Shoe-gasm

Today has been a happy day :)

Today was the first time (drumroll please)...

a fellow blogger commented on one of my posts! Not just a friend that I have emotionally blackmailed into following me *fake enthusiasm*. A person found me, and liked me, and is following me. I am WELL CHUFFED. And that's how I started my day at 7:47am!

Please go and check out fellow blogger Ashley's blog at http://www.ashleyborysewich.blogspot.com/ - I am such a whore for beauty blogs so this is right up my street, naturally.

Another reason I am super smiley today is that I can't wait to go home to my new babies. After much deliberation about whether my credit card could handle a manic depressive shopping spree, I splurged. And oh baby, did I splurge good and hard.

Love at first sight, right?

And if I didn't have a damaged tendon in my ankle I would be wearing these to the supermarket, to work, to play, and even to bed. If I trip over the damn cat again, I swear it's war!

These beauties are £79.99 in River Island - they've sold out online, but you can still pick them up in store if you're hot on it ;)

Guess What...?

Aaargh! I can hardly contain my excitement to tell you, that I simply cannot wait until my usual blogging day (Wednesday) to hopefully spread some cheer.

Not usually one to blow my own trumpet, but attempt #2 of making le macarons KICKED ASS! So here's me, blowing my own trumpet. Parp!

I don't like to be rubbish at anything, I take it very personally and last week's failed attempt left me with a throbbing vein in my head and an insatiable desire to eat the entire contents of my fridge to lift my spirits. Onions excluded of course. So when my little babies grew feet and started to rise, I smiled wider than a kid with a cardboard box. Big time.

Filled with Baileys buttercream to make them extra special, I gave these as a gift to Mama Gill for her mummy's day - and the mega squidges she gave me tell me they were a hit :)

Other than that I'm still feeling pretty pants at the moment. I keep having incredible urges to do the classic Ron Burgundy "I'm stuck in a glass cage of emotion!" scream from Anchorman (incidentally one of my favourite films), but fail to see a way to adapt this into a suitable expression of emotion in the office environment. Another day, perhaps.

So I'm off to buy shoes instead...oh my, I can already feel the rush!

Sweet Treats

Baring in mind that this is a blog about Happiness, I feel it prudent to mention that I haven't exactly been in the best of spirits for the last week or so. I'm finding that it doesn't matter how much of a 'naturally sunny disposition' you have or how much you try to look for the little things that brighten your day, there are always going to be times when you're completely overwhelmed by life - but it is ok to feel this way! I have somehow managed to progress from an unwillingness to leave my duvet to being short-tempered with cheery salespeople on the phone at work, but, progress all the same.

Last night, trying to put a smile on my face and also take my mind off things, I decided to try and recreate some of the Parisien magic I experienced almost 2 years ago in the shape of...macarons.

don't you feel more cheerful just looking at these beauties?

Oh, le macaron!

£30 worth of equipment and two attempted batches of basic recipe later = EPIC FAIL. Now, I do feel I should mention that macarons are notoriously difficult to make, so I'm not beating myself up massively over it. But...I also fear that my less than savoury performance has pushed me one step closer to a complete emotional breakdown!

I have spent my afternoon googling tips, so with fresh spirits I will be going home tonight to start a 3-day-prep-mission for attempt #2.

Other than that, I plan to pick up my spirits over the next few days by - 

• attending a fundraising event called JapanTease - in a Hawaiian themed bar with special guest Burlesque acts for the night - for the tsunami appeal
• hopefully, successfully creating at least one edible batch of macarons in time for Mothers Day
• causing a sensation at work by wearing inappropriate floral trousers
• going to visit my family for the weekend
• consumption of Cadbury's creme eggs

*duvet optional.

Look at the shiny shiny!

I can't believe that after many months of writing about things that make me happy, I had forgotten about the biggest thing that brings me daily joy...

This is the hummingbird necklace by iconic jewellery designer Alex Monroe. I literally cannot survive the day without wearing my hummingbird, even though it spikes me in my sleep and gets tangled in my disgraceful gypsy hair.

Those who know me well know that I have a bit of an affinity with hummingbirds, as not only are they beautiful, colourful and majestic (a bit like myself obviously) but they symbolise gratitude - you know, that thing I keep banging on about!

So my little friend serves as a daily reminder to me to be grateful. And it's pretty :)

I am lucky enough to also own the double lily ring which was a gift for my 21st birthday, but am lusting after many other items including the crow feather ring. Check out http://www.alexmonroe.com/ if you fancy having a cheeky peak inside his treasure trove.

Bristol :)

I was wrong. Making statements like 'Bristol is always sunny!' are particularly dangerous when you have an impending trip planned. At one point I was wearing jersey body, tights over jersey body, leggings over tights, socks over leggings, t-shirt over jersey body, cardigan over t-shirt, leather jacket over cardigan, and snood 3 times my height wrapped over everything. Quite the picture of trampy chic!

Obvious complaints about weather aside, I had a brilliant time with my chum doing lots of Bristolly things (I'm aware that's not a word)...





The awesomeness that is Swinky's sweet shop

More Swinky goodness

Traditional Morrocan Mint Tea - yum!

The Morrocan Tea Room in Bristol Market

From the pictures it largely looks like my trip to Bristol was nothing more than a celebration of food and drink. Point taken!

Because my Blackberry is such a willy these limited photos are all that I managed to take and are working Blackberry's signature blur and muted colours - winner. But, we did have plenty more fun times doing very touristy things and hanging out in nice independent joints, which makes a refreshing change from the chain-store saturated Liverpool. On a side note, did you know Phil Potts (the sandwich extraordinaire) is part of a chain? No corporate cucumbers please!!!

Good Times and Resolutions

Hope everyone had as much fun on pancake day as I did! There was red wine and American pancakes a-plenty at our pancake party, easily the most enjoyable Shrove Tuesday to date :)

And in the spirit of Lent, I thought that now would be the perfect time to share with you my new resolutions for my happiness project. Ok, so technically I'm not giving anything up (like chocolate/men/alcohol - you know, the usual), but I will be giving up some bad habits and free time!

Following on from the book I blogged about recently - The Happiness Project by Gretchen Ruben - I indulged in a modest splurge (as she puts it in her book) and purchased a copy. In it she sets out the 12 areas of her life that she would like to improve; in the hope that the changes implemented will boost overall happiness, she focuses on one area per month and sets resolutions to keep.

I'm too dense to work out if you can share a document on a blog post, but heres an example of what mine looks like (poorly copied into Microsoft Paint - seriously, I'm not age 5 any more)...

You can only see a few months here, but I have managed to come up with an entire 12! My resolutions include things like focus on friendships, pursue a passion, giving, increase my potential, and focus on fun. If you can see my little smiley faces in the end column, these indicate the ones I've already completed - so I have already successfully completed all of February's resolutions and am making good progress on March!

I can already comment that I'm feeling much happier after following through on all of February's little tasks - just doing simple things like working out a repayment plan for my credit card and clearing out 5 boxes of stuff for the charity shop have helped to relieve some of the constant level of anxiety I was feeling!

And, as per February's resolution, I am off to Bristol for 4 days tomorrow to visit my friend Maxine. I can hardly wait for another drunken duet of the classic song Kiss (by Prince) in Mr. Wolf's bar, and Bristol's finest PieMinster pies. And later concluding that the obvious late night snack would be toast-on-prawns...or prawn surprise as we like to call it.



me and my pal in Brizzol





Post

Today's posting is rather imaginatively about...well, post.

This makes me happy for many reasons:

1) I like interesting envelopes
2) You can never have too many
    shiny silver stars
3) It is not a bill from 02
4) Declarations of love are
    ever-cheering
5) Receiving something that someone
    has thoughtfully taken time out for is infinitely
    better than a poke on facebook.

CUP-Cake

My wonderful friend Maxine bought me a very thoughtful gift for Christmas, which I only just got round to trying out a couple of weeks ago. This was the result...

They are cake moulds in the shape of cups. CUP-cakes! And they even come with these adorable matching saucers to serve said cupcakes on. Oooh...how terribly British.

I felt massively smiley when I proudly rescued these from the oven, and was doubly pleased to enjoy the tasting process :)

Scrub-a-dub-dub

There is nothing more indulgent than treating yourself to a nice hot bath or shower after a long day, especially if you've got a range of spa-worthy products that you look forward to using.

I've been a massive fan of Soap & Glory products for years now, but those creative geniuses just keep producing more gems for me to try out. And with 3 for 2 at Boots on all Soap & Glory products right now, what better excuse?!

This product makes me SO happy it's unreal. And while, yes, it does do a fantastic job of leaving skin silky smooth (in fact, this is easily the best scrub I've ever used), that's not the reason I use it. The scrub is heavily scented with an overwhelmingly delicious maple syrup smell, which means I absolutely cannot wait to jump straight in the shower every morning. It puts me in the best mood before work - there really is no way you can be stroppy when you smell like a pancake. Nom nom nom.

The Happiness Project

On my recent excursion to Waterstones, I stumbled into the 'dreaded' self-help section. I can never quite understand why it is imperative that I not be seen here, maybe because I'm not:

a) quitting smoking
b) a sex addict
c) recently divorced

But anyway, I was simply looking for another book to do with finding happiness. So far I've read The Power and The Secret (by Rhonda Byrne), and another book called Read Me, I'm Magical (can't remember author's name sorry). These have been great, but instead of reading someone laying down the laws of banishing negativity etc, I am really looking to find someone else's real life experience of looking for happiness themselves and how they set out to achieve it.

I really am finding that setting the goal of 'be happier' is quite ambitious if you don't know what you're doing!

In said self-help section, I noticed a book titled 'The Happiness Project'. Ooh, now I'm listening. And this very book looks to be exactly what I have been looking for. The author, Gretchen Rubin, has been on her own personal quest and tells us all about her experiences so far. Unfortunately I didn't have enough pennies at the time to make the purchase, but I've found the website today...

http://www.happiness-project.com/

and I am absolutely made up to see that Gretchen has started a campaign, The 2011 Happiness Challenge - I have obviously signed up :)

It's really great to see all the comments people have made about how they vow to make 2011 happier years for themselves and the goals they have pledged. Anyone can join, go for it!