Tuesday Review: Lily Lolo Cosmetics

You'll have seen that I decided to go cruelty free with my beauty regimen, I've also decided to go natural. This means no harsh chemicals or synthetic fragrances, only nature's own wonders. With skin-care that seems pretty easy, there's loads of home-made recipes and tonnes of companies selling natural products.

Make-up is a whole different kettle of fish though and I struggled to find anything natural which didn't cost a fortune. I was really excited when @BEskincareful tweeted me to recommend Lily Lolo mineral cosmetics and eagerly browsed their beautiful site for products.

My first surprise was the really reasonable prices. As far as I can tell about half the price of other mineral make-up brands. The great thing is that you can get the foundations in little tester pots if you're not sure about what colour to get so you don't fork out for a full size which makes you look like an Oompa-Loompa.

I've only ever used cream based foundations before but there's a great video on the website which teaches you how to apply Lily Lolo so even I ended up looking pretty flawless on my first attempt. I used the Warm Peach foundation over most of my face and the slightly pinker Candy Cane on my cheeks. I also used the Translucent Silk finishing powder too but still my skin looked really natural. It really doesn't look like make-up,  you just look like you have naturally flawless skin. (OK, so I'm sounding a bit like an infomercial, but it really is good!)

I also got a couple of eyeshadows - Bronze Sparkle and Moonlight - which blend together beautifully and the Bitten PInk lip gloss (which is almost identical to my natural lip colour but gives a lovely subtle sheen!). On top of that I got a super smudgey black eye-liner and they chucked in a blue one for free!

All the make-up has amazing coverage, even the tester pots should last a while. I am a total convert to mineral make-up and the Lily Lolo range is beautifully packaged, beautifully made in the UK, natural and  also cruelty free. I'll definitely be buying more and I really wish they did a mascara too!

Cruel Cosmetics

I recently made the decision to go cruelty free with my cosmetics. This is everything I own and below is a breakdown of what I will be keeping and what I will be throwing away.

Linky Saturday: Feeling Stylish

Another great blog for you today, Feeling Stylish guides those of us with no taste through the treacherous world of fashion, beauty and style.

Tasty Friday: Celeriac Soup

In an effort to be healthy and save money I've been taking soup to work in my flask every day, but I realised that tinned soups are just horrible. We got a celeriac recently in our Riverford veg box and after seeing a recipe for celeriac soup on the River Cottage site I thought I'd give my own version a go!

An apple a day

It's a family trait - we hate going to the Doctor's. I get a panicky about the fact they're only practising medicine.

How I wish I had gone to the Doctor's when my asthma first kicked in again, or when we moved house and I lost my old inhaler. Yesterday I was so excited about going for a run. I'd gone about half a mile and was on a bit of an uphill journey (literally and metaphorically) and was getting to that black spots in front of the eyes stage. That's normally when I'd start walking but I powered on to the top of the hill. Where I nearly fainted.

I could not breathe at all, then the panic started to set in because a) I did not have an inhaler and b) if I did faint there was a big pile of dog poo I was sure to land in. After a minute or so of crouching with my head in between my knees (and still not breathing properly) I took a short cut home.

I felt crushed. When I got in I lay down for a good 5 minutes before I could breathe properly. I've never quit a run before. The Mr has taken our forms to the new Doctor's today and so hopefully I can get a new inhaler on Wednesday.

I'm a sad panda.

Sew a Laptop Sleeve

I stumbled across this tutorial to sew a laptop sleeve earlier and can't wait to try it out! I'll probably do one for me in a dark swirly pattern and one for the Kid for her little VTech laptop - I'm sure she'll pick an appropriate pattern!

Kid Stuff: Roller Skating

Roller skating - much scarier the older you get. I've been going recently with the kid and actually, once you get over the fear and embarrassment, it's quite fun! Anyway, I've done a guest post over at Love Norfolk all about it. Go and have yourselves a read of it.

Review: Palm & Sole

Those of you who follow me on twitter may know that I recently won a pot of Palm & Sole's intense balm. I'm not usually a skincare fanatic but I have been suffering from a bit of wintry dry skin recently so was pretty darn happy about trying out something new!

A Long Week...

Unfortunately the first fitness challenge did not go brilliantly for me.

On Monday and Tuesday I managed to do my 30 minutes of daily exercise with no trouble and felt pretty good. On Wednesday I went for a run, it was really tough but I managed 5k in just under 37 minutes and felt pretty good about myself. Thursday came and I was cream crackered. I fell asleep before getting to do anything. On Friday I was feeling even worse (especially because my phone got stolen) and again didn't do anything more than walking to the bus stop. Friday night was sleepless and sicky which meant no work and no exercise on Saturday. On Sunday I managed another 5k run (in just under 35 minutes!) but by the evening I was feeling pretty terrible again.

My stats for the week are pretty disappointing too.

• Weight no change
• Chest + 1 inch
• Waist + 1 inch
• Hips  + 1.5 inches

So I've got bigger, lost no weight, been ill and not done all the exercise I planned to. All-in-all I feel pretty rubbish about fitness challenge 1!

So I've decided that, rather than call it a failure, I shall re-do the challenge! This means fitness challenge 2 (I'll be giving the Activia TLC Plan a go) will be delayed, but that's OK, I've not had a chance to go to the shops to buy all the yoghurt yet.

I won't miss you!

Today I took the final step, I deactivated my Facebook account. Of course I downloaded all my photos first, then I deleted said photos from Facebook, then I unfriended all my friends, then I clicked the deactivate button. It felt good.

Linky Saturday: Betty Bee

Whilst looking around for some crafty inspiration recently I stumbled across Betty Bee. She does some truly awesome crafty tutorials, and does them all dolled up like a vintage starlet! Have a look at her blog...

Update & Thoughts

We're over half way through the fitness challenge week and I bet you're all wondering how I'm getting on. I'm not going to lie, doing 30mins exercise each day is hard work.

On Monday I did yoga, Tuesday was weights and core exercises, on Wednesday I went for a 3mile run (I say run in the loosest sense of the word, a very slow 36 minutes, but it's something to work on!) and on Thursday I.. well... I fell asleep actually! I know that means I have failed the challenge, I can't cross that day off my training chart and I have let myself down.

I think there comes a time when you just need to listen to your body and have a rest. I've gone from complete couch potato to exercising every day in no time at all. I'm bound to get tired, I'm bound to feel achy. That doesn't mean I don't feel bad about missing a day's exercise. It also doesn't help that I ruined all my healthy eating habits by having chips with cheese and gravy for lunch but as any of you who follow me on twitter probably know a 'customer' stole my phone this morning and I needed some comfort food.

Generally though all this exercise is making me happier. I'm not getting as stressed out by the little things, at least no as stressed as I used to get! My sleep pattern has changed too, although rather than waking up several times a night and being knackered in the morning I'm zonked for 8 hours straight and not a minute less will do!

For now I'll live you with the beautiful words of Frank Turner

'Cos love is free and life is cheap

As long as I've got me a place to sleep

Clothes on my back and some food to eat

I can't ask for anything more

Tasty Friday: Pumpkin Cake

We get a lovely veg box each week from Riverford full of tasty, organic food. A few months ago we got sent a gorgeous big pumpkin (I'm not certain what variety it was, but similar to ironbark in the picture!) and recently I finally decided to make something with it.

Pumpkin Fact: Some varieties can last up to a year in storage! You can save them up and eat them at times other than Halloween you know...

How far is 10k?

Everyone's always saying that you train better if you have something to train for, which is why I've roped a few people into doing a 5k with me in March. But what happens after that? Do I just stick at 5k? No! I've just signed up to do the 10k Race for Life on May 19th in Norwich.

I'm not really a huge fan of Race for Life (I know, controversial eh? It's not the charity, it's the race). I think it's unfair to limit participation to women only, men are also affected by women's cancer, both physically and emotionally. Also it seems everyone does the Race for Life these days, social media is flooded with fundraising pleas throughout the summer and it gets a bit boring. Finally, can you really call something a race and then say it's not competitive? It seems to work for them though and each year the events raise ridiculous amount of money.

Like most people cancer has affected my life profoundly and I've lost many family members to the disease. That's not my main reason for wanting to do the race though. It was the only 10k I could find in the area which left me enough time to do the 5k and then train for double the distance. If I raise a bit of dosh in the process it's all the better!

One big consideration is, of course, what to wear. So, keep your eyes peeled over the coming months when I'll be running a poll enabling you to choose from a selection of outfits and the outfit with the most votes will be worn. For now, outfit suggestions welcome!

Review: Less Than Zero

Most people know of Bret Easton Ellis thanks to the film adaptation of his third novel, American Psycho. I loved the film so was excited when I picked up his first novel Less Than Zero.

Challengers, READY!

In the interest of fairness, here are my starting stats for the Fitness Challenge...

Photo Credit

• Weight - 10stone 2lbs (64.4kg)
• Chest - 37"
• Waist - 29"
• Hips - 38"

Check out Jess' stats over at Feeling Stylish and keep your eyes on my twitter feed for updates on how it's all going!

Attitude Control

I got up this morning full of beans. I had a fantastic run last night (2.75 miles, hardly walked any!) and a really good night's sleep. I sat at the table eating my Weetabix when the radio announced that today is Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year.

My Twitter feed is full of people complaining about why they feel blue today, people in the street saying "Well, it is the most depressing day of the year." to explain their sullen faces. No-one can help it on a day like today, it's scientifically proven, we have to be depressed.

So, why is it Blue Monday? Well, just a quick Google and the lovely Wikipedia explains it all. Blue Monday was originally a publicity stunt by Sky Travel in 2005 to get people to go on holiday. They paid academics to put their names to a pseudo-scientific paper with a nonsense equation and it looks like everyone has fallen for it.

We've been told to be sad today, so we will be.

Well, NOT ME! I'm not going to feel how the corporations tell me to feel. I'm going to take control of my attitude and have a good day, a great day!

In the words of His Holiness the14th  Dalai Llama...

The key to human happiness lies within our own state of mind, and so too do the primary obstacles to that happiness.

And, in my words, Blue Monday can jog on.

Crafty Monday: Applique Babygrows

After walking past the wonderful Poppy Valentine a while ago I was taken over by the green-eyed monster. As if they didn't have enough beautiful stock in their shop they also had to make a really cool giant sale bunting. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. Obviously my sewing prowess isn't quite up there with the creators of one-off vintage inspired finery, but I gave it a go nonetheless.

Linky Saturday: The Housetales

As many of you know i recently moved house. The lovely Jet also moved recently (the day after me!) and runs a fantastic blog all about houses and interiors. I look at her posts and want absolutely everything. She's classy and stylish and you just HAVE to read her blog! Go, now!

Challenge Week

The ever-so-stylish Jess had what she calls a brainwave. I call it a moment of madness. She wants to do a series of week-long fitness challenges and I, stupidly, agreed to join in.

This is not mine or Jess' bum...

The first is to see if we can make time in our hectic lives to exercise for 30 minutes every day for a whole week. I've got to fit my 3½ hours in with:

• 56 hours sleeping
• 45 hours working
• 10 ½ hours commuting
• 2 hours showering
• 20 hours playing with my kid
• 6 hours eating
• X hours doing anything but exercise

Perhaps that's the wrong attitude to take though? In my Good Housekeeping magazines (don't say it) there's a whole page on how you can save time on boring tasks to make time for fun stuff. So my ideas to fit it in are...

• Walk/Jog home from work one evening - it shouldn't take any longer than the bus and it's FREE!
• Get the kid to join in - dancing, roller-skating, cycling - they all count as exercise.
• Skip the post session shower.
• ^ ^ ^ Not really ;)
• Get up early - I'm rubbish in the mornings, but if I can master this one I'll be away!

See, when you put it down on paper screen it doesn't look so hard, does it? My job is to come up with a pretty "Weekly Challenge" chart for us to fill in so we can chart our progress throughout the week.

Why not join in with us? The more the merrier! Feel free to post on your own blog and remember to leave a link here in the comments so we can see what you're up to.

Random Running

The Mr managed to convince me that I'm probably better than c25k week one and that, instead of following the plan, I should just run as much as I can, with no route.

I got MapMyRun up on the ol' HTC and we set off. Yes, we. I ran with my husband for the first time ever. After about 15 minutes we were doing some 'off-roading' in the woods and my asthma started to kick in. Having lost my inhaler in the house move I decided to slow down for a bit. Some sporadic (and painful) jogging later and I was back home.

Unfortunately I had managed to pause MapMyRun in my pocket and so had no idea how far we'd gone, if all that pain was worth it. I went on-line later and figured it must have been just under 2.5 miles in about 35 minutes. Not bad when you feel like you're going to pass out, be sick and explode your lungs all at once.

The thing is, I feel like I failed. It wasn't a long run, overall I was quite slow and it hurt. I'm going to stick to the plan and do solitary c25k runs from now on. If they are easy then at least I'll feel like I've achieved something and look forward to the next run.

As it is, bring on Sunday when I'm going to smash my previous week 1 time/distance record. Go me!

Tasty Friday: Pickled Shallots

We get a vegetable box delivered every week and, sometimes, we manage to eat it all. Recently we were sent loads of little shallots and decided to pickle them.

Shallots - prepare to be pickled!

20 things you didn't know...

Due to issues with the needle/shuttle timing on my sewing machine, Thursday Sewing Club is postponed. In the meantime, here's some things you might not have known about me...

New Plan

Well, we all know how things went for me last time I was running - injured knee within a couple of weeks and then over two months off training! So now I have a new training plan up on my wall and am getting really into it.

The Team Bangs ladies know how to run!

This time, instead of focusing on the running, I am aiming for a more balanced regime. Each week of the 12 week plan I'm doing two runs, one muscle session, one yoga session and two cardio sessions (aerobics, dance etc.). The running is basically following c25k but only two runs per week instead of three. I'm aiming to be running a 5k parkrun by the end of March along with Jess of Feeling Stylish.

For now let me point you in the direction of Team Bangs on the Run - it's a project by Muireann Carey-Campbell (aka Bangs and a Bun) which gets people running! The Team Bangs Army is currently training for the Berlin half marathon in a little under 12 weeks time, but even if you're not going for something quite so ambitious sign up to the newsletter for some fabulous running tips and motivation.

Until next time...

AGA Sale!!

I'm sure you all know by now how much I love AGA. You probably also know that I recently moved house. What you won't know is how much I hate our cooker. We've got a really little oven/grill with only one shelf, all the buttons are broken so we can't set the clock, and the hob has two settings - polar or nuclear. It's time to convince the Mr to buy a new one... Wouldn't this look lovely in my kitchen?!

Aga Masterchef Cooker
Up to 50% off

Review: Tickled Trout

As some of you probably know already, I was stranded near Preston recently and ended up with a last minute stay at the Tickled Trout Hotel for New Years.

The Tickled Trout Hotel

Because we arrived at night time we missed the "stunning views over the beautiful River Ribble" and could only see motorways. Getting to our room was a five minute trek through identical corridors, most of which smelt very strongly of gone off potatoes. The twin room was tidy and clean, your usual bog-standard motorway hotel room. I'm not convinced of its status as a twin room though, the beds were less than an inch apart. It was also roasting hot. The radiator would not turn down (even when a member of staff was sent to help) so we opened the huge window, which was broken and balance precariously on one hinge, and headed downstairs for some food.

Unfortunately for us there was a New Year's Eve party so no room in the restaurant for regular guests. We sat in the bar and ordered food and drinks. The choice for vegetarians was appalling from such a large hotel chain and Matt's pumpkin risotto, despite tasting OK, lacked a lot in presentation. He was presented with a large white bowl, a portion of ravioli in the bottom and that's it - no sauce, no garnish. My burger was similarly disappointing being just a lump of (delicious, succulent) meat in an un-buttered roll with a few chips. I was disappointed, just a little more effort would have turned it into a fantastic meal. Perhaps they were too busy in the kitchen dealing with the party...

Mr Bunn in a ridiculously hot 'twin' room

When we returned to our room some hours later it was still unbearably hot. We tried calling reception but got no answer and so trudged back down to speak to someone. A sign on the desk informed us we should speak to the bar if we needed help. They were busy and did not want to speak to us. Eventually an off-duty staff member found the manager who gave us a key to a different room and requested we call down to let him know it was OK. The second room was marginally cooler and despite the strong smell of rotting eggs we decided it was more acceptable than the first room. Unfortunately we could not let the manager know as the phone in the room was broken.

All in all our stay at the Tickled Trout was disappointing. It could have been so much better with just a little more effort.

1. Don't turn the thermostat up to full. I know it's winter but no-one likes tropical heat like that.
2. When someone orders room service remember to remove their dirty plates or your hotel will smell of rotten potatoes, especially in that heat.
3. If you're going to dress the staff up like it's a proper hotel then you should train them too. Wiping overflowing Guinness off the side of a glass with your hand is not acceptable anywhere.
4. When you have a big party on do not neglect the rest of your guests.
5. Put some effort into the presentation of your food. It tastes great but looks worse than Wetherspoons.
6. Do some maintenance - half the hotel was broken.

Kirstie Allsopp's Potato Stamped Wardrobe

I originally saw this on one of Kirstie Allsopp's shows, it's a great idea for updating an old wardrobe. I have looked everywhere and can't find reference to it but here is my attempt at re-creating the effect!

Linky Saturday: Theoriginalisaac

Today I'm directing you to one of my favourite blogs to read - Theoriginalisaac. I may be an over-the-hill married mum now, but I was young once! This blog reminds me of the good old torturous days of dating and is basically a real life (and wittier) amalgamation of Bridget Jones' Diary and Sex & The City. Read it.

Resolutions

It's that time of year again when we all need to make resolutions. We need to tell ourselves (and others) all the things we'd like to do in the coming year knowing full well we won't keep it up.