Resetting, Retuning and Dreaming the Big Dreams

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Hello lovelies - sorry for yet another stock image, I completely forgot to bring my cable on holiday (and before I went on holiday I had plunged into depths of laziness I previously thought impossible. If you're wondering why I've started this blog post with a picture of a castle, it's because currently I'm around 10 minutes walk from here - Bamburgh Castle, enjoying a holiday by the Northumbrian Coast.

Holidays are wonderful things, aren't they? They force you to stop, take stock, reset your self, retune back into who you actually are (not who your crazy, city dwelling, job working life turns you into) and gives you some time to dream the big dreams. Well, my sort of holiday does that anyway.

I love holidays in the countryside or by the coast or in the sleeping, hidden bits of cities. I'll never be a beach holiday girl or a city break lover. I crave holidays that bring stillness and peace and clarity.

While I've been away, there have been a few things that have plagued my mind.

Firstly, I desperately, desperately want to teach. I love it. I think about it all the time, even on holiday. I pick up children's book in shops and talk to my husband about how I'd use it to inspire my class. I visit National Trust properties and plan out what topics I'd link it to. I am terrified about not getting on my GTP. Hence why I spend so much of my time at the moment feeling settled and anxious and just stressed out.

I've also realised that I actually truly love to exercise. It makes me happier than I think it will. How do I know this? I've done it on holiday. By choice. Running up hills and yoga in the cottage have let my body release some of its stress and tension effectively and have meant that I've felt strong and powerful on some of our longer walks. These are awesome thing :)

Food is important to me. If I feel deprived of or denied the foods that I love, I fell sad. Equally, when I eat the rubbishy foods I often crave, my body doesn't love me. Clean, relatively unprocessed, wholesome food makes me and my body happy :)

The biggest thing that's been revealed to me on this holiday though is that my relationship with God is messy, but that that's ok. That it's tough, but that it's easier to fix than I think it is. Living a life without a church to call your home is not a happy or easy option. At the moment, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place (trust me, if I wan't I'd be in a proper church in the flash of an eye). I'm sure there's a lesson I'll learn from this experience and I'm sure if I put in the time and the dedication, my relationship with God doesn't need to become a complete mess. :)

Also, I felt I should give you all an update on the whole Make Up Artist thing that I mentioned a while back. For some reasons which I'll never know, they never called me back. It was the weirdest thing. I went in and met with them, they told me that I was what they were looking for, that there were some weddings in the next couple of weeks and that they'd give me a call in a couple of days with the dates of them and then.... nothing. But you know what? That's ok :) I feel peaceful about it and I feel like it's a door in my life that's closed but that's ok. What it helped me to realise was how desperately I wanted to be a teacher. I'm sure I could have pursued them a little more, rang them a few times to find out if they had the dates yet, that kinda thing. In the end though, it just felt right to let it be. When I get back, I'm planning on having a big sort through my kit, so keep on eye open for a fairly extensive blog sale :)

What are your big dreams at the moment?

Where are you favourite places to take a holiday?

I have a dream...

...and I know it's a dream that lots of you share. The dream of becoming a make up artist.

When I was younger, I used to spend hours playing with make up... not in the classic little girl way of super bright pink lips and too much blusher (although I'm sure that happened sometimes) but in the artistic way. While other kids were drawing pictures of their teddies and painting seascenes with dolphins (seriously, every girl I knew was obsessed with dolphins - I never did quite get why), I was busy perfecting the fake bruise, the scar and the black eye. I loved the way that colours blended together and the utter transformational approach to make up.

Moving on, I never got why the girls at school caked themselves in make up. I didn't get the heavily applied foundation and the clumpy eyelashes. I didn't understand the use of using supposedly "natural" make up as a mask. I chose to ignore the natural look and went down the root of pink eyeshadow, black eyeliner and an ever changing selection of drawn on shapes and patterns. It worked. I'll say it myself, but I looked flipping awesome in those days.

Moving on again, I got a boyfriend. Let's just say he liked the very natural look.... say hello to years of make up fear.

Eventually, my sanity is regained and I discover make up again and fall in love. There's a part of me that just feels like I've come home. I love creating a natural look, I love creating a more fun dramatic look. I love the sheer act of playing with make up. The time when things started to get serious again? My wedding make up trial - hello drag queen, hello tears. It was awful. So off I trotted to Lancome and then I was faced with something I really hadn't wanted to do - I had to do my own make up on my wedding day.

And you know something? I pulled it off. I had tonnes of friends on the day asking who'd done my make up and I was so happy to be able to say it was me!

Fastforward to spring of this year and whilst sat illl in bed (a regular occurance) I discovered the wonderful world of beauty blogging and all of those childhood dreams of becoming an MUA have come flooding back. A couple of friends found out about it and asked me to do their make up for the shoot a couple of weeks back. I didn't tell them I'd never actually done anyone's make up! After 4 hours and 4 different looks, I was exhausted but so incredibly happy! At a Body Shop party a few weeks later, a couple of friends asked me to do their make up and loved it. I jokingly comment on feeling like a make up artist and deadly serious, they agreed that I should.

So what's this rambling post about? I guess it's just me starting to let myself vocalise the dreams I have. It's also a first, very shy step out into the world about this. I remember once I saw a beauty blogger on twitter being kinda mean about someone daring to call themselves an MUA and I became terrified about even suggesting that it's something I'd like to do! I'm not going to be scared of saying it any more!

I would love to be an MUA and I know that I'm nowhere near being able to charge yet (nor do I have anywhere near a big enough kit to be able to do make up properly) but over this next year or so, I'm planning on making some big investments (financial yes, but also time and confidence) and reading/practicing as much as possible.

This means you'll be seeing more FOTDs, hopefully more makeover/photoshoot type looks and also more tidbits of my inspiration cropping up. It might never happen, but hey, a girl's gotta try right?!