Abs and Squats | Day 3...

If I'm being honest with you, I'm surprised I've made it even this far into the calender! I have an absolutely awful track record for procrastination and giving up on these types of things, but I think it helps that I really really want and need more core strength. I've been focusing on my pirouettes and turns at dance for the past couple of weeks and I need more strength for that. I've also been trying to get into a backbend, and the squats also help abs and lower back strength, which you need for backbends.

So this is how things went today.

The sit ups. These felt pretty easy today actually.

The crunches. My neck wasn't hurting as much as yesterday, but I could definitely feel this in my abs.

The leg raises. These were surprisingly quite easy!

The plank. Easy, again!

The squats. I did two sets of 30, so they weren't as bad as yesterday, but my legs do feel a little bit like jelly!

So that's it for today! Come and visit tomorrow to see pictures, if you like looking at bellies xD

Abs and Squats | Day 2...

Today's workout consisted of an increased number of reps to yesterday. Well, I mean, obviously. Each day's workout gets harder than the last. I'd also like to mention that I won't be photographing everyday, instead I will be getting photos every five days, as this will show progress (if any!) more clearly.

The sit ups. Not too bad. Tougher than yesterday but still okay.

The crunches. I more or less got over my fear of the yesterday, so today was easy, but my neck hurts when I'm doing them. I'm sure this is because of incorrect form, but I don't know how to correct them. Help?

The leg raises. These weren't unpleasant at all, but I did feel them.

The plank. Easy peasy. I can do a minute easily, so this was nice and relaxing, actually!

The squats. Omg. I did them all at once after sticking on some pop music with a good beat, but my legs hurt now!


Anyway, that's two days down, 28 to go! I'm 1/15 of the way there! Yay!

Tunesday...

Abs and Squats | Day 1...

Hey guys, I'm just reporting on how today's workout went; you can see the original post and calnder for yourself here.

Well here's the verdict.

The sit ups. I expected these to be quite easy, as I normally do a couple of sets of ten in ballet and contemporary anyway. They were almost as easy as I thought, except I did start to feel something at the end.

The crunches. I hate crunches with a passion, so I was really dreading these. But it turns out they weren't as bad as I'd thought, so these were over and done with quickly.

The leg raises. Not too bad. I struggled to keep correct form, however, so I had to do five more with my hands under my bum to stop from arching my back, and this seemed to work much better.

The plank. Easy. Enough said.

The squats. I did them in two sets of 20 then a 10. Ouch!

And here are some very lovely pictures of me today....yay.

30 Day Workout Calender | Abs and Squats...

Hi guys, do you feel up for a challenge?! I've merged two workout calenders together to create this monster of a challenge, and I'm going to give it a go, with today being day 1!

For the past week and a bit I've been 'relaxing', essentially just lazing around, with only a couple of dance classes to keep me going. Now 90% of my classes have stopped for the summer, and I always manage to put on so much weight over these six weeks, so I thought I'd better do something active to keep my weight down. And why not tone and strengthen while I'm at it, eh? Bonus!

So this is it. You work for three days, then get a rest day. And repeat. A lot. So just stick on some music and get going!

Remember to take before and after photos and send me the links, I can't wait to see your progress! I'll be keeping a little diary as I go, to keep you all updated, why don't you do the same and blog about your experience after? It'd be an interesting read :D

Think Happy...42/52...(and the t20!!)

Good evening everyone, or morning, or afternoon! This week I've  been enjoying a week off from school!


1. Last night I attempted some levitation photography with my brothers. Eben took this one of me:

I think it's pretty realistic! Then I took these of Gabriel:

Getting sucked into the bin!

This took so many attempts, but we got there in the end!

This is a blooper, but it looks like he's doing pointework, which I find highly amusing!

2. Dance this week has been good. In street we added to our dance, and it's turning out awesome. In ballet we were worked hard by one of the student teachers, Jade. I still ache now!


3. Contemporary was so good on Tuesday! We've almost finished the dance we're doing now, and it's so pretty, and I'm getting used to this different style of dancing. We were also getting hyped up about all of the competitions we're going to be doing! We're allowed to do either two troupe dances, or a troupe dance and a solo/duet/trio. I'm really hoping to do a troupe and a solo!


4. On Wednesday I danced at the T20 that was aired on Sky Sports 2! I don't know if our dance was actually shown on TV, but we were on the big screen in the stadium!

Selfie in front of the pitch!

Afterwards with Holly and Amber

5. I got the Sims 2 Ultimate Edition! Which means you get the base game and all 18 expansion packs for free, until the end of the month!


6. I got my dvd of this year's dance show! I've now been able to watch all of my dances back, and my friends' and my little ballet class'! So good!


7. I was gaming on a server yesterday and this dude was being ever so racist, so I kicked him out; it felt so good!


8. Did a mini photoshoot with Eben!

9. I ordered a new leotard, finally!


10. I made a new friend called Никита, I think, or Nikita. He's Russian :)

Tunesday...

A day late again, but this is a pretty song! I'm gathering songs for a contemporary dance solo, any ideas?

Welcome to the Family Little Ones...

Yesterday I made two more bower birds, a blue one and a pink one, and they're so pretty! See here for my first one.

Now here are all three of them together!

Think Happy...41/52...

So this week has been outstanding for me! Let's begin!


1. Did my hair and makeup! Cat's eyes and bun with bandana :D

2. Dancing has been fun this week. In street on Monday I was on my own but I got to show off my epic tricks, which was cool. Contemporary was better, although, again, I was on my own. Becky (our new teacher) put us in a really cool looking formation. And ballet and pointe was good yesterday, painful, but good!


3. I made three Bower Birds, see here for the first one!

4. Found an awesome new ballet and stretching YouTube channel!


5. Found out that I'm taking an AS level along with my GCSEs next year!


6. Last week at school!


7. Saw my cousin instead of my cinema trip today, which was sadly cancelled :(


8. Got a summery feeling!!



That's all I can think of for now, but watch out for these next six weeks. Lots more posts!

Attic24's Bower Bird...

Hiiii!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited to write this post today because it's finally happening! After a year-long wait, Lucy's pattern for a bower bird was released the other day, and I finished mine today!

Isn't she just the sweetest?! I highly recommend that you go check out the pattern right here, because she has so many gorgeous birds over on her blog.

I love her so much! She's made from acrylic DK yarn, but the pale blue details are stitched with cotton DK, and I actually prefer this yarn, so maybe I'll make an entirely cotton bird one day soon.

Anyway, here's another full-body shot...

Aww, it feels like I'm falling in love! Anyway, I already have another on my hook, so I'll leave now so you have time to make your own. Send me a link once you have, I'd love to see yours! Bye!

Toothless...

Today was my last full day at school, and my last day in uniform! We had a celebrations assembly this afternoon, and I won two awards and came a runner up in another, resulting in me receiving £10 in vouchers. Result!

Can you see Toothless?

My friend Nina drew him on my arm in class today whilst we watched a movie, and I'm so excited for when I go to see this film on Sunday! But before that, I have 3 hours of school left tomorrow, so I need to rest up, goodnight!

Tunesday...

Hi guys! I found this gem on the net earlier, and I'm so excited by it! I apologise for not posting this yesterday, but I had one last piece of homework to do before summer, then I had dance. I would have posted after that, but our car broke so I was stuck at dance until about ten at night, with no internet! Haha, I hope this makes up for it :P

Think Happy...40/52...

I've had such a long day today, which means I'm shattered now, and I can feel my eyes closing as I type this. I went up to the Peak District today with my parents and one of my brothers, and we did so much walking. I took hundreds of photos, but I'll save them for another day.


1. PEAK DISTRICT! I had an amazing time, here's a selfie!

2. This week was pretty cool. I had a full street dance class on Monday night because I didn't have to go out and practise a performance dance with Shanice, Mia and Hannah. It was also pretty cool because a guy called Luke was there. We were in the same class in year 7, but then he moved to Hannah's school and became close friends with my cousin, Jasmine. It was awesome to see him and dance with him for the first time in over three years!


3. Contemporary was different on Tuesday. Not necessarily a bad different, just weird different. For a start, we had a new teacher, a girl called Becky instead of Tanveer. I dance with her anyway in other classes and she's covered contemporary before, but her dance style is very different to Tan's. Tan's are/were very physical, maybe that's because he's a guy, and I love them so much. Becky's, however, is very slow and lyrical, which explains her song choice. It's different, and it's challenging me to use emotions more in my dance!


4. Erm, what else happened this week that was good. Oh, we had sports day on Thursday. What made it good was that I didn't compete, so I sat in the sun for two hours and tried to get a tan. Like that was going to happen! What sucked is that my form came third (out of our year group). We had won the cup three years running, and this year the girls won all of the finals, but the boys didn't even make it to any finals, causing us to lose the crown. But still, it was fun missing two lessons.


5. Dance yesterday was pretty good, actually. We did more stretching and strengthening, and Hannah and I took some photos.

6. On both Wednesday and yesterday I went to my friend Katie's house and helped her practice her flips and front hand springs. And I discovered how amazing the shutter speed changing mode on my camera is :D

7. I bought a new rubber ball, so now I can actually roll my feet out before ballet - score!!


And I think that's all for now, to be honest. This morning I had a bit of a relationship malfunction, but you know, you just get on with it. Have a good Monday!

Tunesday...

This song was released yesterday by former My Chemical Romance member Frank Iero, and I love it!

Think Happy...39/52...

I believe this is the first time I've missed the deadline for one of these posts, which is surprising, but inevitable. Yesterday I had to write an entire essay, which took all day, so it could be ready for school today. Oh well, the post is here now!


1. On Saturday at dance, Hannah and I had a mini spur-of-the-moment photoshoot. My favourite shot from the shoot is this one.

A not so nice part of pointe class, however, was that I forgot my ouch pouches, and dancing without them for fifteen minutes resulted in some pretty nasty blisters (my first ones from pointe in over a year though, so not bad going!).


2. Mural painting on Friday was a good substitute for lessons, and although the people I was with sucked more than a little bit, my friend Shane walked in to take photos so he made me smile a bit, thankfully. You've got to love the kind of people who can make you smile just by walking into a room.


3. My old school had its summer fete on Thursday and the squads from my dance school were performing, so I went to have a bit of fun with my friends and watch my other friends dance. I took a load of pictures, but I can't really show them because of child protection. One of my friends took this cute picture tho!

4. On Friday, I did a performance at Hannah's old junior school, which turned out great! She couldn't make it as she had had a terrible migraine all day, so I got a solo ;)

5. On Saturday I also danced at a carnival nearby, and it was awesome!

I think that's all for now! Hope you have a great week :D

You Prefer the Fake Me? Erm, Okay...

Recently I've had a lot of free time to think about things. Especially yesterday. We had an 'enrichment' day at school, meaning we were assigned activities we had to participate in. I was lucky enough to be given 'World War One Memorial Mural' along with four of my friends. It was an all-day activity, so that meant we had just over five hours of painting throughout the course of the day.

The murals had already been stenciled out, so we only had to paint them. I say only. We only just finished on time, and there were either eleven or twelve of us around the mural at all times. We chose one that was part of Winston Churchill's speech on a grey 'stone' background, and it had poppies around the edges. It looks fantastic now, except I don't have pictures to show, maybe in the future!

I set myself the task of helping to paint the background, which was a lot trickier than I anticipated. Myself and, I think, one of my friends had to sponge paint between the words and letters and avoid them completely, as someone had rather unwisely already painted them already. This took the entire time to complete, and was such boring work. I kept asking for help and luckily one or two of the other girls joined in, otherwise we never would have finished it.

This time spent painting was soulless, and the boredom near killed me. Don't get me wrong, it was sort of relaxing at the same time, especially in the beginning when we weren't rushing to finish it, and I love painting. But once the pressure was on, I started to get a little stressed out. At one point I was the only one painting the grey background. (This was when I kept asking for more help).

This is how I am. I get super stressed about the smallest of things, and 'the real me' was starting to show, maybe for the first time, at school. I could feel this and thought about keeping it in, but maybe I should have. I started to get the way I am around Hannah (who doesn't attend my school), which is more carefree but very stressy. Oh, how wise I was to let the real side of me out. *sigh*

At lunch, all of my so-called 'friends' decided that it would be a good idea to whisper to each other about me and bitch about how 'bossy' I had been earlier. I felt like walking off to sit with a group of girls I talk to in class. I felt so hurt. I know that I'm the least 'liked' in our friendship group, so normally I just sit there quietly and nothing is said about or to me. It's kind of nice, to be able to think things over like this.

That's the persona I put on when I'm at school. Quiet, studious and minding my own business. I had a lot of time to think yesterday, as I've said, and I came to the conclusion that everyone I know at school seems to prefer the persona I put on, the 'fake' me to the person I really am.

And that hurts quite a bit, actually.

The people I call my friends actually know nothing about me, and don't seem to care about this. Wow, my chest feels a little bit lighter now. I do have a couple of people I can talk to and who care, but it just feels nice to write this all out and clear my head a little. And I can rest knowing that none of these not-so-nice girls aren't going to be reading this anytime soon.

Tunesday...

I have no idea whether I've shared this song with you before, but I don't even care. Full stop. This extremely talented girl is in my year at school, and she has a lot of songs on YouTube. This is one of her older ones, but one of the ones she often performs in assemblies, and I love it so much! While you're over there, why don't you go watch some of her newer videos and subscribe for more of her great music? You'll be glad you did!

Also, she's recording an EP at the minute and it's awesome, keep up to date with it on her Facebook page!