May – Monthly Beauty Favourites + Pop Culture Loves

May has been excellent. The weather has been glorious and there have been a few things going on behind the scenes in my life that have made everything that little bit sweeter! No actually, a lot sweeter! Yay! Amongst all this, I’ve had some lovely moments with my family and friends and really, really appreciate the little nucleus of good eggs I have around me. Oh, and we got a new addition to the family, little Muffin the hamster – Naw.

And whilst there have been some not-so-peachy situations i.e my leg swelling and expanding to four times its size thanks to a bite and a violent infection and a totally unnecessary and cruel occurrence happening to one of my most cherished family members, May has truly been a dream. Thanks, May.

Like many people, on May 25th, I was avidly following the #hometovote hashtag all day. The masses of emotional tweets and videos showing people travelling from far and wide to vote in the 8th amendment referendum got me so, so choked up! I particularly loved the Grandad’s and the sheer solidarity from Ireland’s sisters was incredibly moving. Great result for Ireland repealing the 8th amendment, but now change must come for Northern Ireland also.

Did anyone catch this article where Ikea ran an experiment asking people to verbally ‘bully’ one plant for 30 days and give compliments to another plant? Both plants were identical and given the same amount of space, food and light however, the results were truly astonishing. They say talking to plants helps them grow, but I sure wouldn’t have the heart to say mean things to a plant, especially knowing the effects it has on them! Let this be a lesson of how we speak/treat ourselves and others!

For the last portion of the month, my leg resembled a cartoon meat bone all thanks to an infected bite. Well, of course, a lot of resting and leg elevation ensured my TV schedule was duly fulfilled. I loved the newly formatted ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ hosted by Jeremy Clarkson. I genuinely found myself doing better than half of the contestants on there, maybe i’ll apply if it comes back again!

A few compelling pieces of television that I enjoyed were: ‘24 hours in police custody‘ – such a powerful piece of telly and a huge educational piece surrounding social services, alcoholism and mental health. I won’t give too much away regarding what happens in the case, but it was such a difficult case to make your mind up about.

On Netflix, I’ve watched The Rachel Divide, a documentary centred around Rachel Dolezal an activist who caused a national debate over her self-identification as an African-American woman, when she was actually born Caucasian. Boy has this woman caused people’s minds to be bent in a direction they’ve never been pulled before. In a world where people are becoming freer than ever before to identify and live as they wish, Rachel Dolezal opened up dividing opinion/debate on what exactly it means to identify as a particular race. I found this fascinating and I’ll be honest, lies aside, I felt sorry for her. I was particularly moved by the story of her early home life. I’ve since read that Rachel is living off food banks and is extremely poor following the public exoneration of her name. Jon Ronson’s legendary book ‘You’ve been publicly shamed’ comes to mind.

I’ve also watched ‘Evil Genius‘ dubbed to be the next ‘Making a Murderer’ and again, what a show and what a truly bizarre state of affairs. The story begins with the barbaric death of a pizza delivery man who robs a bank with a collar bomb strapped around his neck and from then on in, the story unravels getting weirder and weirder. It’s hard to believe situations like this one are cooked up and played out. There are some truly twisted people in the world.

And of course, what May 2018 favourites would be without an honourable mention towards the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan. I’ll keep this brief but I thought Meghan’s mum, Doria Ragland was so composed, dignified and effortless throughout and it was so moving seeing Meghan walk a portion of the aisle alone – in all honesty it did make me feel a bit sad for her, but if that isn’t a huge step forward for the British Monarchy and having someone like Meghan a lead member of the Royal Family, then I don’t know what is! I think Diana would have been so chuffed her legacy and wave making is having an affect even to this day!

For some reason, over the last couple of weeks i’ve been on a total binge of anything to do with the iconic and jaw-dropping 1994 OJ Simpson case. Absorbing content that explores the case and the horrendous double murder of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ron Goldman led me to Kris Jenner’s 2011 memoir, All things Kardashian which I found oddly interesting. Sure, there’s not much about that family we don’t already know, but I have to say, I enjoyed hearing about Kris’ life prior to KUWTK and I have all these images of her as a glam Beverley Hills housewife in the 80s.

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