Sarah Loves... Lakeland

Just put in another order with Lakeland, it's becoming another addiction. After our iRobot buy that I blogged about here and then last week we started looking through and seeing what things we needed wanted. On the website you can also read what other people thought about their purchase which can offer you more insight into whether you feel it would be best for you.

ALREADY BOUGHT Grand Remoska Electric Cooker

We've only used the oven 3 times since we bought this three weeks ago. It's cheaper to run and it makes gorgeous sponge cakes.

ALREADY BOUGHT Remote Control Tidy

We just had too many remotes and it seemed "my" place to put them was always different to where Spurs boy wanted them to go. So now we have no excuses...

ALREADY BOUGHT 'Empty Your Pockets' Organiser

Spurs boy bought this to prove he can leave his "stuff" in one place. He did challenge me to get one so I would be able to empty my bag every day! My answer "I'd need a much bigger one!" :-P

ORDERED Heated Towel Rail

We seem to run our tumble dryer loads recently and we're getting very aware of our carbon footprint in recent weeks and this seems a good way to cut down in the home.

ORDERED Mini Make-Up Caddy

I suppose this is actually my version of the 'Empty Your Pockets' Organiser as I'm hoping this will make me cut down on make-up splurges! I doubt it though, although the thought is there :-P

ORDERED Cupcake Cake Pan

I have a real sweet tooth and love cakes. This seems like the ideal purchase for me

ORDERED Lakeland Paella Pan

Spurs boy and I are big fans of paella and this is only £9.99 and they say you need to have a paella pan to make the perfect paella. Nom nom nom!

 

ALREADY BOUGHT AND RE-ORDERED Chef's Candle

We have an open plan kitchen, dining and lounge so kitchen smells can linger for some time and this is great for eliminating those smells. A definite must!

 ALREADY BOUGHT Tomato Compost Crock

Living in a second floor apartment isn't very easy to take out your kitchen scraps and this clever little pot is handy to have as we can then take them out to our bin later on. Has a carbon filter inside to neutralise odours for a couple of months. Also it's red!

Are you a fan? What was your favourite purchase?

The Good The Bad and The Ugly of my week

The Good

I have done quite a bit of revising this week as I have exams in April and I have been pretty lapse in getting started. Have set up a revision allocation amount for each week and will try to stick to it :-)

My Airline Conquerer USA score is now 306

Finished Tantalize
 

Loving the new Corinne Bailey Rae album

I got another follower to my blog - Welcome!

Had a very productive work week and I'm busy with work all this next week also, although the snow may put a hold on that.

I need to organise some golf practice, as the charity golf match is in May and I haven't done anything since November. 

I started on my homework from Gala Darling on Your Radical Self Love Bible :-)

Watched 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' film this week which Spurs boy and I thought was fantastic if maybe a little bit slow in parts. Also Brad Pitt is in it so that's a plus

You'll have probably read already in my blog about Being a Bridesmaid and today I got some more ideas from a wedding reception that we went to of someone Spurs Boy works with. The wedding was on a more extravagant budget but hopefully we'll be able to find some cheaper options. 

I also have a coffee challenge which I will blog about later.

The Bad

Snow might be coming back!

Spurs boy is away from Monday for a couple of days but Bestie is moving into our spare room so that means homemade cocktails and scoffing creme egg ice cream!

Watched 'We Own The Night' and we were both disappointed, the plot was weak and there were no real surprises. Shame though as we both like Joaquin Phoenix as an actor :-(

I was getting all excited about Owen Hargreaves coming back to United's First Team but his exclusion from the upcoming Champions League squad was an unhappy sight. I still believe that he is an important player for both Manchester United and England, but we need to see him back. There are rumours that he can't recover from his double knee surgery that he had in November 2008. I really hope he can.

I think I pulled my hamstring on Friday, it's still sore but will get checked out this week. It has swollen in the last few hours :-(

The Ugly

I stupidly arranged a meeting for 7pm on Friday night - will never do this again!

Turning up late for a time management course. Speaks for itself really!

Being a bridesmaid

Today I started on my quest of being Chief Bridesmaid for my friends wedding in July.

I met up with the Future Bride and my Bestie (my best mate) who is also in the bridal party, and we started off with doing normal shopping. This meant I was able to get everything I had seen on the New Look website the previous day. Other shops made us go in and we again spent money that we hadn't planned to. We then stopped for lunch and we got down to the serious business of 'The Wedding'.

Now I've only seen Future Bride in a dress once before, when we were bridesmaids at another wedding. Bestie wears dresses most days but these are bright vibrant fashionable ones and she has never worn a prom or formal dress in her life. We are not girlie girls, of course pink was the first thing agreed that would not be featured.

Future Bride's parents died 3 years ago and Bestie and I know that every step of the way they will be missed and we have prepared ourselves already for this. Future Groom's Mum died last year and his Dad is having treatment for bowel cancer. Future Bride and Future Groom have two little boys aged seven and two.

We started off on our trip around some bridal shops and in the first two we found the assistants to be snotty and unhelpful, I think they thought we were there for fun and that we weren't being serious about wanting help with dresses. The third one the assistant was just plain rude and by this point I think we were all thinking "What do we do now?".

Where do 3 girls go needing inspiration for Weddings? The pub. Honest. No joke.

Before we did this though I headed off to WHSmith and bought all the wedding magazines available and all the stationary necessities needed to plan this wedding. We sat in the pub with cocktails, we just had to do it! We made our very own Wedding Planner organiser for Future Bride to use. We laughed through the magazines, some people like some weird things to wear!

We cut out the best ideas and put them all in our organiser and then asked Future Bride what she really wants from her day (you see we can be a little bit girlie) Before the cocktails kicked in we had completely set up our organiser and Future Bride seemed much happier, although this might have just been the cocktails!

We know we still have to look for dresses and we will come across some rude snotty people along the way but now with our organiser in hand we will be much more wedding wise.

We even selected the colour of the bridesmaid dresses -

Each bridesmaid is to have a different style of dress. Although really that means just me and Bestie as the other bridesmaids are under ten years old. As the budget is quite tight we are having the dresses bought for us but we have said we'll pay for shoes and accessories. The thought of wearing a dress doesn't seem so bad now.

Our day at The National Wedding Show should provide added inspiration and obviously people won't be rude!

When I got home sitting on the table waiting for me was The Bridesmaid's Guerilla Handbook that Spurs boy had apparently ordered for me and it had arrived that morning. Going to give it a read tonight and make sure I'm fully wedding-wise. Surprisingly it was a bit of a girlie day, but definitely no pink!

Spend up! :-)

A little visit to the New Look website turned into a lengthy look around at all the new things yesterday and then today I bought them!

Heeled Buckle Ankle Boots

Bling Butterfly Top

Beaded Fairy Sleeve Top

Mini Eyelet Duffle Bag

Plaited Metal Cuff

Ornate Bangle Set

I'm not a perfect girl