Erin Coull

Hey everyone! As I'm sure you have also been experiencing, so many people have had birthdays or reasons to celebrate during this lockdown period and it has been rather tricky to navigate. We can only gift the people celebrating with chocolates or biscuits as gifts, as anything other than food isn't on sale and obviously we cannot make any contact with that person. But it has been fun to think out of the box and come up with new and interesting ideas to make that person feel special.  Easter Luckily this occasion lent itself quite well to our buying restrictions as all we needed was chocolate and lamb! We bought our chocolate bunnies and eggs and hid them in a cupboard to make sure my sister couldn't eat them before the 12th of April. It is tradition in my family, as in most families, for my parents to hide the eggs before we get up so we can go searching for our treats. This year, my sister and I wanted to spice things up so we hid the eggs and made our parents find th...

Hey everyone! I am very interested in sustainability, as I have mentioned before, and I have tried to implement some changes in our house to practice what I preach in the low impact movement. Now, I am far from living the perfect eco-life, and there is still loads I can do to help the environment but by slowly introducing eco-friendly habits and swaps into my family, they become a new normal. I encourage you to try out these alternative products and become more eco-conscious!  I have linked different websites to buy these products so you can easily purchase these eco-friendly items and implement them in your routine. Just click on the website's name underneath the product. Most of these products are readily available on Amazon for my international readers so I have included those links, but for us South Africans, we have to find more creative means of sourcing these products so I have included local websites as well.  Silicone baking mats Instead of using miles and m...

Hey everyone! I am finally writing those book recommendations I promised a while ago, whoops! Reading is a huge part of my life, as I have probably mentioned before, and I would like to share that with you. I have tried to include as many genres as possible so everyone can find something that they like.  Elenor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman This book took the world by storm last year because it is very different to the usual realistic fictional story. The author, Gail Honeyman, got her inspiration from reading about the lonely existence of a girl who worked and then went home without socialising. This is essentially the story of Eleanor. She is a 29-year-old woman who has a desk job and lives alone. She makes no contact with anyone, apart from a weekly phone call with her disapproving and ghastly mother. Her routine is never-changing; she buys the same frozen pizza, she wears the same clothes an d she purchases the same brand of vodka at the end of eac...

Hey everyone! In honour of Earth Day on the 22nd of April, I thought I would pin the spotlight on sustainability. This is quite a different   article  to my previous ones as it is a bit more research-based. I thought a good way to introduce my passion for sustainability is to start with a bit of background on plastic - the enemy of the low impact movement. I had never really thought about how plastic first came about, let alone when the low impact movement developed. When plastic was first produced, it was celebrated, quite a contrast to popular opinions today. Well, how did this unbelievable change of opinion occur? The first synthetic plastic ever produced was called Bakelite and it was made in 1907. It was commonly found in knobs, dials, costume jewellery, toys and in the electrical systems of cars. It became rather popular during the First World War as it was used in military equipment but soon afterwards, plastic's domestic durability was discovered. While...

Hey everyone! I am writing a few days after our president, Cyril Ramaphosa, addressed the nation to say that our lockdown has been extended because of COVID-19 for two more weeks! I have to admit, I was not too worried about the virus hitting South Africa as we are a rather small country quite far away from the origin of the virus and the countries that were badly affected. But once the number of cases started rising and now with the news of extended lockdown, I am frightened. I have family members that are compromised and I never realised how much I touch objects outside and then how often I touch my face. I am pleased, however, that South Africa is being well-prepared by trying to prevent the spread of the virus and that (I think) these measures are flattening the curve. During this time, it is good to stay healthy by eating well and exercising. It will be harder to source exotic fruits and vegetables to spice up my monotonous days of staying inside but I still want to keep m...

Goals differ from person to person but that doesn't make them more or less important. Some may choose to focus on five goals while others may choose fifteen. I am the latter! I push myself to try to achieve all of them but that seldom happens, much to my dismay. Goals also have different lifespans, some may need to be continually worked on throughout one's life and others can be achieved within a day. Most of my goals for 2020 cannot be achieved within one year but I can definitely make some progress towards them. Tips for setting goals    1. Make an action plan An action plan breaks up the mammoth task into small, manageable steps. It allows you to reduce the pressure you or others put on you to achieve a goal and it prevents you from feeling overwhelmed.  You can physically write steps out to tick off (which is very satisfying). Or you can keep a list in the back of your mind that you can refer to.  2. Track your progress I used to set myself co...

Hello everyone! My name is Erin Coull, I am seventeen years old and I live in Cape Town, South Africa. We are living in interesting times and South Africa has its own set of challenges and there is nothing I like more than challenge.  So why not add to the challenge of everyday life and start a blog which I should update regularly and retain some semblance of normality? Now this idea would never have crossed my mind a couple of years ago, as I did not enjoy writing, probably because of the tiresome essay topics we get at school. But after a while, my mom encouraged me to try writing about things I liked and I changed my mind about writing soon after that. So I am just going to give writing a go and see where it takes me. I first wanted to write about fashion, as choosing outfits and buying clothes is one of my favourite pastimes apart from drinking tea and snuggling with my cat. That didn't work out because I don't think I could write that much about fashion and un...