Making-over MissSearles

You may remember the other day that I mentioned my new friend Lottie, she recently wrote a brilliant post titled If I can do it you can! after having lots of feedback from her Think frock it's Friday idea and people saying how does she always look so immaculately groomed.
She says

I am merely a housewife who decided about 18 months ago (post ops) that I would never again look a mess and that every day I would make the effort

I really admire her for this because it's something I'd like to be able to do too.
I feel like things have finally settled down for me, I'm happy back at home, seeing friends more and doing my own thing and feel like I'm back to the old me. I don't mean for this to sound completely shallow, because its quite the opposite its about me feeling good about myself, but I feel like I should be upholding the MissSearles image/persona in my day to day life rather than just in the blogosphere. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't make an effort ever, some days I'll pick out a nice outfit to wear to work and do my make-up, it's just that some days I wake up feeling whats the point in doing all that and its a mind-set I really really want to get out of because I don't want it dragging me down.
So I am...Making-over MissSearles  
First things first - Cleaning out my wardrobe
In her post Lottie shared a few tips with us, the first one being;

Go through your wardrobe and throw out everything that is too big/too small and that you really shouldn’t be seen in public in.  If you shouldn’t be seen in public in it you shouldn’t be seen in private by your family in it either.  This includes underwear and nightwear.  It’s painful and hard and you may well end up with a wardrobe of three things but better that than a wardrobe full of nasty horrible clothing.  If it’s not there you can’t put it on. I did this, it was painful but it felt soooo amazing to never have to look at the mountain of awful stuff I had and better still never have to put it on again

I've been meaning to do this for a long time and its probably ideal to do so now as I'm actually going out to buy new clothes next week :-)

Lottie has agreed to help me out with this and point me in the direction of the main items I should have in my wardrobe and will be sharing this in a guest post very soon!

Let the wardrobe cleansing commence...

Listening to my inner 'Yes' voice...and spending some money!

Every since I left school/went into full time work I've never actually had a full months wage to myself. There has always been things to save and pay for, mainly to do with moving out, weddings or ex's breaking my cars (honest to god my poor Punto never went wrong when I was driving it but as soon as I let a boyfriend drive it they broke it!)
Now that I've moved back with my parents and cleared the final bills from my house I've found I've had some money left over! For the first time in my life I've actually had a bit of 'Money Freedom' and I've taken it as a chance to treat myself.
My first big spend wasn't so much a 'I've got the money to do this' sorta thing but more of a 'I need a break and I can afford to do this' spur of the moment decision. I've booked flights to go to Canada to visit my family at the end of June.
I find it very hard to hear my inner yes voice, as one of my Twitter friends aptly put it, and always feel a pang of guilt over spending money on something that isn't really an essential. I'm so glad I didn't think to hard about booking the flights because if I'd have slept on it I probably would have talked myself out of it and not booked them at all and I really feel like I could do with the break just to relax.
My next purchases are a classic case of me indulging my geeky side. I've said for ages that I'd like to get myself a nice camera, I don't know enough about photography to splash out on a SLR so I went for, in my opinion, the next best thing... a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS

 

I also bought a Flip Video camera, justified by the fact that both of these would be useful for me to take on 'Tour' and the fact that I'm a sucker for anything gadgety.

I'm still getting to grips with working out how to use the camera properly but I'll be posting some photos soon!

The Gallery - Friendship

This is Carrie, she's one of my oldest friends, we met about 21 years ago at playschool :)

She moved away in junior school and we lost touch, she came back for a bit in senior school :) then she moved away again :-( 

We got back in contact through Facebook a few years ago :)

She's just started her own blog

http://theprocrastinator2010.blogspot.com/

Okay, okay, I know-shameless plug for my friend but thats what friendship is all about!

AWOL

Well that was one hell of a busy week, I've been a bit sidetracked to say the least!
Yes I know I should have done a write up on the trip to Reading for MSOT and I should have reported back on how I got on with Tuesdays To Do list, I have no excuse other than the fact that its been a busy week of late nights and hanging out with friends with a knock-out 48hr cold thrown in.

Lots of updates coming soon (hopefully tonight) but right now I'm off down the pub to sit in the sun :-)

The Greatest Ever...Idea

The story of my greatest ever idea starts like many of my other 'greatest idea' stories...early in the morning with a cup of tea in hand and without much thought put behind it.
Let me set the scene - it's the morning of my 22nd birthday, I was sitting on the edge of my bed in a towel after just getting out of the shower, cup of tea in hand when all of a sudden I had an amazing idea...so I did what any normal person does and announced the fact on Twitter

At that point in time it was only an idea, I had no kind of plan behind it all I'd thought of was the fact that
1. I thought it would be fun/funny
2. It would give me a chance to play around with a new blog
3. Its my birthday (kinda forgot that in the whole brilliant new idea excitement)

Although most of my brilliant ideas are almost always absolutely fool proof  *ahem* I thought I'd double check with someone first, so after a quick chat with Heather* (@notefromlapland), via the godsend that is Google Chat and her confirming that it is indeed one of my best ideas ever, I got to work.

After spending most of that day arseing about deciding if I should host it on my own domain or on Wordpress or where-ever I settled on good old Blogger, because its what I know and understand.
Or at least I thought it was what I knew and understood until I tried to add a new template and edit it - turns out I'm pretty crap when it comes to stuff like that so lovely Heather stepped in again and explained it all too me and that's how I've got to where I am at the moment!

* * * * * * *

The new blog is currently under construction and will be launched on the 8th May, certain items of extreme coolness and significance have been ordered, people have been contacted and plans are beginning to be made.

So keep an eye out in the next few weeks for little snippets about it on here and on Twitter.

Its all very exciting (and not just because I'm a geek) quite simply because....

MissSearles 

is going

on 

TOUR!

 * Great big thank you to Heather again for helping me with this-shes just as excited about it as me! Lol

A lovely birthday

Its the perfect end to a lovely birthday, sitting with a cup of tea watching Glee (yes I'm a Gleek!), reading through peoples blog posts, working on a spreadsheet, organising photos on iPhoto, catching up on Twitter and pondering what could be one of my greatest ideas ever, all will be revealed soon!

  Birthday Tulips-taken on iPhone

Thank you too all who sent birthday wishes on Twitter

@jfb57 @eljay1980 @1stUniqueGifts @lauralatch91 @RosieScribble @susankmann 

@integralist @barracat @somevaguetweet 

@smiley_b_ @SocratesN @chellekip @LauraAWNTYM @stuartbyford @totinhas

Four Follow Friday Picks

Four Follow Friday picks...

@tara_cain If you don't already know about 'The Gallery' (the weekly photo craze thats been sweeping the blogosphere) where the hell have you been?!? Tara is the visionary behind this amazing creation.Oh and she's rather lovely too :)

@notefromlapland Well what can I say about Heather?
Trouble maker - I have a blog label and hashtag dedicated to her #IblameHeather

Bitch - She said it herself!
One of my bestest Twitter/Bloggy friends

@nickie72 In her own words 'I have a bit of a stationery fetish obsession addiction...  erm... I love stationery' she has managed to rekindle my love of my Filofax and take a tiny (teeny tiny) step away from my dependance on my iPhone. For that fact alone she deserves respect...and lots of new followers!

 And last but by no means least 

 @SocratesN AKA SingleParentDad

.....he is also the founder of the 'Sexcel' Movement (he may suggest/offer v-lookups for anyone not feeling the Sexcel love)

And the award for the longest Blog To Do List goes to....

Ok so this blog award has been on my To Do lists for over a month now since I was first tagged by Holly from It's a Mummy's Life back at the beginning of March (Im crap I know! But it was on my list honest!!) and now I've been tagged by My Mummy wrote this for me so I thought I better pull my finger out and actually post it!
Without further ado, here are 7 things you never knew you needed to know about MissSearles

1. I have a scar on my eyebrow and if they are waxed wrong I look very suprised on one eye
2. When I was younger my sister dropped a tin of air freshener on my head from the top of the stairs through the bannisters...I had to go to hospital and get it glued back together...she was about 4...and she laughed :s
3. Christmas 2008 (Christmas 2009 has officially been written off as null/void for obvious reasons) I managed to not wake up until 7am, which is a vast improvment on my othe records of 4:30am, 5am and my second best 6:10am......I get very excited about Christmas and will sing carols and christmas songs from October.
4. My childhood pets were named after beverages, Guinness the rabbit and Tango the hamster
5. I've met and shook the hand of President Obama and Michelle Obama! I got to meet them on their first trip to the UK after he became President, was a very *hush hush* event and security was very tight but they are both really lovely and actually took the time to look you in the eye, say Hello and shake your hand :-)
6. I can't read music but still managed to pass Music GCSE and Music Tech A-level 
7. I can tie knots with my tongue

The rules of the award are these:

1. Copy the award to your blog
2. Insert a link to the person who nominated you
3. Tell us seven things about yourself that you haven't told us before
4. Nominate seven other bloggers for the award
5. Link to their blogs
6. Tell the nominees about their award

I nominate...
Lucy @ A Modern Day Ricky and Lucy
MrsB @ After All The World Is A Beautiful Place
Laura @ Dim But Witty 
Potential Mummy B @ My Baby Adventure
Laura @ Piece of Cake