Charity Shop Challange

I've been inspired by the blog Second Hand or Bare Bottomed to challange myself, for the month of April, to put together an outfit of purely secondhand clothes and accessories, and I'm so excited!

Everyday during this coming month I'll be posting shots of my outfits- look out for my awkward 'fashion blogger' poses- and revieling just how little I paid for each item.  Most outfits will probably come to less than £10! 

Here are the rules;

• All items must be second hand, purchased from a charity shop, vintage fairs or hand-me-downs.
• Each day a new outfit must be posted- no rewearing an outfit, that's cheating!
• Items such as tights, leggings and vest tops are excempt from the challange- just my personal choice, really.

Easy enough really, I'd guess that even before I thought to try this challange a good 3rd or so of my wardrobe was already second hand, but I have gone an picked up a few more items in anticipation too.

One last thing, I'm going to Paris with my family during the Easter holidays, and have already picked out a (largly non-second hand) wardrobe for the trip, so for just three days, please forgive me! 

Sound's Fun, no?

Freya May

David turns 24!

Happy Birthday for yesterday to hubby!

Love you always :D

Freya May

Mini Fridge Cheese Cakes

I L.O.V.E. Cheesecake, itz my favrate!

And I keep seeing pins of an amazing idea all over pinterest- cupcake cheesecake!

Source: annies-eats.com via Freya on Pinterest

I love it even more.

So, being super lazy, I have had a go at making my own chilled cheesecake recipe, which takes 20 minutes from start to finish!

Makes 18ish

Ingredients

• 150g Digestive Busicutes
• 2 Tablespoons of Butter/margarine
• 285ml pot of double cream- I use Emelea for lower cals
• 300g cream cheese
• 1/2 Vinilla pod/ teaspoon of vanilla extract
• Half a lemon peel- grated
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1/4 Cup of sugar/ sweetener

1. Melt the butter in a small pan and crush the buscites.  Mix the buscuits in with the butter and devide the mixture between cupcase cases, roughly one teaspoon of mixture in each case.

2. Whip the cream, add the cream cheese, the vanilla seeds or extract, the lemon and the sugar.  Devide this on top of the buscute base, aprox. two teaspoons for each cake.

3. At this point you can add fresh berrys, lemon rind or chocolate on the top, if you so wish.

4. Put in the fridge for a hour or so, then enjoy!

Only 164 cals per cake.

Try it, enjoy!

Freya May

Quick Question for You

Do people ever walk along the street like this...

No. Right?

Then why do people find it necessary to tell you to cheer up when your walking down the street with a perfectly normal 'neutral' expression?? 

First off- 'It may never happen'- you don't know what has already happened!

And, secondly, the above point.  No one walks around looking like a cheesy idiot when they're on their own.

Anyways, rant over, random dude on the street, keep your comments to your self, please!

Freya May

p.s. I'm pretty tired!

Sniff...

I got a cold :(

Source: coolbeancake.tumblr.com via Freya on Pinterest

We all know I'm going to be fine, though I'm planning on making hubby sing 'Soft Kitty' to me, and I do quite fancy this jumper to get the sympathy vote :D

Freya May

Girl Crush...

So, it's time to admit it.  I have a girl crush.  I have for a while.  And it wont come as a surprise to some of you.  So, here goes, Emma Watson is my girl crush :D

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Here's just a few reasons why...

• She is Hermione, who I have idolised since the age of 9(ish).  So, by rights I guess I should hate her for 'stealing my dream role', but I just can't.
• She is smart- who gets 10 A's and A*'s at GCSE while working on block buster movies?!?  That's some one I can look up to.
• She is beautiful.
• She is good- she supports UNICEF and People Tree (Fairtrade).
• She is so personable and comes across as so friendly on interviews and the Harry Potter extras.  I just think, given the chance, we could have been really good friends ;)

And, a ton of other reasons too!  Who is your celebrity or girl crush?  Please, tell me, make me feel less of an loser!

Freya May

Take Your Husband To Work Day!

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Yes, today I got to take Husband to work with me!  It was such a surreal experience having him in a part of my world that has been exclusively mine up until now.  But he was on his best behaviour!  Hasn't shown me up once, yet. 

And the best bit, not bus for me this week!

He's coming all week for his 'Second School Experiance' for his teacher training, observing lessons and meeting the teachers in the science department for advice and stuff.

He seemed to enjoy today, and has already felt like there is stuff to take away and apply at work- after just one day, I'm impressed!

I guess seeing the ins and outs of a school can make you focus on the negatives sometimes, so it's really nice to have Dave there and get his take on life at my school.  He'll never know it the same way I do, different perspectives (teacher vs. admin) and time will be the two biggest factors in this.  But, still, having him in my world always makes things better- even when I had an insane day like today!

So, I think I'd recommend it, take your husband to work, see what he makes of your work life and work friends.  For us, it's been good, so far!

Freya May

Mothering Sunday

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!  I hope you've all remembered to, at least, send your mother a card.

We've had a lovely day!  Been to the Baptist Church in town this morning which was really great.  We made prayer cards to hang on a tree, and card decorating and planted a flower, all in the name of worship and prayer.  It was dead fun! People were really friendly and they've loads of weekly activites and student type socials to get stuck in with.  We're away next Sunday, but we'll be back again soon!

Anyway- We invited both our mother's, David's dad and my little sis over for sunday lunch to treat our mums to a relaxed and, hopefully, stress free day. 

Roast chicken dinner, dessert, cupcakes made by little sis, and a very happy day! 

Freya May

The Hunger Games

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In anticipation of the up coming film, Husband and I have downloaded the book onto our Kindle, then had a desperate race to finish it first!

This morning I have crowned myself the victor, using the time Dave naps after work and my lovely lazy Saturday morning to race through the fantastic adventure.

The Hunger Games has been on my radar for about a year now, and, like Twilight, this is almost entirely due to the Internet.  I guess that die hard fans heard about the film and got so excited it almost took over Pinterest and the like. 

I'm someone who really likes to read books before I see the film versions.  This is because I think that the book is the true story, told the way it was intended by the writer.  Not to discredit any adaptations, for instance The Hunger Games film looks awesome!  But to see the original for myself.  Writing is an art after all.

And, so you know, I did think it was a fantastic story! Go, read it! Or, at least, come to the cinema with me and watch in on the big screen.

Freya May

Sad News

Source: flickr.com via Freya on Pinterest

I lost my job yesterday.  Kind of. 

I've only really got a temporary contract, but I've learnt today that it wont be renewed at the end of this school year.

But I'm fine with it!  Really.  The plans I've been contemplating mean that I would have to quit anyway, and I really couldn't see myself in a administrative role long term either.

The rest of the staff at work heard about the new staffing structures this morning, and I hope everyone is alright with the new system.  I was told that they wanted to avoid losing people on permanent contracts, so fingers crossed for the other lovely ladies I work with.

So, a kick up the back side for me, what to do next?

Freya May

p.s. I know the pick has nothing to do with this post, but look how pretty!

Spring Fever!

A.K.A. What I love about Spring time.

The weather keeps promising us it's on it's way, but I'm weary as I know how quickly it can all change and we'll be knee deep in snow again!  But, all the same, I look forward with great anticipation for the spring weather to be finally here and here is why...

Holiday's- not only do I get school holidays again this year, but I'm also going to Paris for a couple of days with the fam! YAY!

The Fashion- the colours, the styles, it's all so beautiful and girly, I really love it!

The SUNSHINE! Naturally.  It makes you happier, more awake, and what else can you ask for than a beautiful day.

Flowers- I think fresh flowers in the house is fabulous.  I wish we could afford to have them all the time!  This spring I'm really loving multicoloured tulips, and plan on getting some as soon as possible.

My Birthday- I'm a spring baby, and I can't wait for a party and presents, of course!

and, finally, because it is the shortest wait for my favourite season off all- Summer will be here before we know it- YAY!

Freya May

New Role

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I started volunteering on Monday, at a primary school (ages 4-11) around the corner from work- and I'm so excited! 

I'm exploring the idea of training for primary teaching, so I'm so glad and lucky to have gotten in to this school!

Not only is everyone really lovely, but also, I'm able to get experiance in all the different year groups and get a feel for the different classes :D

I'm loving it, yay!!!
Freya May

Running Away for the Weekend

Been away for the weekend with the group from Keele Chapel- an exhausting but seriously awesome time. 

We ate, we drank, we chatted, we walked, we sang and worshiped, we learned and read our bibles, we hung out on the beach, and had a bonfire.  I got chatting to new people and generally felt compleatly at home.

In fact, there was quite some excitment! Congratulations to Gavin and Linda, newly engaged over the weekend!!!  We were all so excited for them, and look forward to the our invitiations to the wedding ;-)

Check out these photo's of the weekend, taken by Lol, the pastoral assistant at the Chapel.



Our makeshift alter for communion.




A well earned rest at the end of our walk.




Bonfire!!!




Congratulations, Gaven and Lynda!




Prayer activites gone mad!




Views from the costal walk- beautiful.








Hanging out at the beach.




Someone let Becca in!!


Freya May

I'm Thankful For

Source: gusandlula.com via Freya on Pinterest

Today I'm thankful for God's provision for me and my future.

I'm thankful for my loving and wonderful husband who makes me laugh every single day.

I'm thankful for my job, I don't always enjoy it, but I'm grateful I have one when so many people aren't as lucky.

I'm thankful that I have been blessed with a healthy and strong body with which I get to enjoy exercise- like Zumba!

I'm grateful for friend like stars, I don't get to see them always, but I know they're there.

I'm greteful for the free time I currently am blessed with, I know that I'll not always have the freedom to do exactly as I like.

I'm thankful for husband's job, and that he is finding life just that little better with work, and that he works so hard in order to provide for me.

Freya May

Found on Pinterest #10

And now for something completely different, I've been debating what to do today and I couldn't decide!!! Is it too soon for a summer wish list? Probably.  Do you want to see more of my imaginary house plans? I didn't think so.

So, instead, I've gone with a 'reblog' (I think it's called) of Rory Gilmore's Reading list.

Someone, at some point took, the time to put together a list of all the books that we know Rory to have read over the 7 series of The Gilmore Girls, I guess it included any book references, that she's seen reading, or seen on the set at some point.

Anyway, here it is, click on the photo for the original blog, I've edited it down just to books I actually want to read and I've gone through the list and have marked any that I've read in red, but I'll tell you now it is pitifully few.

Source: bookreviews.me.uk via Freya on Pinterest

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer- The Millers Tale
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Ethics by Spinoza
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
Inferno by Dante
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lovely Bones by Alice Seboldd
Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Marathon Man by William Goldman
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Othello by Shakespeare

Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers

Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Well, that's cartainly a list and a half, even editied down!

Freya May

I've a Plan!

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For the first time in a long time, I feel like I have some direction and a plan for my life.

I'm not going to share what it is just yet, you'll know soon enough, but I just wanted to say how happy I am that I have a new goal, a new direction and an idea of where I want to go with my life. It's soooo goood!

I hate the feeling of aimlessness, the emptiness of not having a plan and not doing anything interesting or worthwhile with my life.  Hate it.  So, yay! I don't feel like that anymore!

Woooo!

Freya May