Wednesday 31 December 2014

December Mission - The Results!

I tried to be generous and give at every opportunity and I carried some change around in my pockets (I never usually have any change on me - or any real money at all to be honest!) so that I could buy a big issue and donate to every one of the worthy causes in the town centre at this time of year.

I also tried to give thanks and compliments :-)

I offered to help with the dishes at The Palace but Mr Matthews wouldn't hear of it and I did ALL the dishes on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and both days afterwards during which there was much cookery going on in the kitchen!

Including my first attempt at porchetta!



 
 
I think I can claim this one as a moderate success!

Monday 29 December 2014

December Week 4!

Panic shopping Day - this doesn 't happen in my house, everything was bought and wrapped well before Week 4 in December :-)

Not making 50 Christmas stockings this year did help though!

Checking for receipts Day - As most of the shopping was done online I actually don't have many receipts at all, I do have a folder full of purchase confirmation emails though!

Prepare to take the following year by storm Day...


...BRING IT ON!!!

Monday 22 December 2014

December Week 3!

Listen to Barry White Day - NO! I really hoped that Barry would have recorded some festive tunes but as he hasn't I'm not going to listen to him!

I prefer to listen to this awesome version of White Christmas :-)



Believe in Santa Day - I Believe (EVERYDAY)!





Monday 15 December 2014

December Week 2!

Tell people you have a six pack Day – hahahaha, I don’t have a six pack and no one would believe me if I told them I did! In fact I suspect the response would be “of what?"

Set a personal best Day – I set a personal best in terms of how festive I can be in the new office space (of course the fact that it’s the first Christmas in situ helped). The pink sequined Rudolph jumper, antlers (with bells) and flashing red nose combined with Christmas tree earrings and snowflake necklace and an array of festive tat (for want of a better word) around my desk area ensured that, even for me, the level of festiveness was a little over the top in my little corner of the world!

Tuesday 9 December 2014

December Week 1!

Start getting excited about Christmas Day!

I did this half way through November when I started to hear Christmas music being played in the shops! I’m sorry – I can’t help it! For the last couple of weeks my ipod has been full of nothing but Christmas music (there’s a little video treat for you below (technically you shouldn’t get this until 17 Dec but I’m good to you)), I’ve already done all my Christmas shopping, the Christmas party’s booked, the Christmas food order’s placed, I’ve been to the Harrogate Christmas market and made plans to go to the Leeds one in a couple of weeks.

I really started to get excited about it on Sunday night (30th) when Mine Truly presented me with an advent gift (he's lovely like that) - I now have a Christmas jumper for my mug! :-)


I'm absolutely gutted - the best video of this song has now been listed as private :-( I loved watching it at Christmas, it never failed to bring a smile to my face and put me in the festive frame of mind. You'll just have to enjoy the song and cope with the boring video I'm afraid!



Yay! I've found the video here (wow, real time blogging!) http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/DL_JpzbYf5s - the sounds rubbish (and the video takes ages to load) but it's worth it!

And, mine truly and I had a lovely day this week putting our decorations up! The sherry (port and lemonade for Mine Truly) was flowing (ridiculously early I might add!), the Christmas tunes were on and there was a distinct layer of glitter to be found on, well, pretty much everything! The evening was spent in festive bliss (mine) and relief (mine truly’s) whilst having a carpet picnic by the tree and watching Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life.

Ready to go in my decorating outfit
 


The disinterested cats
 




 
The bedroom


 
Even the bathroom wasn't excluded from the festive make-over!


And then I was able to spend another evening by the tree (with yet more sherry and Christmas tunes) making a start on the present wrapping!

I am one happy bunny :-)

(I also love that Channel 5 have been showing 3 Christmas movies back to back on weekends for the last few weeks – yay!)

Slippers appreciation Day

I have 3 new pairs (courtesy of Bernie (Panda), John (Fluffy) last Christmas and Santa (Elf Boots)) to add to the collection – it’s a shame I only have 2 feet really!


 

Thursday 4 December 2014

November Mission - The Results!

Mission recap here!

I have not been very zen at all and I've been more whirlwind than speck in the whirlpool of existence!

However, I have started yoga with Sarah at the fabulous Padma Yoga so I don't feel too bad about spectacularly failing this month's mission ;-)

And Mine Truly and I will be redecorating the bedroom with a star/space theme once the Christmas decorations come down so that should encourage future pondering of the cosmos!

Monday 1 December 2014

December Mission!

(wow, how did we get here so fast!)

Be the soul of generosity

Give, give, give at every opportunity

Offer the gifts of time and laughs

Be the one that always says 'Can I help? Is there anything I can do?' and the one to chip-in when there's washing up to be done

Give thanks and compliments and know it's always the thought that counts

This December: Go forth and GIVE!

Sunday 30 November 2014

November Week 4!

Say "Those were the days" Day!

I find myself saying this with alarming frequency the older I get haha!

You know I couldn't do this one without this (you probably weren't expecting this version though)...



...and in recognition of the fact that I can be regulaly heard to say "one day these will be the good old days"...


Monday 24 November 2014

November Week 3!

Parsnip Appreciation Day!

I used to absolutely hate parsnips (and blue cheese, and bacon!), but I love them now so, under normal circumstances this day wouldn't have been a problem at all - however, due to my unusually busy social life this week I've only eaten at home once,and there wasn't a parsnip in sight I'm afraid.

And I didn't think parsnip jewellery would work as well as broccoli did a couple of years ago! So, I'll just have to promise to appreciate parsnip at Christmas if not before.




Perfect a Party Trick Day!

I didn't - largely because I get disturbing flash backs to a drunken night in Jack and Danny's when my party trick went horribly wrong in a very cool way which could never, ever be recreated!

Feel free to give one of the below a go though - I like 5, 7, 9, 11 and 14.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjkiebus/awesomly-useless-party-tricks-you-can-learn-right-now

Ok then, we decided to give number 7 a go...


Tuesday 18 November 2014

November Week 2!

There was bugger all in the diary for this week - that didn't stop me from entering into the week with a bang, and also having a second attempt at a previous challenge...

Neither were planned and both were courtesy of Asda! It started when the bottle of Asda Prosecco delivered on the weekend exploded all over the living room overnight on Sunday - turns out it was a dodgy batch and so they replaced it with a nice bottle of Veuve Clicquot which we drank with pizza watching Supernatural on Tuesday (Drink champagne just because Day - see?!)!






Monday 10 November 2014

November Week 1!

I did get excited about Fireworks day – but technically I did it last week when I went to the Stray bonfire and fireworks!

I’m going to rant a little bit here I’m afraid (come on, it’s aaaages since I last had a good rant!…I had the genius (in my opinion) idea of taking buttered finger rolls, fried onions wrapped in foil, sachets of tomato sauce and mustard, and hot dogs in a thermos flask with us (and a few chilled beers of course).

So, I ordered 8 large finger rolls and 8 jumbo hot dog sausages for home delivery (with the rest of my shopping of course) from a local supermarket – let’s call it Asda shall we. As usual the order was heavy with substitutions and, as usual, some of them defied all logic. They’d substituted the 8 Warbuton rolls I’d ordered for 8 Asda rolls (which was fine) and then, being unable to find a single jar of hot dogs in the whole store, had substituted the 8 individually wrapped jumbo hot dogs I’d ordered for 2 (yes just 2) of those vile and manky microwave hot dog in a bread roll things!! So I was left with 10 bread rolls and 2 hot dogs.

I mean seriously, WTF??

Anyway, a quick trip round the corner to the co-op rectified the situation and off we went! I still maintain that it was a genius idea – it would have helped enormously though if the wind had died down enough to not make it very difficult to build the hot dogs when we got there.

And if we’d had more hands.

Still, it was fun, the fireworks were great and and the hot dogs were still hot :-)

 









 


There was also supposed to be a Powerballad Day this week but I substituted it instead for a Counting Crows Day when I went to see them live in Leeds. The evening started off with dinner at the Nation of Shopkeepers – which includes a pickled onion monster munch burger – which was very good and then it was on to the O2 Academy for the show, which was awesome!

Monday 3 November 2014

October Week 5!

And of course the important thing for this week was HALLOWEEN!



I forgot to take my Halloween glasses to work unfortunately, and my Halloween cookies were such a disaster that they didn't even make it into the oven haha!

So, I had to make do with just the pumpkin carving competition with Mine Truly - I don't think I did too badly considering it was only the second time I'd done it, and Mine Truly did very well on his first ever carving (he was that eager to get his demon head lit that he wasn't hanging around for any pre-lighting photos so there's just my cat carving!)

 



And I cooked with pumpkin for the first time this week, we had a pumpkin and nutmeg soup on Thursday and spicy pumpkin wedges on Friday - and there's a batch of pumpkin, cumin and oregano soup in the freezer which I'll add sauteed chorizo to when I re-heat :-)


And it wouldn't be Halloween if I didn't share one of my favourite Improv Everywhere clips with you... 


Sunday 2 November 2014

October Mission - The Results!

Mission recap here!

I did the exact opposite (not entirely unusual!) and set the alarm later - partly due to the office moving closer to my home and partly due to a rethink of my working and sleeping hours (less of one, more of the other). I did kind of also set the alarm a little earlier though - I set up a pre-alarm alarm on my phone :-) Sounds mental but it works! One minute before the alarm goes off a low gentle tune sounds (slightly increasing in volume during the minute) which starts to slowly bring you around so the loud and intrusive alarm isn't such a shock to the system!

The only throwing of myself I did was to throw myself down the stairs (probably not on the list of acceptable methods).

Despite wearing various headgear throughout the month there wasn't a headband in sight.

Nor was there any lycra.

I've never been able to meditate (hard as it is to believe but I find it really difficult to empty my mind) and every time I think I know what I want in life I change my mind. But then a person who can't change their mind doesn't have one I always say!

As for expanding my mind while contracting my waistline...every time I try to expand my tiny mind I'm distracted by something shiny and why is skinny seen as equating to happy?

I broke out in a sweat dancing all night at the wonderful wedding of Peter and Kim!

Not exactly a successful mission but I'm using my nose op (and the fact I'm not supposed to exercise for about 8 weeks after) as an excuse!

I have, however, got a yoga session booked for the beginning of November so maybe that'll be a start!

Saturday 1 November 2014

November Mission!

Be Zen

Ponder and think on things of the cosmos

Shift your perspective and know that we are but a speck in the whirlpool of existence and use these thoughts to feel calm about all things that were previously vexing since if we are all really just on a spinning rock in space we may as well rock the time we've got!

This November: Go forth and PHILOSOPHISE!

Monday 20 October 2014

October Week 3!

Give up one thing and take up another - I decided to give up my mobile phone and take up a life but didn’t get very far haha!

I was inspired by the two clips below, which made me want to simultaneously abandon my phone down the nearest flushable facility and text Mine Truly to suggest a suitably romantic endeavour to enable us to focus our attention solely on each other. Oh, the irony!





What they have done though is made me much more aware of how much time, and how often, I spend checking my phone unnecessarily.

I never had this problem with my wonderful old Samsung F210 which I would have happily continued to replace with the same model ad infinitum if only it was still in production/available. The only function it had was phone calls and texts, so I wasn’t looking at it every 5 minutes in case I’d missed anything!!

Much as I do really like the ability to order my shopping delivery, ‘check-in’ (why?), get the latest weather report, check Trip Advisor (which I’m not addicted to at all, no, definitely not) and have the answers to those niggling drive-me-mad questions at my fingertips the more I think about it the less certain I am that it’s a good thing!

Wear a hat Day - as you can see below I really don't need any excuse to wear a hat (or tea cosy, or balloons) on any given day!