Happy Halloween Honeys

Hi Honeys
Just wanted to say happy Halloween :)

Have a fabulous weekend, stay warm it's getting chilly out and have fun :) Till next time dear ones, hugs always xx

Friday Smiles - Back Into The Garden!

Hi Honeys
For todays Friday smiles I went out this morning and took a few photos in our front garden for you :)

The roses in our tiny front garden have always been beautiful, but this past year or two they have surpassed themselves honeys. You can see posts on them here and here and again here.  These posts have printables too :) We've been so blessed this year being surrounded by so much beauty and I'm so grateful for every little smile :)

Halloween: Gruesome Gingerbread Cookies Recipe :)

Hi honeys
I hope you're well and staying warm. I'm writing this with the rain lashing against the windows of our living room and I'm happy to be inside where it's cosy.  I thought today, since it's almost Halloween, I'd share my gingerbread cookies recipe :)

I posted this recipe a while ago (you can see it here) but I've created a cute Halloween version of the recipe as a printable download for you. I hope you like it, I had such fun making it :)

Smiling in The Kitchen & Pretty Accessories

Disclaimer: I haven't been paid to promote any products, I just wanted to share my latest wee smiles x

Hi Honeys
I hope you've had a fabulous weekend full of smiles :) It's been hectically busy here but I wanted to share some smiles I found for our home.  I popped in to Asda (Walmart) for some fruit and milk and came out with lots of adorable home accessories too from their sale :)

At the bottom left hand corner of the above photo you can see a wooden sign.  It jumped at me because of it's vintage appearance and I'm such a vintage kinda gal :) It says freshly baked - the best cookies in town and in smaller lettering underneath, made with love :)  What can I say it, made me smile honeys :)   

The middle photo on the left hand side is of a set of four stoneware measuring cups.  They're just adorable and more importantly they measure in cups! No longer will beautiful recipes I find on Pinterest make me draw my eyebrows together and leave me entirely stumped as to what exactly a cup of flour looks like :)  Pounds and ounces I get, kilograms and grams I can get my head around thanks to my tiny electronic scales but cups of stuff?  Nope, drawing a complete blank :/  So, when I saw this adorable little measuring set,  giving (at last) an accurate, recipe following, amount of one cup, three quarters of a cup, half a cup and a little quarter cup too, well they had to come home with me :)

Which brings me on to my absolute favourite finds :) Top of the list has to be these guys....

Looking Forward To Halloween & Frighteningly Fun Printable

Disclaimer: I haven't been paid to promote any products, just excited about Halloween and wanted to share some smiles x

Hi honeys
For today's Friday smile I thought I'd share what I did yesterday afternoon :)  Is anyone else excited that Halloween is almost with us?

I adore Halloween! It's one of my favourite holidays :) I love everything about it. I love the costumes, the scary movies on TV, especially the old back & white classics that scare us with dramatic scores & rely on what we don't see rather than showing far (far) too much (take that, gory slasher films!)

How To Cope With Chronic Fatigue

Disclaimer:  This is not medical advice, if you suffer from fatigue or any other medical condition please seek advice from your Doctor or a healthcare professional x 

Hi Honeys
I hope everyone is well and staying warm.  I thought today I'd talk about energy if you don't mind? Energy, or rather the lack of it, has been at the fore of my thinking this week.  I should explain. 

First thing Monday morning I attended an appointment at our local hospital.  The appointment was in the Occupational Therapy Department and had been organized for me by a very kind Doctor I'd seen  on my last visit to the rheumatology clinic.  The occupational therapist explained that I had been recommended to take part in a "fatigue clinic" which aims to help attendees cope with their work and home life.

Blue Skies in Autumn..

Hi honeys
This is just a quick post to hopefully share a smile :) You might have heard me moan mention :) a few times that I'm so not a fan of the chilly, dark (who turned the lights off?) days of a Scottish Winter.  I might even have mentioned a few times my longing to be a grizzly bear, just so I could go snuggle under a duvet around October and wake up in time to start hanging out laundry around March :)

Well, just as I'm getting ready to close all of the curtains in the house and keep them that way till Spring, mother nature goes and does this....

It all started this morning when I looked out of the kitchen window and saw this....

Lots and lots of fluffy clouds with the bluest of skies just peeking through :) We're now in mid October and just as I'm starting to think about digging out winter woollies we have the loveliest fluffiest clouds :)

Only a short while later the fluffy clouds were all gone and left this.....

Isn't it just beautiful honeys?  A perfect, beautiful, clear blue sky.  I've always thought the most  sublime beauty can be found in nature and today mother nature has outdone herself. It made me smile and I wanted to share :) This is as close to a faultless day as can be, the only thing missing is warmth.  It's a perfect Autumn day though, not Summer.  If you do catch the very slight breeze it's very chilly.  Cold enough to make pulling on a sweater or a cardigan necessary to stay outside longer than a few minutes.

Over to you honeys, do you have blue skies today? I hope so.  Whatever your weather is like today dear ones, I hope you have the best weekend ever, full of smiles, hugs and laughter :) Till next time, huggles always xx

Smoothie Packs: How An Hour A Week Can Help You Be Healthier

Disclaimer: I haven't been paid to promote any products, just wanted to share my afternoon of smoothie pack making :)

Hi Honeys,
I'm sorry I haven't been around for a few days.  This hasn't been a great week so far, I'm afraid.  My shifts last weekend were very busy and left me pretty much exhausted.  Usually I would rest on Sunday (and sometimes Monday too if the weekend was really draining) and then be back to myself again.

Unfortunately, this didn't happen this past week.  I haven't felt so completely drained for a while and as all spoonies know, there is no fighting it, we just have to rest till it's over :/  I'm so sorry honeys, I don't do pity parties I really don't. I just wanted to apologise for going missing and to explain why.  Not to worry though, I'm feeling a little more like me and yesterday I even managed to set about cleaning, peeling & chopping fruit to make up some baggies for the freezer :)

You know what honeys? I really enjoyed yesterday afternoon.  After being so drained and feeling so awful all week I was determined to try to achieve something, anything.  So off I went into the kitchen and gathered all of the fruit we had languishing in the fridge, fruit bowl etc all together.  Once that was done, an apron was put on and I set about preparing it. 

Friday Smiles: Sunny Days & Hubby Baking

Hi honeys
Here we are at the weekend again. The last twenty four hours have had quite a few smiles in them and I thought I'd share :)

Yesterday morning, after most of this week having been a succession of miserable, rainy, chilly, grey days we were blessed with this....

What To Expect When Attending Your Mammogram Screening Appointment

Hi Honeys
Well today was my first ever mammogram or breast screening appointment.  I have to admit I was very nervous, to say the least, but as it turns out I needn't have worried. Which brings me to this post honeys, I wanted to write this in the dear hope that it might reassure anyone who might be getting themselves into as much of a tizzy as I did, and if this post reassures even one person it'll be worth writing. 

My appointment was arranged for early afternoon and I was to attend at our mobile screening unit which was parked in the large car park of our local shopping centre.  This mobile unit is securely sealed, with the door being kept locked at all times. At the entrance there is a secure screened window where you press a buzzer to announce you've arrived.

A Darker World - The Sad Passing Of Henning Mankell

Hi Honeys
Today is a very sad day.  Have you ever felt crushed by the death of someone you've never met?  I found out late last night that the wonderful writer Henning Mankell has been taken from us at the all too young age of 67. 

Like most people I discovered the incredible talent of Mr Mankell through his books and the much loved character of Kurt Wallander.  The morose, Swedish detective Kurt, and the novels he lives in, will forever be very dear to me, but they are not the whole story of Mr Mankell by any means.

He was a very prolific journalist, a playwright (he penned 40 plays) and co-ran the community theatre Teatro Avenida in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.  He was also a passionate and tireless campaigner in education about hiv/aids.

Thank you BBC4 for introducing me to Kurt Wallander and thank you Kurt for introducing me to the writing of this incredibly talented author.  Henning Mankell was, without a doubt, a towering talent as a writer but he was also an immensely generous, caring man. He made a difference through his charity work in Africa and his death is a loss to the world.  It will be a darker world without his presence in it.

If you haven't read any of his work I would absolutely recommend it. Why not begin as I did with the Kurt Wallander novels. You too will, I'm sure, adore the haunting stories where Ystad near Malmo in Sweden is itself as much a character as any other in the books.  Till next time dear ones, hugs always xx

How To Add A Favicon In Blogger...

Hi Honeys
I hope you're having a great Monday and a fabulous start to your week.  Not so great here, it's rainy,  very miserable and oh my has the cold arrived! The past two nights the temperature in Scotland has dipped to zero degrees (Celsius) brrrrr!

So, today I thought I'd continue my little blogging 101. I'm on a quest to create my own blogging notebook. A manual if you will, for me to refer back to if I ever need to. It would be wonderful if you'd keep me company :) Last time we added Blogger's own share buttons and today I thought I'd share how to add a favicon.

What I hear you ask is a favicon and why ever would I need one?  Same questions I originally asked myself when trying to familiarize myself with the layout of my blog.  A favicon is a tiny image or icon which sits on the far left hand side of the address bar.  This image/icon will be associated with it's particular site and will also appear next to the site name in, among other places,  a visitor's list of bookmarks.

If you look up at the address bar of this page you'll see my own little favicon, it still makes me smile :)  As to why you'd want a favicon? Well, it replaces the Blogger favicon or icon in the address bar and helps to personalise your blog.  Replacing Google's Blogger favicon with your own is so ridiculously easy it will practically replace itself honeys.  Shall we begin?

A Moment Of Perfect Peace...

Hi Honeys
Could I share a smile?  On Thursday evening when Hubby was just home from work we were in the garden with Jade.  As always she was excited to have her Daddy home again, she misses him all day when he's at work.  I miss him too but don't go telling him :)

We were outside in the garden, it was just a perfect evening.  Warm in the sunlight with a lovely soft breeze through the trees.  While Jade was playing fetch with her Daddy I was standing under the trees watching them play and I looked up at the lovely blue, cloudless sky through the trees and it struck me that this was one of those rare perfect moments we all have every once in a while.  A moment that stays in the memory long after it passes.  When all is right with the world and everything is perfectly still. 

I went inside to fetch my camera and snapped a few photos...

How To Add Share Buttons To Blogger

Hi Honeys
I hope everyone is well and looking forward to a relaxing weekend.  This blog is now a little over a year & half old and I've decided to do something I should really have been doing all along.  I have to admit that the tech side of blogging still scares me, it really does.  Everything I've done with my blog I've had to figure out as I went along and I still have so, so much to learn :)

Well, a few days ago, I wanted to help a blogging friend add share buttons but I realized I couldn't really remember clearly how I'd done it! So, dear ones, I decided to do something I've done a few times over the years. When starting jobs, at college, in various situations, whenever I've had things to learn/memorize, I have kept a notebook (I love, love, love notebooks!)  When I started my current job I had lots of (so many) codes to memorize, so I started a little notebook and each time I found something new I had to learn, I jotted it down in the notebook, making a tiny "training manual" for myself. Of course as time goes on, the notebook will no longer be needed but I've always found it a great way of learning anything. 

To that end, I've decided to go right back to the beginning and re-trace my steps in setting up this blog.  I've started a new notebook and I'm going to go back to the beginning and hopefully conquer my fear of the technical side of blogging and learn as I go. Wanna come along?

OK, so you've started your blog, you've written your first post and you hope it will be read, that the reader will like it and want to share it.  In order for that to happen, you have to make it easy for it to be shared.  Which brings us to buttons....