New Hair

I think I will be asking my hair dresser for this after Hubby turned down the last photo I posted.

Red hair has always suited me and I think this is just a little more tame. So as of January 20th I'm back to being a red head (if I can!).

Resolution Recap

So what's the point of resolutions if all we do is set them as the last year draws to a close and then only consider them when the next year is ending as well!

I've decided to combat that (hopefully) by not losing track of them. I'm not going to turn it into a regular set day blog post but I figure updates at least every fortnight or month should suffice.

1. Feel pretty every day and dress up a bit more.
2. Get healthy! Use the cross-trainer we have in the garage!
3. Catching up with my friends more
4. Date nights with Hubby (at least once a month)

1. I've been doing this pretty well. I was concerned over how I would manage with work because we have a boring uniform - white collared shirt and black pants. So I've decided that I'll have to look at little things that I can do and I came up with this:

I've only realised recently how long my hair is!

Nail polish - I had purple last week and nobody complained :)

So those are some of the little things I'm doing. I don't know if I'm going to go back to dark hair soon or if I want to go even lighter. I keep seeing strawberry blonde hair and thinking it looks gorgeous and I'd love it.

SOOO PRETTY! I've already been orange as well :)

2. Get healthy - I definitely need to improve my eating habits (yummy orange and ginger bikkies from Ikea for example) but I've been on the cross trainer for the past 2 days in a row which is very impressive for me. I even got up early this morning to do half an hour before work. I just hope I can keep it up.

3 & 4. Kind of tied together with the outdoor cinema trip with one of my besties and Hubby.

So there's a little update I hope it keeps going in the direction it is.

Monday Yummies

So back to it! I'll try and make this a weekly thing because I do love cooking.

Today, even though it's way too hot & humid, I'm making a beef stroganoff pot roast with my wonderful slow cooker.

I've adapted it from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. By another Jessica so hopefully that will stand me in good stead.

Ingredients

• 2 cans cream of mushroom soup
• 1/2 can water
• Generous dash of paprika
• Pack of french onion soup
• 1tsp minced garlic
• 1tbsp worctershire sauce
• 1 chopped onion
• Generous dash of pepper
• Splash of Nando's peri peri hot sauce (cheaper than tabasco but not as hot which is a bummer)
• Beef blade roast (not the best cut of meat but it's slow cooker worthy)
• 1 beef stock cube
• 1/2 cup philly cream
• Half a small tub of sour cream

I pretty much dumped everything in and then added the meat. I'll add the philly cream and sour cream just before serving. Not sure yet whether I'll serve it with rice, pasta or mashed potato I'll just wait and see what we feel like tonight.

I will take a photo and let you all know how it turns out ;)

UPDATE

Ok so this doesn't look appealing but it was SO yummy. I added peas at the very end because I wanted to be somewhat healthy. We had it with rice and it soaked up the sauce really well.

Inspired

I was inspired by Mrs. Wolff looking back at her resolutions for 2010 and managed to find mine in my previous wedding blog.

1. Have a celebration every major holiday with my friends - I'm pretty sure we did this except for Halloween because we went downstairs to celebrate our anniversary.

2. Tone my arms for the gorgeous strapless dress I'll be wearing (I even bought dumbells!) - well the arm fat is still there and the dumbells only got used 5 times I think.

3. Move out of home - BIG HUGE YES.

4. Start the next step in my career - I can tick this one off as well.

So I did pretty well and I'm not suprised the excercise one was the one I failed at I am terrible. I'll have to get Hubby to force me on that cross-trainer every week.

Tonight we're off to watch Harry Potter at the outdoor cinema. I haven't been to the movies in ages which is weird because I used to go once a fortnight. We're going with one of my great girlfriends because everyone else has seen it. The weather is perfect for a night under the stars with wizards and witches I just hope I don't forget my glasses.

1st Day of 2011

Today has been fantastic other than waking up way too early! After midnight we played more Guitar Hero (I was forced to be vocals & it was heavy metal...) and then watched some Avatar on an awesome projector HD screen. So that was a great start surrounded by great friends and then after that bed time. When we came home I went into cleaning mode and re-sorted our kitchen. I'm happier with it now because my Kitchen-Aid is easier to access and in turn hopefully easier to use. I'd love to start using it more especially when I see people blogging about theirs.

More recently we went and saw our gorgeous niece. We couldn't cuddle her but our SiL did roll her out of neonates so we could get a proper look at her. She looks exactly like her brother did except she's got really brown hair. Apparently it's slightly blonde on the ends but I couldn't tell but it's definitely dark and not at all ginger as first thought. Her dad's birthday is on Wednesday so they're hoping she'll be out of the hospital by then. She needs to breastfeed for 24 hours straight with nothing going wrong before they can move her up to be with my SiL and then hopefully home time! We also got to see our nephew he was just leaving from his visit and I managed to score a goodbye smooch as well YAY!

So back to what this post is about - New Years and New Starts. I've come up with a few easy and broad resolutions.

1. Feel pretty every day and dress up a bit more.
2. Get healthy! Use the cross-trainer we have in the garage!
3. Catching up with my friends more
4. Date nights with Hubby (at least once a month) 

I hope everyone else had a great 2010 and if not things can only get better from here for us all.

Happy New Years Eve

The last day of 2010 and I'm not sad but excited! If 2010 was so amazing then 2011 is going to be LEGENDARY! (Yes I love How I Met Your Mother).

So many things happened in 2010 with the number one spot being taken out by finally becoming a Mrs. I only say finally because it seemed like ages in the making and it probably was I'd say from maybe a month in (but most likely 2 weeks at a bbq in Kings Park) we both knew we were goners.

2. Moving in together - definitely up there on the top of the list! I can't believe we didn't do it sooner (only a month before we got married!) but it really helped to make us feel like our own little family.

3. Our niece being born. December 28th 2011 I'm so very glad for her that it was after Christmas and before January when everyone else's birthday is!

3. Moving into Mum's old place - finally no more dealing with evil real estate agents (although we still are waiting to get our bond back!) 

 4. My sister finding a nice boy to date. He is a salt of the earth dinky di Australian and is definitely causing her to grow up more. Combined with my Mum finally finally finally finding a great man to share her life with!

5. My Hen's weekend - whilst it was very hit and miss (thanks in large part to clashing personalities - you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family) it was still an awesome get away in an amazing house with a bunch of great girlfriends.

6. Getting my job! Lately I've really loved going to work and it's in large part due to the great people and the acknowledgement they all give for a job well done.

7. The brother-in-law getting married - and my first time being a bridesmaid.

8. Doing all the Christmas stuff as a family without birthday restrictions or anything else

 

9. Deciding to start trying for a baby our philsophy is whatever will be will be but don't risk having a bundle of joy whilst hubby is a bundle of nerves during his exams!

10. Having my friends and family around me all year something I am always grateful for.

I guess tomorrow will be the day for a resolutions post! I'm looking forward to going out tonight and not drinking which is a rare occurence for me (which reads as though I'm an alcoholic which I promise I'm not, I just go a bit crazy on special occasions!). So bring on 2011!!!

Spoilt

The Hubby definitely spoilt me today. I got white gold & diamond earrings (yay for discounted sales) to accompany my engagement ring & wedding band. And he half cleaned the house as well! It's my happy end of 2010 present apparently.

We're off to family dinner tonight sans family with all his sibilings otherwise occupied. We were going to visit our niece beforehand but even though she has been breastfeeding well she was vomitting this afternoon and they asked for no visitors. I just hope that they can both relax (as much as is possible) I guess it helps that she is their second child so everything isn't coming at them from left field. 

I was so excited to announce it at work but didn't realise that it would then lead to the question of 'so when are you going to start popping them out?'. Don't people realise that employers hate hearing the p-word! Especially as almost one half of our HR department I know my manager will hate it. She'll be really happy for me but upset as well. I will be too, I'm not looking forward to leaving that place. At the moment my plan is to ask to come back part-time/casual when I'm ready! But that is in the distant future so who knows what will happen. I must stop being such a planner!