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!