Update

Twenty Fifteen

It’s the new year! It’s time for a fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning. That’s my favourite part about commencing a new year, and though it’s sad that most of wait until the clock strikes 12 to make promises to change who we are and/or what we do, it’s the name of the game. Society’s somewhat haphazard strategy, though, will never leave you feeling like you are alone as you begin to start anew. 🙂

My thoughts on last year? Well, 2014 was… an interesting year. There were definitely some momentous moments – good and bad. To be honest, there is something about 2015 that I’ve been yearning for, compelled by even, for months now. I feel like 2014 was a bit of a “blah” one for me, but 2015 is going to be a fantastic year, I can just feel it. I just know that this will be the year that I will make some huge steps towards who I’ve always wanted to be, whether it be in terms of my career, romance or just becoming a better, more complete person.

I’ve made a whole slew of resolutions for myself this year, some personal and some “standard,” but I think my most important resolution is to be a better me; to be the best me I can be (so cliché, I know, but it’s true). I vow to put in the time, effort and energy it takes to take care of my body, inside and out, nourish my brain, relax and enjoy time with my family and friends, be more spiritual & more positive, to let go of negativity, to procrastinate less, to be more proactive, to be more creative….the list goes on and on, because there will always be things that I can do differently to improve myself. Though, I’m always striving to be the best me I can be, ironically enough, I’m a perfectionist so I often get caught up in the details and don’t take a moment to step back and look at the bigger picture. Well, I’m going to try my very best to do that a bit more often, because life is short, and if anyone knows that, it’s me.

So, what else is on the list? Ha, this is where it gets a bit tricky. I’ve decided not to share my list with you this year…well, kind of. We all know that I am always full of hope,dreams and promises, but I usually can’t quite fulfil them. So, this time, I’m going to take a new approach. I’ve written a full (and very pretty, might I add) list of all the things I resolve to this year, and I’ve put it on the back of my bedroom door so that I can see it multiple times a day. Come the beginning of June, I will write a “mid-year check” post to let you know what I have accomplished so far, what I still have to work on, which ones I’ve forgotten about and whatever lies in between. I will also write a “final check” post at the beginning of December just to see how far I’ve come, because I always find progress of any kind, great to read and/or write about. Plus, it will serve as a sort of a diary for me to share how it’s going and to also serve as a form of constant motivation and a reminder not to quit when the going gets tough. It’s really easy to give up on resolutions, in fact, most people, if they’ve even made any, give up by about now, but I sincerely hope to keep them going all year and/or possibly longer, depending on the resolution. I guess we shall see come June, right!? 🙂

[caption id="attachment_1770" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]

Loving my iPhone wallpaper from Ashley Brooke Designs! It says “Let’s Do This!” and it’s exactly what I need to kick-start my year! 😀 You can download it from her website here. Oh, and if you’re wondering why I have Make It Happen written across the top of the page in the back, it’s my official mantra for 2015. :)[/caption]

As I was planning out my month, all I kept thinking was “I’m ready for you, 2015.” This is a bold statement to make, I know, but I’m actually ready for a ride (and, hey, one of my resolutions is to be more bold, so there you go)! I hope that this year brings my loved ones and I loads of good fortune in many, many ways, and I truly hope that the worst moment of the year will be something petty like “I only went to Canada’s Wonderland once” or “I didn’t buy that nail polish I wanted,” but who really knows. Regardless, I’m ready. Uh-oh,here it comes, another bold statement that I probably shouldn’t make…but…oh….it’s coming anyway….. 2015, do your worst.

So, what about you, friend? Did you make any resolutions? What is one thing about your life that you could change for the positive? Is it attainable? Let me know, I’m ready to read!! 😀

Here’s hoping you and your loved ones and everyone in the entire freakin’ world has a fantastic, safe, healthy and most importantly, happy year.

Oodles and oodles of love,
S♥

ps – if you haven’t guessed already, I was the luckiest girl in the world on Christmas Day 2014, as my parents got me a DSLR CAMERA!!!! WOOOHOOOOOO!!!! I told them exactly which one I wanted, told them when the best time to buy it was, and not to get me a single other gift. I literally told them to put every cent that they would to the usual group of gifts into this very, very expensive one, if they could. I didn’t think it was going to happen, to be honest, until about the middle of December when I saw a single box sitting under the tree for me and nothing else. Come Christmas Day, it was still the only box, and I knew….and within minutes, I was holding my very own Canon EOS Rebel t5i!!!! AHH! I’m still getting to know it and all of its amazing functions, so you may have to bear with me a little over the next few weeks. However, please know, that things are looking up in every way for us here at Beauty Bylaws! YAYYY! Thank you so, so, SO much Mom & Dad, you are literally the best parents in the world. Love you to the moon and back ♥

Paris for A Day

When my parents and I were in the booking process for England, I begged them to relinquish some time away from London. When they asked if I meant something like heading to Blackpool for a day, I giggled and told them, quite simply, no. In response to their muddled faces, I told them that I wanted to go somewhere world-renowned, somewhere magical and beautiful, somewhere fascinating and somewhere sophisticated with a great general sense of style and a groundbreaking arts & culture scene. Basically, somewhere we wouldn’t want to leave. After a very confusing and somewhat hilarious 10 minute conversation about where else I could want to go, I finally told them that I wanted to go to the one, the only, Paris. They laughed and I honestly don’t think they took me seriously, until my dad texted me from work telling me that I needed to cough up $57 CAD for the train ticket and that we’d leave at 7:06 AM on our first Wednesday there. Was I excited? No. I was ecstatic.

London Calling, Part 2: Exploring London & The M&M Store!!

When I went to London & Paris last month, I had no idea what I was in for. I had no idea that I would love it as much as I did, that I would really, really miss all of the amazing people I met or reconnected with, or that I’d already be planning a return. Today I’m going to share one of favourite days from when I was in Europe, the day my cousin Ashley took me around London. Unfortunately, the day that we decided to go, it was TERRIBLE weather…so get ready for lots of fog in backgrounds and messy, messy hair. However, despite the weather, I had an absolute blast with him, and it was really nice getting to see most of London’s major attractions on foot…because you could go right up to them or stand under them. It’s a pretty magical feeling in that city, and I’m going to share the magic with you!

London Calling, Part 1: Great Brittania & Random Awesome Moments

For those of you who didn’t know, my parents grew up and met in England. They were happy in England until they decided to come to Canada to have a better life and gain more career opportunities in 1990. Most of their friends and family members still live in England, save for my mom’s mom who lives in Grenada and a few people on my dad’s side who are sprinkled around the world. Every so often, we go to England to do a big tour of Greater London to see friends and family, but we hadn’t been since 2005. Thus, we decided to pick up and leave at the beginning of October, and we were there for just over two weeks. We didn’t get to see everyone, but we did a pretty good job of seeing most of the people we wanted to see and somehow balancing some touristy time in there, too. The tourist stuff was really more for me, as they grew up there, they already know the place! However, I barely remember the first two times I went, so I was really looking forward to taking loads of photos and actually being able to recall the people and places my parents talk about on an everyday basis.

I’ve been meaning to share some photos of our trip with you, but seeing as I took over 1700 photos in a 15 day span (WOW), it’s taken me a while to comprise a group of my favourites. However, we’re finally here! Again, due to the sheer number of them, I’m going to break this into two parts…just to save you and your computer from that frustration, haha! Anyways, without further ado, here are some of my favourite moments from my trip to London, in no particular order. 🙂

Beauty Bylaws 2.0

Well, well, well… look who finally decided to relaunch her blog? That’s right, it’s HERE, after months of waiting, waiting and WAITING…

Five months ago today, I decided to go on an adventure. I decided that after a very long time of not being happy with my blog; the way it looked, the general vibe, the content that I was creating, etc., that I was going to temporarily shut it down in order to completely revamp it. I was going to take some time to look at all of my options and come back a better, stronger, more professional blogger. I even decided to do something that most of my friends and family were positive and encouraging about when I asked them, and that is make the leap into self hosting. I knew that it would take a lot of hard work and determination to do it, and a fair bit of moola to go from the free to use and create blogging platform that I was with to doing it all on my own, but I was up for the challenge.

HA! If only I’d have known what I was in for the minute that I pressed the “Buy Hosting Services” button.

It has honestly been……a journey and a half. I had absolutely NO coding experience, no web knowledge other than the basics, and I had never used “<” to do anything other than to insert hearts into my text messages (<3). I was literally thrust into making every little decision myself, and I honestly had no clue how much goes into having a decent looking website. Hence, why getting this site relaunched has taken so much time! I’ve honestly missed blogging so much but this blog has looked horrible for ages. I worked with a dear friend of mine (hi Karthika, and thank you again) on the blog’s new logo (you like!? :D), but she had no coding experience, either, so after the logo was completed, I was on my own again. Learning HTML & CSS was by far the worst part of making this transition, because when you are learning, everything seems so complicated and confusing. I couldn’t even count the times that I thought I did something right and then I’d load a preview page and see that everything had gone wrong and panic. I have come a long way in these five months…and I am VERY, VERY pleased to present you, my lovely readers and friends, with this new site.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still by no means an expert, and there is SO MUCH that I am still not happy with (starting with that God-forsaken sidebar over there —–>GRR!), but I realize that I have to pacify my inner perfectionist. I have to constantly remind myself that it’s okay for things not to be perfect, it’s okay to make mistakes and fix them… because that is what life is about, the JOURNEY! It wouldn’t be much fun if I instantly knew everything about this stuff and could get my perfect site up and running in a heartbeat; it really wouldn’t. Because, yes, there was times that I screamed at my computer and threatened to throw my laptop out of the window (LOL), but there were also times that I made the smallest of changes and had a little happy dance in my room, and there’s been times when I’ve showed my parents or friends a sneak peek of the site and they look totally underwhelmed, because they don’t see the small LITTLE things that went on to make the larger changes that they see. And, do you know, what? That’s totally cool! So, yes, it’s been WAY too long since you’ve been able to peruse this site, and it’s been WAY too long since I’ve written a post, but I am pleased that I did it. It’s a scary decision to make when you literally have no idea what you’re getting into, but sometimes those are the most rewarding risks. All of the conversations that I’ve had with people about this undertaking have been roughly the same…
Me: “yea….so I’m revamping my blog. I went from Blogger to Wordpress a couple of months ago. It’s been hard.”
Them:”Are you doing that with a desginer??”
Me: “Nope, on my own.”
Them: :O 😐 😐 :O 😐
…and I used to find that so unbelievably discouraging. But, on my recent trip to England (which, GIRL, we’re going to catch up on life, don’t you worry!!!), I was telling a family member about it and she said “wow. You must be brave!!!” and I jokingly said “yea, brave or stupid, one of the two…” and then I realized, yes, this is a huge undertaking and YES, I am brave and that I have to give myself a pat on the back! Most of my blogging friends or the bloggers that I look up to have hired a designer when they make a switch like this, but no, I decided to do it myself because a) it’s good knowledge to have for when I take my blog to new heights like I plan to and b) I don’t have roughly $2000 to give to a designer. All I’m saying is, sometimes it’s good to take the bumpy road, because when you get there, it’s so much more exciting and you feel much more accomplished.

Or maybe that’s what I tell myself to fall asleep at night following my routine mini panic attack regarding my very long hiatus, I don’t know. 😉

Haha, no, I’m just kidding. This has been an awesome journey and I am beyond thrilled to be back, with a site that works and is just going to keep getting better. You’re going to see a few more mini changes over the next couple of months, because, as I said, it’s still a work in progress, but I honestly couldn’t keep this site shut down any longer. The amount of emails that I’ve recieved asking if/when I’m coming back is TRAGIC. I am SO SO SO SOOOOOOOOOO sorry to have kept you all waiting but rest assured, I’m back and ready for business now! 😀

So, here’s where you come in, friend! I want you to take a look around, see what’s changed, what you think could improve and all of that jazz, and either comment below or send me an email at siobhan[at]beautybylaws.com (be sure to replace the [at] with the at symbol; this is just an anti-spam procedure! :)). Though this is my blog that has become my little baby in the last little while, I write this blog primarily for your reading pleasure and to interact with you, so I want to make sure that you like it, too! And there’s no judgement here, I don’t mind constructive criticism as long as the result makes us both happy!

Also, please, please, please spread the news that I’m back. I’m going to be tweeting about my return, so if you want to retweet my tweet, that’d be much appreciated. Also, if you could please share the news to your friends and family through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Snapchat, What’s App, and/or any social media that you use, or better yet, in person, I would be eternally grateful.

Furthermore, thank you SO much for bearing with me these last five months. You are the best audience, no, friends, ever. I love you so much.

I will be back very soon with another post! Ahh! That sure does feel AMAZING to say!

Much love,
S. ♥

Lifestyle Lowdown: The October Fiasco & More

Hey guys! So, I wasn’t kidding when I said I was back and in a big way! I’m here to stay! Woohoooo!

Anyways, as mentioned in my last post, quite a bit has happened to me in the last 9 months, and what better to share the gory details with you in a Lifestyle Lowdown post!?

I’ll start with the mundane stuff, then work my way into the bigger story and then finish off with some good news! Cool!? Yay!

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