in pursuit of organised-ness

As we have done the last few years, hubby & I have decided to have a sensible Christmas. Making presents, not spending a fortune, and generally trying to be thrifty. But I love Christmas - and am excited, so will try to post an update every day to let you know how our countdown to Christmas is going. So, on Sunday (28 Nov) we bought a Christmas Tree - pre-lit! It's great. I put it up on Monday (30 Nov), which took 15 minutes rather than the usual 2 hours finding the right parts, clipping it all together, arranging the branches and then dancing round and round and round the thing to put the lights on! Anyway - here it is: Then today I have started with phase 1 of decorations. This photo is taken with my new favourite app for iPhone : instagram . I also have a bit of a thing for snowmen. Have been collecting them for a while, so here's a few of my favourites.

OK, so, here's the deal. I am going to a charity dinner on Friday. it's black tie & there are going to be lots fo fabulously dressed ladies. I am not going to buy another dress to only wear once but can't decide on the ones I have - so it's over to you! :) What do you think I should wear & how can I bling it up? I will apologise for the very dodgy photos, but have loads to be getting on with tonight and you should be able to get the general idea from the pics. Outfit #1 : Red dress from coast with embroidery detail. Outfit #2 : Purple dress from Per Una Outfit #3 : Black & White dress from New Look (Bargain - cost £3!!) Outfit #4 : Skirt from Warehouse - not sure what top to wear with it. What do you think?

After seeing Atul Kochhar on TV, I bought hubby his book Simple Indian: The Fresh Tastes of India's New Cuisine . It's excellent. We have made lots of the recipes and not one of them has disappointed. Some of the ingredients may need a bit of searching (or online shopping) but it's definitelty worth it. The recipes are easy to follow, the pictures are great and there are sample menus and ingredient descriptions. Last night I made Palok Diye Tikha Murghi Kalia from the book. Translated as Spicy Chicken Curry with Spinach. With it we had basmati rice & homemade chapatis. And it was gooood! The chapatis were delicious and easy to make - just chapati flour & water, mix to a dough, leave for 10 minutes, then roll out & dry fry. Mmmm. Just buy some chapati flour and follow the recipe on the packet. :)

I have a real issue with soggy bread. I can't touch it or look at it - let alone eat it. Makes me shudder just thinking about it... bleuch. This means I have never tried bread & butter pudding. I imagine it's much nicer than it sounds and isn't really just bread soaked in milk.....I hope! My husband really loves bread & butter pudding, so being the good wifey that I am, and in the spirit of trying new things I made it for pudding. Hubby is on the Weightwatchers plan, so I found this recipe and thought I'd give it a go. However, I'm a bit of a bugger for changing recipes to suit, so while my pudding is based on the weightwatchers recipe, I have made a few changes to create one 'normal' pudding with vanilla & nutmeg and 1 chocolate version with Baileys. As baby puddings this recipe is ideal for trying new combinations without having to make one huge one that may not taste right. Here's how I did it. Get  2 ramekins and cut 6 circles of w...

On the weekend I was asked to make a cupcake tower & cake pops for a friend's son's naming ceremony. The civil ceremony version of a Christening. So I made 50 each of chocolate fudge and vanilla cupcakes and cake pops, with a blue & white colour scheme. Although a little stressed (beacuse I left some of it til the last minute) I was really pleased with the way it turned out and had lots of compliments - which is always nice! Not many people in this part of the country (Swansea, South Wales) had come across cake pops, so it was very much a novelty and very well recieved. This was a first for me in a few ways (hence worthy of a blog post!). 1. My first naming ceremony/christening cupcake tower. 2. My first cake pops order. 3. My first chocolate cake pops. Cupcake Tower & Cake Pops Vanilla & Chocolate Fudge Cake Pops Close up of Cupcake Tower Close up of Cupcake Tower Top of Cupcake Tower with Personalised 'S' toppers.

This month over on the Beckicklesie blog , the Oui Chef Challenge theme is - Chocolate ! Wonderful! :) I bet there's a few things I can write about on this, so there's likely to be a few blog posts. My husband has told me that I am a snob. And I'm quite happy with that in some ways. I like to own nice things, (can't always afford to, but I'd like to!) I like to eat good food, drink nice wine....but I also LOVE a bargain. Chocolate, I think, is a luxurious product, and one that doesn't always come with a high price tag! I am a fan of chocolate, and am a bit of a sucker for packagaing, gimmicks, brand, marketing etc, so anything new or different I am more than happy to try out. Like the recent 'Screme Eggs' - Halloween themed Cadbury's Creme Egg, with a green 'yolk'. I read a book called The Chocolate Connoisseur: For Everyone with a Passion for Chocolate which discusses how chocolate is made, types of chocolate, even how to taste it. ...

Vlogging or Video Blogging means using a video as a blog post. It intrigues me. I am a big fan of social media, social networking, social marketing - whatever you want to call it - and really wish I had the time to really understand it. I love Twitter and Facebook, have finally set up a You Tube account. I'm on LinkedIn, goodreads.com, I have a digg and StumbleUpon account - but don't use them enough to really 'get it'. I'm going off on a tangent a little bit... Vlogging has been around for a while, but it's not something I've particuarly followed until recently. And I quite fancy having a go. There are a lot of people doing it, and I've done a bit of research looking at different styles, etc. I'd also like to do some quick videos for the web design company I work for. My problem is this - will people be interested in what I have to say? What do I talk about? In some ways I figure if people are reading my blog (and yes, I do have the odd visito...

In June of this year I recieved a phone call in work from a lady called Melanie who wanted me to do some work on a website for free. I admit that at first I was not overly impressed and didn't really want to get involved. We had already sponsored websites for Llys Nini, a local animal centre, Waunarlwydd RFC and The William King Educational Trust (of which my parents are patrons) and didn't feel we had time to get involved with another project. However, Mel explained about TREAT and what their aim was and told me a little bit about herself, so I had a chat with my boss and we decided that if the time we could spare was enough to help them achieve what they wanted, then we'd go from there. So we arranged a meeting with Mel and Mike of TREAT and myself and a designer from work and off we went for lunch. I spent a few hours with Mel and Mike and couldn't help but be impressed by Mel's drive and ambition. Despite being in a wheelchair following a motorbike accident ...