Busy getting tired?

Hello,
I really enjoyed playing as A New Leaf on Friday night, it was really cool. We supported Ethemia and The Cadbury Sisters. I really enjoy playing such chilled out gigs, it's totally different to the 23 Aces days. :) It was a lovely evening though, and those Cadbury Sisters have got beautiful voices!

Sometimes I am too tired to sing in the evenings, especially after days like today! It's annoying because I always want to write music when I am about to go to bed. It's when I seem to write my best lyrics... exhaustion is the key?? Hahaha maybe not!
I've had such a busy weekend, it was my Papa's birthday so I got to see my family. It's so rare that we are all together at the same time... and there isn't even that many of us! I don't know how people with big families cope with getting around to seeing each other?!
My problem with doing a lot all the time is that I don't ever feel like I'm doing anything, which makes no sense at all! I think I am tired and very confused. 
I miss a lot of my friends, I feel like I haven't seen some of them for ages. Kerry, Jodie, Emma... if you read this at all, I miss you lots, but I know I will see you all soon :)
Love and Being Busy
x x

Diffidence

Something I've been thinking about a lot the past few weeks is self confidence. It's something that doesn't really come naturally to me. However I'm realising that it's the one thing that I really need to change as it's starting to become a problem.

Let me back up a little. I started doing this thing called Crossfit about 4 months ago. I can honestly say it's changed a lot in my life!! I never thought I'd get up at 5.30am to go and do a workout for a start! The changes have all been positive though. I feel like I'm achieving something nearly every day. How often can you say that? 

The thing is that the past few weeks this little voice has been popping up in my head. (It's my voice don't worry, the leprechaun isn't telling me to burn things!) It's that voice, that isn't my friend... in fact it's becoming my enemy. It says things like "I can't do that" and "I'll never get through 5 rounds!!!" and "That's way too heavy for me" 

It needs to change. 

I don't know why these thoughts have suddenly appeared, but I hand on heart want them to f%*@ right back off where they came from!
Because despite this little voice, I'm still breaking my own records... so I think I just need to tell myself I'm doing ok, and if I don't get that pull up, power clean or toes to bar today, it doesn't matter because I'm going to keep on trying until I do get it, because I can.

Love and Crossfit 
x x

A New Leaf

I feel like I should actually mention that I love my new band!

As much as I miss 23 Aces...

A New Leaf is my current project with my good friend "Skel"...

And we're going to be playing at TreeFest again this year, which is really cool, and a lovely festival at Westonbirt Arboretum.
I'm looking forward to playing live a lot more this year. It's exciting :-)

Love and Music
x

Thinking about 23 Aces

It's funny, this evening I've thought about 23 Aces a fair amount, and I text Dan and he had been thinking about "The Aces" today too. Maybe it's just that whole missing being in a band... there's something about it you know?
I mean, don't get me wrong, I love acoustic song writing and singing live with A New Leaf... but playing loud is just really, really fun!
Anyway I had a scout round and found this!!

Sigh.... I do miss it. 
And I still love this photo....

Love and Music
x x

Cats in Pubs and Sparkles

Hello!
I managed 20 days of a photo a day... then I gave up. I missed a day, and I felt like it would be cheating if I took two on one day. Remembering to take a photo of something everyday is actually really hard!?
Anyway, one of my favorite things is making new cat friends, as you probably know.. I still see little Flufferbutt most days. He meowed a 'hello' in the dark and waited for his hugs on the wall again today. 
I made a new cat friend in the pub on Friday night, I was so excited when I was told "Don't look now Donna, but there's a cat behind you"

Oh, he was so handsome too, pure black with bright green eyes. I said hello and he jumped up on my lap for hugs. 
=^..^= yay!
My other favorite thing at the moment is sparkly nails, I have a new bestest ever colour, it's actually gold, but the photo makes it look silver...

Oooh sparkles...

I'm looking forward to Spanish class tomorrow, and music practice on Thursday - it's been FAR too long! And I'm having a charity event in my work on Saturday, that should be fun too! 

Being busy is good! 

Love and Cat sparkles

x x

A Photo a Day: Part 5 + My Last Minute Hallowe'en "costume"

Hi Avid Readers! 
(hahaha! I don't think I have any 'avid' readers!)
I actually nearly forgot to take my photo yesterday so it's just of my stairs! And the day before that I was so tired it was just of my bed! 
Needless to say I've been super busy and haven't been anywhere really exciting to take photos... however scroll down to the bottom to see how to make a really easy Hallowe'en costume that takes minimal effort! (I'm rubbish with costumes!)

28/10/12

This is my bed, although it's less creepy in real life, this looks like something out of Paranormal Activity! I was so so tired by the end of Sunday, I was in bed at 9.30pm! Ridiculous!

29/10/12

Told you it was a photo of my stairs! I have an indoor garden on my stairs though. Its one of my favourite things in my flat!

30/10/12

Sometimes my life involves listening to pretty ladies talk about nutrition. That's what happened to me today.

And here is my newest video, which I filmed when I got in from Jade's party the other night explaining how and why my costume was so.... err... uh.. great?



Love and Hallowe'en 
x x

A Photo a Day: Part 4

Hello!
I've had a very busy week, and have seen lots of people, which has been really nice! However now I'm really tired! Here are my photos of the rest of this week...

23/10/12

This is Mister FlufferButt McGee, also known as Archie. He's looking very grumpy here but he's actually very sweet! It's just so lovely to see him on my way home, and this day he ran up to me as soon as he saw me. So, so cute!

24/10/12

I went back to an old haunt for a good steak and to listen to my friend Debbie play and sing at open mic night. It was lovely to see some people I hadn't seen for a while!

25/10/12

Sometimes it's nice to have a night in, and after going to the gym from work all I wanted to do was stay in! My fireplace doesn't work so well, so I have candles instead!

26/10/12

Jade's birthday party! Hallowe'en themed! She looked stunning as a Jilted Zombie Bride!

27/10/12

Today a cold autumn walk in the park... lovely colours!

And now I feel like I can relax for the weekend! :-)

Love and colourful trees!
x x

A Photo a Day: Part 3

Hi! 
I had mad beautiful dreams last night, there were golden birds... normal looking birds like swans and some I don't know the names of, but their feathers were golden... then I dreamt I was walking with my mum and we went off the road to a section of grass that had high walls around it, and there were big blooms of colourful exotic flowers. It was really pretty thinking back on it in now, but in my dream it was like that was completely normal. Our minds do interesting things when we aren't in control! :-)
Anyway here are my photos from the last 4 days!

19/10/12

Getting this one to smile normally is actually impossible... so I had to make do with this!

20/10/12

The sunset on my way home from work. It was more beautiful than this picture shows.

21/10/12

Yep... I ran out of time on sunday, this is the time in the evening I realised I'd not taken my photo for the day! 

I watched two films about time travel on Sunday too... maybe if time travel gets invented I'll come back and take a better photo... if this photo stays the same, don't worry, I hopefully have got better things to do while I'm Time Travelling!

22/10/12

A coffee with this lovely lady today! We hadn't had a catch up in far too long. 

Jade always has lovely clothes, I really liked her scarf today, it had sparkles too!

I'm a third of the way through my 30 day challenge now! 

Love and Smiles

x x

A photo a day: Part Two

Remembering to take a photo every day is actually not as easy a thing to do, especially if you are a person who doesn't really take photos that often... unless you're on holiday, like me.
And I probably could've taken photos of more interesting things, but it just didn't occur to me at the time...

16/10/12

My weekly trip to the local greengrocer, so much cheaper than the supermarket, and so much better quality veg! I love it!

17/10/12

This is how tired I look on a wednesday evening after a day at work and then a 2 hour spanish class... Estoy cansada!

18/10/12

This little doodle lives on my laptop at the moment, I think he's quite cute, the artist may disagree... he's not so keen on "cute" hahaha!

My neighbour took me out for dinner thisevening, to celebrate her getting her new job! Which is when I should have remembered to take my photo of the day... oh well... 
Love and picatures
x x

30 day challenge, photo a day...

I like the idea of the 30 day challenge, you know, where you do something in particular every day for 30 days. 
I thought I'd start with something easy, so I'm doing a 30 day photo challenge. I'm going to take a photo of something every day... 
This isn't actually that easy for me, as I don't take photos that often really! And finding something interesting to take a photo of too is errrr... yeah, anyway. These are my photos so far! (And yes I'm instagramming it up, I'm not an amazing photographer by a long shot! hahaha!)

12/10/12

My cousin at her birthday party dancing with her husband... they were so fun to watch! Totally embraced the dance like nobody is watching, something I could learn from! :-)

13/10/12

Popcorn! I love popcorn and can't quite give it up yet!

14/10/12

My guitar, we hadn't played together for a while, so I made amends with that on Sunday!

15/10/12

White Tiger - My serious need for energy before body pump class this evening! It's like a natural Red Bull! Did the trick and tasted waaaaaaay better than Red Bull too :-D

Anyways, that's my first 4 days, 26 to go! :-) I might run out of things to take photos of... it could get interesting haha!

Love and photos

x x

A quick one today...

Hello!
I don't seem to have much free time at the moment. I don't feel like I've had a good music session for ages! ... well that would be because I haven't. I really should sort that out, as I miss it lots. 
I have been spending a lot more time at the gym though, I'm really enjoying that. Who would have thought picking things up and putting them down again would be fun? hahahaha! 
So yeah, that's what my life consists of at the moment, work, gym, spanish class, and seeing people at the weekends! 
I will endeavour to make another video soon, just need a little time, and inspiration! :-)

This is a doodle I did a while ago, it's the only thing I've drawn in my little sketch book my friend Dan gave me. Which is a poor effort as he gave me it about a year and a half ago!
Just a short one today I'm afraid!
Love and no time
x x

Spanish Class and Paleo banana bread!

Hola! 
I've been to my 3rd Spanish lesson this evening, I'm starting to find it fun rather than nerve wracking now! You never know soon I may be able to hold a conversation in Spanish for at least two minutes hahahaha! I find it quiet exciting learning a new language, it's like being able to understand a whole new world.
In other news my friend Clare has convinced me (well she convinced me over a month ago) to switch my diet to paleo... and after doing a whole lot of reading and being predominantly gluten and dairy free anyway I thought I'd give it ago! I can't believe how much BETTER I feel. Even on gluten and dairy free I was still getting stomach ache fairly frequently and now I don't. At all. It's amazing, and there's no going back really. My skin is glowing, my energy levels are amazing, I just feel better. 
I thought I'd give it a good month to really see whether it worked, and I'd say I'm paleo 90% of the time (I don't wanna be a bore when I'm out!) 
My favourite thing to make as a super hooray for carbs treat is banana bread....

It's amazing, if you want a carb hit... this is just the business... 
(Do you recognise chicken there? If not click here to see the chicken and the egg! He helps me with my cooking a lot. Also check out my super retro genuine 80's hand me down plate!)
Link to the recipe is here - PaleOMG her blog is really fun too.
So yay for banana bread and spanish lessons. 
I've got a day off tomorrow = yay!
Must do more music
Right I'm off
Love and bananananananananas!
x x

Things I like

I've been meaning to post this all week!
These are the things I do like... in response to the things I don't like... 
My dislike for Ricky Gervais hasn't gone down well! haha! I just really don't enjoy his humour... I'm sure he's a lovely bloke other than that!
Anyway... here's what I do like...

I've had a week off this week so I'll fill you in on all the gossip (like I ever have gossip... hahaha, I really don't!)
Love xx

Things I don't like...

I'll be honest there aren't many things I don't like so this video isn't very long, but sometimes you just have to vent about the things you don't like!

I've made a things I do like video too, will post that in the next couple of days :-) that was much more fun to make!
I also wanna hear about the things you like or don't like!

Love D x

Picnics, Tree Climbing and Playing with your Food!

It's been sunny! And it's been my day off! AND my friend came to visit! Whoop whoop!
We had such a lovely day, I met her from the train station and I asked her what she wanted to do, and all she said was "PICNIC!" hahaha so thats what we did!
We got our supplies and suncream ready and went stomping off across the common. It was really windy though... this is Emma searching for a good "picnic spot" 

You know what it's like, you have to find the perfect spot, enough sunshine, good view, not too much wind that all your food would blow away! Anyway we found it! It was good! And none of our food blew away in the wind.

Our picnic consisted of sugar snap peas, apples, nectarines, olives, chorizo, vegtable crisps, beef jerky, sundried tomatoes and this stuff called "giganticorn" which was really seriously gross! It tasted like savoury sugarpuffs!!! We didn't eat those... because, you know, blegh! We did however make use of them in our "Food face" -

It's like we can't help it! Me and Emma get together and silliness has to happen at some point. He's called Fredrick, and we ate him... apart from his teeth, because giganticorn is wrong! hahaha! (Emma thinks giganticorn sounds like an evil corn villain - I agree!)

Also then we had to climb a tree, it was only a little tree, we weren't feeling too adventurous today. And we had just been lying in the sun for and hour and a half eating food! 

So I've had a lovely day in the sunshine, hooray. It's nice when you get to have a day where all you have to worry about is finding a good spot to sit and eat and talk with your friend. 

Happy days.

Love and picnics

x x

Remember this guy?

Hey!

You may remember me writing a song about a cat that I see on my way home everyday? I used to call him/her Mister Flufferbutt McGee... well I still see him most days, and he runs over for his hugs!

The other day I met his owner - and he is actually a he, and not a girl like I thought at one point! AND his name is actually Archie... I didn't tell his owner that I call him Mister Flufferbutt McGee and I definitely didn't tell her that "Archie" has a song dedicated to him on Youtube... hahahaha!

Anyway this is what Fluffer looks like - 

He's really cute!

If you never heard the song... and honestly it is really very silly, then here it is...

Err... yeah so anyway...

Love and Meows

x x

Sunshine, running and watching sport.

Hello!
We've had a little bit of summer! That was kinda nice. I spent a whole afternoon in my parents garden (I don't have a garden so I go there to sunbathe!) in the sun reading my book. I even turned my phone off! It was lovely. I know sunbathing isn't very good for you but I enjoy it so much and I always put sunscreen on and go into the shade frequently. 
I got to see the lovely Merlin and Ozzie too (Or Merlie and Noodle as I call them!! hahaha)

I'm really enjoying watching the Olympic Games too, I always love being able to watch all the different sports that are never normally on tv. It's boring that we only get to see football, rugby, cricket, golf and a few others the rest of the time. Wouldn't it be great if womens sport was on tv on a regular basis too?
Talking of sport and exercise, I had pretty much a whole month off running, what with being unwell and then injuring my knee. I'm back running again but I'm having to take it easy because of my knee and also because my fitness has taken a bit of a hit unfortunately. I'm back on it though, and hopefully I will be able to take part in the Mud Runner in a couple of months or so.
I do like running, although sometimes I hate it because it's so hard!
Love and Gold Medals
x x

How do you survive having a cold?

Well.. okay, it's not that hard to survive a cold! But these are my tips to make sure you get through it without feeling too bad...

... If you are poorly right now, I hope you feel better soon
Love 
x x

Disappointed!

I should be at Mud Runner right now! But instead I am at home. I didn't get a cold incidentally - I got flu instead. A cold I could have dealt with, and I would have been out there running today. But no, I had the works, shivers, aching muscles, face pain (yeah I know face pain?) and well now I have a normal cold. So I think taking all my supplements means it has gone away quicker than it would have done, but it means that I'm not able to do mud runner oblivion anyway.
Seriously gutted!
Clare will be at the race ready to go right now, I'm so jealous! All our runs out together in preparation, and now she has to do the event on her own! Never fear though, I will find other events to do! AND I won't be getting sick before them! 
You know what it is? It's Ruuuuuubbish! hahaha!
Well I'm wishing Clare the best of luck, and I'm sure I'll be out training again soon! :-)
Love and no mud!
x x

Disaster 24 hours

Ok, so disaster might be a little over dramatic! But last night while I was making my raw brownies (which do taste nice, although I put too much almond milk in so they're not really like brownies, more like... well I don't know, but it tastes good!) I was mega tired and cleaning up, just cleaning out my hand blender... forgetting it was still plugged in... pressed the power button by accident... finger in blade vicinity... yeeeeeaaaaaow!
Yeah - blended my finger a little... not too bad though, it's still all intact, just a little bit shredded on where my finger print would be. It did bleed rather a lot, and yes I did cry rather a lot too!! Ouch! But it seems to be healing super speed. No guitar playing for a while though!!
My other disaster is that I couldn't go running this evening - no not because of my finger, I'm not that much of a wuss! - but because I've developed a sore throat, and feel like I'm coming down with something. So not cool, I really don't want a cold in time for Sunday.
So in order to fight this off I'm dosing myself up with half a ton of Vit C and Olive Leaf!

You can even see my herbal tea on the table in an attempt to get as much going on to get rid of this before it even starts! I will NOT get a cold! Hahaha.

Well I hope it works anyway, I'm really looking forward to Mud Runner and I don't wanna miss it because of a silly cold!

Love and Vitamin C

x x