Latest: Hello Kitty Haul!

I love Hello Kitty!! Here's a few Hello Kitty items which I have recently added to my collection:

Firstly, my two new bags. On the right is one I got in Claire's Acessories. It was 42euro reduced to 15euro! I couldn't resist! I also bought a nice one for my sister, I'll see if I can get a picture of that one too. The bag on the left was a gift from Santa Claus, It's an overnight bag and fits lots of stuff inside it! I'm going to use it for going to the gym- No more silly backpacks for this kitty cat!

The following items were all received courtesy of Santa as well: How cute is this Hello Kitty umbrella?! It's really good quality also which I'm really pleased about. There's nothing worse than umbrellas that turn inside out!!

I love how all these are all matching with the same pattern! Here I have a beautiful box filled with pencils, an contact book and a pencil case. I needed a pencil case, I'm constantly losing my pens in college!

And finally, this is the cute little cover for my Samsung GS3 :) I looove it! I got it on Ebay from China, It was lovely and cheap but it did take nearly three weeks to arrive.

Jealous much?! I just love Hello Kitty, I don't care if I'm ten years too old for it, I'm going to keep adding to my collection!

Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love,
Katie x

Life Hack: How to make YouTube videos play on repeat.

Katie's tip of the week!

So, when I have a favourite song I tend to want to listen to it over and over again- This generally results in me hating it in a few days but let's not go there!! If, like me, you listen to your music via YouTube then it can be very annoying having to click replay all the time. Here's a simple hack to allow you to listen to your song on repeat:

First, take the url of the video you want to watch, for example:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JU0g0TW9vM0

Now, remove the "watch?" part: http://youtube.com/v=JU0g0TW9vM0

Next, change the "=" sign to a forward slash (/):  http://youtube.com/v/JU0g0TW9vM0

The final step is to add "&loop=1" to the end of the url: http://youtube.com/v/JU0g0TW9vM0&loop=1

And that's it! The song will now play full screen and on repeat! Unfortunately, what his does is put it in a playlist with just one song- And a lot of artists don't allow you to play their songs on playlists. So silly, but it happens. So you may find this doesn't work on a lot of new music. I had to search around quite a bit to find a song it would work with. But hey- Better than nothing!!




Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love,
Katie x

L'Oréal Wild Ombrés

I saw an ad for this product on television this week and thought to myself- It's been a while since I've update my hair colour! So I bought a box today and got my look this evening!

I got the middle one (No.2) for dark blonde to medium brown hair. 

The pack is easy to use, it even comes with a plastic brush and you do literally just brush the dye onto your hair. I left mine on for the full 45 minutes and it came out a lovely honey colour.

I really like how it turned out! It's particularly nice with the few curls running through it- It reminds me of how Lauren Conrad always had her hair on The Hills!

This is how it looks as a whole now- Kind of. The top of my hair had been clipped away so I can't show it because it was soooo kinky! Now all that's left to do is to get my fringe fixed- I cut it with a blunt scissors today :( Huge mistake. If anyone has a sharp, hairdressing scissors, send them my way!

Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love.       Katie.

Hashtag: NailArt!

It's been so long since I've updated my blog! It's hard to find the time when I've so much college work to do- Procrastination involve aimlessly surfing the web, not having to come up with post ideas and having to think about formulating proper English sentences on here!

As my comeback blog I'm going to be posting about one of my favorite things: Nails! I love having my nails looking pretty, it changes a whole outfit when you've got your nails did. I routinely post my nails on Twitter (and lately on Instagram) but now I'm going to consolidate them into one post! Starting from latest (Because they are the nicest nails and also best quality pictures- My BB died so I got the Samsung Galaxy S3, lol!).

These are the ones I am currently wearing. I like to think that the

 little bows are like bowties- They remind me of penguins!

I wore these during the week. I love how each nail has a different pattern. 

They were all some sort of pink except for my ring fingers which were 

silver leopard print- I like to make a statement and have this finger 

different from the others!

I got these cute little ones from Claire's Accessories. At 8euro something they were

a bit more than I usually pay for falsies. I got them free because there was a special on

Hello Kitty items, 3 for the price of 2 (I got a bag for myself and also a bag for my sister).

Thank god they were free because they were the worst quality nails ever. They were 

supposedly self-adhesive but the adhesion was so bad I ended up having to use my glue

on them anyway. They didn't go on right, they hovered above my nail rather than adhering 

to it and looking natural. They also split and broke extremely easy. I really wouldn't recommend

these nails- Even if they are sugar sweet!

These are cute ones from Pennies. I recommend  applying a coat

of clear nail varnish immediately after you apply these as the colour

can rub off pretty quickly otherwise.

These are also from Pennies. They weren't printed properly, some had edges

where the pattern didn't reach- But I remedied this by filling in the gaps myself

with a permanent marker and then clear varnishing over.

When you run out of enough spare of one pattern you can mix and match and use up all the nails that come in the pack :)

This was one of my attempts at nail art on my natural nails. Not the 

best but for someone with as little arty farty talent as me they are unreal!! 

 I got this effect using sellotape (scotch tape).

I bought these to wear to the Lady Gaga concert I went to in September

 however when I opened the box to apply them the box had been tampered 

with and contained no glue! I didn't have any at home either so had to go 

au natural that night! I exchanged them and wore them at a later point instead. 

Can't go wrong with a classic French nail. I love these.

Another attempt at natural nails. Pretty boring if you ask me!

So there you have it! A few months past history of my nails :) I shall post more often from now on!!

Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love.                   Katie

Kopan Monastery, Kathandu

 On my first day off work in Kathmandu we paid a taxci driver to take us up one of the 'hills' surrounding the city to Kopan Monastery, a Buddhist monastery and nunnery. 

I really loved the huge prayer wheel there. The wheel is inscribed with  "Om Mani Padme Hum" (Sanskrit, it can be likened to 'Amen'). They are said to be a visual aid for developing one's capacity for Tantric visualisations. The one in the monastery was so huge it took up a whole room and you had to walk around to spin it!

The following pictures are from the main meditation room which contained a huge alter dedicated to the Dali Lama.

 There were also some beautiful gardens around the buildings with amazing views.

There were also some beautiful gardens around the buildings with amazing views.

We could heard children singing in a building below us so we presume it was a school. Just before we were about to leave a bell ran signalling lunchtime and lots of little monks began appearing from everywhere!

They were obviously very used to having tourists around their school, they all grabbed their lunch plates and hurried off to their dining hall without a backwards glance!

Volunteering in Kathmandu, Nepal

I recently returned to Ireland after being in Kathmandu, Nepal for three weeks. I was over there doing some volunteer work. In the mornings I worked in an Elderly Home and in the afternoons I taught English to ladies as part of a Women's Empowerment program.

 

This is the view on the evening we arrived. We ate all our meals on a sort of veranda, outdoors with this vista!

Our accomodation was situated in an area called Panitanke (translates as water tank) which was great because I got to immerse myself in the local culture instead of staying in tourist spots. These cows were just wandering around outside :) Also there were monkeys everywhere- Such as on my way to work in the picture below. We were told not to make eye contact with the monkeys as they would attack you- And they carried rabies. 

 

They didn't really like rice much over there!!

 

 

 There were so many stray dogs all over the streets. The first few nights I found it very hard to sleep because of the gangs of dogs running around outside barking and fighting. Then during the daytime they sleep! I felt like shouting at them sleeping on the paths and waking them up for keeping me up at night! one of the dogs had puppies on a little side street near where I was staying however and they really were the cutest little things ever!

 

This is the crematorium. The orange is a cloth covering the body of a lady which is about to be burned. I didn't stay here for long because I honestly felt a bit voyeuristic, even though the place was thronged with tourists.

 

 This are images of the local 'stupa' which is a temple. The colourful flags are all prayer flags, each time the flag flaps in the wind the prayer is iterated.

This is a monkey on the roof at the elderly home- It stole biscuits from one of the old men living there!

 

Claire and I on our last week went to Naj's Tailorshop and were measured for shalwars (trousers) and kurtas (tops). The shop was owned by the Naj family. Husnaj worked for IDEX (the group I volunteered with) and she gave us lots of help planning out English lessons (She also explained how the traditional Sari is only for married women). Her older sister Shahanaj also worked for IDEX. Claire and i took to calling ourselves Clairenaj and Katienaj when we were in our traditional Nepali outfits :) The second picture is Clairenaj with Mr. Naj, Husnaj, Husnaj's younger brother and Mrs. Naj on th right.

 

I made a very cute friend! This is a Japanese Spitz from a pet shop :)]

 

 

After three weeks in a third world country I was definitely ready to come home. It was very diffiIcult out there I found with being stared at everywhere you go and the smells and pot-holed roads! I think my time there does make me appreciate everything I have a lot more now. When you see the people there surviving without so many comforts that I take for granted (for example, they all brush their teeth on the streets in front of their houses) it makes you think about what is actually important in life.

Atkins Friendly Snack!

I'm going to Ibiza next week so I've finally decided to try get into bikini shape! Probably too little, too late, but its better than nothing! So, for the next seven days I shall be eating considerably low carb and exercising like a mofo!

I want to share what I had tonight! Jalapeño peppers wrapped in bacon and fried in oil and pepper- Low carbohydrate 'Jalapeño Poppers'! Wow, they tasted so amazing and contained only 3grams of carbohydrate (not sure what the net carbohydrate is).

(Taken with my Blackberry, sorry for the awful quality)

Really I should have grilled them or baked them but I was feeling lazy. I also used canned, chopped jalapeños. The best thing would to buy fresh jalapeños, they would add more of a crunch to the snack. They would also taste better using American bacon rather than Irish rashers- But where in Dublin can I buy crispy American bacon?!

Basically all I did was place a few chopped jalapeños on one end of a slice of bacon and then rolled the bacon around them. I carefully placed the rolled bacon onto a pan of oil and fried them. The bacon seals itself in that shape and doesn't unravel itself :)

I shall definitely be making these again- And pretty soon I'd say! YUM!

30 Day Poetry Challenge: 4

Day 4: Write a haiku (a three line poem where the first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables, and the third line has 5 syllables). Haikus are often about nature, but yours can be about anything.



'Summer'

Laptop becomes my best friend
Months are long but days stretch further
September seems so far away

30 Day Poetry Challenge: 3

Day 3: Find the nearest book (of any kind). Turn to page 8. Use the first ten full words on the page in a poem. You may use them in any order, anywhere in the poem.

Ok, so the book is The Knight by Gene Wolf, ha, don't ask! The words which I'll need to use are:
That World Is Called (Mythgarthr) I Did Not Learn 'til later...

OK! This is a tough one because it doesn't actually give you any subject to write about so I'm going to write about... A Song Of Ice And Fire!

I travel the land and sell my sword
To the lords that have most gold
'Til called to battle I keep my word
A brave warrior, valiant and bold
In a far away world, Westeros by name
And killing is my game.

I never knew my father's name
My mother did not say
It's a time where nothing stays the same
Winter is coming some day

In a far away world, Westeros by name
And killing is my game.

As a boy the sigils I did learn
And motto of each  house and family
But I prefer to think of the gold I earn
No time for fools and gallantry


In a far away world, Westeros by name
And killing is my game.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: 2

Day 2: Who was the last person you texted? Write a five-line poem to that person.

Lol

To eating junk we are prone
Who's fault is this? Unknown
You look like a llama
You love your mama
And together we watch Game Of Thrones


Hehe, fun little one :) :)

30 Day Poetry Challenge: 1

Day 1: Write a poem where each line starts with a letter from your first name (an Acrostic). It can be about anything, but it should not be about you or your name.

King of land and sky he sails with ever stronger wings 

Against all odds and stronger men he conquers all and wins

Taking what is always owed, my heart bleeds for him 

In the darkness he arrives and urges me to sin

Everlasting in his plight to never sink, but swim

Roast Vegetables!!

How did I not know about the amazing-ness of roast vegetable before now? For years I have been boiling and stir-frying. But not any more! Hell no!

Today I used carrots, peppers, onion and baby potatoes. All I did was chop them and put them on a baking tray with sunflower oil and popped them in the oven for a bit! Magnificent!

Needless to say there were no leftovers, they all went into my belly, yum! Looks like I'll be eating my five a day from now on!

Fun Things To Do During The Summer

I finally finished my exams! Phew, I had 7 exams in 9 days- It felt like it lasted forever! Now that they are finished I have three and a half long empty months to go until I start my Msc in DIT in September.

Here's a list (Which may get updated) of what I plan to do this Summer 2012:

1) Get Ripped

I love girl abs. This summer I plan on achieving girl abs. I shall be doing this through a combination of healthy eating and constant exercise. My diet shall be high protein (not too low-carb). I shall be swimming an playing water polo twice a week. On top of this I shall aim to go to the gym at least twice a week to lift weights. I will also be doing planks every night to work up my abductor muscles (although the main thing I need to do is lower my body fat)







2) Compete in a Triathlon

I'm not too sure about this one! I can obviously do the swim part and I can do the cycle- Although not that fast. The problem is I struggle to run more than 2km. I run like a girl. This one  is a 'maybe'!









3) Go Abroad

I really need to get out of Ireland. I love travelling. I will go ANYWHERE! At the moment I'm looking at inter-railing or some sort of volunteering in Africa or South America with my sister. Unfortunately she isn't as enthusiastic about our impending voyage so I'm not really sure how it will pan out. Watch this space!









4) Write A Song

This one is the hardest of my plans. I find it really hard to write songs. I can sit at the piano and improvise for hours on end but I really want to write a pop song, with cool lyrics. That's my downfall: lyrics. Plus I've nothing to write about! Maybe I need to get my heart broken so I can be inspired!






5) Read (At least) Five Books

And proper books too! No trash! (Although I am tempted to read 50 Shades of Grey, ha. ever since Ellen Degeneres did her skit about it!)

I'm almost finished The Reluctant Fundamentalist so but I'm not counting that as one of my 5. I must put together a reading list asap and start ticking them off!




So those are my Summer plans. Wish me luck!
xx