Thursday night at IKEA - a free dinner

Rob and I spent the evening at Ikea last night. Following the receipt of many a generous gift of Ikea vouchers from our wedding guests and absentees, we are overhauling our home.  So a massive thank you goes out to all those people.


£1114 of vouchers later, we are the new owners of a set of PAX/ Malm wardrobes, a dining room suite, bookshelf, mirror and a giant red julebukk with two little babies. (piccies to come)
I'll be back next weekend to purchase Christmas decorations and crockery.
While we were there, we dined at the restaurant, Rob had meatballs, I the Gravadlax (currently on the attack phase of the Dukan Diet so I am on protein only). The meal came to £10.05, and we were presented with a voucher for the same amount, which we can spend in store as of the 6th of December. Well worth dropping in for!

Back to the gift vouchers, we have some fabulous personalised stationary from printing.comhttp://www.printing.com/ in Helmshore, and are finally getting through all of our thank you letters... we are only 3.5 months down the line, must get a wriggle on!

Wedding Dress Update, Weight Watching and Kaya Beauty, Ramsbottom

 

Starting to get very excited now, 59 days on the count down.  17.5lbs off and getting browner by the week, just need that sun to come back pronto to top up the tan!

This fortnight has been rather productive.  I visited the dress shop Maria Modes to try my dress on following it’s journey from the US.  It was as beautiful as I remembered and my word I have certainly lost inches.  The back and waist area have taken the biggest hit, I am yet to do the full measurements, but I have had to book in with the seamstress to get the dress taken in, all good.  I just need to ask her if she can nip/tuck tricep areas too J

Flower girl dresses had to be bought again as the girls have grown at such different rates.  Six year old Emily’s dress is an age 8, perfect length but pinching under her armpits.  Super tall 9 year old Jessica’s aged 12 dress is perfect length, but too large around her chest, more importantly, is white rather than ivory.  So new one have been ordered from Debenhams, outsized ones are up for grabs for anyone that is in need!


Friday, gorgeous sunny day, we spent the day with the gorgeous Paula Bland (pictured above with me) and her equally lovely new husband, Dan Butterfield.  I was privileged to photograph their wedding at Todmorden Town Hall, I'll feature their wedding in my next blog, after I have gone through their photos with them!

Honeymoon balance is paid, next on the list; buy travel insurance, then plan all the excursions.  Orlando, Savannah, NC and NY here we come!

I nipped into Ramsbottom this afternoon, enroute to fat club (weight watchers) for a sunbed, don’t judge me, and a chat with my lovely friend Claire.  Claire owns Kaya Beauty, a gorgeous little beauty retreat in the town centre, just off the main run.  Claire will be waxing, preening and polishing me in the run up to the big day, she kindly booked me in for all my appointments, and I am looking forward to being pampered and having a bloody good catch up.  For treatments call: 01706 825009

My wonderful friends from work are planning a hen party 3^rd July over Clitheroe way.  I have no idea what is on the menu, but having heard tales of their nights out I am getting extremely giddy, and a little nervous at the same time.  What ever happens I am certain to make a tit out of myself.  There are three costume options for me to peruse, the anticipation is driving me nuts, I am the worse person to surprise as I am so impatient!

So those are the things to cross off the ‘to do’ list.  There have been a few tears shed, frustration over things not happening as quickly as I’d like (impatience on my part) uni deadline of a project that I got carried away with, food poisoning and people in general.  There, I am certain, will be more tears before the big day, as I get more excited, worried and consumed. 

In the meantime I am savouring every last moment as Miss Clare Waterfall.  Laughing out loud with/at my fiancé, snuggling my cat, gardening with my parents, working with the Bowland lot and playing with my brand new Canon 550d camera.

It’s all good.

Love Clare x

Next blog: New wedding, Paula Bland & Dan Butterfield, coming soon.

Weight Watchers, Make-a-Wish Charity Evening at the Rovers Return and beckoning summer!

Week one of the Easter holiday draws to an end, but no Sunday night blues, as there is another week to go. Sorry to brag but after 16 years of the rat race, I’m still yet to get over the novelty of working term time only.

A few exciting this to share with you:

Cake Action at the Rovers

I have been invited to put my cake making skills to good use for a charity evening in aid of the Make a Wish Foundation.

Friends from 3sixtymedia, Susanna Rowlands and Matt Carruthers (pictured left), are scaling the heights of Kilimanjaro January 2011. I’ll keep you updated with training progress and why they have chosen to undertake this daring feat, but in the meantime can invite you to the aforementioned charity evening. The Rovers Return replica bar at Granada TV, Manchester is the venue for the evening, 22nd April; tickets are available for £5, email mattyboymatt@hotmail.com.

I’ll get more detailed information posted this week.

Weighing Bananas – to skin or not to skin

Okay I know it may sound odd, but I have a weighing dilemma. This will probably mean nothing to you unless you are a Weight Watcher (or fellow Fat Club Member as I like to call us), and non-dieters may wish to skip to the next section, who actually weighs the banana with the skin on?!

16 years ago (ouch!) I was told by my first ever leader, to weigh with skin on, however the points tracker has a medium banana at 100g.... if you can really find a medium sized banana that weighs 100g with the skin on you are a better hunter than I!

Last week I selected a medium (as I honestly believe it to be as it wasn't small and there were much larger ones available) left the skin on and cut it in half, that was still 104g.

To be honest I have been giving them the wide berth, as you do not get enough return for your points. But at desperation point I have been over cautious and weighing with the skin on, and resenting them greatly!

I will check with my leader when I get back off holiday next weds and update with the official 2010 approach!

Little People - Entertaining but exhausting

I love my sister Lucy’s children inside out and back to front, she has two girls, Jessica 9, Emily 6 and a son Callum who is 3 but looks about 5! The girls have stayed with me on a number of occasions, usually with the aid of my other sister Sophie, or my fiancé Rob. This week however Callum was joining his big sisters for the first time.

Thursday, we visited Reddish Vale Farm in Stockport. I would thoroughly recommend it. The farm is open to the public Apr-Oct, at a fairly priced entrance fee, children over 3 years £2 and £3 for adults. We were greeted by friendly staff and went straight to the nursery section where we were able to pet 3 week old lambs, chicks, ducklings and baby bunnies, all available for purchase… so we need name suggestions for a grey and white bunny!

Other facilities are bouncy castles, climbing frame and a toy tractor zone that is very similar to bumper cars. There is a good-sized coffee shop with indoor and outdoor seating, although we only grabbed an ice cream on the way out to have on the drive home.

Over the two days, we visited 3 play parks, a Crown Carvery (great value for a family approx £3.59 a head) and two other centers. The first for Friday was Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary in Rossendale; they only ask for a mere 20p donation for parking, so please spend some money in the gift shop, they deserve every penny you can spare. We had a wander round cooing at the numerous cats, dogs, rabbits, donkeys and horses, but you can book dog walking sessions, the surrounding countryside is a perfect setting for a stroll with a rescued pooch.

Next on the schedule was one last stop on the journey back home, a place I have been a few times for lessons and have been waiting for an opportunity to drag the kids along. I am talking snow play on a sunny day, the Chill Factore at the Trafford Centre. £6 for 30 mins snow play may not sound too unreasonable, but when there are 3 kids to pay for, it soon mounts up. Children must be supervised, but here is where Chill Factore redeem themselves, it is only £1 for the accompanying adult, something other venues could learn from. Half an hour was just enough time as little Callum was freezing and I was developing a rather sensitive head. We ditched the snow boots with good intentions of warming our bodies with hot chocolate, at least until we got to Fredericks Ice Cream parlor en-route to the coffee shop. Heaven in a tub.

We hit rush hour on the return to Hazel Grove, it was 1800 by the time I got home, and the headache had developed into a migraine during the 2-hour drive. I was overjoyed then to find Rob watching TV from our bed. I dropped a couple of Anadin and climbed into bed with that combination of hunger and nausea that accompanies the start of a migraine. 3 hours later I awoke, groggy, but no headache, starving with no intention of leaving the bed…. Hello Zaidys?….. Chicken kebab and garlic bread in bed, how decadent?

And finally, summer is officially here in Stubbins

It is officially summer when I can sit on my bench at the front of our house. Yesterday morning I enjoyed a cup of tea and a nice chat with neighbour John. Last night we had vintage cava and G&T’s on the bench, oh yes, summer has arrived, and long may it last.

Clare x

Rescued Corrupt xls, Highly Visual, Prof. Brian Cox & iphone Points Counting

WEDDING.xlsx

There have been a good few tears shed since Sunday. I was firing up the macbook to show the wedding budget to my parents when I discovered that the whole file had become corrupt. This is the spreadsheets to beat all spreadsheets, it trumps my Money.xls which has become my lifeline, and rains on my Body.xls which tells me when I should be menstruating and how my weight is doing.

This spreadsheet has been the main focus of my spare time since, well the day following the proposal. I am talking guest list, names, addresses, email, invite status, are they parking, camping, coming for the full day or evening, are they an adult or child? Another page contains all the suppliers, and a comprehensive budget, costs, monies paid, monies due and deadlines. There are pivot tables that show me the totals at a click of a button. So when the little error message blipped on my screen, my 4 month organising spectacular came crashing to a big fat stop, I was quite inconsolable.

We tried allsorts, bought file recovery software, I accidentally wiped Rob's Microsoft Office, all with no result. So there were a few more tears, then I felt quite ridiculous, while my friend is worrying about her ill father, and our sister-in-law is sick while expecting twins, I am sobbing my heart out over a spreadsheet.

So what if it cannot be recovered, I can start from scratch. I have decided that it was a well needed wake up call. Being such a control freak, I was convinced that I could do all this wedding planning on my own, and in truth, I am struggling, and I'm tired and this damn chest infection just will not shift. So I am calling in the cavalry, I am giving lists of jobs to Rob. Good Friday I will spend the whole day with Mum, sharing all the info to date.

I emailed the spreadsheet to James in IT at work, just on the off chance. He has only bloody fixed it!!! The pivot tables no longer work, but the vital bits are there, all the addresses are back, I can once again see who has RSVPd with a parking request. James is my hero and everyone should know it!

Highly Visual

Check out the movie trailer on you tube I must have seen it 15 times and it still makes me laugh. I cannot wait for the next installment. Watch this space for updates.

iPhone Weightwatchers

So I'm very excited about all the applications that are available to the iphone, one for my periods, a countdown to the wedding and one to track my running. So in that I am back counting points with Weight Watchers, I was searching for a points app, a quick calculator or quick tracker. There is nothing available on the apps list, and the Tracker cannot be viewed through Safari on the iphone. After an email enquiry to Weightwatchers, I have received a reply. The tracker is created in Flash, therefore will not function on many of these remote devices, but they are looking at developing technologies to work with them, unfortunately there is no timeframe set for this. In the meantime I am tracking my weight (as well as on eSource)on the iphone free app Target Weight, a clean looking easy to use weight tracker with graph, BMI calculator and target date. The only complaint you may have with this, would be if you wanted to see your weight in stones, this only does kilos or lbs, but it really is not hard to convert your stones into pounds, either that or drop into 2010 and start using kilos.

Final thought

As I type this, I am watching Prof. Brian Cox on BBC2's Wonders of the Solar System. Just had to hit record on the Sky+ as this requires my full attention, so I will rewind a re-watch later on this evening. I know I am coming into this series rather late, and yes Chris Evans has been banging on about how fantastic he is for weeks, but not only does this look terribly interesting, but Brian is rather easy going on the eyes. I could have done with him for a science teacher when I was at school, rather than Dobber Donnelly, I may well have paid more attention in class!

xxx