Barney's 5 favourite toys

Hellooo :) 

How are we all?! Hope all is well, the sun is shining where I am today. I definitely think the sun automatically puts you in a better mood. I hope the sun is shining with you today wherever you may be. 

So if you haven't already picked this information up from previous blogs, I have a chocolate Labrador called Barney and well he is my best friend. He will be 2 this summer, they grow up so fast (I sound like a mother) and he is mad. I bought him to help me with my aspergers and my confidence and well having him has helped me enormously, he really is the best dog ever.

Anyway I thought so that you guys can get to know him a little bit better and I love writing about Barney I would do a post about him, so I decided this one could be about his 5 favourite toys. Barney is obsessed with toys, he has more toys than a pet shop and he has 4 toy boxes full in the house. He just loves them. Despite the fact that he has so many toys he does have a few favourites that he loves a little bit more than all the others so we wanted to share with you guys what they were.

Barney was the best when I was taking these photographs it's like he knew I needed him to pose. He posed with every single toy and didn't really try and play with them and surprisingly he didn't run off with one of them either and he thinks that's a great game. My mum and Gran couldn't believe it he was a superstar. The funniest thing was the tennis ball photographs as I went to him please can you hold this in your mouth so I can take some pictures. And he did, he held it in his mouth until I stopped taking the pictures what a clever dog. He really is the best thing that ever happened to me and he always puts a smile on my face even when I'm in the worst mood or have a strop and there is nothing better than coming home and seeing how pleased he is to see me, I really do love my dog and honestly he is my best friend! 

Now Barney has a bit of a thing about Pluto. When I first got him I had this Pluto toy that I'd had for years and thought it would be a great toy for Barney to snuggle up next to in his crate. Well Barney decided that Pluto was going to be one of his favourite toys immediately. He loved Pluto and took him everywhere, in fact he loved Pluto so much that he managed to rip his head of, so then he started to walk around with just Pluto's head. It was really creepy when he would just appear with this head, but then my dog is strange. Someday's he would just walk around with Pluto's body depending on how he was feeling but Pluto's head was a definite favourite he would still walk around with it everywhere. To this day we still have Pluto's head and Barney still loves it, we just can't bear to throw it out! Have any of you seen the advert with the dog and the man where he is about to throw the dogs toy away but the dog won't let him well that's what it feels like. 

As we all knew how much Barney had loved Pluto and still loves Pluto's head we decided to get him a new Pluto for Christmas. He is one happy dog with all his Pluto's. Who buys their pet a toy from the Disney store for Christmas hey?! I really wanted to get him an Olaf but I couldn't find one in any of the Disney stores I went into. The search will go on. You may be thinking I'm mad yes I am but I just love seeing my dog happy, and well he just loves Pluto. The new Pluto is still in one piece at the moment. 

The next toy that Barney has is his 3rd addition of it, he is obsessed with it so much that he has destroyed the other two and have a 4th one waiting for him. This toy is known as Colin, Colin the Caterpillar and Barney loves him to pieces. He is a rather big caterpillar that squeaks and Barney drags him everywhere. If Barney has ever been away from home the first thing he does when he gets back is to go and find Colin. If you ever meet Barney I'm sure you will meet Colin too that is how much Barney is obsessed with him. The pictures will probably show you a bit about how big Colin actually is, especially as Barney is a big and tall Labrador. It was so funny to watch him try and drag him around when he was a puppy as Colin was bigger than him. Colin also seems to lose a lot of legs, poor Colin. The pictures below are of Colin the 3rd.

Barney seems to prefer larger toys, and if it's soft and fluffy even better so I bought him this giant duck thing in a pet shop as I couldn't resist it and knew Barney would love it and he did and it even became one of his favourites. I think he quite likes toys that he can cuddle up to because he is cute like that. It was really sweet as when I was taking photos of him and the duck he was cuddling it, I do love my dog.

Barney loves to play ball, like he goes crazy over playing ball, me and mum could barely hold him before he got his new lead when he knew he was going to play ball. He thinks is the best game in the world and would like to play it all day everyday. We tend to play ball more in the summer as the village green is to wet in the winter and our garden is tiny. Therefore a ball is one of Barney's favouirte toys he has so many of them but looks after them really well at the same time, maybe he think's they are treasure. He also has this really annoying habit of rolling them underneath the sofas and furniture, it's so annoying especially when they are out of our reach and he won't let you forget they are there, you have to get the long duster to encourage them out silly dog! 

Hope you have enjoyed this blog post thought it was a little different :) let me know what you think! Do any of you have a dog? What's their favourite toy? Or maybe you have a cat with a favourite toy? Let me know :) 

Hope you are all well and jolly

Anna-Louise 

xx

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Aspergers | 2015 goals

Helloooo lovely people! 

How are you all? Hope all is fine and dandy :) It attempted to snow in Essex this morning, a very bad attempt though come on snow you can do better than that! 

I know we are half way through January but I thought it's not to late to write a post about the goals I have for 2015 to do with my aspergers. Since being diagnosed I have worked really hard on learning ways to cope and deal with the things that I find difficult and plan to do the same this year. So I thought I would let you guys know what my goals for this year are. You may have similar goals, or these may give you some ideas for things you may want to achieve this year.

Living with aspergers can be very difficult and it has presented me with a number of tricky challenges over the years, however with hard work and determination I seem to be improving lots and life is becoming easier and more enjoyable and I'm so much happier for it. There have been a lot of times throughout my time in this world so far (it's a very confusing world) where I have been very down and low but I just want to reassure you all that things do get better, there are people who experience the same difficulties as you and there are people to talk to. I really hope some of my posts will be able to help some people, and if you ever want someone to talk to you can always pop me an email I'd be happy to chat my email address is on my page :) 

So here are my goals for 2015:

Become more independent. This is a big thing more, something I have really struggled with too. I have got a lot more independent especially over the last year, I think my part time job at the pub has helped with this as I can't take my mum or dog to work and a lovely lady has helped me become more independent last year by letting me help her with all her horses. I don't like being away from home, and especially being away from my mum I've always been very clingy and reliant on my mum from an early age, I think that's because she's always been there and accepted me for who I am. However my mum can't do everything with me and go everywhere with me as much as I may want her to so I would really like to improve my independence this year so I can learn that I don't need to rely on her and others and that I can stand on my own two feet. The outside world is very different from my home world. Barney has also helped huge amounts, well to be honest he has made the world of difference to my independence and continues to. I take him everywhere I can, having him there just makes everything okay he is like my safety net. Hopefully this year I would like to be able to go into the town where I live by myself and look around the shops or take Barney for walks by myself and work more on being able to be left at home alone for short periods of time (this makes me very anxious). All these things are definitely ways in which I should be able to become more independent and work on this year. There are other things as well but if I write them all down I might as well start a book. How do you guys cope with being independent? 

Think Positive. This is something I'm always telling myself to do. I think that it's such an important thing to do as well as you feel so much better when you think positively about things. Its very easy to fall in to the trap of focusing on the things that aren't going well believe me. However when you start to think positively I feel I feel 100x better and much happier in general so this is something I want to continue to do this year and work hard at making sure I have more positive thoughts. Positivity is the way forward. 

Grow my confidence and self confidence. This is something I really want to work hard on this year. My confidence has come on leaps and bounds over the last year. About a year ago I didn't even want to leave the house I was so nervous, now I have a part time job in a pub which I love and am even drove all the way up to Yorkshire. Working in the pub has brought my confidence on so much, I'm so fortunate to work in such a lovely environment with lovely people it really has helped so hopefully working there this year will continue to grow my confidence. Barney also helps my confidence, I feel safe and secure whenever he is with me, and he has helped me go to a lot of places with me. Fingers crossed my confidence will grow.  Self confidence is something I need to work on a lot this year I really struggle with this as I can imagine many girls of my age do (I'm 19). I'm actually on medication for my to help with my aspergers as when my emotions go all over the place I don't know how to act so I tend to get rather angry and depressed and my medication has helped me to learn to control my emotions and moods. However they also make you put on a lot of weight which has affected my self confidence. I love exercise and keeping fit so by monitoring my food and exercising a lot I've managed to lose a bit but will never be able to be the size I used to be so I'm going to try really hard this year to love the body I have now. It's not all about being super thin, being happy is the most important thing and that's something I'm always trying to remind myself. I'd also like to work more on being proud of who I am and not worrying what others think, and that not everybody is looking at me when I go out (get very anxious about this) so hopefully this will all improve this year. 

Reduce swearing and rude language. This is something that I really need to work on this year! Although I have conquered a lot of my anger and how I react when I'm angry I have a big tendency to swear for England when I'm frustrated or angry now. My poor family take most of it and they are very good about it as they know I don't really mean what I'm saying, my silly emotions taking over hey! However I'm determined this year to crack down on it, mainly for them but also for me. I have habit of sending rude texts when I'm angry or upset to so I need to improve on reducing them this year to. I think this is going to be one of my hardest goals this year as when my emotions go all over the place I do lose control of what I'm saying and doing so don't realise I'm doing it but I think its something I may be able to work on. Do you guys have any ideas how I could stop this? Do you have any words you use instead? 

 Meet new people. Having aspergers means that social skills aren't really my thing. I'd like to improve them if I can this year and meet new people. I really struggle with making friendships and maintaining them which has made me feel rather lonely. Obviously my best friend is Barney and he's always there, another reason why I got him. He loves me for me and it's great. I'm certain most people with aspergers are in the same boat as me. It's tough making friends, but hopefully with my independence and confidence improving this will just fall into place. I also wanted to start blogging in the hope that I would meet new people as talking to people via blogs etc is much easier than talking face to face with people, something that I'm not a big fan of. Do you guys have any tips with how you have dealt with this? 

So there you have it there are my 2015 goals for my aspergers :)
What goals do you have?

And as always a picture of Barney because he is the best :) The last picture is of Barney and Katie our other dog having fun on a walk yesterday, always puts a smile on my face when I see these two racing each other and having fun:) 

Hope you are all well and Jolly :) 

Anna-Louise 

xx

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Mini Homeware Haul

Helloo there :) 

How are you all?! Hope you've all had a super day! It's really windy where I am today feel sorry for the trees being blown around like that poor things. 

Today I thought I would do a mini homeware haul post as whilst I was in Yorkshire we went on an incredibly exciting trip to Harrogate homebase! It was actually quite fun my aunt bought loads of cushions which were really big and cuddly and I thought I would share with you guys what I bought. I was feeling brave whilst in homebase so went for a little wonder by myself which for me is a big than I like to stick in the pack that I came with when in shops, I get very anxious if I have to walk round by myself! However on that day I felt brave, maybe it was because they were looking at lamp bulbs to begin with and I had been attracted to all the pretty little things. Who knows I like this new brave Anna I hope she is here to stay!

The Homeware section in homebase is super nice, they have some lovely cute things, I wanted to buy more but unfortunately money doesn't grow on the trees like in the sims so here are some of the things I could afford and brought home with me.

The first item I bought is this sign which says Love but you can probably already see that! Anyway I've had my eye on signs like this as I wanted one for my windowsill and I saw this in Homebase and it was about £4 in the sale so I couldn't resist so this sign came home with me :) I really like it and thing it's a great little accessory to any room :)

This candle holder then caught my eye! I thought it was really cute so couldn't resist and it was also in the sale and was around £2 so another bargain, and who doesn't love a bargain right?! Good old homebase. Although this is a candle holder I didn't buy it for that purpose, I wanted a bigger pot to keep all my eye make up brushes as they didn't fit in the one I already had and I have a similar bigger pot for my face make up brushes so thought this would be a great little addition. 

I then bought this lamp! It wasn't in the sale but I liked this lamp and I thought it would like to live in my room. I've been looking for a lamp for a while now for my bedside table and this one caught my eye. It's the perfect size for a bedside table and I love the style of it. Good old homebase again. 

I then bought this mixing bowl, Barney wanted to be in the picture with it he's a big poser. This was also only a few pounds and its pink and who doesn't love pink right?! I also didn't buy this for it's intended purchase, I'm a great fan of Lush so thought it would be great for storing all my bath bombs in. :) 

I think Barney thought I'd bought him a new food bowl to begin with so he had to give it a good sniff! 

Lush bath bombs in my mixing bowl now turned storage bowl. 

Here is just another cute picture of Barney. If you haven't already worked it out I love my dog, he's my best friend and he has definitely helped me out with my confidence and a number of other difficulties I sturggle with because of my Aspergers. He is the best dog ever and I could not ask for a better best friend, he always makes me smile :) 

Hope you are all well and jolly :)

Anna-Louise

xx

  

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Get to know me......5 facts about me, 5 facts about Barney

5 facts about me (anna)

-I have curly hair, got it from my mum, not literally, her hair is the sort of curly that makes you look like a spainel, not so much now she's cut it. My hair remind me of curly wurly's and it's a fun word to say curly, flows off the tongue nice. 

- I'm rather short 5ft 3, however there are people that a shorter than me and some that are taller than me, that's the way the world works I guess but that's what makes us all different and interesting :) fun fact I learnt today, well you might not find it fun but I do, apparently as we have evolved we have gotten taller! Also another fun fact whilst I think of it, your eyeballs are the same size as they were when you where born, and they will always stay the same size, unless you have something wrong with them, if that's the case maybe see a doctor and ask, hopefully everyone's eyeballs are fine though! If there not get better soon eyeballs!

- I get easily distracted and go off topic easily as you can see but hey ho, now I have the Snow White and the seven dwarfs song in my head, see what I mean?! Haha! 

- I have only just found out that Walt Disney was actually a real person and not just the name of the company! I also learnt that he is dead and frozen! Hope he's not too cold! Maybe they wrapped him up warm! 

- I love dogs, they are my all time favourite animal. I love animals in general, except spiders I hate them they shouldn't exsist. I got the creepy crawlies just thinking about them yuck! Anyway dogs are my favourite animal, been around them all my life, and my best friend Barney, who is a gorgeous chocolate lab came into my life about a year ago :) he's the best, he gets me if you know what I mean, talk to him all the time he never replies though....strange! I wonder if he thinks I'm crazy too?! 

This is me in Spain eating ice cream a couple of years ago, I still had braces too :) I also think I got it on my face just after this photo was taken silly ice cream, it's out of control. 

5 facts about Barney 

- He's a chocolate Labrador 

- He is capable of producing the most disgusting smells you will ever smell, bad enough that evacuation is sometimes needed for us to get to safe air! 

- He is trained to come to the toilet with me whenever I shout TOILET, he'll come running! Strange I know but that's me and him. 

- He has his own sofa, well actually I bought myself one from ikea and when we got home and put it up someone else thought they would be the first to sit on it and to this day still do! 

- He's obsessed with toys, I'm talking obsessed, he has 4 toy boxes, with his favourites being Colin the caterpillar and pluto's head, Pluto did have a body but Barney thought he was better just being a head!

    

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