A Quarter Of The Year

Welcome to a new post!

Can you believe that we are already 3 months into 2017? Wasn't Christmas like yesterday, and weren't we running around in shorts last month (yeah, okay in Australia and other hot countries you probably were, but you get my point 😃)?

To be honest with you, this blogpost is mainly happening because I didn't have any idea for a quick blogpost until like two hours ago because I was stressing over my maths exam that is happening on Tuesday. I nearly threw a fun quiz at you, but I had to realize that that can actually be slightly time consuming as well, so here we are. Let's do a life update, since I haven't done one of these in a while, because I have somehow stopped doing a monthly chat about what happened that month. Would you like me to start doing them again or would you rather just get a life update post every few months? Let me know. This blog is yours just as much as it is mine.

Writing

Writing wise, you could say it's been going pretty well. Some of you might remember that I have been working on a new novel since NaNoWriMo in November last year, and I can finally tell you that I finished the first draft! I finished it just a day after Valentine's Day, and I am so happy about it. It was a long process, but I am still not even close to the end. I managed to write way more than my 5,000 words each week, but now it's time to edit. To be honest, I have written about 7 or 8 proper novels in my life, but I have never edited one of them. Not that I didn't want to, but to me changing things about this beautiful (well kind of) piece of art just hurts and I keep putting it off. I already have some notes on things I want to change, but it took me until last night that I finally sat down and wrote something of the second draft. Let's hope I'll actually get my shit together and polish this beauty until it's perfect.

School

After having a slightly less school loaded time since the end of January we are now back to exam season, meaning that there's pretty much no week except for the Easter break that I am not going to spend studying for exams. That's annoying, but I know that in the end it'll be worth it. I will be more than glad when Maths is over until May once Tuesday is over. I'm going to fight through it, because I am looking forward to June so much, and I cannot wait to get out of there and do something different.

We're actually doing an internship during that time to have one last chance to get a feeling for what we want to do after our A-levels whilst we're still in school. Mine is actually a very exiting type of internship, and I am already so exited to finally tell you about it once we're a little bit closer to it, because you will definitely see a lot of and about it on my blog when it's happening. 😊

Exiting events in the future

Apart from that internship, I've got a whole other load of exiting events happening this year, which I am definitely going to share with you on my blog, because why not? Next month my internet bestie is visiting me and we are definitely going to have a lot of fun, I am sure of that. I'm also going to a Shawn Mendes concert with another friend, and I am sooo exited for that! It's going to be such a fun day, even if he'll just be a very tiny figure at the other end of the room. In the end the whole experience counts, not in how much detail I was able to see his hair. 😃 Me and my fam have also treated us to a Greece trip in the Summer break, and I am sooo ready to go there! I've always wanted to go to Greece, and somehow I actually managed to persuade them to go there - yaaaas!

Reading

I gave myself the goal to read 40 books this year, even though I know it's going to be busy as hell, especially towards the second half. So far it's going really well. I've read 11 books so far, and currently working on adding a 12th one to the list, with another one on my shelf waiting to be read. I'm also focusing on trying to do some wider reading right now, in case I somehow have a chance to actually apply and get into my dream uni, studying my dream course in Glasgow, and it's actually kind of exiting me in some way. I really want to spend so much more time reading this year, so if you have any suggestions, make sure to let me know, because I often get stuck on deciding what to read next! 😊

Future Plans

Talking about wider reading, it was also one of my New Year's Resolutions to finally figure out what I want to do after my A-levels. Well, that train actually started rolling a lot quicker than I thought, but I spend a lot of time googling and thinking, especially in January. I had been very indecisive the months before that between the areas I would like to work in, but for the past three months I feel like I might actually finally have found a plan. On the other hand, googling also made me throw the hole plan of the future around. I had actually been planning on doing a gap year as an Au-Pair in England for a few years, but now, I am considering different things.

I have actually found my dream uni course at the University of Strathclyde, pretty much the one I have always been joking about being the perfect one if that ever existed, never coming to mind that it actually might be an actual thing. The course is called 'English & Journalism & Creative Writing' and pretty much combines everything that I want from my dream course.

The only problem with that is that the Uni is in Glasgow, and both finances and Brexit might crash all of my dreams of ever going there. Winning around 6,000€ in the lottery would actually be very helpful with that haha. Not going to happen though, is it.. I'm still trying to find a scholarship for it that would offer me at least a small amount of money for all of the fours years of studying it, instead of just one of them. Otherwise, I don't know how I can make it possible before Brexit rises the yearly course price from 1,800 to 14,000₤ per year. The smallest problem for me right now is actually the application process, which is a lot more time consuming

and difficult than in Germany.  

Pray for me that I can somehow make this happen. I would absolutely give up my gap year for my dream course, that's how much I want it. If it won't happen, I am now actually considering maybe doing just half a year of Au-Pair and another half doing Work&Travel or something similar. I might do a longer chat about this whole situation in the future, if you were interested in that? Also, what are your plans for the future if you're still in school? Do you know exactly what you want to do yet, or are you still trying to figure it out?

Fitness & Health

I've had my ups and downs with fitness so far, as I am pretty bored of all the free programs and videos I have tried, but for now I think I have found my current go-to workout. I'm doing a 12 week plan in the Nike + Training app, and so far I am quite enjoying it, although I am sometimes struggling to find the time for it before exams. Eating wise, it could be worse but it could also be better. I am cutting out chocolate until Easter unless I am able to get my hands on a piece of nice cake from time to time, which is a way of stopping me from eating so much of my favourite muesli, which is not only filled with chocolate, but also a huge amount of sugar. I don't really feel like I am seeing many results right now, but that's okay. I ate a lot of shit when I was ill a few weeks ago, but sometimes you just need to let go of the whole health ban and treat yourself. 

To end this blogpost, here are some other impressions from the first three months of the year.

The cheese facing the wrong way is breaking my heart a little.

Can you tell I like taking pictures of my food? :D

What have been your own personal highlights of the year so far? Or are you still waiting for one? Let's chat! 😋

Have a good start into the new week! ♥

Love, Jacqueline Xx

How To Plan an 18th On a Budget

Welcome to a new post!

If you aren't aware, I recently celebrated my 18th birthday, and had a really lovely party with all of my friends and family. To be fair, it's actually been nearly a month since my birthday, which is absolutely crazy, nevertheless I still felt like doing a little - hopefully helpful to a few people -  blogpost on how to plan a birthday party like that, especially without spending more money than necessary. It's still not the cheapest thing, keep that in mind, but there are things that make it easier.

Planning a birthday party can be either very stressful, or pretty alright, considering how much you've got planned and when you start picking up your work. Which already leads me to my first tip...

TIME MANAGEMENT & GENERAL STUFF

Time management is the key to stress relief when you are planning a bit of a bigger party. Don't wait until a week before the day to start your planning.

I advise you to start looking for a location three to one months before the party is supposed to happen, if you are not planning on celebrating at home or another free property possible to you. I know that may seem like a long time, but I actually saw some people struggling to still find a spot a month before the date.

I personally invited my guests around 3 weeks before the party to make sure that most of them would be able to come. Definitely don't wait to long, because otherwise there is a risk that a lot of people will already have plans for that day.

Also try to write down any ideas and plans you have got beforehand, so that you kind of half a plan of the things you need to buy and get done before the party.

We ordered dinner about two weeks beforehand. Definitely don't wait until the day because in case you are planning on wanting a huge stack of pizzas, not every place will be able to do that in time for you.

We bought decorations about a month before the party, but I guess you can even do that the week before the party, depending on your preference and time plan. Depending on how much you want to decorate and need to prepare, you should probably start around a day before the party. That way you easily notice whether anything is still missing and you need to get before it's too late.

INSPIRATION & DECORATION

This was probably my favourite bit about the whole thing, plainly because I just love everything that involves a little bit of creativeness, decorating and scrolling through Pinterest for hours. I know I keep saying this whenever I talk about finding any inspiration but again - Pinterest is the place to go. Not gonna lie, I've probably had a Pinterest board filled with birthday party inspiration since like Summer. Even if you just want to do little decoration or whether you are still looking for some foody ideas, you can find everything on there.

Shopping decorations is another fun part of it, although I do have to say that having your birthday around Christmas definitely makes it a lot easier because you can pretty much buy anything Christmassy and wintery.

I really recommend you go looking around any cheap cluttery stores instead, like 1€ shops. We made the mistake of making it the last place to go on our little trip, and we might have saved quite some money if we would have gone there first. There really is no need to pay 12€ on Amazon for a pair of beautiful, golden 18 balloons, because they sell them for less than 3€ in these shops.
They honestly have a lot of nice stuff, and considering that quite a few bits you will get you might not use again, it doesn't really make sense to spend too much money on it when you can get pretty stuff for really pretty money.

Also, if you have the possibility, time and motivation to do anything yourself, any kind of DIYs I definitely recommend you to do so.

I will link my inspiration board for my birthday HERE, if anyone is interested in seeing all of the ideas I have had. I have actually used quite a few of them, even though it ended up looking totally different to my first thoughts on how I was going to do it.

FOOD & DRINKS

Definitely don't wait to long with the food planning. Ask yourself in time what kind of foods you will need, what would be the easiest to get or make and if you could let any family members or friends make anything to add to it. Don't do everything yourself, because that will be way too much stress unless you are only planning for a small group of people.

Try everything to release some stress from it, because you will want to enjoy the day and not want to spend the day worrying about all the different things you need to bake and cook before the guest come, and still get ready at some point.

We personally ordered pizza even though that wasn't our dream option, but there was no way we would have been able to prepare so many snacks and cakes for the rest of the day and still make dinner. It's also easy and pretty much everyone likes it, and not too expensive either.

Pinterest also has some amazing things on there if you actually are looking into making a few things yourself. Definitely ask some people that might have an idea about it and plan how much you actually need so you don't end up with a hungry group of guests or way too much food left over.

Also, try and kind of plan what and how much you need concerning drinks. What do people drink, what would you like to try, how much do you need of which, are there any people that need certain things like non fizzy water or any other non alcoholic drinks for the drivers and kids?

Take into consideration, that there will always be a few people that won't end up coming and cancel last minute because someone's gotten ill or anything else. My dad likes to say that 10% usually cancel, if that helps anyone.

MUSIC

Not everyone might want music at their party or be really bothered about it, but I personally really wanted a really good playlist, without any music that I wouldn't enjoy. I literally only put stuff on there that I liked, and even though it now contains over 300 songs, I will be able to look through it and listen to it for many more years to go.

I can definitely recommend getting a free Spotify premium thingy for something like a party, because it's truly awesome, you basically have every song on their except for Taylor Swift, and if you don't want to spend any money on it you can stop the contract when the free part is over and still use it, just with those annoying adverts back in. But that's obviously up to you I guess.

FUN & ACTIVITIES

This probably won't be a point everyone is interested in, but I wanted to make sure that we would capture the day somehow and not make it get boring if people don't feel like chatting the whole night. I mean alcohol helps with a bunch of teenagers slash young adults, but there is always that one possibility.

I personally love photography, and so what I decided to do was not only bring my camera, but also get disposables. You can't re-do pictures, you can't look at them until they have been printed and they are sooo much cheaper than getting actual polaroid cameras. Sure, they don't have that cute frame, but if you wanted to you could still edit that on the pictures afterwards. If you want to save money though, definitely get these.

We had so much fun with them, and I really wish I would have gotten more than 3 cameras purely for the fun. A lot of these pictures would have been deleted on a normal camera, but let me tell you, they turned out so bloody awesome.

I also prepared some things for a little photo session with my actual camera, which you can easily make yourself or buy for little money, and it definitely makes it so much more fun to take pictures.

Activity wise I didn't prepare that much, but as we are all into playing card games at the moment, I made sure to have some there if anyone wanted them. Cards Against Humanity is also a nice idea, as long as you are not planning on playing it with your grandparents maybe, but I guess that's up to you haha.

SAVE, BUDGET & BORROW

Here are some other tips to save money for a party like that if you don't have the biggest budget. Put some money away for it a few months before the party, which you only use for that purpose.

If you only have a certain amount of money available for this, definitely budget. Try to make a list of how much you want to spend on food, drinks, location, decorations etc. And also try your best and stick to it. It doesn't always have to be the most expensive and beautiful decoration for it to be an amazing party. In the end it's not the decoration that counts but the night and the people itself.

Borrowing is also a tip. Whether it's just borrowing some bowls, decorations or extra tables that are needed - you don't have to buy everything! Especially with cakes and salads, you can also ask some people whether they would be able to make you something. It's not only time and money saving, but also is a slight stress relief for you. Don't be too afraid to ask.

I know some of these tips might have been obvious, but you never know who you might inspire and help with posts like this. You are free to leave any suggestions, ideas, tips whatever below and share them with us, obviously.

I personally really enjoyed planning that party, and even though I would never work in a job that includes party planning, it definitely made me want to organize a few more parties in the future...or just little get togethers.
It can be a really fun process if you do it right and do it with a smile on your face. It might get stressy and not everything will turn out the way you want it to, but remember that it will all be worth it in the end. Keep smiling, don't forget that. 😊

Have a beautiful week ♥

Love, Jacqueline Xx

Happy 1st Birthday!

Welcome to a new post!

I can't believe I'm actually typing this post already! Time has gone by so quickly, I can't even believe it. It feels like yesterday that I was preparing my first few blogposts to go up, yet today we are celebrating the first birthday of this blog! How? :o Exactly one year ago I published my first blogpost, welcoming you all to this new adventure.

I've owned a blog before, but never managed to keep it going as I wasn't only talking about things that I wanted to talk about, nor did I have the motivation to keep on writing posts. To be honest, I had that feeling a few times in this year as well, but I guess that's pretty normal. Everyone feels stuck at some point in their life, whether that's with school, work, friends, love, life in general or simply their hobby.

Leaving that aside, I've had the best time ever sharing my thoughts with you on so many different topics, and there are so many more on my list that I want to talk about in the future. I didn't force myself to write certain posts. Instead I posted the stuff that I felt like both writing and posting.

View numbers keep telling me what posts you guys love, which ones you didn't like as much, and which ones I definitely didn't promote enough. That is definitely a goal for the future year of blogging. I really need to get better at sharing.

I would like to say that I also want to write more posts in the future, but you should never promise anything on the internet, and with A-Levels getting closer and closer each month I'm pretty sure that's not what is going to happen. However, I do have so many fun things planned already for next year, and you will probably be bombarded with pictures and posts during those fun times, and I can't wait for you to see it. Not everything is fully secure yet, so I'm going to keep you on hold with that for a little longer, but if everything goes well in a few weeks I will be able to tell you about some cool plans for the next year! :)

One thing that has kept bothering me whilst owning this blog and blogging it away, is that I never feel like I engage with my readers enough. I've only gotten one comment on this blog the whole year, but I guess I can't blame any of you, and I am really not doing that. Please don't take this in the wrong way. Not even I comment 98% of the time when I read a blogpost, because I purely want to read and enjoy it. As my blog is still really small as well I can't expect that to happen.

Wow, I sounded so moody there, didn't I? I'm really sorry, I'm actually in quite a happy place right now. I haven't got any part of this blogpost planned, so again I'm just sprinkling it down as it gets into my head. I'm so so grateful that I have the opportunity to even share all of these thoughts and things that I enjoy and love with you. A few generations back I would have never been able to do this, and I don't know how I would've coped with all this inspiration and creativity wanting to burst out of my head. (To be honest, I probably would have found a way, but still.)

I'm so grateful that you guys read my blog, and that some of you actually keep coming back to it from time to time. Even if I don't know anything about you, I am so grateful that you take that time out of your day to read the words that I wrote. I've always loved writing, and I still do. I've always wanted to share my stories with people, and in some way this blog really satisfies that part of me and my childhood.

How crazy even is it that we now have the technology to share out thoughts with people that are thousands of kilometers away from us without needing to travel anywhere? We are so privileged, and we really need to be more grateful for it, as many negative sides there may be to it as well. We take it as self-evident (I hope that's the right word for it?), that we can do all of these amazing things, and that we don't need to read through a whole library in order to find an answer to our homework or have to travel somewhere to be able to chat to people all over the world and all that stuff.

Gosh, were is this leading, a few seconds ago I was still talking about this blog and you guys haha. Sorry about that.

Thank you so much to everyone who has read anything on this blog in the past year, whether it was one or a million times. Thank you for taking your time to read these weird thoughts that my head creates and makes me put down and publish for you. Thank you for giving me this tiny and cozy space on the internet and making me happy. I feel like my readers are my friends, even if they only listen. I can tell you whatever I want, and there's always at least one person that cares enough to listen.

Blogging has given me so much, and I feel so relieved that I no longer need to search for ways to share my opinions on things, instead I can share them with you directly. One day I might be looking back at this post and cringing at what I wrote. It's always that case anyway, isn't it? I'll probably be cringing about it by tomorrow, but whatever, that's life. Sometimes you need to put in a little cheese.

This one year has gone by so quickly. It feels like it passed in the blink of an eye, and now we are already off into year 2! So many things happened over this year, so many different blogposts and insights, so many pictures and words. Looking back, I don't regret any of them. Whether the post had 5 or 50 views.

Numbers don't always matter. My blog has currently been read a little over 2,8K times in one year. To some of you that might be such a small number, but to me it means a lot. I am thankful for every single one of them. This blog might be growing slowly, but who said big bloggers were able to pay their taxes etc from their blogging money after just one year of doing so? Zoella didn't become a huge blog from one second to another, nor did SprinkleOfGlitter or TheAnnaEdit.

Right now I am pretty happy with what I have achieved on this blog, and I never would have thought to even reach 1K views in a year, so that is pretty awesome. Who knows what will happen in the upcoming year of blogging?

There are so many possibilities, but we will all have to accept and live with whatever life throws at us. That's how life works. I have really been trying to work on that part in the past few months - accepting that things happen for a reason. There's a reason why you missed your bus this morning, because otherwise maybe you would've ended up in a car crash. There's a reason why you didn't do well on that exam, because maybe you need to stop thinking that you are too good to even study at all. There's a reason why you are having a bad day today, because there would be no rainbows without a little rain. What all of us need to remember at the end of the day is that:

(Source)

There's a reason why this is my favourite quote, and there's a reason why it was the inspiration for my blog name. It doesn't mean that I think my life is perfect and that I'm happy with everything that is happening in my life. I rather see it as a motivation to think more positively and remember that bad things happen in life, but there's a reason for that, and you need to make the best of it.

You've all probably stopped reading this already, right? :D Sorry if I bore you. I get a little carried away with my writing sometimes, but that's what you might get to see a little more often if you read this blog for a little longer. :)

As you are also part of this blog, because you are reading it, I thought it's only fair to share some 'numbers' with you. Here's a little recap for you. So here's a list of the most read posts:

1) Rituals Carpe Diem Shampoo Review

2) Girl Online On Tour by Zoe Sugg #BOOKREVIEWS

3) FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Danielle Peazer's Peace Eye Shadow Palette

Funnily, the number 1 post is actually one of my least favourite posts. I don't really know why, but you seemed to have loved it, so I guess I'm going to keep those reviews coming in the future. I love the other two posts in your favourites though! Great choice :D My favourite posts are all in the TOP 10 so I guess we pretty much agree in that case, which I'm really happy about.

Now let's talk about the least loved blogposts, you got to show some negative sides as well. Maybe someone actually would have liked this post and has just never seen it before? Think positively :D.

1) Beauty Wishlist

2) My Kindle Bookshelf Tour

3) 17 years, 17 places I have loved

Whaaat, I actually loved those Wishlist posts :o Wouldn't have guessed that, but okay good to know I guess. :D I'm not even going to try and bother to find an excuse why that happened. All three sadly are posts that took up quite a lot of time to write and edit. I'll take that into consideration on my future blogpost choices, and hopefully get an even better idea of what I will post about on my 18th :P

Let's talk about where most of my readers are from, as well, because why not? :)

1) USA

2) Germany

3) France

4) Russia

5) Ireland

I love that my readers come from so many different places, a few of them actually being on my list of places that I want to visit, so that is awesome! Also, these places are very different, so that's also lovely to see! :)

I guess you all must have enough of my talking that just won't stop. So I will try to keep this ending short, before we officially start into the second year of DANCINGINTHERAIN23. :D

Thank you so much for being part of this blog. Thank you for reading and thinking about what I am saying. Thank you for being awesome readers! Let's hope we'll one day be able to look back at this together and laugh about the good old times! I really hope you found joy in it, and will keep doing so. No matter what life throws at you, always remember the quote behind this blog name. Thank you for everything.

Have an incredible day!

Lots of love ♥

Jacqueline Xx