It's September and as a recent graduate, it's the first time in my living memory that it wasn't back to school month! That being said I am working almost full time so my reading time has diminished a little since lockdown. So anyway what did I read this month? I feel like I've been stuck in a bit of a reading slump lately but I'm most definitely out of it now! I only managed to get through one book in the whole first two weeks of the month and then ended up finishing 5 in the space of a week which really spurred me on to get some more books read in the latter half of the month. In total, I ended up reading TEN books this month which I'm super happy with! In case you're new to my reading wrapups I just like to share a little bit about the books without giving you any spoilers and some thoughts on them from your truly. I hope you enjoy and are inspired to pick up some of these reads for yourself!
I bloody love receiving cards and letters and my absolute favourite place to buy cards is on thortful. Thortful is an online marketplace where you can support local independent creators of celebration cards and they have such a fun collection. This isn't even an ad I literally just LOVE thortful!
I've been using thortful for years and I've also been recommending it to friends for years but somehow I've never actually done a post about them so I decided that now was the appropriate time to rectify that! I've literally sent my friends so many thortful cards that I'm now starting to receive them back! I posted my aff link on Instagram one time and it's by far the most popular one I've ever posted so you're most definitely in for a treat!
One of my favourite things about thorful is the range of style of card like there's an opportunity to customise your card by sending it with a chocolate bar, a make your own cake kit, or even a pair of socks which is something that I've availed of for friends birthdays when they've been away at uni and I won't see them in person. You can order them to your house and send them on or you can customise and write them online and get them sent directly to their recipients, you can even store your friends birthdays in a calendar and it'll remind you to send them a card.
There are literally so many cards to choose from but I thought I'd share a selection of some of my favourites with you just to give you a little taster of all that thortful has to offer!
Autumn is my absolute favourite time of year. I love nothing more than being able to break out my jumpers and my scarves and drink pumpkin spiced things and eat apple spiced things and frolic among the falling leaves and it's honestly just such a fun time. I also love curling up, wrapped in my blankets and getting stuck into a good book! Here are a few recommendations that for some reason or other give me cosy/fall/autumnal vibes some being more tenuous links than others.
It's a truth universally acknowledged that I'm a tad obsessed with Denmark (it's probably bordering on unhealthy). I have Copenhagen practically everywhere you look in my room. I'm even reading a book right now which is set in Copenhagen like it's properly my favourite place in the world. So I thought to myself, what better use of my time than to properly knuckle done and try to learn some Danish!
I went to a specialist language school so we learned French, Spanish, and German for three years in school so I'm no stranger to learning languages. I even taught myself Italian a few years ago at the height of my Il Volo obsession but I've since forgotten most of it, though I've definitely retained the absolute essentials. I also watch so much Spanish TV I'm surprised that I'm not fluent yet!
I recently decided to upgrade my laptop from my 2017 MacBook Air to a 2020 13" MacBook Pro because while I hate to be that person who claims that expensive laptops are essential, for my way of life and job and freelance things my air just really wasn't cutting it for me anymore and I needed more memory and a better processor so I dropped the huge amount of cash and I'm still a little sad about it. "But Alice, I thought this was a review about AirPods" I hear you ask and you would be correct because as I got education pricing it also came with a free pair of AirPods. Now I would never normally drop £150 on a pair of earphones but since I was getting them for free I was not going to say no! Before I begin I'm not a tech expert AT ALL so this is definitely not a professional opinion, just some thoughts from little old me.
This Saturday (5th September) is Digital Detox Day which is a campaign run by mental health charity IAMWHOLE founded by Jordan Stephens from Rizzle Kicks in association with Zoe Sugg (both of whom I love) and it's an initiative all about taking just one day to switch off our devices and spend 24 hours away from the hustle and bustle of social media and I am personally SO FOR IT!
A few months ago I actually had a digital detox day myself when I was just getting so overwhelmed by the noise of social media that I switched off my devices for 24 hours and it was honestly the loveliest time. I wrote a post on my experiences here.
I'm so excited for this project because digital detox days are something that I definitely don't take enough of but as my entire livelihood is online sometimes it can be hard to step away from that and relinquish control but I always find it so worthwhile every time I do. I've also taken to leaving my phone upstairs whenever I'm downstairs which is a really simple change that you can make to become less reliant on your devices.
There are different ways to go about this. Some people may just want to not go on social media, some might just switch off their phone or some may want to just fully unplug all of their devices. I fall in the last category because I find the temptation of social media too strong even when I'm just watching a movie on Netflix (I've literally checked my socials about 20 times while I've been writing this post) but you can do whatever works for you!
As part of this Digital Detox Day initiative, IAMWHOLE has been hosting panel discussions and Jamie Laing said a really interesting point which has really resonated with me so I just wanted to share it with you all. He said that we follow people of social media who we think are better than us and that's so true! No matter how uplifting and positive we try to make the content that we create and consume, the main reason why we decide to follow someone is due to how much we enjoy their content in a way of "that's so cool!" or "I could never do that" and that's such a dangerous mindset. I love my Instagram feed and I love all of the accounts that I follow but even then you can end up comparing your life to someone whose life you don't even know!
I was initially so ready for this but then I realised that Saturday is my Granda's 90th birthday party and I'm going to want to document it and I'm going to want to do this and do that but I realised that there's really no better way that I can celebrate my Granda than by just being there and being present. I'm bringing my camera with me anyway so I'll always have those photos and I can just update everyone on that the next day!
So how am I planning on spending the rest of my digital detox day? I want to read some more, I've been reading a lot lately anyway but being fully free from distractions just really helps you to get lost in the story. I'll also see if my family are up for playing a board game because that could be fun! We've also just been gifted a new jigsaw so I can see myself giving it a go as well. The possibilities are endless!
If you're big into your baths (I'm not!) Zoe has also released a bath bomb with Lush with profits going directly to support mental health charities so that's another great way that you could spend your day.
You can see more about Digital Detox Day in this video produced by IAMWHOLE and I highly encourage you to participate if you can!
