February Pop In A Box

Hey guys! I have just recovered from an outburst of giggles after I accidently wrote 'February Poo In A Box' for a title! XD (Am I even an adult?? hahaha). Anyhow 'childish' humour aside, it has been a while since I posted on my blog so thankyou to those of you who are still following me! I can't believe how quickly this year seems to be flying by... it's April at the end of the week, like what!? It is now Springtime and I am super happy that we've already been getting sunshine and longer days, and very soon we will start to see lots of flowers and wildlife! I'm so looking forward to the rest of this glorious season! What's your favourite thing about Spring? For today's post, I'm going to be showing you all the Funko Pop! vinyl figures that I received last month in my Pop In A Box subscription. Enjoy! 

Is this your first time hearing about Pop In A Box? If so... it's a monthly subscription service for collectors of the super cool & adorable Pop! vinyl figures produced by the brand Funko. There's so many awesome characters available, for almost every popular movie, video game or TV Series franchise (plus so much more!), and this can make it really difficult to choose which figures you want the most when it comes to buying a Pop! or two. And that's where Pop In A Box comes in! This fabulous subscription makes the decision for you, based on your likes and dislikes. When you sign up to the service, you have the option to select a thumbs up or thumbs down to all of the figures on their database, as well as being able to record any of the figures that you already have. Then each month, you can opt to receive one to twelve of your favourite figures at random. It's such a fun thing to do (who doesn't love surprises!?) and is the perfect subscription for any Funko fan! I've been receiving Pop In A Box for a while now and I really enjoy it! You can check out my previous post here. And without further ado, here are the three figures I got in my latest box! 

Considering I used this awesome Sonic The Hedgehog figure for my main photograph, I thought I'd talk about it first :) Seriously though, how photogenic is this figure!? It's so bold and eye-catching, and the colour is really vibrant. It just stands out against any background, and has such a simple yet fantastic design that I think it would look great on display in any room of your home. What do you guys think? Even if you're not much of a Sonic fan, you can't deny that this guy is cute! For me personally, this figure is so nostalgic, especially because of the fact that Sonic is holding one of the golden rings from the games! It reminds me of my childhood so much, and of my early teens. I used to LOVE the Sonic Heroes PlayStation 2 game. As much as I love Sonic, Knuckles the Echidna was my favourite character from the franchise so I'm kind of gutted that he's not included in this set/collection. Hopefully they release one of him in the future. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this figure! The Shining (1980) is one of my top ten favourite horror movies. It was one of the first few 'scary' movies that I ever watched when I was a teenager, and it has remained a firm favourite of mine ever since! Not only are the storyline and characters awesome, but the actors are also great too! Jack Nicholson did such an amazing job as the movie protagonist you see in figure form above, Jack Torrance. This Pop! vinyl figure looks so so much like him, it's epic! Something that I really like it about The Shining collection of figures by Funko is the design of the boxes. The front of the box on the clear plastic is designed to fit in with the movie theme, including spatters of blood and also the words REDRUM written in blood (which will make sense if you've seen the movie, I don't want to spoil it for you by explaining!). I didn't take a photo of this, however back in November I was sent the figure of Wendy Torrance (Jack's wife) and included a photo on that post; click here if you wanna check it out. I kinda wish that all of the horror characters that Funko released had a bloody box design like this, because I think it looks super awesome in my opinion. I'm really happy that I now have Mr Torrance to display with his Mrs ♥

So along with the packaging, the figure itself is very cool! I really like the way Jack's hair looks, and how much his entire outfit matches with the actual movie outfit. It would be perfect if the shirt on this figure was checked but it's only a minor detail so not a big deal at all. Another feature that I like on this figure is the colouration around Jack's eyes. Just like with the Wendy Torrance figure, the reddish-purple hue around the eyes gives the impression of stress and exhaustion, which very much reflects the character's demeanour/appearance in the movie. My absolute favourite details on this Pop! figure though have to be the splashes of blood on Jack Torrance's forehead and also the bloody axe. There's also some blood on the neck of my figure, which is a nice addition to the bloody look even though I'm not sure if it's intentional, and not a bad paintjob, haha. I like it nonetheless! I think the figures stance and the way he is holding the axe is an awesome finishing touch to the overall design. I wasn't too bothered about getting the figure of Danny (The Torrance's son), but I'm sort of feeling like I need him to join his parents :D Anyhow guys, have you ever seen The Shining? What did you think of it?

YAY! I was absolutely over the moon to find another horror themed Pop! vinyl figure in my February Pop In A Box. I am really wanting to up my game and increase my horror collection of Funko figures, after realising how little I had compared to the figures of  my other fandom interests. I love horror so much and so this really wasn't on, haha! I thought that these new 8-bit Pop! figures were super cool but none of the characters I'd seen in this collection had appealed to me. That was until I spotted Freddy on the Pop In A Box website and freaked out a little! I was considering just purchasing it separately, rather than waiting to see if I get it one day with my subscription, but I had lots of more important things to spend my money on last month. However, my prayers were answered and I got him anyway :p 

The 1984 movie, A Nightmare On Elm Street is literally my third favourite horror ever (although it's technically the third movie in the franchise but still!). I just love the villain, Freddy Krueger! I pre-ordered the original Pop! Vinyl version of Freddy from Pop In A Box back in October and I'm still waiting for it to arrive... (ugh), so that's partly why I was so happy to get this guy! One Freddy is better than no Freddy or something like that XD The best feature on this 8-bit Pop! for me is actually Freddy's hat! I think it's brilliant how a simplistic, plain brown hat can look so cool. Gotta love the pixelated look! I like bold the colours of Freddy's iconic jumper, which a lot of people mistake for being red and black. The only downside of the 8-bit style is that Freddy's trademark glove of knives is not very eye-catching. I mean, you know what it is supposed to be if you know the character, but the design isn't great. I don't know what they could have done to improve it though, whilst still sticking to the overall design theme. I'd love to know what you think of this version of Mr Krueger. Let me know in the comments.

So, those are the Pop! Vinyl that I received in February :) Out of all three figures, my favourite is definitely Jack Torrance from The Shining. Usually I can choose a firm favourite straight away, however with this particular subscription it was pretty hard for me to decide! There's something I really love about each of the figures, and I'm very glad that they have now joined my collection! I think these characters are all very photogenic too, which is fab! It is also very rare that I get all three figures arriving in near-perfect condition as far as their paintjob is concerned too!  I'm gutted that from this subscription onwards, I've had to reduce the amount of figures I receive each time to one, because I really need to save as much cash as I can. I'm heading to Portugal in five weeks, omgosh! Well, I hope you all enjoyed my post. My next Funko-related one will be up in about two weeks time :)

Thankyou for reading! 

♥

Which is your favourite Pop that I got?

Have you bought any Funko Pop! figures lately? Or any other collectibles?

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I can't even think of a title...

Okay, so this has been a really difficult post to even consider writing. I have been trying to work myself up for weeks, months even, to at least attempt to write it up but it's been so tough. I'm typing this now and I'm not even sure if I am going to post it in the end. But here goes! If you are a regular reader of my blog or you follow me on social media, you'll have either read that I've been going through some tough times so far this year, or that I have been struggling to maintain regular activity online. I have only managed to post 10 times over these last few months and in some of these posts, I mentioned that I've been dealing with 'family problems', and I know that this has been really vague. It was much easier to 'round up' the things that I've been going through as family problems: 1) because they are relating to my family members and I don't feel like it would be fair to talk about their personal lives on my blog without their permission, & 2) because for something's, it has been too much of a challenge to write them down. By doing so, I would be triggering myself and bringing up emotions/feelings that I was already constantly struggling with, which was the opposite of what I wanted to do when I was blogging or online in general. I wanted the internet to be my escape, my respite from what was going on in my everyday life. So I avoided talking about what was going on.

However, I feel like now might be a good time to open up about the thing that has caused me the most heartache and stress, because I feel like I am finally mentally ready to talk about it. I know that there are lots of people out there who have gone through similar things and also others who like me might have been keeping their feelings and emotions bottled up or hidden in some way, so me writing about it could be helpful to them. I'm hoping it will be helpful for my own wellbeing to write it down too. I don't have any idea how the rest of this post is going to pan out, but I feel like now would be an appropriate time to include a content warning, just in case the subject is going to be triggering to some of those reading it. In the rest of today's post, I am going to be talking about cancer, and about my personal experiences of dealing with someone I love going through it. 

At the beginning of December 2017, my mom sat me, my dad and some of my siblings down and told us she had to tell us something. I wasn't sure what to expect but I really wasn't prepared for what she did tell us. My mom has been poorly for a long time, she is a fellow spoonie and has several chronic health conditions, but on top of those, for quite some time she had been experiencing other symptoms that were causing her a lot of pain and discomfort. In the second half of last year, she had finally gone to see a doctor about these symptoms and had to undergo various tests to find out why she was suffering from them. After having an endoscopy test, which involves a long, thin tube with a camera on the end being inserted down your throat and into your stomach, it was discovered that my mom had stomach ulcers as well as the presence of telangiectasia (also known as spider veins). It is a routine procedure that whenever you have an endoscopy test, like when I had my colonoscopy tests when I was being diagnosed with IBS,  that they take biopsies of whatever area they are examining. So my mom had biopsies (basically taking a small sample of tissue from your body) done and at the end of November, we were waiting on the results to come back on these tissue samples. 

And so it was a very hard time for us all when these test results came back to reveal that cancerous cells had been found in my mom's stomach. I couldn't quite believe what I had been told, the words seemed to blur in my mind. I couldn't process them for quite a few days and I essentially experienced a state of dissociation for a while. It wasn't until I spoke to one of my best friends about it around five days later that it really became real for me. Then like I do with most things, I coped with it by looking at what I'd been told in a scientific way. I already had a good knowledge of cancer from my studies at university and I am very interested in medical science so I had read quite a bit on the subject. And even though it may seem like I was detaching myself from the situation by thinking about it in this matter-of-fact kind of way, it was actually really helpful for me and it is how I coped with what was happening. This is also the way I cope with my own mental and physical health conditions too. It didn't mean that it was any less hard for me to deal with, but it just made me feel less panicky when I got upset about everything. 

After we were first told about the presence of cancerous cells, we discovered from further tests that my mom had stage 3 cancer, which means she had a tumour in her stomach and that cancerous cells were also present in the surrounding lymph nodes. These are glands around your body that make up the lymphatic system, which is a very important part of your immune system. For example, we have lymph glands in our throat which swell when we are ill with a cold. Very soon after we learnt this, my mom had to start chemotherapy. 

Chemotherapy is a very tough treatment to watch a loved one go through. It is a very strong medication that's job is to kill the cancer cells, but at the same time it destroys other cells in your body that are healthy and this can cause all sorts of symptoms for the patient. This is why the majority of people having chemotherapy treatment lose their hair and also experience painful skin conditions. Your immune system is very much affected by chemo too so you can get seriously ill from something like a flu or stomach bug. There are several types of chemotherapy, the most common involves the medication being given to the patient via an intravenous infusion (a tube called a cannula, which is connected to a vein in your hand, neck or chest), or through tablets. My mom's treatment included a mixture of the two types of chemotherapy. 

After several months of being on chemotherapy, my mom became very sick and had to be taken to hospital. She had gastroenteritis and also her chemotherapy has having an adverse effect on her body, and so she had to be treated in hospital for a few days. It was decided that my mom would be taken off the chemo early and be put forward immediately for her operation. We found out that the chemotherapy had still actually helped so that was wonderful news! 

Yesterday, my mom was admitted into hospital in preparation for her surgery, which is happening today. It is a very major surgery, because it involves removing almost her entire stomach (around two thirds) and all of the local lymph nodes. She will be in hospital for at least the next two weeks and it can take up to whole year to recover completely. I don't really know what else to say, other than I am feeling very stressed waiting to hear news from the hospital. I just wanted to get out everything that I've been holding in for the last four months. I hope this post is helpful to anyone who is going through the same thing right now. Thankyou to everyone who has still been reading my blog and chatting to me on social media, even though I've been very distant and haven't been spending much time online. It means so much to me, more than words can say ♥ 

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Pusheen Box Winter Edition | Review

Hey lovelies! How is it already March!? Seriously though, January felt like it lasted for several months and then suddenly we are three months into the year! Time is flying by lately for me and it feels like I don't have enough time to get things done! Is anyone else feeling the same? It's not all bad though because it means that Spring will be upon us before we know it, and we'll have more sunshine, longer days (a big yay for extra blog photography time!) and ALL THE FLOWERS! I can't wait! I thought it was about time that I blogged all about my Winter Pusheen Box before the season is through. Especially since last year, I didn't even get around to showing you all my 2016 Winter Pusheen Box, oops! So without further ado, here is a look inside one of the best subscription boxes ever! If you love cats and cute things, this is a post for you :) 

I'm sure that most of you will have heard of the adorable grey tabby cat that is Pusheen by now, even more so with the recent collaborations Pusheen has done with the store Primark! What some of you may not know is that the company who make Pusheen products also offer a quarterly subscription box. So, every season you can sign up to be sent a big box filled with the most adorable Pusheen products!! It is such a great box, containing high quality items that are also super useful. I have found with so many other subscription boxes that there are always a couple of items in the box that I personally either don't like or wouldn't know what to do with. However with this box, every single item is fantastic! Something that can put people off about this subscription is the price, but what you've got to keep in mind is that it's a seasonal box so you are actually paying a similar price to what you'd be paying over three months for a box that you get through your door every month, just in one lump sum.. if that makes sense :D The quality of the products makes it very worth while as well. Anyhow, you can see for yourself :) Here's what was inside my most recent Pusheen Box... 

Eeeeee! Just look at all of these AMAZING items! Something that I adore so much about Pusheen products is that they always come in pastel colours *x10 heart eyed emojis*. I just love the kawaii pastel aesthetic and it will go perfectly with the way I have planned my bedroom. You always get lots of products inside each Pusheen subscription box so it feels like you're really getting your moneys worth, and this one contains nine fantastic things, including: a sweatshirt/jumper, a USB powered mug warmer, a head massager, a winter themed ceramic mug, some very cute festive sticky notes, some USB powered 'fairy' lights, a set of pin badges, a mini plushie and lastly, a Pusheen vinyl figure! Which of these items sounds most appealing to you? Keep reading for a closer look! 

Another thing that is just so fabulous about the Pusheen Box is that it always contains a wearable item of some sort, and I am super thrilled whenever I discover that there's going to be a jumper inside! Usually Pusheen Box reveal a little snippet of one or two of the products that are going to be included, via emails but also on their social media. Because of this, I already knew to expect this! I really really love the colour!! It is one of my very favourite shades of blue, and it has to be the cutest Christmas jumper that I have ever seen! I love the fair isle inspired patterns and of course the adorable cartoons. They have even added Stormy with a candy cane in hand (Stormy is Pusheen the cat's little sister). It is great that the company also have clothing that is available in several plus sizes, VS literally all other subscriptions that I've ever got. I'm totally gonna wear this all year round; I don't care that it's Christmassy, it's too cute not too! 

Every Pusheen Box comes with an exclusive vinyl figure, that is designed to match with the theme of the box. They are a lovely addition, especially for me as I am pretty obsessed with vinyl figures! I love the interesting designs that they come up with, and I like that this one is Christmassy but then also not too. I mean those could be seen as festive lights, fairy lights or as those pretty pompom on a string banners. I like that Pusheen is winking, like she's gotten into a box of string lights that she's not supposed to. I also really like that they are pastel coloured. I'll share some links to my previous Pusheen boxes at the end of this post so that you can have a nosey at the other vinyl figures I've been sent :) 

You can never have too many mugs, right? (Even though I have enough now to open my own café, haha!). I love that despite the fact that this is a winter subscription box, it includes only three festive items. As much as I love Christmas and having Christmassy items to use around the holiday, it is pretty refreshing to receive items that can be used through the year. Usually subscriptions that arrive in December/January are filled the brim with Christmas goodies. Not that that is a bad thing, it's just cool to get a variety. I like the subtle dusty pink shade of this mug, and it's also a great size. Perfect for making those obligatory winter hot chocolates with all of the mini marshmallows you could want! This mug is great quality and microwavable too. 

Oh my goodness, I cannot get over how flippin' cute this plushie is! With the 2017 Autumn Pusheen Box came the first ever mini plushie to be created for the subscription (it was so sweet too!) and I thought it was going to be a one-off thing. So you can imagine my delight when I opened the Winter Pusheen Box ox to find this!! I definitely would not complain if we got a plushie in every single box! I love the previous plushie, but I certainly prefer this one. I mean, how can I not!? It's wearing a mini jumper and woolly bob hat.  It's made from such a soft material and is another really well made product. I think this might be my favourite in the entire box to be honest!

I think it's such a brilliant idea for them to include a mug warmer in a winter themed box! I have been considering buying one for ages now but I just couldn't find one that I liked. I am definitely in need of one because I am forever making a brew for when I'm blogging or watching a movie/show on my laptop and then getting so distracted that I let it go cold :( But Yayy! I now have this amazing Pusheen one that is both very useful and will look pretty on my new white desk. I'm looking forward to putting it to use :) Pusheen Box packed another great USB powered product into this box, these colour fairy lights! They are labelled as colour changing and I am excited to try them. They are gonna be great for draping across the top of my laptop to make it look all adorable and fancy :) They are a lovely unique item to receive, and I love multi-coloured things! The other Christmassy product I got, besides the mug and jumper, was this lovely sticky note set. I like that they are designed with enough blank space to jot a note onto them, which is not always the case with mini sticky notes like these. They are small enough so that I can use them in my Filofax planner too! 

Okay no, the plushie is sooo wonderful, but these are also my favourite items! I LOVE LOVE LOVE these pin badges! They are so pretty and well made and colourful. I would have been over the moon with one pin, and I got four!! I very much like bold outlines of the pin badges & the pastel shades. I can't decide which of the two cats I adore more. Which is your favourite? The little star one is just super sweet! I really like the presentation card too. I am so happy with these gorgeous new additions to my ever-growing pin badge collection. 

I ALWAYS forget to photograph one of the items up close, sorry guys! I also got one of those metal head massagers that I think look like some sort of mild torture device! I can't be the only one? hahaha! Also this is another practical product to receive, I'm not gonna lie, it's not going to be something that I personally use. I might re-gift it because it is really awesome with it's turquoise handle topped with a Pusheen figure :) These massage tools are supposed to be nice for relaxation so I can imagine that lots of fellow subscribers were glad to find this inside their own boxes. 

Overall, this subscription boxes was just as fabulous as my previous ones from Pusheen Box have been, and I will continue to subscribe to this box for as long as I can afford too. It is such a delight to receive every three months or so, and forever impresses me with the creativity and design that goes into it. I love that so many of the items I receive are marked as exclusives, which means that they are made specially for the box and cannot be purchased elsewhere. It makes it even more worth the cash, and you get much more than what you pay for too. I hope you've all enjoyed checking out what I got inside my Winter edition of this subscription box. It's not gonna be long before my Spring one is here! I just saw a 'sneak peek' of an upcoming item so I'm very excited already :) 

Thankyou for reading!

♥

What was your favourite item in this Winter Pusheen Box?

Do you subscribe to any monthly/quarterly subscription boxes?

I'd love to hear all about them in the comments!

As promised, here are the links to my previous boxes if you fancy a read?

| Autumn 2017 Box | Autumn 2016 | Summer 2016 | Spring 2016 | 

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