My Favourite Posts of the Month: August Edition

It's time for the second instalment of the new feature I started on my blog last month. This post is dedicated to sharing the love and letting my fellow bloggers know how much I admire their work. I have chosen another seven posts that really stood out to me in August. Definitely go and check them out :) If you didn't catch the July Edition, find it here. Enjoy! 

All of the other photographs used in this post are taken by the bloggers mentioned. I share their photos so you can get a glimpse of the awesome post it's came from. Be sure to read their posts, too! 

The first post that I really enjoyed reading in August was by the lovely Tara over at Cattitude & Co, and was all about '6 Important Lessons To Be Learnt From Friendship Breakups'. As someone who has also had to say goodbye to a close friend this year, I found it somewhat comforting to read about Tara's experiences and thoughts on friendship breakups. They are honestly so hard and it was good to be reminded that I'm not the only one who finds it a challenge to move on and to forget. 'Quality over quantity' is also something that I have definitely learnt over the years, especially struggling with both physical and mental chronic conditions. It's more important to me to have a couple of amazing friends who I know I can rely on and who accept me for how I am. 

I just loved this post by the fabulous Leah from x Love Leah x featuring her 'CowCow Kawaii Ghosts Plus Size Dress'. It accompanied a photo that Leah shared on her instagram, and as soon as I saw it, I fell in love with the dress!  As a plus size woman who absolutely adores kawaii culture, it is so disappointing that I've never been able to find really cutesy prints on dresses that will fit me. Even when I have found kawaii dresses in my size, the print usually stretches when I put it on and so doesn't make the print look the best. I'm so happy that Leah brought this dress to my attention, that I literally bought it on the same day I saw it. It looks great paired with the pink cardigan, too. I wore my new kawaii ghost dress to Manchester Pride last weekend and I love it, so thanks Leah! 

Another post by the wonderful Nicole Marie from Thrifty Vintage Fashion has made it onto My Favourite Posts of the Month again! I seriously just love her blog so much! One of Nicole's posts that I found really inspirational this month was on 'What It Feels Like To Be An Outsider'. I'm so very proud of you Nicole for writing this post ♥ 

Bullying and loneliness are both really tough things to talk about, and I found your words so relatable. I experienced a lot of feeling lonely when I was growing up because I was interested in things that my peers were not and I had to adapt myself to fit in with my friends, to keep my nerdy hobbies to myself. It wasn't until I met my best friend that I knew people would love me for me and that there were lots of fellow dorks out there :) You're an awesome person, and there will be lots of people in your life who will love you for your quirkiness and won't care about your mental illnesses. Be you unapologetically! That goes to all of my lovely readers too, you are all wonderful people! 

The next post I want to mention to you all is by the awesome Joe over at Northern Blood. I don't know many people that didn't watch the new original Netflix series, Stranger Things, last month, and Joe's post '12 Questions Stranger Things Needs To Answer' discusses stuff that we were probably all thinking as we watched. Like so many others, I was pretty excited about Stranger Things! I wasn't expecting to like it all that much to be honest, just because it seemed to have a lot of sci-fi elements and well, sci-fi isn't really my thing. However, like pretty much everyone else, I was hooked after the first episode! 

I binge-watched the series and was literally obsessed by the end of it. I loved Joe's post because reading it brought the series back to life in my mind, and even tempted me into having a re-watch of the final episode. It was nice knowing that I wasn't the only one with so many bloody quesitons haha. Bring on Season 2! Definitely check out this post if you enjoyed Stranger Things as much as I did. 

I first read 'A Life Long Stigma' by the fantastic Sammy from the blog Little Fickle when I was having a pretty bad mental health day. My depression was taking over, consuming my mind with thoughts of how much of a burden I am to people, of how much it must suck to be my friend and how much I feel like I would be better off not in everyone's lives.These may seem like extreme thoughts, but these thoughts are my reality almost every single day living with depression and anxiety. 

When I read Sammy's incredibly written post, it reminded me that I still deserve love and support, no matter how much gloom my illness carries with me. 'I've learned that people who can't handle my scars and the knowledge of my past, they aren't worth my time' - this line especially evoked my emotions, and made me for a moment feel unapologetic about this illness that is part of who I am, but not all of who I am. The people who can't look past that don't deserve to know the rest of me! Thankyou so much for sharing your words, they are so meaningful and helpful to read and it takes courage to post about what mental health is really like to live with ♥

Sarah in Wonderland is one of my absolute favourite blogs, so it's no surprise that another of Sarah's posts is being featured in My Favourite Posts of the Month. 'I'm not superhuman: not all disabled people can be paralympians' was such a fantastic post. Well said! It highlights how people are constantly comparing disabled people to one another. I can't list the number of times I've had people say to me, when I tell them about the restrictions that my health conditions cause, 'oh I know someone with that and they can still do X, Y and Z'. It's so irritating! It really sucks, the way the media separates the paralympians from other people with disabilities and causes the general population to form the opinion of 'well, if they can do that, everyone with that disability can'. They think that others are just lazy or don't put in enough effort, and this just further perpetuates ableism and the stigma that disabled people face. Everyone with disabilities is different and we all experience our illnesses in different ways, and it certainly doesn't mean you're a failure if you cannot do what another person with your disability can do. Everyone should go read Sarah's post :) 

The final post that stood out to me in August was one by the marvellous Jemma from the blog Dorkface. I thought it was really brave and awesome of her to share 'All My Insecurities' with us. It's not easy to talk about the things we like least about ourselves, and I admire Jemma so much for writing this post. Especially as bloggers, with our lives pretty much always on display in some way, it can be difficult not to compare both our lives and ourselves with other bloggers. It can definitely make you more self conscious when you are constantly looking at selfies on instagram and beauty/fashion photography on blogs. Remember though, we all have our own insecurities and none of us are perfect. It's easy to spread positivity, but it can be very hard to listen to those positive messages yourself. But seriously though, we are all unique and beautiful in our own way!

Thankyou for reading!

♥

Tell me some of your favourite posts from August, and please go and give all of these brilliant bloggers a follow!  

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