Thoughtful presents: Pot of luck

My friend Linsey and I talk a lot, or rather we message a lot on Whatsapp most days, and every once in a while we realise we haven’t seen each other face to face, even though it feels like we see each other all the time.

So yesterday I went round hers for a good catch up and we got to exchange Christmas presents. Linsey got me a book called #Girlboss which looks great and I can’t wait to read.

For her present I found inspiration from you guessed it Pinterest! I gave Linsey a pot of luck as I thought it would be good start to what I'm hoping is a successful 2016 for us both.

The pot of luck was filled with chocolate coins and 8 scratch cards. It was the first time I bought scratch cards, so there was a new experience in doing the present as well. I picked 8 as it’s a lucky number in China and I just wanted there to be an even number also!

Linsey liked the present, we ate our way through most of the chocolate coins and as for the scratch cards, the total winnings was £3. Onwards and upwards to a successful 2016.

Challenge within a challenge: New words

January is usually quite a dull month; money is tight, people drag themselves back to work after Christmas and this isn't much in sight to look forward to. So I thought I’d start a few new challenges to brighten things up!

One of these challenges is with my friend Alice and it’s to learn a new word everyday.

I’ve known Alice since school and we’ve been to lots of places together; Lille, Prague and Edinburgh to name a few. We always like learning and discovering new things, so when I showed Alice the list of potential 30 day challenges, she picked the word one.

So here are the first five words I sent to Alice:
Kinesics
Annus mirabilis
Alacrity
Uxorial
Bogart

And Alice has sent me these five words:
First-foot
Annuannus horribilis
Pernicious
Cornucopia
Benthos

I’ll try and use the new words I learn in future blog posts, so keep a look out.

Challenge within a challenge: Too many cooks

Any friends or family of mine will know that Aussie Masterchef is my favourite show. I talk about it so much I reckon I’d do a good job of doing their PR in the UK. But this post isn’t about the show.

I was in Milton Keynes before Christmas and bought the Covent Garden Soup cookbook for a bargain price of £5 (the original price was £25.) It had 365 soup recipes and looking through all of them some were just bizarre. Talking with my friends Ann Marie and Kayleigh about recipe books we agreed that there aren’t that many that you cook a lot of recipes from. One or two from each and there are a few when it’s several more. For me I've got two recipe books where I've made multiple recipes; the famous orange covered student cookbook and Jamie Oliver’s money saving cookbook.

So I thought about setting myself a challenge, to cook all the recipes I have in my cookbooks. It took quite a while to record exactly how many recipes and cookbooks I have. There are 5733 recipes spread over 30 recipe books. I'm sure there are many duplicate recipes for the same dish, but it will be interesting to see what recipe is the best in those cases. Before the ‘challenge’ begun I had cooked 57 of the recipes.

I'm not going to put a deadline on this challenge. It’s not going to be like the film Julie & Julia where I have to cook a recipe book in a year. I just hope I won’t have any cooking disasters like below, when I burnt a cake after not turning the oven down after pre heating it.

Thoughtful presents: Memory jar

Okay so I did this one for myself, but I'm sharing it as it’s a great simple idea to have at any birthday celebrations.

So for anyone that isn't my friends or family I turned 30 a few months ago, and I celebrated by hiring out a local indoor adventure playground Activity World for my friends and family to play, which was the most fun I've had at a party. And the day afterwards I had lunch with other family and friends that couldn't make Activity World.

For both I decided to make a memory jar for people to contribute to. As you know by now I love an idea from Pinterest and this is another one from the site.

It’s really simple to do; get a clear glass jar, stick a label stating memory jar or whatever birthday you are celebrating, and leave pens and paper for people to write memories of you. That’s it!

I read them after my birthday weekend and there was a great variety of memories, some I have no recollection of, like my dad saying how I was as a baby, to uni memories and nights out.

And some that didn't happen at all like these ones from family friend Mark!

Give it a go at your next birthday, it’s a great keepsake.

Challenge within a challenge: A song a day playlist; Tracks 6-10

Here are the second lot of the songs in the song a day challenge! If you want to do something to brighten up your January, definitely try this challenge.

Day 6- A song you can always relate to
Linsey- Peter, Jamie T
Me- Lift, Shannon Noll
I’d just started my first job hunt and this was on an album I bought the first time I went to Australia. I bought it as it had the song they used for The Ashes highlights (ironically by an Australian.) I’d had quite a few job rejections at this point when I heard the song and as corny as it sounds, the song spoke to me. When I heard the lyrics I was thinking, this guy is talking about me, has he written the song just for me? Obviously not as apparently it’s one of the songs Roger Federer listens to before matches!

Day 7- A song that is your guilty pleasure
Linsey- Love is an Open Door, Frozen
Me- Steal my Girl, One Direction
I’m not going to lie, I love a bit of 1D! Although this is the most recent song of theirs that I actually like, recently none of their songs have been catchy enough. This however is a great pop song, I spent many a commute into a job that was an hour drive belting out this song. Not an hour on repeat mind you, I’d get sick of it if I did that.

Day 8- A song you liked when you were younger
Linsey- 2 Become 1, Spice Girls
Me- I Sing the Body Electric, Fame soundtrack
My sisters and I, maybe not Lucy but definitely Lisa would dance around the living room the Fame soundtrack. Fame, Hot Lunch Jam and I Sing the Body Electric songs. I hadn’t heard it in a long time and when I was listening to it on the way to work I forgot how catchy it was. I also forgot that the lyrics make no sense whatsoever!

Day 9- A song that makes you want to dance
Linsey- The Lovecats, The Cure
Me- All Alone at Christmas, Darlene Love
Linsey wanted to have a Christmas song as part of the challenge, and this not only is my favourite Christmas song, but also a song you can’t help but dance to.

Day 10- A song that makes you cry
Linsey- A Faust Travesty Final Trio, Jenny Williams and Thomas Burns
Me- Who Am I, Will Young
There’s quite a few songs that make me cry, an old Adele song recently made me cry on the way to work, but I thought it would be too predictable. So on the way to visiting my sister I was looking for another song and listened to a few Will Young songs, and came across this song. When it came out it didn’t make me cry, but listening the lyrics this time made me blub like a baby. Will Young’s music videos are always very good and this one is him being a Blue Peter presenter. It’s well worth a watch.

Challenge within a challenge and new food: New Year’s Eve, dress number 7 and oysters

On New Year’s Eve I went to The Hermitage which is very local to me. Originally I was bought a ticket on my own and was going to see it as a new challenge to spend New Year’s Eve at a party where I knew nobody. But my friend Rachel, her sister Kate, her fiancé Dan, his friend Lewis, and his friend Charlotte bought tickets at a later date and I spent the evening with them which was good fun.

Thanks to Kate for getting someone to get this picture.

It was a great night, the buffet food was really good and I tried oysters for the first time. I didn't get a picture, but remembering the rule to swallow and not chew, they were okay. Just a bit of a sea water after taste really!

The dress I wore was the one I bought a few weeks ago from Traid and I really liked it as it fit perfectly. My friend Rachel suggested a while back that I should donate to Amnesty International, and so that’s what I did for wearing a dress.

Challenge within a challenge: Dresses 4-6: Festive fun

Happy New Year! I hope you had a good Christmas and enjoyed New Year’s Eve. Christmas is always a time when you dress up a little and this year was no exception.

On Christmas day my sisters and I dressed up a little and I wore this lovely brown dress which you’ve guessed it was from Dave’s market stall, so it was £5 or under. I tried to curl my hair as well, but quite often if I curl my hair, the curls fall out within an hour or so. As usual my Grandad came over, and I decided to make a donation to Age UK as there are quite a few elderly people who are usually alone at Christmas, and haven’t got family like my Grandad has.

For Boxing Day I wore a dress that was a birthday present years ago from my friend Alice. It’s from H&M and has a bit of stretch to it, which was good for Boxing Day as there was lots of nice food my mum and auntie prepared. I spent a fair bit of time talking to my cousin Steven and he is always up to lots of different things over the year. He said to me that I should say yes to every opportunity that comes my way, as I could always say no later. I decided to donate to the Make a Wish Foundation, as it grants magical wishes for ill children and young people. So I thought if they had opportunities given to them, they would be the sort of people which would say yes to everything and make the most of life. Originally when I thought about donating to charities I asked people on Facebook who I should donate to, and Donna who I went to school with suggested the Make a Wish Foundation, so thanks for the idea!

On the 28th my relatives from my dad’s side came round and there were a lot of us. One of the main things we did was a photo scavenger hunt in the afternoon. We had 30 minutes to get pictures of the following: a scene from the nativity, a star, snow and one of the 12 days of Christmas. Here’s me and my Auntie Jean and Katy who is married to my cousin James with 3 French hens (see what we did there.)

The dress I wore was a nice loose dress, again great for eating lots of food. It was from the limited edition collection from New Look and I got it years ago in the sale for £5. I like the dress, but I'm in two minds of keeping it, it’s a great shape but the little sleeves make me look even younger then I am, so not sure whether to keep it or not.

In the morning and at lunch I spent a fair amount of time chatting to my Uncle Tony who I hadn’t seen since last Christmas. He’s really into his cycling, so in view of that I donated to CTC, which is a cycling charity that encourages people to build their skills and confidence on a bike.

I hope you had fun spending time with your family.