For me this year (or in October to be exact), I managed to bag myself an absolute bargain of a new diary insert for my Filofax. It's the first year I didn't get a Filofax brand insert.

This one is by Paperchase and it came with the nicest dividers as well as note paper and address paper too. I think this was around the £8 mark so it was an absolute steal for me.

Diary:
First of all I have my diary insert. I mainly use this to keep track of my work hours and any personal appointments. This way when I look back, I know what I did and when!

Addresses:
This is mainly of family! They've got to be kept somewhere and this seems the most fitting place.

Notes:
This is quite an important section for me. It keeps all the little things I need to remember. I write down ideas, blog posts and all things important.

Planner Supplies:
This has a whole section of it's own. I have a pile of to-do list inserts in there to keep track of the million and one things I need to do. I also have the insert of page markers and post its. This isn't the original post its on here as I used them all up. So I kept the dashboard and put new markers to colour code my work days by when I'm getting paid so it's easier for me to work out. Then I use the post its to note down anything important about that week.

I like to be crazy organised and I like to be able to refer to what I've done recently. Some may think it's a bit much but if I don't then I feel a bit lost!

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Z is for...Zoo

I’m just going to start by saying how much I love going to the zoo. I’ve never been one for animals but ever since we got dogs I’ve been a lot more open to the idea of them! We went to New York Zoo a while back which was great, they had baby snow leopards that had just been born which was really cute! 

Longleat Safari Park has to be my favourite hands down though. We did the safari in my car and I was a little bit concerned that the monkeys would attack my car but fortunately they didn’t! 

Giraffe Selfie anyone?

I’ve been to a few others recently but this year I’d quite like to go to ZSL London Zoo and also London Aquarium!

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Desk Staples

I technically don't have a desk, more of a window sill and a drawer that I keep extra bits in that I don't use as much. So I'm imagining if I really had a desk (fyi it would be white with some drawers...!).

Weekly planner - so I can see what I'm doing that day or week
Notebook - a pretty one, typically A5 sized
Pen pot - with a whole load of pens of all colours, my writing needs to be pretty!
Ringbinder folder - also in a pretty design holding my editorial calendar and blogging goals
Jar of washi tape - I have so many that it seemed better to keep them all in a jar and it's much prettier that way
Scrapbook - I'd like to have room for my scrapbook so that I can look at it when I want and also add to it all the time

That's what I would have as my desk staples, if I had a desk obviously.

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Bit Spicy South East Asian Indonesian Korma

When I visited the Good Food Show last November I picked up one of these spice kits from Bit Spicy to make an Indonesian Korma. My Mum and I tested basically every sample they had and bought a selection for my Dad but I wanted one for myself and I love a good korma.

It's relatively easy to make but it does take some time. I'm not going to go through the whole method with you but you would need approximately 2 hours to make it and you cook the chicken separately then add it to the sauce. 

The flavour of this korma is like no korma I've had before! It's not mild at all and has a very good kick of spice to it and it has a more yellow colour than your normal curry. I had mine with chicken but it also suggests prawns which I would love to try! 

As I was browsing their website I noticed they do spices for other foods as well, not just curry so I'm keen to try their Mexican range, we all love some good fajitas now don't we!

I'm going to the Good Food Eat Well Show in a few weeks so hopefully they will be there again so I can pick up a few more spice packs!

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What's On My iPhone

So it still so happens that I'm quite behind the times and I still have an iPhone 4.

However, it still does the job which is most important.
I only have 2 pages on my phone. Obviously I have apps like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, to keep updated with what's going on with family, friends and other blogs. Also who can resist a bit of Snapchat now and again?

The first page is pretty much full of your standard Apple apps but a lot of them have been put under one category, purely because I don't use them enough. I know you're probably wondering where the music is and it's there but I use my iPod because it has four times the amount of storage. 

The second page is pretty much miscellaneous, including Bloglovin' and Pinterest, what my lunch break is made up of!

I also recently downloaded 2 photo prints apple, one of which gives you 500 free prints a year and you just pay postage which is pretty cheap compared to some photo websites. The other is called Polabox, where you can print photos as polaroids at 35p a photo or you can also get photo strips, at £6.45 for 5 strips of 5 photos.

I also have static to keep track of followers on various social media platforms. Plus Timehop because I like seeing how far I've come in a year. And lastly C25K, so I can get off my ass and workout!

That's what's on my phone, what's on yours?


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New Year Update #4

Hello everyone! I cannot believe that it's the end of January already. I really don't know where the time has gone, it's crazy.

I've kept up my 2lb weight loss and maintained that which is good for me. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things now that I have more than 1 day off a week.

I've seen a change in my diet, for the better of course, it helps taking one day at a time as opposed to a week or a month.

I am getting there but unfortunately I have to battle with the thoughts that are telling me it's ok to eat unhealthy food when I know full well that it isn't. Everyone assumes this is easy but being an emotional eater, it's harder than anything I've had to do.

This will actually be my last new year update because I didn't want to carry it on past January. So I'm going to start a new series, one that I can carry on for a lot longer than a few weeks or for the length of the alphabet!

I'm going to do my first post on it next week but I haven't decided how often it will be yet! You'll have to wait and see!

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Tips for Getting Organised

1. Get yourself a Diary, Notebook and a Pen
I definitely rely on all of these things. My diary normally keeps all of my personal things such as work times and little notes on what to do. Although occasionally I will write down a note on a blog post I want to do. I use the notebook to draft all of my blog posts before I type them up. There's something satisfying about putting a pen to paper.

2. A Ringbinder Folder with Dividers
I keep a folder with my blogging goals in and also an editorial calendar in. I use the editorial calendar to plan my blog posts so that I know what I need to do. I like having my blogging goals there so I can remind myself what I want to achieve this year.

3. Expandable Folders
I have 3 of these, each with a different purpose. One keeps all of my personal documents that I need to keep, one keeps old pictures, posters and odd little bits and the last keeps all my blogging inspiration, so I have articles on different topics and a silly amount of recipes.

4. A Weekly Planner
This is more for personal use, again including work hours, meal plans, shopping lists and mini to do lists. I don't use this as often as I should but I'm going to start!

This is what I consider the most important things I need to get organised, a lot you could do electronically if you prefer, by setting up several calendars each with different purposes. But I really like putting it down on paper.

How do you keep organised?

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

I was nominated for this award by Viola whose at A Piece of Viola. I was pretty surprised when she nominated me! A pleasant surprise though. 

Rules for this award

1. Thank the person who nominated you and add their link to your blog
2. List the award rules so your nominees will know what to do.
3. State 7 things about yourself.
4. Nominate other bloggers.
5. Contact your nominees and provide a link to your post.
6. Display the award logo (button) on your blog, whether on your sidebar or about page, or special award page.

7 facts about me

• I’m 22 this year, but I'm definitely not going to be feeling it. Sorry Taylor Swift.
• I love green tea.
• I do love a good boy band. One Direction in particular.
• I love trashy TV. All those British Reality TV shows? Yeah I've seen them. 
• I have an amazing sense of direction. 
• I'm sort of obsessed with notebooks, I have around 20 that are waiting to be used...
• I really really love going to the Zoo

My nominees
Emma Luxton  - Essays And Wine 
Rebecca - Brunette Lifestyle
Hannah - Hannah Delacour

I don't normally go for all these award things, but I think it's nice to know that someone appreciates what you've been blogging about and that it has helped them in some kind of way! So for that, Thank you Viola!

Fitness Wish List

There are several things that I've wanted for a while now which I think would make my journey so much easier. If only money wasn't an issue eh?! 

 

Fitbit
In pink obviously. I don't think I need to even explain this one! I know people that have them and they have only said good things about them. I think it's great that it's so much easier to keep track of all your goals. Next payday maybe!

Head Gym Bag
Again, in pink. We're going really old school here, and why not? I remember my Mum using one of these when I was younger and I think they're pretty great, so I want one now! 

Sports Bottle
Don't you just love the VS range? I feel like this sports bottle is fitting too! I'm going to visit the one in London next weekend so I may pick up a few treats for myself.

NutriBullet
I've heard some good reviews about NutriBullet and my mum also got one for Christmas which she uses nearly everyday so now I want one for myself!


Charlotte Crosby 3 Minute Belly Blitz
I've only ever heard good things about this DVD, and I'm dying to get my own copy. It's all about the little steps and 3 minutes of a workout seems more manageable!

What are your fitness must haves?

Y is for...Yes

I just want to apologise for not doing one for X, I tried very hard to think of one and the best I could come up with was X-ray and I’ve never had to have one but I didn't want to waste a whole blog post on that, if you have any other suggestions for X please let me know!

Onto Y, this year I want to say yes to a lot more things. I’m always so hesitant and I find myself saying no a lot. I want this all to change! I do find myself a lot busier these days and I obviously do need time for myself, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do any writing…but there are still things that I know I could say yes to, so here’s to say yes more. 

"Come Dine With Me" Menu

"If you were on Come Dine With Me, What would your menu be?"
This is always a question that is in the back of my mind, and until now I haven't been able to decide what I would do.

Starter:

Naturally I got a good few cookbooks for Christmas and as I was flicking through one I found a starter that would be perfect in my opinion.
A Duck salad would be great as it is complex with the cooking of the duck and light enough for a starter. This is a roasted duck and watermelon salad with toasted cashew nuts and the picture is literally mouthwatering! By the looks of it, this is an asian inspired dish and looking at the ingredients I can see why, there are all kinds of flavours involved. 
One thing that caught my eye was the dressing, it's definitely one I'd like to incorporate into other dishes.

Main:
I think this is the course that I struggled with deciding on the most. I thought fish would be most suitable but I really think I would go for chicken. 
The dish I have in mind is chargrilled chicken breasts on linguine with a chilli and garlic salsa puttanesca. What a mouthful! (see what I did there...)
I would most definitely make my own pasta to make this simple dish more impressive. These simple bunch of ingredients all come together to make such a delicious, comforting dish. If I had something like this put in front of me, I'd think it looked pretty good.
I'd perhaps make the pasta so it would have spinach in it, not only would it add a lot more colour to the plate - no on likes a plate of beige food - but it would also add flavour (slightly) and a whole lot of added nutrients.

Dessert:

Now I've known, deep down, what I would do for this for a while which is a melt-in-the-middle chocolate pudding. I made these for the first time at Christmas, and if I do say so myself, they came out perfectly. It was the right balance between cake and chocolate sauce and it would obviously be served with ice cream. Some might say that this is too much for a dessert but if the first two courses are balanced right and everything is time correctly then, in my opinion, it would all go down a hit.


I wouldn't necessarily call this a winning menu but if I put this 3 course meal on the table to my best standard, then for me I would be happy and rather proud of myself.

I haven't given loads away about each of the meals, purely because I want to eventually make each of them to share with you all. 


What would you have as your Come Dine With Me menu?

Storing Photos & Birthdays

Over the weekend it was my mum and sister's birthdays. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet but I was pretty pleased with the presents I put together.

For my mum I got one of the new season Chanel nail varnishes (Exception to be exact) and some walnut whips, all her favourites.

For my sister, she got one of the Fujifilm Instax Cameras for Christmas, so I put together a little make-shift scrapbook kit for her. I bought a notebook with blank pages, and relatively small, a bit smaller than A5, to fit the photos in. I then got a nice blue pen to add a note about the time the photo was taken. And of course some washi tape to stick the photo down. The great thing about wash tape is that it doesn't ruin the paper and that way my sister can take out the photos if she wants to use them for something else.

We went to The Charter Restaurant in Salisbury for their birthday lunch. I just can't resist sharing this beautiful food with you!

On another note, I'm going to work on my own scrapbook soon. I ordered some photos from the free prints app on iPhone and I'm waiting for them to be delivered so I will give you an update when they do!

5 Breakfast Ideas

I find breakfast one of the hardest meals of the day, am I right? I can never decide what to eat..So here are a few ideas to get you started.

Graze Breakfast Variety Box

I went on the Graze website for the first time since last month, last week and they have so many new boxes available. It's definitely worth checking out. One box is the Breakfast Variety Box. You get four different breakfasts for £3.99 and that's including delivery. There are different types and a few flavours for each, such as granolas, porridges and mueslis. I think that this would be perfect for a busy person, something to have for early mornings at the office. 

Muesli
The great thing about muesli is that it is something that is so versatile, you can take and add so easily and use ingredients that can add so much flavour to make it a bit less bland. It is also so easy to make a jar of your own, like this one that I made as part of my Mum's Christmas present.

Poached Eggs and Asparagus

Doesn't this just look great? This is something I've been meaning to try for a while as I really want to try poached eggs and it would be so yummy with asparagus!

Fruit and Yoghurt Bowls

I've known about these for a while and I know you're probably thinking that surely this is exactly what it says on the tin and obviously it is but some of the ones I've seen are so pretty and colourful. Plus these make a good start to the day for you. There's something so great about fruit when it is so fresh and it tastes perfect!

Dip 'n' Share Eggs

I am absolutely desperate to try these, you would certainly need a huge appetite and several people to share it with, or maybe make a mini one for yourself! It would be perfect for brunch and it's surprisingly full of relatively healthy ingredients, only chorizo which is not so healthy! 

New Year Update #3

It's been a seriously long week, do you not think or is it just me?

It's been a much better week, I'm feeling tonnes better, (or I was till today), and I even bought a dress a size smaller than I thought I would and the other one I bought is a bit on the big side! Do you know how amazing that feels?

I've worked 6 days this week and looking back on it I can't even think of what to share! Typical!

It was my Mum and Sister's birthday yesterday, (yes my sister was born on my mums birthday), so I made them a cake (naturally) and I'm pretty proud of this!

I also made brownies to take into work, they were gone in a matter of minutes.

I finally have a bit more time off this week to get caught up on everything so I will hopefully have more to share with you!

Self Love Tag

1. What does self love mean to you?
For me, it has to be looking after yourself, appreciating yourself and making sure you are the best you can be for yourself. It means doing things for you, to make you happy and not doing everything for everyone else. As well as being positive despite what you actually think about yourself, chances are everyone else thinks you are wonderful the way you are.

2. What is your favourite way to pamper yourself?
Mine would have to be curling up in bed, probably with a cup of green tea to destress and watch something on Netflix while painting my nails some pretty colour.

3. What are you three favourite hobbies/pastimes that make your soul feel on fire?

• Blogging
• Cooking
• Baking

4. What movie always puts you in a good mode when you're not in the greatest mood?
Frozen, like who doesn't like Frozen? I don't think I even need to say any more about this.

5. Who do you trust so much that you would easily believe in anything and everything they said?
My parents. I believe pretty much anything they tell me, and anything positive they tell me always calms me down and keeps me going!

6. What quote totally motivates you?
"Everything will be alright in the end, and if it's not alright then it's not the end"

7. When was the last time you took yourself on a date? What did you do?
Well this is awkward, I don't remember...Maybe it's about time I did!

8. What make-up or beauty products makes your feel like a million bucks?
If I have a good lipstick and some pink blusher, I feel pretty great! My skin has also been behaving quite well recently so that alone makes me feel so much better when I'm putting makeup on.

9. What is the last thing you did for someone else that made you feel amazing?
I made my Nan a photo cube for Christmas, I knew she would love it when I was making it and she did. Seeing her happy makes me happy too.

10. Do you feel comfortable with and without make-up on?
If I'm at home then I'm only truly comfortable without makeup on but if I'm out then I'm only comfortable with makeup on. I guess my point is that if I'm seeing people then I prefer to have makeup on.

11. What piece of advice would you give a child about to grow up with the pressures of today's media and its crushing expectations?
Do exactly what you want to do, if you've got a dream then go for it, why wait for someone to tell you what to do? There's no need to be like everyone else when you can be you.

12. What song puts you in a good mood every time?
I love Uptown Funk, but the one by Fleur East. Also anything by One Direction (soz) puts me in a good mood. Anything I can sing along to loudly puts me in a pretty good mood, mainly while I'm in the car driving by myself!

13. What is the best advice someone gave you or you realised about life?
That it's ok to ask for help when you need it, so many people are ashamed to ask for help but how will you get things done right if you don't ask for help when you need it?

14. Who makes you giggle like a giggle monster?
My family, we can say the weirdest things and be in hysterics for hours.

15. What is something about society that bugs you that you wish didn't?
A lot.

16. What is one of your favourite things to do on the weekends?
I've been working 6 days a week recently (yes I've been told I'm crazy and I'm about to burn out so I finally have Today and Tomorrow off), so with only 1 proper day off I normally stay in bed for a while, relax then I'll go do some shopping and of course there's plenty of blogging involved.

17. What is something you're really proud of that you've done?
This blog, it's been going for 8 months now and that's probably the longest I've ever done something for. And for all the people I talk to now because of it, I never thought I'd be able to build something like this but I have and who knows what the future holds now.

18. What is one of your favourite memories with one of your friends?
There have been some good times over the past few years but I don't want to go into too much detail about them.

19. What advice would you give someone who needs a boost in confidence?
You're great just the way you are, you don't need to be anyone but yourself and you know deep down that you can do this. Sure things may take a bit longer than you hope but it's all about the journey and your life will be better because of it. 

20. Lastly, how do you plan on investing in self-love?
I know I need to become mentally healthier but I also know that I physically need to look after myself. The food I put in my body needs to be healthier and I should exercise more. Though I also need to relax and destress more often, I don't give myself enough time to relax after work, I mean I've now been sat at my laptop for 4 hours writing and researching, I should have switched off hours ago!

--
I'd love it if you could all take a moment to think about these questions, jot them down if you want and write down a few words for each question. Everyone should think about self-love a bit more and make this year a year that you think about yourself some more.

W is for...Writing

I know a lot of the time I talk about how writing for the last 7 months has been so great. And it really has, I think if a lot more people wrote down how they were feeling a lot more then the world would be a much better place. You wouldn’t even necessarily need to share it with anyone but I’m sure you would feel tonnes better just to let it all out a little bit. 

There have been several bits of writing that are still sitting in my drafts which I will probably never get round to sharing with anyone but the point is that I felt so much better by writing down how I felt and it doesn’t even take that long to put a pen to paper to let all your worries out.

Juicytox Juice Cleanse Review

You may have read my new year update #2 and may have noticed that I was still being a little negative about, well, everything. I mentioned that I did the Juicytox Juice Cleanse. It is an amazing company and you can check out their Facebook Page for all their testimonials, all of which are great. 

I personally felt that the customer service received from Rob was 100%. Now the job that I'm in means that I always have to give excellent customer service, retail problems! So I do appreciate it when I receive it!

This was a 4 day juice cleanse that involved drinking 4 juices a day, as well as a ginger shot and chamomile tea, plus at least 2 litres of water.

8am - ginger shot

10am - green juice - spinach, celery, kale, cucumber, apple and lemon

1pm - orange juice - carrot, lemon, orange, apple and ginger

4pm - green juice - spinach, celery, kale, cucumber, apple and lemon

7pm - red juice - beetroot, apple, kale, carrot and celery

1 hour before bed - chamomile tea

I won't give you a day by day account of what happened because each day was basically the same, an emotional nightmare. Now what my experience was like should definitely not put you off doing your own juice cleanse. 4 days is a long time to go without solid food, which is obviously where I struggled. 

If you already lead a relatively healthy lifestyle then this is something I would recommend doing.

Something I really had to bear in mind over the 4 days was that everyone is different and everyone's body will react to the juice cleanse differently and it just so happened that I got on with it badly!

I would consider doing it again but only if it was for a day or two...actually probably only a day!

For now, I've kept eating healthy and going to the gym. For me, that's enough for the time being. Baby steps!