It's Here! What's Inside The Soap And Glory Spa Of Wonder Gift Set

Disclaimer:  I haven't been paid to promote any products, I just adore the Soap and Glory range and, like lots of ladies wait all year for the Christmas gift set to arrive 💗

Hi Honeys
It's here, it's here!! This week saw the Christmas gift from Soap and Glory for this year dropped in price from £60 to £30.  Every year there is a sort of buzz around this time as everyone around me (and me!) all get very excited to see what's been included in this years set.

This year's set is as fabulous as all of the others have been with lots of goodies included.  They've gone for a large (very pretty) box as packaging instead of the usual beautiful large fabric vanity style case.

I'm still in two minds regarding the lack of a bag this year.  I do love the large vanity cases and last year's gorgeous, very retro styled metal case has to be among my favourites (you can see it here honeys) but I've already decided that this year's box might make a fabulous "memory box" to store letters, cards and tiny treasures. 

Maybe Soap and Glory themselves decided it was time for a change in their much anticipated yearly gift set.  This year's packaging looks like this... 

Image and product details can be found here. 

The box is hinged, has useful handles on the sides and once opened has the trademark gorgeous tissue paper packaging and a selection of bath, body and face goodies that are every bit as fabulous as every year before.

Let's take a look at what's inside this year shall we honeys?

Some Of My Favourite Movies To Watch On A Cold Winter's Day...

Hi Honeys,
It feels bitterly cold here today.  The chill as I stood at the back door with our furbaby Jade earlier got me to thinking. First I wished I didn't have to go outside soon to go to work 😊 and immediately following that thought was another.

I so, so, so wish I could just stay home today, hug Jade on the sofa, share a blanket and watch some favourite movies with a hot chocolate with some mini marshmallows on top - I've learned three is the optimal number of marshmallows, trust me, many years of research has gone into this perfect number of mini marshmallows 😊 ooo and maybe a cookie too.

I don't even have to think too hard to decide which movies either so I thought I'd share and maybe we can compare notes on favourites 😊  Without too much ado then, here are my favourite movies for a bitterly cold, winters afternoon...

Let's Make Some Gingerbread Cookies!

Hello honeys
Hope you're well and staying warm. It was so, so cold last night on the way home from work.  Now it's usually around now that I start bugging everyone with my heartfelt desire to toddle off to bed with a hot water bottle (and our furbaby Jade too, she doesn't like winter at all! I'm sure she'd want to hibernate with her mum.)  Why shouldn't we be allowed to hibernate till it's safe for us to sit out in the garden again? 

I'm not a fan of winter honeys.  The constant darkness and cold, rainy days, or chilly winds that feel like they could cut me in two just wear me down and play havoc with my arthritis.  I'm a Summer baby! I need sunshine, I need to wake up to the sun streaming through the windows and know I can hang out laundry 😊

What to do though dear ones?  We're stuck in December and other than to hibernate like a wee bear and countdown till spring - which I've already been doing for a while now actually.  The counting down that is, not the hibernating unfortunately 😊  Here in the UK it will be exactly 15 weeks from tonight till the clocks go forward again and we start running towards summer yaaaaay!!!  

Fifteen weeks isn't so long really but in the meantime all that can be done with winter is to make the best of it 😊  One bonus of being in December is that gingerbread seems to be everywhere and what could be better than sitting down with a lovely, hot, creamy mug of hot chocolate and a gingerbread cookie? 

What if you made the yummy gingerbread cookies yourself?  What if they were so easy to make you could make batches of them up for gifting too?  Share the yummy gingerbread love!  Choose a pretty container, line with a paper lace doily fill with your delicious home-made cookies and everyone will love them 😊

Honestly, these heavenly cookies couldn't be any easier to make and they taste sooooo good! All of the mixing I leave to my little mixer :) Just chuck in the ingredients and then turn out your dough, roll and bake :)  They take no time to prepare, they're so much fun to make, why not let tiny humans help?  Such fun rolling out the dough and using assorted cookie cutters to make their favourite shapes.  

Best of all, you can run up a few batches and store in an airtight container and they'll keep for over the holidays.  As I said they're also fabulous for gifting too. Who wouldn't love to be given a fabulous package of these yummy gingerbread treats?

They only take 8-10 minutes to bake too, so once they're in the oven you can make a lovely cuppa and by the time that's done they're ready to come out of the oven.  Shall we make some cookies honeys?  To the kitchen! 

Apologies For Absence And Catching Up Honeys

Hi Honeys
I hope you're well and staying warm in this cold snap.  I'm sorry I've been missing for a while. I think this is the longest spell I've gone without blogging and I've missed it terribly 😞

I thought I'd write a catch-up post just so you'd know what's been happening and how things are right now.  It might be worth your fetching a cuppa and maybe a cookie dear ones, meet you back here in a few minutes?

Hello again 😊  Back with a cuppa and goodness our kitchen is cold! It's a brave wee Rosie who ventures through there to make a cuppa!  Central heating is on full blast but it can't dent the bitter chill that's settled over us here on the west coast of Scotland.  We had our first snowfall yesterday although it wasn't really a surprise honeys because it's been so, so cold all this week. Luckily, thanks to our fire in here, the living room is lovely and toasty warm 😊 Take that winter!

Our furbaby Jade has been carefully bundled up in her warm winter coats before each walk with her Dad recently and during the day either hugs her Mum on the sofa under a lovely warm blanket or naps on her own little mini sofa under one of her own soft warm blankets.

 
We adore our furbaby honeys, she's very precious to us and she makes me smile even when I'm not having the best of days.  She's a wee smile on paws, bless her 💖

It's been three weeks since I've last posted anything on this blog and I'm so sorry to have been gone for so long. Winter is not being kind to me.  The cold and damp are tormenting me by trying to turn me into a human pretzel and refusing to allow me to sleep.  I'm waking constantly throughout the night with the pain in my spine and everything has become more difficult to cope with or to get through.

My shifts at work for instance have always drained me even though I only work two days a week.  I work in retail over the weekend when the store is always busy and it can be really demanding on my already limited energy levels.  Usually I lose my Sunday to complete exhaustion but for some time now I've been losing my Mondays too.  It's a horrid feeling not to be in control of my own body dear ones.  To have so many things my mind wants to get on with and get done but for my body to be simply incapable of doing any of them can be upsetting.

I so hate letting pain or exhaustion beat me and I hate it doubly so when it's been this way for so long... all of this year really.  I'm beginning to be afraid that this isn't a phase I can "battle through" but that I've moved on to another stage, that my arthritis and other health problems have worsened to a point where I'm no longer able to do even the limited amount I could before.

That scares me more than anything honeys.  I'm not willing to be written off just yet, especially not by my own body.  I'm lucky to have a wonderful GP, to be registered at a great practice and maybe it's time I did something that is incredibly difficult for me and ask for help.  First though, what little energy supplies I have, need to be focused on getting through the next few weeks.

We are just a little over three weeks away from the holidays and I need to concentrate on getting through my shifts as well as I can.  In the new year I'll hopefully see my Dr and be able to sit down and try to plan to make 2018 be less difficult than this year has been.

Again, I'm sorry I've been missing for so long honeys.  I'll try not to leave so long between posts again and thank you for still being here it means a great deal to me.  I started this blog so optimistically and had hoped to use it to stay connected to the outside world, other than my shifts at work and visits to either our Dr's surgery or to the hospital I don't go out, but also to keep track of our de-cluttering and organising projects in our home.  That too has taken a back seat for far too long. 

Next year has to be better honeys and here's hoping it will be.  I'm praying to be back to coping better than I have been at least. Enough moans from me, what have you been doing recently?  Are you looking forward to the holidays? Till next time dear ones, stay warm, smile lots and hug even more 😊  Huggles always xx