Shopping at Home

Over Christmas and New Year I realised that I own far too many possessions and that they can begin to swamp you. In particular, I have too many candles (not tea lights), too much make-up and toiletries and too much food in my pantry and freezers. 

I should count my blessings that I have so many things and I am certainly not complaining about having too much of anything but I am beginning to feel swamped. I am ending up not enjoying the things that I have because I cannot find them as they are lost in the back of the garage, in the loft or tucked away in a cupboard or drawer. I have been known to buy a duplicate of something because I cannot find it. Please tell me that I am not the only one to do this?

I need to simplify my life and have decided to cut back on shopping on line and in the shops and have decided to start shopping at home. There is that slight thrill when you are out shopping, holding those cardboard bags containing tissue wrapped goodies or carrier bags full of delicious food. I need to quell the desire to go shopping and instead do my shopping at home.

I realised this was the answer on Sunday when I noticed that I was running out of facial toner. I was thinking of going on a trip to the nearby Trafford Centre which would not have ended with the purchase of just facial toner as you can imagine. Then I had a thought that maybe I had some already. Sure enough I found 5 mini bottles which had come in gift sets. One from Boots No7, two from Kiehls and two from La Prairie. In total there was enough with these 5 bottles to make up a full sized bottle so no need to go shopping.

Not only will this idea make more room in our home, garage and loft, it will make me feel a little more free from feeling swamped and will save me no end of money. I will let you know what I find as I carry on with my shopping at home resolution for the rest of the year 2015.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

After all the hustle and bustle of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and shopping on Saturday, it was lovely to spend a lazy Sunday at home. I really needed time to recharge my batteries as I had been so busy preparing two full Christmas lunches for family and clearing everything away afterwards. I had family staying over on Boxing Day night too so there were cooked breakfasts to make aswell.

I pottered around all day Sunday and made a conscious decision to stay at home all day even though the lure of the sales was calling. It was freezing cold with frost everywhere outside. This called for a mug of steaming hot chocolate and I have recently found the most divine hot chocolate drink.

 Waitrose is selling Gu Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate drink on offer at £1.49 instead of £1.99 a carton. They have just Hot Chocolate and Mocha flavours too. I had bought it for my nephew and niece to drink but with all the fizzy drinks I had bought they were more interesed in those than the hot chocolate so it was just asking to be drunk by me. Heated in the microwave for a couple of minutes with mini marshmallows floating on the top, what could be more heavenly for a Sunday afternoon?.

I think it is so important to relax and spend time doing nothing in this busy world. Enjoy!!.

Christmas Sales

The Christmas Sales used to be the January sales but now that we all shop on line they are pretty much the pre Christmas sales. I have bought a few clothing items on line from Marks & Spencer and then followed this up with a trip to the The Lowry shopping Centre at Salford Quays yesterday. I was pleased to find quite a few items for both me and David and nothing cost more than £7 with some costing as little as £2.49.

Here are my purchases from M&S on-line. Most are from their plus range which I think is really good value for money and the style is not too frumpy.

I spent far too much in the Clintons shop on Yankee Candles. All the Christmas candles were half price and I could not resist the scented T lights at £3.49 a box....... I bought 8 boxes!! I use a box a week as I light two scented T lights almost every night so I tend to buy quite a few when I see them reduced.

I bought Christmas Eve, Christmas Cookie, Fireside Treats and Snowflake Cookie. I guess I love that base note vanilla smell in Christmas candles rather than some that smell of pine. The pine scents always remind of smell of bathrooms from when I was child!. I also like slightly spicy cinnamon scents and the Christmas Eve candle has some hints of this scent.

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you all the best for the New Year.

Fairytale in New York

I have not been able to blog for a couple of weeks because I have just returned from a 9 day stay in New York. I was 50 last week and we decided that we should mark the occasion with a trip that I have always wanted.

We have had the most fantastic and exhausting time and we have both loved every minute of it. We stayed on 7th Avenue and were about 5 minutes from Time Square in one direction and Central Park in the other. Our hotel was The Manhattan at Times Square and we could not fault the service we had from the staff here. We managed to end up with an upgraded room, free wi-fi in our room for the whole stay (normally $15 a night) a free breakfast for one morning and because it was my birthday a number of free gifts and cards including boxes of chocolates, mugs etc. The hotel was just great and we loved staying here. When we visit again I think we would stay here again as it was good value for money.

We did all the tourist things you do when you go to New York so we went up the Empire State Building, went on the Statten Island Ferry and walked around Central Park. We visited the Rockerfeller Centre, shopped on 5th Avenue and wandered around Greenwich Village.  We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, sailed past the Statue of Liberty and boy did I have a big blister on my foot from all the walking.

It was great to visit at this time of year as the city was looking very festive with beautiful decorations and Christmas Trees all over the place. I loved the Salvation Army charity collectors ringing their bells outside store doorways and even enjoyed the freezing cold snow which fell on a couple of days.

We bought a $30 week long subway ticket and travelled to Coney Island to visit Nathan's the home of the hot dog. we both ate one for our breakfast!! Our favourites were the old fashioned deli diners where the portions are huge and you share a meal because you know they will be huge. Our two favourite delis were Carnegie's where we shared an enormous corned beef and pastrami sandwich called the Woody Allen and Katz's where I had the most delicious bagel with real American style cream cheese and lox (smoked salmon to us Brits).

We took almost 400 photos so I will share some of them with you but try not to bore you to death with too many. Well that was the last of my holidays for this year and we will now need to wait around 3 months until our next trip away. Time to spend some time at home and get the place back into some sort of order.