Sunshine, sunshine and more sunshine here in Ireland. We are currently having a heat wave, we deserve one as we haven't had one in years. I am working this week but contemplating taking Thursday and Friday off as annual leave to soak up more sun. I was in my car today and it was 40 degrees, never saw that before in my lifetime!!! :) P.S. Sorry about the rubbish image of my car, the clock is also wrong should read 16:03 as I am an hour behind.

{Images via Good Homes Magazine}

I hope we get long warm Summer days soon. The weather is so miserable, lots of rain and very cold too!

Our Wedding Day

Saturday 25th February 2012

Just a few images

Hope you all had a lovely Easter and enjoyed the time off. I am lucky as I also get today off work :) I had a nice weekend, went to my friends wedding party which was really good and great to see two good friends begin their married life together. I had another friend visit Sunday night and then I went to the city yesterday to catch up with more friends that I went to university with. I also had dinner with my inlaws on Easter Sunday which was lovely. So all in all, I had a lovely Easter with family and friends.

What did you get up to over Easter?

The images above are all from Cath Kidston and I adore them, really bright and cheerful, just the way we like it :)

This day next week I will be married. Sorry If I am boring any of you with my wedding blogging, but it will all be over in one weeks time :) I'm working Monday and Tuesday and then it's party time.
Here is a photo of our wedding invitations, I went for nice plain but elegant ones!

Hello everyone, I got internet access at last! Hope you are all enjoying the new year, one month almost gone already- how time flies! Since I lasted blogged properly, I have got a new job which is going well. I have also moved to my new house hence the lack of blogging lately as I had no internet access. We are settled in now. I cant find my camera battery charger so have no photographs of the house for you yet. These days I am organising the wedding, one month to go. We got engaged in September and have been very busy planning. This weekend, I'm getting the bridesmaids dresses altered at the dressmakers and then going to look at flowers. I also have to finalise the text for the wedding booklet and next weekend hopefully get my wedding dress from the shop and buy shoes. We also have the tasting at the hotel next weekend.

I'm loving life at the new home and after work most evenings I go up to the farm, I don't do much but I like the fresh air and the baby calves are cute too :) I hope you have all been well and that you haven't given up hope on me blogging again.

I have lots of catching up to do on your blogs!

"God made the country, and man made the town"
William Cowper

All images above are my own. I love life in the Irish Countryside :)

Some of you may remember me blogging about a top secret I had, well it's time for the big reveal to you all! Have any of you been guessing? This is on the cards since the new year and I wrote about it in my New Year Goals :-)  I am like a wee bird that is going to build a nest :-) After all home is where the heart is!

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace ~Gaston Bachelard

The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes ~Harold B. Lee

Life's a voyage that's homeward bound ~Herman Melville
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ~John Howard Payne

A good home must be made, not bought ~Joyce Maynard

My home is not a place, it is people ~Lois McMaster Bujold]

Any ideas??? I have gave the secret away! Yes you guessed it! Myself and my boyfriend are building a home together, we have the plans all ready and have permission. We are both living at home with our seperate families at the moment but as soon as the house is built it will be our HOME!!! :-) As you may have noticed I'm very excited, all I need now is lots of money! All donations accepted :)

I was working late this evening and when I got home there was a parcel waiting for me :) Exciting! I knew where it was from, it was my wonderful prize I won over at ..... A Mermaids Purse.... Kazzys wonderful blog, full of lots of pretty interiors, crafts, illustrations and images. Full of lovely treasures and personal touches. Thank you so much Kazzy :)

Have a look!

What is this???

Oh an envelope....

And look what's inside...

How pretty is this card, it is so me- floral patterns, flowers, birds and butterflies...

And more...

A lovely receipe which I must try, I'm trying to improve my cooking skills

And there's even more...

At this stage I was smiling from ear to ear, I could also smell something really nice..

and here it is...

I've named her Lucy

So adorable and she smells lovely too :) Think she'll fit in really well in my bedroom near the radiator as she will leave a lovely scent in my room :-)

And last my not least- the masterpiece of my parcel... I got a sneak peek of it on Kazzy's blog but it looks much much prettier and perfect in reality...

Look at the detail of the wee mouse, think that's Lucy :-)

And look at the fairy, the detail and delicate flowers in her hair, I think it is adorable and want to get it framed as soon as possible.

Thank you so much Kazzy you are so kind and such a good blogger friend. Sending lots of good wishes and hugs across the water to you and Sweetpea :) I will try and have your return parcel in the post this weekend.

Some photographs of my boyfriend's farm. Part of his farm is in a Natural Heritage Area. This is a designation in Ireland for an area considered important for the habitats present. It also holds species of plants and animals whose habitat needs protection. There are a lot of Whooper Swans on the lake each year. The land is nestled among rolling drumlin hills and lakes and many of the fields roll down to the lakeshore. Here is a view of one of the fields across the lake which is surrounded by the lake on three sides.

The farm is both dairy and beef and I love the wee calves. My boyfriend will think I'm mad taking photographs of the calves but they are adorable and very photogenic don't you think...

The ear tags are so large, the poor calves look like they are wearing large ear rings. The ear tags have to be fixed as it is EEC law. It doesn't hurt them though as it is the same as us getting ear rings :o)

This little one has yet to get his jewellery. I really like this wee calf- look at those adorable eye lashes :o)

He's a little camera shy

And then he got use to the camera, he lost one of his ear rings too

And last but not least, how cute are these three little calves...

they all wanted to get a look at me..

And here are a few photographs of my neighbours sheep and lambs, I couldn't get close enough as they kept running away and the mothers kept hiding the lambs, sorry they are a little blurry

Hello everyone, hope your weekend is going well, I've been busy with work and have a family wedding next weekend. Today I went to town and also tried to get abit of sewing in, so I managed to get less than 30 minutes but at least I got to do some :)
Here are a few photographs of what I sewed, I'm a learner so excuse the poor quality of the sewing but its unique and I'm proud of what I did :) Thanks to lovely Karen at Tilly Rose for the beautiful fabric :)

And here is a photograph of the Mother's Day card I made for my Mam

Hope you have a lovely Sunday and enjoy the sunshine. I'm off to search for some daffodils in the fields later and take a walk around the farm :)

{Accessorize}

 

{Country Living}

{Country Living}

Here are a few pretty tea time photographs I came across online- LOVE Them!!! Hope you all had a lovely week and enjoyed Saint Patrick's Day. The good news is IT'S THE WEEKEND :)

Have you any nice plans??

Well we are now over two months into 2010 and the time has flew by. The weather is beginning to brighten up and we are getting some sunshine now :) I love to see the baby lambs jumping around the fields and the carpet of snowdrops all over the graveyards. No daffodils have emerged yet, the grass is all yellow because of the severe frost we have had, so hopefully in the next few weeks they will return to their rich green colour. There are lots of wee calves on the farm and I will try and get some photographs of them tomorrow.

So I  am now going to recap on my goals for 2010 and see how I am progressing. I will go through each goal and give a brief outline of how I am getting on with it.


No.1 Eat healthier so instead of biscuits with mugs of tea- replace with cream crackers, replace cake and sweets with fruit- I might have slipped abit on this one, with a few too many treats in the evenings so I will began to get back on track this week as I have a family wedding coming up near the end of the month.

A weakness of mine

No.2 Keep positive, jot down positive thoughts and ideas in my notebook- Now this one has been very easy due to No. 15 being fulfilled, see everything is related and hence achieving one goal will help with other ones :) I continue to make notes in my fairy book each week.

No.3 Complete my plant and bird identification booklets- I am still working on this from time to time, I have all my sketches complete and inserted into my book, I have the text wrote up but will need to insert it now so I might get some time this month to progress with this.

No. 4 Study for my course- As No. 15 has been fulfilled I had to give up my part time course due to time constraints, however I am on the watch out for advertisements of part time evening courses for the summer months. I would like to do a short part time interior design course in the evenings.

No.5 Keep in contact with my friends reguarly- Last month I made sure I contacted and visited as many of my friends as possible, as some of my close friends live in England and Scotland I didn't get to see them all but I have plans to visit Scotland in the Summer time :)

No.6 Continue with my craft projects- Again I didn't have as much time as usual to do this. I finished off my wee heart cushions which I posted about earlier in the month. I also received handmade gifts from Monika @ home: handmade All things nice magnets and a beautiful handmade pendant and I was also lucky to receive Happy Mail from Laurie Anne at Rebel Blossom: a pretty handmade drawstring bag, felt needle holder and notelets/cards- thank you girls, you both have give me lots of inspiration and hopefully some day I will be as good at crafting as ye two :)

No.7 Make more handmade projects-  I did quiet a bit of card making and made alot of decorations for Valentine's Day. Tomorrow morning I think I will make a homemade Mother's Day Card for my Mother for Mother's Day next week (Don't forget!) I also made some simple rice krispie buns for my boyfriend for Valentine's Day and decorated them in a lovely package with lots of ribbon and cute valentines images.

No.8 Buy some blank white cards to make greeting card- As I already mentioned in my January update I bought some cream ones and lovely paper and stickers too. I will soon have to go and buy more though :) I really should get white ones this time as they are prettier and look better.

No.9 Continue taking photographs of my travels and my local area at home- I took more photographs in February than January as the weather has began to improve but I will continue taking more and more. The most I took was of my lovely walk in the woods with my mother.

No.10 Spend more time outdoors- I really tried hard this month to get out and enjoy the dry weather, I had my lunch outside two days this week and went for a lovely long walk most weekends :)

No. 11 Appreciate those I love- Always and forever, I think I did this month!

No. 12 Start a very big project (It's top secret though so I can't share with you all yet)- Again this is still top secret hopefully by the end of the month I might be able to let you in on it as there is alot of background stuff to be fixed up first.

No. 13 Declutter my walk in wardrobe which I was meant to do ages ago and sort out all my clothes- Oh no! It really isn't that bad really!

How neat is this wardrobe, someday mine will be this organised

No. 14 Start back with my To- Do Lists as they were very helpful- Yes I'm still at this, and it keeps me on track!

No. 15 Keep applying for jobs and try and not get down about them- I kept trying and god loves a trier and I got a job- I'm three weeks into it now and I love it so far. It really is my ideal job. It took me awhile to get use to the early mornings and the later evenings again as my last job was nearer home and now I have an hour each way to go but I don't mind the driving :) This doesn't give me as much time to craft and blog now but I still get a chance some evenings to do these things.

No. 16 Improve my cooking skills- I don't know if I'm improving but I am cooking more now at the weekends as I am not at home during the days.

If only I had a kitchen like this...

No.17 Don't worry about little things as much- Now that I haven't as much free time on my hands I am not worrying as much, so it must of been something to do with idle time and too much time to think. So for any of you that worry too much, I say go do things, interact with people, start an evening course, volunteer with the local community or a charity, visit friends and try not to spend so much time on our own, which was my problem and meant I had too much time to think!

No.18 Grow vegetables- The poly dome is still not up but it is still very frosty at night so maybe at the start of April - hopefully it wont be getting too late :)

No. 19 Organise my time better- I really have to rework this one now that I am working full time and am not home until nearly 7 so I need to ensure I use my free time at the weekend as efficiently as possible. Any suggestions welcomed?


No. 20 And most importantly enjoy life :) This month I am just grateful for those who believe in me and those who have given me a chance in life.