TwitFit Club - So it begins

With the arrival of the new year comes the obligatory resolutions about losing weight, being healthy and dieting. Well, 2013 is no different and a few of us on Twitter have teamed up to motivate each other and provide helpful little tips and tricks. Go team!

This TwitFit Club will be the same as your average diet club but without the inconvenience of having to go to meetings and handing over a fiver each week. It's just a bunch of people with similar goals helping each other out. 

At no point will you ever have to disclose your weight and your level of participation is entirely up to you and can vary from week to week depending on how you feel and how busy you are. You can follow whatever diet or fitness plan that suits you most (personally I will doing the Slimming World plan). No embarrassment, no regime and no pressure. 

I will be documenting my weight losses each week and have chosen Wednesday mornings as my weigh-in time. Obviously with any diet you have good weeks and bad and there's no shame in putting on a couple of pounds after a big event or bad week so I'll be documenting that too. If you want to do the same then let me know and I'll create a chart. I've been dieting for exactly 7 days and today was my first weigh-in. The scales were particularly kind and said I'd lost 5lbs. Not a bad start but the first week on any diet is always the most successful and delivers the biggest loss so I'm not expecting anything quite as dramatic next week. I'm happy to admit that I'm quite worried by the prospect of sharing my losses/gains as the various medications I take have some adverse effects. Eek!

Charleynew lost a fabulous 3lb this week. You can find her on Twitter. 

I'll start off TwitFit Club with an easy recipe for guilt-free chips that are very popular on the Slimming World plan. If you happen to be following that diet then these chips are syn free on a green day. Even if you're not following it, these chips are delicious but don't have all the fat that come with the deep fried variety. It's a well researched and documented fact that if you deny all treats you're more likely to fall off the wagon. Armed with this recipe you'll be less likely to make an impulse purchase at the chippy on the way home after a bad day at work.

Ingredients: Potatoes, Fry-Light oil, salt and vinegar. 

Method: Peel your potatoes and cut them into chips. Thick cut chips work best. Par-boil your chips and drain well. Spread them out on a baking tray and spritz a few times with Fry-Light. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 200 degrees. Season with salt and vinegar. Devour. If you want them a bit crispier you can cook them for longer. 

So, if you want to join in, share a recipe, offer an exercise tip or if you want to take part in the weight loss monitoring - get in touch and let me know. I'm especially interested in calorie burning stats ie how many calories a 30 minute bike ride burns. If you've got any particular requests, share them here and maybe somebody will be able to help you out. 

Liebster Award

I was tagged to do this post (called the Liebster Award) by Penny from Lillies and Love.  It's just a bit of fun but I rather like this kind of thing and it's a way of getting to know people better. 


The Rules
- The nominees must link back to the blogger who awarded them
- If you are nominated, write "11 Random Facts" about yourself, then answer the 11 questions the awarder wrote for you 
- Make up 11 new questions to be answered, then nominate 11 other bloggers to take part. 

I'm going to have to cheat a bit here because I don't know 11 other bloggers well enough to tag them. Penny has tagged a couple of people I would have so I'll have to skip them but I'm going to tag three bloggers and leave it up to anyone else if they want to take part. You can say I tagged you, don't worry I'll back you up. 

11 Random Facts About Me...

I have a phobia of turkeys.

I used to be addicted to Extra Strong Mints and would eat up to 5 packs a day.

I was once an extra in a tv puppet show and had to get covered in pretend poo.

Cliff Richard accidentally touched my bum at a funeral.

I have been boycotting McDonalds for over 9 years.

I have had a kidney transplant (thanks for the gift, Mum!).

It's my life ambition to one day own a tank full of axolotls. 

My favourite food is, and always will be, pizza.

My favourite colour is purple.

I've never had a filling in any of my teeth.

I used to drive a white car with black cow spots painted on it.

My Questions From Penny...

- How old are you? - I'm 27 but I will be 28 in three weeks time (yikes!)

- What are your favourite boys and girls names? - Opal for a girl, Harry for a boy.

- If you could have any career, what would it be? - When I was a kid I always wanted to be a scientist. I think my inner child still wishes this was a possibility! 

- Who are the three people you consider your heroes/heroines? - Eddie Izzard, Richard O'Brien and Terry Pratchett. I actually wrote a blog (here) on it a while ago. 

- What has been the proudest moment of your life so far? - Surviving renal failure. I got pretty close to giving up a few times.

- What ambitions do you have? - To own a home with Rich. Oh, and to have a tank full of axolotls in it of course. 

- Do you have a lucky number? - The superstition says that 13 is unlucky for some but I've always found it to be a good luck charm.

- If you won £17,000,000 on the lottery, what would you do with it? - I'd buy a house for Rich and I, pay off all the debts for both our families and friends, make some donations to charity and travel the world. I'd also set up my own charity that specifically helps young transplant patients funding the costs of their education, holidays and deposits for homes. 

- If you could spend 2-weeks anywhere in the world, where would you go? - I'd love to go to Japan. I'd spend a few days in Tokyo and then the rest of the time I'd travel the country looking at the natural beauty of the land.

- What is your favourite film and television programme? - My favourite film has absolutely got to be Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's hard to pick a single favourite tv show but I'm especially fond of cheesy American crime dramas like CSI, Castle and Criminal Minds. 

- If you could only read three books for the rest of your life, what would they be? - Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett because it's my favourite book from his Discworld series, Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg because it reminds me of my childhood, Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien because it's an escape into a fantasy land and can be whatever your imagination wants it to be.

My Questions For You Lot...

- How old are you?
- What is your first memory?
- Who would play you in a movie of your life?
- What is your favourite book?
- If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life what would it be?
- Do you have any hobbies?
- Where is your favourite place in the world?
- Do you have any interesting scars?
- Do you have phobias?
- Do you have any pets?
- Pirates or ninjas?

Ok, so here are my tags:

Rachel from Things that make me go aagghh!

Jeni from Make up for the Morrissey fan

Scott aka Scooshmeister

Charity Begins At Home

I've wanted to write this post for a long time but I've never gotten around to doing it. I've been put off because charity is a tricky subject and getting the right tone is tough. It's considered bad taste if you loudly broadcast all the things you do for charity, doing nothing at all is frowned upon, it gets a bit preachy if you bang on about it all the time and avoiding chuggers on the high street has become a new sport. Yikes.

Almost a year ago I decided that I would only support local charities. Having been a corporate whore for many years and working in the legal sector, last year I got a job with a charity. It's not a front line charity nor is it run by donations. Our purpose is to help other charities and we are funded by the council as well as other organisations like the Big Lottery Fund. We provide free services to other charities such as helping them with their constitutions, finding them volunteers, organising forums and networking events for them to attend, we offer training in subjects such as writing bids or tenders and we also loan them expensive equipment they cannot afford to purchase or hire from elsewhere (eg laptops, projectors etc). We aren't the only charity like this, there are at least 290 similar charities in the UK. Each one helps local charities offering a service in the town they are based. 

Anyway, the point is that the moment I started working there my eyes were opened. I was suddenly made aware of how many small charities and voluntary organisations there were in my area and how hard it was for them to help people. These charities don't have monthly direct debits from countless residents across the country, they don't have high profile advertising campaigns and they don't have thousands of sponsored events taking place. What they do have is staff who believe in the cause they are working for, volunteers giving up their time to help and a huge sense of community spirit. 

I never really understood what 'charity begins at home' meant and I've probably still got it all wrong but for me, at this moment in time, it means helping the charities in my home town. Instead of sponsoring people to run/cycle/climb on behalf of well known national charities, I've been donating the money locally instead. One person I spoke to through work recently told me that their charity's annual income is £2,000 a year. A whole year! I used to earn more than that each month and it's probably less than what some of the big charities spend on a single airing of a tv advert. 

Money reserves at charities has always been an issue for me. I was once told that Oxfam always had a reserve of £30 million for advertising. I have no idea whether that information is true or accurate but I do know that it set off a seed of doubt in my mind about where the money goes for every major charity. How much is spent on advertising, staffing, building maintenance and general expenses? Some of it seems so wasteful. I've never been keen on sponsored gimmicks either. The 'raise £2.5k and go on a jungle trek' concept doesn't sit well with me. If you happen to have taken part in one of those events, please don't take it personally. I'm not saying it isn't a good cause or that it wasn't hard to achieve I simply mean that having to raise a minimum amount to make it worthwhile for the charity to let you go ahead with it seems a bit of an odd idea. 

These days I prefer to make donations of objects rather than money, that way I know that whatever I give is going to reach the people who need it rather than being used to fund an advert. It's a happy coincidence that supporting local charities makes my preferred method of donation even easier. The Foodbank always need new food supplies,homeless shelters/dry houses always need bedding clothing and toiletries, pet rescue homes always need bags of kibble. Of course it's not always feasible to make anything other than a monetary donation but if you give £10 a month to a national charity, that pays for someone to stand in the street with a clipboard for an hour and half while they try to convince other people to sign up for monthly donations. The same amount of money goes a lot further when you give it to a smaller charity staffed entirely by volunteers. 

You will be amazed at some of the charities in your area and the services that they offer in your own community. One of my favourite discoveries is the animal charity here that offers a scheme where dogs help children who struggle with reading. The idea is that kids may find it embarrassing to read aloud in front of their peers or family but not in front of a dog as it won't judge their abilities. 

I'm not saying that you shouldn't give to the larger charities, that would be ridiculous. I'm just saying that for me, it's not how I want to do things anymore. Obviously I still buy a poppy for Remembrance Day, put some coins in the Comic Relief buckets and round up the extra pennies on my shopping whenever I'm asked and I also still support the national charities that have a personal meaning to me. But, if you ask me to sponsor you to grow a moustache, run a marathon or stay off the alcohol for a month please don't be offended when I congratulate you on your efforts but give my donation to a charity who needs it here. 

Candy Cane Vodka

Candy Cane Vodka

I'm going to a party on Christmas Eve and I wanted to take something new. Usually when I attend parties hosted by this particular friend I make vodka jellies but they're more of a summer treat than a festive one. Skittles vodka has been doing the rounds for a long time now so I figured that if that works, a candy cane one would too. 

The ingredients and method couldn't be more simple. You can make it in just a few minutes.

To make this festive tipple you will need vodka, candy canes and bottles. It's worth using a good quality vodka because this won't be something you drink with a mixer, it will be a shot. I'm using peppermint candy canes from Asda which cost £1 for 12, bottles from Lakeland which cost £2.99 each and hold 250ml and Grey Goose vodka. I don't how much the vodka cost because it was purchased from a duty free shop and was a gift. 

I decided to use one candy cane for each 250ml bottle. I put each one in a separate sandwich bag so I could ensure each bottle got exactly the same amount.

Bash each cane a few times to crush it.

Make sure the candy cane is really finely crushed so it dissolves easily in the vodka. After I'd bashed it a few times I rolled over it with the rolling pin to grind it up. You could also use a food processor to do this.

Poor the contents of each bag into a bottle.

Then pour in the vodka.

Give each bottle a quick shake to mix everything and you're done! 

Not all the crushed cane will dissolve straight away but that's fine, give it a couple of days and it will soon disappear. I checked on mine a couple of hours after I'd made it everything had mixed in beautifully. You can give it a taste and add more candy canes if you want. I think I prefer the square bottle as the vodka turns a lovely pale pink colour and this bottle shows it off more as the swing top has a slightly green tint to the glass. For presentation you can tie a candy cane onto the bottle with a ribbon or you could tie on a tag or even write directly on the bottle with a marker pen. This is sure to go down a treat with anyone you share it with and it makes a great home made gift. Next year everyone I know is getting sweetie flavoured vodka for their birthdays!

My Guide to Black Friday

If you know me 'in real life' or if you follow me on Twitter then you will know that for a week in November I become obsessed with Black Friday and to date I have a 100% success rate in grabbing deals. I've lost track of all the questions I've had on it so far this year and we're only halfway through Tuesday.

Black Friday is traditionally a sale that takes place in America on the Friday after Thanksgiving. People queue for days in advance outside Target, Best Buy and other stores to get the deals. Sometimes shops have a special freebie for the first 100 people through the door. This could be a free digital camera, extra discounts or another kind of incentive. If you've not witnessed the phenomenon of Black Friday in America then I urge you watch some videos on YouTube.

Black Friday in the UK first became popular in 2010. There were £50 Xbox and Wii consoles on Amazon but the deals weren't widely known about. In 2011 it was mainstream knowledge and this year it's even bigger. The general concept is this - Amazon will advertise a deal (I'll use a TV as an example) by saying that at 2pm a TV will go on sale. You can click on that TV, like you would on any other Amazon product, and you'll get all the item specifics such as size, brand, reviews and current price. What you won't be able to see is the price of the Black Friday deal. That will only be revealed at 2pm and on the Black Friday section of the site there will be a timer underneath the TV counting down until the deal goes live. When it hits 2pm the price will be revealed and a 'add to basket' button will appear. If you decide to go ahead with the purchase you have 15 minutes to check out otherwise you lose the TV. If you're not fast enough to click the 'add to basket' button you might see a 'join waiting list' button. If you click this you will be put in a queue and if a TV becomes available, ie if somebody doesn't check out before the 15 minute window, then you will be given the option of buying it. If you're on the waiting list for something you must stay by your computer because a little window will appear and you have only a couple of minutes to say yes or no and then you have to check out. Once a deal is live there will be a stock bar underneath the item showing you how much stock is left. The deals are live for a short period of time and is usually under 3 hours. After that they disappear.

Black Friday offers are called 'lightening deals' for a reason. They disappear faster than lightening. If you want something you have to be ready. It's no good having a casual look through the offers, seeing something you want that goes up at 1pm and then going off to walk the dog because if you come back at 1.15pm the item will probably be gone. If you really want something you have to be at your computer watching the timer go down with your hand on the mouse poised and ready to hit the buy button.

There is no rhyme or reason behind which items sell out and which items don't. Yesterday a £6 dry dog shampoo which had £1.05 off the usual Amazon price completely sold out in under 30 seconds whereas a Lego Star Wars kit which usually retails for £60 and was on sale for £20 didn't get above 20% of stock being purchased. Last year the Lego offers were gone in under a minute. You might think that the item you want isn't going to be popular and that you can get away with being a few minutes late but today a brown bamboo lamp sold out in 10 seconds so don't underestimate what people are after. There's also no way to know how much something will be discounted. Yesterday I bought a Moshi Monster talking plush toy for £7.99. It usually retails on Amazon for £16 so it was a 50% saving but today a friend asked me to keep an eye on the Just Dance 4 video game and the discount was only 33%.

Every day there will be a mixture of products but you can pretty much guarantee that there will always be watches, jewellery, video games, kids toys, blu-ray/dvd, electronics and clothing. The majority of deals will be advertised throughout the day but occasionally one will appear without warning so it's worth taking a scroll through all the items at least once an hour to make sure you haven't missed anything. Most of the items will have a picture and a link to the product page but a small percentage will be cryptic clues. Last year there was a clue about garlic bread and the item was a Peter Kay dvd. This year there are barely any mystery items so far but they are in there so keep an eye out.

If you see something you want, research it. If you're thinking of buying a new razor and you see that at 4pm one will go on sale, use the time in between to have a look at it. Find out what people think about it by reading the reviews, check what it is being sold for elsewhere and then make up your mind. Have a maximum price in your head and when it goes live if it's under your limit you can buy it.

Team up with friends if you have to. This year I have exchanged lists and maximum prices with a friend and we have the authority to purchase the products on behalf of each other if we see them. Each morning we will be having a look through the deals for the day and making a note of what we're interested in and the time it goes on sale and updating each other on what to look out for. If you know somebody who is desperate for an item, offer to watch it for them. Today there was a Lego Woody from Toy Story clock going on sale and I knew two people on Twitter who were trying to get it. Unfortunately neither of them got it but I did so I was able to pay for it on behalf of one of them, use their address for delivery and they sent the money over by PayPal. I did the same thing yesterday with some One Direction headphones and some earrings.

Try to ignore the negative naysayers. Every year folk bleat on about the deals being rubbish but that's only because they haven't seen something they want to buy. If you're a parent and your kid has asked for Lego and you manage to get it for £20 instead of £60 then that is obviously a good deal. If your girlfriend has asked for jewellery and you can get a necklace for half price then again, it's obviously a good deal. Nobody is forced into buying anything from Black Friday. If you don't like it, sit down and shut up.

So, in summary:

Look through the items before 8am each day to see what will be on offer.
Research any items you like the look of and decide a maximum price you're willing to pay.
Be at your computer before the sale countdown on your chosen item runs out.
Click the 'add to basket' button as quickly as you can.
Check out before your 15 minutes runs out.
If you're on a waiting list, do not leave your computer.
Refresh your browser and scroll through all deals at least once an hour.
Help your friends!

Good luck!

Recycling Beauty Boxes into Vintage Keepsakes

I've been receiving She Said Beauty boxes since April and I thought it would be a shame to throw the packaging away so I've been keeping them safe for Christmas. I've been decorating them using vintage images I've found online and the results have been wonderful. Each one is unique as no two are alike.

My first step was to find the pictures. I did an online image search of "vintage Christmas" and "Victorian Christmas". I pasted them all into a Publisher document, converted it to a PDF and printed them off. 

The second step was to cut the images out. There were 10 sheets of pictures for each box and to stop me getting in a muddle I kept the cut outs for each box in a plastic wallet.

When it was time to start decorating I gathered my small list of supplies; pva glue, paint brush, images and the box. 

I found it helpful to sort the pictures into sizes as it made things easier when decorating the boxes. I also put images I particularly liked at the top of the pile so they'd definitely be used.

The decorating was really simple. Using the brush I painted on some glue and put an image on top. I then went over the image with additional glue to smooth it out and get rid of any lumps and bumps.

Ensure your images go right into the corners and edges of the box.

I found it helpful for the images to slightly overlap in places and to go over the edges of the box, this ensures there are no bits that don't get covered and it also means the box has an even finish.

Don't worry if you get some wrinkles, you can smooth them out with additional glue when the first layer has dried slightly.

Getting a good layout can be tricky at times and I found it helpful to put the images on without any glue to see how they look next to each other and then I'd take a photo so I could refer to it.

Keep on gluing until you've covered the whole box. You'll have to take breaks so the glue can dry in places before moving on to the various sides of the box but eventually you'll have a box completely covered in vintage images.

We know how many goodies She Said Beauty pack into the boxes each month so you can fit a lot inside. I'm using them as Christmas presents that I'll be filling with all kinds of surprises. It's better than going into a shop and spending money on massed produced packaging. While I'm excitedly counting down the days to Christmas when I can give them to my friends I'm using them to store my ribbons, gift tags and other bits and pieces that I use for wrapping gifts.

In terms of monetary cost, these boxes are incredibly thrifty for something that is one of a kind. The glue was £1.50 and will be more than enough to do all 6 of the boxes I'm making, the paintbrush was £1 and the boxes were free. I printed the images at home but to try and put a cost on it, where I work charges 3 pence for each page of colour printing and there are 10 pages so that works out as only 30 pence per box. In total it will have cost me £4.30 for all 6 boxes - less than a pound each! Even if they were triple the cost it would still be worth it and your friends who receive one will know that you've taken the time and effort to hand craft them a one-off present.