Project 365: #091 Work, work and more work

The main filing deadline of the year hit today so I've been spending most of this week working in the evenings as well as all day.  Unfortunately I don't get paid overtime, so I'm not even getting any reward for all the hard work, although it's a good feeling knowing that a few more jobs are out of the way!  That said, I have been needing wine and chocolate to get me through this week! (Note the square of white chocolate!)

Project 365: #090 Homemade chicken pie

Would you believe that a slice of pie contains less than 400 calories?  This one does! (Find the recipe here)  I decided that since I was having a quiet Sunday, I'd cook dinner for everyone - aren't I nice? :)  A couple of hours in the kitchen later (with assistance from Danny!) and dinner was served!  It was delicious as well - I'll be making this again!

Project 365: #089 Bye bye Aisling!

As you will know if you follow her blog, Aisling has gone travelling and we had a night out for her leaving do the other night.  Pre-drinking at hers followed by a free bar courtesy of her dad when we got into town made for a pretty messy evening but I think it's safe to say a great night was had by all!  It definitely won't be the same around here without her but she'll be back in 10 weeks - no doubt to have a welcome home party before another leaving party when she heads off again in January!

Project 365: #088 September GlossyBox

I know that a lot of you have been subscribed to GlossyBox for a few months now, but I've been a bit behind the times and have only just got around to jumping on the bandwagon.  To be honest, I was a bit put off by some bad reviews of the July box so waited to see what the August box was like before subscribing.  I'm pleased I have now though!  I know some people were disappointed because the size of the samples differed quite substantially between boxes, and although I didn't get the Neal and Wolf hair treatments that everyone was raving about, I was still pretty pleased.  I'm honestly not too sure yet whether I'll purchase the full size versions of any of the samples, but I'm very impressed with HD Brows (the only sample I've tried so far)  Being blonde, I have very light eyebrows so HD Brows is exactly the sort of product I need.  There are four different shades in the palette which means that you can easily create exactly the effect you want, and they can be used as eyeshadows too!  What a good product!

Have any of you subscribed to GlossyBox?  What did you think of September's box?

Project 365: #087 Garnier UltraLiftPro-X

Whenever I complain to my mum about dark circles under my eyes, she tells me that she doesn't see what I'm talking about and that I'm just being paranoid, but I've spent a long time trying to search for the ultimate under eye concealer/product to reduce puffy eyes and dark circles.  I've never managed to find a product that's perfect - whether that's because I tend to forget to use it religiously after the first week or so, I'm not sure, although I'm sure that that has something to do with it!  I went into Boots earlier and since I had a bit of time to spare, I thought I'd have a browse to see if there was anything that caught my eye.  This is when I stumbled upon Garnier's UltraLiftPro-X.  Here's what it says on the box....

"Immediately, skin looks smoother and the eye area appears rested.  Each day, eyelids appear more tightened, skin feels firmer, wrinkles appear smoother.  Bags and dark circles appear reduced.  The eye contour looks brighter, more defined and youthful."

Being 26, wrinkles thankfully aren't a concern!  I decided though that any product professing to work wonders on older skin should sort mine out though, right?  Fingers crossed - I just need to make sure I stick to using it this time!

PS.  Let me know if you want me to let you know how I get on with it, and I'll do a post when I've been using it for a week or so

Project 365: #086 30th anniversary

As I mentioned here, my parents have been married for 30 years this week!  I think that's a pretty big achievement - you hear about so many people getting divorced nowadays and I guess I take for granted how lucky I am for my parents to still be together.  They went out for a nice romantic dinner to celebrate, so I dropped them off and picked them up again (oh how things change from when you're a teenager!)  Congratulations Mum and Dad! ♥

Project 365: #085 Mmmm.....roast dinner!

To celebrate Mum and Dad's 30th anniversary, we took them out for a pub roast lunch today in a village a couple of miles away.  You really can't beat a good roast dinner on a Sunday - my family are quite traditional in that sense and we tend to have one most weekends in the winter.  This one didn't let us down - it was absolutely delicious!  I really do love those Yorkshire puddings!

Project 365: #084 Girls night out

I've been so busy recently that I haven't had a girls night out in forever!  Bee, my best friend, had invited her uni friend down for the weekend so the three of us had a cross between a girls night in and a girls night out - we started off with pizza, wine, cocktails and cheesecake (a good combination it turns out!), then headed into town to go to a couple of bars.  It was great to have a girls night - it had been far too long and we all agreed that we're going to have to do it more often!  There's nothing like letting your hair down with the girls at the weekend!

Project 365: #083 Ikea road trip

Sorry for the slightly dodgy photo quality today - we were in such a rush to get into Ikea when we got there and then by the time we left it was dark, so I couldn't get a very good picture.  We headed down to Southampton after work tonight to get a rough idea of the amount of money we'll need to save for furnishings and things for our house - yes, we're being quite good with our budgeting aren't we?  I love Ikea, as I'm sure most of you do, and I always struggle to leave without buying anything.  Danny, on the other hand, had never been!  NEVER!  Can you believe it?!  I was warned by one of my friends that a trip to Ikea tends to be make or break for a couple - either you both agree on design and decoration ideas or you dramatically disagree, leaving you both wondering how you'll end up getting over the obstacle before moving in together.  Thankfully, we both agreed on pretty much everything so I think we're safe there!  Oh, and I didn't manage to leave without buying anything - only a mirror and a photoframe though - I think that's pretty good going :)

Project 365: #082 Bert

I went to Vicky's tonight to have a catch up with her and see Annabelle (previous post now updated with photo!)  I really don't know how she does it, but Vicky managed to juggle looking after a newborn baby with cooking a roast dinner and making a chocolate cheesecake!  It was all absolutely delicious too!  After dinner we all had a catch up and Bert, Vicky's cat, decided to join us.  Mike, Vicky's partner, put one of Annabelle's wristband toys around his paw - doesn't he look quite proud of it?!  I was really surprised how much Annabelle has grown in a couple of weeks too!  Definitely going to have to make sure I see her often!

Project 365: #081 Blood doning

Photo source: here

I had to use a photo from the internet for this post - mainly cos I went blood doning on my own tonight and couldn't really lean over the bench and take a photo without the needle hurting me.  I also didn't really want to post a photo of the needle in my arm, in case any of you are a bit squeamish!  

Anyway, I did my good deed of the quarter by donating blood.  I always used to think blood doning was a really good thing to do but the thought of it freaked me out.  The ads on tv eventually managed to persuade me that it probably wasn't as bad as I thought and I went along.  Both of my parents have been donors for years so I went to as session with them.  Honestly, the worst bit is the anticipation.  Once you're all set up, it's comfortable enough and you don't even realise the needle is there.  Tonight was my sixth pint - I promise you, I really wouldn't do it if it was at all traumatic :)

Weekly top 5

Sorry my weekly top 5 post is quite so delayed this week - I've been really busy, as you will see...

It's been ages since me and Bee, my bestie, had a girls night out.  This weekend, her friend from uni came to visit so the three of us had a girls night - starting with Strictly, X Factor, pizza, cocktails and wine, and then hitting the town.  We had a great night but I was so tired on Sunday!  I also lost my voice as a result of all the talking in loud bars - whoops!

Yesterday was my mum and dad's 30th wedding anniversary!  We took them out for lunch on Sunday to celebrate and I acted as chauffeur last night when they went out for a nice romantic dinner.  In a time when so many people get divorced, I think 30 years is a really big deal - congratulations Mum and Dad :)

I get on really well with my hairdresser, so spending a long Saturday morning getting my hair done is a real treat.  I get foil highlights followed by a cut and blowdry so I'm usually in there for a good couple of hours and really enjoy the perfect excuse for relaxing the morning away!  I had a really bad tension headache on Friday so I especially enjoyed the head massage that came with having the hair dye washed out!  I was nicely relaxed when I came out and my hair was all ready for my girls night out!  Bonus!

We don't actually get much chance to spend a day together as a family anymore, so going out for lunch together and then all chilling the afternoon away at home made a pleasant change!  I think we should probably do it more often, rather than only on special occasions!

All photos from weheartit.com

After lots of looking, Danny and I have finally settled on somewhere to stay down in Cornwall at the beginning of October.  It'll be really nice to get away for a week - have a break from work and some time to ourselves!  I can't wait :)

Five to follow:

Charli...

Emily Charlotte

milkteef

Sunshine Sam

rockstar diaries

Hope you're all having good weeks so far!

Project 365: #080 Kids reunited

I've been friends with Ali and Jen since we were all five and our families all hung out together when we were growing up.  Both of the girls have younger sisters; Steph and Clare, and the five of us are about as close to sisters as you can get (having one brother, they're definitely as close to sisters as I've got!)  Anyway, we had a bit of a get together tonight (unfortunately minus Jen) with a Chinese takeaway and some DVDs - nice to all be together again!

Project 365: #079 Catch up with Ash

I had a bit of a catch up over dinner with Aisling the other night - a general gossip really and she filled me in on her travelling plans.  She's heading off to South East Asia at the end of September but will be coming back for Christmas before leaving again for South America in January.  To be honest, I'm not quite sure that I'm going to cope till Christmas without having her on hand to answer all my blogging dilemmas and generally have a good natter with!  Come back soon Ash :)

Project 365: #078 Treating myself

I'd wanted to pay a visit to Bicester Village for quite some time, so when I looked online and saw that they have a Mulberry shop, I decided that I'd waited long enough and now was the time to go! The purchase of a Mulberry handbag has long been my incentive to work my butt off in order to finish my exams, so now that I've done so, I thought it was time to reward myself. Getting Danny to come with me required a bit of persuasion, but when I mentioned that they have a Superdry outlet store at Bicester, he suddenly seemed a lot keener! When we got there, we headed straight to Mulberry but to my dismay, they only had two bags in the Bayswater style that I have decided I want. Both were leopard print - one classic coloured and one red. Don't get me wrong - I love a bit of leopard print as much as the next person, but I was looking for a more classic style for my first Mulberry. Oh, and the classic coloured one was priced at £1,600 after discount - a little bit much I thought! (The red one was high on a shelf so I couldn't see the price, but I've no doubt that it was at least as much!)

After leaving the Mulberry store feeling a little bit fed up, we wandered along and stumbled across David Clulow Sunglasses. I very nearly bought a pair of new sunglasses at the airport when we went to Mexico but didn’t have much time to browse all the different styles so ended up giving it a miss. This time, my luck was in and I picked up these little beauties – at £72 instead of £105, I couldn’t resist :)

Project 365: #077 Nom nom nom....

It was Danny's dad's birthday today so we had a nice family day - Danny has one brother, one sister and two half brothers, so there are quite a lot of us when we all get together, especially since his two half brothers each have a wife and two kids!  We all met up in the pub in the afternoon to watch the football - Danny's dad is a Spurs fan so we watched them first.......but unfortunately they lost.  It was then back home to watch Man Utd v Arsenal - Danny and one of brothers are Arsenal fans and his other two brothers are Man Utd fans, which always leads to heated debates on days like these!  Bad times again - Arsenal got an absolute thrashing, meaning that Danny wasn't in a particularly happy mood, especially when his brothers were rubbing it in!  Us girls were kept quiet and happy by this delicious cake though!  I'm always a bit wary about chocolate cake as it can sometimes be a bit dry, but this one was as good as it looks!

Weekly top 5

My number one task for this weekend (and the rest of this week) is to begin the de-clutter of my room.  My wardrobe is full of junk, making it difficult to put anything else in there and consequently my room is a bit of a mess at the moment!  I need to be pretty brutal about what I keep as well - I've decided that I might as well approach this with the aim of making it a lot easier when it comes to moving out (hopefully some time in the next few months to a year)

I'm having a bit of a lazy weekend this weekend - much needed after the last few weekends being quite busy!  I'm quite enjoying lying on the sofa this morning, writing this and looking outside at the rain, knowing that I'm all cosy inside!  For a change, I might actually feel rested by the time I go back to work tomorrow morning!

I will be spending this afternoon going through spreadsheets and online quotes to try and work out a budget with Danny for house buying.  Pretty boring stuff, but it does mean that we'll be getting a step closer to getting our own place!  We're also planning to head to Ikea at some point this week to figure out what furniture we'll need and how much it'll cost us all.  I love Ikea so I'm looking forward to that - plus we're planning to have dinner there so we can have some of their yummy meatballs! :)

I finally sorted out a date to have a bit of a qualification party - always a good excuse for a party and will hopefully mean I get to thank all the people that I've had to neglect during my study periods!  A good excuse for a new outfit too, so I'll have to get shopping I think!  What a shame! ;)

I seem to have gained quite a few new followers this week, so hello and thank you for following!  Hope you like what you read - if you have any comments or suggestions of posts you'd like me to do, please let me know!

Five to follow:

The Londoner

FudgeSmoothies Make Up
Life of a twenty something
Big City Dreams
Sofia's Journal

Hope you're all having a good weekend!