Cupcakes and Cadenzas

I don't do too many product reviews on this blog but sometimes something comes along that I just have to tell you all about. The products today are the 'Glad Hair Day' Shampoo and Conditioner from Soap and Glory. If you've been following this blog you will know that way back in the beginning I reviewed Soap and Glory products in general. If you haven't already read the post you can find it here . I love the products that I have used so far but have always been reluctant to try their shampoo and conditioner. This is because a lot of shampoos and conditioners just don't agree with my hair and by the time I've dried it, it looks as though; (A)  I haven't washed it for a week  (B) I've been dragged through a hedge backwards Image However yesterday I was buying a few S&G products whilst out shopping and decided to give their shampoo and conditioner a go. Well, once again, I love it! The first thing you notice about it is the FABULOUS  

Today I'm conducting a very short poll to find out what everyone's favourite treat is when they go to see a film. Image Later today I'm off to the cinema. I love going to see a film but I never feel my visit to the cinema is complete without some sort of treat - it's obviously a throwback to my childhood. My absolute favourite is Ben and Jerry's ice-cream and I was just wondering what everyone else likes to eat or drink when they go to see a film. Maybe it's popcorn or a bottle of water. Perhaps it's nothing at all. You can let me know by answering my short poll over on Facebook.  http://on.fb.me/q2Sn2i  or by leaving a comment here. Denise x

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Sadly, I have had a parting of the ways with my DH's mother and although it wasn't totally unexpected it did come as a bit of a shock because of the way it happened. This is not going to be a moan about mother-in-laws but I did want to share it with you as I'm sure I'm not the only one who has gone through this and I wanted to let you know that sometimes it's better just to walk away from it all. Image To give you a bit of the background, this lady can't let go of the past and finds it very difficult to live in the present. In all the years I have known her she has never been really happy about anything and in particular, her children's choice of partners. None of us are or ever will be good enough for her children and I quickly realised that if she was talking to me about the others then she was talking to them about me in the same way. When she comes to stay she is critical of everything I do around the house, the way I do things in general, my views

Today's Daily Awwww is a link to the most touching photo I've seen in a while. Click here   to see this wonderful image by  Anze Malovrh  .

© Gabriela Insuratelu | Dreamstime.com So, you've decided what it is that you would like to achieve in life and  you've set your goals. You've written them down to give them importance and you've SMARTened them up. All you need to do now is to achieve them. It sounds simple enough but this is where the hard work starts. You need to dedicate some time every day to working on your goals. I'm not talking about hours and hours but you need to refer to them every day to stay focused on them. Read over them, focusing particularly on anything that has to be done in the short term. Plan how you are going to achieve it and do whatever it is that needs to be done immediately. Don't put it off or think that it's ok to do it a bit later. You will most likely forget. If one of your goals involves updating your CV, do it now. Don't leave it for another day. Something might just come up out of the blue tomorrow requiring an updated CV and you want to be rea

Image via StumbleUpon Apparently these sea otters are holding hands so that they don't drift apart whilst they are sleeping. This is a link to the YouTube video

I found this on the Internet today. Advice worth taking.

S M A R T Yesterday I spoke a bit about the importance of having goals to work towards as it's all too easy to get bogged down by daily life and to forget about your dreams and aspirations. I finished off by asking you to come up with a few small goals that you would like to achieve. Today, I'm going to talk about actually setting your goals. How many New Year's resolutions have you set over the years? Probably hundreds - maybe even thousands. How many resolutions have you actually stuck to and achieved? I would say...very few? Am I right? If I had a £1 for every resolution my friends and family have made and failed to stick to over the years, I could have stopped working several times over but there is a simple explanation for this. No-one gives their resolutions (goals) enough importance. So, you may be wondering why the word 'smart' is written at the top of the post. Your goals need to be SMART. S  is for SPECIFIC.   You must be very clear about what you wa

Courtesy of StumbleUpon

© Grovene | Dreamstime.com Where do you see yourself 10 years from now? "We can't think that far ahead!" I hear you all cry out. Ok - 2 years from now? What about 6 months? What about next week? "We're busy people! We barely know what we're having for lunch today never mind what's happening next week!" So...what if asked you to tell me what your hopes, dreams and aspirations are? Would that make a difference? I bet it would, because we all have dreams. We all have things that we would love to do but are convinced that we will never be able to achieve them. Sometimes our dreams were formulated a long time ago and now seem impossible. What little girl doesn't dream of becoming a world-famous ballerina, or marrying a prince or becoming a pop star? What little boy hasn't at some time dreamt about becoming the greatest footballer in the world, or flying to the moon in a rocket or winning a Grand Prix? We all have dreams when

© Puma330 | Dreamstime.com ' Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the   rain   to make its colours appear' ~ Unknown

© Viola Di Pietro | Dreamstime.com So, we're almost halfway through the summer and if the weather where you are has been anything like it has in the North East of Scotland you will have had more rainy days than sunny ones so, if you find yourself stuck in the house on a rainy day, here are 10 things you might like to try out. Spend some time writing out your short term and long term goals. Write down what you want to achieve; how you are going to do it; who can help you; when you want to achieve it by and how you will know when you've reached it. Clean out a cupboard. Pick one cupboard that really needs cleared out and spend time getting rid of everything you no longer need/want. Then pack everything that's left back in (neatly), stand back and admire. Start a blog. Click  here  for hints and tips. Have some 'me' time. Read a book, spend time doing your hobby, give yourself a manicure/pedicure in fact do anything at all that you normally struggle to find t

'Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You' ~ Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962 ) I have always loved this quote and I try to follow it every day. I'm not saying that I actually achieve it every day but I do try and I mostly succeed. The feeling that I associate with being scared is the feeling that you get just before you do something that requires a bit of courage. Sometimes it's described as 'having butterflies', sometimes it's just plain old excitement and, in more extreme cases, it's a rush of adrenalin but whatever it is it's a great feeling. What is even better is the feeling of really having achieved something after you've done whatever it is that scares you. What really scares you? It doesn't have to be huge. Depending on the type of person you are it could be something very small although it may not feel that way to you. It could be: Asking your boss for a pay rise Doing a bungee jump Complaining to a business about their produc

Image courtesy of Collider,com Just a quick post tonight. I have just returned from seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2) and all I can say is, if you haven't seen it yet you need to get to a cinema ASAP. If you're swithering about whether to go or not, just go - you will not regret it. I'm not going to go into the film in great detail as I don't want to spoil it for anyone but I would suggest taking some hankies with you. I cried - a lot! Having said that, this comes from the person who can cry at an advert so maybe it's just me, although I definitely wasn't the only person in the cinema blubbing into my popcorn. The acting was, as always, brilliant! All the familiar faces were there including Dumbledore (who died in the Deathly Hallows - Part 1) and Harry's mum and dad, Neville Longbottom, Ginny, Luna. I wondered how they had felt when they were filming it; knowing that it was the last one. I do believe they had an absolute ball fil

© Nick Pashley | Dreamstime.com The other morning I was woken up at 6.15am by a very strange sound. At first I wasn't sure what it was but it was definitely coming from the direction of the window. I got up and padded over to the window which had been open all night. The wooden venetian blind was pulled down but open and there, sitting on the window ledge inside the window were two young magpies sheltering from the heavy rain. If the blind hadn't been there they would have been in the bedroom. I expected them to fly off when they saw me but no - they sat there chattering away to each other, tapping on the window sill and the glass and the blind, totally oblivious to the fact I was there. It was only when my cat started to meow that they flew off. I couldn't help smiling. I had been inches away from these birds - so close that I only had to move my hand a few inches and I would have been able to touch them. What a privilege to see those birds acting so naturally in such

Dogs Die Car Sticker Two weeks ago there was outrage at the Metropolitan police dog handler who forgot he had left his two dogs in the back of an unventilated van for several hours on one of the hottest days of the year whilst he attended a meeting. The dogs consequently died. The terrible suffering that these unfortunate animals endured is unimaginable. One was an adult Belgian Malinois and the other was a five month old German Shepherd puppy. This has become a high profile case because it involved a police dog handler; someone who should have known better. People were up in arms when this happened because these dogs were supposed to be in the care of an 'expert' and if anything good was to come out of this terrible tragedy it should have been the message that 'dogs die in hot cars' but people forget very quickly and only last weekend a Yorkshire terrier died from heatstroke in a car parked outside a supermarket in Chippenham. A window had been left open for the

This is going to be a very short post tonight but earlier this evening I was searching for something on the Internet when I came across this life quote and thought I would share it with you all. It really moved me for some reason and brought a tear to my eye. 'I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh, but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry' ~   unknown Until the next time, Denise x