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You might remember at the end of June, I wrote about an exciting project that I’d been working on for a few weeks, and couldn’t wait to tell you more about? Well, the time has finally arrived and I am so excited to share it with you all! For the past few months I’ve been spending any spare time I could find, sat in front of my computer and notebook (I have three notebooks now, just in case you’re wondering), planning, writing, building, editing and tweaking a brand new website called The Nod Magazine. It’s an online vegan lifestyle magazine designed to make vegan living more fun, tasty, simple and sexy

It goes against everything that I am about, but my health is more important than making sure I wake up early at the weekend, and don’t spend the morning in bed. For a couple of weekends I found myself watching vlogs until around 11am before getting on with my day, and then feeling guilty about wasting time when I could have been cleaning or doing something productive – even though I love watching vlogs. You give so much of yourself to other people during the week, the weekend is a time to focus on you – make sure you’re making yourself happy, and don’t expect too much from yourself. Whether it’s a meal you can’t cook during the week due to kitchen constraints, making plans with a friend for coffee and cake, enjoying a leisurely breakfast of croissants or treating yourself to a takeaway – make the weekends all about fun food.

It was that morning in April that I felt it was still time to wear my big winter coat, with the deep pockets and woolly exterior, and not a light jacket. If I hadn’t been so afraid of the cold that morning, I’m sure I would have ended up sleeping at a neighbours house, unable to cancel any of my cards, feeling unwelcome and intruding and restless. Instead I had been able to go home and hang that heavy winter coat up, thankful that the weather had changed everything for me. These two polaroids are from a trip we took in 2012, and we’re planning another road trip in the next couple of months – one that will start in Texas, but probably won’t include a Ford Mustang (although I’m sure they will try and appeal to our inner tourist and offer a reasonably priced upgrade).

I thought I would put together a little round-up of products that I love at the moment, from make-up to moisturiser, hair products to lipbalm. Shea butter is a fantastic moisturiser; when I’m sitting in bed watching something, I’ll melt it with my fingertips and moisturise my hands and feet for a few minutes before I go to bed. I’ve been loving Lee Stafford’s Hair Growth range! Sadly the shampoo & conditioner aren’t vegan, which I only learnt after I had purchased them, but the scalp scrub and scalp serum are, and I’m really enjoying those products.