I Found Out My Ancestry With 23 and Me.

It’s Mother’s Day this weekend! So a lot of us will be showering our mums with love and tending to their every need. When deciding what I wanted to write for today’s post, I stumbled between the idea of a mushy post about why I would be lucky if I turned out remotely like my mum or if I wrote about my ancestry that I found out recently with 23 and Me.

So, I’ve decided on a bit of both. My mum and I aren’t what you’d call super cuddly or expressive with our feelings when it comes to reminding each other what we like about one another, which is why I know my mum is cringing reading this right now just like me! Haha sorry mum, but I love ya.

It’s not that we don’t like expressing our feelings, we’ve just never been that way when it comes to talking about each other. And she’s more like a best friend than a mum, and we can tell each other anything (yes that does mean we can talk about emotional stuff, but that’s not us and that’s ok), honestly I don’t really know where I’d be without her. Also, can we just appreciate the fact that my mum, Lindsay, is incredible at encouraging me to wear whatever I want, and she could pull off wearing a bin bag and look great if she wanted too. Although here she’s rocking a neon green crop top (she hate’s this photo, and I can’t understand why, because she looks great! So make sure you show her some love in the comments!).

Right, that’s enough mushy stuff, onto why I wanted to find out my ancestry. Well, for years I have wondered what my heritage actually is, because I’d heard several stories from different family members and where I come from.

So naturally over the years I’ve become more and more curious about what’s true and what’s just a rumour! Which led me to buying a 23 and Me pack.

The entire process took about 3-4ish weeks, and that’s from receiving my box, sending it off and being sent my results. One thing I love about 23 and Me is that they update you and keep you informed about what is happening at every step towards getting your results.

So, what did I think my heritage was?

I was told by family members that they thought I could be:

• British
• French
• Something else I can’t remember..

What were my results?

Well, I found out a few things I wasn’t expecting! Here we go:

• 100% European, Northwestern European

Broken down into:

• 65.8% British and Irish – UK & Ireland
• 10.9% French and German – Germany & Netherlands
• 9.4% Scandinavian – Norway
• 13.9% Broadly Northwestern European

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect from my results! I was just excited to see where I’m from, and finding out I’m more than British was a big shock to me; I have no idea where the Irish, Scandinavian, German or Netherlander (I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it) in me came from.

So once I found this out, I was able to see where/who in my ancestry timeline this DNA has come from.

This was so interesting to find out, and it also got me thinking, who in my family do I think could be part of a certain population. And I’ve since asked my family members that I’m close too, about what they know about their own ancestry and it’s sparked some really cool conversations!

I also paid to do the health reports from 23 and Me; so I got to find out about what my genetics say about my personality, appearance, carrier status, health risks, hobbies etc. To give you an idea of what a few things I found out (there’s about 5-7 reports when it comes to the health part so I’ll stick to a few very brief things):

• Likely to have blue or green eyes – That’s true, I have bright blue eyes.
• Likely to have lots of freckles – Also true, more so in summer!
• Likely to have lighter skin – True, and it’s no surprise now considering my heritage.
• I don’t have an athletes genetic makeup – so guess who’s not going to feel guilty about not enjoying exercise anymore….hahaha.

Here’s a few generations of the women in my family, featuring my incredible dad and nephew (we’re all a little nuts, but I love that about us!). So left to right we have my nephew and niece – such cheeky monkeys, my little sister, my parents, then below left is my granny and my great granny:

Now that I know more about my heritage, I am going to look further into my ancestry, and where I’m from. I also now feel like I know more about myself and why I am the way I am, because of my genetics. And it makes me want to go visit all of these amazing places I’m from even more now, because I have only been to Germany and I live in the UK!

To anyone wondering whether they should do something like this and find out about their genetic makeup, I’d highly recommend it,  especially if you’re unsure what your heritage is. I mean, I found out I’ve got 1,126 third, fourth and fifth cousins probably from a line in my 3rd set of great great grandparents!! And those are just the people who have already done a kit with 23 and Me, and they are from all over the globe! Maybe I’ll connect with them one day, who knows!

Family means the world to me, and I feel like I know mine a little better now. And I just want to thank all of the amazing women (and men, but you know.. it’s mother’s day) in my family for everything they have done and I want to wish them a very happy mothers day. You deserve everything!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you incredible mums, dads and other family members who are doing both roles out there. You’re so important and loved and I just want to remind you of that! Have a great weekend.

Love,

Finding My Style.

Hello my lovelies! I hope you’ve all had a good week so far and are wrapping up warm in the snowy weather we’ve been having!

So, since making my new years resolutions and reflecting on what I want for the year on my birthday, I’ve been on a bit of a self-discovery journey. To begin my journey I decided that I would finally break free from all of the current fashion trends and to put it simply.. wear whatever I wanted. Regardless of what other people think.

For too long I have only worn the clothes that people have given me a compliment in or if other people are wearing the same sort of thing. I never really strayed from what everyone else was wearing in my teens; because like everyone else, I just wanted to fit in.

Well, now I don’t care if I stand out. Or look weird to others.

I have been wearing whatever I want for the last few weeks and it’s seriously given me such a sense of freedom and expression. I only really realised how much I’d grown with my fashion when I was on Facetime with my sister, chatting whilst I had my own little fashion show/photoshoot and she mentioned how I’ve really grown into and found my style.

I’ve found a love of bright coloured accessories, bold patterns and outfits that I would never have put together before. I do remember one time in my past where I did love bright colours, and that was in the form of tights.. neon pink to be exact. And I wore those pink tights with a black trilby, fur gilet, purple top, checked skirt and a pair of knee high black boots. Bold for a 13 year old, I know. I’ve even dug that photo out for you to laugh at, silly pose and all hahaha!

It’s actually kind of sad how our confidence disappears in our teen years. But I’m glad I’ve learnt now that fitting in isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

It doesn’t matter what you want to wear, you should wear whatever you want, because you want to wear it. Also, if you wear something with confidence, it immediately looks good, because you feel good in it!

I have a few favourite pieces currently that always make me feel incredible when I’m wearing them; you can check them out below!

One of my absolute favourite looks is wearing all black with big, bold and bright earrings and bright shoes/boots! I’m also loving oversized clothes and unique bags!

Fashion and finding my own style has been something that I always struggled with until I stopped looking for approval in other people. What’s funny is that when I go shopping now, everything I pick up gets weird looks from whoever’s with me, but as soon as I put everything together in an outfit and wore it confidently, they loved it!

So, moral of the story is where whatever the hell you want, if it makes you feel good and confident, then you’ll look great.

After all, as the Roald Dahl quote goes:

“If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sun beams and you will always look lovely.”

Have a great week lovelies!! Love,

What Is Classed As Selfcare?

It’s #SelfcareWeek ! And it’s got me thinking, what do we actually think classes as selfcare? For me, I typically start thinking about face masks and bubble baths. And well yes that can be classed as selfcare; but as amazing as those things are, there are hundreds of other things you can do. And over the last few days, I’ve been partaking in a few of these myself.

The thought for this post came to me whilst I was walking home from the gym; it occurred to me that even though I think of lots of luxurious things as self-care, there are lots of small things I do for myself that make me feel good, and these count too.

Here’s a few things I’ve been doing for myself that aren’t always considered self-care:

• Going to the gym, and doing what I want there, if I don’t feel like doing the stair climber today, I just don’t do it and I refuse to feel guilty about it!)
• Buying myself a hot chocolate when walking home after going to the gym.
• Putting on my moisturizer.
• Listening to the Peptalk app (I highly recommend this one for when you’re commuting and walking anywhere, it’s a great motivational tool!)
• Watching videos by Glamour, Ladylike, As/Is and the Try Guys.
• Self Affirmations.
• Watching Nikkietutorials (believe it or not I watch Nikkie’s videos when I’m at the gym and they make me so happy!)
• Cleaning my room.
• Playing with makeup.
• Putting on makeup when I’m not going anywhere!
• Lighting scented candles.
• Having a bubble bath.
• Unfollowing any social media profiles that make me feel bad about myself.
• Watching my favourite films.
• Cooking my favourite food.
• Singing in the shower.
• Talking to friends.
• Finishing work ON TIME.
• Related to the above – not looking at work emails when I’m off work.
• Making myself a great breakfast.
• Blogging.
• Painting, drawing and being creative.
• Getting 7/8 hours sleep.
• Wearing thermal socks.
• Using a 99p face mask.
• Chatting to my sister.
• Seeing my Niece and Nephew on FaceTime reeking havoc in my sisters house.
• Driving round to look at Christmas Lights when they go up.
• Making myself a cup of tea.
• Meeting up with friends for a chat/food/movies (basically spending time with the important people in your life)
• Wearing my favourite clothes.

Honestly the list could go on and on. I love selfcare, sometimes I do still feel selfish or guilty for spending time on ourselves, but we really shouldn’t. We’re stuck with ourselves for life so we better take care of that person we see in the mirror.

And at the end of the day, if something makes you happy and feel good, it’s probably your own version of selfcare. We’re all different so it’s impossible to say that one thing will work for everyone; telling someone to go take a bubble bath to relax if they hate having baths is pretty pointless. It’s a personal thing.

Some of the things in my list you might not consider to be selfcare, but for me, they are. Just doing one small thing for yourself a day can make such a difference to your mood and wellbeing. And myself from a year ago would say something along the lines of “I’ll start next week or in the new year”, but that’s not how I think anymore, the time to start is now.

That’s all from me today, I’m off to go get myself a hot chocolate and sit in a blanket with a book. Have a great weekend lovelies! You’re all amazing!

Love,

P.S. The UK Blog Awards are now open for voting! It’d mean the world to me if you could vote for me my lovelies!! 

Why I Started Blogging

 

Hello my lovelies! I can’t believe we’re in November already!

So, I’ve been blogging for a few months now, and something I get asked quite often when people I know find out I have a blog is why did I start blogging? What pushed me into pursuing blogging for myself?

Well, this week I’m going to let you into the reasons what made me want to start theweightofmyworlds and what pushed me to actually going forward and creating/publishing my blog!

Part of the idea to start blogging came after reading many blogs and thinking about how amazing and fun they look to write. When the initial thought popped into my head to begin my own blog I thought maybe I should just treat it like a sort of journal or diary of my life? And then I thought back to doing English at school and never being amazing and doubted my ability to write.. however, even though I wasn’t great at the typical English lessons it did occur to me that I was pretty good at writing as if I were talking to people and doing some creative writing.

As you can imagine, all of these thoughts to start writing popped into my head as I were about to go to sleep (which is when I seem to get the most motivation to do stuff, am I the only one with this??). So, I decided to type the general idea into my phone reminders so it would pop up in the morning and actually remind me of last nights idea to start my blog, which it did.

For a few weeks after this I then put off beginning my blog because I still doubted myself a bit and I just needed that extra push. And that came in the form of my younger sister Phoebe.

Here’s my younger sister Phoebe, without her giving me one of my initial ideas to start blogging, I wouldn’t be where I am today!

Well believe it or not what pushed me into starting my own blog was when I thought of a project I wanted to do to help my sister as she was growing up (she’s growing up way too fast for my liking!). I wanted to create her a sort of ‘guide’ for everything that she’ll go through growing up and going through school. And then it occurred to me that that can become easily outdated and with technology moving forward so quickly that maybe I should just go for it and create my own blog that she can visit for advice and general life stuff.

Whilst all of this was swimming round in my head, a bit of a life re-adjustment (well I guess that’s what I would call it?) happened for me. That was the final push I needed to really kick start what you’re reading this on today!

The life adjustment that pushed me to start my own blog was that I began my own recovery journey from an eating disorder. I know, heavy stuff.. I’ll be brief (there’s previous posts about this you can find on here anyway) and I thought that writing my story and things that I go through would help me in that recovery. And that’s part of why my blog is called ‘The Weight Of My Worlds’.

Since beginning my blog it has allowed me to really own what I want to talk about. I love speaking up about body positivity, de-bunking fads that do no good to our mental health, talking about fashion, food, fun projects from Pinterest that are actually feasible.. telling you all about my weird, wonderful and down right funny life experiences and generally interacting with this amazing community that I have been welcomed into with open arms.

I was actually planning on writing this post for my blog’s one year anniversary, but I decided that what better time to talk about how far The Weight Of My Worlds and I have come than now. Reflecting on your achievements and what/who pushed you towards doing great things not only for yourself but others too is a great thing that we shouldn’t have to make a plan or schedule talking about it. Any time is a great time to celebrate your own victories! Especially the small ones, they all add up to great memories.

Why did you start blogging? What do you love about it? Let me know in the comments!

And with that my lovelies, that’s all from me today! Have a great weekend everyone!

Love,

 

Versatile Blogger Award!

Hello my lovelies! I am so grateful and excited to be awarded the Versatile Blogger Award by another incredible blogger! Thank you so much to everyone that has supported me and my blogging journey, and thank you so much Pamela (@TheSparkleMomma) and Haziqa Ishtiaq (@haziqa_ishtiaq) for nominating me! The love, support and empowerment blogger to blogger is so amazing and being welcomed into this community has made me so unbelievably happy and grateful.

Check out Pamela and her amazing blog with the links below:

www.helpmommasparkle.com/

www.twitter.com/TheSparkleMomma

www.facebook.com/TheSparkleMomma/

www.instagram.com/helpmommasparkle/

Check out Hasiqa and her awesome blog with the links below:

www.fictionismymiddlename.home.blog/

www.twitter.com/haziqa_ishtiaq

 

Rules/Instructions:

If you’ve been nominated, then that means you’ve been awarded the Versatile Blogger Award! So a massive congratulations to you my lovely!

Thank the Blogger/Bloggers have nominated/given you the award and include the link to their blog in your post. You can include as many links to their social media profiles as you want. Lets spread the love and support even more in this community!

Let the person who nominated you know 7 Things About Yourself.

Select 15 Blogs/Bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly and put them in your post.

Nominate the 15 Blogs/Bloggers of your choice on Twitter with their Twitter handles and include the Twitter handle for the Blogger or Bloggers who nominated you!

 

7 Things About Me:

• I was born up north, I’ve moved around 10 times in my lifetime and currently reside in Cambridgeshire. I’ve lived here for a few years now and like it here; I’ve got family up and down the country but here will always feeling like home.
• I never went to university; and it’s something I sometimes wish I did, but at the end of the day, I’m very happy where I am now!
• I love art, drawing, painting, sculpting, photography and basically anything creative! I’ve loved art lessons since I was 5 years old; and it’s something I do regularly to relax and unwind.
• I never thought I would start blogging. It was something I’d wanted to do for a very long time but didn’t have the confidence or website know how to do anything about it. But being such a creative person I’m glad I pushed myself to pursue it because I absolutely love it.
• I want to write a book. I’m not sure what exactly about, just that it will be a sci-fi fantasy action thriller novel of some form. It’s something I’ve thought about quite a lot over the last few months and I think I’m going to make a start on something soon.
• Christmas is by far my favourite time of year. It’s the lights, the music, the food (oh the food is so so good), spending time with your loved ones, the ugly and funny jumpers, watching loved ones open gifts that will make them smile and being able to wear so many comfy layers of clothes that it’s like I’m still in my bed!
• I could survive off roast dinners and Chinese food for the rest of my life. I can happily cook a roast chicken dinner everyday and I would not get sick of it. It’s like I have a whole other stomach for that stuff haha!

 

Now you know some things about me, it’s time for me to pass on some more love to some amazing bloggers that deserve some recognition and a nomination!

1. @chloexlizabeth
2. @_amalog
3. @wotawomandiary
4. @BGbloggers
5. @chimmykins
6. @_ellabellax
7. @Finlaygracex
8. @foreverfiblogs
9. @lifeofemmax
10. @Stephloves4
11. @MaudMPP
12. @k8t4unicorns
13. @BaileyLeahBlogs
14. @LavraxB
15. @SandSblogger

My list of amazing bloggers could go on forever! Check these great people out and give them some love!

Have a great weekend lovelies!!! Love,

Finding A Lump.

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time. And what better time than than a few weeks before ‘Breast Cancer Awareness Month’ begins. Just warning you now, this might be a bit of a long one, but I think talking about these things more does a lot of good, and if this helps anyone out there then I’ll be happy.

Only a small number of people know this about me, but about 1 1/2 years ago I was doing a quick breast check after reading about boobs in an article (I think it was from somewhere like cosmo?) and I found a lump.

Lucky for me, it ended up being labelled benign which means it’s cancer free and shouldn’t impact me. I recognise that I am incredibly lucky that my lump ended up being benign as not everyone is so lucky.

Let me take you back to when I found this lump, I think I was reading an article about why all boob shapes are beautiful (being a girl just wanting to like her body for what it is and all that.. still working on that now haha) when it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my breasts recently.

So that was when I decided to give my boobs a once over. And that was when I found a pea sized lump towards the bottom left of my left breast. It was like the entire world had stopped when I felt it, then the panic set in. That was when I got my mum to see if they could feel it and that I wasn’t going mad for nothing.

Unfortunately they could feel it too, which meant the next day ringing up the doctors to get an appointment. Sadly my doctors are a bit short staffed without as much people as they probably need for the area I live in, so I had to wait a little while before I could get booked in, but I know that they’re doing everything they can in the current funding situation.

The day of my appointment came and off I went to the doctors absolutely terrified because in the time waiting for my appointment my anxious had wreaked havoc with my head and I had basically come to the conclusion that I was going to have to have surgery or it meant death. Some people may think it’s silly that this is what I was thinking, but that’s the reality of anxiety for you, it’s not rational and you can’t control it.

Once I went in for my appointment the doctor was so lovely and she calmed me right down; she asked me about what I’d felt, where and if I was in any pain. For the record, I’ve suffered with chronic chest pains for about 6 years in the left side of my chest reaching round my entire back and through my shoulder blades (I’ve been back and forth to the doctors for years about it with no avail), so I mentioned this in my appointment to see if this lump could be the cause of the pain if it had trapped a nerve or something, I didn’t know what it could be because I’m not a doctor and no amount of googling was helping me out.

I’ve recently found out the pain is actually coming from a few other conditions which I’ll talk about in another post, but I am okay and getting treatment so it’s now being managed. Right, back to talking about boobs!

After talking about what was going on, then came the examination. It was pretty nerve wracking getting my boobs out for a complete stranger, but it had to be done. She got me to show here where the lump was and then she felt my breasts for lumps. That was when she confirmed to me that I was right and that there is something there.

The doctor did then confirm to me that yes there is a lump, but the good news was that it was very small, around 8mm-1cm big, which meant it was probably benign which is great news. In order to just double check everything from my appointment, I was then given an appointment for an ultrasound so we could actually see what was going on.

The hospital appointment came round about two weeks after my doctors appointment which was pretty fast in my eyes. And I was glad because I just wanted to know what was happening and if I needed to start thinking about how I was going to potentially tackle the big C.

I brought my mum along with me to this appointment because 1.) We love doctor/hospital shows like 24hours in A&E and stuff like that, and 2.) She’s always there to support me in whatever way I need it. Going in for my ultrasound was pretty surreal, I walked into this dark room with 3 medical professionals in it, a load of equipment, a medical bed, 2 chairs and a curtain. My mum stayed with me for the entire thing, which helped a lot with the nerves.

So, I said hello to all of these very welcoming women in this dark room, took my top and bra off and laid down on the medical bed. It’s pretty weird having 3 women that you met 5 seconds ago staring at your boobs I’m not going to lie. The main doctor there did another examination on my breasts and then she put the coldest gel in my boobs I’ve ever felt haha. Then came the ultrasound machine, the doctor pushed it all over my boob until we came across a dark blob on the screen. My lump.

Here came the good bit for me. After a bit of moving around the blob the doctor came to the conclusion that my lump is definitely benign, and that I actually have something called a fibroadenoma. Fibroadenoma’s are a range of solid breast lesions that can feel hard, soft, smooth and rubbery, a bit like a pea, but they can be larger. Fibroadenoma’s are usually painless, but if they are causing significant pain they can sometimes be removed; you should also keep an eye on the lumps and go back to your GP if anything changes.

It’s pretty strange looking at an image of your boob on an ultrasound screen, especially because you only ever see ultrasounds happening to check on pregnancies.

So, once my ultrasound was done, I headed out with a leaflet about fibroadenomas and a huge sense of relief. I was and am incredibly lucky that my lump isn’t anything that serious.

At the beginning of this year, I thought my lump might had gotten bigger; but this was also around the time that I had lost a lot of weight, so I wasn’t sure if maybe I could just feel the lump more. So along came a second round of appointments to the doctors and hospital and lucky for me, nothing had changed other than myself losing weight.

This was great news for me as you can imagine. Some people aren’t as lucky as I am and I will be forever grateful that my lump is nothing serious. I’m still living with my lump at the moment, and it does cause some achiness now and again, but I know things could be so much worse.

What I want everyone to take away from this is to make sure you’re checking your breasts on a regular basis. You never realise how lucky you are until you have a scare like this. Even if you’re a man reading this, check your chest too, because men too can breast cancer. If you’re looking for some more information about what signs to look out for when checking your breasts, you can find that here! You can download a leaflet on what to look out for here!

I hope you’ve all enjoyed finding out a bit more about me and have found this useful; I know it’s been a bit long winded, but it’s an important issue that needs to be spoken about.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! And I also want to say a big thank you to all of my lovely readers for all of your support, and to celebrate my first 100 subscribers and say thank you to you all, stay tuned for a giveaway at the end of the month!!

So that’s it from me for today! Have a great week everyone! Love,

22 Facts About Me

I’ve been writing my blog for a while now, and I thought it might be a nice idea if you know a bit more about me! And since I’m 22, I thought I’d start off with 22 random things about me.

1. My full name is Victoria Morton.

2. I am 22 years old.

3. I have 4 siblings.

4. Both my parents have re-married.

5. I love love love drawing and anything creative.

6. I love movies.

7. My favourite meals are roast dinners and Chinese food.

8. I’m an old granny at heart.

9. I suffer with an eating disorder and anxiety.

10. My idea of a night out is actually a night in.

11. Sleep is super important to me.

12. I’m an apprentice.

13. I’m learning sign language.

14. I love action movies – especially marvel, dc and the fast & furious movies.

15. I’m a Harry Potter nerd.

16. I used to be a size 20 and am now a size 8-10.

17. I’ve never fully know what I wanted to be when I grow up.

18. I’m a Capricorn.

19. I have a bit of a hair dye addiction that I’m slowly getting over.

20. I get bored with my hair very quickly and tend to chop it off as an impulse (I’m currently growing out a pixie cut).

21. I’m rubbish at packing to go anywhere and always end up packing my entire wardrobe and wearing two things.

22. My favourite season is Winter.

Have you got any weird and wonderful facts about yourself? Let me know in the comments below! Have a great weekend everyone!!

Love,

And So The Journey Begins..

If you’re reading this then you’ve stumbled upon my blog! Here I’ll be talking about my life, loves and lessons on a weekly basis.

 

Well, welcome to my blog! My name’s Victoria, and blogging is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I just never really got round to doing it.. until now of course.

“I’ve never known what I wanted to do or be.”

I’d thought about writing a blog for quite some time, and I think part of that is because I’ve had lots of changes in the past few years; and writing about them seems like a good way of getting my head in order. After all, I’ve never known what I wanted to do or be.

So.. who am I?

Well, I’m 22 years old and I live in Cambridgeshire. I’ve always wanted to do something creative with my life, I’ve just never really been able to narrow down what that something is. I have a few hobbies, like creating art, watching Netflix, spending time with my boyfriend, doing yoga and working out (this is feeling a lot like a dating profile haha).

There’s a few more things you’ll find out about me in the weeks to come, and I can’t wait for you to find out. I’ll be talking about all the good, bad and just plain weird things about me and my life, I’ll probably have a few rants as well and a few mushy posts, but if I’m honest, I’m just going to be real with you on here. So anyway, this is me and welcome to ‘The Weight Of My World’!

Love,