ONE SKIRT, TWO OUTFITS

If you saw my autumn/winter wardrobe wishlist post from early October, you'd see that I was looking for a tan-coloured button-down skirt. I knew I wanted one as a really loved the style and everyone who has one styles it so nicely, though I was a bit apprehensive as I wasn't sure how many outfits I'd be able to get out of it and was it really worth it. In the end I went for it, and this beautiful skirt is from Boohoo. I'd initially found the most perfect one from Next, perfect colour, perfect material, perfect buttons, but I waited to long to buy it and then it wasn't available anymore. I hunted around for ages to find the perfect replacement, and this is the best one I found.

The two looks below are my two favourite ways of styling it and I think they're such simple but perfect looks for Autumn, Winter and Spring; I also think it would look good with a plain black t-shirt, and I'm thinking of getting the black version of the white top below. I'd wear this look on a night out with a dark red, vampy lipstick and glittery copper eyeshadow. I also like to wear this with one messy plait down the back with long bits coming out at the front.

I'd like to add a note here that this was so difficult to photograph, it gets dark really early and for some reason the whites were coming up so bright. This was literally the only day we had to photograph it and we had to make do with what we could.

Skirt- Boohoo (£18)

Jumper- Next (£18)

T-Shirt- New Look (£7.99)

Boots- Simmi (last year, around £20)

Leather Jacket- All Saints (two years ago, around £100)

DECEMBER PLAYLIST

This month's playlist post isn't as festive and chock-block full of Christmas music as it should be for December, but we recently found all of our old tapes again and it's been so exciting and nostalgic to listen back to them all. Therefore, this playlist is going to be my parent's old music (which is my favourite music) mixed with some festive cheer.

Please excuse the reflection from the sky light and the air bubbles in my phone screen protector

'Gimme Shelter'- The Rolling Stones
I've loved the Rolling Stones for a very long time but it's taken me far too long to appreciate the genius that is this song. This is one of my favourite Rolling Stones songs and I don't believe I didn't notice it before.

'Fairytale of New York'- The Pogues
I won't say too much about this one, as I mentioned it in my post on 1st December, but ohmy what a fantastic song. It's just beyond incredible; the song, the lyrics, the tune, everything.

'Step Into Christmas'- Elton John 
I won't say much about this one either as, again, I spoke about it on 1st December. This is probably my favourite Christmas song, it's so upbeat and catchy and you can't not dance to it. It's also very underrated and under appreciated and everyone needs to know about it.

'Take it Easy'- Eagles
This is a song from way back in my childhood that I'd completely forgotten about. My family loves the Eagles so much, I can't describe to you how I felt when I heard them again for the first time a couple of years ago but my mind was completely blown. This is a song that we rediscovered and it was incredible how well I remembered it and how much I remembered loving it then and now.

'Ain't That Lonely Yet'- Dwight Yoakam
It wouldn't be a playlist from me without a country song on it. We listen to a fair bit of Dwight Yoakam but this is definitely my all-time favourite of his songs, we rediscovered it recently and I've had it on repeat for a few weeks now.

'All I Want For Christmas Is You'- Michael Buble
Oh the modern king of Christmas himself. It's really not Christmas without Mr Buble and I love his slower and more jazzy take on this classic Christmas song. It's nice hearing it done differently and Michael Buble does have the voice of a festive God.

'Santa Baby'- Michael Buble 
More of the Buble but he really is modern Christmas personified into silky-voiced wonder. I love this Christmas song generally and I don't listen to it enough around this time of the year.

'Pass It On'- The Coral
Another childhood song that we recently rediscovered and ohmy I'd forgotten just how incredible this one was. This song is beautiful and fantastic and amazing and I am obsessed with it right now.

'Lodi'- Creedence Clearwater Revival 
You'll have seen from previous playlist posts that I love Creedence Clearwater Revival and this song is another rediscovered one from my childhood that I'm obsessed with. Love, love, love it, it's beyond fantastic.

'I Believe in Father Christmas'- Greg Lake
One last song and it's a festive one. This is just a beautiful song that's horrifically underrated and unheard of and it shouldn't be because it's great.

WHAT'S ON MY CHRISTMAS LIST

I've never posted something like this before, but I thought in the spirit of Christmas I'd post the things on my Christmas list this year.

1. Fjallraven Kanken Classic Backpack
I love these rucksacks and my current college bag is literally falling apart so it's high time I got a new one. I just love the look and style of these bags and I've done my research so I know it'll definitely hold everything I need to carry; I'm now trying to decide between a black or navy blue one.

2. The U.S. Office DVD Boxset 
I was half-way through watching the U.S. Office on Netflix and I was loving it AND THEN NETFLIX REMOVED IT. I'm not going to lie and say that I wasn't completely heartbroken and I wasn't so furious that I debated cancelling my Netflix and switching to Amazon Prime instead (this was only stopped by the fact that my mum pointed out that she's the one paying for Netflix and we hadn't finished community yet). My family like to buy DVD boxsets and watch them together, and I need to the Office back in my life (more Jim pls). (It was a choice between this, the Parks and Recreation boxset or the Vicar of Dibley boxset, fantastic shows).

3. Scratch-Off World Map 
My brother has one of these (pictured below- from a company called 'Luckies') and they're just so cool. It's a map of the world covered in gold foil and you scratch off every country that you've been to. Each continent is a different colour, so a different colour appears under the gold when you scratch it off. So cool.

4. Chocolate Orange
The quintessential Christmas food. I once didn't get one of these in my stocking and I've never truly gotten over it.

5. Dot-to-Dot Book
My brother and I each got one of these in our stocking last year and it was one of the best things I've ever been given. We both completed them in under 2 days and we were just silent and happy for hours. Dot-to-dot books are one of the greatest things ever invented, and we both want another.

6. Amazon Voucher
Always essential, I shop far too much on Amazon, it's unhealthy, but everything is so cheap (as in books are cheap and cheap books make for a happy Rosie).

WELCOME BACK BLOGMAS

Hello Blogmas 2015!!!! How exciting, it's officially December, and my Christmas Spirit hasn't peaked and died already this year! This is my 3rd time doing Blogmas (3rd, 3rd, 3rd, that's crazy), but we're going to do it slightly differently this year. I'm a busy, busy person. I'm at college for full days on Wednesday and Thursday, I'm at work all day on Saturdays and Sundays, I have coursework due in, it's just not practical to attempt to blog every single day up until December 25th. So I've decided that this year that I'm going to blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with a few exceptions. Exceptions include today (a Tuesday, but the 1st), Thursday 24th and and Thursday 31st. I also thought I'd open this year with a nice, chatty blog post, which is what I'm doing right now.

I thought we'd start with a couple of 'Top 5' lists (because who doesn't love a top 5 list?), of my top 5 favourite Christmas songs and Christmas films (roughly in order). We'll start with the Christmas films, shall we?

Top 5 Christmas Films:
1. 'Muppet Christmas Carol' - My absolute favourite Christmas film, it's so similar to the book (and that impresses me), the songs are great and it just warms my little heart.
2. 'Love Actually' - How could this not make the list? The Liam Neeson and Thomas Brodie-Sangster storyline is my favourite by far.
3. 'When Harry Met Sally' - Not technically a Christmas film, but my mum and I watch this every year when we wrap presents and it's one of my favourite traditions and one of my favourite films.
4. 'The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey' - A truly and wonderfully terrible film, but my friends and I have a long-running joke about it and I love it purely for that reason.
5. A tie between 'Elf', 'Four Christmases' and 'The Santa Clause' - Absolutely classics.

Top 5 Christmas Songs:
1. 'The Fairytale of New York' (The Pogues) - I challenge anyone not to love this, it's an absolutely incredible song, the lyrics are genius and it's one of the catchiest things I've ever listened to.
2. 'Step Into Christmas' (Elton John) - Catchy and upbeat and happy and incredible.
3. 'Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time' (Paul MccCartney) - A Christmas Classic.
4. 'Happy Xmas (War Is Over)' (John Lennon) - Another Christmas Classic.
5. A tie between 'I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday' (Wizzard) and 'Merry Xmas Everybody' (Slade) - Everyones' Christmas favourites.

I'm also going to include a cheeky paragraph here of just general things I love at Christmas time. Two (fairly sad) highlights of my year are definitely the return of the Body Shop Christmas range (watch this space) and the return of the Costa Christmas menu; you know Christmas is definitely here when these two come back. I've never truly got over Costa never bringing back their honeycomb hot chocolate on the Christmas menu, undoubtedly the nicest thing I've ever drunk, but I feel we should give an honourable mention to Starbucks' honey and almond hot chocolate, which is really something special.

What I also love around Christmas time is watching 'Liberty of London' on Channel 4, a short documentary series that follows Liberty, the hella fancy department store, as it prepares for Christmas. There's something just so festive about the Liberty show and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and festive and excited inside. I've watched it every year since in began in 2013 (so only 2 years) but I haven't heard anything about it this year, and I'm starting to get slightly stressed that it won't be on. PLEASE CHANNEL 4, PLEASE.

And finally, a few books that I always like to read around Christmas time; it really wouldn't be Christmas without them, and they make me feel warm and wonderful every time. Firstly, 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens; a fantastic book, a fantastic story and I'd consider it one of my all-time favourite books (I like to imagine the Muppets when I read it). Now for a sad part. And by sad I mean sad loser. The two books it's sort of a tradition for me to read at Christmas are 'Holly the Christmas Fairy' and 'Stella the Star Fairy' by Daisy Meadows, two of the books in the Rainbow Magic series. Yes, I know, sad. BUT I've been reading these every year since I was really young, they're the perfect, lovely books for getting you into the festive season, I feel all warm and happy thinking about them, and it just wouldn't be Christmas without reading them.

2015 was a really, really fantastic year for me, and I hope it was great for all of you too.

Rosie 

2015 READING CHALLENGE: NOVEMBER ROUND-UP

I was so excited for all the books on my TBR in November, I had a brand new release to read (Carry On) that I ordered roughly a week after it came out, I had the final Harry Potter book and I had my favourite ever book to re-read (Anne of Green Gables). In November I read 6 books and I have read a grand total of 62 books so far in 2015; only one month left to go... I am also around 300 pages through 'Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods' by Rick Riordan, which I will finish either today or tomorrow.

I also read 'The Maze Runner' files by James Dashner, a sort of novella to the Maze Runner series, but it's so short I didn't count it towards my Goodreads total. I enjoyed this novella, if you can even call it that? It's about 50 pages long and I read it in about half hour, but I did enjoy that short amount of time. I liked getting an insight into the releasing of the Flare virus, it's not explained all that much in the books themselves and this made it much clearer; I also enjoyed reading from other points of view aside from Thomas's. I especially liked how the telepathy thing was actually explained and made sense, it was the one thing in the book that never seemed right until now. I'd recommend this for any fan of the Maze Runner series.

Books Read:

1. 'Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian'- Rick Riordan
This was such a good end to the series, I was so satisfied with the ending, I didn't feel like I needed anything else, it was just all-round fantastic. What I liked most about this book was that, in most books the big epic fight scene only lasts about two or three chapters, whereas here it was the entire book. I loved that. I also liked the twist on the 'last Olympian', I liked how it isn't what you think it's going to be and how ambiguous that was. I am so excited to read the spin-off series next.

2. 'Carry On'- Rainbow Rowell
'Carry On' is everywhere at the moment, and I was so desperate to read it that I bought it the week after it came out in hardback (I never do that). This book is related to 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell, but you don't need to read 'Fangirl' first to read this. Rainbow Rowell stated that this is a kind of spoof (without being a stupid spoof) of Harry Potter, and you can definitely see the similarities. However, after Part 2 it started becoming more of it's own story and I got really invested in it. One thing I would say is that it's very confusing, their magic literally makes no sense to me and I don't think it ever will. As it's written like the 8th book in the series, the mentioning of past events is quite confusing and you really feel as if you've missed out on something by there not being the previous 7 books. Apart from this, I really, really enjoyed it. I ship Simon and Baz so much it hurts and the romance scenes were beyond perfect (I wouldn't consider that a spoiler, everyone knows what the romance is before even reading the book). It definitely picks up after Part 2 (or Part 3, I can't quite remember) when Baz arrives, Simon is rather annoying with his obsession with Baz before then. I'd recommend this, it was fab, fab, fab. Love it.

3. 'Anne of Green Gables'- L.M. Montgomery 
I won't say all that much about this one. It's no secret that 'Anne of Green Gables' is my absolute favourite book of all time and it was definitely due a re-read. I love this book so much, it's just a lovely, lovely, mostly happy story and it's just such a perfect read. I can't put my love for it into words.

4. 'Fangirl'- Rainbow Rowell
After reading 'Carry On', I became a bit obsessed with Rainbow Rowell's writing and I wanted to read everything she's written (I'd actually never had any interest in any of her books before). I thought 'Fangirl' was a really enjoyable read, I flew through it really quickly and I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I'd highly recommend and I'm excited to read more of Rainbow Rowell's books.

5. 'Henry V'- William Shakespeare
I watched the RSC's Henry V at the Barbican a couple of weeks ago and it was absolutely fantastic. After watching Shakespeare, I like to read the play afterwards; I find that watching it first helps me get a better understanding of what's going on. I love Shakespeare and his histories are by far my favourites of his works.

6. 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'- J.K. Rowling
And now I have finished re-reading the Harry Potter series. And now I am emotionally fraught.

18 LIFE LESSONS

Obviously, I'm not qualified to advise anyone on how to live their lives, but I thought I'd share 18 important things that I have learnt in 18 years of life.

1. Don't be afraid to cut people out of your life if you don't want them in it anymore, especially if you were previously good friends

2. Hiking boots are your friends

3. Re-read your favourite book often

4. Invest in a nice, wearable waterproof

5. Don't be afraid to leave school if it's not right for you

6. Be friends with your parents

7. Ugly laugh until you cry

8. Don't feel guilty about what you eat

9. You don't have to go out every time someone asks you

10. Publicly obsess about the things you truly love

11. Don't feel pressured to do what everyone else is doing

12. Stop comparing yourself to other people

13. It's okay to be scared of unscary things, a little fear is good for you, but not too much

14. Take chances

15. Make an effort with your grandparents

16. Have in-jokes with your siblings and use them in front of other people to confuse them, very fun

17. Quote movies and books in conversation, especially with your family, do it always. (See what I did there?)

Shall I end with something cheesy like 'be yourself' or 'live your own life' or 'you do you and I'll do me' or 'take pictures of the good moments'? NO I SHALL NOT.

18. Stroke your cat constantly

Rosie

A DELVE INTO FEMALE NON-FICTION

I struggled for so long over what to call this post, what it essentially is, is a list of my favourite non-fiction books by famous female journalists, comedians and others. But that was too long. We went through a whole list of names including 'Famous Women and Their Books', 'Rosie Discovers Non-Fiction', 'Not All Memoirs are Boring', 'Girl Power' and many more. So yes, here is my list, my favourite non-fiction books by famous females.

1. 'How to be a Woman'- Caitlin Moran
We'll start with my favourite. I love Caitlin Moran, I think she's hilarious and I think she's a genius; I love her column in the Times magazine, where I first discovered her. This book actually blew my mind. It was incredible, I don't even have the words to express how I felt after reading it. This book inspired me, it entertained me and it was the first time I ever considered myself a feminist. This is a book that everyone needs to read, men and women alike, I'm still awestruck by it. (Caitlin Moran has also written a fantastic fictional novel, 'How to Build a Girl'. which I absolutely loved).

2. 'Bedsit Disco Queen'- Tracey Thorn
I didn't know who Tracey Thorn was before I read this book, but that didn't matter. For some context, she's half of the 80's electronic duo, Everything But The Girl. My mum bought me this, and it was just so good. It's an autobiography of Thorn talking about her life and her music career, and I just loved it so, so much. Often music autobiographies can be quite boring and all very similar to each other, but this is one of the best I have read. Go read it. (I've also just discovered that Tracey Thorn has written another book, 'Naked at the Albert Hall', so I'm definitely going to be reading that).

3. 'Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?'- Mindy Kaling
I love Mindy Kaling, I think she's hilarious and she's a great script writer. This is her first book, which I've read twice now, and it gets better each time I read it. I just loved this book, I find Mindy really relatable and I flew through in a couple of days, highly recommend.

4. 'Yes Please'- Amy Poehler
First up, how great is this title? Everyone knows Amy Poehler is fab. She's so funny, her films and shows are all genius, her friendship with Tina Fey is ultimate goals; in short, Amy is the queen. One of the things I loved most about Amy's book was how real it was, she didn't shy away from or gloss over the bad moments in her life, she admits her mistakes and takes full responsibility for them and she's just very down to earth. I though this book was so, so, so good. I loved Amy's writing style, I loved everything about this book and I think it's one of the best autobiographies out there. I can fully see why it got so much press when it first came out.

5. 'Is it Just Me?'- Miranda Hart
I love Miranda Hart, I think she's hilarious, I love her show and I saw her live and she was just great. Her book almost didn't make the list, purely because it's not as profound as things like Caitlin Moran or Amy Poehler, but saying that, Mindy Kaling is not all that profound either, so Miranda stayed on the list. I love this book, purely because it makes me laugh. I'm not sure how much is real and how much is fiction or enhanced for comedic effect, but we're celebrating famous females and their books, and I love this.

6. 'Moranthology'- Caitlin Moran
This is basically just a collection of some of Caitlin Moran's columns over the years, but it's also great and it's the genius that is Caitlin Moran.

7. 'Why Not Me?'- Mindy Kaling
What I like about Mindy's second book is that you can see how much she's changed and grown up since her previous book, but without losing what makes her, her. This book is fab, I love Mindy and I will read anything she writes.

I wanted to do a quick 'honourable mentions' paragraph here at the end for books that didn't quite make it to the final cut. Firstly, 'Bossy Pants' by Tina Fey, I've heard nothing but good things about this but I am yet to read it, though I am planning on it soon. Next, 'A Tiny Bit Marvelous' by Dawn French, this was a great book, I'm absolutely in love with the title, but it's fiction, and so was not allowed on my non-fiction list. Back to the non-fiction, we have 'Neon Angel' by Cherie Currie, this is a fascinating insight into the band The Runaways and the music industry as a young girl in the 70s/80s, but my god it is harrowing, this is not a light-hearted read, I was definitely too young when I read this. And finally, to end on a nice note, 'It' by Alexa Chung'. This is more like looking at a Tumblr dashboard of Alexa Chung's brain in book-form, but it's just a really lovely book, beautiful pictures, beautiful artwork, I really love Alexa Chung.