Lifestyle | Barney's week in photos

Hello there :) 

Howdy! How is everyone today? Hope is all fine and dandy! I love the word howdy reminds me of Toy Story and makes me feel like a cowboy well cowgirl as I'm not a boy but you know what I mean! Did anyone see the solar eclipse thingy? I don't really understand what it is to be honest, I didn't see anything either, it was far too cloudy where I was! If anything it just went a bit colder and maybe a bit darker but who knows that could have just been me I do feel the cold! It's the weekend YAY! I hope you guys are all having a lovely jubbly one :) 

I've just tried to tidy my room which I'm rubbish at so I thought I would have a break! Most of the things on my floor are Barney's toys!! He has so many and he gets them all out and leaves them all over the place for me to trip over or stand on! He is so kind. I asked him to help tidy up but apparently being a dog is hard work and sleep is more important as he is fast asleep! He also didn't reply to me when I asked him to help as dogs can't talk. 

Anyway I'm pretty much obsessed with my dog and he is just so photogenic.  I am constantly taking photos of him so I thought I would share some with you!

He looks like he is smiling in this one! 

He loves to shake right next to us just incase we wanted to get wet too! Silly Dog! 

Walking with Katie dog, Kirstie (my mum) and me are some of Barney's favourite things to do!

Barney is the best thing to ever happen to me, I don't know where I would be without him! Dog's really are the best friends going! 

Hope you are all well and jolly :) 

Anna-Louise

xx

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Barney's February Favourites

Hello there :)

Hope everyone is fine and dandy! Can you believe we are now in March?! Where does the time go? I swear it seems to go faster as I get older, I remember time going so slowly whilst I was at school and wishing for it to go quicker, now I'm in the real world time goes so quickly I now wish it would go slower funny isn't it! However now it's March it does mean spring is quickly approaching YAY, and then before we know it summer will be with us which is an even bigger YAY! Anyway it's the time of the month for a favourites from the previous month and well this time I thought I would share with you something a little different! I thought I would do Barney's favourites from the previous month because lets face it, his are probably more interesting than mine :)

Barney has had a fairly busy February as he has been away on holiday to Wales with us and well as you can imagine being a dog is hard work and there is lots of sleeping, walking and eating to be done!

Barney has been enjoying lots of lovely long walks in February so going for 'Walkies' as we call it was definitely one of his favourites. 

Another one of Barney's favourites has been playing with his best dog friend Katie! They have had lots of fun this month, apparently running round in circles chasing each other is the fun thing to do these days :) 

Barney also has a thing about brown cardboard and toilet rolls so was over the moon when he found a giant toilet roll (it was actually from wrapping paper but he doesn't know that). He thought the world of it and was very proud of it until he felt the time was right to rip it all up and leave a mess for his mum (me) to clear up! 

Another favourite for February for Barney was sitting at the table with Simon (my dad) watching tv with him! I swear my dog thinks he is a human really! 

Barney has also had enjoyed going stick fishing in any water he can find, apparently the best sticks are underwater. 

this stick was obviously trying to float away from barney

Barney loved having a snooze by the huge log burner in the cottage in Wales that we stayed in :) He spent most of his time there :) 

So those are Barney's February favourites! As you can see being a dog is lots of fun ;) I would love to be a dog just for a day to see how they see and hear things, do they actually understand or do they just think we are pure crazy?! 

Hope you are all well and jolly :) 

Anna-Louise 

xx 

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Winter walks #3 // Barney Rubble

Hellooo there!

How is everyone! Hope you are all well and that your are having a great week so far! Have you been up to anything exciting yet this week? We haven't had any snow here this week which is great, as well it gets a bit boring after a while, not that we had that much of it anyway! It's been a rather warm week so far with a number of clear and sunny spells! Oh dear I'm sounding like a weather woman! What's the weather been like with you? The sun makes me so excited for spring and summer they are definitely my favourite times of the year! I'm also definitely more of a summer fashion person than a winter person! What about you guys what season of fashion do you love most? 

I'm afraid today's post is going to only be a short post! I'm just really not feeling myself at the moment so don't really want to a force a post and you guys not enjoy it. I'm having a lot more feeling down time at the moment but that's aspergers and my medication for you but hey ho, there will be good times around the corner I'm sure, there always is, isn't the saying every cloud has a silver lining something like that. 

Being a dog walker means I go on a lot of walks, and I love taking photographs so like to take my camera with me which results in well can you guess?! Lots of pictures of Barney of course! So instead of a chatty post today I thought I would just share some of those pictures as I know a lot of you enjoy the Barney photos and well I love my dog and love posting pictures of him so here you go....

I tried to get them both to look at the camera but Katie just wanted to look where she wanted! Terrier's hey they have a mind of their own!

Barney and I found some sticks and some water both of which are Barney's favourite things on a walk so I thought it was only fair to let Barney play his favourite game of stick fishing! 

He was so funny he kept trying to sit down in the water and would then realise it was super cold so would sit hover instead. 

Barney likes to put his head under the water to look for sticks! Strange dog, maybe all the best ones are under the water who knows! I'd love to be a dog for the day just to know what goes through their mind. Would you? 

I hope you have enjoyed these Barney pictures, I love pictures of him as he always makes me smile and looking at pictures of him makes my smile bigger and brightens my mood! I think the world of this dog and he has changed my world for the best and I can't thank him enough for it :) He truly is my very best friend :)

Hope you are all well and jolly 

Anna-Louise 

xx

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Winter walks #1

Hello lovely people :) 

How are we all today? Hope your all okay and smiley :) 

I don't know about you but at this time of year on a lovely clear and sunny day when the weather is chilly I love going for a walk! Obviously I wrap up warm and I would advise you all too aswell so you don't get cold as that would not be fun. I mean you may be one of these people who is incredibly brave and wear shorts all year round?! I salute you if you do you are one tough cookie. Barney especially loves walking, think it's the thing next to food that he looks forward to the most everyday. I love walking in general, (not so much though when its chucking it down with rain, the drowned rat look is not my first choice) partly because I have Barney and he needs walking, he won't let me forget, and partly because I find it relaxing and a great way to clear my head especially if I'm feeling angry or stressed. I do find that walking when the weather is lovely is much more enjoyable don't you?! Think it puts you in a happy mood well it definitely puts me in a happy mood, and makes me feel grateful for everything that I have and am surrounded by.

My favourite place to walk is in the countryside. Don't get me wrong you can probably do some lovely walks in and around cities but for me my favourite place to walk is in the countryside. I just think it's so beautiful and England is full of gorgeous countryside I love getting out there and seeing it. 

Where is your favourite place to walk? 

I went for a lovely walk with Barney the other day! The weather was stunning but annoyingly I forgot my camera, however I did have my Iphone so couldn't resist taking some photos as it was such a beautiful day. I thought I would share them with you guys :)

Hope you are all well and jolly 

Anna-Louise 

xox

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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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