a large amount of energy I’m going to make a YouTube video instead. It will be uploaded to my YouTube channel soon so make sure you check back there, or even better subscribe so you definitely won’t miss it (never miss an opportunity for a plug.

I don’t think this video is only relevant to sick people though, I don’t see why a normal, healthy person can’t check out this video and use the routine when they’ve only got 10 minutes until they need to leave for work and they look a mess. Or, for someone, I’m especially thinking of young girls, who don’t need to wear much make up.

The whole routine only takes about 5 minutes but I’ve been doing a step, resting for a while, doing another step, etc, so that by the time it’s date time I’m not exhausted. What would you know I even managed to write this blog post. I wonder if it’s something they put in bronzer…

Love Katie x

If there’s anything you’d particularly like to see either here on my blog or over at my YouTube channel, then pop a comment below. I’ve already had some great suggestions but I’m always open to new ideas. Remember, it doesn’t have to be beauty related!

I’m still working on the new layout, but I’m getting there, don’t you think?

 


I recently read a blog by one of my great friends, Sian Cooke, which inspired me so much I opened up a blank document, the second I read the last full stop. Her blog post was about not allowing the mundane to plague your life.  Right now I’m in a difficult patch, as I talked about in my last post, and when you’re in a situation like this it seems like the best thing to do is to bring down the hatches and do nothing other than what is necessary. The temptation is to adopt the victim stance.

I’m not planning on doing either of those things though. I’m not going to pile on too much and make the situation worse, but I won’t be sticking to the mundane, and abandoning my love of curiousity and doing new things. As best as we can, P and I are sticking to weekly dates and I’m looking for at least one new thing to do each week. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, instead I’m focusing on everything I am thankful for. I am being honest about the situation I am in, without allowing it to control me. I cannot control mine and P’s sickness but I can control my response to it.

I will…

  •  keep the romance alive in my marriage
  • stay passionate and enthusiastic about my degree
  • do my best to give as well as take in my friendships
  • fill my days with fun and laughter
  • love my God and put him at the centre of my life. I will continue to trust that His plan for my life is the best plan, and trust that He can use all my suffering for good.

Don’t give in to your sickness, take back control! Now is not the time to give up, it’s time to fight harder than ever for the life you want.

 

Love Katie x


For just over a week, I have watched weather reports and Facebook with jealousy. I love snow and since we didn’t get any last year here in the centre of Cardiff, I was desperate for some this year. For the four years I have lived in the city I haven’t had a chance to make a snowman or even play in the snow. This year, despite feeling really ill, I was able to make it outside. Not having to climb stairs is a real help.  Usually any cold makes my muscles tighten and cause me a lot of pain (it’s not fair that this doesn’t result in toned muscles) so I put A LOT of layers on. I mean a lot. It was like the longest strip you’ve ever seen when I came back inside. If it’d been a strip tease, you would have had to include an intermission.

P brought me a chair to sit on outside so that I could watch him make a snowman. It wasn’t actually that cold outside so I wasn’t shivering. He didn’t have much to work with since we had just about an inch of snow and even that was melting pretty fast. He did, however, manage to make some semblance of a snowman, which we then turned into a fashionable lady, boobs and all.

The other reason I really wanted to get snow here was because I knew (or so I thought) that Didi would love playing in it. I seriously misjudged this. It turns out that all the pampering she receives has turned her into quite the wimp. She hated being outside and touching the cold stuff. When we got back into the house she curled up on my lap and quickly fell into a deep sleep, and has remained there ever since. Traumatic experiences really take it out of her.

The last reason that getting snow was so great was because it gave me the impetus to try making a video for the first time. I used my iPad and the ‘iMovie‘ app to make the video below. It’s only 38 seconds long but I don’t think it’s too shabby for a first attempt. I reckon using videos on here a lot more is a good idea. It means that when I feel too sick and dizzy to look at the computer screen I can record a vlog, or be able to show you more of my world.

 

If you have a YouTube account please be kind enough to subscribe to my channel here and leave me a comment. I really value constructive feedback so share your thoughts, good or bad.

Time to head off into the snow again for a hot chocolate with my favourite guy.

Love Katie x

 

Apple iPad 2 Wi-Fi – Tablet – 16 GB – 9.7″ IPS ( 1024 x 768 ) – rear camera + front camera – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth – black

The New Apple iPad (16GB, Wi-Fi, Black) 3RD GENERATION


When I was at school, R and I used to spend a lot of time looking up Lolcats, they never fail to put us into fits of giggles. When I feel sad, I still like to do a search on Google and end up posting so many on Facebook. What better 5-minute project than picking some Lolcats and posting them here, then? Enjoy!

Lolcats 1

Lolcats 2

Lolcats 3

Lolcats 4

Lolcats 5

What’s your favourite Lolcats? Post a link in the comments box below.

Love Katie x

Image sources:

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5


Source: Google images

Source: Google images

Happy new year from the Davieses!

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda wrth yr Davieses!

(Paul, Didi & me) 

I would have loved to spend NYE with family, but for several reasons we couldn’t. Instead we enjoyed a quiet night just the three of us. Should I be counting my kitten? The day before, after a bit of internet searching I had found a couple of ideas to make our night fun, but low in energy expenditure. I saw a great idea on one forum, to eat healthy snacks instead of junk food, on the basis that you would wake up on 1st January feeling like you had already gotten back on track with a balanced diet after Christmas. I took this idea and ran with it. We had a yummy fruit platter, started a puzzle, played one of our new games (great Christmas present) and watched a film on iplayer. We spent the night doing things we enjoyed, without compromising my health. This meant that I woke up today, able to start 2013 the way I want it to continue, able to utilise my energy to work on my degree.

I was saddened to see many people on Facebook and Twitter writing negative messages about 2012. I know that for many people, there are a lot of bad memories associated with the last year, but I also know that most of these people had so many things to celebrate and be thankful for too. For P and I, the last year hasn’t always been easy, my health especially has deteriorated, which is both frustrating and de-moralising, but we would rather focus on all the fantastic things that happened over the last year, from the little things like the time we managed to go to the park, to the huge things, we got married. Of course, we have more to celebrate than a lot of people because we got married, one of the best things to happen to anyone.

Nothing like a night in with these two crazy cats

Nothing like a night in with these two crazy cats

I do believe the best is yet to come though, I don’t say that just because we’re young and I think I’ll get better, but because I know that God never provides a dull life. I can’t think of a single person I know who has a close relationship with God and a boring life. A life of adventure awaits all of us. Sometimes that adventure takes us through valleys, but even those awful times can have purpose when put into the hands of our Creator. Just writing these things makes me so excited for what lies ahead for me and Paul this year. Part of me is terrified, P is due to complete his degree this year, which throws up so many questions about how we will manage my health and stay financially afloat, but when I look in the Bible, I see that I have nothing to fear as long as I have God with me.

Many of people would have hated to spend NYE the way I did, but I felt perfectly contented. It’s easy to become disheartened because of all of things we don’t have,  but it’s difficult not to feel blessed when you count all of the things you do have. We should never take the basics like a roof over our head and food on the table for granted. The headlines of increasing unemployment and homelessness should teach us that.

At midnight, we tuned into BBC1 because I love fireworks. I might not be able to attend the Calennig celebrations in Cardiff, but I can see the wonderful firework display in London on my laptop. My favourites are the ones which follow the London Eye around in a circle. One year they used the Eye as a countdown clock for the last 60 seconds of the year. Amazing. With a big grin on my face, I kissed my husband at midnight, and thanked God for blessing me with such a wonderful partner for life.

Source: Google images

Source: Google images

Thank you so much for reading my blog in 2012, I hope you will continue to do so this year. I want to take Chronically Katie further this year, to raise even more awareness about invisible illnesses. This cause is more important than ever before, as the pages of the newspaper fill with articles persecuting patients and my inbox fills with desperate stories of those who are refused benefits and care. Please help me to help disspell the myths and misunderstandings so that fighters of invisible illnesses can get the care and support they both need and deserve.

Love Katie x


I can’t believe Christmas is over for another year, the time has just flown by. Of course my being very beforehand meant the whole affair sort of took me off guard. I did manage to enjoy the day though, and some time with my family. I didn’t get to spend time with the friends that I wanted to unfortunately, but you can’t have everything. I am now safely back in my little flat, with Paul and my kitten Didi. It has been so long that I haven’t even been able to write to you about the little edition to our household.

A photo I took of Didi for our Round Robin letter

A photo I took of Didi for our Round Robin letter

Didi came to me the Friday before my birthday, as a surprise. Paul got her from another family who were no longer able to have her so she was already 19 weeks old. She settled in quickly though, and seems attached to me and P. She follows us all over the house, and likes to be close to one of us all the time. Didi acts crazy (and I mean crazy) part of the time, racing and racing around the room, but she’ll also happily sit in bed with me for hours on end or snuggle up for nap time. The perfect temperament for us.

Didi is black with lots of white dots and strips on her belly. The best part of her fur though is that she has little white socks. So cute. She also likes posing for pictures, and responds to her name as dutifully as a dog. My mood has improved greatly since Didi came to live with us and I don’t feel as lonely anymore, that was exactly P’s plan of course.

The three of us are spending new year’s eve together tomorrow at home. I’m still feeling very fragile health wise, and a little knocked for six after Christmas so anything high energy was off the cards, I might not even stay up until midnight. I’m not a huge fan of new year’s eve, but it seems a bit sad to do nothing so we’re planning on getting some fruity treats, doing a puzzle and watching some films. The good thing about NYE is that you feel as though you have to re-assess your life and the last year. Instead of allowing myself to be depressed by all the things I haven’t been able to do because of my illness, I am going to list all the great and wonderful things that have happened this year and thank God for them.

How are you celebrating NYE?

Love Katie x


You may remember way back when I wrote a blog post looking for one day projects to keep me occupied, well today I decided to go even smaller and start doing five minute photography projects. These projects will consist of running around the flat taking photos on a specific theme. The idea (obviously) isn’t to take amazing photos which will one day sell for millions, the idea is to get me being creative. These projects are something which (1) bring me happiness without completely draining my energy, which is good for my depression; (2) they keep my creativity alive, which is good for my writing; and (3) give me something to get out of bed and do outside of my degree work (I plan to continue them when I am well enough to begin working again) without taking much time away from my studies.

I was inspired to start these projects by two bloggers which I will write about in due course. For now, I just want to quickly share my very raw and unedited photos with you. For me, this blog is a fun way for me to showcase what I’ve been up to but the last thing I would want to do is put readers off if they’re not very exciting for you to look at, so if you would like me to share more photos pop a comment below or tweet me, and if I don’t get much response, I won’t share future projects on here. Sound good? Ok, here’s today’s photos:

 

Famous opening line of which novel? Ten points if you guessed ‘Pride & Prejudiced’.

I LOVE Austen. What better way to read her novels than with her little face looking at you?

Quick quiz- who wrote all of these books?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

K-K-K-Katie, K-K-K-Katie, you’re the only K-K-K-Katie I adore…

Smile for the camera!

This was sort of an accident, I didn’t mean for the Queen to be poking through an ‘m’ but sort of worked out quite well since she is your Majesty.


I am feeling the happy kind of exhaustion as I write this, the kind of exhaustion which is a result of having had a great weekend. On Saturday night my best friend R had a garden party. P and I stayed with her and travelled to the coastal village of Broad Haven (one of my favourite places) the next day to stay with R’s nana. We had a nice roast dinner with her and were very close to the theme park, Oakwood, for our day trip on Monday. Busy, busy, busy, but I broke it up by rest breaks and naps.

Eating lunch at Oakwood

I really enjoyed the whole weekend, but there was one common theme which ran through the whole 3 days- no matter how much provision I put in place, my body has its own agenda, which everyone comes made subject to. On Saturday, I left the whole day to rest ready for the party in the evening. Admittedly, I woke up quite late, having had a rough night, but I thought I still had plenty of time to get everything done, which I needed to. I was very wrong. I worked so very slowly, each task taking much longer than necessary. This meant that we were over two hours late to the party, and arrived with me looking like death on wheels.

I won’t bore you with details of all of the delays caused by my body. The short version is that I struggled to sustain being chatty and energetic all weekend and fell asleep at every possible opportunity. Most 21-year olds aren’t used to having to take rest stops on a 45 minutes journey, but P and his friends had to.

Worst of all was my neediness this morning. Everything was going to plan for this weekend with regards to pacing myself, avoiding pelvic pain and muscle pain. I seemed to be dealing with the weekend away. If you sense there’s a ‘but’ coming then you’re not wrong. I woke up from a nap Sunday evening to find half of my face bright red, itchy and very hot. I tried all sorts of remedies, but when the infallible aloe vera didn’t work , I knew that wasn’t dealing with eczema or sunburn. The next morning, it had begun to spread a little so I rang my all-knowing daddy, who gave me the correct solution of taking an anti-histamine.

Pretty ladies at the party on Saturday night

 

 When my rash began to improve, we thought we might finally make our way out, and then the next problem struck. I had taken a load of painkillers in the hope that I would be able to deal with all the pain and discomfort the day might bring. I know it’s not the best plan, but it’s the only option I have if I want to get anywhere. I thought I’d cleverly pre-empted my body, however, in all the fuss about my face, I’d forgotten to eat breakfast. My pupils shrunk to a size smaller than dots on a dice (not exaggeration) and I felt too nauseated to stand up, let alone brave a car journey. After waiting for my breakfast to settle, we finally set off half an hour later than planned, but had to see the pharmacist, who of course had a long queue. By the time I finally got out of the pharmacy, I wanted to cry because I felt so bad about holding all my friends up so much. I bet they were all regretting allowing me to come.

I know it’s not a particularly exciting story, but I couldn’t think of another way to demonstrate how unpredictable my body is. I always think I’ve prepared for every eventuality and then it throws something new into the mix. I used to pride myself on being on time, and hated it when people were late, and now I’m more flakey than anyone I know, always late or cancelling with the same excuse- I wasn’t feeling very well.

Love Katie x


Despite trying to pace myself while we’ve been packing and painting, I’ve woken up this morning feeling so ill. My arms are hurting badly and I just feel so exhausted that all I want to do is sleep. I thought I was doing quite well on the pacing front, but I guess I’m still over-doing it. Paul is still not sleeping so I’m quite worried about him.

Even though, we’re both feeling a bit worse for wear today, I know that we’ll still manage to finish everything in time for moving day on Sunday. We’ve already done about three quarters of the packing, if not more, and half of the painting, going at a pretty slow pace. Some order has begun to emerge now with the packing, and the task doesn’t feel so impossible. In fact, we’re both kind of beginning to enjoy it. I know that that sounds weird because everyone hates packing, but the part we’ve come to enjoy is having the opportunity to go through absolutely everything you own and decide whether you really want to keep it. It’s the best way to have a proper clear out. And, watching Wimbledon while we do it takes away the boredom. Not only do we enjoy the tennis, but there’s something about Wimbledon that reminds you of lovely summer days.

Having lunch with the mentioned friends

I’m writing this blog post from the castle. Our friends are leaving Cardiff on Saturday so I didn’t want to miss the last opportunity to see them. Most of the Castle is un-accessible so I decided to take the opportunity to rest in the cafe with a hot chocolate while P and our friends went around. I just want to fall asleep on my keyboard, but I also want to treasure these last moments I have with my friends before they move back home. It’s difficult when you’re fighting to keep your eyes open, but I’m giving it the good old college try at the moment.

Before my little break at the cafe, we went around the visitor’s centre, where I managed to persuade nearly everyone to try on the outfits intended for kids. I always have fun with these people, no matter how ill I’m feeling, so I hate that they’re leaving. In a way I guess this trip has made that harder.

I can see them heading my way so better sign off.

Love Katie x


*Today’s blog continues on from yesterday’s theme.

Persuaded P to take a photo of me today

Beau and I had a picnic at the Castle again today, which in some ways was even nicer than the one we had yesterday. I definitely felt more relaxed and even had a lie-down so we didn’t need to leave so quickly. We spent some of the time discussing ideas and plans for the summer holidays. At the moment, P hasn’t been able to find suitable work so we will probably move home to my parents house for July and parts of August and September, in order to save money. We both get pretty bored without anything to be working for or doing something. Last summer we became tourists in our own city and did all the things we’ve been meaning to do since we moved to Cardiff. I wrote a blog post about it here.

I can’t wait to hang out with this pusscat when I get home

Before our wedding (and hopefully honeymoon) we still have two and half months to fill with memories. Alongside studying for our exams, we plan to do as many free or low cost activities as we can. For example, we love camping so we’re planning to do that as much as we can, where ever we can, whatever the weather. Maybe we’ll only manage as far as the end of the garden, but I’m confident we’ll still have fun, at least it’s not in bed! We’ve got friends we’re hoping to visit, and articles, books, etc that we need to write. In fact, this may seem silly, perhaps P won’t thank me for writing this here, but we’re kind of viewing the move home as a bit of a holiday. We’ll (or should I say Paul) still be helping out with chores and be in my parent’s home but it’s away from the bed I’ve been stuck in for months, a change of scenery. Plus, it’s in the countryside so plenty of places to picnic, BBQ, and explore. And, best of all, we’ll get to spend time with our families.

I have been inspired by the new Wispa advert, which I know I shouldn’t admit. Essentially, it has very little to do with chocolate, but has the slogan

Time well mis-spent

and in one part says,

the kind of things they don’t hand medals out for, but really, really should.

These words really resonate with me. I may not be able to do anything worthy of recognition, but I can do plenty of things which should. Things like keeping the art of letter writing alive. It’s just little things really, but being ill has really made me come to appreciate the little things. As I recently replied to a commenter on this blog, yes, in one sense, we have a right to have a chip on our shoulder because of all the things we’ve had to miss out on, or we can accept that we were meant to have a different life. A different life but not a less fulfilling life.

Love Katie x

P.s. Any disabled readers have advice for traveling abroad?



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