Friday Smiles :)

Hi honeys
I hope you're having a fabulous day and are looking forward to the weekend.  I'm dashing around trying to get ready to go to work but I wanted to share a couple of smiles I had when I let Jade out into the back garden earlier.  Do you remember that first Peony to bloom recently in our back garden?  Well just look at her now.....

I so love these beautiful roses.  Every year they bloom and every year they are more beautiful than the year before.  We're hoping to plan out a seating area in our back garden and these beautiful roses will definitely be a feature of it :)

While in the garden with Jade I also noticed some pretty daisies :)

I've always loved daisies. They have to be the friendliest flowers, they never fail to make me smile :)

What's made you smile today honeys? Is your garden starting to bloom too?  Have a wonderful weekend dear ones, till next time, have fun and smile lots :) Hugs always xx

How To Use the Ikea Website To Make The Most Of Your Next Visit!

Disclaimer: I have not been paid to endorse or promote Ikea, it just happens to be my happy place :) I don't manage to visit often but when I do I've found a function on their website that makes our visit so much easier and far more organized too & this is what I wanted to share with you x

Hi honeys
I hope you're well and enjoying some lovely May sunshine.  I thought today I'd share one of my favourite functions on the Ikea website.  We've been using this function for a while now and it makes a shopping trip to my "happy place" so much less stressful and as much fun as something should be when it's so looked forward to :)

I know I've explained before honeys that since we don't own a car and our "local" Ikea store is so far away, well it's not easy to get there and so each time we do visit, it's planned far in advance and we pretty much know what we're going for.  Which leads us neatly onto the subject of shopping lists :)

One of the best functions on the Ikea website is the ability to set up shopping lists.  Whether used as a way to plan your next store visit, or just to store items as possible purchases for a planned future project it's such a useful tool. We have four lists at the moment for different projects... but I'm getting ahead of myself :)

Beauty In Nature & A Printable

Hi Honeys
I hope you're well and have had a wonderful weekend.  It was another bank holiday here in the UK.  I spent most of the holiday weekend at work, but Hubby and I did manage to spend Sunday and Monday together, just chilling at home watching TV.  It's such a joyful thing to be able to just rest for a while.

While in the garden with our furbaby Jade over the weekend I snapped a few photos and thought I'd share, in the hope they'd make you smile as they did me honeys.  

The garden is starting to burst into life again now, with the apple blossom looking so pretty on the single apple tree.  Hubby planted the apple tree as a sapling almost eight years ago and last year it grew it's first apple.  We're hoping there will be more apples this year.  Imagine being able to make a lovely apple crumble using home grown apples :)
 

The Peonies too are waking up from their long Winter nap. Every year I look forward to seeing them appear and every year they are more beautiful than the last with their gorgeous crimson colour petals.  These roses were a gift many years ago from a dear neighbour, now no longer with us.  I'm sure he'd be so pleased to know that every year his beautiful roses still make us smile.  

I've included a link to a downloadable version of the above photo and you can download it here honeys.     

It's lovely to sit out there and just listen to the breeze through the trees, it calms me.  We're planning on creating a little designated seating area out in the garden, under the kitchen windows, with a bench & some planters. Yet another project added to our "to do" list :)  

What's making you smile honeys? Till next time dear ones, hugs always xx

Our Home Organization Adventure - A Round Up Of My Favourite Projects.. So Far :)

Hi Honeys
I was sitting with a cup of tea and thinking, as you do. As you might know I've been battling a dreadful chest infection and have spent the past three weeks in its clutches feeling like a wrung out wash cloth and shaking the house with a horrid cough that makes me sound like some kind of demented seal. 

On a practical level this has meant that any organizing plans we had for our home have come to a standstill.  This weighs on a lassie it really does.  It's all very well telling myself it's just a blip and we'll get on track again when I'm a bit stronger, but I'm just such an impatient person honeys.  Getting things done is difficult even on good days and when it's my own body preventing me from getting on with all of the tasks running around in my head, well it's annoying!

This past week or so I've found myself getting very discouraged and my mood has really dipped.  As I said, time is rolling past, Hubby has been looking after me, in spite of having a bad cold himself, bless him, and work has stalled.  So, as a way to try and rid myself of those "that's it! we'll never get organized!" feelings,  I decided I'd remind myself of how far we've come in our wee organizing adventure (so far.)  Then I thought why not share and maybe have a smile along the way? 

1. The Tiny Project That Started It All!

Organizing Prep - And Why It's Important

Hi Honeys
I hope you've had a fabulous weekend and that you're looking forward to a fun & productive week.  We have another bank holiday this coming weekend in the UK, so an extra day off work for organizing and for furbaby hugs :)

You might remember that we'd started work on Hubby's office/man cave, also known as our front bedroom.  It's still more of a junk or storage room at present because this was the room where all of the boxes and stuff we weren't sure was being kept was put while we worked on other rooms in our home.  I was hoping we'd be much farther along than we are by now but I've been battling a horrible chest infection for the past few weeks that's been kicking the feet out from under me and now poor Hubby seems to have caught a heavy cold too bless him. 

So today I thought I'd share the preparation we've already done for this room, and how it's helped us determine the "look" of the room, before we've even moved a single box. 

I've spent the last few years, yes years honeys, trying desperately to create some kind of order in our home.  Honestly though, our home has changed more in the past year or so than it has in the years prior.  So, what changed? 

Rosie's Cheesy Scrambled Egg On Toast

Hi honeys
I hope you're well and you've had a great week.  I'm still battling this dreadful chest infection I'm afraid, which is why I haven't posted anything I had planned to post this past week. I'll try to catch up though, hopefully over the next week or so. 

Today though I thought I'd share an old favourite :)  I've been making this recipe for so long I can't remember ever not :) Is it even a recipe? I really don't think it is honeys :) It's just a few very basic ingredients thrown together to make something really yummy :)

The best thing about this quick and super-easy snack is that it's a meal of many uses :) This yummy dish makes a fabulous breakfast (or brunch) on a lazy Sunday, or if you have wee ones at home it would make a smile-making, really quick to rustle up, after school treat :)

There are only four ingredients & you'll already have them in your fridge & pantry.  Just bread, eggs, milk & cheese. That's it.  If this got any easier to make honeys, the ingredients would plan a get together on the kitchen stove and it would make itself :)

Coughs, Chills & Counting Your Blessings...

Hi honeys
I'm so sorry I've been gone so long.  I'm currently battling a chest infection and have spent the past week or so mostly on the sofa in our living room all bundled up in blankets. For days, I couldn't seem to get warm.  I swear my bones were frozen honeys.  Hubby spent the weekend looking after me, bless him. Fetching me hot water bottles, making my hot lemon drinks & putting up with the constant un-relenting cough cough cough noise from the sofa (thank you sweetheart x) and I'm feeling horribly guilty because I wasn't able to go into work this past couple of days.  I never miss work!

So, anyway, it got me to thinking.... Well to be fair, stuck, as I was on the sofa resembling a human blanket mountain, I wasn't able to do much else :/ I've said before on this blog that I'm not a fan of pity parties, and I'm really not, but I have to admit to having had certain "it's not fair!" feelings over the past week. 

How To Safely Defrost Meats Quickly Without Using The Microwave..

Hi honeys,

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend. It was a "long weekend" here in the UK, since yesterday was a bank holiday.  I was working over the weekend but did have Sunday & Monday off, as did Hubby. We were hoping to get a few more boxes gone through & sorted but I felt so drained after my shifts, we didn't get much done. 

It would have been nice to get a little more de-cluttering done but it was lovely to just spend some time together too.  Just being with Hubby always makes me feel better.

Today I thought I'd write a short post on defrosting frozen food from your freezer :) I've done this for so many years and it's super handy when you've forgotten to take something out of the freezer for breakfast or maybe dinner.

We have something of a tradition when it comes to breakfasts.  During the week, breakfast is a cup of tea and toast, or cereal, but on a Sunday, when there's more time since neither of us have work, Hubby cooks breakfast :)

Happy May Day & Apple Blossom Printable

Hi Honeys
Happy May Day! I hope wherever you are the sun is shining, the birds are singing and you're having a fabulous day :)

How on earth did a third of the year fly past so fast?  It doesn't feel like any time has passed since New Years and now here we are, the garden is starting to bloom, days are longer, and (mostly) sunnier. We're officially enjoying Summer again :)

Does anyone celebrate May Day anymore I wonder? Here in the UK we have a bank holiday on Monday, so an extra day away from work for us all.  As a child though, I would always look forward to the first Sunday in May :) On that special first Sunday, I would always be given a pretty new dress. It would be worn, along with new white knee high socks and my best shoes to Sunday school.

Of course a new dress, no matter how pretty, wasn't the only thing to be excited about when May appeared. All children knew that it was almost time for Summer break from school. I can clearly remember so many wonderful summers with nothing to do but be outside in the sunshine with friends and how we filled our days.  Scooting about on our bikes, or swapping scraps, my favourites were always the cherubs on clouds and the beautiful angels with different coloured wings.  Afternoon snack was being given a paper bag with sugar in to dip stalks of raw rhubarb into, such joy :)

Of course back then, Summer seemed to last forever :) These days it seems far more fleeting.  I can remember being told that the older we get, the faster time passes.  Of course I was in my teens then and dismissed the idea as nonsense but now I'm not so sure :)

Whatever you're doing this weekend dear ones, have fun, smile lots and hug even more. Pack as many fabulous memories as you can into every single day :) I'm working over the weekend but I'll be back again on Tuesday.  Till then honeys, if you'd like a copy of the photograph I've used at the top of this post, the apple blossom on the tree in our back garden, you can download it here.  Enjoy :)
Heaps of  hugs always xx