5 books to breathe life into forgotten new year's resolutions (or to help start some spring ones)

 Hello again. 

Woops I fell out of bloggersphere for the third time, but now I am (hopefully) back for the foreseeable future with some photographs I took of some recommended books (and flowers and designer scented candles, obvs, this is a blog post) in case your new year's resolutions have fallen off the back end of a lorry with mine. Because it is the beginning of spring y'all, and (apart from Jan 1st, and maybe your birthday) when is a better time to turn over a new leaf than when lambs and daffodils and blossom is springing up everywhere cos mother nature is turning over a new leaf too!

I ummed and arred and toyed with what to put as my new year's resolutions - narrowing it down to a short list for me is tricky, as my brain naturally constantly whirs with ways I could be better and do more. My nature is to make every day (Jan 1st or not) a pretty much a constant battle to live more purposefully, time manage myself better, be less anxious, well just live and be and do more really. It isn't a stressful way to be at. all.

Here are some scrawlings I made on a plane to the Phillippines on Dec 28th (fyi if you clicked on this post to for some pleasant book recommendations, please scroll past this waffle to the next picture, if you enjoy some reflective waffeling, please continue. Oh gosh now I want a waffle. Anyway, resolutions:)

1. Learn to drive
2. Go to the dentist!!!
3. Start giving blood again
4. Get up earlier and do some productive tasks before work. Be a lark, not an owl.
5. Exercise more per week
6. Find more balance, and give myself more time to reflect and not rush
7. Manage my finances better, stop flittering it away on cocktails and pret lunches and save it for special memories and things from Anthropologie and classy and cool independent “boutiques”. Which yes, is technically comes under the umbrella on flittering, but if I am going to spend my money on stuff, I want it to be really beautiful stuff which gives me a wave of “gees louise I own that material good!” every time I see it.
8. Say yes to my friends more, see my friends more (slightly at odds with 6 and 7 - attempts at which have sometimes got in the way of 8)
9. Be thinner. Or at least a lower percentage of body fat.
10. Read more
11. Take up squash or some sort of healthy game I can play with Will. That sounded like an innuendo, but I read in the Happiness Project (see below for more on that) to have 1 indoor game and 1 outdoor game as a tip for happy couples and I am really struggling to find a good game to play with a man 1 whole foot taller than me, where I can actually win. Again, sounded like another innuendo, sorry.
12. Be mindful.
13. Eat less processed sugar.

Etc etc yaddy yaddy yadda.


Eurk just writing that list is exhausting, and so far apart from an attempt at 4 and 7, the list is not doing so well. (Last minute edit, I have now accomplished number 2, wahoo!)

So I've tried to narrow all of those down to one I can stick to, and I've decided it is this space. A bit like my about page, where I proliferate that this blog will solve all my life problems, now I am saying it will support all my new year's resolutions. A lot to expect from one little blogspot I have a history of abandoning for months a time, and do nothing to promote... but positive thinking people!! Also, lets just disregard the fact it is mid April and this is the first time my presence has graced this corner of the internet in 2016. Ssssh.

Because actually, when I do bother to use this space to reflect on my lifestyle and the world it really does make me a bit happier, and feel like I am getting more out of my life. This space helps me live more on purpose - to be more active in the choices I make in my life, take time to reflect, seek out new experiences and opportunities. So more of that in (the rest of) 2016 please.

If you need a little inspiration here are some lovely books that might help boost a forgotten new year's resolution of yours, or if you are more of a spring time resolution person, some handy books below, which aren't too self helpish to read openly on the tube.

1. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo
Oh what you've heard of this one already? Ok, so this is hardly a well kept secret, but if you haven't read it yet, it is worth the hype. I haven't even finished it, but a few chapters in I was so inspired I spent a Saturday reducing my wardrobe by a 1/3, something I haven't done since I wore size age 7-8 and got rid of all the age 5-6. And really that was mainly my mum attempting to clothe my sister.

2. The Happiness Project by Gretchin Ruber
I read this last year, and it really makes you want to go out there and big up yo bad self. Yeah I have no idea what I mean by that sentence either. The pursuit of happiness has possibly never been as well documented as it is today, I devour blog posts on how to be happier whether that is a list of favourites or grateful things, or a way to squeeze an extra hour in your day to live a more mindful life. This book is like all the best blog posts you've ever read on being happy rolled into one.

3. What I talk about when I talk about running by Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami, the Japanese author better know for his acclaimed novels like Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore, is also an ultra marathon runner. An ultra marathon, in case you didn’t know is any race longer than a marathon, but many ultra marathons are like 50 + miles. Ran all at once. But for an ultra marathon runner, Haruki Murakami makes long distance running very accessible and also very inspiring, and points out all the great things for the mind as well as the body. As he says, he doesn’t think he would be a writer if he wasn’t a runner as it allows him the time to have a good think. (Think he puts it way more eloquently than that).

4. How to stop worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie
Ok, so this one is a little less conspicious on the tube than the others, but that is what kindles were made for. Self help books, and the 50 shades of grey trilogies. Dale Carnegie was the first real self help book writer, and his case study supported tips for worrying and just living a happier life makes this one of the easiest to read and most useful self help books I’ve ever come across.

5. Poem for a day edited by Nicholas Albery and Peter Ratcliffe
I have the e-book version of Poem for a day 2 on my phone, and like to read it when I am waiting for my packed tube to draw in, it chills me out, puts things in perspective and makes me feel like I have already done something super smart and intellectual that day, and hey it is not even 8:30. Last year, I kept the paperback version of poem for the day 1 on my kitchen shelf with my cookbooks and would read it whilst the kettle was boiling, or the bread was toasting to the same affect.

Happy Sunday everyone! My resolution is to post something around this time (may become more precise but I am setting a low bar for now) every Sunday, because it is the perfect day for lazy blog reading. Hope you have a wonderful day full of waffles and naps (sorry got waffles on my mind, my mind on my waffles), and an exciting week.

Vicky x

PS. Running. 50 shades of Grey. About.

(Lemon, Honey and Ginger Chicken) Roasts and Rituals

So if I google image rituals, I get pictures like this 

and this

and this

Fyi in this post I am not talking about a witchy-style ritual, this post is not about how I sacrificed a chicken, a lemon and some honey. That is the next "things to do with your lover" post. Rituals, as the Oxford English dictionary describes it are "a series of actions or type of behaviour regularly and invariably followed by someone", so encompasses everything from worship rites, and rites of passage to shaking hands at the beginning of a meeting.

Rituals is also sort of a blog thing - all over blogosphere there is information on other people's rituals, routines repeated every day, posts about skincare rituals, bedtime rituals, coffee rituals, blog-writing rituals.

For me, when I think of rituals, I think of those little good things that we repeat often and through that become big good things.

Often a lot of something however good can be bad, it makes us bored of it, ungrateful, or we go into autopilot and barely realise we're doing something. As the Spice Girls said, "too much of something is bad enough".

But rituals are the anomaly to that rule, something we do repeatedly, but with each repeat the experience somehow becomes nicer, almost as if that niceness compounds with each act. As you carry out a ritualised act, you're not just enjoying the good stuff in that moment, but you also feel all the sweet nostalgia for when you've carried out those acts before and also a touch of excitement for the next time.

Here are some rituals - past and present - I have had (still have) and liked (like):

• A Cadbury's curly wurly after swimming lessons (a ritual ages 4-9, before they became as expensive as a normal chocolate bar!)
• Fresh pyjamas on a Sunday
• Monday house night, where someone cooks a meal, and the others buy 2 for £5 bottles of red wine (a ritual ages 22-24)
• Watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve with my family
• Advent Calendars
• Actually most things I do in December
• Taking my make up off with a hot flannel before bed every night
• Playing cannister and getting to drink a coca cola on Saturday nights (a ritual from 11-15)
• Hot water with lemon first thing in the morning
• Using my pink highlighter on Mondays
• Getting in to BBC Strictly Come Dancing every year

I recently read an article found through Cup of Jo (one of my faves) about a ritual a lady had started, which was far more life changing for her than any of these have been for me (though they have been lovely). She began - or more her husband did - to cook meatballs every Friday, and anyone was welcome to come round for them (as long they let her know by Thursday evening). 

Her Friday meatball cooking and hosting ritual she says has "transformed [her] family's life". It got her out (well in but) socialising after kids, it stopped her (as a stay at home freelance writer) feeling isolated and helped her interact with her community, it allowed her to spend quality time with her daughter, and it gave her something nice to look forward to and help her relax each week.

So here is my new Sunday ritual - a roast chicken and a great film.

oh hey there crumby belly 

Now, I would love to eventually have the confidence (in both myself and my cooking) to extend my roast and movie invitation to neighbours, friends and family though I am not sure I am there quite yet. But I do want something to look forward to each week, and make sure I spend my Sundays in a way that sets me up for the week: A Sunday well spent equals a week of content - as little heart shaped wooden placques you hang in your home say.

I also thought it would be a nice thing for Will and I to do, our own little ritual to have centred around our new home. Sunday roasts are the ritual of many a family up and down the country, and we've also been muttering for a while about watching all of AFI's top 100 films from 100 to 1, in part in an attempt to end our ususal movie night stand off of romcoms vs dark, sci fi films. 

So my new Sunday ritual is to cook a roast and watch a movie (at least for the next 2 years whilst I have AFIs films left to watch). I would love it to grow to a thing where friends and family know it is happening, and drop by, or even I'd love to be doing it in 10 years time with my own kids (would obviously have to choose something more age appropriate than Blade Runner) don't.freak.out.Will! 

For now though, it is just nice to set the table, open a bottle of wine on a Sunday and enjoy my home and my boyfriend, before I leave it for a week at work.

My favourite roast - a recipe: 

Once I read an interview with Holly Willoughby where she said her favourite roast is always chicken because if she is going to eat a nice piece of beef she'd prefer it in steak form. I don't know why but that really stuck with me, I too love steak, and therefore I always opt for a roast chicken.

The recipe below is for a roast I like that gives a lovely comforting lemony chicken, and the honey sort of makes all the veg around it taste like honey roasted veg too. Also apparently the combo of lemon and honey is a real flu fighting one, so I figure it is good for my health to eat lots of this roast chicken this time of year.

Ingredients:

1 heaped tablespoon of coconut oil (any butter or oil really, I just like coconut because of the consistency you can spread it on the chicken and it is not as bad for you as goose fat)

1 lemon

2 cloves of garlic

A good grinding or 3 of pepper

A good grinding of salt. Gosh a grinding of something sounds dirty, sorry.

A thumb of ginger

A little squidge or spoon of honey.

A small chicken (just up this ingredients if you have a bigger one)

I am not even going to write a step by step recipe for this, as that would be ridiculous as it is so easy, I can do it. 

Start by using Jamie Oliver's clever method of rolling the lemon until it slips slightly (a sign you're starting to release the natural oils) and at this point grate the lemon zest into a little bowl. Then grate your ginger, and smush one of your garlic cloves into this bowl too. 

Add the coconut oil to this and mix together, seasoning it with your salt and pepper too.

Spread this gingery lemony mix all over the skin of your chicken, massaging it in a little. 

Take your left over lemon, cut it in half and squidge a little bit of honey onto each half. Stuff these and your 2 left over garlic cloves (also each cut in half) up the chicken, going garlic, lemon, garlic, lemon.

Put in the oven and roast for as long as the instructions on the packet (normally about 1 hour 15 for a little one), maybe taking it out part way through to baste and add your veg you want to roast, these will too get all lemony and honey-y.

Serve to happy people who are impressed you cooked a roast.

Fyi. It is very difficult to take a picture of a raw chicken which looks very appetising. It is also harder than you think to take a picture of a cooked chicken, next to a bottle of wine, bathed in candlelight that looks as good in a photo as it does in real life. I hope you'll use your imagination on both counts!

PS. A better cooked candlelit cosy meal.

Copyrights for pictures of rituals - top io9.com, second fiveforhowling.com, paulnolandsound.com

Nine nice things - September

So it is that time of the month again, or more accurately, it was over 2 weeks ago, when September actually ended, to do my monthly 9 nice things post. Also not sure I can refer to this as "the time of the month for my monthly post" when it has happened only once before, but it will become an established monthly series goshdammit.

I hope everyone has had lovely Septembers, and indeed lovely weekends. As I sit down writing this it is Sunday morning, and I am hangover - albeit not cold- free, on my second hot chocolate ready for a day of pottering before heading out to Sticks n' Sushi in Wimbledon tonight. I've had such a lovely weekend full of brunching, and vinyl shopping, and failed cinnamon roll making, with a little dancing and prosecco thrown in for good measure. Plus yesterday evening, I had double pie for dinner (steak for main with mash, apple with custard for dessert) so that was just the cherry on top of the cake (/pie). Feeling in such a tiptop mood makes this happy list even easier to write, but whatever mood you find it in, I hope it has something in it to perk you up!

3 Lovely things you can buy for under £20

1. A purse (/pencil case) with a little Je Ne Sais Quoi -£20 Anthropologie

See what I did there - the purse has both a "little je ne sais quoi" in the colloquial sense, and also in the literal sense. I spotted this baby at Anthropologie a while ago, but was like hmm can I spend £20 on what seems to be a pencil case? And then in a wave of wrecklesness I bloomin did. And I love it, I use it in my handbag to ensure I can easily get to all the little important things (like eyeliner, pens, keys) rather than having them get lost in the sea of receipts and scraps of paper. And everytime I do, it makes me feel like a sophisticated, cool and yet humourous young woman. Excellent.

2. This little cactus - £4 B&Q

I feel like I am betraying a lover here, as I am on the internet advising people to buy cactai from other places than my homeware kindred spirit, Ikea.

Ikea has always been my cactai shop of choice, my boyfriend and I have had many an argument at the plants system where he has insisted I don't look after my existing house plants enough and they are attracting flies, and I have insisted I can never have too many cactai.

But this time, sauntering through B&Q this little chap caught my eye, and I cheated. I bought a cactus from B&Q and I am not even sorry. Not that I am a cactai conneseur, hell, I can barely keep them alive, but this one seems like a pretty good one. And it comes in quite a good quality and boho chic terracotta pot, which I think looks pretty nice on my table. Hell, I am now thinking of buying one of their massive £20 0nes, just yet to win that argument with Will.

3. This dining room light - £18.99 Ebay

Since Will and I moved into our little South London flat, we've been awkwardly eating dinner, and entertaining people in our dining room under a lampshade made of the previous owners wedding photos. Bit awkward. Our dining room ceilings are over 3m high, and the lampshade wasn't just a lampshade but fully attached to the wire and the ceiling so everything would have to come down at once. So, because of this debaucle they didn't take it down for when they left, and we didn't take it down for over. four. months.

I kept looking for the perfect light, and then I broke and just didn't want to be under other people's wedding photos anymore and ordered this one from ebay on a whim. And dya know what I am pleased as punch with it. You can pick one up here.

3 Lovely blog posts I loved

1. Lean Living Girl's Fig and Honey cake

One of my favourite things about Autumn (in a humongous list of favourite Autumn things because I love it so much) is Tesco's seasonal fruit pot. Figs, plums, blackberries, yum. Figs figs figs. Cannot get enough of them. So any suggestions of how to get more of them, by eating them in meals and puddings and not just as a snack are welcomely received.

If there is another thing I love perhaps more than the Tesco's seasonal Autumn fruit pot, it is the "healthy cake". Inspired by all those hip health food bloggers, I have started making all my favourite cakes and replacing sugar with maple and date syrup and honey, and all the flour with buckwheat (with varying degrees of success). This cake on Lean Living Girl sounds like a dream - cheese, figs, cake and apparently healthy. Come to mumma.

2. Take Courage - Our Bedroom

Cat has long been one of my biggest blog crushes, and I love her home interiors. Her new home in Rochester seems absolutely beautiful. I love her bedroom, shared here, which made me immediately regret all the interior decisions I made on my own. The unfortunate thing about Kat's blog is that she bought a place a couple of months after me, which means I can't quite copy her in time, but hey inspiration for my next place!

3. Jenny Purr - What would you do with an extra hour in your day?

A inspiring post about cutting the crap and having more quality time in your day. For me personally, although I do like sleeping, I reckon I am more of a lark than an owl - if I stay up an hour later than intended I spend the time (at best) clicking through facebook and buzzfeed lists and (at worst) feeling worried and anxious. If I get up an hour earlier, it puts me in a great mood for the day, I do something productive and good for me. Which brings me on to the next thing on my list...

3 things money can't buy that I loved this month

1. Blogging breakfasts

Partly inspired by Jenny Purr's article, I've started getting up and going to bed a good 45 minutes to an hour earlier, and it is so nice!

Gone are my days of running down the road eating nutella on a piece of toast! Nowadays, I get up, do a little bit of yoga, have a shower and get dressed, and then make myself a yummy breakfast and sit down and write Loner. Lover. Friend.

It has helped me carve out the time in my day to write this blog that I've been struggling to find for the last few months, and it puts me in such a better mood on the way to work.

Breakfast is also the meal of the day when I am most inclined to be healthy, so I figure I should take advantage of it! My favourite breakfasts on rotation at the moment: overnight bircher (oats with apple juice and coconut milk popped in the fridge overnight, and then I stir yoghurt and fruit in in the morning); porridge with my Dad's homemade blackberry jam and cinnamon stirred in, smushed avocado on bagels with chilli and chia seeds and good old peanut butter on toast (sometimes with some pomegranates sprinkled across too for good measure). All washed down with a hot water and lemon. Laaarvely. Also, cheaper than Pret!

2. Cooking dinner

To go down the theme of meals, September really was the month I started cooking dinner more - nothing fancy, but more effort than a vegetable stir fry with a salmon fillet in the oven, or pesto and pasta which were my previous go-tos. Having a bigger kitchen (and indeed a dishwasher) in my new flat has made putting a little more effort into teatime so much easier. I sort of love that it gives me a little routine as well, a plan for the week. I leave one day out of the planning so I can spontaneously take up a drinks offer, but if I have to come home one day as I have pulled pork cooking deliciously away in the slow cooker, well it just isn't that bad.

Even nicer is that our proper dining table arrived in September and sitting in our now (I think) lovely dining room, chatting away with Will every night is such a great way to forget all the work stress. It is so strange, it has sort of made me realise we didn't have as good quality chats before as we do now, with a bottle of red wine and a plate of homemade dinner, chatting about everything from childhood tales of breaking out of primary school to buy sweets (Will not me, I was too good) to who will win Strictly...

3. Autumn

How could I do a favourite things in September post without mentioning the season which is my favourite : Autumn. I say this, as the season changes from Summer to Autumn, I am getting properly excited with the first morning chill in the air, the turning of the leaves into such glorious colours, the fires and the candles and the fabulous outerwear and cinnamon in everything... however, I am not sure whether I don't just get excited with every change of season. In my head right now, I feel like I never anticipate a change of season like I do Autumn, but I can vaguely recollect that feeling when things get a bit summery, the evenings draw longer and you start having enough time to come home and eat dinner outside before it gets dark, do I feel just as excited then? Or with that first wash of blossoms and daffodils? I can't remember, all I know is I feel so tremendously ready for Autumn now. Bring on the hot chocolate, bring on the velvet everything, bring on the snuggly nights watching all the good lead-up-to-Christmas TV, bring on the wooly jumpers. Oh Autumn, it is good to see you.

PS. Why 9.

Copyrights (middle row only, the rest are mine) - from left - Lean Living Girl, Take Courage, Jenny Purr