Friday Round Up

beautiful morning walk - jessie's guilty face after being caught on the sofa - long awaited blossom

new skincare arsenal for my dried up old face - wilson helps with painting - bathtime treat

barbecue for us and biscuits for the dogs - new fruity candle - friday night munchies

instagram - madeupoflittlethings

Wasn't last weekend gorgeous? And a sunny bank holiday Monday, I'm not sure I've ever seen one of those before! Sadly I spent it indoors, painting architrave at the new house - though I made sure I sited my work station in the sun room with the bi-fold doors thrown wide open. I managed to get out with the dogs on Saturday and enjoyed a lovely morning walk with them, I got a bit carried away and stayed out for ages, poor things were exhausted!

Tuesday was spent with my dad and sister, taking our usual trip to Windermere for my mum's birthday visit. It was lovely weather but disappointingly, some yob had attempted to carve great chunks out of my mum's memorial bench, which rather pissed us off as you can imagine! Regardless, we had a lovely day filled with food and banter as always, I love our Windermere trips

My pregnancy rage seems to have calmed down a bit this week, unfortunately it's been replaced by emotion at the other end of the spectrum. Matt came home on Thursday night to find me crying in the kitchen

Him      'Oh God, what's wrong? Are you OK? Rach??'
Me        *sob* 'I've just seen a sad dog on the telly!'
Him      'Oh no. Why was it sad? No don't tell me. What were you watching? You shouldn't be watching sad dogs on the telly'
Me        *gulp*gasp* 'It was ... it was .... an advert!'

Yes people, that's right. The Pedigree Chum advert had me inconsolable for a good 15 minutes. I can't remember when I last sobbed like that! 

I'm continuing the fight against my dry skin, I've discovered Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Concentrate and it's made a huge difference, I'm really impressed with it. It's not cheap but you only need a couple of drops per night so I expect it will last for ages. I also invested in a couple of fruity candles to welcome the Spring to the house, I'm finding myself strangely addicted to lemons lately. Lemon sherbets, lemon ice lollies, lemonade ... and now a lemon candle! 

My morning sickness has been back with a vengeance for the last couple of days so I'm having a relaxing day at home today, curled up on the sofa with the dogs, watching Escape To The Country and drinking hot chocolate. We're going out for dinner with my sister and brother in law tonight and Matt is racing tomorrow so I'll be heading into town to do some visiting and search out some 'drapey' tops to disguise my expanding tum :)

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Friday Round Up

cute cat at the country store - trying to prevent stretch marks - boys and their toys

morning brew - cultivating a little bump - gorgeous place to walk the dogs

yoghurt chops - new hair - jessie sunbathing

This Friday Round Up comes from a very positive place - I'm feeling a lot better, the sun is shining and there's a long weekend on the horizon! A four dayer for me because Tuesday is my late Mum's birthday and I'll be heading off to Lake Windermere with my family for our twice yearly memorial trip

Being back at work has been pretty tough, my inbox is still groaning and I'm so behind on so many things that I feel like I may never catch up. I'm trying not to care too much though as I've noticed that being stressed makes my morning sickness a whole lot worse and I really don't need any help with that 

I've been getting out with the dogs a lot more now I seem to have the sickness under control, driving Matt's new van which I love! It's a little Volkswagen Caddy (we're HUGE VW fans in this house) and it's brilliant, it drives just like the Golfs I used to have when we first met. It's great fun - now that I've got used to driving a manual again anyway, there were a few dicey moments at first when I'd be braking coming up to a junction and wondering what all the juddering was about! 

Our neighbour had a huge tree on our boundary cut down this week and with all the sticks dropping over the wall the dogs thought all their Christmases and birthdays had come at once! The remains of said sticks are now littering the whole of the garden so I suppose that's a job to do this weekend. They've had hours of fun with them though so I suppose the mess is worth it! The chickens are all in the bad books this week. Several of them have scaly leg mites, which means we've had to catch them and spray their legs a few times. Ever tried to catch a chicken? It's frustrating as hell but absolutely hilarious if you're watching someone else do it! Not only that but some of them have started breaking and eating their own eggs - a terrible habit which is really difficult to break. The general advice is to kill them as all other chickens that see them doing it will copy them. This has already started to happen so we're desperately trying to think of a way to stop them before it gets out of hand. A couple of eggs have been eaten every day this week and it's so annoying to see, it's a bit like cannibalism!

The new house is really coming along now - all the scaffolding is down, the drains are underway (hence the digger above) and the plasterers were back this week to do our bedroom, en suite and dressing room, the hall, downstairs loo and coving in the snug and on the landing. All that in just two days - they work like demons! I'm hoping that I'll feel up to doing some painting this weekend, I don't want to fall too far behind

Usually at this time of year we'd be gearing up to head to the Isle of Man for the TT races but Matt decided fairly early on that he was going to give it a miss this year in order to get the house finished. He came into the bedroom yesterday morning and announced that he'd almost had a little cry in the shower because he so wanted to go! 'Do it!' I ordered, 'Get on the internet and let's get it booked'. So he spent last night finding hotels and ferry crossings before announcing this morning that he'd changed his mind again because he wanted to get the house ready for the baby. And they say women are indecisive! Fingers crossed he'll change his mind again, I'd love to go

My aims for this weekend are to see my family, join the library, get out with the dogs, do some jobs at home and try to get round to the new house to catch up on some painting. I'll also be shopping for skincare - again - as my unbelievably dry face is really making me miserable. Nothing seems to help, I'm throwing everything I've got at it. I've already bought another new moisturiser and ordered a new cleanser, some oil and some Alpha H Liquid Gold - I know I said it was rubbish in my review but now I have a real skin problem I'm hoping it will be just what I need as manual exfoliation isn't really doing any good and can make my face sore. Basically, I'm desperate!

I hope you all have a lovely long weekend and manage to fit in some outdoor drinking and a barbecue or two - I know we will!