It's the last day of 2013 and I have spent the last few days in semi hibernation, reflecting on what has been. 2013 has been tough in many ways; I've buried two members of my family, changed jobs a kazillion times and had enough drama to last a lifetime.
But this year has also had many highlights, weddings, birthdays, love, laughter, family and above all cakes, (who could forget the cakes!) I managed to capture so many of those moments, and as I was trawling through my phone and laptop I pulled together some of my favourites on flickr. With my best efforts I whittled it down to 130 odd pictures, clearly far too many to show here! So with even more restraint, I've picked a few that I think represent the year best.
If you have plenty of time on your hands you can head over to Flickr (click link here), and check out the rest.
Seasons Greetings everyone! I hope that you had a beautiful Christmas. This year, I got sucked into the Christmas hype and spent a small fortune on gifts as well as running all over the place trying to get preparations for the big day. On many levels, for the children especially, it went very well. But I can't help but feel as though the consumerism is really too much!
This has been quite an eventful year & I'm going to use the rest of the holiday to reflect on what has happened and what I want for 2014. I wanted 2013 to be categorised by love, money and happiness... I can't say that those are the first 3 things that come to mind when I look back but there has certainly been plenty of all of those things.
If you are lucky enough to have some time off before the New Year starts, it would be a good idea to use it to reflect and recuperate. That's what I plan to do!
Today is the birthday of my beautiful sister, Rashida, Rashonye, Rae!!!
Here are 10 things you need to know about my sister.
1. She's my oldest & most trusted confidante, I used to make her squirm with all of my teenage secrets, (things are even worse these days!)
Old school us!
2. Back in the days, when there was stalemate in my flat over who would clean the kitchen and there wasn't a single clean dish, my sister would come and wash up the dishes and tidy up to make my life bearable.
Rashonye, DJ & Ellie
3. When my son was born, my sister took about 6 months (maybe more) after graduating to look after him for me because I wasn't ready to send him to nursery.
My sis & Bailey
4. I've lost count of the number of times my sister has helped me complete cake orders. Usually, I'm too (proud, disorganised, deluded about my capabilities) to ask in advance. She doesn't ask, she just rolls her sleeves up and gets involved.
5. She never takes any credit for any input or involvement with anything I do. Instead, she sings my praises and celebrates my work.
Chocolate fans, Ferrero Rocher and glitter
6. Rashida is an incredible cook, the OG chef in the family. Whenever I'm going through one of my ever frequent loss of appetite/skinny phases, her food is the only thing that I can eat and have seconds of.
Living life like it's golden
7. She's gotten me out of a tricky situation a ridiculous number of times. Two favourites are the time I missed my train home from Paris and she wired money across so that I could catch the next one. Or the time she paid my hotel bill when I had a problem with my debit card.
Cake fit for a beautiful person
8. She knows me better than myself. To be fair it's borderline witchcraft. She can verbalise what I'm feeling without me having to say a single word, (like I said, it's witchery!!!!!)
African Queen
9. Aside from being beautiful, she is INCREDIBLY talented. She can play the guitar, sing, cook, bake, dance, sew, paint, draw, play sports, teach, entertain, do hair, the list goes on and on and on.
Sister vibes!
10. I love her because she's awesome.
Happy Birthday Sis
Peace & Love
xx
(p.s. The cake is a chocolate sponge sandwiched together with vanilla buttercream and chocolate fudge frosting. It's then covered with chocolate fans and Ferrero Rochers.)
It’s that time of the week again
when I share things that I love. This week, I’m sharing my love of nail art
& in particular, nail art done by my home girl Liane! J
The master at work! :)
I’ve known Liane for a long time,
since uni days to be precise and for the last few years I’ve been following her
nail journey. Recently, we’ve managed to get it together and she has been
blessing me with some of her awesome nail designs.
Cake pops and Keith Haring
Liane is a mobile nail artist
based in London. Check out her website http://www.ldoesnails.com
or her Instagram @ldoesnails to see more of her work.
