One day at a time

Life is complicated. 

I am taking one day at a time.

Looking into the future. 

Building a new life. 

Not looking back. 

I can't...it hurts too much. 

What once has been said can't be taken back. 

Too much, too far, too loud, too much pain. 

Thomas D. & Nina Hagen - Solo

Please stand by

Life, your whole life, is changes.

You go through changes in your life, 

one second you've got it made

next second you're down in the dump. 

(Unkle - Back and Forth)

Life is full of surprises, sometimes good ones and sometimes bad ones. 

Unfortunately I experienced this week a really bad one. My partner and me broke up. 

I am currently re-organising my life and will back very soon. Hopefully this week. 

Please stand by and don't forget me. I have a lot to tell, but I need some time to breath. 

Thanks

L'Oreal Riche Babydoll & essie shine of the times

I am off to Brussels today, wohooo!!!!!

So of course I had to do a glitter nail design, because they last the longest!

essie 'rock solid'
L'Oreal '207 Riche babydoll'
essie 'shine of the times'
maybelline express manicure top coat

May next post will be next Thursday where I will tell you all about Brussels, chocolate and cherry beer!

Crouching Tiger, hidden (not so) Zebra cake by Lorraine Pascale

Another birthday in the work team, time for another cake.
Watching Lorraine Pascale on the weekend I loved the idea of her Crouching Tiger, Hidden Zebra Cake.

The recipe sounded easy enough, so I gave it a go.

Let me put it this way: It tasted yum yum and was gone in no time, but it didn't have the zebra stripes *sadface*

I will bake the cake again and hope its gonna work out better next time!

The chocolate dough

The vanilla dough

Stripes done

 Fresh out of the oven

 Close up

 Another close up

Bit blurry, sorry...there was a cake craving colleague waiting for this piece ;-)

 No zebra stripes....more a marbled cake *sigh*

Review: Celebrity Slim Chicken & Beef Couscous Ready Meal

Celebrity Slim and me have a good friendship.  I am drinking the shakes and loving the bar since May 2012, when a colleague recommended this type of low carb diet to me. It works! I lost loads of weight and I am also not bad at maintaining my weight.
Currently I am trying to loose a few more kilos. So I am back in the diet phase, which consists of two shakes/bars and a balanced meal.

Not too long ago Celebrity Slim launched two different ready meals. I bought one each and tried the Chicken & Beef Couscous Ready meal tonight.

This is what the packing looks like: Celebrity Slim Ready Meal

All I had to do is pierce the plastic lid and heat it for three minutes in the microwave.

So this is how it looks in the packaging...not really appealing, but that's how it goes with ready meals in general I guess:

I transferred the meal onto a plate...a little better ;-) (Sorry only realised afterwards that the picture is blurry.)

Looks: Ok, of course it doesn't look like the picture but I was positively surprised.

Smell: For some reason all ready meals have a certain type of smell. Maybe it's the preservatives?

Taste: Not bad at all. Not the biggest fan of the seasoning, but the couscous was nice and fluffy and the meat had a really nice texture. 

Portion size: It's really not a lot, but it works as a small meal in the evening. It's nice to have an alternative to the shake every now and then. 

(Celebrity Slim also offers soups, but I am really not a soup person.)

My Celebrity Slim favourites are:

Chocolate Shake (I LOVE chocolate and the shake really tastes like chocolate milk. Very very yummy!)

Cafe Latte Shake (It does what it says on the tin and it tastes really nice!)

10 days Variety Pack (A mixture of all shakes Celebrity Slim has to offer. I order it every now and then to spice things up) 

Rocky Road Snack Bar (Defo the best bar Celebrity Slim produces. It's really good. The other bars are ok and nice every now and then, but I order the Rocky road Snack Bar every time I place an order.)

The good thing is, that you are not stuck with Celebrity Slim bars. I regularly eat Atkins Bars too. I either eat a Daybreak or Endulge bar as a snack or eat one of the meal replacement bars instead of a Celebrity Slim shake. 

Tonight I bought another new Celebrity Slim product: Celebrity Slim Active Chocolate Shake

It's a new phase they added to the program. It's meant to boost the weight loss when you start the program, but it also can be done during any phase of the weight loss. 

I will drink three active shakes every four hours and have a low carb meal in the evening. Let's see if I can do this for a week as that is the duration recommended for the Active Phase. 

The normal shakes are just mixed with water where the Active Shake has to be mixed with Skimmed milk. 

I will write another review after the week and let you know if I lost more than usual. 

L'Oreal Confetti nails - Take II

Just a quick nail design:

Base Coat: essie 'rock solid'

Colour: nails inc. 'porchester square'

Glitter: L'Oreal '916 Confettis'

Top Coat: Maybelline express manicure 'quick dry protecting top coat'

Because this is such a short post I am adding a picture of my doggies. They were REALLY delighted to go for a walk the other day :-)

Hair extensions by Issonni

My hair has been kinda short since more than ten years (I am getting really old *dislike*)

I was craving for long hair since a good while, but I knew I would never achieve it by just letting it grow. Hair extensions was the answer to my troubles!

There are a lot of options and methods out there to get long hair within hours. I found Emilia, who runs Issonni and offers all kinds of extensions which do not involve glue. That sounded perfect to me as my plan is to let my hair grow while I am wearing the extensions. In theory my own hair should be long in about a year and I won't need the extensions anymore.

My extensions last for about 12 weeks at a time. Once the 12 weeks are over I have to go back to Emilia, get the extensions taken out and reattached.
The hair is kinda sewed to microbeads which are spread around my head. I have four layers of real human hair. The lowest layer is straight hair and the rest is wavy, just like my own hair.
The pictures below show the hair after Emilia straightened them to see how the finished product looks.

The whole procedure took 2 hours and cost 440Euro. Yes, I know...it's a lot of money, but I am totally happy with it and the reapplying of the hair in 12 weeks will be much cheaper as the hair can be reused.

I am totally amazed how perfectly the colour was matched to my own and also how close the texture is to my hair. I watched it for the first time yesterday so I was able to see the waves in my new hair. My friends and colleagues love my new look and some are actually asking me how my hair was able to grow so fast....LOL

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but I took them with my IPhone.

Hope you like my new hair do :-)