Coming Clean. Making Changes.

There's no doubt that not a single person in the world that flies through life effortlessly. Life is hard and not perfect, there's no denying it. Everyone from your mother to the person sitting beside you on the bus will have to deal with the brick walls that come up in life.

But for some people life gets even harder. Not only do they have to deal with the stressful ordeal that is life but for some completely unfair happenstance they have one more layer of complexity to peel through. They have to deal with mental health issues.

For me that's anxiety, depression and disordered eating. For anyone dealing with mental health issues you are not just experiencing one emotion, it's a roller coaster. On the bad days you can go from down to sad to angry to hopeless to deep depression. It really takes a toll on the body and the complexity of what you're going through makes it hard for your loved ones to understand and help.

Of course the fact that I studied away from home, a bus, train and plane ride away from my support group made it particularly difficult for me to cope. I was living in uni halls constantly surrounded by a 'party' and 'drinking' culture that I wasn't able to interact with. I'm not against having a fun night out but a few times a week was too much for me, it wasn't worth the tired, groggy state the morning after and the anxiety over how much alcohol I had consumed.

The anxiety had so much power over me I'd panic when I'd run into other people in the flat and isolated myself off in my room for a large portion of the year. After bad nights I wouldn't be able to attend lectures or focus or study when it came to exams. Even when I came home to visit for a precious weekend the joy of being home was always overshadowed by the thought of going back to uni on the Sunday.

Over all this year has been incredibly tough for me and I've gone through a lot of it alone. I wasn't enjoying my life and hadn't been truly happy in months. For this reason I've decided to drop out of uni once again and move back to Ireland to start another course in Dublin. Third times the charm as they say!

While I didn't enjoy my time abroad at all that's not to say the people I met weren't lovely people who I'll miss seeing or that I didn't like my university. In fact it's an absolutely top class university and I'll be disappointed to have to leave my wonderful course and the classmates.

But here's to another fresh start. Let's hope I can settle in and start living life to the full.

Satisfy your Cravings with 'graze'

Hello lovelies,

So if you're like me and seems to be constantly hungry no matter what time of the day or suffer from eleven-sies nibbles you'll like what have in store for you today.

I found a voucher for a free 'graze goody box' in my monthly magazine and decided to give it a try. Whenever I get a bit peckish or hungry midmorning or in the evenings I try to snack on healthy foods, a handful of almonds/walnuts or apple pieces with some peanut butter (sometimes followed by another cheeky spoonful of peanut goodness..). However it's good to switch it up every now and again to get some variety into the diet, that's why I was seriously excited to get my graze box in the post.

Made from healthy, nutritious ingredients and none of those nasty additives, you can choose from 100s of snacks, they even send you a leaflet with the nutritional info of each snack you choose. Luckily for me they even have a breakfast box option!

Delicious banana dippers with toffee sauce.....

Dried fruit and chocolate chips!

I haven't tried the rest of my snacks yet but those flapjacks are calling to me...

Thanks for reading,

Ciara xxx

Christmas Dinner, Student Style

Hello lovelies!


Next week my flatmates and I are all splitting up for the Christmas holidays which meant only one thing, we had to have our own flat Christmas dinner. A lot of planning and timetabling was involved ( a kitchen table ma or may not have been rolled down 2 flights of stairs) but I think it was quite successful. I am proud to say I seasoned and basted my own chicken which turned out delicious. 

Of course all the girls were in the kitchen ( I made my Slutty Chocolate Brownies) while the boys did nothing but that wasn't too bad because they were the ones who were stuck with the washing up.

Not too shabby for just £5 a head from good old ASDA ;)

Then to settle our bursting bellies a few of us took a stroll around campus through the Christmas fairy lights.

Who else is ready for it to be Christmas Eve already?

Thanks for reading,

Ciara xx

iPhone Diary: A Festive Weekend in London

Hello lovelies!

As it is officially the 1st of December I feel it's sociably acceptable to start getting excited for Christmas and all the festivities that come with the holidays.

I'm now going to uni near Manchester and my best friend is down in London so this weekend I jumped on a train and headed down to her for a weekend getaway.

It was a wonderful weekend with lots of late night trips for frozen yogurt (there are no good froyo places up here so I had to stock up), brilliant ice skating at Somerset House and of course, shopping....

Prepare yourself for the money shot....

Such a good weekend but now that I'm back at uni it's time for me to hit the books :(

Ciara xxx

More San Francisco City Exploring

Hello lovelies,

The sun was shining when we awoke on our first morning in the city which made our walk along Chrissy Fields even better. Chrissy Fields is a stretch along which you can walk by the marina and take in the view of the Golden Gate from across the bay. On sunny weekend mornings the place is packed with joggers, walkers and happy families setting up camp for the day.

As it turned out we had all worked up an appetite which left us ready to enjoy a gorgeous brunch at Roses's on Union Street.

'I don not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am'

My sister and I were in the market to pick up a Penny board so the only logical plan of action was to head on over to Haight street, a really cool hippy/vintage/ultra cool area in the city where things like tie-dye originated from. The street was full of really cool vintage shops and just when we thought we'd seen it all we walked into a cafe for a coffee only to run into a couple of nude men. Don't worry I didn't take any photos!

As if we hadn't done enough exploring that day it was time to visit Golden Gate Park and walk through the beautiful flower garden in full bloom.

And finally to top it all off we ended our day of exploring in the Japanese Tea Gardens.

I hope I haven't overloaded you with photos but we squished so much into one day it was hard to limit myself. 

There is lots more from my San Fran adventure to come so don't stray far.

Thanks for reading,

Ciara xx