Sunday, January 27, 2013

Winter Blues!


So, have you ever heard of the winter blues? I'm pretty sure I was suffering with this all week! Either that or my body was trying to tell me that it's time to slow down and relax. I have to admit that I've not had a chance to just do nothing but relax and read for a very long time. So most of my week was spent just trying to find the energy to do the tiniest of things! Eventually I gave in & spent a lot of time reading, drinking cappuccinos (even though I said last week that I'd cut down but they were so worth it) and sort of comfort baking and eating! Not much crochet... I baked a lemon drizzle cake and an almond flavoured cake. I even added a bit of food gel colouring to brighten them up a bit! I finished reading a pretty amazing book. I'm currently enjoying real life/angsty/dramatic/tearjerker type books...I love books that even a week after you finished reading them, you are still thinking about the story & the characters. You know the type right? The ones that are heart-wrenchingly beautiful/tragic. Admittedly, I feel 100% better! Well rested & ready to face the new week!

Do you like my Stylecraft colour swatches? I made these 2 years ago. I have one more every Stylecraft Special DK colour and I keep them in a jar next to my shadecard. It's a huge help for me and for people I've made things for. 
Although I didn't do as much crochet as I usually do, I still got a fair bit done! I've now sewn in all the ends of my solid granny squares, I've started a blanket that a friend ordered (that's the brown granny stripe), tried the groovy-ghan found HERE (this pattern is amazing...I'm addicted and really want to make a big blanket now), ordered yarn for 2 new projects that I hope to start in the next month or two (I will show these and list the colours soon but right now they are safely packed away) and sorted out my very old stash of Stylecraft (old Stylecraft...before the new improved quality). So, I guess I've still been fairly busy!

Cooking, cooking, cooking! It just wasn't really my week for it! The music helped me get through though..always need to have goof music while you cook! 
My dad usually cooks on Saturday & Sunday. I look forward to those nights because his food is so yummy! I decided to give him a break & cook and...well...it wasn't a disaster but everything was ready except for the garlic bread! That was still frozen in the middle! I made a chicken casserole later in the week & accidentally put chicken soup in! Big OOPS! After throwing in some spices & stuff, I managed to salvage it in the end...not great but it was a meal! Tonight my lovely dad is making chicken casserole (the right way) and a curry for himself. Yummy!
Zumba! I adore this Xbox game! It's so much fun! Even thought the energy was lacking, I still managed to get up and do 30 minutes of Zumba! Awesome! Totally awesome!
I was treated to dinner by my wonderfully amazing boyfriend on Thursday. After a very busy & tiring day volunteering, he made me a lovely (but very naughty) meal of cheeseburger and chips. I enjoyed every mouthful! He certainly does spoil me.
Yesterday the men went out to do our monthly shopping (I hate shopping & prefer to stay home & do some cleaning & baking) and so I made sure that I had some cake & coffee ready for them the minute they walked in the door! Fresh coffee made in our lovely cafetiere for my dad & I and tea for my boyfriend. My father & I are big coffee drinkers. In the past year, we have stopped drinking instant coffee and now only drink coffee made from freshly ground coffee beans. It's such a huge difference. 

Oh & let's not forget the weather! It was still very wintry up until Friday! We had a bit of snow but not enough to make us snowed in again! Today it was back to the usualy welsh weather.....rain, rain and more rain! Secretly, I think I actually love the rain!


The cats have been busy as usual this week! Lots of sleeping, playing & fort building! I had a bit of help in the kitchen but I think that was only because there was chicken cooking!

I hope I haven't bored you too much! I'm not great at the writing but I do try to provide colourful photos each week! I know I'm guilty of often only looking at the pictures and not readin ;)

So, that was my week! It's been a rough one but thanks to the wonderful men in my life & our 7 lovely cats, I got through it in the end! It's my birthday on Wednesday so I'm looking forward to a nice meal out and some fun at the weekend. Hope you all have a lovely week! Thanks for stopping by & hope to see you here again next week! x

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Just One of Those Days!

I'm trying to stay on schedule and stick to my goal of a blog post a week but unfortunately I woke up this morning with a migraine! Luckily, I'm not one to give up easily so here is my weekly post!
 Oh wow, what a week it has been! This week was our first week back into the normal routine but with some newly added bits. It was surprisingly easy to slip back into. We started our week off with the usual weekly cleaning because there is nothing nicer than starting the week off with a sparkling clean house! It also meant that we could finally put the new rainbow granny stripe on our bed (I always feel like the bed should be clean before a new blanket is put on it). It's so snugly & warm, I love it! My boyfriend was back at college this week which gave me the chance to do some crochet & Zumba! I absolutely love Zumba! I have the game so I use his XBOX and the Kinect! It's so much fun and it keeps you fit! The music is amazing!
We were back volunteering at our local centre again for the first time this year and welcoming all the changes there! 2013 seems to be the year for change. I've made a list of all the changed I'd like to make/achieve this year. I'm hoping I can stick to them. The exercising and eating healthy are top of that list! 
There was also a lot of relaxing, reading, some exercising, lots of crochet and a fair bit of cappuccino drinking this week! Did you see my cool pattern at the top? I've never done that before! Ah....cappuccinos...I think I'll be cutting down on those next week!


 There was an awful lot of snuggling going on this week! I think that was possibly down to the freezing conditions that greeted us in the middle of the week. The crochet blankets have been working hard! Most of our cats like to peddle them and sleep on them or be covered over but our one little boy likes to be right under them. We built him his own little fort which he loved and spent the next 4 hrs under, fast asleep! Spoilt cats!

There has been a fair bit of play time as well & plenty of eating/snacking! I guess they are trying to build up a bit more fat for winter...they are such a joy! Cats keep your life interesting. It's certainly never quiet in our house!

I did do a bit of baking & cooking this week. I made roast potatoes and crispy chicken for the first time. I don't like fried foods so it was great to find a way of making crispy chicken without having to fry it. It came out really well and the men were very happy! Midweek, I decided to treat us to some lemon muffins (naughty but needed) with a bit of lemon icing drizzled over the top. It's my own recipe and I must say, they were delicious! One of our new years resolutions was to not buy cakes or cookies. We're trying to only eat homemade treats because it is the healthier option. I like to know what's going into my food. It's important, especially when you suffer from allergies. Our bread is homemade thanks to the purchase of an amazing breadmaker! For our weekend treat I made carrot cake and mixed up some soft cheese & icing sugar to spread on it. It bugs me that it's so hard to find carrot cake with the proper cheesy icing! Another good reason to bake our own!

Now as I mentioned in the beginning, there was a lot of crochet this week! I'm still working on a blanket with little squares (a sample of a bigger one). I wasn't looking forward to sewing in all those ends but eventually I started to enjoy it! I'm nearly halfway so hopefully by next weekend it will be finished! It's looking good so far and I'm sure the cats will kidnap it from me once it's done! I also had to sew in ends of a blanket I made about 3 years ago because as a beginner to crochet at the time, I didn't sew them in properly the first time! It gave me a chance to reflect back on how much I've learnt in the past few years. Hopefully that will be the last blanket it happens with (I hope!). I'm currently planning 2 other blankets to order yarn for soon. One is for my wonderful father and the other is just for fun! I've seen lots of ripple blankets lately and it's given me some inspiration to make a second one! I didn't enjoy making the first one but I was new to crochet at the time so hopefully this time it'll be better! As you can see from the photo with  my jar of colours, I'm still planning out the colours!


 The best part of this week was the snow! We were snowed in on Friday! It was wonderful! My dad got a much deserved day off work! 
I didn't get much of a chance to play in the snow as I was very busy indoors but thankfully I managed to get a few minutes free to take some lovely pics! I love how snow makes everything seem so fresh & clean! Beautiful! My favourite part was the icicles hanging off the shed roof! We were briefly under red alert which I didn't really understand because it was nowhere near the amount of snow we had 2 years ago!

Quick update on the chocolate: We've now reached 19 days without chocolate! Still going strong!

Ok, so that was our week! Lots of cleaning, reading, crochet, volunteering, snow, eating etc It's been fun! I hope I made some sense! Things are hectic here today so I've not had the chance to read back what I've written and edit it! I'm off to make dinner & do some crochet now! Thanks for stopping by & hope to see you again next week! Enjoy your week x



Sunday, January 13, 2013

Family, Creativity, Happiness & Rainbow Granny Stripes!

We've had a busy week in our little home. My boyfriend's father came to visit for 10 days and we got to celebrate his birthday with him for the first time in years & spoil him (there were a lot of presents to open! It was fun and gave me an excuse to experiment with a few recipes and eat a lot of naughty food! During his visit we had take-aways, a lovely roast chicken dinner thanks to my wonderful father and I made pancakes for breakfast, peanut butter cookies to nibble on (recipe found on the wonderful Zoomyummy Blog by Petra) & yummy gooey lemon cakes for dessert (recipe found again on the Zoomyummy Blog by Petra).


The Rainbow Granny Stripe is done!


I managed to squeeze in a fair bit of crochet! I finally finished the Rainbow Granny Stripe that I've been working on since October 2012! It would've been finished long ago but I had to squeeze in another project and then of course Christmas arrived and that's always hectic! I'm proud of this blanket. It's my 6th Granny Stripe blanket. I find the pattern so easy! The yarn I used is the same yarn I've been using for about 5 years (since I started to crochet) because of the quality & the cheap price! It's Stylecraft Special DK and it's wonderful! Incredibly soft for acrylic & there is such a lovely range of colours! I buy mine from  Wool Warehouse because I've found they are the cheapest and fastest!


In our house, a fair amount of quality control has to be done before us humans are allowed to have/use the blankets! Everything must be cat tested! (I think it passed!). While I was making this blanket it was being peddled and occasionally sucked by the cat inspectors! I'm pretty sure that's a HUGE compliment! I can't wait to see the response once it's on the bed!


Ok, so onto some details about the blanket!
It's about 2m long & 2m wide! I used 24 balls of yarn (24 different colours) for the blanket. They were Lemon, Citron, Saffron, Sunshine, Apricot, Jaffa, Shrimp, Matador, Lipstick, Candyfloss, Fondant, Fiesta, Bright Pink, Clematis, Magenta, Emperor, Sherbert, Turquoise, Midnight, Aspen, Teal, Spring Green, Bright Green & Green! For the border I used Black, Emperor, Magenta, Turquoise and Bright Pink.


It's also fairly large! It hangs over the edge on both sides of our bed, nearly touching the floor! I think I over estimated the size we needed but it's still perfect. It's constantly making me smile when I walk into our bedroom!

The rest of my week was filled with yummy enjoyable Cappuccinos (made with some lovely freshly ground coffee that arrived this week...tastes so much better than instant coffee!), a yarn delivery (I can't wait to play with it, some new crochet ideas (I've been working on a bowl & 2 blankets made with different types of squares) and rescuing my yarn bag from the youngest fury member of our family that decided it was the purrrrfect bed! 


So, that was my week! This week is the start of our healthier eating as I plan to lose A LOT of weight before the end of the year. Did I mention before that we've given up chocolate for 85 days?.... Easy for me as I'm not a chocolate addict but it's a tough one for my boyfriend. He loves his chocolate. He's doing so well so far though! Only 73 days to go! Now I shall love & leave you as it's Sunday and we have a lot of family time planned which means TV & lots of crochet! Hope to see you again next week! 
Take care & have a lovely week x

Sunday, January 06, 2013

Achieving My First Goal of 2013!


One of my biggest goals for this year was to finally get around to starting my own blog! What I've found to be the biggest problem though is finding time to actually have a blog! It's hard work but at last I've done it! I've started my own blog & I've met my deadline! The first Sunday of the year!












I probably won't be the most exciting blogger in the world but I do hope that you'll enjoy my blog! I hope to share some of my photography with you as I learn & improve my skills.














I hope to keep it bright & colourful as often as I can & worry free because everyone needs something to brighten up their day! That's my biggest reason for creating this blog! We all need something to remind us of the little things in life...things we forget about when life is getting us down...








I take after my mom & dad with their love of cooking, experimenting with food, love of nature & all animals, creativity, designg & artistic skills, reading and so many other things! I'm learning, slowly! I feel very blessed to have two parents that are talented in so many ways, it gives me something to aspire to! So, I plan to show a lot of my cooking, designing & mishaps!











Lastly, I hope to show you my crochet projects! I love crochet! I love the planning & designing that goes into it! I've never done random...I'm a planner & organiser so I find random very difficult! I hope to show you my designs & how I come up with them. I've got a project on the go at the moment that I'll be sharing soon!










I also have a wonderful boyfriend & 7 cats that make life very interesting! So, that's all for now. I hope to meet you here again in a weeks time! Hope you all have a lovely week :) x