Goodbye July, Hello August!

Where is this year going? I'm absolutely amazed about how fast July has passed us by!

So you might be wondering where I have been this past month, wondering why I haven't been posting all that much. Well for me, July brought about a new job that I actually started on Monday, so I'm going into my second week tomorrow. I've spent quite a bit of time with my gorgeous boyfriend, watching an unhealthy amount of films and Babylon 5, as-well as attending a family gathering at The Red Lyon pub in Cheshire, as a last farewell to my beautiful Grandmother. 

I have came to notice that I haven't actually posted a goals post or new month post for quite a while, and again I apologise for that. 

I'm really excited for August, I have actually got a good feeling about this month, which is something that I haven't been able to say for quite a while. It's going to be filled with love, happiness and it's just going to be the best.

July Goals

1. Read 4+ books. There's nothing like a good book and seeing as I have so much travelling ahead of me, I might as well make use of that time.

2. Save, save, save! I've just started a new job (woohoo!) so it's about time I started saving for my future, for my travels.

3. Get active. With all of the time I spend sitting down at work, at home and travelling to work, I really need to become more active in other aspects of my life.

3. 100 films. I've taken it upon myself to challenge myself into watching 100 films in 40 days. I was actually originally going to do this in 30 days, but with how much I work it just wouldn't be possible. 

4. Wake up at 4:30 everyday, 7:30 on days off. It's takes me a ridiculously long time to get to work in a morning, which actually means I have to be up at 4:30 to have enough to get ready and get onto public transport in time. I've began to enjoy waking up early, I love knowing that I haven't wasted my day, so I'll be making sure I'm up early everyday, it just so happens to be ridiculously early on work days. 

5. Don't waste money. I'm incredibly good at wasting money and not having a clue where it's gone. I'm a working lady now, I have a house and bills to pay and wasting my money is the last thing that I want to do.

6. Game a bit more. I absolutely despise that I haven't had the time to game for such a long time, especially now I'm working. I need to find the time to just chill in front of the xbox and play a decent game. 

7. Attend the cinema more. I love films, I especially love going to the cinema. During this month I'm actually planning on buying myself an Unlimited Card for Cineworld, I'm incredibly excited. 

8. Enjoy the little things. Sometimes in life, the little things can be the most amazing things, I need to appreciate everything a lot more.

9. Find the perfect dress. I'm attending a wedding at the beginning of September, I'm super excited, I haven't been to a good wedding for a long time, or at least one that I haven't been working at. 

Be happy.

Well, there you have it, I haven't posted a post like this for awhile, but hopefully I'll manage to keep on top of these a little more.

WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING THIS AUGUST?

A lovely walk along the canal

I'm going to keep this post short and sweet because, well...pictures speak louder than words.

Around a month ago my sister and I took our dog Coco for a lovely walk along the canal at the front of my mums house. I love the amazing things you can find when you really look, when you really take notice, all of the hidden places you can find that you probably wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't really looked.

I love the fact that you can still get high quality photos just from your phone...a photographers best camera is the one that they have with them.

Until next time

xo

I'm moving forward

There are times when I go through phases where I don't blog, I don't even think about blogging. Sometimes I just completely forget, whereas other times I have writers block. Sometimes I leave for a few days, sometimes for a few weeks, and sometimes for a few months, but I'll always come back, always.

I have a little bit of news...I actually have a pretty little job! That I imagine after working 40 hours a week will soon lose the pretty part. Although it's going to mean ridiculously early mornings, long bus journeys, and ridiculously long days, I think I'm okay with that, for now anyway. The time is fast approaching where I can SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! My inner traveller is just excited to burst out, and I can't wait to take myself and my camera away on wonderful adventures where we can take beautiful photos and write blog posts.

The last 3 years of my life have been incredibly long, painful and stressful, and every bad descriptive word that you could ever possibly think of. For the entirety of University I was stuck in such a bad place, and I don't mean because I was involved in a car accident or any of the other bad things that happened during this time...I went through stages of hating everyone and the world around me, but I've made it to the end of that era of my life and I believe myself to be a much better and happier person. I will always consider that to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life, I will always hate that I let society and the educational system determine which direction my life would go in, but I will learn from these mistakes. 

I can be the most inspired and determined person in the entire world, but for that I have to have passion, without the passion the determination and inspiration is not going to be there. I won't seek a career in movie making, I will however try to reconnect the passion I once had, I will try to learn to love media the way I once did.

I do hope to somewhere down the line pursue a career in photography, or travel blogging, or writing. The two biggest things in my life right now are writing and photography, it would be an absolute dream come true to gain a career in these industries, all I can do is work at it, maybe somewhere down the line I will make dreams come true, but for now I will make my dreams of seeing the world come true. 

My story doesn't end here, my story begins here...the future is a wonderful thing full of mysteries. All I can do now is send my CV out everywhere in the hope that someone wants me, in the hope that someone sees my potential and believes in me. 

Life for me right now is about being happy. I'm going to go on some wonderful adventures, hopefully with my camera in hand and the man of my dreams stood by my side. I'm going to take beautiful pictures because that's what I do best. I'm never going to stop dreaming, I'm never going to stop blogging, I'm back and I'm not going anywhere.

Ashleigh
xo 

...be happy

          

1. Push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am.     Go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise

2. Push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. Wake up in the morning feeling re-energised and comfortable. 

3. Get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. Fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. Sit and eat it and do nothing else.

4. Stretch. Start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. Roll your head. Stretch your fingers. Stretch everything.

5. Buy a 1L bottle. Start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice.

6. Buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. Write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, tea dates, what you need to do that dat. No detail is too small.

7. Strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. Put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. Make your bed in full.

8. Organise your room. Fold all of your clothes (bag what you don't want and give it to charity), clean your mirror, your laptop, polish the house, vacuum the floor. Light a beautiful candle.

9. Have a luxurious bath with your favourite music playing. Wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. Lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part in between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck.

10. Push yourself to go for a walk. Take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. Smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised at how many smile back.

11. Message old friends with personal jokes. Reminisce. Suggest a catch up soon, even if you don't follow through. Push yourself to follow through.

12. Think long and hard about what interests you crime? sex? dragons? magic? art? culture? Find a book about it and read it. There is a book about literally everything.

13. Become the person you could fall in love with. Stick your tongue out at babies. Compliment people. Challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. Then two. Then a week. Walk with a straight posture. Look people in the eye. Ask people about their stories. Talk to acquaintances so they become friends. 

14. Lie in the sunshine. Daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn't a thing. Open your eyes. Take small steps and make it happen for you.

15. Live a life that makes you happy. Love the guy you're with because he is probably the love of your life, you'll never find anyone better than him. Love your family, never forget how much they have done and still do for you, show them you appreciate everything. Spend as much time with your best friend, show her how much she means to you.

Love yourself, love those around you and be happy.

xo

E3: XBOX ONE

It almost seems silly to realise that I haven't yet posted about E3 on my blog yet, but there's no need to fear because that is why I am here right now!

As most gamers know, E3 is the biggest press conference of the years for Xbox and PS4, it's basically Christmas for nerds.

There is so much that I can say about the 2015 E3 press conference, especially where Bethesda is concerned. 

Fallout 4

This game is one we have been anticipating for SO LONG and thank god it's finally landing this November. Fallout 4 looked absolutely fantastic, starting out with a character creation menu that had various similarities to Sims and actually looked like THE best character creation menu that we have EVER seen from Bethesda. The games graphics were just phenomenal, I guess we'd expect that though, right? Now Fallout 3 was and absolutely brilliant game, except from the green wash over everything and I am pleased to tell you that Fallout 4 will NOT have that green wash. We get a customisable feature that allows us to build our own houses and colonies or something which is pretty exciting, I don't really know too much about this, but I'm sure with time I soon will. We also have the companion of a dog, I'm not sure if we can have more than one companion or different companions, but again, in time we will find out. Also, if you're to order the collectors addition of the game you receive a pip boy, A PIP BOY, this is something every Fallout player has dreamed of.

One of the best things about the Fallout 4 announcement was finding out that XBOX ONE users will now be able to transfer mods from the pc to their XBOX and that's just fantastic, I'm not quite sure how it's going to work or how the XBOX is going to handle this but it's still exciting. 

Backwards Compatible 

I was absolutely bouncing off the walls the moment that this was announced, although it really should have been expected. My 360 now makes some awful noises when it's turned on and knowing that we will be able to play the old 360 games that we know and love on the ONE is fantastic. Coming soon will be 100 XBOX 360 games with the backwards compatible feature!

Gears of War

The creators of Gears announced remastered versions of Gears 1 for the XBOX ONE, as well as showing us a little bit of Gears 4 which you could say looked pretty much like most other Gears of War games before it, but that's okay because Gears is amazing. I can't wait to learn more about this game though, I don't feel that I know all that much at the moment.

Halo 5 Guardians

All we saw for this game was basically just a trailer, I have been anticipating this game for so very long, especially being such a Halo fan, but again, I don't really know that much about it

There were a lot of different announcements at the 2015 E3 press conference, more stuff that I have the time to talk about.

XBOX ONE IS ABOUT TO GET A LITTLE BIT MORE INTERESTING!

HALO 4: GUARDIANS. BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE. GEARS OF WAR 4.

FALLOUT 4. HOLOLENSE. DARK SOULS 3.

FABLE LEGENDS. GEARS OF WAR ULTIMATE EDITION.

ELITE GAMING CONTOLLER. CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 3.

XBOX GAMES PREVIEW. EA ACCESS. 

Until next time...

Ashleigh xoxo

I do

This is going to be a super quick post, I have noticed that I haven't posted all that much lately, hopefully that will change! On Wednesday I had the wonderful honour of both attending and photographing my lovely friend Kevin's wedding. This lovely couple married early on Wednesday morning at St George's Hall, Liverpool. 

Here are some lovely photos of the happy couple, some taken at the ceremony, some at St. George's Gardens and some at Liverpool Docs.

I wish the pair of you all the best for the future, I hope you both have a wonderful marriage and life together.

Until next time

Ashleigh xoxo