Friday yay!

This week we are having a quiet weekend. I'm going to the pub for a quick pint with some of the guys from work and then home. Tomorrow I'm going to do the tidying I keep threatening to do and make some jewellery. Same again on Sunday and then pub quiz at night. I'm hoping for some sunshine so that I can take some nice pictures of pretty things.

Have a great weekend

Weekend pictures

First things first, meet Barbarella

The Amethyst jewellery I made Cathy

One of the not so crystal chandeliers I bought for the hall and landing

My wonderful friends, my over enthusiastic hubby and my baby brother

The daffodils I mentioned before

and the lovely flowers Cathy and James bought me

One year older

I'm 27 Yey! I love birthdays and I don't mind getting older. Maybe that's cause I'm in my 20's! I dunno but lets face it, aging is far better than the alternative right?

I've had a great few days. I had Friday, Monday and Tuesday off work so it was a really loooong weekend but coming back to work today was hard. I'll have lots of pictures to show you from my birthday party.

James' mum bought me some cut daffodils for my birthday and I totally love them. Tulips and daffodils are quite possibly my favourite flowers. As soon as I see them poking their little heads through the frosty earth I know that lighter nights and warmer weather will follow.

Of course I change my mind with the seasons so in a couple of months when we are. My friends Cathy and James also bought me some rather lovely flowers which are helping the daffodils brighten up the living room.

I think I will tidy the living room tonight, it is quite tidy but I think I'll tidy up the bookcase. We have a lot of sorting out to do in the house which I would like to have done by spring. Cupboards full of things in that we do not need. We have so many lovely things that people have given us over the last few years and so I feel that we need to get rid of the unnecessary crap so that we can show off the good stuff.

Bloggers block

Yes, panic not I am alive. I have been suffering from a raging case of the above and in a bid to cure it I will attempt to write a post with a point.

First things first I have very kindly been given a Marie Antoinette blog award by my adoptive web mum Karisma

So now I have to pass it on. Hmm this is a toughy, I read so many blogs I'll have to decide that later. But for now thank you very much Mama K.

So on Saturday my parents very kindly took James and I over to Holmfirth to check out the craft market and I have to say I was very disappointed indeed. It was totally empty! There were three stalls and no customers. I'm not paying £20 to stand there all day and not sell a thing. I do feel that I would like to revisit the Market a little later in the year and see if it improves. the space is good and it's a popular with tourists. A very nice gentleman has just taken over running it and I spoke to a colleague of his today and she said that he is trying to restore it to it's former glory and I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help that. It was his day off today so I am going to call him tomorrow and have a chat about it with him. I'd like to encourage local crafters to get involved, i think it would be fun.

So afterwards we drove over to Hebden Bridge and had a look around there, it's a lovely little town, very picturesque and quaint. I asked about craft fairs and they have one once a month from the spring so I'm hoping that I can get a stall there at some point.

Tuesday was payday, thabk god, and it was a great day. We had a lovely healthy food delivery from Asda and I placed an order with my jewellery supplier. I bought some gorgeous things, Amethyts, citrine stones, black agate, crystal, swarovski crystals, Sterling silver beads. I'll show you what I made from it after I've given her it.

I have friday Monday and Tuesday off work this week for my 27th Birthday on Monday. Woo! On Saturday my friend and I are having a joint party so I'll be sure to post some piccys. It's fancy dress and James and I are going as Barbarella and Buck Rogers!

Herbal tea and cottage cheese

My lunch today consisted of cottage cheese, celery, red pepper and tomatoes. Team that with Nettle and milk thistle tea and loads of water MMmmmmm! LOL. It was Okay but pie and chips would have been much better but I aint bobbing for five miles to ruin it with nice food! Next week will be different, next Tuesday is payday so I'm going to order food to be delivered and get some nice healthy food so that I don't have to make do with what we have. It's much easier to lose weight when you actually like the food you are eating and luckily for me I love salad, fruit and veggies. I can eat a whole lettuce in one sitting and love it but sadly within 10 minutes i'd be hungry for something else.

Tonights tea is sorted, one of our relatives very kindly bought us a slow cooker for Christmas and it's great. Last night I chopped some leeks, potatoes, carrots and broccoli and chucked it all in with some stewing beef and stock. Threw in some broad beans cause I love em and filled it with water and it's been cooking since 7.30 this morning on low. It feeds four so we are going to have it tomorrow too. I used lean beef so with the exception of the small amount of fat in the stock and only a few spuds in there it's pretty healthy. By the time I get home this evening it will have been cooking for around 10 hours so the broccoli will be mush but I've been craving veg after eating quite a lot of beans on toast lately. I am very suseptible to cravings, we don't eat a lot of meat and when we do it's chicken, it's rare for us to eat red meat but I get cravings for steak when I haven't had it for a while. I could just eat a plate of Veg but my body would tell me that it's not good enough and I need carbohydrates and protien too.

I can feel the hunger bubbles in my chest, better get another cuppa!

Walking on Air

The new series of 24 started last night, I watched the first couple of series and liked them but couldn't be bothered to watch the rest so I left James watching it in the living room. I decided to do my usual thing of putting on my I Pod and dancing in the kitchen like Animal from the Muppets. I'm not trying to impersonate him you understand, it's just how I dance. So I'm dancing away to Pinks new album and I'm thinking "Hmmm physical activity, how unusual, i think I'll do more" So out comes Bob the Air Walker. We bought Bob over four years ago after seeing that a friend had one and having a go. It seemed so easy to use and not hard work at all.

Meet Bob

But Bob and I never really saw eye to eye, I didn't understand why he wasn't losing my weight and he didn't understand why he had to stay folded up against the wall in the spare room. He felt unloved and alone and I felt heavy.

But last night something magical happened, an alien stole my consciousness and replaced it with that of a self motivated determined person. She worked out like a crazy person, initially working to my target of just 20 minutes, she decided to round the calorie counter number up to a whole number and then realised that she was at 37 minutes. Might as well go to 40! 40 came but So What was blasting through the headphones so she decided to wait until the song had finished but by then we were at 44 minutes. Alien April obviously shared Human Aprils Obsessive tendencies and couldn't stop at a number like that, no she would continue to 50. Why not make it an hour she thought as U2 and BB King belted out When Love Comes to Town. As Bono disappeared Roxette took over with listen to your heart and took her to 60 minutes and 38 seconds. The number irritated both Alien and human April but her thighs simply would not continue. The Alien then floated off and left me knackered but happy! Now I know I said that it seemed easy when we first had a go on our friends Air Walker Bill but if you are doing it properly it isn't. I was going so fast, using my arms and legs to try and get as much out of it as possible and I feel great today, I'm a little stiff but not as sore and achy as I expected.

Tonight I'm going to get on our Wii Fit and so some rhythm boxing then tomorrow back on Bob.

Craft Market A'hoy

I've been looking for a craft market to sell my wares at for ages now and I was beginning to get sick of looking when I discovered that there is a very local Craft Market in Huddersfield. I've never visited it before so this weekend I will be going to have a look around and size it up. I will be looking at the location, how busy it is and how the stalls are displayed. I want to make sure that if I do get a stall it's worth my time. I hope it is cause I'm really excited about it.

I'm also trying to get a treasury over on Etsy, I keep thinking I'm timing it right and the number will drop low enough for me to get one but when I go back its up to seven hundred and something. It's very frustrating as I really want to get one. I guess persistence is the key.

As 2009 is going to be the best year I've decided today that I'm going to get organised tonight, get some serious tidying done, I may even do some ironing!

Howdy ho

It's trying to be a sunny day today, I really miss the sunshine. I'm really craving the spring now, just an hour a day more daylight would be wonderful. I'd love to see the sun high in the sky instead of skimming the horizon. I'm hoping it lasts so that I can take some better pictures of the bracelet I listed on Etsy today.

I made it last night from some of the pretty beads I was telling you about. I'm sure I've said this before but it really makes me think of spring. I'm loving turquoise greens blues and yellows at the moment. I'm definitely a seasonal girl!

It's the height of summer in Australia, I wish I was there now.

New year, new pretties

I Finally got round to listing a few more items on Etsy. I've still only got 16 out of a couple of hundred up there though. I must get more up soon. My new camera is great but sadly my photography skills are not. I'm finding it hard to get the lighting right, I need a decent editing program so I can alter the brightness without altering the image too much. Tonight I have house work to get done but I want to make some jewellery too. I have some gorgeous beads that I almost don't want to use cause they are sooooo pretty but I must, that is after all why I bought them!

Peridot Rose

Azure

Atlantis

Strawberries and Cream

Jewelled Rose

Thank you followers

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see my little follower count rise. I just wanted to write a little note to tell you how much I appreciate that little mouse click you just did.
Love and hugs

New beginnings

Oooh I feel good today, I love the start of the new year, I'm always so enthusiastic about new beginnings. I like to think about all of the amazing possibilities that the year ahead has to offer, about the changes and advances that I can make, the beautiful places I could go and the wonderful people I could meet. This is the outlook we should really all have all of the time but it's hard to live with a constant grin on your face.

So 2008 was a funny old year, some real ups and downs. Getting married however really outweighs the bad.

This year there are fewer weddings than last and hopefully that will help us out financially, it has been a very expensive year so in 2009 we need a break from big bills. We will be going away for James' 30th but I can't say where firstly because I haven't decided and secondly because it's a sup rise and he reads this blog! That will cost us but I'm going to try to keep the costs down. I will of course have met my target weight by then so I will need a whole new wardrobe. :)

I will be collecting my new tripod from the post office tomorrow and I am hoping for good weather so I can get some really good pictures and list some more items on Etsy. I do have over a hundred pieces of jewellery at home just begging to be re-homed.

The sun is beating down on me as I write this, I'll take it as a sign that 2009 is going to be our year, the best yet!

Happy new year to all