28th March 2016 | Gone But Not Forgotten

Good morning you chirpy lot!

 

Sorry I have been away, it started as a long weekend, and ended with me feeling a bit poorly and so I have been absent for almost a week.

 

But in that time away I have so much to update you with, so grab a coffee as you know I like to natter!

 

The holiday started off with an unexpected days holiday. We weren't planning on taking the bank holiday days off, but Thursday evening the green eyed monster rose it grim head from the depths and convinced us we needed it. It turned into the nicest day ever, the sun was shining both Jenna and Vicki with little Freya in tow were all free for brunch, so we headed off into the city. After the obligatory bank holiday lay in of course! We met at the Britannia Café in Norwich Centre, in the little church next to Tesco express if you are local. Cant remember what I actually ate now, but I remember it having lots of fluff in...nice.

Oh side note, prior to my meeting the girls in the city, I popped into the local Fiat dealership in Norwich to price up a sparkly new Fiat500 Lounge, which hopefully will grace the presence of my life in the not too distant future - raise your hand for being a blogger cliché.

After eating we went for a bit of a browse and a ticked a few things off our combined to do lists, followed by a smoothie before parting ways.

The rest of the day I honestly cant remember (my fault for zero blogging motivation due to my fail at taking ANY photos, which made me sad), but I think it went something along the lines of lay on the sofa with Joe, play with the pooches, eat a take away with friends, drink some wine, sleep.

Perfect!

 

Saturday to my best of my knowledge was miserable, and spent wallowing in the fond memory of the previous days sunshine.

Day off wasted

 

Sunday was also grim as far as the weather was concerned (I'm such a typical Brit, having to note on what the weather was like each day) I had a visit to Pauline's new house in the morning, which I can confirm is flipping gorgeous! although a bit further away from me than I would like *sobs*. After the complimentary tour, we spent the time measuring up for curtains, and setting up her new TV. It was nice to get a bit of catch up time, as life is so busy and I miss her.  

Later in the day me and Joe, along with the rest of my family tottered off to my Nanny & Grandad's for our Easter Sunday get together. We do this every year for a few differed occasions, it's lovely to catch up and test our family bonds by seeing how long we can all tolerate each other with minimal alcohol. Ha, I obviously love them all very much, and really enjoy a get together especially one that involves chocolate. Although I was good this year and managed to avoid all but one, which I can confirm is gone and was delicious.

Zero regrets

 

Monday was back to work with no motivation and my headache which seems to hit me every evening at the moment started to get worse, and I also have a rash which keeps popping up and disappearing, and then popping up somewhere else, which is fun!

 

But fast forward to Wednesday which is when things got exciting as I toddled into the city to buy my first ever big girl blogger camera! The highly recommended, blogged about and loved Olympus Pen Lite E-PL7 in retro silver, with the 14 - 42mm lens and as it is a now no longer produced the price had dropped dramatically. I also managed to nab the last one Jessops had, which they got sent to the Norwich store for me to view, but as it was the last one it was ex display, meaning it had the minutest of scratches on the bottom from being plonked on and off the stand, so I got a further £20 off - thank you very much Jessops. Also the silver version is already around £40 cheaper than the black or white, which was perfect as the silver is super retro looking and by far my favourite of the three.

So I now I just need to learn how to work this beauty!

Free camera lessons anybody...?

 

Photos to follow, as you can imagine there will now be a bombardment of (hopefully) beautiful photos crammed into my blog, and also on my Facebook.

 

If you have made it this far, and don't already, come like my Facebook page as it's where I most regularly update - especially since the Instagram spat about notifications.

Find me here

 

 

As always, much love

Carla x

24th March 2016 | Did Someone Say Cake?

Good morning you beautiful bunch of people, today I'm talking about cake, if you know me personally it will come of no surprise to hear that. However this isn't just some ordinary cake I'm talking about today, nope I have found our wedding cake! *Girly squeals*

I think I'm right in saying this is my first wedding related post, and that's probably due to the fact that we are being extremely blasé about planning our do, and should probably pull our fingers out as it's less than 6 months away...

 

Ahh well

 

The whole process has been a bit stress free, and I'm waiting for the chaos to kick in as that's what happens when you organise a wedding right? you get mega stressed and panic about the whole thing and then wonder why you are doing this instead of just faffing off on holiday with the money...

 

Touch wood it stays this way (if I'm looking back at this in 4 months time thinking you smug bitch - sorry!)

But yeah I have the cake sorted! Yay, I was struggling a little bit for the cake, as what I want is simple so begrudged paying what I had been quoted from a few places, and I wanted a cake maker who had personally been recommended. We'll that half happened as in Helen Anderson's YouTube video (find Helen here) she recommended a local lady she knows called Elise, find Glamourbakes on Instagram here, and the cupcakes she had purchased were gorgeous! So I pinged off an email to Elise and now yay I have a cake sorted!

Obviously I'm not going to upload photos of the style of cake I am interested in, but here's some photos of cake from Pinterest...YUM!

Next big thing to sort is honeymoon! Dream destination would be Bora Bora, it had always been the Maldives since I was a little girl, but Joe took me to Hakuraa Huraa in the Maldives in 2014 ( wow is that right?) and we got engaged which was THE DREAM! 

However we are not particularly saving too hard at the min, so maybe that is a fantasy. If not Joe was liking the sound of St Lucia which isn't exactly slumming it either!

Maaan I need some sunshine in my life right now.

 

Hope you are having a lovely day, comment your honeymoon destination or your dream destination for some inspiration please!

 

Much love

Carla x



23rd March 2016 | Camera Troubles, Puppy Grooming & New Shoes

Good evening you lovely people, I have had a great day fuelled by mostly too much coffee, so have spent the afternoon wired and scatty - lucky me!

 

I got all my work done early, and had a couple of hours I could kill so popped into the city with the goal of purchasing a new camera, but not just any old camera (oh no no no!) I was after the blogger cliché Olympus pen e-pl7. Its beautiful, and most importantly soon to be discontinued (so I'm told by the helpful staff at Jessops) resulting in a nice little price decrease which I had been made aware of by the lovely Carly Rowena. Bringing it tumbling all the way down to my budget - YES! So I tottered off, with high hopes I would be bringing my baby home with me today so obviously the last one had been sold yesterday...and they had no more in the warehouse...and you can't buy the deal I wanted online...I was starting to see my beautiful camera fade into the distance, but alas Ipswich store saved the day with 1 camera left in stock, and it's in silver which is the cheapest option (winner) and it's ex display so can potentially get some more dollar off (bonus round winner!)So I will update you on Friday whether I buy it or not (hint - I will be buying it Eeek!)

I had the puppies booked in for a groom at scruffy to fluffy and although the whole time I was in Jessops I was clock watching, it seemed that as soon as I left the shop I hadn't the foggiest clue that I was in a rush, and whilst on my way back to the car decided on a leisurely stroll around H&M.

In the queue with a baggy, long classic white shirt, a basic grey v neck oversized tee, and the most beautiful brushed fur leopard print Chelsea boots in the sale at £10! which I actually broke a shelf to get my hands on (Oops, sorry H&M) I suddenly remembered I was supposed to have had the puppies dropped off 10 minutes ago. Shit.  I was in a queue, with no signal, a missed call from the groomers, and my beautiful last size 5 sale boots in hand. . . so as I (obvs) waited to pay for my boots (I was no way leaving those babies in the shop) I tried to text for help, I tried to call the groomers praying my phone would find signal and help me out - it didn't. So after leaving H&M I managed to get a call of help out and Debbie thankfully dropped the puppies off at the groomers for me, and I turned up 10 minutes later all flustered and apologetic and please don't take it out on my babies haircut!

I then spent the rest of my afternoon working, completely wired and in a bit of a flustered haze until I had to go pick the babies up who look completely adorable. I tried to bribe them into a few photos - it didn't work well. I will leave you with the few images I managed to snap.

Prim (or Prim the princess as she is known) is the caramel & white Shih Tzu, and Luna the black Shih-Poo! Yes that's pronounced how you think it is...(shih Tzu x Toy Poodle) aka my babies.

 

Much love

Carla x

21st March 2016 | L'Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Clay - A Word of Warning Review

Good morning lovely people, todays post comes in the form of a review / warning of the much raved about new collection from L'Oreal, a re balancing clay collection for people who suffer from oily roots and dry ends - can I get a hallelujah!

When I first saw a review of these shampoo (which was pretty hard to avoid seems everybody and their sister had been sent the collection for review) I was like GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE!

Not only did they promise the holy grail of hair care for us poor folk whose roots refuse to make cute manageable second day hair a thing! But they were impressing the heck out of the beauty gurus. So I trotted off to my local Boots (As they are conveniently on 3 for 2) and grabbed the trio you can see pictured above, Shampoo, Conditioner and a pre shampoo mask, there is also a dry shampoo, but I have enough of that in my possession to last me till approximately 2045.

And they were amazing! my hair was clean, refreshed, light and most importantly gave me great hair for 3 whole darn days (the dream) I was singing their praises to anyone that would listen. 

BUT THEN...

I started to notice, mainly when going to bed that my scalp was starting to get super itchy, and a little sore . I ignored it because you-know super nice hair! But it started to become unbearable, my scalp was getting dryer and dryer and I was using the product twice a week as opposed to 3 / 4 times a week with my usual shampoos and conditioners. I stopped using the pre shampoo mask, and it eased it a little but it was still there and annoying as hell.

BUT EVEN WORSE...

Finally it became too much and I stopped using the products all together, and the itching / soreness has stopped but now my hair gets oily twice as quick as it did before I was using the products!!! I can wash my hair in the evening, and by the next afternoon already feel its needs doing again - FFS.

Now I'm no expert, but in my opinion I feel like the product has possibly stripped my hair of it's natural oils giving me this wow look at this fantastic oil free hair you've always wanted! But now my hair is over producing oil to compensate YAY!

So back to my ex I go - dry shampoo with an apology that I tried to rid you from my life.

 

Have you had this problem? please let me know, you can find me on

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

 

Much love

Carla x  



21st March 2016 | 5 Best Bits Of My Weekend

 

Welcome to the first Monday of spring, which is long overdue and if the weather could now take the hint and warm up a little bit I would be very appreciative. My usual Monday morning is underway; coffee, scrambled eggs, weekend emails with Youtube on in the background wading off the Monday morning blues. 

 

 I have decided to summarise my weekend into my 5 best bits! As I prefer quick snappy posts, and you guys I'm sure have very important things you should be doing rather than wasting time on blog posts...or is that just me that does that?

 

Doubt it.
 

5 Best Bits Of My Weekend

 

 One| Eating - I have a new rule that is working for me with my quest to eat healthy, and that's meal prep throughout the week and eat bang on all week Mon - Fri no cheating!, but then for the weekend I just chill and allow myself to eat how I want, what I want, when I want, ya-no within reason I'm not going to eat crap 2 days straight! I'm not trying to lose a lot of weight, so for me this is currently working great, it means I'm refreshed and motivated for the next week, and if I start to flag during the week I only have a day or so till I can have whatever I'm craving - which by then the craving has usually done one!

 

Two | Pole Fitness class - I enjoy this so much and would love to be able to go more than once a week, but I'm a busy lass. This week I was working on a routine, and a couple of new moves. Routines are not as sexy as they sound, and simply mean you have to really concentrate on remembering how to do each move and enter and exit the moves without looking like a clumsy hippo with your tongue out. . .so mainly just stumbling around the pole looking confused.

 

Three | City shopping with the bezzie, nothing fancy (end of the month and all that *avoids bank balance until payday*) just popped into good old Primache, Boots and of course a stop at Costa, where instead of my usual Soya Caramel Latte, I opted for a Soya Mocha, and me and Vicki got a little excited that it will soon be iced coffee time of year *squeals* 

 

remember when I said this was gonna be a quick snappy post...

 

Four | Films - On Sunday evening I got a teenage girl blast from the past when Cinderella Story was on, I watched this film all the time when I was younger, and it had nothing to do with Chad Michael Murray I'm sure of it...and as that was finishing I was speaking about how that and 10 Things I Hate About You were the films that I used to watch repeatedly as a teenager, and O.M.G it was only bloody on the other channel! I missed the start, but still I was pretty happy and sank into the sofa for another hour.

 

Five |  New Car - Ok so that's a lie, I didn't get a new car, but I did finally make the decision to get a new car, so it kind of counts. And I'm being a complete girl, and want a Fiat 500 Cult, in either white or that super pale baby blue colour that they don't have on their website *raarrh* But I'm going to go to my local dealer this week and price up my baby - so watch this space!

 

Let me know your favourite thing from this weekend!

 

Much love

Carla x

18th March 2016 | The Cost Being Fit & Healthy

Hi Guys and Gals, a side step from the diary entries today, but below is what has been on my mind, and most probably why my last 2/3 entries have been fitness related, but sorry here's another.  

Whilst in the hairdressers for what felt like a day and a half, I browsed the magazines as ya do, and saw an article on the increasingly lucrative business of health and fitness. Which I am no stranger too, I am constantly lusting after the latest lululemon leggings, or the Victoria Secrets sports bra I obviously need, a new super food I simply must be adding to my smoothies, and don't even get me started on Nike trainers, did you know you can now design your own - need.
 

But it doesn't stop there, there's now a million and two super foods you are supposed to be adding to your smoothies, and chia pots for one the go at £3.40 a pop, coconut water, coconut milk, coconut oil - all apparent essentials. Vitamins you should be taking, supplements, pre and post workout powders...
That's not including your gym membership, PT sessions, classes, you can now get meal plans delivered to for mega bucks so you don't even need to prep and it goes on, everywhere you turn there is a fitness blogger prancing around in new gear bringing you the temptation to splurge on yet more essentials to make you fit and healthy.
  
This article was obviously showing the extremes and their were ladies (not that this only applies to ladies) in serious debt to keep up with their "healthy lifestyle"...

It got me thinking about how much all this advertising affects me. I took a step back and re-evaluated my own forever trying to be "healthy lifestyle". Had I become more interested in looking like I have a healthy lifestyle as opposed to actually being healthy? Have I have allowed social media to slowly increase my budget for everything involved in the process to get healthy. A social media induced healthy living tax? I purchased a nutri-bullet when I owned a blender, I now lust after £95.00 leggings and strappy backed sports bras for silly money. I'm a 25 year old adult and I can find it exhausting and un-motivating wanting to keep up all the time, constantly feeling 2 steps behind, but these advertisers are usually aimed at a much younger audience than me, it must be overwhelming to grow up like this - how can that promote healthy living. 

Obviously I'm not saying that you shouldn't spend money on expensive work out clothes - but does everything need to be branded? Are you eating so healthy that you can't possibly make some switches to get greater nutrition from your meals rather than relying on a expensive super food powders? Just actively think about what you really want, how much are you really willing / can afford to spend, make smart choices and make those choices for you and only you. If after all the deliberating what you want to spend your money on is a £48.00 squat goals muscle tee who am I to judge.  

 Being truly healthy, that's mind, body and soul is all about balance, and that means sometimes you have to wear Primark leggings and eat cake.  

Much love
Carla x

17th March 2016 | Fitness Goals

Hey guys, skipped a day as I was so busy yesterday, I had the longest hair appointment known to man! (13:30 - 17:30 My hair just loves to go ginger, so the bleach didn't take as well as my hairdresser would have liked, so she done it twice which was lovely of her to not send me out into the world with ginger streaked hair. I had the plan of a really messy ombre effect, with dark brown roots - but now it's done I think I'm going to go back and have the blonde taken all the way up to the root, but keep it messy - so no photo update yet, but watch this space! I then plan to mess about with some grey toner so that's that!

 

Last post I promised new fitness goals and below are the beauties! the reason I like to display them like this, is I can have it as my phone lock screen and it's a constant reminder to stay on track, and what I am aiming for and obvs it looks super cute!

5k I know for some people is literally their warm up run, but I used to not even be able to do 5 mins, so for me it's a start which i am hoping to have nailed by the summer - you never know might even enter into a few runs around Norwich to give me more motivation, maybe the colour fun run - is that what it's called? The 3rd one I don't expect to reach in the 6 week period, but half way there would be nice!

 

It's Thursday which tbh is the day I usually cave and give into takeaway night, but I am feeling strong, you never know tonight might be the night I surprise myself - I managed to go buy Joe fish and chips last night, and then come home and make myself a salmon stir fry so willpower 1 - fast food 0!  

 

Also I have now cute out all milk and sugar from both tea and coffee, and am loving it!

 

Let me know what your current fitness goals are!

 

Much love

Carla x 

 

 

15th March 2016 | Fitness Goals Update

I'm still in a sleep haze, despite my two giant mugs of coffee, 9 hours sleep, it's almost mid-day and I have good hair today.

 

Yesterday was a great day, I got lots done at work, I was eating clean and there wasn't a craving in sight. The evening was rushed, which got me into a bit of a grump and I had pasta for dinner which made me bloat like a puffer fish, but once I got to the gym I was feeling good. It was leg day, which is probably my favourite muscle group to work, simply because you can rack up heavy and feel like a badass!

 

I had forgotten we were taking measurements, it had been 7 weeks since the last ones, and I have been keeping track now since the end of September. It's great as sometimes when you can't see your progress and are reaching for the donuts, the figures can remind you that you've got this, and you are progressing *put down the donut*.

 

In total I have lost 3.75inches and am super happy with my progress! Especially as 1 whole inch was lost from my waist *high 5*

 

But I also had a look through my old blog posts and I found my fitness goals (find it here) written in October 2014 - so obviously this was forever ago, and I should have completed them all, but I was still very happy to see that I had more than achieved the 3 goals I had then set myself. So today I am going to be pondering to set myself 3 more - and am hopefully not going to take 18months to reach them.

 

Hope your day isn't as slow as mine today, and that you are too reaching your goals 1 step at time, if you don't yet have any why not set yours today too and we can move forward together!

 

Much love

Carla x

 

14th March 2016 | Project Kitchen DONE! (almost)

Here we are, Monday morning again. Didn't know whether to blog through the weekend or not, but decided against it as we were super busy. Half a week of blogging and I'm already craving a decent camera as my iPhone is shocking, and it's just plain irritating.

Urgh just went to make my scrambled eggs for breakfast to find one had cracked. Fantastic. Luckily I'm a little food hoarder and had a pot of porridge in my draw to save the day.

Back to it, Friday 11th March: We left off work early on Friday which is always nice, and I spent the evening having a bit of a pamper, overcooked my steak which was annoying, but we had an early night. Perfect - Oh and Joes mum bought me some flowers, just because she is really great.  

Saturday 12th March: I had planned my Saturday thinking Joe was going into the workshop, but he didn't and made a start at finishing our kitchen! So I left him to that. I had a mega busy day ahead of me.
I went to my pole exercise class. It was my first class back after a break of around 5/6 months, I stopped going as I just didn't have the time but I absolutely love it! I spent the class going over everything and seeing how much I had forgotten -surprisingly I remembered most of it, but oh my goodness my body had forgotten how much it hurts, and how much it bruises you. The lovely Robyn, owner of Unique Fitness in Norwich was kind enough to take a few photos for me, which was quite funny as when I had the camera on me I couldn't remember anything. 


The Good vs The Bad...below photo taken straight after pole, the bruises are now horrendous.

 Next I had family visit to make as it had been my Aunties birthday, had a nice catch up with her and my cousin, which was lavly.
I always over stay as we get chatting and don't see each other often enough (because life)and just generally really enjoy catching up, so I had a mega rush to get to my hairdressers, The Powder Rooms in the city, only just made it in time as I was stuck behind a tractor #Norfolkproblems 
That evening I went out for a meal for Vicky's' birthday with her, and a couple of her friends. It was at a pub in the middle of nowhere and we got lost and had to call Joe to direct us (stranded girl cliché)
Saturday done!

Sunday 13th March: Kitchen Kitchen Kitchen - We grouted, we painted, Joe made a new cabinet for the wall, which we then couldn't hang as the B&Q plasterboard plugs kept breaking - utter shite. I'm so happy with the kitchen, it's actually beautiful, and exactly as I imagined it to be when we moved in 2 years ago and had no kitchen at all, when the only kitchen worktop I had was the top of the dishwasher (priorities)and a borrowed camping table. Joe has worked really hard on it, and I'm very proud of both him and the kitchen itself. It's 97% finished, we just have to hang the cabinet (1%) paint the ceiling (1%) and put something between the tiles and worktop (1%) Yay. I have put a couple of sneaky peak pictures here, as I don't want to take full photos until it is 100%. Then we had an Indian...Nommage.

 

 

We were just going to bed, and I went to get the food for my puffer fish out of the freezer and realised I had not prepped my food for tomorrow, so annoying but if I didn't do it I would be more annoyed the next morning, so instead of going up to bed I grilled the chicken, and cooked all the rest of the bits I needed, then bed.

Wow that was a super long post, and has confirmed the fact that I will blog at the weekend in future. Well done if you made it.

Much love
Carla x
 

11th March 2016 | Spring Where You At?

Just realised I kicked off yesterdays post as the 3rd of March...good start Carla #fail.

Morning has sprung, and it’s a misty wannabe lovely kinda day. The sun is trying, and I appreciate the effort but seriously try harder! Spring please hurry up and arrive, and stop teasing us. Yesterday was a perfect spring day, made all the better by a sneaky half day which I am proud to say I did not waste on my phone! Well done Carla, have a gold star.

Left off work in the glorious sunshine, feeling good about the fact the pooches were gonna get a run around the field, which is our favourite thing to do in the afternoons. Holy Moly we pretty much had to swim into the field as the entrance was horrendously water logged, Prim the princess almost strangled herself on a bush to avoid getting her paws wet and muddy – she failed.

 

Then for the pooches it was that time of the month….bath time! Which is fun. . . .

Martin and Stacey came over for take away, with their little bundle of cuteness Eddie. Side note I had a chicken kebab minus the pitta and mayo aka technically a grilled chicken salad, just earnt myself another gold star in the healthy eating category of life (Brain: and you had a piece of pizza, shall I delete this memory…gone) followed off buy an awesome arms and shoulders session at the gym with Vickster.

Personal note: stepper, level 10, 30 floors in 7mins – I was proud, and I managed to not go home and finish off the pizza! Yay.  

Yesterday was a spring day at its best, and I’m so ready for many more.

 

Much love

Carla x 

10th March 2016 | A Fresh Start





Ta Pinterest you beaut!

 

Oh hey guys, what are you doing here? What am I doing here?

This is as much of a shock to you is at is to me, I thought I was done with starting a blog thing. Over it, it’s been overdone, small fish big ocean yada yada yada...but I’ve been pining for it over the last week and this morning thought why the hell don’t I just write my thoughts down? So here I am word vomiting and it feels very releasing, like when you have carried around a secret and then you’re allowed to speak of it and. . .

breath, relax, calm.

 

 Since the last time I blogged I’ve realised that the reason I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have, and I seriously should have because I have always love to write, talk, get information out of my brain into the world as fast as I can think of it! Is 1 - I hated my job, and was stressed up to my eyeballs and a blog on top of that was never gonna happen, and 2 - I was just following the blogging trend, beauty reviews, hauls, outfit posts, and although I do love all that stuff on “The Youtube” (Gavin and Stacey anyone…?) what I really love to read and watch are lives! Whether that’s a dull day, and someone’s thoughts and worries or if people are up to something exciting and I want to live it with them on my dull days, or if it’s just as simple as being nosey and wanting to know what someone had for lunch, what can I say I’m a simple creature. I just enjoy people and the stories they have to tell there’s nothing more interesting than a person, and to get to know them through something as intimate as a blog is something I really darn enjoy! 

 So that’s what I am going to do! I’m going to update this little blog with whatever I want, and for personal reasons, not followers. I want an online diary to relive my days in a years’ time, two years’ time – let’s not get ahead of ourselves little lady! I want to record my days, especially as I am currently planning a wedding - gimmie all the emotions! Excitement! Panic! Worry! Delight! Anticipation!…I want to log them all.

 

So this is me telling you, that this is where you can find me, feel free to join the ride.

 

Much love

Carla x

 

P.s. Keep your eyes peeled for a make over on here, seriously Carla what were you thinking!