Update on New Years Resolutions!

Afternoon All!

It's been a month since Christmas Day and almost a month since I made my 2015 year years resolutions (see that post here) and I thought I'd do a quick update type overview of how I've been doing when it comes to sticking to my resolutions, I did mention that I would use my blog to hold myself accountable as to how I've been doing so that's just another reason to do this update/overview of the first month of my resolutions. 

• Eating/Cooking Better - My first resolution was to eat and cook healthier foods. I've made this resolution several times over the years and I've never stuck to it for more than a week or so but I'm pleased to say that I've been sticking to this resolution without much difficulty, I'm learning to cook healthier foods and I'm actually enjoying them too. I've learned several new recipes and my favourite is the Garlic and Honey Chicken (pictured right) which is very yummy.  At the moment I'm borrowing my Mam's and Grandma's cookbooks but I'm hoping to buy myself some nice cookbooks of my own sometime this week so I'll be able to make even more delicious things. Overall I'm pleased with how I'm sticking to this resolution so far, hopefully I'll keep going with it. 

• Exercise More - This one is the resolution I had the biggest apprehensions about, normally I would make resolutions like 'lose weight' or 'get down to a size...' and so on but I literally never stick to them at all. So this year I decided to change that to 'exercise more' not like go running everyday or walk 10 miles just little things like take the long way to my class in college, walk to work, park further from the college entrance and stuff. I'm extremely happy to say that I have been doing all those things and more! I've been doing simple things like that and I've also been walking for 20 minutes every other day and I even signed myself up to a Yoga class (I love Yoga) and I went last Wednesday and it was absolutely fab! I'm noticing a major difference in how I feel, I don't necessarily want to lose weight as I simply don't think size matters but I care about my health and I want to host my fitness levels a bit and it's definitely helping my health. For the past few years I've been overly stressed, not eating properly as I'd skip meals or grab unhealthy stuff before college/work for lunch and I'd go the quickest rough to get to wherever I needed to go just to save time. Thankfully between the healthier eating, Yoga and a few other changes I've made to my daily lifestyle I've been much less stressed, I feel better in my general health and I'm much happier. I'm so pleased I've managed to stick to this resolution this year and I'll definitely be keeping it up. 

• Leave My Comfort Zone - This is something I'm not very good at but I have made a major step this year in leaving my comfort zone as I am currently in the middle of creating a Demo CD to send to a vocal agency in a local town! I've always enjoyed singing and I thought this resolution would be a great way to get things started so I shall have to see how this goes and I will keep everyone updated in that front. :)

German notes :)

Image from Google

• Learn a New Language - I was most excited about this resolution as I've always wanted to learn a different language and for a while now I've wanted to learn German, so I bought myself the Mindsnacks Learn German app form the app store, I believe there's 50 lessons including numbers, colours, adjectives, grammar, months, days and lots more. So far I've managed to blast through 24 lessons and I'm really enjoying them, also I've recently found out about a 10 short night course that my college provides for only £85 which starts February 26th so if I can build up the money I will definitely be taking that opportunity!

So, I think my resolutions have been going pretty well so far and I hope that I can keep up with all of them, thanks for reading everyone!

Love Katherine. X

Weekend Summary and Next Week Plans!

Happy Sunday everybody!

This week has been pretty busy but thankfully I'm healthy again, yey! Si I've been able to get myself out and about, I managed to get to college for two days this week where my class started the unit I've been most looking forward to since I started the course, Caring for Children and Young People. Unfortunately earlier in the week I got a puncture in my rear left wheel so I had no way of getting to college and I hate missing college as well so that wasn't too fun. 

Anyway, I found out on Thursday that my college placement has been approved so I'm able to start that this Thursday, when it hit Friday I had planned to spend a quiet night at home just relaxing with the family as I had taken my Grandad to a bus station where he was going to be picked up by a cache to take him and his friends down to Blackpool for a weekend. However, I ended up having an impromptu sleepover with Aymie which was definitely unexpected but lots of fun, at this sleepover we did some blogging together, talked about anything and everything and we actually found an old SD card with pictures of us both from about 6 years ago so we nada good laugh at those.

On Saturday we spent the day together and did some baking, see my previous post to see what we made, that was cry interesting as we didn't exactly follow recipes but the teacakes that were made tasted very yummy. 

Saturday night I was with my Grandma watching a concert of Celtic Woman: Emerald and I've completely fallen in love with their music and their voices, Lisa Lambe is an absolute Angel and her voice is stunning, as is her hair and her accent and I just love that woman. I think it's safe to say Irish Folk is porbablymy favourite music genre now and Celtic Woman is just wonderful, I personally don't hear that many female Irish Folk vocalists, I mainly listen to Foster and Allen, The Dubliners and so on. It's truly refreshing to have stumbled upon such fantastic vocalists (and violinist), I've actually spent quite a lot of this weekend listening to music, artists such as Fletwood Mac, Celtic Woman (obviously), McBusted, Olly Murs, The Beatles, Queen and Demi Lovato have been my favourites this week. I think I'm obsessed with the Celtic Woman song Téir Abhail Riú at the minute, find that video below.

I actually have quite a lot planned for next week, hopefully I should be able to get everything done! Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will conist of the usual routine, 6am start, college, assignments and I'll be reading a couple of new books in-between whenever I get time. However, Wednesday will be quite busy for me as I have college from 9am-12:30pm, a dentist appointment later in the day (ugh, I hate dentists), because i have a very painful wisdom tooth that I could do without to be honest, then later in the evening I will be attending a Yoga class from 6-8:30pm which I'm actually rely looking forward to, as I've said previously I really enjoy Yoga, it should be quite fun. 

Thursday is my first day at work, I get to work with babies (YEY!) which I am genuinely so, so excited about as I adore children. Also I'll be scheduling a post for later in the week on how to prepare for your first placement or day at work, so be on the look out for that. Friday I believe I'll be meeting a friend for a coffee if both of our schedules allow and Saturday will be taken up with going for a catchup with another good friend from Secondary School with Aymie I think. Also I may be going ice skating later in the week if that can be organised. Hopefully Sunday will be my day off and I'll get to relax at some point haha. 

Thanks for reading guys and let me know some of your plans for next week, I'd love to hear off of you guys!

Love Katherine. X

Chocolate and Honey Cake: American Style Teacake Recipe

Hi again,

This last couple of days have been pretty hectic for me and it's been lovely to have a nice break and spend the whole day  having a baking day. A week or two ago I posted a recipe for Honey and Garlic chicken and I thoroughly enjoyed both making tha and blogging about it. So, I thought I would rope Aymie in to helping me make something sweet, this weeks recipe is Chocolate and Honey upsidedown tea cakes American style! Below you can find a list of things you'll need and directions to make these yummy teacakes!

Ingredients

•120g unsalted butter

•120g self raising flour

•100g caster sugar 

•40g chocolate powder

•2 medium beaten eggs

•1 hearty dollop of honey

Directions

Let's get down to the fun bit!

Firstly, measure out 120g of self raising flour and place into a mixing bowl, measure out 120g of unsalted butter and place that into the mixing bowl also. Measure 100g of caster sugar and 40g of chocolate powder, add both to the mixing bowl; next you'll need to add your healthy dollop of honey to the mixture, if you want to be specific in the measurements 4 tablespoons of honey. Next you'll want to give all of that a good mix just to make the whole thing a little easier to mix once the eggs are in there. 

Once all that's been mixed to a fluffy texture beat those two medium eggs in a separate bowl and once beaten chuck into the main bowl and mix everything together until you have a smooth but thick consistency without lumps. 

For the next step I used my my American Originals Teacake Maker to bake them, this only took 6 minutes, this was £40 from Boyes. However, for those of you who don't have this Teacake maker just use your over on 250F form15-20 mins, checking at regular intervals. 

Once they're fully baked give them 5 minutes to cool and decorate how you like! You'll have delicious cakes in no time! 

I hope you all enjoyed reading this and I hope you enjoy making these yummy cakes even more!

Love Katherine. X