Sunshine & Roses...

Hi Honeys
I hope you've had a fabulous week and you're looking forward to the weekend.  It's a bank holiday here on Monday which means Hubby gets a day off work 😃

We're hoping to either, depending on the weather of course, work on some organizing projects upstairs or if it's actually not raining outside maybe make a start on garden work.  We have seeds to plant and still have plans for a little seating area outside.

Today I thought I'd share a little sort of garden related smile.  Now I say sort of garden related because technically they still live on the windowsill of our kitchen, where they've lived since a very dear friend bought them for me at Christmas (thank you Karen, I love them x)

They will though eventually, I'm hoping, join the other roses in our tiny front garden outside.

Do you remember the tiny, perfect, miniature roses honeys?  They looked like this....

For the past four months they've lived, and still do, on our kitchen window ledge being watered and cared for.  Of course along the way I had to re-pot them again into a much larger planter and now, again I'll have to re-home them because they're growing out of the larger planter too!

You won't believe how that tiny pot of perfect miniature roses has grown honeys...

How I Back Up My Blog Posts & Why You Absolutely Should Too...

Hi Honeys
Do you blog? If so, do you back up your blog?  How do you make sure you keep a safe copy of all of your posts, you know, just in case something happens and they disappear?

First, a true story.  I recently went looking for a particular post in order to pin it to one of my boards on Pinterest. Having found it I was horrified to find that a good deal of the post just wasn't there!

The post started fine, then around a third of the way through... it just stopped, literally mid-sentence. Everything after that cut off point was missing.  All of the images as well as the text.

I refreshed the page.. still the same.  I went to my posts page on Blogger and clicked on the edit option on the post to see what it looked like there.  It was the same!  

What had happened to my post?  How long had it been sitting like this?  Had people been clicking through from links on Pinterest, Twitter etc and finding an incomplete post and leaving angry?

Luckily honeys, because of a system I've used for as long as I've been blogging, a little over 3 years now, it took me less than 3 minutes to fix the post and have it looking good as newly published again.

Truth be told dear ones, when I first started blogging I didn't know what "backing up" was but I trained as a paralegal, a legal secretary, many (many) years ago so it's pretty much part of my DNA to keep a copy of everything 😊  Why not also my blog posts?

Of course I later found out that everyone recommends backing up our blogs but by then I had my little system in place and it was working really well.  I'm happy to say it still does, as is shown by this recent "the internet ate my blog post" moment 👍

Each time I write a blog post I do the same thing immediately after publishing.  I file it.  The text, the images, everything that makes up that post. I file it.  Twice.  So you could say my back up has a back up.  Best part is that backing up twice takes just minutes.

Let's have a look at my back up system then shall we honeys?

Oh To Live By The Sea...

Hi Honeys
Oh to live by the sea.  We're finally moving, altogether too slowly it feels like, into Summer and isn't Summer the perfect time to spend all day long at the beach? Feeling the salty air on your skin, the breeze blowing through your hair and the sun warming your skin?

If we lived by the sea shore I'd collect beautiful sea shells.  I'd play fetch with our furbaby Jade on the beach where she could run in and out of the sea with the waves chasing her.  We'd go for long evening walks, Hubby, Jade & I.

Mostly though I'd spend hours sitting on the beach, staring at the waves, feeling the sand between my toes and fingers.  I'd sit there, I'd feel my shoulders relaxing, every bit of tension disappearing, to be replaced by an inner calm.

Do you remember my beloved canvas honeys?  The one that hangs on the wall of our master bedroom?  It calms me this beautiful canvas and represents, to me, my dream home.

The times I've, in my minds eye at least, walked down those steps and onto the beach, only to sit on the sand with my eyes closed, breathing the fresh, salty air.

It's good to have a dream honeys and mine is so vivid, so longed for that I can almost feel the salty, breeze on my face.

Oh to live by the sea...



I hope you're having a fabulous week dear ones, huggles always xx

Retail Therapy: A Peek At My Latest Avon Delivery...

Disclaimer: I haven't been paid to promote any products, just sharing my own latest purchases and hopefully a couple of smiles x

Hi Honeys
Here we are at Good Friday already, where has the beginning of this year gone?  Again time is passing so fast.  This weekend will be so busy at work.  As with every other year the store will run out of chocolate Easter eggs, except maybe for the Pot Noodle and the Marmite flavoured ones, or at least that's what happened last year.

Lots of people will complain, as they do every year, that we've run out of stock and, as with every other year, they'll be reminded that we've had Easter eggs on the shelves since January.    

Happy Easter, dear ones,  to you and your family, whatever you have planned for this weekend I hope you have heaps of fun.  I have such happy childhood memories of Easter.  On Easter Sunday I would have a new dress and shoes and would wear them to church and later in the day we would have an Easter egg hunt, organized by our Sunday School, searching for boiled eggs painted brightly with water colours.

Precious, smile filled memories 😃

Other smiles this week included a visit by my lovely Avon representative who dropped by to deliver my latest order and for a chat.  I thought I'd share the contents of my order with you to see if you've used any of these products and if so, I'd love to hear what you think of them.  I'll add links where they're available honeys in case you want to check them out.

First up then are four of the shower gels from the Avon Senses range...

These shower gels are lovely honeys.  The different scents are amazing, I've ordered different scents in my last three orders, and Hubby likes them too.  Last order I had added the Amazon Jungle (sage & sandlewood scent), X-Treme (grapefruit & cedarwood) Ocean Surge (peppermint & marine) & Intense Freshness (a limited edition scented with bergamot & cardamon) for him.

Included this order were:

Choosing Your Battles - 3 Ways To Cope When Living With A Chronic Illness

Disclaimer: I don't mean this post to be taken as health advise. Please speak to your Doctor or Health Professional if you have any problems.  I just wanted to share some of the ways I've found to cope over my nearly 20 years or so of living with a chronic illness.

Hi Honeys
How are you today?  Very well I hope dear ones.  I've been a bit on the quiet side recently haven't I? For months actually.  I am sorry, I have so many posts, started and abandoned, sitting in the draft folder but arthritis and brain fog seem to be winning the battle, especially lately.  They haven't won the war yet though honeys and I'm not about to give up without a fight but recently even everyday things have seemed far more difficult to cope with.

Like all spoonies I've had to learn to prioritize.  To assign a level of importance to daily tasks, chores & activities.  Each day begins with so many things I'd like to get done but since I was long ago forced to realize I simply can't go writing cheques that the Bank of Body can't cash, I know there are limits. I know I have to choose carefully my battles for each day.

There are days when even having my morning shower, getting dressed and combing my hair feel like an achievement and then there are my (unfortunately far more rare recently) good days where I can be showered, dressed and started my morning load of laundry before pain slows me down for a while. Slows me long enough to have to re-group. Maybe to take my pain meds or to wait for the pain to ease enough to move on to another (gentle) task.

Every choice carries a cost honeys.  A morning of cleaning will almost certainly mean a difficult afternoon. It can be incredibly frustrating to have invisible walls appear blocking our plans for the day but this is where forward planning is everything.

Being a spoonie means being realistic about the limitations your chronic illness places on you.  It changes how we live, but that doesn't mean that we have to give up, admit defeat and resign ourselves to a future of sitting on the sofa all day.  We can't ever do that dear ones.  We can't let it win you see.

We still have to live.  We just have to live a little smarter than our non spoonie friends.  Planning is key.  Planning, with a dash of self-care included, is everything.  We have to learn to stop being so stubborn, so determined to beat the limitations set on us by our health that we end up sabotaging ourselves.

I have a feeling this post may require a beverage and maybe a cookie (or two) so I'll wait here while you go fetch a coffee and a few cookies....  See you back here in a min then 😃

An Unexpected Smiley Gift...

Disclaimer:  I haven't been paid to promote any products, just sharing a happy smile x

Hi Honeys
I hope your weekend is off to a sunny, smiley start 😊  The weather is improving, or as a co-worker said to me "at least the rain is warmer" 😃 and everyone around me seems to be smiling more too.

I love this time of year.  We're emerging from the almost constant darkness of winter, the days get brighter and our beloved garden is springing to life again.  I don't even mind the rain after all as the saying goes "April showers bring May flowers" and it makes the days when I can peg out laundry mean all the more too 😊

As if garden smiles weren't enough though, and they so are,  my dear, sweet Hubby brought me home a surprise 😊

You might have noticed I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan.  I'd recently been looking at the Potter range at Primark online and when Hubby collected my prescription for me he also brought me home a bag and inside was this...

It was such a lovely surprise, and it just made my day 😃  It's made from a lovely, cozy soft fleece and measures (according to the attached label) 125cm by 150cm which is roughly 4 feet by 5 feet or single bed size, or in Rosie measurements it's the perfect size to share with our furbaby Jade on the sofa on cold rainy days while we watch TV 😊

Our baby does love blankets for nap-time...

That photo always makes me smile 😊

Quite apart from being Potter related it really is a very beautiful and super soft, throw and the pattern looks like this...

I really do have the sweetest Hubby in the world, don't I? 😊  Thank you sweetheart, it was a wonderful surprise x

I hope your weekend has lots of smiles in it honeys and that you're seeing lots of lovely summer sunshine.  Whatever you're doing this weekend, have fun, smile lots and hug even more. Till next time dear ones, huggles always xx

We Have A Bumper Crop Of Peony Roses This Year Honeys...

Hi Honeys
How are you today?  I hope this past week has been fabulous for you and has been full of smiles and hugs 😊

It's been a mixed week here I'm afraid.  A combination of not being able to sleep and damp weather tormenting my achey joints have meant I've spent a great deal of this weeks days off work on the sofa wishing the air would stop moving around so much because I swear I could feel it and it hurt.

Luckily though, as always, I had my own little smile generator keeping me company 😊  Our furbaby Jade can always be relied on to make me smile bless her, whether it be by bringing me her toys to throw for her to play fetch with or just by snuggling with her Mum on the sofa to watch TV she's always there 😊  Hubby usually asks her to look after Mum in the morning when he leaves for work and look after me she does 😊

I wanted to share some much needed smiles (by me anyway) before dashing to work honeys...

If you could see me right now you'd see a very smiley person who has been grinning so much this past hour that my face is actually starting to ache 😊

As always at this time of year I love to check on the garden and watch everything grow and in particular our roses... you might have noticed if you've read any of this blog before I kinda like roses more than  little bit 😊

Today though I got quite a shock, although in a good  great wonderful way 😃  Wanna see what I found?