Oh look, she did it again.

It’s awful, I know. I’ve neglected my little corner of the internet once again.

I was scrolling through Pinterest and noticed this little link stating: aimeewaffles@wordpress.com. Intrigued, I reluctantly clicked on the link and uncovered a very dusty selection of old blog posts.

To my surprise, I quite enjoyed reading them back and wondered to myself, like I have everytime I do this, why did I stop?

Well I’ll tell you why.

Because I’ve been lazy! There I admit it. I hold my hands up.

Instagram is just so easy to use & of course requires less of my concentration.

So attempt number 67839301 is commencing. Well to be exact, it’s probably attempt 5.
That’s the new lucky number right?

A lot has happened in 18 months.

So until next time I will rack my mind as to where to begin!

 

 

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Our big fat Greek adventure.

Jet setting again, this time we’re off to Athens. We spent 4 days here. These 4 days I spent mostly huffing and puffing. It was so much hotter than Rome.

We arrived in Syntagma square with two massive suitcases, in which several strops happened before actually arriving in the square because I couldn’t lift the bleeding things onto the escalators or up the stairs. Then we got lost trying to find our apartment. It ended up being down this really dark and scary corridor which had no lights and 100s of stairs, and the most scary elevator I have ever seen. But, once in the apartment it was fab. We had a cracking view and had a Greek bar below us which gave such an authentic atmosphere.

We visited everything we possibly could and the majority was in walking distance such as the Acropolis (which sold the best slush puppy I have ever tasted!), Parthenon, Ancient Agora, Benaki, Mount Lycabettus and the National Gardens. I’m guessing we visited more but literally everytime I saw a bench or somewhere to sit, you would find me straight there. The relief of getting away from the burning sun for 5 minutes was just heaven, so I excelled in trying to park my bottom wherever I could.

The food was amazing but I didn’t capture enough photo’s because I was too busy scoffing but everywhere I went I had to have a baklava. They.are.heaven. The best place we found to eat was a restaurant called Ergon. Everyone was super friendly, the food was to die for and best of all there was a restaurant cat called Salem (me being the crazy cat lady that I am).
You get such a city buzz in Athens but then in parts you get the overly touristy hot spots which we tried to stay away from, sometimes I felt like I was in Benidorm.
On one of the days we took an adventure on the tram to a beach. It was the longest tram journey of my life. I hated just sitting there for well over an hour feeling like a blatant tourist and making that awkward eye contact with the locals, makes me shiver thinking about it. To top it off once we got the beach it was overcrowded and we felt like we we’re in Weston Super Mare. So we headed back to catch the next tram back to stop off at a previous beach. The tram was desolate so we sat there for a while waiting for it to start back up, but in the meantime we got approached by a group of kids who tried to mug us. They were only about 10 years old all with tattoos. So we had to leg it back to the overcrowded beach. We sat there in misery for a good hour trying to comprehend what just happened and to recharge our confidence. We did make it home eventually and my gosh we we’re so happy to get back to the apartment, it was just one of those days but we didn’t let it ruin our holiday. It’s part of the adventure.. right?
Have you ever been to Athens? What was your favourite part?

For me my favourite part was the National Gardens, a tranquil hotspot which gave a hint of tropical-ness. That’s definitely a word now.
It was so beautiful, huge gigantic trees, ponds, wildlife and SHADE. What’s not to love. It was lush to have that balance of nature but to be in the middle of a bustling city. It was definitely the highlight for me.
It was great to visit Athens and I’m glad I can tick it off our places we’ve visited list, but would I go back? I’m not so sure. If I’m honest if it was just the two of us I wouldn’t but if you went with a group of friends I think it would be phenomenal.

Next stop Rhodes (commence aeroplane noises).

 

 

An Italian Adventure.

This is definitely the best time of year. I am currently sat on the sofa in a cosy red tartan blanket with the blinds closed and candles on. It’s ready to rock and roll these typing skills.
I can nearly hear the faint sound of those jingle bells. Yeah, I went there.

Earlier this year we took a 2 week adventure travelling to some hot spots in Europe. First on our hit list was Rome. What a place. It was incredible but I felt like I didn’t fully appreciate the magnificence of it until our trip came to an end. In unfamiliar territory my body goes into panic mode in which we rocked up at around 10.00pm while trying to navigate the airport and the connecting trains through very sleepy eyes. Oh and it was the Euro’s football final, talk about timing. By the time we arrived at Termini it was gone 11pm and all the trains and buses had stopped highly stressful when we had specific instructions to get the bus to get to our destination. So, Taxi it was. Then it was the realisation that we had to try and communicate, in ITALIAN. I was hopeless, in fact I didn’t even attempt because I was far too scared (such a brit), thank the lord for Ezra!

So we were in Rome for 4 days and most of those days it was 36-37 degree heat. Scorching. We did as best as we could to get around by foot, but my god the street sellers selling iced cold water were our saviours. Although it was an absolute rip off at 2 euros a bottle it didn’t half save us from heat exhaustion. The worst thing about the heat was the fact there wasn’t anywhere to cool off that we knew about, there were lots of water stations but in that heat you just want to strip off and sit in very very VERY cold water. However, the only water that could of been an option was holy water, we didn’t think that would bode well with the Italians! BUT my most handiest tip for travelling around Rome in the heat is to church dive every 5 minutes. There are so many hidden churches on every street and what a life saver they are. From the outside they don’t look that appealing but what hidden beauties they all are. Every one is completely different and incredibly beautiful, plus they are freezing. The perfect remedy for over heated tourists.

We walked over 20,000 steps a day and saw sights such as the Roman forum, the Colosseum, Vittoriano (which was by far my favourite), Trevi fountain, The Vatican (heads up the most torturous journey to reach the top) and 100’s of churches. We did visit a lot more but for the life of me I can’t remember the names of all the places. One thing I really noticed though was that all the paths and streets were super slippy, I was slip sliding my whole way. Highly hilarious but equally terrifying, especially when you’re walking up some mammoth marble steps to get somewhere.

The food was also another highlight, but the photo’s we have aren’t the best looking. Italians really do know how to cook and the ice cream is top notch. Ezra was in absolute heaven, 3 course meals pretty much everyday. Espresso and croissants from Necci every morning and a complimentary Tiramisu every evening (well it would be rude not to).
We stayed out of the city in a hipster area known as Pigneto, 10 minutes journey away from Termini. We were based on the main high street and could hear the buzz of local Italians fine dining below our windows with the smell of pizza, pasta and fine wines on our door step.
It is so nice looking back and seeing how much we did, and absorbing all the culture. My goodness is it cultural! But there are so many sites we probably missed with each road leading to something incredible, as the saying goes all roads lead to Rome. I would encourage everyone once in their lifetime to visit Rome, è bellissimo!

Next stop Athens….

 

Blog-aversary – A life update.

 

 

(Audience) – “Oh goodness here she is again, probably about to say the same start up line ‘It’s been a while’.

(Aimee) – “I’m back, AGAIN. It’s been a while!”

(Audience) – “I bet she apologies for it as well”

(Aimee) – “Once again I must apologise for being late to the party once again! February!! FEBRUARY, why have I left it so long?”

(Audience) – “I told you!”

*Commerce the waffling*

Hello you lovely lot, you’re probably wondering who the hell I am it’s been that long.
There have been dissertations, new careers, old careers, holidays, tears, laughter and a hell of a lot of procrastination since we last spoke. During that procrastination 6 months have upped and gone and I’m not sure where? But like I said in previous posts, it’s sort of how I work.
I feel like I have been running on empty so instead of squeezing out blog posts I’ve been doing everything other than that. However, I really want to turn things around and post more regularly – I’m sure you’ve heard all this before but I’m going to try, and there’s no harm in trying hey!

From the blog title, it’s my blog-aversary (hip hip hooray) and it’s not quite where I thought my little-rough-around-the-edges-blog would be but we’ve come a little way within 12months but we’re definitely moving.
I want to eventually re brand this blog to make it that little bit more glam and up to date for you all, who doesn’t love a refresh?!?
As for me, I am completely refreshing my life, well it certainly feels like it. I have finished my university degree and successfully passed with a 2:1. I really didn’t think it was do-able but I did it and I am so so thrilled about it, it’s motivated me to grab life by the balls and to give anything a go. So, I quit my job of nearly 5 years to pursue a new career. Pretty scary. So far it hasn’t turned out to plan and now I’m feeling slightly confused to where I’m heading in my life (any advice would be much appreciated), I feel like I have done all this hard work at uni to just land a job that I could of got without a degree. The thought of sitting in a office all day literally kills me as well, but I feel if I don’t try things then I won’t know if I like them or not, so that’s where I am at the minute. Feels like one of the weirdest times of my life to date, but it’s kind of exciting not knowing what’s round the corner.

Anyway, enough of the deep chat – I’ve done a lot of fun stuff since February and I will be sharing it with you all, so watch this space. I hope you’re prepared to be visiting Italy on your next dose of waffle! Grab that cup of tea and sneaky biscuit and I’ll give you a taste of my little Italian adventure.

I hope you have a great rest of the week/weekend and I’ll see you back on here before you know it – Ciao for now!

For the love of Lomography.

My blog posts seem to start off with the same sentence, ‘It’s been a while’.
But as usual, yes it has been a heck of a while. I mean we’ve had bonfire night, Christmas, New Year, Valentines and now Easter is fast approaching! Where has that time gone? 2016 is on to a flying start.

Currently I am in my final year at university, so tension is pretty high with a near degree under my belt and I feel like I have no time for anything, or it’s just poor time management (probably the latter). I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have said the word dissertation, assignments, deadlines, oh my god I can’t do this (then I can hear my nan saying ‘there’s no such word as can’t… and she’s right) but I feel the need to write something that doesn’t involve over analysing everything and being critical, I want to write freely.
So here I am. Youtube was to thank!
I ‘attempted’ to start writing a literature review for one of many assignments due in May and you know when it’s just not happening, I did start off with good intentions but well you know…
Recently I have been flicking through old photographs of holidays and happier times to once again ‘avoid’ assignments (but those pesky things always creep back) and pretty much all my adolescent life to date has been captured using film cameras. It is one of my few hobbies that I have and it has stuck with me for years despite how much it costs me to get them printed. Not too long ago I sifted out all the film I had taken and it’s something like 20 odd which I need to get developed, kinda pricey considering they keep hacking up the prices. Nevertheless I still have many beautiful photo’s that I have captured over the years which gives you an insight to what the hell lomography is!

Why do I use lomography?
Where do I start? In today’s society this idea of ‘perfect’ is everywhere, you can’t hide from it! Social media is FILLED with celebrities and how perfect they look and it’s only photo editing and filters that make them look that way, and probably a cake mix of make-up on their face. Although I appreciate that is how they want to look or how they want to be perceived but I find it rubs off on people, especially on todays youth. I found myself living in a world where every photograph has to look perfect whether that be a selfie or a landscape, thats not how I see the world. I love the fact that lomography is ‘imperfect’ or however you want to describe it and technology is constantly advancing, and you can’t help but get suckered into it! Don’t get me wrong I love DSLR cameras and am an avid Instagrammer but I find lomography so much more interesting and artistic. Rewinding back to old times where everything was analogue I felt the world was a much more happier place, where getting your photographs developed adds an element of surprise, you can’t just simply click delete. That’s what I love, unknowingly what amazing shots you have captured, even the rubbish ones are interesting!

I recently read that a quote ‘comparison is the thief of joy’ and I find myself constantly comparing myself to others in everything I do and thinking like that can make you feel pretty negative. Something about lomography doesn’t make me feel that way and I feel absorbed and find myself not comparing myself to anything because everything I capture in lomography to me looks pretty perfect even if it isn’t, maybe thats why I love it so much!??

I’d love to know your experiences of film photography or your thoughts!
Thanks for reading you lovely lot!

Aimée x

Four years.

Today is one of those days where I have to sit back and think.

Where have four years gone?

They’ve zoomed by, thats where they’ve gone.
When I look back I can’t beleive how much has changed. It’s madness.
It is my fourth anniversary with my boyfriend today. It may seem like nothing to some but to me, jeez it feels like a lifetime (in a good way may I add). He has made me into such a better person, one that tries to fret less, one that tries to enjoy each day and learn from the good, bad and the ugly.
I’m still working on it those things….ha.
But four years ago I wouldn’t of even acknowledged those things.
So what have I learnt?

Compromise. Oh yes thats a biggy. You can’t have everything your own way I’m afraid, even though your together you still need to both be able to grow and be your own person. When we first started seeing each other it mainly consisted of him playing his xbox all day while I watched… (you may wonder why I stayed, at the time….i had no idea). He used to have a huge cicrle of friends which consisted of more xbox. Numerous arguments would arise from that, I’d feel unwanted blah blah blah and from his point of you well he’d being doing it for years and for a girl to suddenly come along and mess up his social habits well as you can imagine, it’s difficult. But you both have to meet along the line somewhere and you end up falling into your own couple habits. So hang in there.

50/50. It is still something even after 4 years we are struggling with. Yes you got it, house chores. After being together for 2 years we decided to get our own place, putting into words it sounds so soon but when you know you know. Personally I feel like I do everything for the house and he comes up with every excuse under the sun for why he hasn’t done this that or the other. But he is getting better. We both understand what annoys one another within the house. For example I hate it when he doesn’t do any of the washing and magically thinks all his clothes get washed and hung up by a fairy and he hates it that I always forget to refill the water filter jug (I’m working on it). You learn to try and not annoy each other.
It’s an ongoing process and I’m sure there are a million things that I do that annoy him, but he can’t see this so we won’t mention it! Shhhhh.

Balance. When I first met Ezra I found it ever so difficult to share him with his friends. I mean I found someone who is my boyfriend and my bestfriend and why would I want to hang out with anyone else??? and it’s the ultimate worst when you don’t see them for a week/weekend. Don’t do it boys and girls.
You end up getting this really annoying attachment thing going on. I used to get so jealous when he went out with others and didn’t include me. I felt like a bridezilla….minus the bride bit. Maybe just a crazy girlfriend. I’ll go with that.
Yes I had my own friends but at the time, they were doing their own thing and I barely ever saw them.
You defintely need that balance between friends and your relationship. My friends are everyone I work and go to uni with so I get my balance there, and for Ezra well he has friends here there and everywhere but I love it when he comes home from being out with them, it’s like he’s had a social release which he doesn’t get from me. And boy do people need it. New faces and stories is refreshing and telling them to one another I think makes your relationship healthy.

There are so many more things that I could tell you I’ve learnt but… that could last a while.
Have you learnt anything from your relationships? I’d love to know.

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It’s been a while..

I’ve missed you!
Thats if you remember who I am still?…I hope so.
I am feeling EMPOWERED right now (currently listening to Adele’s new song) it’s giving me the motivation people my fingers are typing!!!
It’s happening.

How have you all been? Life for me has been extremeley busy and i can’t apologise for not posting regularly because well you know, life is manic sometimes.
I have not long started my third year at university which means the dreaded D word, yep you got it, DISSERTATION. I shouldn’t be wishing my life away but is it summer yet? All this stress will all be gone and I can enjoy you guys and blogging again (hi 5).

But despite me wishing for summer, I bloomin love autumn – which is my main inspiration for clicking on that pencil at the top of the page and typing something (huge round of applause).

Autumn, yes! your beautiful and you just confirmed it today! You can not beat a sunday morning autumnal walk, I absolutely love it.
I’ve been waiting a while for a day like today, everything was perfect. There was the right amount of crisp in the air, blue skies, sunshine sweeping through the trees and obviously the perfect crunch to the leaves. Every weekend I plan to go it always decides to rain or be really dull weather, you need that sunshine to make the woods seem like a completely different place.

For me being in the great outdoors gives me instant release. I feel far away from uni work, house work, christmas list planning and just general life. At the minute I feel like I have no time for anything, planning to see friends and family is just a no go, weekly exercise routines are straight out of the window and right now me and university assignments are becoming eversomore closer than ever, well thats what the assignments think, I’d rather have zero relationship with those little buggers.

Anyway back to my my autumn day. This wood we went to I have been coming here ever since I was small and it never gets boring! Every direction you move your body or even your eyes for that matter you see something different and thats what I like!
It was so nice just to roll out of bed, eat breakfast and just go out, no make-up, no effort, grab my wellies and just get out there, it’s just the best.

Do you have any places you like to unwind? I wish unwinding was a daily occurence, how lovely would that be?

Thanks for reading m’lovelys, until next time!

Thanks guys! xx

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New approaches, rants and my brain.

//Hi m’lovelys.

It’s been a while and I do apologise. But the last couple of weeks I’ve had to take a step back and think to myself what is the relevance of my blog? I read an article the other day about blogging and it advised people not to blog if there is no inspiration or passion about what you are going to blog about. Unfortunately I found myself to be one of those bloggers. I want to blog but I have nothing to blog about that I find passionate, it feels like a chore, and it shouldn’t be that way.
//So I hear you ask what next? Well good question (any advice would be much appreciated). I want to do something different all the blogs I seem to see are about beauty, food, fitness & travel, which essentially I suppose is the majority of people’s lives but I am striving to be something different, and I am still trying to discover what gets my cogs working.

//I don’t know about you but I feel like a minority of people who have no hobbies or passions which I want to pursue (I definitely haven’t found it yet). Yes I enjoy a lot of things but nothing grabs me by the face and says YES I LOVE THIS! Is it just me? Hopefully not. I suffer with anxiety and watching a lot of Youtubers and reading other blogs I am not alone in this matter BUT again it is something I can not uniquely write about because it is EVERYWHERE. Although my anxiety has been behaving recently I can feel it creeping back in slowly- that pesky devil. It leaves my mind in a haze and that is exactly how I feel my blog is right now.
Stripping it back to my blog basics I am Aimée waffles so I am going to do what I think my blog should represent which is a good old hearty waffle, so I hope you have a cup of tea on you!…..and maybe a cheeky biscuit.

//Recently I feel like everything is getting on my nerves from the non existent summer, to my mother moaning, customers, work, going back to university, friends and people that don’t listen and ignore advice and do you know what annoys me the most?..me! Why do I let it annoy me, why do I take home all these frustrations with me and let it sit on my own shoulders because at the end of the day people make their own decisions and nobody can change that, maybe my brain thinks it can (ha, good luck with that brain).
I’m sat here with my cat sitting on my chest straining to look at the keyboard and computer screen trying to type something that has been pondering on my mind for a good month, so I am letting it out. LET IT GO as Elsa would say.
//I’ve decided that I am not going to force myself to blog deadlines, I have enough of them at work, I am not going to force my blog to have a particular theme if I like it then I will write something- I reckon this is my best approach.
Simplicity and no stress is where I’m heading.

So…

Let’s just roll with it and keep walking.

Home loving.

//Hello and welcome! Hope you are all well. The weather here for the past week has been very wet and miserable which has left me house bound (apart from going to work boo!). Being house bound has made me appreciate my surroundings and how hard myself and my boyfriend have worked to get to where we are.

//We have recently redecorated our bedroom (sorry I have no before and after pictures) which used to have a vile peeled off purple flower wallpaper on the chimney. We decorated it within a day on a budget, the paint was an inexpensive brand but my gosh it really made so much difference. Our room is so much brighter and fresher it’s amazing what a lick of paint can do.
//If I had my own way I would redecorate the whole house but as we only rent I feel like it is wasted money, the house we live in now has so much potential to be amazing!
//We created a little reading corner where we can chill out, it looks super cosy at night time. We’ve used an old apple crate as a side table which we nabbed off my grandparents. The wicker chair I have had for a couple of years but that only cost £10 from a charity shop, bargain!

//This was the first room, the kitchen, which we added a bit of our own style as soon as we moved in nearly two years ago. I try to buy things that aren’t going to be too expensive but I had my heart set on old chapel chairs and a rustic table for a long while which cost a little extra than what you would get in ikea. Luckily we found these on eBay and swooped after them as soon as we saw them, definitely worth the extra buck.
//The frames were all purchased and collected over a period of time, I feel the more I look at it the more I want to change it all. I am very into composition and it shows throughout the rest of the house (I won’t bore you with every single composition in the house). However this to me two years on seems a bit twee, what do you think?

//We recently bought these shelves from ikea for I think around £6 each. There used to be a dark pointless shelf here (again sorry I have no photographs) and adding slim white shelves here instead completely changed the whole dynamic of the kitchen, plus it is somewhere where you can show off your books and photographs etc.

//Another apple crate invention used for Ezra’s vinyl player. It is so nice to sit on some pillows on the floor on a rainy day and just listen to vinyl, we are big believers in still buying CD’s and vinyl instead of download.

// I have been after initial art for ages and finally came across some in Oliver Bonas which were only £10 each. They are made out of copper and really stand out in front of a white background and they just look so cute, totally in love with them.

Thanks for reading and I shall see you again soon! xx

Thanks guys! xx

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The need for Wantfeed.

//Wantfeed, my new favourite website. If your anything like me and see a million things you want to buy and have many tabs open so you don’t forget then fear not, loads of open tabs has come to an end. Wantfeed is a fairly new website where you can store and curate things from around the web into your own personal wantlist – Quoted from Wantfeed.

(Photographs sourced from internet)

//The designer, Stefan Michalak, is becoming a youtube sensation with his wife and their son, Grayson creating family home videos. I have been watching these guys since Hannah first started to make youtube videos about beauty and have followed them ever since, they are my guilty Monday morning youtube pleasure. Go check them out, you’ll fall in love with them and their coffee addiction.
//So, onto Wantfeed…

//After signing up which you can do via email or Facebook, this is what you can expect to see on your home page which will have a list of trending products which people are currently potentially interested in buying.

//Don’t laugh at my lack of  followers, I’m new too! (You could always follow me hint hint). Your personal home page will allow you to like other peoples products, purchases, follow and post what you already own.

//How do you work it did I hear you ask? Well simply find a product you like and copy the URL, then enter the URL onto your homepage and press the big green + button.

//Wallah! Bingo! It then adds the desired product to your page.

//You then begin to fill in the details about the product such as the title, description, price, group, store and tag. Simple.

//It is a genius idea and he recently made a big announcement on Wantfeed which benefits everybody using the site. 

//Sit back and get browsing because after all you won’t forget products anymore! You can use this website via desktop or iOS app, so get downloading!

Thanks guys!
Check out my other posts if you feel like it! Do you have any favourite websites? Let me know.

Links- The Michalaks youtube channel
             Hannah Michalak’s blog (check out her make-up bags too, there lush!)

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