What do you do as a personal style blogger when it is too damn cold to take off your coat outside? You dedicate an entire post to said coat.  This coat had been with my for 2 Winters now and it is still holding up well, I'm not even its first owner - I nicked it off a good friend when she decided she didn't need it anymore and yet it's still going. I love the shape, the colour and most of all I love the hood, which never fails to make me feel like I'm in a fairytale, rather than making a wet and dreary walk to work.

I think finding the right coat is particularly important when you live in a cold country. It is the only item of clothing that I wear for over 200 days of the year. I've actually been searching for a new one since back in October but not had any luck. It's my outer layer and for a lot of the year it is the only bit of my outfit visible to the rest of the world. For that reason alone I always want to find one that represents me as well as an item of clothing can. 

These photos were taken on our New Years day walk with the pups and it was freezing - I did actually take one or two photos with my coat undone to show off the dress I was wearing my I looked so painfully uncomfortable and cold that I didn't want to share them. Instead you get these super cosy ones where I'm piled up with my gloves, hat and a good pair of woolly socks. Also I need to apologise for the photo quality here - you really wouldn't believe these were taken on my SLR would you? They are appallingly grainy. I think there must be an issue with one of the connections between my lens and the camera body. I've checked everything for dust but if my next set of photos come out the same way it might be time to get it sent off and fixed. What a pain. If anyone has any advice or can recommend a good camera repair place  in Edinburgh please let me know! 

Happy New Year guys! Holy heck, how on earth did we get to 2015 already? December with all of its craziness kind of got away from me... and then the start of January got away from me too. 2015 has started on a bit of a low note, it's been a tough time both for myself and lots of people I care deeply about. Blogging definitely fell to the bottom of my to do list for a little while. I'm not leaving you all though, I still love this place too much, but sometimes you just need to step back and focus on the real world and pulling yourself back up. 

2014 was an amazing year for me. It was my first year living with just LF, my first full year at my current job and one filled with memories of triumphs and losses, of learning new skills, of fun with friends and of lots of changes, and yet I am also so glad it is over. I'm more than ready for the metaphorical new start that the new year gives you. It is a chance to reconnect with people, to forgive yourself for the previous years mistakes, to try new things and to measure where you are and where you want to be. I definitely think that is something I need right now!

I posted not that long ago with my goals for before I turn 30, so I'm not going to come up with a huge list of resolutions for this year, you guys probably wouldn't want to read another post on them anyway. Instead I'm going to follow Sarah's lead and instead have a word that I will focus on for the year. Sarah's word last year was comfort, which I think I unintentionally also took as my own. I definitely didn't mean to but I feel like I went easy on myself in some ways last year. I stretched myself professionally and managed to teach myself some awesome new skills (learning the knit and weave was definitely one of the  best things I have done in a long time) but when it came to blogging, socialising and self-improvement I feel like I focussed a lot on taking care of myself, learning my boundaries and self-care rather than pushing myself to go beyond my comfort zone. Those thoughts stuck in my mind as I searched for the right word to describe what I want 2015 to mean for me.

Eventually it happened though, the word hit me. This year the word I want to focus on is tenacious.

This year I want to push myself, when I say yes I want to mean it and the same when I say no. I want to take risks and push myself. I don't want to let the banality of life takeover, which it sometimes does. I want to work hard towards what I want and, if I need to, say 'screw it' to everything else. This year I'm gonna be a little bit selfish, but for all the right reasons.

What are you hoping for during 2015?