Little Catch-Up

Well hello me hearties, I seem to have deviated somewhat from usual weekly routine of sharing a little life-related update with you, and a quick scan back through recent posts tells me I haven't done so since the 2nd June! Shocking. I thought it had been a week, but a month!?

There have been one or two reasons for my neglecting to fill you in on recent goings on, number one of them being that until the end of last week, June was just too uneventful to photograph. I didn't go anywhere, and I haven't been buying anything as I'm attempting to conserve some pennies, so that didn't make for a very exciting set of snaps. Secondly, I've been extremely busy with the mundane - namely paperwork, appointments and sorting through junk. The joy.

However, last Wednesday the hubby and I did jump in the car for a bit of a road trip, which while still loosely related to paperwork, was a barrel of laughs. We went to the state capital for a couple of days and stayed in our favourite little hotel in front of the sea, so naturally I was happy from the off.

On that first evening, the football was on, and unsurprisingly, the other half was eager to watch it. Since it was Brazil vs Uruguay in the Confederation Cup, it was of no interest to me whatsoever. Shopping, on the other hand, was. So the plan was that he could sit and watch the game, beer in hand, while I whiled away the time visiting Mac and Zara at the nearby shopping mall. All was going well, until I set foot in the mall only to be told it was about to close due to yet more protests. These have been a bi-weekly occurrence over the past fortnight, and are mainly against the corruption within the Brazilian government. 

For anyone who is interested, some 13 billion reais (local currency, 3=£1) of public money miraculously 'disappeared' last year alone, and people want to know why. The health service and education are so poorly neglected over here, and yet the people who are responsible for running and improving the country are simply pocketing what they can and coasting along. It's pretty sickening really. I think what has really kicked things off is the fast approaching World Cup, which will be held in Brazil next year. The amount that has been spent on stadiums and the like has simply disgusted people, especially when you think about all the areas in which investment is desperately needed.

Anyway, enough about that. So I couldn't go shopping. Cue me stomping back to the hotel and sulking over some cheese and wine until the game was over. By the time it had finished, we were both pretty shattered, but we decided to get our gladrags on and head out for a bit of dinner. We settled on Mexican, and devoured a huge plate of nachos so quickly that I didn't even have the chance to take a photo. Washed down with a Bloody Mary for me (I was feeling a little bit fragile that day) and Mexican style beers which were mixed with freshly squeezed limes and rimmed with salt and pepper for the Mr, we turned in fairly early as we had to be up at 6am for an appointment.

On Thursday, we hauled ourselves out of bed and took full advantage of the breakfast buffet before heading to our appointment, and with that out of the way we were finally able to hit the shopping mall! Despite having promised myself I'd leave both Zara and Mac well alone (one out of two isn't bad...), I did end up popping into the former and bagging myself a couple of bargains in the sale. I say bargains, but they were still pretty expensive really. If you'd like to see what I got then keep an eye out, as I may well be doing a haul video very soon.

Once we were all shopped out, we headed for an iced coffee and then back to the hotel for a nap. I can't usually sleep during the day, but over the past week or so I have been out like a light the second my head hit the pillow. At least on this day, I did have the excuse of having been up really early.

When we woke up, the hubby kindly informed me that there was yet another football game to be watched. I'm making him sound really bad here, but he's quite good about his sports really. He doesn't obsess about his favourite team, or even bother to watch half of their games, but when Brazil are playing he does tend to get quite into it, and I'm happy to concede that....most of the time.

It was decided that we would head down to the beach, where there was a nice little bar showing the football. Fine by me - I took my new book (The Secret Sister by Elizabeth Lowell), ordered myself a Mojito and put my feet up to watch the sunset, trying my best to ignore the over-excited gaggle of men to my left. Little did I know that not a single goal would be scored, and that then it would go to extra time and then penalties (yawn), by which time the wind had got up and I was freezing.

Once the most boring football game ever was over, we went back to the hotel, showered, went out for a delicious Thai meal and rounded things off with a few tangerine and basil sake cocktails at a local Samba bar. Can't complain about that, it was a treat.

By the morning, we were running a bit low on cash so decided to hit the road and head home, and that's where the fun ended, making way for a rather dull weekend at home.

Since then it's been back to the paperwork mountain, but I do plan to have climbed out from underneath it by the end of tomorrow evening. It's also going to be my last ever day in my current job, which is both exciting and daunting, but mainly the first as it means I am all the closer to goinggg hommme!! Yay.

Speaking of which, a group of friends from back home have organised a big camping trip for us all down in Cornwall at the end of August, which I'm very excited about - I really can't wait to get everyone back together again. It doesn't happen very often, because we all live in different places now, but whenever we do manage it it's always amazing - I don't stop laughing when I'm with those ladies! This is going to be the first time we've done more of a 'couples' type trip, which does make me feel a little bit old, but it should be a good chance for everyone's other halves to get to know each other as there are still some of us who haven't met. 

Anyway, that's you all up to date on what I've been up to lately, and hopefully it won't be too long until I feel I have something else worth sharing on that front.

What have you been doing lately?

xx

Little Catch-Up

- Current reading material  -  Baking pretty cupcakes  -  Chilled afternoon with green tea and magazines  -  Friday treat  -  The cat asleep in a drawer full of my clothes..he'll literally nap anywhere!  -  Bad photo but trying to show my new Mac Craving lippy.  Alas, it didn't really work out  -  Cake!  -  Glitter nails  -  Crab lunch with the hubby  -

I haven't done a little photo update in an absolute age, mainly because my phone was being uncooperative and refusing to share my gallery to Picasa, which was always how I had gone about it before. But this weekend, I was forced to find a new way to upload photos to Blogger, as perhaps you know if you read yesterday's post. So, as I am now using Photobucket to host the images for the blog, I thought I might as well share the images on my phone in the same way, et voila.

I hope you beauts have all had a lovely weekend. Mine was quite nice and relaxing, up until yesterday, when I spent SIX HOURS at the hairdresser's. And missed the bbloggers chat. Believe me, this was not my intention, but the look I was going for required some lightening, and as I already had various layers of dye on my hair, the colour just refused to lift. But of course, once you've started, you can't really stop, so there was no option but to wait it out. In the end, it did lift - a lot. In fact, too much. So in the end, I left with my hair much lighter than it should have been! Le sigh. The rest is going to be a bit of a DIY job after work tomorrow, when I will attempt to get it toned down a bit to the colour I originally wanted. What a kerfuffle (yesss, managed to squeeze that word into a blog post - if one good thing came out of this then it's that)!

Other than that, it's been a pretty uneventful week, but I'm very excited at the prospect of finishing work for the Christmas holidays in two weeks.

What was the highlight of your week?

Are you feeling festive yet?

xx

Week in Pictures #3

1. Sunset on the river

2. Found a favourite Primark ring I thought I'd lost!

3. Mmmm....cake

4. Getting some crafting inspiration

5. My cat being cheeky

6. What I wore one day this week....it involved studs, of course!

7. Another OOTD, featured in Friday's post.

8. Ebay goodies arrived in cute packaging!

9. Benefit samples to try out!

It's been a relatively chilled week this week. We have spent a lot of time with the hubby's sister and her children, who were down visiting the in-laws for a couple of weeks, and as I mentioned before, we have basically done nothing but eat! Seriously, I don't know what it is with that side of the family, but when they get together, all they do is make cakes and desserts and force-feed everyone second and third helpings of everything! Haha. Not really the best timing when I've just lost a couple of pounds for 'Summer', but I'm hardly likely to be getting my bikini on any time soon if this grey weather continues, so I think I'll let myself off!

I've started taking pictures of my outfits a bit more this week, as I have been wanting to throw the odd outfit post into the mix on here for a while now. But that doesn't mean I have abandoned my beauty posts, though I'm aware I haven't really done any reviews and such like this week. Well, worry not, because I've got plenty lined up for you, including reviews of Benefit Hoola, Dallas, Coralista and Posie Tint, as well as Revlon Photoready Foundation and Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse, amongst others.

I dug my 'Queen of Crafts' book out this week, as I am determined to find the time to get creative by the end of the month. This book is by Jazz Domino Holly, and I received it for Christmas from my sister. It's a good read, but I had been hoping for more clothes and accessories DIYs. I think I have now decided what I am going to do though, having seen the screw-in studs you can get on Ebay on Gh0st Parties' post this weekend. Given my current all-consuming obsession with all-things studded, I am going to basically stud every item of clothing I own to within an inch of it's life! And bake, of course. I STILL haven't got around to it! Good job I gave myself until the end of the month!

Hope you've all had a splendid weekend! What did you get up to?

Do you have any crafting projects in the pipeline?

xx

Little Catch-up

Hello lovelies, hope everyone has had a great weekend so far. For me, it's been a pretty chilled one, hanging out in coffee shops and having lunch with the hubby, drinking huge cups of tea and catching up on blog reading, and browsing the internet for new finds. This morning was hugely self indulgent, as we got up and had breakfast, watched TV for a bit, and then crawled back into bed for snuggles and a siesta. I absolutely love the fact that on Sundays, things like that seem to be totally acceptable.

I had several blog posts planned for over the weekend, but unfortunately I wasn't feeling very well yesterday and so I didn't get very far with them. However, I hope you all enjoyed reading my 'Lipsticks I Can't Live Without' post, as I had been looking forward to sharing my favourites with you for a while, so I was happy to have got the photos together for that one.

This week has been a pretty hectic one again, as I've had lots of paperwork to get through. It's also been one of those weeks where the house just won't seem to stay tidy, so I feel like I've been trying to sort it out every day!

On Wednesday, the hubby and I went out for Japanese, which was amazing as always. I know raw fish is not everyone's cup of tea, and I have to admit that I was totally against it in the past. But being the sort of person who will try anything once, I gave it a go, and now it is one of my favourite foods. And I'm not just talking about the California rolls (rice rolls) - I really go for it when I get the chance to have sushi, and love it all, even the Sashimi (which, for those of you that don't know, is literally just raw fish slices). My other half loves it too, so we always get a big combo and wash it down with some lovely hot Sake - perfect!

I got a few little bits in the post this week that I had ordered online. One of them was a Revlon Lip Butter in Cherry Tart, which I mentioned in my previous post, and I also got some vintage shorts and some aztec-print ones from Ebay. I love getting things in the post, it's so much more exciting that way. Although it's not quite the same when you know what you are getting! Anyway, I will take some snaps of those bits for you when I get the chance and pop them in a post later in the week.

The other thing I bought was this cute vintage tin (pictured above) to keep my earrings in. I have got so many earrings, but whenever I go to put some in, I can only ever find one of them, and it drives me mad. I did already have a big case that I keep all my other jewellery in, but it was becoming a bit chaotic, so I decided I needed to keep my earrings separately in order to actually be able to find them! I absolutely adore vintage tins, and the fact that this one is a) heart-shaped and b) covered in strawberries meant that it just had to be mine. I'm planning on scouring some charity shops and car boot sales now, to get a few more to store my rings and other bits and bobs.

In other news, I have been enjoying trying out my new Mac Matchmaster foundation this week, and my little website is coming along nicely. I will tell you a bit more about that at a later stage, I promise, but for now I'm just going to say that I'm very excited about it and can't wait to launch it!

I think that's all for this week really, it's been a pretty standard one. I'm going to compile this week's Weekend Wishlist for you now, so expect to see that post up before the day is out! I'm also going to do some more blog reading this evening, and try something new on my nails.

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Sunday. How have you been spending  it?

xx