We're moving!!

The best news ever!  We are moving house at last, I am so excited but it's not for another 13 weeks yet.  

So today I decided I'm going to get rid of loads of junk out of the house, I know it's a bit early to start packing yet but I just can't wait to move.

I'm going to do a series of blogs on house moving and sorting the house out so keep your eyes peeled for those.

So today I started with the bathroom, my philosophy is to start at the top of the house and move downwards and the bathroom seemed to the most sensible place to start.

I forgot to take a photo before I started so I took one when I was half way done so my bathroom didn't really look this bad to start off with.....

I cleaned and disinfected everything and sorted out the drawers that we keep our cosmetics in...

I threw away anything that had expired or just didn't look very nice anymore.  Also I'm being ruthless as I don't want to take a load of junk with us to the new house so anything we haven't used in the past 6 months went in the bin.  I can't believe how much rubbish I got from such a small room...

But I am really pleased with the results and it now smells lovely and fresh in there...

Next up is my bedroom, arghhh that's going to be a big job..

Michelle xx

My Hardest Post

I was encouraged by watching a You Tube video to write this post, seeing someone else putting into words what they are going through was really inspiring.

In the video I was watching, the lady was talking about how she has PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and about how she is the type of person that always makes sure that everyone else is happy above and beyond what she is going through.  That everyone thinks she is such a strong person and got over her trauma really well, is an inspiration to everyone, that because she is such a strong person she takes on other people's problems.  But she just gets on with it and feels like that's what she had to do.

I feel like I'm that person too, I take on other people's problems.  It's almost as if I crave that!  I don't want my family to feel bad if they read this that they put too much on me because it is me that does it, not them.  I take over and do stuff for other people, even strangers I will go out of my way to help them.  I put it down to not wanting to sit quietly or I start thinking about things that I don't want to think about.

I have PTSD as I was raped and for such a long time I didn't let it show.  I always said I was fine, that what happened to me was in the past and I don't let it effect me.  I just kept all of those feelings hidden deep inside until one day, 2 years ago, it just suddenly hit me and I thought do you know what I'm not fine so I started on a course of anti-depressants and went to see a therapist.  I found it almost too easy to talk to her and felt like maybe I have been making myself feel worse about things and I was actually over it.  So I stopped going.

I am self employed and my husband came to work with me and that made things a lot better as I wasn't alone all day to think about stuff but he was offered a job that he couldn't turn down so he has been back at work for 3 weeks now and I can feel it all starting to creep in again.

If you know me and you read this, please don't feel bad or sorry for me because that's not what this blog is for.  I just needed to get this off my chest to realise that I need to do something about it.  

Michelle xx

GCSE Options

Last week I went to my daughter's GCSE options evening at her high school.  Apart from not believing I have a daughter old enough to choose her GCSEs, I was quite overwhelmed with the information.  How is a 13 year old supposed to know what subjects to take?

They were talking about career paths and going to university, it's quite scary that she has got to think about these things plus she only has a couple of weeks to make the decision but the longer she leaves it the less chance she's got of getting on the courses she wants.

Anyway today she has chosen the 4 that she wants to take and submitted it online (another thing that's completely different to when I was at school).  

When I chose my GCSEs I don't think I put much thought into it or what I wanted to do when I left school.  Kids just didn't seem that bothered about this sort of stuff then.  I really admire kids nowadays that get stuck into studying and have a clear goal of their future.

Michelle x

Daily Diary 12th March 2014

I can't quite believe it but I am sticking to my training regime for The Race for Life.  I have never been into exercise but I think I'm becoming addicted!!  We are either going out on our bikes or the gym 3 times a week.

Today we rode 9k and burned 311 calories. I'm starting to notice a difference in the way that my clothes are fitting me which is an added bonus.  I haven't weighted myself in a long time but I am going to get come batteries for our scales tomorrow so I can keep a log of how my weight is changing.

I put some new soaps on Bath and Basin today.  These are really gorgeous hand made soaps with various dried flowers and fruits in them, like this Slice of Sunshine soap...

I was going to start a daily log of the dinners that we are having but I forgot to take a photo today and only remember once it was all eaten, oh well I suppose it shows that we enjoyed it.  We had chicken sweet and sour noodle stir fry.

I made some flapjacks today too, you can find the recipe on my previous blog here... http://thirtyishmishme.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/soft-and-gooey-flapjacks.html.

Anyway that was all for me today, I'm about to jump into the bath so until tomorrow you can find me on Facebook or Twitter.  You can also follow the blog on Bloglovin.

Michelle x

Soft and Gooey Flapjacks | Baking Blog

My flapjacks are normally a disaster, either too hard or too crumbly but I came across a really good recipe online and they came out perfect. To make these you will need:

250g Rolled Oats
125g Brown Sugar
125g Butter
2-3 tablespoons of Golden Syrup

1, Pre-heat the oven to 180c and grease a square baking tray.



2, Slowly melt the butter in a pan being careful not to let it boil then add the sugar and golden syrup until it is all melted.

3, Add the oats to the pan a bit at a time and mix until all the oats are covered.








4, Put the mixture into the baking tray and place in the oven for 15 minutes.

5, Leave to cool on a rack and cut up in to squares.




I managed to get 16 flapjacks out of my mixture but it depends on how big you want them. Could also add cocoa powder or fruit to them.

Don't forget to comment below and you can also find me on Facebook or Twitter and follow the blog on bloglovin.

Michelle x

Daily Diary 11th March 2014

I have been working all day today so not a lot to write about. I have added lots of bath bombs to the website today...

Oh we did have a bit of drama earlier with our eldest dog. Whilst we were working he got into the living room and ate my son's volcano that he made at school!!  He has always done really stupid stuff like that, it really annoys me.  There has been quite a few Christmases where he has eaten either the kid's advent candles, the cake, presents etc..  He even ate my sons birthday cake one year.  Needless to say I'm not very happy with him and he knows it as he won't even look at me! He's 12 now so you would have thought he would have grown out of it by now.  Nevermind all the sick and wee was cleared up and the floor steamed.

Anyway hope you have a good evening xx

Michelle x

Daily Diary 10th March 2014

Hi

So today I continued with my training for the race for life by riding 6 km on my bike over very hilly roads.  It is a killer but I am very quickly becoming used to doing it again after the winter break.  As of next week I'm going to find a bit of a longer route.  The Race for Life is in aid of cancer research and takes place on 6th July.  Here a a link to my sponsor page if you would like to donate... http://www.justgiving.com/michellehill

I launched my new website today, Bath & Basin as James has now taken over the running of The Crystal Chakra. So I've been updating the SEO on there today as when I put all the products on I didn't really know what I was doing with regards to search engines, hopefully the products will start making an appearance on google soon.

This afternoon we went into town to get a phone number that we had noticed on a shop window that was up for let but when we got there the number had been taken down so I presume that someone has snapped it up. Nevermind it obviously wasn't meant to be and we will keep our eyes opening for others.

We are having Chicken Tikka Masala for tea tonight so the chicken breasts are in the oven as I speak and I need to clean the bathroom. So off I go to my other unpaid job of being a housewife, although James did just hoover downstairs and up.

On Friday we went for a walk up to Broadway tower to take some photos for James' website. 

Anyway you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter

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New website...

I have a little bit of news for you all today :D
James has totally taken over the running of The Crystal Chakra now so I can concentrate on my own business ~ Bath & Basin.
I sell lots of different soaps, bath bombs, shower scrunchies, essential oils and much more... www.bathbasin.co.uk

It would be great if you could come over to the website and take a look.  You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Half Term, Sickness and The Lego Movie

I am so sorry for the lack of posts lately but we've been really busy.

To start off with we have been revamping our website www.thecrystalchakra.co.uk  and updating the seo on it, which I have only just learnt how to do properly.  So that has been taking up a lot of our time as we have 700 products and all of the categories to update but we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

We also have a new range of new age hippie festival clothing, bags and decor in our online store.  They are selling really well so we will expanding our range.... http://www.thecrystalchakra.co.uk/hippie-new-age/ 

So this week has been half term and the boys have both been really poorly!  Owen was sick at school on Friday and was still being sick on Saturday.  We ended up taking him to the A&E for an emergency appointment as he wasn't even holding down water and was becoming really dehydrated.  The doctor was ready to admit him but said we should give him overnight at home and get him to drink Lucazade Sport to help rehydrate him.  Thankfully he did start to perk up, so we thought we were over the worse of it on Sunday morning but then Morgan started being sick!  Anyway they are all better now but they did loose a lot of weight so just trying to get some food in them now.

We did have 1 day out during the week to the Lego Movie and Cheltenham Cineworld and I must say I really enjoyed it. It's just a really silly film but Lego is awesome so it made it amazing.  I would recommend going to see it even if you don't have kids. The thing that I really liked about Cineworld is if you book your tickets online they send you an email with a QR code in it and they just scan it when you get there so you don't even have to print off tickets as they scan it when you go in.

With regards to my sewing, I haven't got a lot of stuff done to sell but I did make my sister a button art letter and an LSP card for her birthday.  These can both be purchased from my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thirtyishmishstitch.

If you would like to follow The Crystal Chakra then you can find us on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

And if you would like to follow me then you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Etsy.

Thanks for reading and please leave me a comment, I love to hear from you xx