This post should be titled ‘How I try to style stripes differently every day’. I wanted to do a little #ootd round up post to show you the kind of things I wear daily at work as a 26 year old working in marketing. I certainly would love to read a post about someone my age who works somewhere in fashion or business to see the difference. I work in a very changeable environment and my job often sends me up ladders, into sticky DJ booths or even that one time I crawled under the nightclub stage to find a cat…

I have to be comfortable but still reasonably smart. I plan my outfits around what I can expect from my day and if I’ve got a meeting with the University or any outside clients I tend to smarten up with a dress and/or blazer. I’m yet to find an outfit that doesn’t immediately look smarter with a blazer. Maybe my trackies…I’ll try it and get back to you. I keep promising a ‘what I do’ post and I will get round to it once I find a way to condense my ridiculously varied role into text.

Autumn/Winter dressing is probably my favourite because although my office is freezing sometimes, I do enjoy a good scarf and pair of cosy boots. I spend a lot of my time buried in Photoshop or behind the scenes of our website and a big scarf means I can cocoon at my desk and get stuck in.

Summer is actually the hardest, the place is like a green house and I have a leather chair – nightmare. I try to cover my shoulders because I always feel a bit more appropriate for work that way. My rose print kimono might as well have been sewn on me in May/June last year.

Freshers/ReFreshers and any kind of event days are when it all goes a bit ‘PR girl’, I don the branded t-shirts to coordinate the team of freshers volunteers (my ‘weans’) and get into the spirit of the dress up nights, any excuse…

I love reading blogs on a Sunday night in bed so I thought, hey Lauren, why not post your own little round up? And while you’re at it, try to stop talking to yourself.
This week was my first back at work after Christmas. My new mug (RIP Coffee House Sessions mug) although quite offensive, doesn’t sum up about I feel about being back. I’m loving being busy, even if it is knackering!

I used to get a month off but the University changed semester dates, boo! It means we only had that week to finalise refreshers plans which kicks off tomorrow. In prep for it and it’s winter theme, I had some father-daughter bonding time with George and made these shot skis for the bar!

By Thursday this week we were all feeling it and decided the best way to get over being back…was to go out! Thirsty Thursdays might become a bit of a trend.

My lovely Freshers team girls, who’ve become actual friends of mine not just staff, bought me the above present which was just perfect for me. The Edinburgh Gin elderflower liqueur is so yummy.
We danced the night away and got up to all our usual scandal. I didn’t get home until 8am and work on Friday was one big struggle…
I got home and got really friendly with some beautiful homemade nachos, slippers and Netflix.

By Saturday, I was a lot less hangy and even managed to put on some make up to entertain a boy with homemade nandos, John Hughes movies and Mario Kart. I won one of the tournaments, it didn’t go down so well. Sunday has been spent on my arse watching TV and eating crap with Lauren. I only managed to get productive at about half 8 to make my Travelling Noodles for work and my nails (and a tan, who am I?!) for the week.

I’m up at 6 tomorrow to be in work an hour earlier than usual, it’s our Freebie Fayre tomorrow so hopefully I’ll come home with some goodies from Benefit! I’ll play around with the layout and content of this type of post next Sunday I think, until then, zzz…..

Well, the title may be a bit of a reaching claim as I sit here in mismatching jammies with last night’s make up on, but I really do feel it even if I don’t look it. I turned 26 on Hogmanay (for those who might not know, that’s the 31st of December). Yes I know, what a shit day to have for your birthday. Well no actually, there’s always a party and the whole world gets drunk with me. I like to pretend everyone is celebrating with me to feed my narcissistic ways. Although it does get a bit tiring hearing ‘New Year is so shit! I hate the hype, blah blah blah’. Eh here it’s my birthday too pal, pipe down.

Every year I go home on the 30th at night and wake up to presents and bubbly with the family. As usual I was totally spoilt by them and my friends, I really am super lucky!

Those Topshop boots are perfect (Thanks Nanny Helen!) and I’ve seen a bit of a ‘treat yourself’ theme in my presents, so thank you to everyone for that. The beautiful gold watch was totally unexpected, as were the amazing Babyliss curlers, thanks Mum & Dad! Not pictured is the silly amount of money which I’ve since spent on dining out and going to ‘the dancin’, oops!

Got back to the flat and Lauren had set up the cutest Birthday present treasure hunt with loads of balloons, such a sweetheart!

This year, I found myself in a brand new situation for my birthday night and I was at a bit of a loss about what to do. It was looking like Lauren and I were spending it in our pjs with gin and Jackie Bird until my Mum told me we were saddos and should join them at the golf club.

So glad we did, it was absolutely lovely to party with my family and I’m really glad I was there for another reason which I’ll get to. So we got our glad rags on and joined the Kirks. Lauren was pre-warned of their riotousness but I still don’t think that prepared her…

My birthday dress was another present from Nanny Helen, I think it was made for me. Everything in the shops just now seem to be either super skimpy and see through, or completely granny-ish. This dress was in the ‘last chance to buy’ bit in Topshop and I picked it up on a whim to try. It doesn’t come across in my Instagram filtered photos but it’s a deep plum colour, with a silky section under the top half and silky trim on the bottom. I felt so comfortable and ‘me’ in it. My shoes are the perfect dancing partners from New Look, I can never fault their footwear.

The night was so much fun. We had my Dad on the jagerbombs and tequila, I was up dancing with my Mum and I got to see my hilarious and always ridiculous extended family.

Sadly the evening was cut short when my poor Nanny collapsed at around half 11. I nearly kicked in a door trying to get somewhere quiet to phone an ambulance (sorry golf club!) and I’ve never been so scared in my life. Thankfully it wasn’t a stroke or heart attack as we thought, she had very, very low blood pressure from a virus and a kidney infection. Not how I imagined I’d be spending the bells, at the back of an ambulance with just me and my Dad but I’m just so glad she’s ok. A few days in hospital and now she’s home and resting up. I get daily text updates from my Papa, with the most recent being ‘Nanny had three courses for dinner and gave me a row, so she’s definitely better’ haha. Big huge thank you to Lauren for being fantastic with me when I was in a state and my family for reassuring me all night. If you’ve not called your family recently, do it now.

Back on to lighter notes, my birthday celebrations weren’t quite over. A little flat party on the 3rd was improved massively by Amy and Lauren decorating the place with every bright pink, fantastic party accessory you could think of!

It was adorable, Bex made us all dinner (I miss her so much!), we all drank stupid amounts of prosecco and gin and enjoyed a sugar high from sherbet and sweeties before we headed out.

I hate tight, uncomfortable outfits so I donned this super soft jersey dress from Topshop, it’s not on the website anymore but its stripy sister is, I need.) I sized up, belted it and donned my favourite New Look heels (similar here). Oh and we can’t forget my chic ‘Birthday Girl’ sash which got me into the club for free…

Oh did I mention Duncan arrived? The icing on the Birthday party cake was having this one back with me for a Stirling night out. She’s the lemonade to my gin, the bubbles in my prosecco and she’ll be hating this chat. I think she enjoyed her Christmas present from me too…who wouldn’t love a watercolour of some awkward taxidermy?

This has been a huge post of happy birthday fun and I’m loving that every post I’m doing is about the good times I’m having at the moment. I’ve just given up on worrying about where I’m going and I’m very much in the now in a lot of aspects of my life. It’s quite refreshing to remove pressure from situations I’d have freaked out over in the past. I’ve always been quite good at not giving a shit about bad things, but I lost it a bit last year. I think I’m back! ReFreshers Week kicks off at work tomorrow and I’ll be super busy all week but I’m excited. I think my next post will be all about how ridiculous, daft (and stressful) my job is, no such thing as a dull day in marketing.