13th April 2016 | Christian Louboutin Lust List

 

If there is one man who knows what a girl wants it's the infamous Christian Louboutin.

 

  My current lust list would keep my bank account in the red for many many years, but window shopping can't hurt right? right?!

 

Come day dream with me, and try not to drool over your smart phone.

 

Fricaba Tissu/calf EcAom Cotton - £795.00 

 Mosaika Kid/patent - £725.00

 Survivita Velvet Matte - £60.00

 Very Rete Mini Resille - £575.00

 Paloma Small Tote Bag - £1,195.00

 Une Plume Sling Calf Hawaii - £465.00

 So Baker Kid/knot - £1,695.00

 

So that's a hefty imaginary bill of  £5,510.00

 

Annnnd back to reality, have a lovely day people

 

Much love

Carla x

 

*all images from Christian Louboutin UK site

12th April 2016 | Stress Less

Sometimes life is stressful.

Sometimes the stress is required to give you the kick up the bum you need to just get shit done.

But don't forget that stress is just an emotion and sometimes you have to live through crappy emotions to remember why the great ones are so flipping great!

My Stress Less Tips

(tips I endeavour to follow...y'know in a perfect blogtastic world)

 

1. Most importantly: Do what you need to do! Don't avoid the things that are making you stressed, you'll become overwhelmed the problem will escalate and you will have to deal with it eventually and it will only then be 854621356% worse.

Just do it.

Prioritise, and do the things you are dreading most first. 

You'll thank yourself by lunchtime.

 

2. Make a list and put EVERYTHING on it. I mean all the stupid little things that you have to do, but aren't really list worthy. Like brush your teeth (duh - tick!) make a 11am cuppa (tick!), listen to voicemails (oh god more things to add to the list - tick!)- if nothing else it will give you more things to cross through which will give your brain the placebo self accomplishment endorphins you are craving to get you through the next actual noteworthy task to tackle.

 

3. Don't forget to take care of you, make sure you take a break from all the getting stuff done above or you'll burn yourself out. That can be as little as getting up to make a cuppa tea, or actually stopping to eat your lunch or go full on relax mode and take a bath with bubbles and all! Just keep a bit of time for you, so you don't go insane.

 

4. It pains me to say it, but DONT DRINK COFFEE - The caffeine will just increase the feeling of anxiety leading to more un-necessary stress. Feeling wired when stressed just isn't something you need, switch your usual latte for a camomile or peppermint tea...good bye mid afternoon bloat!

win-win

 

5. Once you are finally stress free (the dream!) or atleast over the worst of it, look back on what you achieved. Realise how much you actually dealt with, make a mental note of things to improve on next time (that's what I'm currently doing right now) and finally treat yourself - I suggest a evening pamper session, nothing puts me in a better mood than having freshly plucked brows!

I'm such a wild child...

 

 We can be too hard on ourselves and sometimes we just need to remember that we are all freakin' awesome.

 

These are my tips to look back on the next time I'm in a stress, let me know yours.  

 

6*. And when all else fails, crack open the gin! I won't lie to you all.

*Warning this tip is not useful in the slightest, apply with caution.

 

Much love

Carla x

11th April 2016 | Life Update

 

 Good day you patient lot!

I've been gone for a good week because basically work got cray cray! and that's what lets me live in my little house, and do all the lovely things I wanna do so that's what I have to focus on when I'm stressed up to my eyeballs - Soz and that.

 

So lets update you

 

Fish Tank Dramas: Last Sunday our fish tank leaked, we realised it had been for a little while as we started to notice the floor coming up. The Fish tank is 6ft x 3ft-ish and holds a shisha tonne of water so we needed that sorted asap!

We headed off to Notcutts in Norwich to look at fish tanks threw a strop about how expensive they all were, came home realised we had to buy one anyway and then Joe went back and ended up purchasing two smaller tanks to accommodate all the fishies that live in our previous big tank.

Sorted. Oh and the floor needs replacing *sobs*
 

 Work Work Work: For anyone that doesn't know, we have our own company supplying bespoke timber buildings, specialising in Shepherds Huts like the below. With this type of business you obviously get peak periods during the year, and the Easter bank holiday is THE kick starter for this period, so I was swamped in the office and been working late most nights to catch up. Hence the no show on my blog. but I can happily say I'm back in control and things are A-Okay! 

Fitness - HA!: The gym also had to take a step back due to the work. I didn't get to the gym all of last week, and ate like a stereotypical uni-student - it wasn't great, and made me feel sluggish and meh. This week I'm gonna be back on it so no biggie.

 

Camera: I'm slowly getting to grips with my new Olympus Pen Lite E-PL7! I love it and currently find myself searching for fellow bloggers who also own it and have been kind enough to blog about the fundamentals on setting it up / using it. (hint, if you know any let me know!)It's my current baby, and comes with me almost everywhere now in this snazzy little handbag I purchased for it from Clarks.

Pole Fitness: I'm now officially doing inverts in pole, and it's the scariest and best thing ever! Ooh I also now work on a spinning pole as well as the static pole, and although it's terrifying if you kick off and spin for the next 2 days its so much more fun. My arms though...I have never known them to ache like it!

Gimmie the guns!

Wedding planning: I now have flowers half sorted, and make up sorted, by my lovely make up artist friend for life Kelly. We had a lovely catch up over a pub dinner, and made me all happy that no matter how much time passes we can just pick a date and it's like nothing has changed.

1 & 1/2 things ticked off the to do  list

 

Hang Over: And the last thing to add is yesterday I experienced the 2nd worst hangover of my life. I'm usually quite good, and avoid the hangover - but oh man it was horrendous. We had a brilliant night at Joes dads for Fiona's birthday, and much fizz was consumed! luckily I left about 30mins prior to it really kicking in, and so most of my drunken behaviour happened at home...which was fun for Joe to deal with, who for once was the sober one! Still feeling a little delicate today, but nothing a few gallons of lemon water wont resolve.

 

So that's all of that and you're all up to date.
Have a lovely day. 

Much love 
Carla x   

 

 

 

 

  

28th March 2016 | Gone But Not Forgotten

Good morning you chirpy lot!

 

Sorry I have been away, it started as a long weekend, and ended with me feeling a bit poorly and so I have been absent for almost a week.

 

But in that time away I have so much to update you with, so grab a coffee as you know I like to natter!

 

The holiday started off with an unexpected days holiday. We weren't planning on taking the bank holiday days off, but Thursday evening the green eyed monster rose it grim head from the depths and convinced us we needed it. It turned into the nicest day ever, the sun was shining both Jenna and Vicki with little Freya in tow were all free for brunch, so we headed off into the city. After the obligatory bank holiday lay in of course! We met at the Britannia Café in Norwich Centre, in the little church next to Tesco express if you are local. Cant remember what I actually ate now, but I remember it having lots of fluff in...nice.

Oh side note, prior to my meeting the girls in the city, I popped into the local Fiat dealership in Norwich to price up a sparkly new Fiat500 Lounge, which hopefully will grace the presence of my life in the not too distant future - raise your hand for being a blogger cliché.

After eating we went for a bit of a browse and a ticked a few things off our combined to do lists, followed by a smoothie before parting ways.

The rest of the day I honestly cant remember (my fault for zero blogging motivation due to my fail at taking ANY photos, which made me sad), but I think it went something along the lines of lay on the sofa with Joe, play with the pooches, eat a take away with friends, drink some wine, sleep.

Perfect!

 

Saturday to my best of my knowledge was miserable, and spent wallowing in the fond memory of the previous days sunshine.

Day off wasted

 

Sunday was also grim as far as the weather was concerned (I'm such a typical Brit, having to note on what the weather was like each day) I had a visit to Pauline's new house in the morning, which I can confirm is flipping gorgeous! although a bit further away from me than I would like *sobs*. After the complimentary tour, we spent the time measuring up for curtains, and setting up her new TV. It was nice to get a bit of catch up time, as life is so busy and I miss her.  

Later in the day me and Joe, along with the rest of my family tottered off to my Nanny & Grandad's for our Easter Sunday get together. We do this every year for a few differed occasions, it's lovely to catch up and test our family bonds by seeing how long we can all tolerate each other with minimal alcohol. Ha, I obviously love them all very much, and really enjoy a get together especially one that involves chocolate. Although I was good this year and managed to avoid all but one, which I can confirm is gone and was delicious.

Zero regrets

 

Monday was back to work with no motivation and my headache which seems to hit me every evening at the moment started to get worse, and I also have a rash which keeps popping up and disappearing, and then popping up somewhere else, which is fun!

 

But fast forward to Wednesday which is when things got exciting as I toddled into the city to buy my first ever big girl blogger camera! The highly recommended, blogged about and loved Olympus Pen Lite E-PL7 in retro silver, with the 14 - 42mm lens and as it is a now no longer produced the price had dropped dramatically. I also managed to nab the last one Jessops had, which they got sent to the Norwich store for me to view, but as it was the last one it was ex display, meaning it had the minutest of scratches on the bottom from being plonked on and off the stand, so I got a further £20 off - thank you very much Jessops. Also the silver version is already around £40 cheaper than the black or white, which was perfect as the silver is super retro looking and by far my favourite of the three.

So I now I just need to learn how to work this beauty!

Free camera lessons anybody...?

 

Photos to follow, as you can imagine there will now be a bombardment of (hopefully) beautiful photos crammed into my blog, and also on my Facebook.

 

If you have made it this far, and don't already, come like my Facebook page as it's where I most regularly update - especially since the Instagram spat about notifications.

Find me here

 

 

As always, much love

Carla x

24th March 2016 | Did Someone Say Cake?

Good morning you beautiful bunch of people, today I'm talking about cake, if you know me personally it will come of no surprise to hear that. However this isn't just some ordinary cake I'm talking about today, nope I have found our wedding cake! *Girly squeals*

I think I'm right in saying this is my first wedding related post, and that's probably due to the fact that we are being extremely blasé about planning our do, and should probably pull our fingers out as it's less than 6 months away...

 

Ahh well

 

The whole process has been a bit stress free, and I'm waiting for the chaos to kick in as that's what happens when you organise a wedding right? you get mega stressed and panic about the whole thing and then wonder why you are doing this instead of just faffing off on holiday with the money...

 

Touch wood it stays this way (if I'm looking back at this in 4 months time thinking you smug bitch - sorry!)

But yeah I have the cake sorted! Yay, I was struggling a little bit for the cake, as what I want is simple so begrudged paying what I had been quoted from a few places, and I wanted a cake maker who had personally been recommended. We'll that half happened as in Helen Anderson's YouTube video (find Helen here) she recommended a local lady she knows called Elise, find Glamourbakes on Instagram here, and the cupcakes she had purchased were gorgeous! So I pinged off an email to Elise and now yay I have a cake sorted!

Obviously I'm not going to upload photos of the style of cake I am interested in, but here's some photos of cake from Pinterest...YUM!

Next big thing to sort is honeymoon! Dream destination would be Bora Bora, it had always been the Maldives since I was a little girl, but Joe took me to Hakuraa Huraa in the Maldives in 2014 ( wow is that right?) and we got engaged which was THE DREAM! 

However we are not particularly saving too hard at the min, so maybe that is a fantasy. If not Joe was liking the sound of St Lucia which isn't exactly slumming it either!

Maaan I need some sunshine in my life right now.

 

Hope you are having a lovely day, comment your honeymoon destination or your dream destination for some inspiration please!

 

Much love

Carla x



23rd March 2016 | Camera Troubles, Puppy Grooming & New Shoes

Good evening you lovely people, I have had a great day fuelled by mostly too much coffee, so have spent the afternoon wired and scatty - lucky me!

 

I got all my work done early, and had a couple of hours I could kill so popped into the city with the goal of purchasing a new camera, but not just any old camera (oh no no no!) I was after the blogger cliché Olympus pen e-pl7. Its beautiful, and most importantly soon to be discontinued (so I'm told by the helpful staff at Jessops) resulting in a nice little price decrease which I had been made aware of by the lovely Carly Rowena. Bringing it tumbling all the way down to my budget - YES! So I tottered off, with high hopes I would be bringing my baby home with me today so obviously the last one had been sold yesterday...and they had no more in the warehouse...and you can't buy the deal I wanted online...I was starting to see my beautiful camera fade into the distance, but alas Ipswich store saved the day with 1 camera left in stock, and it's in silver which is the cheapest option (winner) and it's ex display so can potentially get some more dollar off (bonus round winner!)So I will update you on Friday whether I buy it or not (hint - I will be buying it Eeek!)

I had the puppies booked in for a groom at scruffy to fluffy and although the whole time I was in Jessops I was clock watching, it seemed that as soon as I left the shop I hadn't the foggiest clue that I was in a rush, and whilst on my way back to the car decided on a leisurely stroll around H&M.

In the queue with a baggy, long classic white shirt, a basic grey v neck oversized tee, and the most beautiful brushed fur leopard print Chelsea boots in the sale at £10! which I actually broke a shelf to get my hands on (Oops, sorry H&M) I suddenly remembered I was supposed to have had the puppies dropped off 10 minutes ago. Shit.  I was in a queue, with no signal, a missed call from the groomers, and my beautiful last size 5 sale boots in hand. . . so as I (obvs) waited to pay for my boots (I was no way leaving those babies in the shop) I tried to text for help, I tried to call the groomers praying my phone would find signal and help me out - it didn't. So after leaving H&M I managed to get a call of help out and Debbie thankfully dropped the puppies off at the groomers for me, and I turned up 10 minutes later all flustered and apologetic and please don't take it out on my babies haircut!

I then spent the rest of my afternoon working, completely wired and in a bit of a flustered haze until I had to go pick the babies up who look completely adorable. I tried to bribe them into a few photos - it didn't work well. I will leave you with the few images I managed to snap.

Prim (or Prim the princess as she is known) is the caramel & white Shih Tzu, and Luna the black Shih-Poo! Yes that's pronounced how you think it is...(shih Tzu x Toy Poodle) aka my babies.

 

Much love

Carla x

21st March 2016 | L'Oreal Elvive Extraordinary Clay - A Word of Warning Review

Good morning lovely people, todays post comes in the form of a review / warning of the much raved about new collection from L'Oreal, a re balancing clay collection for people who suffer from oily roots and dry ends - can I get a hallelujah!

When I first saw a review of these shampoo (which was pretty hard to avoid seems everybody and their sister had been sent the collection for review) I was like GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE!

Not only did they promise the holy grail of hair care for us poor folk whose roots refuse to make cute manageable second day hair a thing! But they were impressing the heck out of the beauty gurus. So I trotted off to my local Boots (As they are conveniently on 3 for 2) and grabbed the trio you can see pictured above, Shampoo, Conditioner and a pre shampoo mask, there is also a dry shampoo, but I have enough of that in my possession to last me till approximately 2045.

And they were amazing! my hair was clean, refreshed, light and most importantly gave me great hair for 3 whole darn days (the dream) I was singing their praises to anyone that would listen. 

BUT THEN...

I started to notice, mainly when going to bed that my scalp was starting to get super itchy, and a little sore . I ignored it because you-know super nice hair! But it started to become unbearable, my scalp was getting dryer and dryer and I was using the product twice a week as opposed to 3 / 4 times a week with my usual shampoos and conditioners. I stopped using the pre shampoo mask, and it eased it a little but it was still there and annoying as hell.

BUT EVEN WORSE...

Finally it became too much and I stopped using the products all together, and the itching / soreness has stopped but now my hair gets oily twice as quick as it did before I was using the products!!! I can wash my hair in the evening, and by the next afternoon already feel its needs doing again - FFS.

Now I'm no expert, but in my opinion I feel like the product has possibly stripped my hair of it's natural oils giving me this wow look at this fantastic oil free hair you've always wanted! But now my hair is over producing oil to compensate YAY!

So back to my ex I go - dry shampoo with an apology that I tried to rid you from my life.

 

Have you had this problem? please let me know, you can find me on

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Much love

Carla x