Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts

My autumn to-do list

autumn, baking, batch cooking, bookkeeping, Christmas, country walks, food, Halloween, lifestyle, slow cooker, to-do list,


I think as much as I love the idea of Christmas being right around the corner (yes I've just used the C word...), it has only just struck me that the end of year is also near! I do feel like I have achieved a lot during the year but their are a few more things I want to do before the year is over. 

Make a current cake 
A bit of a random one to start with but I have been saying that I will attempt my mum's famous current cake for months. What better time then autumn when you want something to fill a long afternoon? 

Attend a Halloween party 
I love getting dressed up and Halloween is the best excuse to go crazy with your outfit. I like to plan dress up days at work around this time as well so that is two excuses to dress up! Who is inviting me to their party?

Visit more villages
Callum and I love to pick a random village neat us and take a long walk, looking at the cute old fashioned houses and old style roads. We like to try the local pub as well for some weekend lunch and we haven't been disappointed yet. We would like to add more village pubs to our list. You never know when someone will ask you for a recommendation. 

Get my batch cooking butt into gear 
I love batch cooking and during the winter, my work lunches can get bored very easily. I recently made a big batch of spaghetti Bolognese and cottage pie and I looked forward to my lunch all week. I want to turn Sundays into batch cooking and slow cooking days.

Use my slow cooker on a weekly basis
I love using my slow cooker but during the summer I didn't use it very much at all. Time to get that bad boy out and like I said in my last point, use my slow cooker on most Sundays so I can spend my day batch cooking meals for the week. 

Pass my second exam in Bookkeeping
I have only just passed my first exam for unit 1 but I am hoping by the end of autumn, I can say I have done two units. I am giving myself three months till I want to start the next stage.

Get my house sorted for Christmas 
This will be the first year I have hosted my family for Christmas day and I am nervous! I only have a few things to do to get the house ready, like get some curtains for the living room, get a new table which will fit all six of us and buy a dishwasher because I do not want to be washing up all that! It is just getting time before one day you look at your phone and its the start of December. 

Complete my Christmas shopping by the end of November
I know I have used the C word three times but I don't care. I have already started Christmas shopping and I would say I am 70% of the way so my plan to be ready by end of November should work out well. I am trying not to go crazy with presents this year so maybe I will do a budget gift guide. 

Have I Achieved My Summer Goals?



Back in May I wrote a list of objectives I wanted to achieved over the summer, a little summer to do list and I thought It would be a good idea to look back over the list and see if I actually achieved anything because yes, I'm sorry to say... Summer is over in my eyes. Bring on the blankets, fairy lights and hot chocolates. 

#Get a new job
The most important goal of the summer was to get a new job and thankfully I have achieved that. If you haven't read a few of my more personal posts lately you might be questioning this goal but I don't want to bore you with the topic anymore so head over to a previous post to find out all the details. Anywho I am now in a new job, with amazing work friends and a much better work life balance. I really couldn't have found a better place to work at and I am so thankful it all worked out in the end.

#Become more fit
This was always going to be the up in the air idea, would I start working out or would I forget or just not be bothered. Annoyingly right now I am not signed to any gym BUT i do have plans to join one with Callum in October so watch this space!

#Grow my hair
I am proud to say I haven't caved and chopped all my hair off yet, I have even had a trimmed and the dip dye taken higher to balance out the length of my hair. I have even invested in a hair oil so hopefully that will encourage my hair to grow even faster. I am aiming to have my long bum touching hair by the start of next year so wish me luck!

#Finish off the bedrooms
Even though no physical progress has been made in the bedrooms, we do have plans in place. A colleague at work has agreed to make and fit my wardrobes since he is a carpenter which is amazing. Having someone I already know come over to make my wardrobes takes a load off my mind and makes me excited about the process. Once they are in my blogging/beauty room can really take shape. I have already made plans of how I want my space to look so I will definitely make a post about it when it happens.

#Fill up my cooking book with recipes
 Do you know where the best place is to get dinner recipes? Pinterest of all places. There is a whole community of food lovers on it who share all their favourite recipes and I get most of my dinner ideas from there. My book is filling up but I definitely have room for more!

#Get the garden started
This ambition was a bit ambitious for myself really... I bought some lovely plants and painted my garden table and chairs to make the place feel homely and then all my plants died in the crazy heatwave we had. I have since replaced the plants and so far they are still alive, just. My plan is to spend more time in the garden now it is cooling down so hopefully by next summer the garden will look like a jungle.

#Visit another country
It's been a long time coming but I am finally going on holiday! After the year I have had this holiday can't come quick enough. Cal and I are going to Majorca at the end of the month and I can't wait to spend a whole week sitting by the pool reading hundreds of books and exploring the island. Hopefully being on holiday will spark some new ideas since there is nothing better than letting your mind run wild with no distractions.


What have you done this summer?

My Summer Goals 2018


This summer I am planning on overhauling my life and basically sorting my shit out. This year has taken me on a roller coaster and it is only the fourth month in so I am expecting big changes this summer and I will make them happen.

# Get a new job 
My work life has changed dramatically this year as you all know now and not for the good so my main aim this summer is to get a new job. As much as I love retail I really do think I need a change of environment and surroundings. Something closer to home with less stress would be the ideal situations so fingers cross something that ticks them boxes comes up.

# Become more fit
I don't really care about losing weight and going on a diet, my plan is to tone my body and become more fit in general. Although since moving out my eating has become so much better and I am learning to cook something new everyday, I still have weeks where my eating is terrible especially if I am working long hours. I am planning to join the local gym with Cal in the next month or so which will be really good for me, I used to go gym nearly every day when I first left school as a hobby so I can see myself getting really into it again.

# Grow my hair 
I have had short hair since 2015 now and I think it is about time I went the other direction and grew my hair (if I can) I have been trying to grow my hair since I was 16 and it would never grow past my boobs so I ended up giving up and going for the chop. Now I am ready to try again and hopefully grow my hair long and put more bleach in the ends so my dip dye starts higher in my hair. This is how I hope to have my hair soon...



# Finish off the bedrooms 
We are nearing a year in our house now and we still haven't finished everything we would like to because we aren't made of money and life gets in the way. We still need to get built in wardrobes in the master bedroom and once that is done we can get rid of all the rails of clothes in my little room and turn it into my blogging/beauty room. Once that is complete I think my blogging game will become stronger and more routined.

# Fill up my cooking book with recipes
Like I said my cooking skills are getting better with every Mary Berry cookbook I read (she is my gal) and everything that I really like to make I write up in my own little cooking diary. It has four different colours on the pages so I can separate my cooking lists, slow cooker recipes, recipes for dinner and baking recipes. I love filling in this book (because I have no life apparently) and get wait for it to be full.

# Get the garden started 
My garden is a blank space at the minute and I really want to make the space into something beautiful and relaxing so in the summer I can sit in my quite place and read a book or do some gardening. I plan to dig out all the plants in my front garden and start from scratch and decide what me and cal want to have.

# Visit another country
Lastly I really want to go on a holiday aboard this year and get out of England. I have some ideas in the pipe line with my family to have a big group holiday but if that doesn't work out, Cal and I will definitely go somewhere by ourselves. Maybe a weekend in a city or a week by a pool in a cheap hotel in Spain. My ideal holiday would be Benidorm but no one shares my love of it :(
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