One disaster after another!

So I got home yesterday super duper super excited.

MY PHONE WAS HERE!

I was so excited.

I opened it all up, all shiny and brand new, and popped in my sim card. I turned it on and started set up and...it crashed. FOUR TIMES! And then basically everything started going wrong. I don't know why shit like this ha[[ens but it really got me down last night. I'm still pretty down about it. It was a spontaneous, luxury buy I definitely couldn't afford and it bit me right in the ass. It kept crashing and there were stupid little pixelated lines flashing randomly on the screen and most of the apps wouldn't open when I tried them. I'm actually devastated. It was one of those buys that you do it and go "Oh shiiiiit, I shouldn't have done that, but now it's done I'll just go with it" and now I'm well and truly paying for it. I'm sending it back of course. I was going to get it replaced but then the guilt set in. I know I can't afford this, I know I need the money and I know I have to send it back and get a refund. It was so close though. I held it in my hand, I took pictures with it!

And now I have to send it back and go back to my awful little ten euro phone and accept that I won't be seeing a phone like that for a long while. And it's pretty shitty. But I'm going away for a weekend in three weeks and of course i have mountains of bills coming up so I just cant afford a phone, and probably won't be able to get one any time in the near future. I checked my next upgrade, it's not until november. Huh. Depression session.

So now I'm going to return it and do the sensible thing and take the refund. I hate being sensible.

So still no camera for Caoimhey. I need a better job. Or for my furniture to start selling. Then I'd be flying.

Huuuuh. When I'm older and rich and all that, then I'll be fine, right?

I'm going to try and commandeer my mothers camera (which is awful) so we'll see where we're at in a few days but anyway. That was my shitty day yesterday.

On the positive side of things I did some hardcore pilates last night and I felt so good this morning that when I woke up I felt like, yes felt like going for a run. So I did.

A run is being seriously optimistic now, overstating to say the least!

I got up with one intention to run for five minutes or just under. I wasn't going to push myself too hard. So I set off ran for three and a half minutes which seems like nothing but it was tough. I then sprinted for like ten seconds and you know what I feel great about it! Even if it was nothing compared to other people for me it was a marathon! My chest was burning, I had a moment of going oh god maybe I'm dying but I was being dramatic.

But still a run, however short is still a run. And I'm going out horse riding this evening. More calories!!

So in short while I feel this is a bad thing (about my phone) I know that in reality it's not. I'll wait seven months for my upgrade and I'll try afford a point and shoot in the next few months! And on the fitness/health/my life going well side of things then it's all pretty good!

I'm better than I was yesterday and thats enough for me!

Bit of a hump and a bit of shame(ful)less plugging!

Good Morning!!

I'm sitting here enjoying a lovely bowl of raspberries and yogurt with a rusk crushed up in it (it sounds a bit mad but it's really good and it's vaguely cheesecakey) and watching top gear.

I'll be off to get dressed in a few so I just thought I'd do a little writing!

So first and foremost as I was saying yesterday I had a good day...until the evening. I came home and had my dinner even did a wee bit of shopping for lunches etc. and was doing well. I had three fruit servings ledt so I was going to go out and blend a banana with cocoa powder and some stevia and maybe a drop of honey to have a sort of soft serve ice cream and when I opened the press and saw...fondant. I had totally forgotten I had it. And seeing it there it just seemed so appealing. I took it out and pulled off a lump of it and long story short I ate about three hundred calories of fondant. And god knows how much sugar. I was telling myself not to do it even as I was doing it!

I went and talked to my boyfriend and hes suggested the next time I want to do something like that I should talk to him. I'll give it a try but once I've convinced myself it's hard to sway me. If my will power is a muscle then mine is just a baby muscle, a weakling, a smallie, so I guess I got to work on it!

So thats my little rant and now I wanted to shamelessly plug myself a little bit!

My boyfriend and I are currently trying to start our own little furniture buisness. I'm hoping to move into completely handmade objects sooner rather while continuing some funiture renovation also but we're starting small. We currently have 3 upcycled pieces up on etsy and I'm trying to get the word of our little company out there as much as possible so I thought here would be as good a place as any!

Our first little piece to go up was a lovely little set of decoupaged nest tables









These were our first little venture and they are currently up on our etsy shop!

The next one up was this lovely grey drop leaf table!










And then thirdly we put up a lfull length mirror my boyfriend upcycled



And in that you can see some of the little stable we work in!

And you can see a few of our other little projects!

This weekend we are going to work on that blue chair you see in the picture which we are going to turn into a swing chair!I'm very excited about that!Might do a little decoupaging on it I'm not certain yet yo be honest!It's just at priming stage now!

We're also going to finish up a big project we're doing!It's this beautiful writing desk that we picked up recently and we decided to go with simple and classic! It was originally mahogany and we've decided to go with plain white and black blackboard paint on the drawers and even if I do say so myself it looks great!

So hoping to get the last coat of paint and a lick of varnish on it this weekend!Expect photos soon!

Recipe of the Week: Breakfast

So last week I mentioned I was getting a new phone, hopefully on friday and that after that my blog would be pictureful and lovely, however my phone did not arrive yet. Twice I thought it was here, first on the Friday I expected it. My boyfriend met me for lunch as he does every friday and I asked him about it (you have to understand I was like a kid waiting at the mail box everyday) and he said oh so flippantly "oh ye actually I think it did!". Now I double and triple checked with him, "was it a box?, was it small?/round/big/did it have an aussie stamp" and Paul just said "ye, ye I think so" and I was so excited. I got home so buzzing you wouldn't believe it!

I opened the door and looked straight at the table where the post is left and my heart sank. It was quite clearly not  a phone. It was very obviously a large book and looked nothing like a phone box. I was so disappointed! It was back to the waiting game, so I got home the day before yesterday and saw a lovely little green note saying "sorry we missed you" and I rushed up yesterday morning to pick up my phone. Not. I got to the post depot and handed in my little green slip of happiness and then my face fell. Something else could have been too big to fit through the letter box. Something a lot less exciting than a phone. A lot. I was also waiting on a water bottle. I just knew in that instant that thats what I was waiting for and lo and behold when the guy came back, voila, water bottle. Big fricken woop!

So long story short, I'm still here waiting for my phoneyoneyo and I still have no camera. So this morning when I went to make my breakfast this morning and decided to do the peach parafait my way this morning and I actually thought first it had been a disaster. Turns out it was delicious!

So I'll begin with the place I found this from. I found it over at Dalias Kitchen and boy am I glad! I feel like I will be putting this in my "Saturday morning breakfast" repertoire! I think next time though I'll leave out the soya cream and through in skimmed milk just to knock off a few cals but by god was it worth it this morning. It.was.delissio!

I subbed mango for peaches and I used one tablespoon of honey and then I replaced the rest with Candrel. As I said this is the only chemically thing I agree to use and I'm trying to find a better option thats a little less chemical but this one doesn't leave much of a taste! But anyway i followed the recipe otherwise and the first thing I'd say is that with the mango the morning when your rushing for work is not the best time to chop it so if I was to do this again I'd chop my fruit the day before and I was also considering using some rasberries as another layer!Raspberry and mango? Yes please!

So anyway it took some time and I ended up throwing it into a to go cup. Now my parafait definitely didn't look like Dalia's my mango was a lot thinner and not solid enough to hold a layer of porridge so they blended together fairly rapidly. So I tried it when it was hot, before I ran out the door and my face scrunched up! It was so chemically and awful tasting and I thought immediately goddamn it was sucha mistake to use the candrel. I had no other option but to bring it with work with me cause I had no food otherwise!. So I threw the rest into the fridge and packed my unsuccessful meal into my bag. So I got down and sat at my desk and opened the lid of my lunch pot and took the first spoon and was blown away! It had cooled down and had lost the chemical taste and when I tried all three together, the yogurt, fruit and oatmeal it was like a taste explosion in my mouth. It was so good! I savoured every mouthful! I will be having this again!

Massive props to Dalia's Kitchen again for the deliciously decadent breakfast!

P.S I just received word that my phone is here, this time I'm fairly vertain it is for real here! I can't think of anything Else it could be so hopefully my snap happy journey will start tonight!

Recipe of the week: Lunch

So I did one of the recipes way sooner than I thought I would. I got home and realised I hadn't left out meat for dinner and that my dear boyfriend had gone off and gotten subway so he wasn't eating!

I wasn't feeling like a dinner to be honest so I decided to give the Cauliflower crust toasties a try. Of course as is typical of me I forgot to charge my camera and could not find the charger and had made them by the time I realised I hadn't so long story short no pics.

It won't always be like this I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it today but I really, really, really did make them! I swear!

Anyway I'm going to go ahead and give my little review.

First, the instructions were super clear and easy to follow. To put it shortly there was no bullshit about the recipe. However the process itself was a bit time consuming. My blender wasn't great and it took a while to make the cauliflower rice. I then had the surreal expierience of pouring food from a bowl onto a tea towel. I won't lie, I felt wierd. And I looked wierd and I really didn't want to explain to my housemates when they asked what the hell I was doing!

I pushed passed my thoughts that were screaming "This is not normal!You don't put food in your tea towel and then EAT it!" and I squished as much water as possible out of my cauliflower.

Now maybe you're supposed to leave it cool down first or something because I damn near got third degree burns trying to squish the water out and without gloves, opted for wrapping another tea towel around my hand and then I squished away!

I was supposed to get around a cup of water from the rice but I only got around 3/4s of a cup, probably a bit less and the mext time I'd try squish a bit harder. My "bread" wasn't soggy like I feared but I wouldn't have minded it a tiny bit crispier.

So I squished and squished then I mixed in the other things and started to form my "slices of bread" on the tray and I popped them into the oven quite convinced these were not going to work!

Anyway fifteen minutes late I took out some thngs that to my surprise actually looked quite like they were supposed to!

I used a spatula to peel them up in case they were soggy but they held up and then I buttered the less crispy side and threw in some cheese. I also buttered the outside and then I threw them onto the pan.

5 mins later they looked just like the picture from the blog!



I cut them in half and threw them on a plate and asked my boyfriend to trust me and just eat (he's not very adventurous!). One was a little more blac and it turned out that was actually nicer but it's a learning curve!

They were actually quite delish! Now I defintely wouldn't claim that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference! I mean you'd definitely know it wasn't bread and I can forsee some people having a problem with the texture...it's unusual but I definitely would try it again! Maybe a bit more salt the next time but aside from that they even got the Boyfriend Seal Of Approval.

So I'm sufficiently happy! Honestly it's a weekend thing cause it does take a bit of time but I will definitely be trying cauliflower crust pizza! So thumbs up!

#100happydayschallenge

So I've decided to do the #100happydayschallenge whereby I post a picture of something, anything that makes me happy every day for 100 days!

And it's that simple!

I'm also going to tie it in with #100DaysofFitness challenge where I will work out for a half an hour every day for 100 days!Even if it's just a walk or anything like that!

So day one will start tomorrow!

Recipes of Interest.

I'm sure I, as someone who loves food and yet wants to lose weight, am not alone in looking up millions of recipes I hope I can squish into my daily diet in order to make it a bit less dull.

I am not necessarily the worlds greatest baker/cook but I love doing it and I love trying new things! 

I have pinterest boards dedicated to food and I am a regular trawler of foodgawker(great website for foodies out there!) and I find that a lot of the time "Healthy" recipes are either super super complicated or have ingredients that are difficult to find in Ireland with out going to a health store and spending €10 for a small packet of something or other.

Now I also am not a fan of all these things that people use that are apparently healthy and then I find the recipe is full of "such and such an extract" or xanthos gum or other things that I cannot pronounce and have no interest in. I just don't trust these things. They may or may not be beneficial for your health but honestly I have no idea, and honestly I am not going to go to the time or effort of locating these (often expensive) things when I am not interested in gluten free or vegan or any of those things. I simply want good food thats low calorie and either low sugar or sugar free. The only thing I give in and use is stevia and stevia products. Honestly even these I am wary about. I would like to do a bit more research into finding a good one thats as natural as possible because frankly the thought of all those chemicals scare me!

So if I look at a recipe and its fairly free of all those things that sound like they would be in a science lab and it has sugar I just sub in a stevia product and I'm ready to go, with it being low enough calories obviously!

So this week I'm planning on trying a few new recipes. I'm going to go ahead and pick a breakfast, snack, lunch and dinner from the web this week and in my amateur kitchen try them out and see how well or horrendously they turn out!

So first and foremost, Breakfast:

 I love breakfast time, I love something nice and wholesome and  interesting for my brekkie and my meals usually center around fruit and maybe some carbs and almost always yogurt. So I found a lovely parfait that just sounds yummy so I'm going to paste the original blog and recipe and then I'm going to make my own substitutions.

Found on Dalia's Kitchen http://www.daliaskitchen.com/2014/05/how-it-all-started-and-maple-apricot.html

It looks beautiful doesn't it?

I want it now. Like right now.

I'm seriously hungry looking at it! 

Now the recipe calls for whole milk and for peaces! I am going to make the substitution of unsweetened Almond milk purely because I like it and also mango instead of peaches purely because I love mangos and they were 39 c for one in Dunnes!

Now I'm also going to omit the toasted almonds also but that is just personal preferrence. I think I might also add some linseed because it's good for you!

I think I'll make this one tomorrow morning and I'll snap a few pics and post how it turned out tomorrow!

Lunch:

I love my carbs and there is nothing better than a good old grilled cheese toastie. However unfortunately for me I only have to so much as look at a sliced pan and I pile on six million pounds. Obviously not literally but the moral of the story is I avoid carbs as much as possible (or at least I try) and I have been very interested in cauliflower crust pizzas and other cauliflower subbing for bad nasty bread!

However up until now I've been put off each recipe I've looked at for one reason or another, until the day before yesterday when I found a recipe for toasted cheesy's over on The Iron You. The pictures looked nothing short of incredible.



Doesn't that look melt in your mouth delicious?

Naturally being a cheese toasty fan I immediately stuck this on the list of recipes I want to try.
I'm not going to make any subs to this, I am going to follow it step by beautiful step and aside from the fact I might sneak in a bacon medallion just 'cos!

Here's the link to the original (ingenious) recipe over at The Iron You, Grilled Cheese Toasty

Dinner

Myself and Paul are exceptionally fond of take out, who isn't? Chinese would be a favorite, closely following Pizza, (stay tuned for cauliflower pizza) and I love to try make take out dishes at home and a bit healthier. So when I stuck this original recipe into my fitness pal (the original is from Iowa Girl Eats) it was still a bit too heavy on calories for me! I made my own substitutions for example I won't be using vegetable oil but low cal cooking spray, I also have a little less chicken because I eat smaller portions than the original recipe. Paul will have a regular sized portion of chicken but admittedly it is skimming a few extra cals off this recipe.

Oops...I forgot to say what the recipe was...I'll be cooking Sesame Chicken!

And here's what it will (hopefully) look like!



So as I said I'm making some subs and omissions to make it lower calorie for example I will not be using as much honey. Unfortunately even with the cutting of the honey this is still very high in sugar but for a treat once a week I won't die!

So now with breakfast, lunch and dinner covered I'll move onto the snack. now I have two snacks a day, one at 11 which is generally savory and one smaller one, under about 150 cals in the evening. That one tends to be sweet. Now on work days they're all fairly standard, average things (although I might be having my cheese toasty tomorrow, we'll see!) so on weekends I like to go big or go home as they say here!

So I found these tasty treats on Girl Who Bakes and I am dying to try them!



I will definitely be trying these on Saturday morning! I really look forward to trying them and I'm also going to attempt to make a chocolate sauce from Soya cream to add to these!

I want it to be Saturday now god damn it!

Anyway after that exceptionally long entry I am going to take my leave! I will be posting as I try each recipe and will let everyone know what subs I made, how they were in comparison to their full caloried counterparts etc.

Excited to try all these now!

Regular day in the life of my diet

Breakfast
120 grams of low fat yogurt
2 rusks
Cup of green tea

Snack
blaa (for those who don't live in Ireland thats a kind of floury bap) with 2 sausages.
(I normally wouldn't eat this for snack but I was super hungry cause I normally have a bigger breakfast)

Lunch
Chicken and stuffing sandwich
Butternut Squash Soup

Snack
Apple
2 rusks

Dinner
60 grams steak burger
30 grams of mozzerella
Brocolli
1/2 cup carrots
1/2 cup of peas.

evening snack: apple

totals for the day:
1 serving out of 2 dairy
3 out of four carbs
5 out of six protein
3 out of 3 restricted veg
1 free veg(brocolli)
1 out of five fruits
2 litres of Water

Over all today it was ok.
The snack of a blaa is too much calorie wise but I was starving as i had gotten up late and didn't have time for a proper breakfast. I also need to inject more fruit in tomorrow, which was also due to the lack of food in our presses so tomorrow I'll try squish in my regular fruit intake. But yeah all in all quite a good day. Still abit too carb focused but I can work on that!

What a weekend!

Well it's been...a weekend. To say the least. A good, but eventful weekend! And so long. I slept it out this morning which I never do. Ever. I also woke up at..oh around five o'clcok this morning, having had an awful nightmare and then my ear popped and has yet to unpop. Not that best start to a week!

The cherry on top of the cake? I decided that I would weigh myself a day early. Always a bad idea but honestly I knew what the results were going to be. In fact as I waited for the little dots that signfy my scales is thinking/weighing me to countdown I guessed my weight in my head to within 3/4s of a pound. "18 stone 11" I thought. Well add the 3/4's and I'm almost back to my starting weight. Again.

Now this weekend I had two parties and a lot of alcohol. A lot. I also had two slices of cake and a burger and a lot of chicken. Now I know that it's not about the bad meal. It was the drink. I know. and then I spent Sunday carb loading and now I'm up three pounds. And I looked at the scales and thought "Why?Why do I sabotage myself?" I got through two weeks of good eating and two weeks of bad to undo all the good.

And add another month onto my life as an 18 stoner.

I know what to do to loose the weight but for some reason I just can't keep it up. Some reason, probably that I'm lazy, I cannot commit to things and I am quite self pitying. I spend nintey per cent of my time thinking about how it sucks that I can't eat like everyone else/my boyfriend/my sister and wondering why me? Why can't I eat what I want/drink what I want etc.

The reality of it is that yes I cannot eat sweet things as much as I want etc but if I can stick with this and work in exercise to my daily routine and healthy eating into my lifestyle.

I need to learn discipline. I need to learn that I can eat well six out of seven days and then have a slice of cake if I want on the seventh and that that slice of cake cannot send me into a spiral of sugar. And I need to realise the benefits of my healthy lifestyle over the lifestyles of my boyfriend and sister and best friends who are tiny. At some point most people have to start looking after themselves better. I just got there a little earlier.

I know there are massive benefits. For example I don't like how I am right now. There's a reason I am this way so change it. The problem is that it's hard work, it's not instantaneous. If someone walked in now and said I can make you your ideal weight right this instance there is only one condition, you can never eat chocolate again. I wouldn't even bat an eyelid I'd be on that so fast. And realistically that's not even what I have to do. I just have to give it up some of the time and wait for results.

what are the pros?

1. I will lose weight.
2. When that happens I will feel good about myself.
3. I will be healthy
4. I will be fit.
5. I will not feel like I'm going to crush my boyfriend if I sit on his lap.
6. I can shop where ever the hell I want.
7. I will live to see my kids(that I have not had yet) graduate and get married.
8. I will have more energy to play with said kids when the time comes..
9. I will be more organised and together because I will feel good and in controll.
10. I will be happier
11. I can wear a bikini.
12. I can do everything with more ease and grace(something I am not renowned for)
13. I can take up a sport again.
14. I will look good effortlessly because I won't wear frumpy cardigans to hide my arms.
15. I can sunbathe(within reason, I don't want to end up with skin cancer)
16. I will be able to run, fast, without breaking a sweat.
17. I will be able to keep up with my little brother when we're playing.
18. I will feel comfortable in my skin.
19. I will fit into the seats at the theatre/the cinema/the bus/the airoplane/many others comfortably.
20. I will be able to cross my legs without ending up sitting there with my knee almost touching my face

And there's twenty...shall I continue? And continue i could. I could make lists of pros for days.

The cons of loosing weight I hear you cry?

1. I can't eat whatever I want whenever I want.
2. .............yeah thats about it.

So it should be obvious and simple right?

Right?

.....I think at this point there is no option for me. It's about time, or rather well past time that I realised that I either eat myself skinny or I eat myself into an early grave. 

And on that morbid note I will end.

Until next time.

Hungover and...hungover...

So last night as I mentioned we were going to a 1920s party! So I'm going to post my first photo!

Woooooo!!!!!

I have to say I felt a million dollars last night!!I really felt awesome!I think the 20s was my era!And that handsome devil beside me is my wonderful boyfriend!

We had a great night! The party itself was fun but then myself and my better half headed off and went dancing to terribly cheesy music in of the nightclubs in our area! We got home laughing and unfortunately with....a chicken wrap and chips...dun dun dun...However I'm not too upset! It wasn't great but look one bad meal won't make or break your diet just like one healthy meal does not a healthy diet make!

I had lots and lots of fun, we looked Fabulous! And something I'm quite happy to admit, I felt sexy and was brimming with confidence and I think despite a little downfall I'm going to console myself and say I danced off at least some of the calories!

And another photo for bonuses..

 

habits newly formed

So I'm taking a leaf out of people all around the internets books and I'm going to try and do my own little version.

I need things to be easy or I get disheartened. (a.k.a known as I'm a quitter!) I've tried running and I've done quite well with it, at one point I was running 6k and I was super proud of myself but for hundreds of reasons to tired and boring to write down here I gave up!

When I see tall, lean girls obviously bursting with power sprinting on the beach loving their bodies I get so jealous. I know what it felt like when I finished that first six k with a sprint and felt alive and awesome and then I stopped soon after.

I told myself a million things but the truth is I want to be a person who runs!

I want to be fit and flexible. And I think that a combination of Pilates and running will help me achieve the body and level of fitness I crave.

And I'm going to ease myself into it initially.

So heres my little plan...I will set up two or three small goals for the week, each week and complete them and nothing more. I tend to start, feel a bit stronger and push to hard and start to hate the stuff.

So here we go!

now technically it's the end of a week and i also have my weigh in days on tuesday so I think Monday and Tues are the days I'll pick. Now until then I'm going to give myself a leg up and start today and then officially start on Monday!

Week 1
5 x 5 x 5 x 5 

• 5 sit up/ab exercises
• 5 press ups
• 5 minutes jogging/running (intervals to begin with)
• 5 minutes Pilates

I'm also going to include 5 minutes of stretching and five minutes of cooldown too.

I can easily fit these into my daily routine(which is my main excuse for skipping out) and for this wekk this is all I'm going to do. Just ease myself into it!

To hold myself accountable I'm going to check in everyday I'm doing it (I'm going to do six days, rest on sunday) I might cut it back to five when I start reaching higher levels of things and what not but as it stands that really is a doddle so I can't justify cutting it any more!

So I'm hoping that in twelve or thirteen weeks time I'll be doing quite well fitness wise!
I hope!

I'm getting into the habit of this!

So theres a little few things i want to gush about in this post, I can't say for sure this will even be the last one today!I'm really enjoying doing this now that I've gotten into the habit of it!

First and foremost something I've been super excited about and anticipating all week is about to happen tomorrow(I hope) and while everyone has been saying "don't do it" to me I'd like to state to all the Windows phone haters out there that unlike, it seems everyone else, I love Windows 8 on a phone!!

I was due an upgrade there about a year ago and I dislike android phones. Now I know obviously theres way more apps etc. but I suppose that's not so important to me! I just don't like the interface on samsung phones, or sony phones, or really any of them! I just don't think they look pretty! And honestly I couldn't bring myself to give in and buy an Iphone. I also have an ipod...so I gave in a wee bit whatevs...so anything I want on appstore I can get on that!Honestly I don't even have any apps on my ipod anyway!I lose it half the time and it's dead most of the other half!

So anyway long story short, I had this upgrade and I went in one day, hungover off my head, and I am notorious for making snap, rash and often terrible ideas when I'm hungover. So I went in and was browsing not really knowing what I wanted and I saw something pretty. A bright blue phone, with beautiful lines and a big petty screen and i was drawn to it. So I read the specs, 8mp camera (I like photography and this was good for a phone, at the time, I know now that you can get way better cameras on phones) and (I may have been swayed by the name here) Dre Beats audio and really it was just so dammmmmn purdy and in my hungover state I wanted it!. So I called the shop assistant and asked her how much it was with my upgrade(turns out it was free) and was shocked when she said "I'll check for you but I really wouldn't get that phone, nobody likes it!". Imagine a shop assistant slamming a product like that? Honestly I should have rethought my choice then but on this occasion I am so very glad I didn't.

I asked her why and when her reply was that she was an apple girl not a windows head I shrugged, said I hated apple and signed on the dotted line, I walked away with my shiny new HTC 8X and I never regretted it.

I turned it on and saw the beautiful interface and I fell in love.

Instantly.

And I never fell out of love. Sure there are fewer apps but it's so pretty pretty pretty and apps don't bother me too much.

And the camera rocks and it was just wonderful owning my baby.

And then something terrible happened. I drop my phone on a regular basis and my poor oul phone couldn't take that one last drop. I dropped it directly onto the edge of a curb and it cracked right along the screen.

I genuinely mourned it and I still get upset when I think about it(I'm a giant nerd I know) and so when I went to get it repaired and they told me it would cost 270 euros to fix my screen I died inside a little bit. I couldn't afford that. So I went on the hunt and researched windows phones of the moment. I eventually settled on the Nokia Lumia 920 and I found one online for 200 squidoles and I pulled the trigger. And it's going to be here tomorrow!!!!!!

I am so EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like a kid on christmas. I'm not sure I'll sleep tonight!

But anyway my point is that seeing as my poor old point and shoot gave up the ghost recently and my phone of the moment is a nokia prehistoric and I keep saving for the dslr I will one day own but life is expensive, I currently don't have any camera (except for a poloroid) in my life at the moment and it's killing me little by little. Anyhoo my point is expect photos from tomorrow on!

For example the other thing I'm excited about is I got a new haircut yesterday! I'd like to share it! I didn't change it much. I got a little cut off it and a side fringe cut in but I also took my undercut up a bit higher on one side so now you can see it even when my hairs down! I think it's pretty but tomorrow I'll be able to put it up for the world(the two or three people who may see it)to see!

And I'm going to a 1920's party tomorrow night so that too will be fun!

I might post my make up before we go!

And I get to wear a pretty dress which is always good!

  I will try my best to contain myself and not post again today.

I can't say I will suceed.

My life Plan

Wow...what an ambituous title eh?

I honestly try to pretend I don't have a plan because then if I don't have one it can't get messed up on me right?

But secretly like everyone I imagine the direction I'd like my life to go!

I'd like to stay with Paul, get maried and have a few childers and set up a cosy, comfy home in the country.

I'd like to get fit enough to be able to do handstands and curl up like a pretzel and be able to run five miles without batting an eyelid.

I'd like to get my montessori qualification and teaching some smallies some interesting things!

And my pet dream?My secret, I don't think it can ever happen dream?I would love to make my living off making, upcycling and renovating furniture.

And I've taken steps towards my dream. I'm just leaving it linger up there with all my other dreams I'll incubate but never try.

A couple of weeks ago, well more than a month ago now I decided to do up a few pieces of charity shop furniture that I bought for my kitchen and loved it. Of course I had a large amount of paint left and everyone was raving about the furniture saying I should do it and I stumbled upon a beautiful wooden writing desk that someone was selling because they were emigrating. I offered them an obscenely low amount of money(because I'm poor you understand) and I was lucky enough to have my offer accepted with one stipulation. It had to be collected that evening.

My car is only a little mazda 2 and while it is a beast of a little thing that has fold down seats it's also not the biggest car and I was worried that it wouldn't fit in that back of my little mazzie but regardless, at nine o clock at night me and Paul left waterford to drive to wexford and hope and pray that this desk fit when we got there!

It was exciting!It might not seem it now but it was we were midnight driving, putting in the miles to show our comittment to our new idea.

Fast forward a couple of months, we have now found a little studio(an old stable at my home house) and we've bought lots of little odds and ends of furniture that are in various states of paintedness.

Last week we hit a little milestone and put our first piece up!

I was super excited the first day and I feel like it will be better when I put up other pieces and theres less focus on one little set of nest tables, but it's so scary. I'm technically "the Talent" and I'm not being cocky here, I am the ideas person and Paul is the buissnessy ends of things. We both put in the grunt work and Paul is starting to pitch in a few ideas of his own, but I still feel that all the pressure is on my ideas to sell.

I have developed a tick at this stage. I open any internet browser and automatically type "mail.yahoo.co.uk" and I hold my breath, hoping theres and offer. And there  isn;t. An I know, it's only been up a while and I should calm down but I'm neurotic.

I'm trying to reign in my wild ideas that are screaming "Your ideas are terrible, no one likes it and you should just knock the price to 30 and sell it!" but instead I'm thinking calm down. You'll never know until to you try but goddamn it's scary!!

So I'm going to sign off here and (probably go check my mailbox) try make myself understand that sucess doesn't happen over night and as is the same with my weight it's just one foot in front of the other every day!

(and in case anyone wants to have a look heres our first piece soon to be followed by many others!)
https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/189224998/hand-painted-decoupauged-table?

In summary today has been quite terribel food wise.

I would say I have consumed a little over 2000 calories.

The only thing thats in my advantage is that none of these meals/snacks contained sugar and alot of it was fruit or protein however over is over so I'm going to snap my little socks up and make sure that tomorrow I stick to my servings like a good girl!

Onwards and upwards!!

I got home yesterday evening and pottered off to the shop and got some deliciopus, healthiful food so now I'm all stocked up and prepared and ready to go!

The next thing I'm going to need to focus on is my excercise (huuuuuuhhhhhhhh). I am PUMPPPPED!!

Well I'm trying to be....I used to be very good for getting up and going but when I started the last time the diet worked so well I kind of let the exercise thing slip. It's pretty hard to tell yourself that you need to work out when you're regularly loosing six or seven pounds but thats what was missing from my diet. 

My boyfriend said something yesterday about how he was looking forward to seeing me skinny and I said "Ye, me too!" and he said "You were though?" now of course as I am really critical of myself I probably was alot skinnier than I thought at the time but I still saw myself as the same person. Now when I look back at pictures I notice the difference but I didn't then.

And the main reason was that my body might have been smaller but it was no more toned. I wasn't working out so while my body was shrinking it wasn't tightening up any.

So as I mentioned I do love pilates and I just bought Pilates for Dummies and I'm going to pick up a few dvds...I know there are work out videos there online etc but I just find it hard to keep finding the same one and not get distracted by others and therefore I don't stick with them.

Also while I'm obviously happy to have lost several pounds quickly I don't think it's healthy or maintainable so I'm going to up my servings by one again and just start walking a bit more and doing my pilates and aim for two pounds a week!

And I am going to say goodbye to this booty forever...well not all of it!

Paul also said something else to me last night while we were chatting. I was talking about how when I was down to fourteen stone I was still taking size 16 jeans because I've got a rather sizeable derriere and that that was why I wanted to focus on exercise so that my body shape would change as well as my body size. Then he turned around and said "I think around that weight would be perfect for you" and I was shocked. I always had in my head about how guys want this tiny little stick thin girl etc. and while that wouldn't influence my decisions and stuff I assumed Paul was a verified member of the "Thigh Gap club". Now personally at 5ft 10 I alwaya felt that if I got down to the recommended weight for my height which is around 12 stone 5 that I would look like a clothes hanger with some skin on it. I am not only tall but I have rather broad sholders and as I said good baby making hips and a big oul booty. I never aimed to get down to 12 stone.

My perfect weight I think would be around 13stone 12 to 14 stone ish. And that's my goal! I've always said if I could get to a size fourteen but be fit and toned and healthy I'd be one happy girl and while Paul would never begrudge me loosing as much as I wanted it was nice to know that he had the same ideal in his head as I did.

I'd like to point out also that Paul has always been supportive of me. He fell in love with me at this size and I believe him when he says he wouldn't care if I didn't change! Now I know there will be cynics out there who go "yeah sure thats what he says" and while yes I'm sure he wouldn't fight against me loosing weight I mean come on if he told me he was going to go workout everyday for the next year I wouldn't say no to the inevitable six pack but I am happy with him as he is. If he never changed I would love him still the same and I know thats how he feels about me too.

Fortunately for him I plan on becoming a better version of myself anyway! 

I'm going to try and make myself get in the habit of this blogging thing!

Not just on bad/good days but anyway. This is my third way in day. To get it up to scratch I'm weighing myself once a week on Tuesdays and currently my cameras broken but I plan to follow with pictures once a week so I can see my progress which I think I need.

Anyway first Tuesday, I lost 7 pounds woop woop, a big loss but I have a lot to loose. Now I was just doing diet no exercise which is what happened the first time I lost weight and it didn't stick I know I'm going to have to work in healthy exercise as well as healthy eating. I love love love Pilates so I'm going to try go for a half hour walk at least three times a week and do a half hour of Pilates at least twice or three times(it's summer now Pilates in the garden Saturday morning?yes please!).

The first week I didn't incorporate any I basically reduced my diet to 1,250 cals and cut out all forms of sugar, chocolate etc. I'm also sticking to a low carb plan so that seems to be working and that was grand.

Fast forward to the next Tuesday and I'd been a little less strict and had been unprepared on a particular day to go babysitting and ended up in the peoples home without having eaten dinner and without having brought food with me. They left me a pizza. I resisted for as long as I could and tried to find something healthier but they didn't seem to have anything. I was doing a particularly long shift there from 4:30 in the evening till one in the morning and by 11ish I was starving. Not only did I give in and eat half a pizza (worth about 800 calories) I ate three chocolate bars and a cream egg.

The next day I vowed to be back on it but the floodgates (slowly) opened and I found myself giving in to little bits of sugar here and there. However when last tuesday arrived and I stepped up to the scales I found I had lost five pounds! I was delighted..almost a stone in two weeks. Of course this lulled me into a false sense of security. I could eat a bit more surely and obviously the sugar wasn't so bad etc. etc. and this week went from bad to worse. On a night out I indulged in half of a large takeaway pizza, I also gave into to chinese one night and due to a very hectic week I have still not managed to get my shopping in and we are down to some bare ass looking cupboards right now. yesterday evening I got home from work at 10 to six and scoffed a bagel before I ran to a neighbors to tutor their kid for an hour got home at seven and had to leave again for eight o clock(every days not usually this insane, just mondays and tuesdays) and looked in the fridge to realise we had nothing. Well thats a lie we actually had cheese. But that was that. I didn't have time to shop, I hand't left out meat to defrost and I was starving. What was easy, cheap and cheerful? The chipper up the road. I had been guiltily snacking on sweet stuff here and there all week, I had had three, count em, three takeaways and I was not optimistic today as I stepped on the scale.

And I got what I expected and then some. I thought maybe I'd be the same, maybe I'd be up a pound or so. No. I was up four. I am currently back up to 18 stone 9 pounds. God that was depressing. My boyfriend immediately came over and hugged me and said "day by day baby" and asked did I know where I'd gone wrong, which I did. Honestly normally something like this would make me depressed for the day but he talked me around. He told me what I already knew but I do like to wallow sometimes. He told me that I knew where I'd gone wrong I knew what to do to be back down the four next week, that this was a minor speed bump in my long journey and they were bound to happen. He was the voice of reason I always try to ignore when I want to feel sorry for myself. And after five minutes of hugging and him saying these things out loud I felt buoyed. So thats it. Sugars gone again. For longer than a week and a half this time. and even if I end up doing my shopping at one in the morning I cannot let our presses go unstocked again because the temptation of takeaway when your starving and strapped for time is just too strong.