Mango & Apple Smoothie

So i'll start with a confession and then we can all move on from there...I'm lazy in the kitchen. No, I know you're shaking your head, but really I am.

We got given a blender for our wedding and since then i've failed at making salsa (it was more like soup) and tried to make smoothies from frozen fruits which just turned out to be really sour. Not good. Husband is disappointed to say the least.

On my weekly wander around Aldi (because i'm cheap and not going to spend a fortune on expensive food), I found mangos. Hmm...they're exotic I'll buy them. But being so cheap I then had to use them and not just ignore them on the counter until they died a miserable fruit death and got chucked out.

Then the blender caught my eye. Ah ha! I shall blend the mangos. If Jamba Juice do it, so can I! Guys, it was amazing...

Foodie bloggers share a recipe. I won't be patronising here but I'll tell you how to make your own awesome smoothie. Chuck a mango, an apple, handful of ice cubes and a half cup of milk in your blender. Press the button. 

Is your mouth watering yet? Go forth and blend!

Friday Highs

Happy Friday friends! It's been such a beautiful sunny day today, warm enough to bust out a sleeveless top and open the window at work. Spring is coming and it couldn't be more welcome! As usual though, the weekend is set to be rainy but i'm praying for sun anyway so man and I can go sailing tomorrow.

Highs of this week?

1. Wedding invites are being designed and I couldn't be happier about it. For some reason the wedding stationery was massively stressing me out and I was reduced to tears on more than one occasion! I found so many sets I liked but couldn't afford them from places like NotOnTheHighStreet and Minted. Cue graphic designer. Can't wait to see the proofs :-)

2. I stuck to my budget. I know, I know, my life has become that of a boring adult who has to budget. But seriously, this month has been hard. I have paid out £720 on my car alone so needed to find cuts elsewhere. Much to my fiance's grief I turned the heating off yesterday to save gas. Now where are my jumpers?

3. My friend hit the big 3-0 and threw a Barn Dance to celebrate. Naturally I dressed as a cowgirl and tried to do as many of the dances as my booted feet would allow. It was so much fun, thanks Em!

4. My diet is right on track and I'm losing weight like a pro. I haven't even had to go running yet which makes me want to do a happy dance. 5k Park Runs are looming though and there are only so many invitations to them a girl can turn down before she has to cave and prove herself. I'm that girl who if you say "bet you can't" will defiantly say "yes I can" and go do whatever stupid thing is being thrown at me.

5. Coffee. I've had two coffee dates with friends this week and they've been lush. Enough said.

And because I don't have any pictures for you this week (I've been a bore and worked a lot) here is a picture of a teeny tiny Shetland Pony

High Five (2?) for Friday

This week has flown by so I struggled to find five different things for this post. However, it is a great excuse to share photos of my rapidly growing and beautiful niece, so I'll go with that.

Last Sunday marked her dedication day so it was an early start for my brother. Matt and I as we jumped in the car at 7.30am to drive up to Buckinghamshire for the 10am Church service. I know it sounds silly but I was disappointed that our McDonalds breakfast stop was thwarted by the fact that McDonalds was closed. Starbucks sold me a cinnamon swirl bun for an extortionate price which didn't make me feel much better. The guys went for a Subway breakfast which looked yummy so I know what to do next time. But back to the week:

*Blurry photos now she's moving around lots and knows to smile at a phone. These photos were taken at the lunch after the service.

 

 

 


* We went to see Mockingjay Part 1 on Tuesday night and it was pretty great! I know this film has had a bad press in the UK but I found it entertaining enough and not being a film critic, that's enough for me.

Maybe next week I'll remember to take more photographs! 

Guilty secrets

This post  by Beka over at The Castilles inspired me to get my embarrassing, weird and somewhat guilty secrets about myself on my blog. To shed some light on the stranger side of who I am and what makes my friends and family tease me.

1.       I still listen to all of my favourite songs from the 2000's and             can remember most of the dances to go with them.

Favourite bands include Backstreet Boys, B*Witched, Maroon 5, Eminem, Linkin Park and Aqua.


2.       When i'm out and see a cat i'll stop walking/running/cycling             and revert to being a 5-year old, chasing the cat to try and pet           it.

I just love stroking random cats. They make my heart smile and stresses go away. I also love their flippant attitude.

3.      I have about 20 cookbooks and have never cooked a single              meal from any of them. I just like the look of them on my                shelf.

I would love to be able to throw a meal together like Jamie Oliver and have it taste amazing. Instead I go with recipes my mum taught me and ideas I've seen others try. American cookbooks use cups and i'm not even sure what size cup to use?! There are so many cups to choose from surely. 

4.      The majority of friends i've fallen out with or people I plain              just don't like are Christians. Christian girls can be the worst.

This is a major sore point for me. I wish I could say I was somebody who was loved by everybody and who got invited to everything. Well, maybe not everything. Truth is there are plenty of people who are unforgiving or judgemental and the worst of them tend to be in Churches. I've learnt a lot from those girls/women about how to treat others in a loving way, simply by acting in the opposite way they do. 

5.      When I was younger my dream was to be a backing dancer.              Then, when i was a teenager, I wanted to be a Dentist. Neither          dreams were achievable, neither have been achieved and i'm            thankful my parents never told me I could do whatever job I            desired to. I'm thankful to have been brought up in reality and          not a dream world. 

No really. This sounds negative but I truly don't believe you can be anything you put your mind to. All jobs require God given talents and skills. I didn't have the body to progress in dancing (hips and curves, hips and curves), and I didn't have the maths and chemistry grades to be a Dentist. Nobody in my family is talented at sciences. I studied my butt off and still came out with mixed A's and B's. 

6.      I hate snow. I was a chalet girl for a season and shovelled so            much of it I want to cry when I see it fall.

It was like living in a sea of white powder for 6 months straight. Go outside and you'll fall down. Try to drive and you'll skid. Clear the deck and what's that? It's snowed again? Yup, start again. 

7.      My nickname is mouse. I'm a 5'10 girl who speaks her mind. I          have no idea why people think i'm a mouse. But it makes a              change to be referred to as small and not as a giant so I go                with it.

Maybe my voice changes when I speak softly? Maybe it was because my brother was always Bodger the Badger and I had to be Mousie when we played (see here). 

8.      I was a teacher for 2 years and hated it. Like, anxiety                        inducing, crying on a Sunday, no passion hated it.

Teaching in Korea was a means to an end. To be fair it was bearable. Teaching in England put me on medication and into therapy. Enough said. 

9.      I love the look on people's faces when I tell them I don't want          children until i'm in my 30s...then I'll be a working mum. I                don't actually hold true to this thought, I just love that people            try to argue it.

I sometimes stir it up a little if people are bothering me with their opinions they just have to share to everybody. I don't do it often and i'm not proud of myself.

10.    I'm a sailor and get terribly seasick. 

I've suffered from motion sickness all of my life. When I was little and had to sit in the middle of the back seat in the car my brothers wouldn't know which one of them was about to get covered. Gross. It dominates my decisions on what to do, where to go, who's driving, what car is it, can I sit in the front, is there a rest stop etc. Dramamine isn't sold in the UK but is the best drug in the world for motion sickness. 

Some of these were joky, some serious!

Laziness

I'm a lazy blogger, in fact i'm not even sure I would call myself a blogger due to the fact that I can't even get a post out a week. I enjoy reading other people's blogs though and their effort has certainly spurred me on to write more. I love keeping up with blogger's lives, their ups and downs, their comforts and their frustrations. I don't even know these people and yet I still expectantly click onto Blogger each day to catch up on their news from around the world. I'm a photo fan too, so enjoy looking through the lens of other people's daily lives. It's for that reason I promise to upload more photos of my own so anybody who actually reads this blog is given a glimpse into my world too. 

In my last post I wrote that I wanted to keep up to date with fitness progress posts. Well, that just didn't happen did it?! I haven't lost anymore weight, I've simply put on muscle, increased muscle tone and have a far greater endurance when doing cardio. I'm thinking I should lay off the leg work though, my zippers on my boots are proving to be a little tricky these days! My plans for the London Techno Run have fallen aside and instead I think i'll do the Holi Colour Run in Portsmouth this year. I've always wanted to do a Colour Run - something about the idea of people chucking brightly coloured powder over me as I struggle to reach the finish line appeals to me...

Book of the week: The Last Runaway by Tracey Chevalier
I'm a sucker for easy reads and this was a pleasure to snuggle up with this past week. Usually I stray away from Historical novels as their subtle inaccuracies drive me to irritation. This didn't dig too deep into the Historical aspect though and instead focused on fictional lives of late 19th Century migrants from the UK to the US. A young girl married into a farming family and faced with the Underground Railroad world. Thought provoking with a moral twist, it's well worth a read. 

                                                                                         Picture Source: Google Books