March reflections, highlights and favourites

Hey there everyone!! How are you all doing this Wednesday? 

Can you believe that March is already over? I feel like I say this whenever I reflect on how quickly the months go by, but honestly, time feels like it goes pretty slowly, and then you suddenly look up, and so much time has passed you can’t quite believe it. 

Anyway, I loved doing this reflection/favourites post at the end of February so much that I thought it would be really fun to turn it into a regular thing, especially since I’m trying these different challenges each month. Sooo here it goes again for this post! 

Favourite book – The Manifesto of How to Be Interesting (By Holly Bourne) 

Okay, so don’t be mad at me. I know that I did this as my favourite book last month, but I finally got to finish it, and it was so good that I had to mention it again. Honestly, if there is one author that I wish I could meet above all else, it would be Holly Bourne because she has the most incredible way of writing. 

What I love so much about her stories is how refreshingly real they are. Yet, they are just magical and fictional enough without being autobiographical. She tackles such prominent issues for teens and young adults in such a refined way, somehow weaving them so well into the lives and stories of fictional characters and yet still showcasing them as the significant issues they are and how relevant they are to people. 

I honestly cannot recommend her books enough. Just fair warning, they are pretty deep and tackle some serious issues – they are not exactly what I would call candy floss YA books, but they are certainly memorable and powerful stories. 

Favourite film – The Croods 2

Another animation, but hey, I love animated movies. They were my first love and so will always have a special place in my heart. Anywho, as soon as I saw that there was going to be a second Croods movie, I was immediately super excited. The Croods was such a funky and fun kids movie, so I could just imagine how cool this one would be, and it did not disappoint. 

It was so cute how this movie tackled the concept of modernity, and I think it showcased such an important message – that we shouldn’t judge people based on such trivial aspects. Plus, I think it gave quite a clever little side comment on how modernity can also make us slaves to something else (with the monkeys and the bananas etc.), but that might be me reading too far into things. At the end of the day, it was a super cute way to continue the story, extend the love story between Eep and Guy and continue the strong messages of the importance of family and friendship while letting the ladies take a bit more of centre stage. 

Favourite moment – Finishing my second term at uni 

I cannot tell you how relieved I felt to finish my second term at uni. Yes, I had a fantastic time, and there were some fantastic moments within the term itself, but it was still a very intense and tiring term, so I had a lot of satisfaction knowing that it was finished for a little bit and I had some time to recuperate before work has to start again and the looming of exams cannot be ignored anymore. 

Favourite recipe – Salted Caramel and chocolate ganache chocolate cupcakes 

I made these cupcakes for a fun little project for the hedgehog volunteer group I’m part of, and let me tell you, the cupcakes were absolutely mouthwatering. I usually don’t make lots of cupcakes because my family aren’t huge fans, and they are my prime consumers, but the idea to make hedgehog cupcakes was just too adorable to resist. These cupcakes had a simple chocolate cupcake as a base, but with a chocolate ganache filling, salted caramel buttercream and chocolate ganache piping on top (flavours inspired by my best friend at uni because she is obsessed with chocolate and salted caramel). I know it sounds like diabetes in a cupcake, and I definitely couldn’t have more than one, but they were so delicious that I may have had an extra one or two (they were that good!). 

March eco-challenge reflection 

This month’s eco-challenge was a bit of a weird one – I decided to coincide with World Wildlife Wednesday, I would focus on wildlife conservation. Now I can’t necessarily go out and save rhinos and polar bears myself (although I would if I could), so I had to go with the next best thing. This month I decided to do as much walking as possible – sadly, I didn’t get to walk around outside as much as I wanted, but I did walk an average of 4km per day, which I was pretty happy with considering most of my life involves sitting in my room, and I have to drive everywhere. 

I also made a pledge to do extra litter-packing and sign petitions wherever I could and visit some national parks to support the work they do in wildlife conservation. I definitely think I succeeded with the national parks point – my boyfriend and I spent a week in the bush, and on Friday, we’re going back again for 4 days, so yayyy! I know I said I will do a post about our trip, but my boyfriend is busy editing the pictures, so as soon as those are ready, I will do the post. Signing petitions was definitely easier than the litter-picking, and I’ve signed over 10 this month for different wildlife causes, but I still did as much litter-picking as I could on my nature walks and even when we were in the parks and saw litter that people had thrown out of their cars. 

This has been a really fun month. Sure it has been super busy in some ways, but also incredibly relaxing and fun in other ways. I also loved trying out this eco-friendly challenge, and I have some fun and exciting ones coming up, as well as some collabs for you all to look forward to, so keep watching this space! What were some of your favourites this month? Let’s chat in the comments section! But otherwise, that’s everything for this post, and I hope you liked it! 

Lots of Love

Blondey on a Mission xxx