Friday Music – Within Temptation - Radioactive

Hello,

As I said yesterday I am really excited as Noble and I are going to see Within Temptation in Glasgow in April and I just cannot contain how excited I actually am. The closer it gets the more likely it will be that my Friday Music posts will be totally dominated by Within Temptation, I would apologise but they are so good!

This week’s Friday Music is Within Temptations cover of Radioactive, it’s so good! Enjoy!

 

I hope you have a good weekend!

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Month in Review – February - Thursday

Hello,

As I was saying in my post yesterday I cannot believe that this is the end of February already! Seeing as it’s the end of the month it’s time to look back at my month in review.

TwinPeaks

I loved doing this post, I thought by reading up about Twin Peaks a little more I’d maybe be able to understand some of the madness a little better… but no the madness isn’t quite explained.

Photo anHour – February

This month I did really well with this post, I was very pleased with how it turned out. I am however a little disappointed that my weekends aren’t spent filled with lots of interesting going’s on.

2014reading so far

As you know I have set myself a goal of reading 15 books for the year of 2014, I just finished another book on Wednesday so I am now currently reading my eighth book of the year. This goal doesn’t seem too hard, which is good!

 

Hairchange – purple

My hair took a dramatic change this month as I dyed it bright purple and I am still totally loving it!

 

Fridaymusic – be my valentine

This was a really fun post to do! Instead of my usual just one song posted for my Friday Music post I decided to make it three songs and they were all love themed!

 

ABM Bookclub February review – the fault in our stars

I really loved reading this book, I am also really enjoying reading the selections from the book group. The book group really is making me start to want to start my own book group but in person!

 

Shop Update

This month I added a few comics to my shop, in March I plan on adding a few prints also!

 

This month has been a little bit of a whirlwind, instead of my business being called Irregular Owl, it has now reverted back to Birdie Teacup and I am so glad to be back! House wise a lot of work has being going on in the flat, we have been getting woodworm fixed, re-wiring and de-moulding certain areas of the flat, it has been a little bit of a construction site for this past month. I’ll be glad when it’s all finished knowing I will not have to keep moving the furniture!

 

Music I’ve been listening to this month –

Man Man – Oni Oni Pond  (Yes I know I’ve still been listening to it!)

Nickelback – Here and Now (I’m always listening to them!)

Regina Spector – Time

The Used -  Lies are for liars

Within Temptaion – Hydra (I’m so excited Noble and I are going to see them in April!)

 

TV Shows I’ve been watching this month-

Boardwalk Empire Season 4

Community Season 1

2 Broke Girls season 2

Dexter season 1

Stella Season 1

 

It’s been a pretty busy month and has passed really quick!

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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A Beautiful Mess Book Club – March 2014

 

Picture taken from here

Hello,

I can’t believe that is almost February gone already, it feels like I was just rushing around for Christmas not that long ago! With the end of a month though comes a new book with the a beautiful mess book club. February’s entry was the “Fault in our Stars” by John Greene, I strongly recommend reading it as it was so good, definitely pulls a little on the heart strings though! If you’ve read the book already you can see my mini review of it here, but please be warned it does have spoilers, so not read unless you’ve read the book!

March’s book is “The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri. Again like all of the other ABM book group books this is a book that I would probably walk past in a book store and not think anything of it. I’m glad that I have decided to follow this book group as it has made me realise that I enjoy books that aren’t just necessarily thriller and crime novels. The book group is also encouraging me to read a lot more which is always a good thing! I love reading, I am unsure where I got this love due to the fact I don’t think many members in my family were big bookworms, maybe apart from my late grandfather. I like the fact that you can disappear from the stresses of your everyday life whilst you have your head buried in a book.

I’m really looking forward to “The Lowland” I have read up a lot of very good reviews. Now just to get it off of amazon and get it onto my kindle and away I go.

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Update

Hello,

As I was saying last week I am going to start posting less regularly than I am posting now. Keeping up a daily blog along with a full time job and a craft business on the side is kind of becoming a little overwhelming for me and if it was craft fair season I would really be suffering. Before it gets to that stage and I begin to let people down I wanted to step back a little bit from blogger until I can continue to keep up the pace again.

I will still be posting my “Friday music” posts weekly along with my “Saturday Night Movie” posts, along with that I will be posting a few times during the week rather than daily. I’ve begun to realise that I do not have anywhere near enough of a social life to be posting stuff on here daily. I want to try and improve the content of my blog by getting some craft tutorials done, along with more recipes as I have had an extreme lack of them on the blog here this month.

For the next few weeks at least I plan on trying to focus as much as I can on my Spring/Summer line that I am hoping to launch at the beginning of April. This date has been pushed back twice now, there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day!

I’d rather blog when I have stuff to share rather trying to have to squeeze stuff into the blog just for the sake of blogging. I don’t want to become one of those bloggers who actually fills their blogs up with crap just to get their post numbers up. I’d rather you had something worth reading!

I will still be updating the likes of Instagram and my new Facebook page as I have reverted back to the business name Birdie Teacup! It just fits so well so much better than Irregular Owl. I’ll share a post on that sometime soon.  My instagram name is now BirdieTeacup.

I hope you understand my reasons for doing this.

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Photo an hour - February 2014

 Hello,

 

This is my entry for my photo an hour project for February. I did a lot better this month, and I actually remembered to take a photo an hour for a good few hours!

 

Saturday 22nd

 

 

7am writing my "to do lists" for the weekend 

 

 

8am Knitting in my PJs in the craft room

 

 

9am Walking to the local supermarket 

 

 

10am Home from the shops and slippers back on.

 

 

11am Candles lit because it was a cold day and I love the smell of vanilla. 

 

 

12pm Finishing off Season 4 of Boardwalk empire. Finally!

 

 

1pm  Back to knitting again.

 

  

 

2pm Bought a new toothbrush, it's sparkly!

 

 

3pm Making David Tennant Tote Bags

 

You can find me on Instagram under birdieteacup.

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Twin Peaks

Hello,

Some of you may have already heard about Twin Peaks before, some of you may have not. Today I’m going to tell you all about it. I only just started watching this recently, as when this came out on April 8^th 1990, I was only 7 days old so Twin Peaks wasn’t really on my watch list by then! It was created by Mark Frost and David Lynch and was aired from April 8^th 1990 to June 10^th 1991 and starred the likes of Kyle MacLachlan, Dana Ashbrook, Richard Beymer, Joan Chen, Lara Flynn Boyle and a list of others. The episodes duration are roughly around 47 minutes which is just the average sort of time, however the pilot episode was a whopping 94 minutes which was so good because it really drew you in!

Like many others Twin Peaks has really inspired me, if you browse the pages of etsy you will see the different products all dedicated to this show! I am currently working on a few products that are Twin Peaks related and I will be showing some sneak peeks on my instagram but also I’ll pop a sneak peek up on the blog next week. I am very excited to work on these and I can’t wait for you to see them!

Anyway back to the show.

Twin Peaks is an American mystery thriller Tv show that was aired on ABC originally. It follows an investigation headed by Special Agent Dale Cooper into the recent murder of a young girl called Laura Palmer. Twin Peaks became one of the top rated TV shows of the 1990s and now it has a devoted cult fan base and has become a part of popular culture. Declining viewer ratings led to ABC’s insistence that the identity of Laura’s murderer be revealed midway through season two. The series was followed by a film called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me in 1992 which serves as a prequel to the television series.

Lynch’s other work like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks explores the veneer of small town respectability and the seedier layers of life lurking below to expose the dark and painful truths that lie beneath. The characters at first seem innocent but as the layers are peeled back it exposes the double lives that some of them in fact live.

Unfortunately Twin Peaks was another one of those TV shows that was cancelled way before it’s time, along with the likes of Firefly and Dollhouse as examples (not bitter in the slightest!).

My favourite character so far would definitely be the log lady, I love her! It’s got to the stage that she is the character that seems to be inspiring me the most!!!! Anyway you should definitely give Twin Peaks a go, I can’t wait to get some more time to sit down and blast through this show!

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Saturday Movie Night - Citadel

Hello,

This week’s movie is Citadel. My friend Dave came over to the flat and handed me a small pile of DVDs that he no longer wanted, which happens every so often. Citadel was one of them, he had bought it recently but had decided that he just didn’t fancy it so hadn’t even given it a chance. This then made me skeptical, but regardless of how a film looks by the cover that usually doesn’t sway me that much, Noble however if he thinks it looks crap he won’t bother.

This movie was really good though, I didn’t expect it to be anything like it was. I watched the movie with a complete open mind and didn’t even read the blurb on the back of the case so when we put it on I had no idea whatsoever what we were away to watch. The story itself pulls the heart strings a little, but I would strongly recommend watching it.

 

I hope you are having a good weekend.

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Friday Music – Paramore – Fast in My Car

Hello,

It’s that time of the week it’s Friday Music time!

The blog has changed around a little this week, instead of it now being Irregular Owl we are back to the original Birdie Teacup. I’ve been having a tough week with the craft business this week, freaking out because I had changed the name a few months ago. I can safely say that I have changed the online shop back to Birdie Teacup too. I missed it, it didn’t feel right not being my business name anymore. The one thing that will be most affected by this will be my Facebook page, for some reason I cannot rename my original Facebook page so I will be starting up a new one. Not to worry though, I can get it to look the way I really want it too! Anyways enough of this rambling this week’s choice is, Paramore – Fast in my car.

Enjoy!

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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2014 Reading So Far

Hello,

Yesterday I posted a short post explaining that I didn’t think I was going to be able to post daily as much for the next short while. Juggling my day job, my craft business and being a daily blogger along with all the human activities you need to carry out daily, was starting to become very hard for me to find a balance. I will try as much as I can though however to keep up to date with blogging as I can.

 

Today’s post is an update of the reading I have done so far in 2014. At the beginning of the year I set myself a goal for reading 15 books for the entire year, as you can see from the list below I am already 6 through, I am also 50% through my seventh book. I think this goal I set myself seems to be quite low now, last year though however I only read twelve for the year, so in theory I have already read more than half of what I read last year. This does not include the craft books I read either, this goal is purely just for novels.

So here goes my first round up post of the reading I have done so far this year.

Smash cut – Sandra Brown

The Interesting’s – Meg Wolitzer

Orange is the new black – Piper Kerman

Stiff : The curious lives of human cadavers – Mary Roach

The Fault in our stars – John Green

The Perks of being a wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

My top three would have to be the interesting’s, the fault in our stars and the perks of being a wallflower. All of these books are ones that I would not usually find myself picking them up to read. Thanks to A Beautiful Mess book club though I am finding myself reading books that are not necessarily a crime or thriller novel, which is good!

The book I enjoyed the least out of this group would have to be Stiff: The curious lives of human cadavers. Don’t get me wrong though I still really enjoyed it, I just found it quite difficult to get into. I don’t usually read books like this one, but I do have a few more of Mary Roach’s books on my kindle to read so hopefully fingers crossed I will get used to her style of writing. What I love the most about Mary Roach is the topics her books are on, I found this book pretty fascinating and found out so many things I didn’t know. Funnily enough if I hadn’t read this book either I wouldn’t have ever found out I’m sure.

This post was meant to be done in March but I thought I would post it a couple days early.

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Just to let you know

Hello,

Just a short post to say I will no longer be posting daily as my offline life is currently so filled with chaos.

I will post tomorrow with an update.

Thank you for reading

Katy
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Weight - Food

 

Katy 2010

 

Hello,

Today’s post is regarding weight, particularly mine and not complaining about it either. Over the years I have went from a size 16 down to an unhealthy size 4 then back up to a comfortable 8/10.

When it comes to food I am not one of those people who counts calories. If Noble and I want to have a McDonalds two days in a row then followed by a dominos the next day, we will both do that. I never stop to think “oh that will make me fat”. I enjoy food. I am not very adventurous with it, which I am hoping to change! Noble is always encouraging me to explore new foods, I think that’s only because he must get so sick of eating chicken all the time!!!!

When it comes to weight though, I notice if I put on weight but only if it is a noticeable amount. I don’t think we should be living through life watching every single thing we eat. Sometimes when I over indulge I do that thing when you think “no one saw me eat it, so it’s like I haven’t”. Obviously your body is not tricked by that form of jedi mind trick, if only it maybe was!

I am not one of those people that exercise, which I really wish I did. I do however really enjoy walking, I would quite happily walk a lot of places, if only Aberdeen was perhaps a little better for the weather and then walking places wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad!

Vegetables are not my friend, from a young age I don’t think I was encouraged enough to eat vegetables so now I find it very difficult to force myself to eat them. Over the past few years I have tried harder to include them into my diet, and yes I fail miserably the majority of the time. Does anyone have any tips when it comes to including vegetables into your diet a lot more? I love broccoli, peas and salad and apart from that I am a slight noob when it comes to veg.

All suggestions are welcome.

Thank you for reading

Katy

x

 

Hair change -live colour semi perm purple

 

 

Hello,

Today I’m sharing with you what I got up to at the weekend, Noble and I pretty much stayed in and didn’t too much. I did my fair share of crafting and Noble did his fair share of gaming.

One of the biggest things I did this weekend would have to be the fact I dyed my hair, pretty bright purple. I’ve had it purple before but only when the light shines on it can you see it’s purple. This purple however though is really bright! Usually when it comes to bright hair colours it’s red or now green for me, so the purple is a lovely change.

I have unfortunately destroyed another towel due to the dying process, another victim in the hair dying process. I dread to think over the years how many towels I have ruined due to hair dying.

Anyway, today’s post is just a short one.

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Fact File: Tradition of Valentine’s Day

Hello,

As it has just passed I thought I would do a quick post today going into the tradition of valentine’s day itself. I thought I would use it as an excuse to do an additional fact file post for the month, I have already carried out two so far this year, one about octopus and one this month about Aberdeen where I am from. Click on the links and it will take you to those posts. So here goes:

Saint Valentine’s Day (Valentine’s Day for short) is observed on February 14^th each year. It is celebrated in many countries around the world.

It began as a celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. Several stories were invented for the various Valentines that belong to February 14. A popular account of Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for

performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians who were persecuted under the roman empire. According to legend, during his imprisonment he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. An altered truth of to this story states that before his execution he wrote her a letter signed “You’re Valentine” as a farewell.

Today they say is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion as well as in the Lutheran Church. (I am in no way religious but I am going to take this as well to the day of eating, I like that!)

The east orthodox church also celebrates this day but on July 6^th and July 30^th (which would be pretty expensive having to fork out for gifts for this day twice in the same month!) This is because the former date in honour of the Roman presbyter Saint Valentine, and the latter date in honour of Hieromartyr Valentine, the Bishop of Interamna.

The day was first associated with “romantic love” in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. In 18^th century England, it evolved into an occasion where lovers expressed their love for each other by giving gifts of flowers and sweets, also sending cards. Which is where “giving out valentines cards“ became valentines.

Valentine’s Day is represented by symbols such as the heart-shaped outline, doves and the figure of the winged cupid. Since the 19^th century, handwritten Valentines have given way to mass produced greeting cards.

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Saturday movie night - The Perks of being a Wallflower

 

 

Hello,

This weeks Saturday movie night post is on the perks of being a wallflower. Earlier on in this week I just finished reading the book of this. I always prefer to read the book of any movie first just so I can create the characters myself rather than just seeing the actors or actresses.

Usually I am slightly disappointed when it comes to theatrical versions of really good books I’ve read, but not with this one! I absolutely loved this film, there was actually times when I thought I was going to cry when I was watching it. I related with this film so much! There were parts of it that were just so sad and I am by no means a crier when it comes to movies, but this one was really hard not to.

I strongly suggest to read the book first before you watch the film, but then definitely watch this film! It totally blew me away!

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Friday Music – Be my valentine

Hello,

Seeing as today is valentine’s day I thought I would put a little twist on my Friday Music post. Instead of just posting one song like I usually do, today I am going to post three and they are all love related, just to be all smooshy!

I am a great believer in love and I would say I am one of those victims to love that always find it very easy to fall into “love”. Let’s just say 8 times out of 10 it never is love even if you believe it to be at the time, but when you look back you realise it wasn’t even close!

I am a tough Valentine to buy for purely because I have hay fever so flowers is not really an option for me, also I don’t eat any sweet things so I am in fact an absolute nightmare! Poor Noble! But it’s fine because he bought me a really nice pair of boots for today, so I am not complaining at all!

Enough of me rambling about love here is my three “love” themed songs for you this week.

 
 
 

 

B52s – Love Shack

 

 

I love this song! The first time I heard it was on the Flintstones movie and since then I have always had a thing for this song. This how my love for the B52s began! Rock Lobster is my favourite of their songs which you should also check out!

 

 

The Cure – Friday I’m in love

 

The Cure are one of the bands I listened a lot to in my teens. I was back then what you would have considered a goth and the cure were always on my cd mixes that I made, which I then played in my portable CD player, yeah I know how retro! Anyways Friday I’m in love is rather quite fitting!

 

 

 

Fallout Boy – Love will tear us apart

 

 

Fallout boy were also one of the bands I listened to in my teens when they first came about as a band! I’ve not really heard any of their stuff over the last few years so I am unsure how they have panned out. But this song has been put on here for those of you who don’t have the smiley love feeling today.

 

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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Time for a little reflection…

 

Hello,

Today’s post is a little odd, I do not want people who are reading to feel like I am venting even though I in theory technically am. I’m not sure how else I could share this without doing it in this sort of outlet.

Over the past five years a lot has happened and a lot has changed. At the age of 19 I was happily engaged and was looking at venues for weddings and looking at wedding dresses, unfortunately something went wrong and that relationship ended. I thought previously that I had been in love before this time, but I hadn’t. This had been the real deal for me and just unfortunately it didn’t work out as planned. I guess it was really hard for me, mostly because I hadn’t felt like I worth anything until I met this person, they made me feel very special and like a human being. This was a very messy relationship on both parts, this was a very hard time for both of us and we just both dealt with things very differently which is what in theory made the relationship suffer.

This relationship ended almost four years ago now and there is still times when my mind begins to wonder what life would have been like if everything had gone to plan, would I still be as happy as I was then, or would another bump in the path changed this and we would still not be together.

Reflection is something I never usually do, I like to keep everything inside and not have to deal with things at the time or any time to be honest. It was a very hard time though, I remember that pain I felt every day knowing that my family didn’t approve of him and how they did not speak to me for a few months unless we broke up. This was a very trying time for everyone that was involved, I thought back then that I was so lonely. I was wrong the few years after, I was a shell of what I once was and to be honest I have never returned to the person that I was then, that was when I truly felt alone. The only person who had seen the true me and the person I have ever felt the most comfortable with was lost.

 

The thing that saddens me the most about this situation is there isn’t anything I could possibly do in the world that could change anything about this, if down the line anything were to develop here I would lose my family again. It is a no win situation for anyone involved. With everyone’s first love, they will always love them and forgive them for anything that has occurred, but time does move on. I have a new partner and so does my ex-fiancé.  We all learn to move on, time is a healer as they say. There is still a sadness when you see someone else living what was your life.

Something that I will always feel bad about until the day I die, is the fact that this guy never got a chance, he never got a chance to redeem himself, I never let him get his chance. He was dismissed and all contact had to be cut, a lot of hate was built up and it wasn’t good. After this relationship ended I got very unwell and ended up in hospital for a week, he came to visit even though he knew he was risking everything coming to see me. The way I treated this individual back then was awful, yes there is a lot of messy stuff that happened which made a lot of doubt appear, but I should never have made this person so isolated.

After all of this, I felt like I had to put up this barrier against this person, that I had to pretend to my family how much I hated them just because of how much they hated him and how much I thought they wanted me to. Yes there was anger, but not because of what had happened because I had just lost the person I have been the most close to in all my life, and I can guarantee I ever will. I have over the last year been in contact with this person, I would like to say we are friends, nowhere near the same way as we were both. There is no way I could ever tell my family this as the outcome of that would do me no favours.

I’m one of those people that over time, life is way too short to fuck around (excuse my language) but I can forgive people, be friends with who I feel I’m happy with. I know that even though everything that happened this person is always there for me and I hope they can see that I am always there for them. My life is my life, I can live it in any way I see fit. If people aren’t happy with it, then it’s not my problem.

 

 

To this person I am sorry for not being able to help and not being there for you when you were suffering just as much as I was. As I have grown older I have kept my fondness for you, I am not on this earth to hate people, I am here to be there to forgive when people make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, I have made many in my life and I still have a lot more waiting in the pipe line for me to make also, just like everyone else. I should have maybe told this person all of this years ago but to be honest I wasn’t mature enough to have said these things then, but I am happy enough saying them now, and I apologise as they are long overdue.

 

 

There is so much pain, suffering, disease and so many other things in this world, a lot more heavy stuff is going on out there. Why should we all be bogged down on tiny little details like peoples mistakes. For anyone who reads this who knows the above situation and is unhappy with my choices I would like to say that I do not care much. Like I have said here it is my choice and I am happy with the choice I have made. Anyone who would rather see this not being the case obviously are unaware of how much the above situation affected me, more so years later than at the actually time, but no one would know that because no one ever asked. And if they even had I would never have been able to give the true answer as that is not what they would have wanted to hear.  

Over the years I have changed not just physically but very much so mentally. I’m happy with the place I am at now, what has happened in the past has helped me grow into the person I am now. I will never truly find someone that I would be 100% myself with but I’m happy that the people who I am close with know a portion of me that I am willing to share.

This post was not only venting but quite personal. I just felt that I had to get this off my chest because I think it’s been sitting here for the last few years and it really had to get out. It may seem a bit more deep than my usual posts, but like I said I had to get it off my chest.

 

Thank you for reading

Katy

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P.S  - I would also just like to add in no way am I saying I am unhappy with the life I live now. I am very happy with my life and I wouldn’t change it.