Post Exam Shopping Haul

To celebrate passing my latest CIMA exam I took myself on a little trip around town and decided to treat myself to a few new purchases.

Shoes - Debenhams £20

These shoes caught my eye with their lovely pattern. My mum described it as animal print, I thought of it more as an aztec pattern. Either way, they look lovely. I'm hoping they'll be comfortable too.

Bare Foot Lotion and Cream - £3 each

I love love love love these products. They smell gorgeous! After only a few uses I can definitely see the benefit of these. Hoping to post a review very soon.

Smashbox Makeup - £17 to £28

After it was pointed out to me that my face was becoming very shiny from my makeup, I've been on the hunt for new makeup, particularly a new foundation, that would stop the shininess. Since reading Dominique's Smashbox Liquid Halo Foundation Review at the weekend, I decided to pay a visit to the Smashbox counter in Boots and see what they had to offer.

From chatting to the helpful assistant and testing out a few different products, I came away with the Liquid Halo Foundation, BB Cream Concealer and Finishing Powder. Lets see how well I get on with these!

MUA Eyeshadow Palette and Bronzer - £1 to £4

I've heard a lot of good things about MUA, and not wanting to spend a lot of money on eyeshadow, I decided it was time to give this brand a go. The palette has a perfect range of light shades that are going to be perfect for every day, or for nights out. The bronzer, was a complete spur of the moment purchase, but for a £1 I can't really go wrong.

I may have gone a little overboard celebrating passing just this one exam....when I'm finally qualified I dread to think how much I'll spend as a celebration.

Sarah x

The Moment of Truth...

So today was the day we've been waiting for. Exam result day!

I amazingly slept through the night without worrying at all about today (possibly the first time ever), and woke up this morning actually forgetting it was result day. For all of about 5 mins anyway.

And the great news is, I PASSED!

With flying colours.

A great 78% (which in CIMA exams is really good).

So I went to work with a massive smile on my face and had a pretty good day. I'm really pleased and that all my hard work paid off.

Now, onto the next ones...

May Monthly Round Up, 3rd May Weigh In & 100 Happy Days...Day 91

I can't believe how quick this year is going, it's already June! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?

I'll apologies now that this is going to be a bit of a long one, I missed my weigh in yesterday and I'm a little late on the round up so thought it'd be better to combine them together. So, here goes...

Goal Number 1 - Complete the Operational Level of my CIMA Qualification

I finished my exam! Yey! I can now have a normal life back. I just have the long wait until result day. So for now, I'm not marking this off as complete until it's passed, but fingers crossed that will be soon.

Goal Number 2 - Move into my own Home

The wait for my flat is now starting to get boring. I understand how pregnant woman feel when they're fed up and just want it to be the day you've spent so long waiting for. I still don't have a roof on my flat, the move in date has been pushed back to July (no exact date as of yet), and I'm getting a bit tired of constantly being asked questions about it. Plus, fridge/freezer shopping is not a fun shopping trip. I'm hoping not much longer now.

Goal Number 3 - Loose a stone in weight

Ok so here goes my weigh in. I gained a little this week, but as I've proved the last few I can loose it again. I'm back at dancing and the gym, when I stop being an idiot and forgetting things I need to go, like my sports bra or my trainers. I need to be better organised and pack my back the night before not on a morning when I'm rushing around crazy. After not being to the gym in a while I was surprised that I hadn't lost my running ability as much as I had previously. This slow build up I've been doing must be working.

I've been doing ab exercises maybe once a week around revision and although my ab appearance probably doesn't look as it did after my challenge, I've still got quite a lot of the strength. I'm just going to keep going, up the amount of exercises I'm doing each week and hopefully get back into a weight loss streak.

I'm going to a Christening in July and plan on wearing something I already own to save money. I have a few things in mind for what I'd like to wear, but I'm not sure they'll be a good fit. I'll try them on at the weekend and make a decision, they might motivate me a bit more to make sure I look good in them.

Goal Number 4 - Get my Splits on Both Legs

I'm still working on this and found some new stretch advice to follow. This was a Pinterest post I found that has been a great help.

I also found this which I'm quite enjoying too. These stretches feel really good.

Goal Number 5 - Learn to Cook

I've not made anything really fancy this month. My most adventurous cooking attempt was to take some chicken breasts and coat them in a Maggie's So Juicy Mixed Herbs spices (rather than cooking them in the bag in the oven) to be cooked on the barbecue. They were very tasty.

Plan for June

June's plan is to get back into a gym routine. I've been very lazy the last month and that's not good. I'm going to go for 2 gym workouts a week and then dancing as extra. The only downfall I see is it being quarter end at work and that cutting into gym time for the last week of the month. I'll just have to be extra good when I can't get to the gym.

My dance show is soon so if I can improve my core strength and flexibility a bit by then that would be great too.

And to round us off, a bit of 100 Happy Days - Day 91

Pinterest posts making you smile. So I just set up my Pinterest account, go check it out if you get time, and this post popped up on my feed today and it made me smile. A Lhasa Apso as an Ewok. It reminded me so much of my Gemma that I had to smile. How cute.

100 Happy Days...Day 82

Day 82 - Finishing Exams

I've finished my exam! It was such a nice feeling walking out of the exam room having done an exam that was actually made up of questions I rather liked. I'm just hoping I did well enough to pass, but I won't find that out for about 6 weeks now.

To celebrate I took my Mum on a shopping trip to buy new house stuff and summer work clothes. We enjoyed a rather nice pizza lunch at pizza hut, before our little shopping spree. I treat myself to three new tops from Dorothy Perkins, I haven't yet tried them on to comment on how nice they are or how good they fit but I will do an update later.

(Apologies for the spacing, blogger didn't want to do what I wanted it to do)

We then had a little visit to Next for house stuff. I came home with a light for my hallway and 2 ultra soft cushions for my bedroom. However, it looks like my light may have to go back. Apparently buying a light is more complicated than just going into the shop finding one you like and buying it. You have to take into account all sorts of stuff like the type of fitting, whether it needs earthing etc. My advice if you're not electrical savvy like me....take someone light shopping who is. I'm going to ring the builder and check that the light will work so keeping my fingers crossed.

On our trip to Next we paid visit to the Next Home store on the Metro Centre retail park and got some lovely ideas for living room furniture and more lights. I found a ceiling light and a floor lamp that will go amazingly in my living room, but now I get the feeling I won't be able to have the ceiling light. Very disappointing.

Unfortunately that wasn't the only disappointment of the day, I ran out of my No7 Redness Relief moisturiser this morning which I absolutely loved using only to find that No7 has discontinued it. As a very pale skinned person who gets red cheeks very easily, this cream was amazing at keeping my skin one colour throughout the day and helping my makeup stay on. If anyone has any suggestions on a replacement, I'd gratefully appreciate it!

Overall a rather enjoyable day spent with my Mum, and I'm very glad my exam is over with. Now it's off to relax and prepare myself for returning back to work tomorrow. 

100 Happy Days...Day 78

Day 78 - Having an end in sight

It's nearly here, exam day is nearly over. Only 5 more days and it'll be over. I can't wait to get back to a normal life, back to the gym, back to reading fun books, back to spending time with my friends without having to think about all the revision I've got to do once I've seen them.

5 more days...

April Monthly Round-Up

So it's a few days late, but here's my April monthly round-up.

Goal Number 1 - Complete the operational level of my CIMA qualification

I'm now only 18 days away from my next exam (wow, is that all?!), meaning that for the next 18 days my life is largely going to resolve around revising. I have a practice exam day on the 12th May which I'm hoping will be a major help in my revision steps. I'm feeling relatively alright about the prospect of sitting my exam but we'll see how it goes on the day.

Goal Number 2 - Move into my own home

So my flat is now the next in line to get the roof put on, and the aim is still for a move in date at the end of June. My focus is now on buying bedroom curtains ready for move in day, and then just big stuff like Fridge/Freezer and washing machine. I'm so excited.

Goal Number 3 - Loose a stone in weight

April wasn't a great month what with Easter giving me chocolate and me not being very well, so I didn't get any closer to my target. I managed an 8 minute run, the longest I've done all year, non-stop in my cardio routine, so I just need to keep going on that and soon I'll be seeing more progress.

I started the 30 day abs, squat and plank challenge at the beginning of the month, but as I seemed to loose my ability to properly do a plan I only ended up completing the abs and squat one. The progress across the 30 days was amazing, my tummy is a lot flatter than it used to be and my core strength so much better than it was. Now the challenge is over, I don't want to loose all my progress so I'm going to try a few different abs exercises each night. Taking some of the ideas from these two Youtube videos I've found to give me some variety.

 

Goal Number 4 - Get my splits on both legs

I'm still so close and keep trying to push myself that extra step. I'm going to try a few more exercises on my theraband to help my get that little bit further in time for my dance show.

Goal Number 5 - Learn to cook

I managed to make some chocolate coconut cupcakes (which weren't very healthy) and then a chicken and chorizo bake, and a beef casserole all from my new cook book. The results were rather good and I'll definitely be trying them again.

Plan for May

May's goal is to focus on passing my exam, and not put weight on in the mean time. I'm going to watch what I eat, and still aim to do at least one workout a week so I don't loose the progress I've made. I'm going to keep up with some ab exercises and stretch as much as I can so I'm in a good position for the dance show at the end of June.