I was meant to say this a few days ago but I kept forgetting! My blog had it's 1st birthday on Saturday, thank you everyone who's been a part of my journey so far! I'm definitely going to keep it up this year and hopefully give you guys even more content.

Anyways, the important bit of this post! January 2013 to January 2014.



The pictures on the left really make me want to cry. I keep asking myself how I let myself get that bad before it finally hit me like a brick? I am by no means perfect and thin and healthy yet, but at least I'm getting there and working my ass off to achieve it.

Bikini season 2014 here I come!

I was meant to post yesterday but eh, too lazy!

You may also have noticed that I never posted my weigh in either. I did it on Friday morning for obvious reasons, it was a 100g gain but not overly worried about something like that. :p Having a weigh in a few days early is always a bit iffy, but I rather do it before a weekend away than after.. :D I haven't even checked the damage from the weekend, but I think I'm just going to focus on burning it all off.


We stayed in Harrow pretty much the entire weekend (apart from a bit of shopping in London on Sunday). We all arrived quite late so the first thing we all wanted to do was eat something. A few of us gathered up at a pub and the first thing I was given was a double vodka lemonade, which wasn't the best idea seeing I hadn't eaten a thing since 11am that morning. :D Should've bought a snack before I got on the train, but oh well.

We were going to go for curry / Chinese food, but then bumped into this amazing Mediterranean restaurant called Lazeza. They had a huge range of different dishes; salads, steak, mixed grills, pasta, pizza... I'm so obsessed with pesto lately that I went for a yummy chicken pesto pasta, very delicious and proud of myself for not going for the burger (on my friend's plate on the right in the pic!) straight away.


We had some time to kill on Saturday morning as we were waiting for some people to arrive. We had the option of either going to London to do all sorts of touristy stuff there or stay in Harrow to have a look at the old town bit on Harrow's hill. And well, staying away from the huge masses of people sounded like a brilliant idea so we went for the old town. We were warned about a hill but oh my god, that was one hell of a hill! Took us a good 10 minutes just to walk all the way up, but it was definitely worth the climb. The place was absolutely stunning and couldn't ask for a better view of the city! We did trespass on private property for a bit to get a good picture of London but oh well, I was more than happy to get told off to get this picture. :D

My friend was really into the thought of walking through the old graveyard as we started going down the hill again. It was really pretty in all fairness, my photographer instincts started ticking away and I could've pretty happily spent hours in there, just looking for things to photograph. Old gravestones, moss, vines... You could get some really cool material in there.


In a way the lives of me and my friend revolve around coffee. We had a little gap between us coming down from the hill and my other half arriving to London so our instant thought seemed to be "Costa!" .. :D It was such a warm day that I was kinda leaning towards something cold this time instead of a hot cup of coffee, so decided to try this mango & passionfruit cooler they have. It was like.. blitzed fruit in a cup. Very sweet, really yummy and gave me a brain freeze..


As Lazeza was such an amazing place, we didn't need to think long about where to have lunch on Saturday. I struggled a bit this time as I didn't want to have pasta again and nothing really shouted out to me as such, in the end I went for a simple chicken pizza. Not the healthiest thing I could've had but oh well. And I got pressured into having cake as well, hah! I mean sure it was my birthday weekend and I was going to have some kind of cake, but why oh why do they always have chocolate fudge cake on the menus?! Chocolate is my doom, seriously. The cake was incredible but I just kept thinking "oh god this must have over 800 calories...". Sometimes it would be nice to be able to switch off from the losing weight mentality so I could really enjoy good food.


Saturday night was the 'big party night', and time for us girls to dress up! I've got to admit, I felt really self conscious all night. I've just never worn a skin tight dress, I was stressing out over it at our hotel but as I didn't exactly have a backup plan I just had to suck it up and go for it. A few drinks later I did just stop caring though!

It was an evening full of karaoke, food, drinks and generally spending time with some of my dearest friends. It really was just nice to get away from my usual life, just stop worrying about uni and work for a change and just relax!


Oh and I must recommend a pub in London, it's called The Green Man inn @ Edgware Road. Their Juicy Bastard Burger Kitchen makes by far the best burger I have ever eaten! I definitely want to go there again, the portion was perfect and didn't make me feel like I was in a food coma afterwards. Everyone else around the table agreed about it, I have a feeling we will be going there again!


As much as I do love London and spending time with my friends, I was really glad to be heading home on Sunday night. I was just so shattered, this kind of stuff just drains you. It was definitely a good weekend though, thank you all for coming. <3 Can't wait to see these guys again.

It was my better half's 25th birthday today! It has been a very wonderful day, I got to spend the entire day with him doing various things. :)

Ever since going to pick those strawberries and gooseberries, we've been planning on going back there to get some more berries. This time I planned my outfit a bit better, didn't have to hold on to my skirt all the time when we were out in the fields.. It was so nice, it's kinda therapeutic in a way. And being a farm girl my brain seems to be programmed for fruit and berry picking, I just know which berries are ripe and which ones to leave behind.. Please don't ask how I know that stuff, it just comes to me automatically... :D


Our plan was to just get strawberries for the cake I made today, but ended up coming home with a box of loganberries, raspberries and strawberries. Oh yum. Can't wait to dig into those. :D Shame I'm going away tomorrow, I can't really take any with me unless I put them in my big suitcase. And that will only end badly I think, I'm pretty sure I'd just have smushed berries by the time I'd get to them.


And this masterpiece is the cake I made for my other half for his birthday. It was a very simple strawberry cake recipe with butter cream icing. Shame it didn't turn out quite as pink as it is in the recipe, I should've used some food colouring! Oh well, it still tastes absolutely delicious. :D I've never been good at spreading icing on cakes so it doesn't look quite as pretty as it may look in the picture. Other half was chuffed with it so I think I did well.


Anyways, food! We went to TGI Friday's, it's probably one of our favourite restaurants (I think the Angus Steakhouses in London beat everything 100-0 for my other half, he loves his steak) and we do go there a few times a year. It's a ~30 minute drive away so we don't really just pop in when we fancy it. There's one thing on their menu that makes me want to go back - the Jack Daniels Sesame Chicken Strips. I could just have that on it's own and be quite happy for the rest of the evening.

So yeah, chicken strips for starters and then a very lovely French Canadian burger with sweet potato fries as my main. The French Canadian has maple syrup basted chicken breast, melted French brie and bacon (which I always ask to be left out), served with a yummy garlic mayo on the side. And me being greedy and obsessed with their Jack Daniels sauce, I wanted an extra pot of it with the burger.



So yeah, Finland tomorrow! I'm god awful at packing, right now our bedroom looks like someone just went through my wardrobe and threw everything around the room. I've got my suitcase in there, all ready and waiting to be filled up, but instead I just piled all my stuff on our bed. :D I'm so organised though! Got plenty of clothes for exercising, more shoes than I'll probably need, even some jeans and a hoodie in case it gets cold (which I really doubt, it's so warm over there during the summer).. Prepared for everything!

I wanted to go and enjoy the wonderful sea air for the last time before I go. In a very funny way I will miss this so much even though it'll be even more peaceful over in Finland. Oh and climbing up the sea defences is a really fantastic workout, I should just spend an hour going up and down the rocks and see how exhausted I get.




Oh and since this is my progress check week, a small notice. I am doing an early weigh in tomorrow morning as I am not taking my scale with me, however I will not be doing a progress check. Why? Because I need to get up at 5:30 in the morning and I really won't be in the mood to take my measurements or anything (I really hate getting up early). And in a way it'll also keep me in check next week, that thought of a progress check after I come back haunting me every time I'm about to say 'yes please' to another plate of cake.. :D

I will not be posting quite as much during my holiday, I will try to keep in touch though! x

So yeah, like I mentioned in the previous post we had a little gathering today. It was to celebrate a close family friend's 50th birthday, and you know, there was cake. It was a very cool 2CV cake with all the detailing, on top of looking very cool it was really nice. All the icing was rather sickly though and it hit me about halfway through eating the slice on my plate. :D


My other half decided to take pictures of me as well. Was just happily leaning on the kitchen counter, listening to his family talk about something, and I noticed him grabbing my camera. I was actually pretty happy with what I looked like in em, so here you go! :D My face looks a bit derp but you know, can't win em all.


And that's my only pair of tights as well. And I ruined them about 30 minutes after taking this picture. :D We were getting ready to have dinner, I sat down at the dinner table and scratched my knee on this bit of metal under the table. So now I need to go shopping for more stuff. Curses.

And the rest of the day will be spent just doing absolutely nothing. :D