A couple of weekends ago me and B finally arranged a catch-up and decided to start the day off with brunch at Carluccios, one of my favourite places to eat out at the moment.

I'm really enjoying reading at the moment, so I thought I may as well share with you my current list of books that I'm either reading at the moment or waiting to start.

So I finally did it, I finally bought some of the magic made by the make-up Queen, and boy I wasn't disappointed. Spurred in part by my moment (or should I say days) of mourning after I realised I had somehow lost my new Mac Whirl the day before (I know, I'm still crying inside a bit), I was drawn towards the lip products.

I'd heard much about Pillow Talk lipliner, and so repeatedly swatched it, moving on to other products, but always coming back for one more look. I caved and asked the sales assistant if she could put it on me, but not before eyeing up the lipsticks. Mostly, but not entirely (okay fully) swayed by the name, I drooled over Bond Girl, and asked for that to be applied on top of Pillow Talk. It was instant love. Though a pairing not usually recommended by the Tilbs, I was happy with the way the two worked, knowing that they would be just as good on their own as they were together.

I'm not sure if I've told you before or not, but my favourite everyday lipliner is Subculture by MAC, or it was at least until I bought Whirl the other day, aka 'the Kylie Jenner one'. I fancied a new lipliner as I had the excuse that there are a few nights out coming up in February, and instantly knew I wanted a new nude. Whirl came to mind, but I wasn't sure whether or not it was still going through it's catch me if you can sold out phase. I headed to MAC anyway, fought my way through the overly done up 14 year olds and swatched some shades. A few seemed nice but weren't quite 'it', and then I swatched Whirl and well, it was the one. Not going to lie, felt a bit embarrassed for not only myself but also for the sales assistant when I had to ask for it, as I'm sure they're sick of people desperately hunting for the Kylie Jenner look, but, well, Whirl's nice okay! Once I got home and took it for a whirl (sorry, not sorry) I fell in love. It's so natural but also so "I've got awesome lips, I feel like a sex bomb, can't stop pouting, take more pictures of me", can you tell?

If you read my last blog post, you'll know that I've been pretty stressed recently and life has been, well, challenging for me. Not challenging in the typical sense of the word or I guess what most other people would see as challenging, but for me it was my version of challenging. Not having my own space was a real struggle for me, as I'm one of them people that really like my own space when I want it, and not being able to suddenly retreat to my bedroom was really frustrating. Anyway, to stop babbling, I have my bedroom, and thus my sanity, back!! A month and about three weeks later, but hey, it's back! I have a new carpet and new ceiling, and it's much improved. The day it was completed I literally power-walked back home to put all my furniture back together and in place and spent the evening decorating. I thought I'd share some pictures with you, because I'm just so pleased with it and so happy to be back with my own space.

I'm apologising for the lack of blog posts at the moment. Whilst Christmas was lovely of course, life has been pretty testing recently. At the beginning of December there was a massive leak in our flat, which just affected my bedroom (typical), and was so bad that it meant my entire ceiling had to be taken down and re-done, as well as needing a new carpet. This happened around the 1st of December and I'm currently writing this on the 7th January from my mattress in the living room, which has become my temporary home and will be until the week of the 18th. It's crazy how much not having your own space affects you, and I'm really not a stressy person, but this whole fiasco has brought a whole level of stress to me that I've never experienced before. Alongside this happening I've been flooded with uni work for my masters, and have had to balance this with working 3-4 full days a week at my job. I'm the type of person that likes to keep busy but it all became a little too much for me this December, and my mood's really been affected. I think that once I have my room back everything will be better, but it's just been so long that I've had to put up with this for, I'm really fed up! I wish I could blog all lovely posts about nice things I've bought, days out and yummy meals, but at the moment I'm either too busy to do any of these things, or just not in the mood to blog about it if I do. I can't wait to shake this feeling off, because it's so out of character for me. I almost feel like I've developed some kind of anxiety I've been that stressed and on edge! Things are starting to look up though. Like I said, we now have a set date for the carpet to get installed, so once that's done I can finally move back into my room, get settled, have my own space back, and finally be able to have L stay over again. I have so much lovely stuff to decorate my room with, and it's so frustrating not being able to do anything with it. I've got some fun stuff coming up this month, including seeing Hozier live in Manchester this weekend, and clay pigeon shooting and air rifling with L for valentines day, which hopefully I will blog about. Amidst all this craziness I had to freeze my gym membership because I literally didn't have time to go, but not exercising has not only made me gain weight obviously, but has also made me feel sluggish and down about myself. Today I'd had enough of feeling like that and bought some weights from Argos so I can do about 90% of the stuff I do at the gym at home, until I can have the time to be able to get back into the routine of going. I think come February everything will be looking up again, so hopefully blog posts will become a regular thing again. Sorry for the diary-style rant, but I needed to put it somewhere! Keep your fingers crossed for my room getting done ASAP please!

x