Old Blog-ness

So I found one of my old blogs tonight we’re talking back 2003 – 2007 edition of the Jen’s daily life haha. 
Well I found a blog entitled 

100 significant points in my life! 
Which I never finished writing……some of these points are  pretty lame it has to be said but some were not so bad, also means some dates I had forgotten i.e when I made my promise as a leader, I now have a record of.  Some parts are a little dark but ah well life is life and I wrote this at one point. Maybe I’ll finish off the 100…..

100 significant points in my life.

Ok I was trying to think of 100 significant points in my life…they aren’t in a particular order just as I thought of them I’m gonna keep adding until I get a full 100.1 Chelsea’s birth – Meant I wasn’t the youngest in the whole family anymore.
2 Emily’s Birth – I first become “Aunty Jen”
3 Grandparents death – 1st death close to me
4 Aunty Sue’s death – Lost all religious faith
5 Asda – 1st “official” Job
6 Domonic – 1st proper kiss to my memory
7 Chad – 1st stupid mistake in that respect.
8 16th Birthday – Made me realise how amazing some of my friends are.
9 1st day of high school – start of some amazing friendships.
10 College – More independence
11 New York 02 – First proper holiday
12 Birchwood Performing arts – Amazing inspirational people
13 Brownies & Guides – Good times
14 Sizzlers BB – 1st “unofficial job”
15 “Feel the Noise Live” – 1st concert
16 KoKo Kelly Clarkson concert – 1st London trip
17 3 days before high school – “Became a woman” 1st red! eeep
18 New York 06 – 1st broadway show
19 Last day of school – 1st les kiss (I’m straight though!)
20 Isle of Man 99 – First boat trip
21 Mum’s blood disorder – Scared the crap Outta me!
22 Dad’s appendix being taken out while I was at my first camping trip!
23 Feb 06 – Meeting Kelly Clarkson
24 “Somewhere in time” – First time crying over a film
25 Little shop of horrors – 1st time in a college play
26 05 – first time really hurt by a guy.
27 GCSE results day – 1st A’s
28 Here & Now – 1st single I ever bought!
29 Last day of college – Awwwwwww
30 Valedictory – Awwwww!
31 Menai year 11 – rebellious staying up late spent some amazing time with friends.
32 12 years old – 1st time drunk
33 Cobra installations – 1st big pay!
34 New York 02 – 1st time in a helicopter
35 July 06 – Flew a plane.
36 Getting a place in Leeds uni (providing my grades are ok)
37 Young Enterprise – Loved it and huge confindence boost!
38 9th April 2002 – Tried to commit suicide realised how stupid it was
39 17th August 06 – A Level results ARGH
40 26th May 2006 – Valedictory Dinner for College
41 13th Birthday – 1st Party/Big sleepover
42 1st August  06 – Made my promise as a leader for guiding
43 September 18th  06 – Moved into Bretton!
44 October  06 – Worked backstage at my first big concert in wembley arena
45 December 26th 06 – Experienced my newest niece crawling for the first time!
46 January 16th 07 – First operation laperoscopy!
47 October 06 – Confronted my Family problems head on, felt so much better after haha!
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100

I missed my 4 year anniversary!

It just came to my attention that I started this Blog 4 years ago as of last week! Yes I started this blog 4 years ago on the 31st March 2008. Crazy how quick time flies! So to take me back my very first post was:

http://jenbug1988.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/hello-world/ - Not Very exciting  *Scoffs* Time will tell if I stay on here.

My second however was a bit better and I suppose was the first full post:
http://jenbug1988.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/what-a-better-way-to-start-my-blog-fully/ - Sad times is that the video is no longer there because their Youtube messed up, here however is what song should have been there….

An open letter to Claire Richards…….

Isle Of Man Trip - 11 years of age - The one in the middle

This is a half open letter/open blog, kinda directed at Claire Richards but also just acknowledging some things. Tonight I had quite a lengthy discussion with two friends about being steps fans when we were younger, I was a pretty hard core steps fan I’m not even going to try and hide it any more.

So from the age of around 9 until I was around 11 or 12 I think I was a fan something like that, basically the age where I was pre-teen and constantly worried about my weight/looks etc the age where you shouldn’t really be worried about those things but unfortunately it happened back then, it even happens today, the media may try to tell you it’s a new thing 9 year olds being worried but it was the same all those years ago (I’m 24 now)

Looking back I had nothing to worry about with my weight, my sense of style and looks however leave a lot to be desired, I mean what was that t-shirt? (See pic 2)

Awful T-shirt taste - 9 Years old - Xmas

So back on track, as with all bands you have your favourite; mine in steps however happened to be Lisa (Sorry Claire) the problem with that was she was very very skinny, now having met her when I was older I soon came to realise she is also not as tall as me and quite petite but that didn’t stop 11 year old me looking at her and thinking “Wow I’m fat”.I distinctly remember standing looking at a picture of Lisa in a Chinese symbol top from an interview and thinking “I need to loose weight I am way too big, I look awful” and pondering over that for quite sometime at about the age of 10 I think this particular instance was.
So here’s were this opens up to me making this an open letter to Claire, I’ve watched all of the shows and interviews where she has struggled with her weight and said how she felt like the fat one in steps, but here’s the deal….I remember then looking at picture’s of Claire simultaneously as these thoughts about needing to be skinny like Lisa ran through my mind and thinking “Well she’s bigger than Lisa but she looks really pretty” and it gave me a bit of hope Claire was still gorgeous I honestly think her weight being more standard and realistic kept me away from being anorexic as I child. Which was a big thing as I grew up with a sister who struggled with eating disorders and I remember many a doctors visit with her when I was younger where there would be discussions about her weight etc as she got thinner and thinner.  I struggled a lot I even ridiculously lead myself to believe, at the age of around 10, that being a Christian at the time and not Christened when I was younger meant god didn’t love me so wouldn’t make me skinny and pretty like all the other girls in my class, how the idea came into my brain at that age I have no idea, ridiculous.

Aged 12/13 in my High School Uniform

I wasn’t an overweight child nor was I really an overweight teen I was more curvy than most of my friends when I hit puberty early and given as I have got older I have added on quite a bit of weight that I’m working on healthily losing but back then I was fine and the images of the other two members of that band easily could have pushed me over the edge, I was too young to understand that they were smaller than me height wise (I’m now close to 5ft 10) or that weight can differentiate.

So here it is Claire Richards, if you happen to stumble across my blog (hopefully people might direct your attention to it let it be known that genuinely without you during my pre-teen years I probably would have felt like I should have been something else, I looked to you and thought “she’s still beautiful” next to the two other bands members who given they were slimmer than you at times and I know now you weren’t happy which was a shame because you were beautiful but you were a normal woman someone that I really should have been looking up to more when I was younger. So what you struggled with food? What female can say they haven’t in their life? You saved me from probably becoming anorexic at a young age because trust me those pictures of Lisa as my favourite member of the band at times pushed me to think I was overweight and I was ugly with how big I was. (I promise my fashion sense has changed a lot now)

The Power of Film Camera - New years 11 y/o Mashed with Steps Posters on my wall

So in short, thanks and don’t ever feel that just because you’re a more curvy woman that there’s anything wrong with that as long as you’re healthy and happy. We weren’t all born the same that’s the way it goes and you helped me get through those years where it was a struggle to understand and realise that.

It’s amazing to me though that I’ve helped with Girl Guiding UK’s petition to have images that have been airbrushed labelled in the UK to stop just this very thing and to highlight unrealistic images in the media (Given I don’t think airbrushing was as predominant in the 90′s and with the steps girls), it’s shocking that years on we still have the same issues, I felt the same way so many girls do today but the problem is there are very few real women in the industry for very young girls. So many are forced to be slim just as it was back in the day, there have been so many interviews where Claire has said she felt she had to loose the weight and how she was told to shed some pounds at auditions. The world is a crazy place.

p.s I secretly think I could rock the ducks top now……

Having Kids…..

Usually my topics are kinda light hearted, joking all that but today I want to tackle something that drives me insane. I’m 24 and I am so beyond fed up of people telling me about how I should be in a relationship and how I will change my mind on wanting kids etc. I’m not going to change my mind and part of me feels bad for this like my mum goes on about her and my dad wanting to have grandkids from me etc but then I have to stop myself and realise all the reasons why I don’t want them. 
1. Being me isn’t easy, I’m not all that lucky in that I’m not that attractive and/or intelligent and don’t get me wrong this isn’t me feeling sorry for myself oh woe is me but it was hard growing up don’t get me wrong again I know all kids struggle but I genuinely got torn apart and looking back on old school pictures I can tell why, so why would I want to potentially inflict that on another life? I mean seriously this needs to be something you take into consideration. 

2. Taking the above into consideration I think there is an element of having been through it you could help ease things for a kid of your own, simple fact I couldn’t I’d end up being like “People are mean, deal!” because it’s true in the kind of situation I was thrown into with bullying and judgement as much as you tell people that’s life it doesn’t make it any easier and you really would have to know how to help a kid in that situation, I couldn’t. I couldn’t handle it then how would I help a kid handle it now?

3. I’m selfish, simple as it’s not that I can’t give my time for others I do that on a daily basis but on my own terms, a kid is a permanent no returns policy fixture, everything else in my life is changeable a kid isn’t. I’m not so comfortable with that. 

4. I would genuinely feel like I had done a horrible horrible thing to create a life, I have no idea why but any time the thought of ever having a kid comes into my head I get this sick feeling and I feel sickened with myself.
5. Some people are just made to be parents I on the other hand am not, I’m just not made to do that that’s the basic simple fact of the matter.

It’s not like I haven’t given it thought (clearly) I’ve weighed up the facts and options and someone not so long ago said to me “But it’s what we’re made for to have babies” well I’m breaking the mould because trust me the day I ever find out I am pregnant I will feel like I have done the worst thing possible. So please the next time you try to give me the “Oh your body clock will start ticking” speech…..please save your breath.

The Fact of the matter is……

Yesterday I attended Big Gig, for those who don’t know this is an annual concert for Guides which has this year added an extra date. It was held at the LG arena in Birmingham meaning an arena full of 16,000 Girl Guides saw acts like Olly Muirs, The saturdays, Alexandra Burke and many many others.

I was backstage helping as a volunteer at the concert, which I have been able to do at a total of 7 concerts now on 4 different dates. I have been backstage at the M.E.N arena and Wembley Arena also, it’s a huge privellege and being able to see the arena filled with 16, 000 girls from stage side has always been amazing.

But yesterday I stood there and being an adult volunteer to just around 20 of the girls in the whole organisation I started to think, there are 16,000 girls in that arena being lead and guided (No pun intended) but hundreds of volunteers infact going by Guide to leader ratio of 1 to 12 I need to be correct in saying in that arena there should have been around 1,333 leaders approx probably more who were leading these girls.

So what are we really teaching them and how can we change their lives? The sad fact is in today’s society statistics show that out of 16,000 females in the guiding age bracket 11 out of 1000 will become pregnant and have a child under-age, sadly meaning  176 of those girls statistically would be pregnant before they leave Guides……scary to think that’s roughly the whole of the first 2-3 rows of the Arena. Then with 29% of girls in the UK indulging in binge drinking under the age of 15, that means 4640 of those girls will have statistically indulged in this before they leave guides. 22% of teen girls arrested for crimes are committed by girls aged 10 – 17, meaning 3520 of these girls statistically would be arrested by the age of 17 at least once.

Scary to think right? Then I was like so how are we as an organisation stopping this?
The high teen pregnancy has been proven to be higher in areas where girls have less to do, it’s as simple as that. It’s sounds very basic but keeping youth off the streets and engaged in something that can give them so many opportunities gives them more time to just be children and not get wrapped up in things far beyond their years.
In Girl Guiding UK we have groups of peer educators called in4mers, these girls are trained to run workshops/sessions to raise awareness of the risks for Sexual health. They also run workshops on the risks of Binge Drinking,  which can be ran with any age range from Guides to Senior section level which runs to members aged 25, Girl Guiding UK know that girls worry about binge drinking as their Girls attitudes Survey focused around health and wellbeing highlighted that the majority of 11 to 21 identified smoking and binge drinking as the most widespread health issues affecting girls their age (82 per cent and 81 per cent respectively)
As for crime, the organisation speaks for itself the girls are encouraged to be positive members of their community, to respect each other, to make the most out of the positive opportunities they get in life>

So let me flip my original statistics on their head. For every one of those 16,000 members at least I would say 12,000 will do the “Top Job” Go for it and might find they like the idea of being a doctor and be one of the 40% of female doctors in the UK, estimated to dominate over the males in this career by 2017.  Roughly the same percentage will probably do their cooks badge and maybe 100 will decide they like the idea of being a chief and may open their own restaurant or teach others how to cook.  A percentage might do the lights, camera, action go for it and like the idea of filming, editing ect and chose to become a director. Some might attend a camp where they partake in sleeping outdoors for the first time and decide to travel the world camping etc as a result and experience all the world wonders. Some might have the opportunity to speak to a real construction worker as part of the Be Constructive “Go for it” and decide “Hey I can do that too!” and help build a bridge many of you might use in order to get to work in the near future. They might do the Animal Active “Got for it” and decide to become a vet, they might do their sports badge, catch onto something they like, focus on it and we might see them in the Olympics in years to come. Many of them may be one of the 5 – 15 volunteers that help backstage at Big gig like myself and may dabble in a career in events management or may even go on to help run the Big gig. A hopefully large percentage may go on to become Girl Guiding UK leaders themselves and teach other girls all those things listed above that they once got taught too.

The possibilities are just endless, so endless that I hope that the 16,000 girls in that arena that day along with the 538,247 members we have total, do not become part of those first statistics but become part of the second group of possibilities I mentioned, but I have faith that with the Guidance of the amazing leaders out there they won’t and if they somehow do that they feel they have the support around them to help them focus on a positive and better future.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of standing stage side at a large concert with a group of fellow Guiders while watching Olly Muirs…….really got me thinking

When did life become so complicated?

Tonight I told a 7 year old that if she blew on her nettle stung hand that it would make it feel better, there were two reasons for this little fib 1. she was becoming hysterical in tears so in turn her having to blow on her hand meant she couldn’t cry and 2. She’s 7 and I knew me being the adult Brownie/Guide leader she would probably believe it and she did……so then “magically” she started to calm down and then had stopped crying. Now I have to be fair she had some bloomin’ whoppers of nettle stings and we had to send the Guides in search of Dock Leaves.

Either way what I wanted to say is, how awesome was it being a kid, that life is so easy that you believed blowing on a nettle rash would make it feel better, or rubbing your arm, knee etc would make it better, just things were so simple!

Given we grow up we learn those things aren’t true which complicate things, we learn and grow but why can’t other simplicities in life just stay the same, like not getting stressed out over your exams at the end of the week or worrying about what xyz said about you because overall you knew you would end up doing  ”Make friends Make friends Never ever break friends” by Friday afternoon break time!

As adults we over complicate things that in turn don’t have to be that complicated, yes I get that life is more complex as you’re older but don’t make it anymore complicated than it needs to be, capiche?

Music comparisons years on….

So since steps are doing a reunion tour after 10 years since they split up, I decided to take a bit of a look at my music tastes and how they have or maybe have not changed…..hmmm

So back then I like Steps

Now I like Alphabeat (closest comparison to steps I guess for current era….hmm)

Back then I liked Billie Piper

Now I like Jessie J

And Lana Del Ray

Back then I liked Atomic Kitten (Oh dear and pre- Kerry Katona meltdown too when I thought it was cool that she was from Warrington)

Now I like Jill&Kate (Ok I realise one was a 3 piece and the 2nd is a duo shush!)

Back then I liked Sclub7

Now I like Glee…..

Back then I liked Five

Now I like One Republic

And the Script

Back then I liked Kelly Clarkson (well as of September that year)

Now I love Kelly Clarkson (Somethings never change)

 

Of course this is just a snippit of my music likes,  but pretty cool to make a comparison.

Why do I do this to myself?

Here goes, right now I am blogging while lay in the hottest most bubbly bath ever after one of the most stressful nights at you guessed it…..Guides. Now before I continue I just want to point out that that I got it easy my poor co-guide leader has gone home after said stressful night to do lesson plans etc for school, sorry Suzanne! So yeah I have it light right now to be able to be blogging from my bath…..hope that doesn’t disturb you all too much.

So back on track, if you’re new to my blog you will be a little behind but in short I am a brownie, guide and senior section volunteer leader, yes to make that clear volunteer. We’re a rare bunch who give our time for the local girlies and ask for nothing back in return.

Moving on to tonight…..I could happily leave right now, if it were not for the few guides who are brilliant and I would feel awful for leaving but even now I feel as if they are being over shadowed.
I feel as if I am bashing my head against a brick wall in meetings it just isn’t enjoyable for us at all constantly telling the girls to wear their uniform only to get responses of they would rather wear their designer tops and how the uniform is ugly, now this comes as an issue as we have a very split guide unit, we are in turn the USA of guiding units we have the girls who have and the have not girls, so flaunting designer labels can be off putting hence why we have uniform so they are all the same and don’t have to feel as if someone is better than another for what they wear, can we get this through to girls? Nope….bashing my head against the wall there.
We have some girls who are just plain rude to people so rude, don’t listen and you have to wonder why they are there and then when given warnings they back chat and even when sent out they are rude. We praise good behaviour but it seems said girls are forcing us to have to highlight bad behaviour as ignoring it just makes it worse. Bashing my head against the walk again.
Then just the girls who you plain out right wonder why they are there and the response is they have nothing better to do that night, so in short just want to be with their friends which wouldn’t be a problem if they could just do it cooperatively rather than disturbing any and every little activity we try to do in order for all the girls to get their moneys worth. Again bashing my head against a brick wall.

So I have to wonder why on earth do leaders put ourselves through this, stereotypically these girls should be he best behaved yet hey are the most disrespectful so why when I don’t even get paid for it do I keep going back to be treated like this? Not only myself but our other leaders and young leaders, why do we put ourselves through it? Crazyness right I could spend my time not having to yell at someone else’s kid for being badly behaved.

But I guess overall it is because for every awkward kid whose sole intention seems to be to make your free time, you invest in them, hell there are probably 4 others who will really appreciate it and who will grow into more rounded people for the work or will some point in the future go “oh that? Yeah I learnt it at guides”

I will keep consoling myself with that fact as I attempt to wind down for the evening as best as I can.

I would like to point out that the meeting ended with our leaders all walking out having not done taps (the only formal thing we do to end the meeting) and we waited to see how long it would be until they realised….it took a while and they didn’t seems phased or stop to question why we just gave up. Genuinely I was sat on the floor at one point as we asked them to get ready for the end of the meeting and just had to take a deep breath and openly said to the other leader (openly in the hope that the girls would over hear and get the point), “if we just walk out do you think they’d notice?” So we gave them the time right up until the end of the meeting to be quiet and ready to start the end of the meeting and when it didn’t happen we just walked out. Extreme? You’d think so but it made no effect what so ever on the girls, even when it was passed comment by one of our young leaders that her younger sister and two friends were just plain outright rude to the leaders, there was no concern. Le Sigh and the head against the brick wall once again.

Oh well until next week I can officially relax.

How things change…..

So once again I apologise if this rambling makes little or no sense to you, I hope in some way you will find the inkling of my intention of this blog or find your own way to interpret it.
So here it goes, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about friendship, friends, family all that Jazz now I grew up being incredibly socially awkward I found myself constantly questioning what everyone else wanted me to do wanted me to be and having a lot of friends where if I did something unacceptable my life was made hell rather than helping me understand and being a friend in turn. Now don’t get me wrong I never intended to do these things and on many occasions in my life I have debated with the idea that I might have a mild form of asbergers as I struggle to grasp social situations sometimes and it leaves me wondering do other people have these situations and is it just me being over dramatic, but as always that’s a story for another day.

So the real thing I am trying to pull in here is how much things can potentially change with friends, I had a friend who I had been friends with since we were so young and it became more like routine our friendship, I got to feel like it was something she felt she had to do rather than something she wanted to do. In turn making me feel inferior. I found myself getting frustrated at their inconsiderate nature at times, a particular incident where they took a dig at an old school friend who has been seriously ill and how they were “better than them” now to which I stood back and went to myself  ”Wow you’re really not the same person I became friends with all those years ago” it was hard really hard for a while it was like a chunk of me had disappeared by cutting off that friendship a HUGE chunk and it hurt, how still afterwards they would do certain things that could still hurt me, actions they would do and probably not even realise how small a significance they had.
I realised it was a one sided friendship after over 10 years of friendship and had to let it go, through which I lost a lot of other friendships and possibly wrongly became paranoid of how I was portrayed through the old friendship group. So that was that, odd thing is I’m not in touch with most of the people I was friends with all those years back but many of the people who I wasn’t friends with back “in the day” I have gained friendships with without intention. But again that’s another story.

But then it leads me to another aspect of my friendships with people, I have a friend who I could literally trust with my life, she probably doesn’t even realise it so much but honestly she would probably be the first person I told anything to and I’d hope she’d do the same with me and yet strangely I for a while took that friendship for granted, yup just like the previously mentioned person I was guilty somewhat of the same thing. I would never intentionally hurt this person and the one time we have had a blow out argument I felt awful and this quote fits it perfectly “A simple friend thinks the friendship over when you have an argument. A real friend knows that it’s not a friendship until after you’ve had a fight.” I do joke and say we weren’t real friends until that point as we’d never really argued. It also made me realise just how easily I can hurt them and I never want to do that.

Another of my amazing friends is that friend who I know I can always count on and for 3 years people thought we hated each other, in short because we were so blunt to each other about what annoyed us, which sounds very odd I know in a friendship but we both respected that about each other, we were thrown in a situation where we were two totally different people with different interests but I loved learning new things, being influenced to be a better person by her I learnt to appreciate so many different things because of her, I became more open minded, she’s a very religious person and I wasn’t but we would talk openly about those things for hours, she dealt with my crazy ness and accepted me for being a dozy ditzy person but didn’t make me feel stupid or belittled due to it. She’ s that friend who always sends me cards no matter what even though I am awful and will remember to send her one 2 weeks after whatever given event but she knows I don’t mean it I am just forgetful and dozy and I will make up for it.

*Pit stop* I think I am rambling and not sticking to my point so back on track.

There’s a line in a song I love that goes “Picked all the weeds but kept the flowers” Now those weeds might not be awful horrible people but might be people who you have just changed from, or they have changed from you my first friend in question had moved away from me not physically but mentally we had changed so much our outlooks on life had changed.
The two friends mentioned after offer me so much in my life and I hope I can do the same to them in one way or another just because I owe them a bunch even if they don’t realise it.

Your life will change, people around you will change, but you need to know when to let things and people go and when to move on to make yourself a better person. I’m not saying cut people out the second you feel something isn’t working, not at all because friendships and family build from working but there is one quote that sticks out to me

“Friendship isn’t about whom you have known the longest. It’s about who came, and never left your side.”

And it’s so true, most of us base friendships on longevity I don’t really think that’s the case, although the friends I have now I hope I will have for the rest of my life and I think it’s taken me a while to pick the weeds but it doesn’t mean I don’t have room for more flowers (Cheesy quote of the day)

So there’s the ramblings from my mind, I hope it made some kind of sense but I have no doubt I will go back and edit this little blog at a later date when I realise I wasn’t making the littlest bit of sense but ah well for now, toodles.

Trying new things

Here’s the deal, I’m in no way shape or form a real girlie girl…..yes I love clothes but put me near fake tan, tweezers, diet pills, fake eyelashes, a lot of makeup and I back away. I’ve never really had a real fake take, nor have I really wore fake eyelashes, the idea of fake eyelashes scare me. 
I like to dye my hair, that’s one girlie thing I guess, so it’s safe to say I wasn’t ever intended to be a man or anything extreme like that.

But recently in work I moved onto a new team (A much better team I might add and I feel so much more comfortable but that’s a story for another day) and the girls on the team are all very much girlie girls and it’s in no way sense shape or form a bad thing but they are very girlie I mean eyelash and eyebrow dying, fake tan, acrylic nails, perfect hair, hair extensions, they like to take care of themselves, where as I am a little bit more like I would rather spend my evening with a book than take the time fake tanning, which doesn’t mean either is wrong, it’s personal preference I get that. 

So…..somewhere between joining the team and tonight I have agreed to try and fake tan at least for a week, I have no idea how this came about but one of the girls on my team and I ended up in a discussion which resulted in her telling me how fresh and better I would feel with a bit of colour (I am painfully white I’m not even going to try and defend that, I’m like Jeremy reed in Powder, no joke) So I agreed and am now sat here after a long shower, a extensive amount of ex-foliation (I usually ex-foliate just not to this degree) for fear of a blotchy tan and I have applied a fake tan moisturiser, I was advised by the said team member to get a moisturiser rather than a full on fake tan spray, basically to ease myself in daily to the tan. 

Now there is one downfall to this…..I HATE the feeling of hand creams and body lotion on my hands and I just increased that feeling onto my whole body, oh boy! I have a week of this to go! 

Eeeeeep! I’ll let you know how I go, either way I am due a haircut on monday anyway and I also bought contact lenses today since I ran out in summer, oh boy if this fake tan sets in I am going to shock my team, no glasses, fake tan and short hair, with fringe (Bangs for you Americans) my team have never seen me without my glasses and without my hair being long and all one length oh and purple! but I’m not dying my hair again for a while haha. 

Well I will keep you updated on this crazy bet.