taking stock {of june}

June, you've been an odd bird. You've thrown me some curve balls along the way, but I could never say we weren't buddies. Let's take stock...

Dealing with having a sore back...not fun!

Hoping to go on a little long weekend staycation.

Discovering new towns and restaurants in the lovely North East.

Realising that I have to be more patient and that things don't happen right away.

Finding it difficult missing my besto's wedding. Darn back injury :(

Missing out on being a bridesmaid at the above mentioned wedding.

Watching Celebrity Masterchef. Loving this season!

Eating lots of homemade Chinese food, thanks to O!

Drinking lots of freezing water with lemon in my new Essie Button Costco cups!

Making fruit smoothies.

Listening to O planning climbing lessons...lordy!

Hoping O doesn't fall down!

Trying to stop taking my painkillers for my back...they make me snoozy and sick.

Figuring out how to use my DSLR (still!).

Loving listening to O making plans for my birthday next week!

Waiting til the weekend to see my lovely buddy Caroline & her husband!

Attempting to get through about 5 blog posts after my hiatus this week (darn painkillers).


{the card above was one I gave to O for our anniversary. He is most definitely the ketchup on my chips! ♡♡}

 

 

first weigh in {eeek!}

I don't want to turn this into a weight loss blog, but I think it's nice for me to write a little post to report back after WI (weigh in). So it was with much trepidation that I stepped on the scales yesterday evening. I was nervous all day....but no need to be, as I lost 5lbs!!! So happy with this for my first week, as it means that I'm doing something right!

My leader was so proud and lovely about my loss and I received the above pack with more WW info in it, can't wait to have a peak inside. Until next week....

Any other weight watchers out there? How are you doing this week? 

 

 

healthy eating :: in photos

 

Grilled chicken salad wrap with yoghurt & mint sauce.

 

Natural yoghurt, fruit compote, granola with mixed fruit.

 

Wholewheat pasta, homemade tomato sauce with light mozzarella.

 

Grilled chicken, tomato sauce glaze, roasted root veg and wok-fried greens.

 

Wholewheat pasta with root veg, goat's cheese, black pepper and lemon zest.

 

Stir fried chicken with mixed mushrooms and wok-fried greens on the side.

 

 

10 things...

 

Is it just me, or has this week been a long 'un? I think the weeks where O works the weekends seem to drag (did that sentence make sense?). Anyway, here's what rocked my little world this week...

1:: Meeting this little kitty! I have no idea who he is, but he keeps walking into my kitchen. So darn cute!

2:: Eating healthy and not feeling pants due to all the naughty food we usually eat! Salads are ace in this weather!

3:: Buying birthday presents for myself...best thing ever!

4:: My awesome matey getting engaged! ♡

5:: Chilling out with O in the garden in the evenings. Seriously blissful.

6:: Catching up with New Girl. Love that girl.

7:: Graze, Birch and Flavourly boxes arriving all in the same week. Score!

8:: The juiciest nectarines that I've ever eaten...I think I got more on me than in my mouth!

9:: Buying the Jamie Oliver 15 Minute Meals...can't wait to start cooking up a storm, all the recipes look seriously drool-worthy.

10:: Going to the Plewsy. open day with the lovely Danni today. Is it cool for me to buy one of every card?!

What's rocked your world this week?
♡

 

 

weight loss {life changes}

I wasn't sure if I wanted to write about this on here, but I figured it's something that's going to be part of my life now, so I wanted to share some of it with you lovely people.

I've had an issue with my weight pretty much my whole life. I'm not going to bore you with the details, we'll leave that for another time, but this week I finally decided to do something about it. So, off I went to my local Weight Watchers class. I've been a WW regular years ago, so it really wasn't anything new to me. When I walked into the St. John's Ambulance hall on Monday evening, I was greeted by my lovely new leader! Even the members were brilliant, lots of hilarious banter and really easy going. I stayed for the meeting and got all my paperwork and books in order and then went to the supermarket to stock up on lots of healthy fruit and veg! It's really all about making healthy changes. We are the kings of ordering takeaways, so we've put a stop to that, which I think will be a massive help. I'm also cutting down on my alcoholic beverages (shock horror!), especially during the week. Once my back is in better shape, I'll be able to get back into the fitness aspect too.

I'm not going to post my weight on here, but I might report back with my losses. Inspired by the lovely Chloe, I've started a blog on the WW website, where there's loads of support and help, if you need it. Reading Chloe's blog is really motivating as we had a similar amount of weight to lose, so I know that it's possible. My leader even sent me a text on Tuesday to ask how I was getting on, I honestly can't fault this WW class!

O and I are going out for dinner tonight, so my resolve and my WW counting skills with both be put to the test, wish me luck! :)

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local eats :: the purple pig

A couple of weeks ago, O came home from work raving about a burger joint that his colleague had recommended and surprisingly, it was pretty nearby! Usually we have to go mooching into the city for a decent burger, so we were pretty excited to give The Purple Pig a try. They have restaurants in both Yarm and Middlesbrough, but Yarm being closest, we hopped in the car and off we went!
I loved the style of the restaurant, it felt like we were in the city, rather than the little town of Yarm. The communal seating wasn't great, but luckily it was really quiet when we went in, so we had the whole bench to ourselves.

First port of call of course...cocktails! O was driving so he ordered one of the milkshakes, but the blender was broken (he was gutted at this!), so he went with a coke. I chose a PIG Mistake...HUGE cocktail (typical Scot) which had gin, fresh lemon juice, sugar, apple juice, elderflower cordial, grapes and mint. Oh my days, it was so so good! Everyone loves a cocktail in a jam jar and it came complete with a glow stick! I even ate the grapes!

There's plenty to choose from on the menu and after about 10 minutes of changing my mind, I went for their namesake burger The Purple Pig, which came with a double beef patty, bacon, sugary onions, BBQ sauce, baconnaise, purple slaw and piggy smalls. O went for The Notorious P.I.G., which came with a triple beef patty, pulled pork, flat iron, shrooms, Purple Pig mustard mayo, jack cheese and strings. I'm seriously drooling whilst typing this! We also ordered a couple of sides to go along with our burgers (fatties), the Bad Boy fries (a mixtures of normal and sweet potato fries) and deep fried gherkins.

We were actually pleasantly surprised with the burgers. They didn't look awesome, but they tasted amazing! The beef patties were so well cooked and the fries with baconnaise were pretty standard. The pickled gherkins were a bit strange, but none-the-less quite tasty. For some reason I was expecting sliced gherkins not these little cornichons! The blue cheese dip was tasty, but could do with being a little thicker. Overall, we were pretty impressed with the Purple Pig. The staff were really attentive and the food was drool-worthy! It's not the best burger I've ever had, but having this place just down the road means that we will definitely be back!

 

 

adventures // staycations

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This year, due to O's work contract, we can't take any long haul holidays. So we've been making the most of the good old long weekend staycation! I'm not one of these people who has to go abroad every year, I know that good old Blighty has lots to offer, especially if the weather gods are kind to us. O, being a scout leader, is a huge fan of the staycation, especially of the camping variety (much to my dismay...don't get me wrong, I'm getting better at it!). Here's a few places that we've hit up already over the last year or so...

Beach Head, East Sussex

I love a good lighthouse!

One of Islay's many distilleries

Camping on Islay!

O's hometown, one of my favourite cities!

Canal next to Canal St!

Pod camping in Winchester

And again just outside York.

Chester, I love the tree wraps!

Anglesey, Wales

Whitby Abbey

Good old York!

Eilean Donan castle, Skye

Portree, Skye

Highlands

Doune Castle, Scotland

 

These are but a few the photos from our trips, otherwise you would be scrolling through hundreds of photos. We still have a hefty list of places we want to visit in the UK and we're slowly working our way around this beautiful kingdom!

Where's your favourite staycation?

 

 

life lately {taking stock}

The last few weeks have been both tough and brilliant, at the same time. I've written this post what feels like a million times and then scrapped it. But in the end, I decided to publish it, sometimes the difficult ones to write are the best. This week I've been faced with lots of decisions, good and bad. Anyone who knows me, knows I hate making decisions. So, it's been a long and tiring one this week. Let's take stock...

Trying to decide whether or not to take a job in my old field. Is that taking the easy way out? Or is that being sensible?

Wanting to try the Purple Pig. The burgers and sides look seriously drool-worthy!

Realising that sometimes it's OK to put yourself first.

Loving Oscar even more for looking after me these last few weeks.

Continually being surprised by people.

Receiving a tax rebate...hells yeah! Treats for Lou and Oscar!

Drinking the new Hornsby's Cider, summer in a bottle!

Deciding what to do for my birthday...three weeks left of being 32 :/

Marvelling at the wonder that is controlling YouTube on my TV with my phone and iPad! Seriously, what is this magic?!

Thinking how lucky I am lately.

Admiring Kiefer Sutherland in 24.

Regretting finishing the second season of Orange is the New Black so quickly.

Sorting what I want to do. With my life.

Buying new dresses and water bottles (a la Essie Button stylee).

Coveting this Marc Jacobs bag. Oh my!

Hoping that I make the right decision.

Needing a holiday.

Attempting to keep everyone happy and inevitably failing.

Hankering after getting married soon.

Wishing I had a crystal ball to see into the future.

Eating a lot of curry and Nutella. Not together...

Disliking rubbish people who suck out your soul.

The above beautiful photo was taken down on the Beaches in Toronto. Oh how I wish I was back there!

adventures // a whitby photo diary

I love Whitby! The fact that it's only a twenty minute drive from our house just makes it extra tasty! There's nothing better than eating fish and chips by the pier (or the beach) or a stroll up to the abbey. Every single time we go to the abbey we play Iron Maiden's Can I Play With Madness as our soundtrack, anyone else do that? We usually go to Magpie's for fish and chips, but fancied a bit of a view with our lunch this time, so we went to The Fisherman's Wife. The portions here are pretty epic, can't recommend it enough. We were a bit naughty and bought some hot doughnuts for the car journey home (can't remember where from), we're still finding sugar in the darn car!

recipe :: Nutella swirl banana muffins

Our baking escapades always begin with some sort of food that needs to be used up. On Saturday evening, we discovered four seriously overly ripe bananas in the kitchen. Now usually, I'd just make a banana bread, but we fancied doing something a little different for a change. After much googling, we found this muffin recipe on the Londoner's blog. We did modify it slightly, as we didn't have all the exact ingredients. This recipe should make 12 muffins, but because we used cupcake cases instead of a muffin tin, we got 20 out of the mixture. To make these tasty morsels, you will need:

Ingredients:

230 grams (1 3/4 cups) self raising flour
150 grams (3/4 cup) granulated white sugar {we used caster sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
2 large free range eggs, lightly beaten
113 grams (1/2 cup) melted unsalted butter {we used the Stork baking margarine}
3 large very ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tbsp Nutella, at room temp

Method:

-Pre-heat your oven to 180C or Gas Mark 4-5.
-Line your muffin trays with grease-proof paper or use cupcake cases like we did.
-In one bowl combine your flour, sugar & salt. In another combine your eggs, butter, mashed bananas & vanilla. Tip one into the other and gently fold together. Don't use a hand mixer or any other gadgets!
-You want your batter to be thoroughly mixed, but still lumpy and utterly hideous!
-Divide your mixture between your cases, each one should be just about half full. Take a teaspoon of slightly warm Nutella and pop a blob (technical term) onto the centre of each muffin.
-Use a cocktail stick or skewer (we used a meat thermometer!) to swirl the Nutella into the muffin without turning the whole thing chocolatey.

 

{This is how they should look just before they go in the oven. I don't know why this photo is so squinty!?}

-Repeat with each muffin and then pop them all onto the middle shelf of your oven. Bake for 20-25 mins (ours took about 10 mins longer, probably due to our dodgy oven).
-When they're done you should be able to stick a skewer into the centre and have it come out nice and clean.
-Leave to cool and enjoy when still warm, as the Nutella will still be extra gooey!

Some of the photos are slightly blurry due to my impatienceand excitement of the prospect of eating them all up! They are properly scrumptious!! :)