Roxy and Izzy

I finally figured out how to record videos on my camera and couldn't resist making a silly little one of Roxy and Izzy. Love these two furry faces!

A Christmas recap

Christmas actually ended up being lovely this year, suprisingly. We kept it quiet and low key and made sure we had a lot of things planned to keep us busy. We had Christmas dinner at my Mum's with my sisters.



We had my favourite ever tree this year too. When we first moved into our house three Christmases ago, we were poor from the move a month prior and too busy and stressed to think about it much so we ended up just buying a big tub of generic, matching baubles from B&Q. We used them again the following year as again we were too busy and stressed planning our wedding to think about it much then too.

This year I said "no more awful B&Q baubles!" and refused to put them on our tree. We always get a real tree, but this year I wanted one in a pot which we could replant so we ended up with a cute little tree.

We had acquired a few really nice baubles, and we bought a few more in December from various markets and from a last minute trip we took to Edinburgh for the weekend. My sisters and I also had a crafting day, where we made some decorations too which actually ended up being one of the highlights of Christmas.





Present wrapping helpers





My Aunt made me this chocolate house



Christmas sweetie stash



Kisses under the Christmas tree



Hope your Christmas was wonderful too!

A little recap

 I've just had the best couple of days. We've been having pretty nice and mild weather lately, so I've been out in the garden for a lot of it with my two furry helpers. Yesterday I did mostly clearing but on Tuesday I was planting up a storm, I planted rhubarb, strawberries, lettuce, wheatgrass, potatoes, sunflowers, rosemary, blackberries, blueberries, and a couple of different types of flowers. I've been thinking about doing a "how to grow" series for those of you that are interested in growing your own fruits and vegetables but don't have any experience in it. I don't claim to be an expert at all, and I'm always learning new things but growing your own food is a lot of fun, and great for the environment. I read this article a couple of days ago and thought it was really interesting, although not particularly suprising! Anything that gets kids outdoors, learning and having fun is a good thing in my book.



When we bought our house, there were a few rotten sheds in the garden that we had to take down, but as we were doing so we found the most beautiful old terracotta pots. Some big ones and some small ones. What a treasure! I absolutely love them and have planted some things in them. (Oh and you can see how desperately my garden needs sorting out in the above photo - look at all the weeds!)

Do you grow anything edible in your garden? Check back on Monday for the first "how to grow" post... lettuce!

PS: You might have noticed, but I've changed my blog name! I felt like I'd outgrown the name "ecoprincess" (I started this blog when I was a lot younger! Haha) and I want to post a bit more varied stuff than just recipes so from now on I shall be... Bake, Sew, Grow!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

I'm working tonight but I had a little party at the garden I work at yesterday. 25 kids under the age of about 10! It was so much fun. We carved pumpkins, ate soup, turned each other into mummies and had a pinata.

Izzy looked cute in her costume too!

A cosy kind of weekend

Hello! How was your weekend?

Mine was lovely – quiet and relaxing! I went to the market to do a little bit of shopping.



I’m starting a new job tonight, and the hours are 5:30-10:30pm, so I wanted to get some things in to make some meals in advance which I could freeze to make it easier for Adam and I. Adam was at work on Saturday so when I got home I spent some time with this cute little face:





I spent the rest of the day cooking up a storm (got a recipe or two to post out of it too!) and when Adam came home he surprised me with these gorgeous flowers:



We took Izzy out for a walk:



Then came home and had a delicious dinner together, ate some ice cream and then cuddled up watching a film! Sunday was spent working, then out for a curry with my parents and sisters.

Hope you had a good weekend too, let me know what you got up to! Also, do you have any tips for meals that are easily made in bulk and can be frozen? So far, my freezer is full of chilli, lasagne and soup!

First ever run!

I went on my first ever run today! It wasn't very long. Or very fast. But hey, it was a run nontheless! I'm not sure how long I ran for as my ipod battery (which was doubling as my pedometer) died on me. I actually really enjoyed it - I woke up this morning full of energy, which I'm contributing to the lie in I had this morning! I've been a bit up and down lately with my eats, exercise and sleep, which I know are all linked. I'm going to make more of an effort to get into a better routine, which should hopefully be easier with uni starting again next week!

When I got home, I stretched out with a little bit of yoga, then I gave Izzy a bath since I caught her rolling in something on our run.



She hates bathtime, and always goes a bit crazy afterwards. But she looks (and smells!) much better now!

A Love Story

I know I've talked about my boyfriend Adam on the blog before. We've been together for over seven and a half years now! But I haven't really told you too much about him. We met when I was 17 and he was 19, one Wednesday sometime in 2003 at an alternative night at a club. I was a student at college and he was an apprentice electrician. We chatted all night, then went our seperate ways.


(Me back then at a fancy dress party!)

I met his sister at college (without even realising!), we became friends and were together at the same rock night at the same club when I saw him again. We chatted, and hit it off so well, and Adam took my number. He text me the very next day! And we went on our first date 27th December 2003 to see Brother Bear at the cinema. We went on many more dates and fell in love.



Adam had always wanted to go travelling around Europe, so we decided to save up and go together! Which we did in 2004.


(Ice sculpture cave in Switzerland)


(Rome, Italy)

We got back home, but had been bitten by the travel bug, and hard. So we saved up and went travelling again, this time spending almost two years travelling and working. We went to Singapore:



Australia:







New Zealand:





(Where I completed one of my lifes goals of driving a monster truck!)



Hong Kong and Tahiti:



We came back to England, bought our first house, and expanded our family with the addition of our gorgeous pup, Izzy, and we've now decided that the time is right for us to...

get married!

I'm absolutely over the moon, I can't wait to marry the absolute love of my life and most wonderful man ever, and the best thing is, I don't have long to wait because we're getting married on the 27th December 2011 - our 8th anniversary! I'm just so so so happy :)

Food photography fail!

Sigh! Today has just been "one of those days". Oh well, at least the granola I made tasted delicious - once I managed to get the milk in the bowl that is!

I'll be posting the recipe tomorrow, but as far as today goes I've given up hope of getting anything productive done! I am instead going to go and make something incredibly easy for dinner, and then snuggle up with Izzy for the rest of the night! How has your Monday been so far?

Hi! Happy Weekend!

My weekend has been pretty good so far! Last night, Adam and I went to the supermarket to get half of our weekly shopping. We do half of our shopping on a Friday night (oh yeah, we're wild!!) at the supermarket, and the rest at the local market on a Saturday morning. I got some more amazing deals on fish from the shop yesterday, which led to me to last nights dinner:



Hot and spicy smoked mackerel with salad (I went back for another massive helping of salad!) and a few pieces of an organic baguette. We weren't sure what we wanted for dinner last night but I saw the fish and bread which were really cheap, and knew I had some salad which ideally wanted using before today. It was delicious! I enjoyed it with this:



Which was also delicious! I don't drink very much, and haven't had any wine since probably Christmas so I really enjoyed this glass last night. That's Adam's pear cider in the background, and we also munched on the grapes while we got everything ready.

This morning we were up bright and early and headed into the market, and came back overloaded with two huge bags of fresh fruit and veggies! Didn't manage to get a picture today before I started throwing things into the fridge, my mouth and the blender! I'd run out of fruit yesterday, and really missed my daily smoothie! So I whipped up this:



It had 2 kiwis, some chunks of frozen pineapple, about one cup of apple juice and a small bunch of watercress. It was gorgeous! I finished putting the shopping away while Adam headed off to work, and did a bit of tidying up. Then I had a repeat of last nights dinner for lunch! As we still had some of the mackerel left over. It was still nice the second time around but it was nicer with a glass of wine

What do you have planned for the weekend? I'm going swimming now and have Zumba and a long walk with Adam and Izzy tomorrow! Apart from that I'm taking it easy

Introducing Izzy!

I can't believe I've never mentioned Izzy on the blog before!



Izzy is my one year old Lhasa Apso puppy, and the love of my life! I just wanted to make a quick update today, and will be back in the next few days with my third weigh in, a recap of my week and I've got a fun and hopefully helpful post planned about how to motivate yourself to workout!

In the meantime, hope you have a lovely weekend!