Book Spotlight: Discover the New You

Recently I was given the opportunity to review a book by Ceril Campbell called Discover the New You and I really enjoyed reading it. It's a book written by a stylist and in this book she aims to help readers transform their lives and personal style. Ms. Campbell has worked with many celebrities who have come to her for style advice and in her book she shares some of  that same advice with the rest of us. She shows you how you can feel special and look your best. Discover the New You is an excellent and effective source of advice on style and self-confidence.

The book is divided up into three sections. They are: "The Inner You", "The Outer You", and "Being Your Best You". I love that it's broken down into sections because it gives you time to contemplate each part of  'YOU'. I think it's great that the book starts out with the inner self, because I believe that that is where the true beauty resides. This book points out that there is space for inner beauty and outer beauty to coexist.  So I really love that this book takes us on a personal journey that starts inside.

In "Part One - The Inner You", it asks the reader to examine how they feel about themselves. This section offers the chance to do some self-assessment and to examine your life. This part of the book touches upon various subjects such as  relationship to food and self-esteem. The book is peppered with quotes throughout which add texture to the flow of the text.

In "Part Two - The Outer You", the book veers over into talk about the physical attributes, such as face shape, skin care, hair care, exercise, and fashion tips. Great advice is given on how to dress for your body type. I found this section very informative and full of practical advice. And it was a fun section!

In "Part Three - Being Your Best You", all of the tips throughout the book are brought together in a nice way. It's sort of like you've been on a journey with your fairy godmother and now she is sending you on to the rest of the journey with some parting gifts of advice!

I have a favorite quote from the book that appears on page 222. It says:

'You've soul searched in Part One of your journey, and learnt tricks to improve the physical you in Part Two. Part Three is all about putting yourself out there in your 'new you' mind and body and see who appears'  
- from Discover the New You

The book was a fun read and is written in an easy conversational style. There is so much information in between the covers and not enough room here to highlight it all. I hope you'll check it out for yourself!

If you'd like to purchase your own copy, visit: visit amazon.co.uk or amazon.com

Other books by this publisher can be found at: bookshaker.com

*Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book free of charge by the publisher. All opinions are mine.

Resilient Roses

I thought that I would share a bit of the back garden today. This is one of the big pink roses that is growing out back. It took a beating in the wind yesterday, but it survived. Please overlook a bit of my hand in the left corner of the picture!

I hope that everyone is having a great weekend! My book post will be next! :-)

Repair Sagas and Taking a Break

Hello there! I'm sitting here at the dining table as I tap away at my alive and kicking laptop again. Yay! :) As I look across the room I'm getting an interesting view...it looks like October outside. LOL. It's a kind of odd scene...we have a couple of pretty pink roses that are peeking into the window and most of the backyard is green, but it's all being battered by fierce wind and rain. It's been like this off and on for days and days and days. I know that it's scorching back home and I know how that grueling summer heat can be, but right about now I'd take a tiny bit because wearing wool coats and sweaters in June is just so wrong!!! LOL. It's all good though ;-)

Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm back in possession of my laptop and I'm finished with my exams. Yay again! So now my attention has been turned back to the business of running this house and giving some quality time to blogging. The latter is much easier because I'm here back in the blogging saddle, but the former is a mess! As I mentioned in my previous post, I was expecting a visit from a repairman the next day. Well, he and his assistant showed up after a month of wrangling with our landlord. Our landlord loves to NOT get things fixed and some may say, well that's just the way some landlords, not all are, but I say it's still not acceptable when we pay our rent for service and don't get it. The repairmen came to fix our hot water heater and to fix a faucet that was past the point of dripping and just running in a trickle that we couldn't fix.

So after explaining the situation to the middle men on a regular basis for a month, whilst I was trying to study for exams, we FINALLY got these two things fixed this week. In addition to this, we've also been trying to get our washing machine fixed and that is still broken a month later. Arghhhhh! Here's the craziness that is our landlord. These repair guys were sent out to assess things a couple of weeks ago and they were also asked to check to see if the lack of hot water was affecting our washing machine. So these repair guys reported back and told the landlord that the washing machine is a cold water intake and it has nothing to do with the hot water heater. However, our landlord didn't believe them!!!! What? So they sent out yet another repair guy and he goes back to report exactly what the other guys said...that the hot water heater had nothing to do with the washing machine. But the landlord was still not believing!!!! From experience with the landlord I can tell you that this was not truly due to his disbelief...this was good old-fashioned cheapness. We've been down this road before and I'll tell you, God willing, this is the end of the road for us at the end of our lease in several months. We are grateful to have somewhere to live, but we are past tired of dealing with this every time. No two day repair should take 4, 6, or 8 weeks! But don't worry...this won't be the end of the Yellow House by any stretch of the imagination, because the Yellow House for us is a state of mind and it's not about the structure. We will carry the Yellow House with us always!  :-) Plus, even though our experiences have been messed up, we will always have a soft spot in our hearts for the first house that we shared as a married couple...and that is something more powerful than any physical structure because it's about LOVE! And anyway, we've already decided that when we build our house in the future, it's gonna have to be yellow in some way...the Yellow House is just us...me and Brit Boy! :-)

So the middle men/property managers saw our side in this and have told the landlord that they are not upholding their end of our contract. This got the ball rolling...ever so slowly. But as I said we are still waiting on our washing machine to be repaired and I'm still breaking my back trying to wash everything by hand...not fun! I'm just glad that the hot water and faucet are finally fixed. Maybe by the time of the Olympics we will have a washing machine again ;-)

And that's my mini vent about our ever continuing repair saga...the condensed version! Thanks for indulging me! I'm going to do my best to relax some this weekend and just forget about the washing machine. I also want to relish in not having to study this weekend after this long while. Woo Hoo!

Next time, I'll be back to happier topics. I'm going to share this great book that I've read recently. It was a fun read! And I hope that everyone has a great weekend! :-)

Short Post

Hello there! :-) I just wanted to stop by and say hi. I finally have my computer back and I'm finished with exams...Yay! I'll be writing a normal post in the next couple of days. I'm a bit behind with everything, so I'm gonna do some catching up today. Also I'm preparing for a repairman to come tomorrow, so I have to move some things around...long story. I'll share details of our repair saga in my next post...you know it's gonna be a marathon of a story...what else? LOL.

Anyway, have a great Monday and a great week and I'll be back with a regular post. I'm so glad to be free to blog again! :-) Thanks for visiting me!