July's happiness revolution

Happy 4th July everyone- if you can believe it's July with all the rain we've been having. Anyway, moving swiftly onto this month's good stuff... here goes!

1. Looking forward to a birthday surprise weekend away in Bournemouth I booked for the beginning of August with the BF. I planned it so we can make use of the free south-west train tickets I got through buying my annual season ticket, and so that it is in the middle of my two weeks off work.

2. My mum confirming my parents will be able to give us at least £5,000 towards buying a property next year.

3. A girlie university reunion taking place on Saturday night- we haven't been all together in about three years so should be super exciting!

4. Reading the 50 shades of grey trilogy; I treated myself to these as well as the first hunger games book from Waterstones last week when I got paid. At £23 they were kind of a treat for me and my bookshelf. It's been so good to get into a book again that holds my attention.

5. Quality time at the weekend with the BF, never before in our four and a half years of being together have we had this. Last weekend was so nice.

6. Two weeks off work at the end of the month.

7. A surprise job opportunity presenting itself to me last week, fingers crossed it pans out as I hope.

8. Making more progress using my DSLR camera manually. I need to keep practicing as my Aunt has roped me into taking photos of her wedding in November, where I'm also a bridesmaid :S

9. Completing another shoestring month within my allocated budget, and being one month closer to our/my? goal.

10. Listening to the sound of morning rain while dozing in the morning. 

I haven't been posting as regularly as I used to, primarily because I've been practicing my photography more than I ever have before. Over the long bank holiday jubilee weekend, with the weather rainy and a couple of free afternoons to spare I decided to learn how to use my DSLR camera properly- using the manual settings.

It had been annoying me that I wasn't able and didn't know how to create images like the ones I saw all over the photo sharing website Flickr. So I started exploring the site, looking at the settings people had used to take certain styles of photos, researching on the net water photography and started experimenting. Since, I havn't been able to put my camera down and its been holding my attention for most of my spare time.

If anyone is interested I've updated my Flickr page a lot recently, and I'm quite pleased with how its coming along http://www.flickr.com/photos/57811197@N04/. Since I've been learning how to use my camera I haven't spent too much money. However, the main things that have happened this month are as follows; the BF has started his new job (yay!) which means that he no longer gets free food at work and our food shop is a bit more expensive as a result. However, as he's been working nights (boo) I've been making extra portions of my evening meal, making a portion for me for lunch the next day and a dinner/lunch for him too. This means that I won't be able to siphon off as much from our joint account as I had been doing previously, but that we'll be better off in the long term :).

Next, whilst out on a media night (the freebie music quiz) myself and two others got a little carried away after a few drinks, and we ended up breaking my friend (and managers) kindle- eep! Its quite a long story and a little awkward for me but basically I think and hope that on Monday (payday) we'll chip together to buy a replacement for him.

Approaching payday and taking the kindle replacement into account I have £32.00 left over in my budget- I would have had £64 but hit the H&M sale. For £32 I got six tops/dress type things and a pair of every day wear- smart enough for work shoes. Though my clothing situation isn't extremely bad it definatley needed topping up. I only wanted to spend £14, but I spotted some cute dresses which were £3 and could resist buying three- think they call it stockpiling lol!

I need to buy my Dad some beers as a belated fathers day gesture and a gift bag for the freebie champage which I'll give my M&D for their anniversairy- hopefully I can put away around £25 which I'll put towards BF's b'day present, along with any spare funds from next months pay to soften the blow in August- until next time!