“AND FROM THAT DAY FORWARD, WOMEN EMBRACED THEIR DIVERSITY AND REALIZED THAT ALL SHAPES AND SIZES ARE BEAUTIFUL. AH HA HA. NO. I’M TOTALLY MESSING WITH YOU. ALL BEYONCE AND JLO HAVE DONE IS ADD TO THE LAUNDRY LIST OF ATTRIBUTES WOMEN MUST HAVE TO QUALIFY AS BEAUTIFUL. NOW EVERY GIRL IS EXPECTED TO HAVE CAUCASIAN BLUE EYES, FULL SPANISH LIPS, A CLASSIC BUTTON NOSE, HAIRLESS ASIAN SKIN WITH A CALIFORNIA TAN, A JAMAICAN DANCE HALL ASS, LONG SWEDISH LEGS, SMALL JAPANESE FEET, THE ABS OF A LESBIAN GYM OWNER, THE HIPS OF A NINE-YEAR-OLD BOY, THE ARMS OF MICHELLE OBAMA, AND DOLL TITS. THE PERSON CLOSEST TO ACTUALLY ACHIEVING THIS LOOK IS KIM KARDASHIAN, WHO, AS WE KNOW, WAS MADE BY RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS TO SABOTAGE OUR ATHLETES.” -TINA FEY.

[Image Credit: Pinterest]

For the duration of January I participated in #janphotoaday on instagram with Fat Mum Slim. Chantelle is a lovely mama who really inspires me almost every time I read her blog, in fact she was the first blog I ever read [not counting MamaMia].

Anywho; February starts tomorrow [which is a little scary enough] and there is now a #febphotoaday list.

Have instagram or twitter? Use the hashtag #febphotoaday to find others just like you joining in. Or if you are going to blog it daily [like I am going to try] when you share it on twitter use the hashtag there too!

Note: Please be sure to link back to Fat Mum Slim when promoting on your blog, after all it is her idea and it’s nice for acknowledgement.

ps. For more information visit Chantelle’s blog.
pps. On instagram I am @carlygracelloyd; you know just in case you wanted to view my photos.

I was searching on 100 Layer Cake Friday night, just randomly. There is no real need for me to be on there, there is no ring on that finger, but I just love looking at the Real Weddings.

Definitely is something that makes me smile. As well as giving me some inspiration for when I eventually do get married.

The wedding of Briar and Jason was gorgeous, as most of the weddings that feature on the site are, but this one image struck me as such a cute and simple idea.

Cute huh?

Rather then a guest book you create a balloon of fingerprints.

Love.

[Image Credit: Real Weddings]

In relationships. At work. With friends. Maintaining relationships with family. Everywhere. You are responsible for your happy. As you are the only one who can make you happy. You own the switch. The button. The lever. It’s all you. Liberating and exciting as that is. Which, in my opinion it is. It comes with a flip side called responsibility.

You see this ownership of your happy comes at a cost. And that cost is the ability to blame someone, anyone, else for you being unhappy. Every time, no excuses it all lies with you. Hmmm. Not as much fun. You see my favourite past time of all time was blaming Hubby for me not being happy.

It went a little like, it was him, his habits, the way he talked and those annoying habits. Of course I couldn’t be happy while he was being so god dam annoying. We were at the beginning of our relationship and I didn’t know it then but we were in trouble. And one day someone was talking and I was listening and they said;

Wherever you go, there you are.

I have since heard it applied to a number of things. But on this day, I heard, if I was unhappy with him, I would be unhappy with the next guy and the next guy and the next. That I was the problem. Or the source. That it was up to me to be happy. He couldn’t do it if he tried. And gosh, he was trying. I had to be my own happy.

And all of a sudden, he wasn’t so annoying anymore. Double bonus. So tell me. Where in your life could you do with being your own happy?!

It is Twenty Twelve folks!

Can you believe how the time has just flown by? And it is time for Australia Day, Easter, and whatever crazy party comes in between! And we all know what that means. Parties, food, and alcohol galore for most people!

In all the hustle and bustle of getting ready, sometimes we overlook things, and safety can be one of them. So that is what I’m blogging about today, some food and alcohol safety tips that will help you end the night with a bang instead of a fizzle!

:: Know your limit! If you know that you will be gone in three drinks time (like yours truly), then don’t go past it! It’s a time to enjoy yourself, not to forget the whole night out! Drink water, soft drink, iced tea, mocktails if you feel left out. But staying within your inhibitions is the first step to keeping yourself safe.

:: Take small sips, not giant gulps! Think about this, if you gulp down a drink, can you remember what is tasted like? Take small sips, and choose quality over quantity. Savour the taste. I know I love the sweetness of a Mango Daquari!

:: Have a Designated Driver, a back up plan and respect those who do not wish to drink! Everyone should be able to have fun, because everyone has different ideas of fun!

And you should take as much care of your food as you do with yourself, especially when the weather starts to get warmer.

Now, being a chef, our kitchen has strict standards to temperatures of high risk foods, but with massive parties with massive spreads, this strict HACCAP style standards can’t be achieved at home or out and about. So it is important to know about high risk foods.

:: So if you’re bringing along any food containing meat, dairy, eggs, and especially seafood and chicken, then keep it cold! This means breaking out the eskies, the ice bricks and ice bags. Anything that is between 5 degrees and 60degrees Celsius has entered the ‘danger zone’, and should be consumed within at least 2 hours of being out of the fridge.

:: Also, keep raw food away from cooked food, they should be stored and carried separately, and if not, always store your raw food on the bottom of the esky. So it can’t leak by accident onto your cooked food!

:: And be mindful of allergies and food intolerances. If you are having a grand party, then be sure to send a shout out asking about these kind of things. There is no fun is having to call an ambulance because someone had a reaction to say, seafood! (Again, myself). Creating these dishes can be half the fun!

Just take a step back for a minute or two, and think with a little conmen sense, and you should have a headache day after! Or at least without a stomach ache!

Happy Partying Everyone! And keep yourself, and your food and drink safe!

Hey WHL readers! It’s that time of year when everyone’s rounding up 2011 and heading into 2012 with full force! Here are my top 10 craft posts and tutorials of 2011:

1. Bow Tie Tutorial.
I love this little tutorial on how to make a bow tie for kids. It would be great for dress ups, or even just for adults who want a bow tie and don’t want to pay 50 bucks for one!

2. Decoupage Tutorial.
If you’ve never tried decoupaging furniture before, then this is a good place to start- decoupaging a small piece of furniture like a lazy susan.

3. The formula: How to price your wares correctly.
As an indie, hobbyist craft seller, I found this post really helpful, and it’s something that has totally changed my perspective on selling.

4. Everyday Creative Challenge.
This is a really simple project to add a little creativity to your day.

5. DIY Hair comb
Really simple, and can be changed up to suit a bunch of different colours and different patterns.

6. Help Book
Quite a cute idea for giving ideas on how you can be helped. :-)

7. Fruit birthday cake
I think you’d have to pretty crafty to make a cake like this! I love the idea of having a cake that really little kids can eat, and that won’t cause you too much worry as a parent!

8. 29 Ways to stay creative
A good reminder of 29 ways to stay creative. A cute little post. :-)

9. How to remove backgrounds from your photos
I really love Pugly Pixel tutorials. They’re mostly photoshop based, and they suit my design aesthetic and skill level really well.

10. Handmade gifts.
A helpful little reminder on how and why to appreciate handmade gifts (as well as what to do if you don’t like handmade gifts!).

Sometimes days are just days – you go about your business without really engaging with the world, while other times life just goes ahead and delivers perfect little joyful moments, right into your lap. Here’s our list of things that make our day.

Finding lost things

Whether it’s twenty bucks in your wallet you didn’t know you had, or that huge surge of relief after you’ve called round eight different stores and finally found the one where you accidentally left your credit card – the joy of finding lost things actually outweighs the pain of losing them, and is one of those little things that can really bring a smile to your face

Daytime naps

It’s a guilty pleasure, but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t occasionally enjoy a daytime nap. Of course, if you could do it all the time it would lose its appeal, but in our busy daily lives, there’s nothing more relaxing than stealing back an hour for yourself… and then spending it doing nothing but having a sly kip.

Doing something out of the ordinary

With work and family and the constant need to just get through the day, it’s easy to move along on autopilot: don’t! Get out there in the world and do something different. It could be something fairly big like a camping out under the stars, it could be a swim in the ocean or a walk on the beach… or it could just be watching the sun set, or stopping to literally smell the flowers.

A good laugh (or even a good cry)

Can you remember the last time you had a really good laugh – until tears ran down your cheeks and people started to look at you funny and wonder about sedating you? How about the last time you had a good cry – not tears of frustration or because you stubbed your toe, but a good old fashioned, unashamed, box of Kleenex, curled up on the sofa, red-eyed sob? You can’t plan for those things that really catch you off guard and tip you into complete meltdown – but it’s only afterwards that you realise how much you needed that.

When the shoes you’ve fallen in love with are in the sale

Yeah, it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does – oh, the joy! You were hopelessly in love with them, you were going to buy them anyway; and now they’re half price!

A song you love on the radio

There’s something about hearing a song you love on the radio – it’s like the jukebox of the universe selected it just for you. Could be an old tune you’d forgotten that you loved (and now have to go and buy on iTunes), or it could be something you already own and could listen to any old time – but it still sounds sweeter when they play it on the radio.

This is a guest post from Katie, from Cafe La Moda. She hopes this article brings a small smile to your face.

Are you like me and find it very hard to get, and stay motivated? Seriously, I can make a start at things, but give me a couple of months and my momentum is gone and my ability to get my act together and do what needs to be done had left the building, leaving me sitting on my butt doing nothing.

I do find that working with, and talking to other people can keep me going for a bit longer, and I love the feeling that you get when someone tells you that something you have said and done has inspired them to do something too J

And, with that in mind I set up a challenge. It’s called Fit, and You Know It, and it is all about getting off your butt and getting active.

Now, I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking this is about losing weight, right? It’s not. Nowhere will you see mentions of weighing in or questions of what weight you may or may not have lost. If you are taking up this challenge as a way to lose weight that is fabulous, and I am happy to encourage you. It will quite probably happen to, but it is not what this challenge is about.

There are 4 challenges that we will be running. The first two are distance challenges, one for walking/running, the other one the bike. I don’t care if you are doing you km’s in a gym, hiking up a mountain or pounding the local streets, I just want to know how many km’s you are doing and to see who can do the most in 6 months.

The other two challenges are a little nasty. They’re all about the reps. How many squats or how many crunches do you think you can do in 6 months? Sounds a little painful, doesn’t it? For me crunches, not so much, I love them, but squats? Urgh! Don’t expect me to be getting up much the next day, my thighs won’t allow it.

Of course, I’m not a total dragon though, use of a fit ball is totally okay in my book. You have to work at whatever level of fitness you are at, and if you still aren’t comfortable doing crunches on your own then do them with the fit ball. Doing something is better than doing nothing.

When does it start? February 1^st, then running until the end of July.  To be part of it leave a comment below or request to join the Facebook group. It is a closed group, so you will have to get approved, but that’s simply because we didn’t want the group to get too big. You will also need to sign up to The Daily Burn as that is where all the record keeping of the challenge is taking place.  You can sign up to just one challenge, or do all 4. It’s all up to you and what you think you have the time and energy for.

Oh, and if you are in Melbourne, we actually have a meet-up challenge already organized for March. We’re going to climb the 1000 steps, just for fun! J

So, are you with me? Do you want to finish the year fitter and stronger? We’d love to add your name to the list (of people I’m going to walk more km’s than! :p ).

At work we have some educators who love to make sweet treats for us and because we are not allowed nuts on the premise it makes some treats needing to be reworked.

Here is a very simple and tasty Rocky Road recipe!

Ingredients
:: Allens Snakes
:: Tiny Marshmellows
:: Kitkats
:: Milk Chocolate Melts

Melt the milk chocolate melts.

Cut up the snakes into pieces around 2cms in length [can be smaller].

Cut up the kitkats finely.

Mix together all the ingredients.

Using a teaspoon put the mixture onto a baking tray.

Once the tray is full put into the fridge to set.

Enjoy! Even my mum loved this recipe!

Tip: Be sure to work quickly as I found the melted chocolate began to harden as I was still putting them onto the trays.

I was on Pinterest the other day and came across this image:

It is of a memory jar and it is where you put a memory in from each day throughout the year and then you open the jar back up and read your memories New Years Eve.

Lovely concept.

Could also be:

:: Used for a single month
:: Used every birthday for your child and given as a present
:: Used as a record each month for your child’s first year/two years/etc of life
:: Used to write down those moments of your love that you don’t want to forget

Any other suggestions?

[Image Credit: Pinterest]