Alive and Not Quite Kicking

Everyone needs some time to re-group, reassess priorities and, as my favorite Yoga teacher used to say - "get back in my bucket". Now is my time. This week is all about Yoga, meditation and hopefully bucket dwelling. I'm not feeling quite myself at the moment, so I've withdrawn from society a little and normal service will be resumed shortly, I'm sure.

I'm a bit annoyed, I've had a disaster with my home made soups etc. I've discovered that the large kilners I've been using are no good for storing long term. I don't know why exactly, whether I didn't sterilize them well enough, or the post filling sterilization wasn't good enough but I've had to throw loads away. Still, we live and learn and luckily, I've got quite a good lot of ordinary size jars building up now. Lucky really, I'm going to have to do a new batch of tomato.

Tonight is my W.I. clothes swap or "swishing" I believe it's known as. I know what you're all thinking, I'm not going to go away with any gems due to the, er, "seniority" of all my lovely ladies, but let me assure you, that is NOT the case! Everyone knows I'm happy to accept donations of no longer wanted clothing and I'm never happier than when one of my W.I. ladies goes through her predominantly Monsoon wardrobe and passes her delicious hand me downs to me! So, titter ye not!

Other than that, the chenille shrug is ongoing, my God daughter's Christmas present is on going and I haven't told you about my pet teenager's dress yet. But I must get on, I need to adorn myself with gorgeous cast-off attire befitting of my status as President. (!?)

The Clothes Swap Party is This Week!

It's not too late to join us at the big clothes swap party. It''s free (although I will be running a collection for Ty Hafan children's hospice http://www.tyhafan.org/ ), on a boring February Wednesday night, and you could go away with some lovely new stuff!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=236122783869&index=1

Just to put your minds at rest, there SHOULD be stuff of all sizes for people to swap, obviously the more people that come, the more choice we all have! All the donations are to be put into size sections, and the swap can commence from there!

The event will take place in Griffithstown, Pontypool, 1900 to 2100 ish, if you would like to know the address, please message me or ring/text me on 07730531400.

And finally, just to confirm, it will be clothes, shoes, jewelery, books, accessories, anything really that you don't want but someone else might! Also, if you don't have anything to get rid of, you can bring someone else's stuff to swap!

Hope to see you then!

Justice Fingers. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Given that when I spoke to the Western Mail picture desk this morning at half eleven and they had only just picked up the photos, I didn't think that we'd be in the paper today.

So it's a good job as him indoors picked up the wrong paper! Not being used to our "bloody trogg papers" he asked the (obviously brainless) shop assistant if he had the Western Mail and she said "yer, thas it!" So he brought it home. It's very nice though. Lots of nice pictures of snow.

So I was putting my face on this morning (no, sadly I don't get up in the morning looking THIS good) and was thinking about money saving.

I noticed that my mascara was going really thick and my foundation is running out. I don't really fancy a trip to the Body Shop just yet. So, thinking it would probably be a little better than the warm water championed by Jackie magazine in the '80s, I let 6 drips of liquid eye make up remover in the barrel, gave it a shake and left it in the sun to "cook". Hey presto - it's like a new mascara. That's a saving of about £7 in one go. So then, the foundation got it. It's not quite so easy to do, the foundation, but It's turned out ok. Good actually. Not many of us lucky ladies needs thick coverage (not all the time anyway) so I got a Little shallow pot with a lid, cut the end off my foundation and squeezed every last bit out. Into that I gave a squeeze of my favourite daily moisturiser and a good mix around. Alright, the coverage won't be quite so good, and it certainly won't last forever (the Mascara pretty much will) but it's increased it's life expectancy by 100%. I'm not sure about Aldi's ethical and environmental policies (must check that out) but the foundation is from there and I've been buying Aldi foundation for about 2 years nos. £2.79, I think it is, and you really can't beat it. It's got great coverage, great consistency and it's certainly as good as anything you can buy off the stands in Boots.

Aldi also sell their version of YSL Touch Eclat. It's exactly the bloomin' same as the YSL one, even looks the same but the pen is silver not gold. Again, about £3? You really can't argue.

Hair need a conditioning treatment? Slap a load of your fave conditioner on your dry bonce, comb it through and wander around the house for half an hour. Posing in the mirror pretending you're one of the girls off of the "Addicted to Love" video is an optional added extra (I personally think it makes the conditioner work better too (",) )then jump in the shower; it's not a bit less conditioning than all the expensive treatments on the shelf in Superdrug.

Lots of ladies are getting excited about the Clothes Swap Party. If anyone hasn't been invited, make sure you join my "all my lady friends" group on Facebook - the rules of the swap are on the group profile page. Ooo and before I forget, thank you very much to everyone who has messaged/text/phoned/poked me to say they're loving the blog. I really appreciate every one, THANK YOU!

Well, I think tonight I'm going to watch that "Red Dahlia" thing that finished last night. I've been on for ages to buy a Sky+ box, but I've since realised it's a lot better to use the benefit of the iplayer facilities and be a bit organised...