Sometimes, everyone needs a pic me up. A message from someone special, just letting you know:

A message letting you know that it's okay to have doubts, just turn them into something better:

A message telling you, you do have a nice arse.

and that you are perfect just as you are.

If you are enough for yourself, you are enough for anyone.

source

xoxox

So, hello, what are possibly two of my most favourite things ever...like ever ever??? Yummy food and tattoos I hear you say? Yes correct! 10 points! Have some sweets in celebration! I have found a simply wonderfluff website that is about these 2 very things. Win for me!! (and you, its www.yummytattoos.com) a few of my favourites have to be: 

Which is your favourite?

xoxox

maybe one day..

I think, when I grow up, I want to be a Blythe Doll... Im already the right height... 

xoxox

hello new favourite thing!!

Give me a deer, a unicorn or cute food and you know that I'm in... While having a little trawl through my beloved ETSY this morning (original Babycham glasses with ornamental deer, you will be mine!!!) I stumbled across the cutest site that provided me with all 3, victory in epic proportions! 

Beyond excited about some of these babies!

 (click to enlarge)

They come from

http://www.etsy.com/shop/RusticRainbow

Go there, Love them, Buy them!! 

xoxoxo

DOLLY!!!

A new and thoroughly magnificent addition to our household which I need to tell you about since I've been away is the wonderful baby Dolly... I have always wanted a pug and she is beyond amazing. An absolute tiny horror, but amazing! I cannot wait to be able to dress her up, I know some people think it's mad to dress up a dog and I would never dream to dress up Noah but a pugs face screams " PUT ME IN TINY OUTFITS" and I am more then willing to oblige...

Chocolate...and BEETROOT?! It can't be done.....

Think that?? Then where have you been? Chocolate and Beetroot are the new "it" thing when it comes to desserts. Goodbye Carrot Cake and Hello Beetroot cake. I've heard Beetroot cake is the new LBD, THE new black, the..new Gaga?! It is equally as crazy peppered with originality and a little something amazing that you just can't put your finger on... My discovery of the blessed Beetroot cake comes with a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. My Honeymoon has sadly taken its toll on my waistline with me racking up an impressive 7lbs in just over two weeks; America I salute you and every deep fat fryer in your blessed country, you know how to do some good food. Good food it is but healthy food it isn't. Im back home and paying the price for my indulgences now but one problem still sticks: I am a complete fat girl that loves food and refuses to neglect even a chocolate brownie. My solution to said problem? Do it the skinny girl way. My skinny girl way lends favour from one of my most used cookbooks, Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache. The recipes are sitting just on the right side of sinful with a great dollop of healthy reassurance. The best things about their recipes are that they are so customisable, so with a few tiny tweaks I have created my dream Brownie.

• 400g of peeled raw beetroot cut into small cubes
• 130g whole hazelnuts 
• 3 large free range eggs
• 220g light muscovado sugar
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 150g of dark chocolate, the best quality you can afford but at least 70% cocoa solids please!
• 2tbsp white rice flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 4 tbsp fresh espresso coffee
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Warm your oven up to 160°C. 
2. I use a 30cmX20cmX5cm brownie tin which is non stick but still rub it with a tiny bit of flavourless oil, like groundnut to prevent any sticking at all. 
3. Pop your cubed beetroot into a microwavable bowl and heat for 10 minutes with a tiny splash of water 
4. While the beetroot is cooking, blitz up 100g of the hazelnuts to the finest powder you can. You really need a food processor for this to create the finest crumbs possible, it wants to look like dust. 
5. Whisk up the eggs, sugar and salt for a good 5 minutes with an electric whisk. It can be done by hand but will take a little while longer and a lot more arm strength. You want the mixture to have tripled in volume and to look light and bubble filled
6. Smash up your chocolate with careless abandon, i tend to leave it in the packet and attack it with a rolling pin- very satisfying feeling...
7. By now the beetroot should be cooked. Sieve it to remove any excess water and fling in your dark chocolate shards. Cover the bowl with some clingfilm and if the room is cool, a tea towel also. Leave it to stand for a few minutes and the beetroots residual heat should melt the chocolate. After a few minutes remove the cling film and with a hand held blender, puree the chocolate and beetroot together to form a deep sludgy mass.
8. Mix the now powdered hazelnuts, rice flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, espresso and vanilla extract into your fluffy egg mixture
9. Add the chocolate/beetroot pulp now and mix until combined but don't spend too much time on it. The secret to a perfectly squidgy brownie is to not mess with the batter to much. A little austerity never did a brownie any harm. 
10. Pour your mixture into the tin and sprinkle on the remaining 30g of hazelnuts. I like to have bashed the hazelnuts slightly with rolling pin so they are splintered and bruised. A rolling pin and a bit more attacking usually works a treat. 
11. Cook in the middle of the oven for between 30-35 minutes. Begin checking at 30 by sticking a cocktail stick into the middle to the tray. Brownies are ment to be ever so slightly damp so a little chocolate colour on the cocktail stick is fine, if its still a little too loose, leave in the oven for the last 5 minutes. 
12. Remove from the oven and cool the brownies in the tin for 20 minutes before cutting into individual portions and releasing them into the wild. They won't last long i promise!

swoon.....

I really actually big love Narwhals, especially rainbow ones!! 

xoxox

Photo challenge

Im starting this blog with yet another apology! I feel like we have hit a rocky patch in our marriage and I'm not commited enough, esentially I'm Tommy Lee and your Pamela. My lack of commitment at the moment is posting nothing except my photo challenges. I have some good food blogs in the pipeline and some uber cute stuff too but its having the time to do them but I will get there in the next week, just bear with me and you shall be rewarded bountifully my beauties. Todays photo challenge is:
Day 13 – Your favorite musician and why?
and it is sooooooooooo hard to answer. I love so much music, its one of the biggest things in my life and choosing just one musician over another is cripplingly hard. A few of my all time stars are:

• the mama's and the papa's 
• al green
• ike and tina
• the animals
• dusty springfield
• the andrews sisters
• glen miller
• janis joplin
• ella fitzgerald 
• the lovin' spoonful
• aretha franklin

but as an overall artist, because I don't just love her music, I love her clothes, her HAIR, her humour, it would probably be Paloma Faith. She makes me melt and I am complete lady love with her. 

xoxox

cat-tea...(see what I did there?? no...okay..sadface...)

Two of my very favourite things in my life are most definitely my cats and a perfectly brewed cup of tea. So much excitement when I find these amazing "Tea for Two" sets and the cats on them are more or less identical to two of my little bubas! Perfect for our morning brew together! 

Mylo's tea set

Gertie's tea set

How much also, do you think it added to my excitement when I perused the site a little further to find out they did a Little Red Riding Hood version. On a sad note, they are Japanese, payable only in Yen and do not ship to England...the slightest of spanners in the works... 

xoxox

Have Bento's not Mento's.....

Sundays are a good day for cooking and generally messing about, doing things you don't ever seem to be able to muster the time for midweek. I've got through a big wodge of cooking today, things that are a bit long winded and time consuming but I don't know if I would ever have the time to create a Bento box as amazing as any of these gorgeous little beasts. If I did somehow find the time, I don't ever think I could eat them. Just beyond cute!

Piplup

Totoro

Hello Kitty

xoxox

Here comes the sun....

I don't know what it is at the minute, and I feel strange even typing it but I really cannot wait till summer. Normally it's the time of year I dread the most, I'm a redhead so no glorious tan for me but a painting of luminous fiery pink is all I get. I'm paranoid about my affectionately named "Nana Arms" and insist on wearing long sleeved tops even in scorching heat and I'm ridiculously allergic to bee stings so even the mere faint buzz of one sends me into full on panic mode. Despite all this I cannot wait to get a bit of warmth back, probably due to the near on Arctic conditions we have been bestowed with this winter.  I need: 

flowers back in my life

and dizzyingly high ice creams

picnic's in the park with friends

bike rides 

and trips to the beach

Roll on summer is all I can say, I might even take my cardi off too!!

xoxox

photo challenge day 8

Todays photo challenge is: 
Day 8 – A song to match your mood.
Today is a right old hectic day but the thing that is probably taking president over everything is that, like I said earlier; its the man friends stag do today. So I feel it is apt that my song choice is the AMAZING song " I say a little prayer for you" by Dionne Warwick. 

I think he will need it! Plus since I have the house to myself I had a great time dancing around the kitchen with the cats to it to cheer me up a little after he had gone. 

xoxox

photo challenge day 7

Today's photo challenge is one very close to my heart because in a matter of 11 weeks or 77 days, I get married. 

Day 7 – Your dream wedding.

and this is what I'm having!! Me and the man originally had a whole "proper" wedding planned, the dress, the meal, the cake but we realised that we weren't having the wedding for us, it was for everyone else. Deep down, it wasn't what either of us wanted so we cancelled the whole thing and booked ourselves a ticket to "The City That Never Sleeps" and I couldn't be happier. I know it may not be every little girls dream and it may not seem the most romantic to some but to me it is perfection. Really, when it comes down to it; what is a wedding really about. Its about two people and so for me at least, that's all that is needed. I don't need a load of people, most of whom I don't have the faintest idea of who they are, to see me saying I love him. As long as he knows it, well then that's my job done and I'm happy. It goes without saying that obviously; we will look pretty similar to this:

but you already knew that, didn't you!

xoxox

double bubble!

Gahhh! Due to a ridiculous day of no internet connection yesterday (I genuinely felt like I had lost a limb) I couldn't post day 5 of my photo challenge! So today we have day 5 and 6 together in a kind of double bubble jam packed-ish.. day. So day five's challenge was:

Day 5 – A photo of yourself two years ago.

This was me and the man friend at a Rugby weekend in Edinburgh supporting the mighty Hull KR "Come on you reds" Oooh that was a bit of the Delia Smiths coming out in me there... Shockingly, like I said in my last post, you cant get a nice picture of me and the man and once again we are looking like tits! To my defence I was a whole 5 stone heavier two years ago so, that explains the podgy face, there is however no defence for the shocking pose or the man friends hair.

Today's photo challenge,

Day 6 – A photo of an animal you’d love to keep as a pet

is an easy one for me; I so want some chickens of my own. As soon as we get the wedding out of the way and are back home, I shall be seeking out my nearest seller and getting myself two Mrs. Pepperpots- even their name is amazing and setting up my very own chicken run. Bliss! 

xoxox

photo challenge day 4...

Today's photo challenge is:

Day 4- Your favourite picture of you and your best friend

Well my best friend in the world probably has to be the man friend... Obviously I have my bestest ladies but I suppose the person I am closest to in the world is him! The picture is probably not the most flattering, it was his attempt at some kind of strange pout put it just makes me laugh every time I see it! He is never able to just have a normal face and something always goes wrong bless him! I think this is the one picture of him where he doesn't have a weird mouth or have his eyes shut! 

and I love this picture too but once again, we are acting like morons. figures.. 

xoxox

photo challenge day 3...

Well today is of course day three of this lovely little photo challenge. I really hope that others are doing this too and I'm looking forward to putting a little montage together at the end of the month. Today then is as follows-

Day 3 – Your idea of the perfect first date
and as you can tell I'm a girl that dreams big....

This is of course a scene from the glorious "An Education" one of my most favourite films of all time. And I want to steal David and Jenny's Paris date. I know that it wasn't their first date but it would be my ultimate first date, hands down; no contest... To wander around Paris, finding antique book stalls, smoking Russian Sobranies, eating a picnik on the banks of the river with perfect French bread and beautiful wine listening to the dulcet tones of Juliette Greco- perfection. Of course, it goes without question that my date would be set in the 60's. The Man-Friend would be wearing, as did David an immaculate navy suit but with Raybans and I would undoubtedly be working a Chanel summer dress..

I don't think so much this is my idea of a first date, this is my idea of what heaven is; but there you go, it's my dream and as I said, I'm a girl that dreams big. 

xoxox

cutest cake ever????

It doesn't even need words!! I just love it so much!! Needless to say, this will be made at some point! 

xoxox

Is this the best shop ever???

I am in actual shopping hell. Well technically heaven but I have to now save all my money for this wedding business and I don't think the man friend would deem any of these items as essentials... he is wrong...but I just don't see it happening. If you had to write up a list of my favourite things in life, it would easily include:

• french bulldogs (my most favourite dogs in the world)
• toadstools
• anything kawaii
• cats
• kitchenwares
• panda's

That's just for starters. So I am now in shoppers limbo after finding all of these treasures on Modcloth. Why oh why are you not in the UK? Gaaah! If anyone wants to buy me any of these I would be most grateful and I send you a massive smile as payment- and you can take that to the bank my friends..... I think I make a valid case. See exhibits 1-9:

I rest my case! ....Send me your money..please... :) 

xoxox