Bath and Body Works Haul

Another haul for you today!  My husband went to Dubai last week on business (very jealous, I'd love to go but I know I never will) and I decided to have a look at the shops that were nearby to him.  My jaw hit the floor when I saw the store list for the Dubai Mall....I would be in heaven, it is massive and has EVERYTHING.  When I saw there was a Bath and Body Works I just had to ask him to pick me up a few bits.  There aren't any B&BW stores in the UK so it's ether ebay or the website called bathandbodyshop.co.uk which isn't too badly priced but obviously is higher than instore prices as they have to get people to bring products over.

There is a massive sale on at B&BW at the mo so I wrote my husband a massive email with loads of pictures of all the things that I would like and told him to pick a couple of bits off the list.

Hubs came home last night and well, boy did good!  Apparently he showed my email to the SA who went round and picked out a load of stuff (hubs assures me he didn't get off lightly and was pulled round the shop to sniff everything - ha ha)

Hubs ended up sepnding loads, about 400 AED (about £68) but as there was a massive sale on he got lots for his money!

Ooooh goodies!!

I haven't had chance to look at everything properly yet but I will be sure to review my favourites.

As a quick overview of what I have got:

Owl scentportable holder (for your car, wardrobe etc)

'Leaves' scentportable fragrance refill

Medium candles in 'Vanilla Bean Noel', 'Tiki Beach' and 'Sea Island Cotton'

Large candle in 'Autumn'

Pluggable home fragrance diffuser

Diffuser refills in 'Drenched Apple Flower', 'Sunrise Lagoon' and 'Seaside Escape'

Body Lotion in 'Malibu Heat'

Shower gels in 'Sea Island Cotton', 'Sweet Pea', 'Secret Wonderland', 'Midnight Pomegranate' and 'Cherry Blossom'

A set in 'Twilight Woods' that includes shower gel, body lotion, body butter and fragrance mist

I have tried out some of the Twilight Woods items and oh my! It smells amazing!  This will definitely be the first on my to review list as it is totally my kind of smell...not too fruity, not too spicy, quite grown up but not too heavy!

Have you tried and B&BW things?  What is yor favourite scent?

Boots 75% Off Sale Haul

So..today was the day.  Probably one of the biggest shopping days in any toiletries lover's calendar!

If you hadn't already guessed, today all of the Boots Christmas 342 stock was reduced to 75% off.

My mum had the kids, I wangled a late start at work so I was all systems go!  I turned up at Boots 20 minutes before opening and bagged spot 5 in the queue.  I had a great time chatting to the ladies in front of me (they were all quite impressed that I had gone in store last night to do a bit of a rec, see what was available and where lol)  One of the sales assistants came out and filmed the queue before opening time as it was soooooo looooong!  I tried to start an American style whoop when they opened the doors but we settled for a crazy OMG style run to the sale aisles!!

WHAT DID YOU BUY??? I hear you cry!  Just a few little goodies to keep me stocked up....

I bought:

• 2 of the big Soap and Glory sets (£60 each reduced to £15 each.)  I have never seen S&G make it to the 75% sale before so I was really excited to get these.  My Mum and I have been using this brand for years and I was running low on most things so I picked one up for each of us.

A quick close up of the S&G goodies

• Small Sanctuary set (£16 reduced to £4)- for my pressie stash
• Starbucks mug and coffee (£10 reduced to £2.50) - I can't wait to take this to work so I don't have to use the paper cups anymore!
• A pair of Jimmi Jamms pyjamas (£24 reduce to £6) - I live in pyjamas at home during the winter.  There is nothing better than getting home from work and putting on a nice comfy pair so these are a welcome addition to the ones I got for Christmas.
• A small French Connection gift cube (£10 reduced to £2.50) - another item for the pressie stash
• Botanics Rebalance Pamper Kit (£10 reduced to £2.50) - I may keep this as I haven't tried any of this range before
• Betty and Walter hand wash and lotion set (£10 reduced to £2.50) - I'll keep this for when the S&G version I got for Christmas runs out
• Pineapple perfume set (£13 reduced to £3.25) - I will probably use this for those times when I don't want to use up my expensive perfumes
• Beauty Hut cherry shower set (£10 reduced to £2.50) - this was going to be for my pressie stash but I don't think I can resist cherry goodies!
• Hello Kitty Liberty shower and shine set (£12 reduced to £3) - another item initially bought for the stash but will probably end up being used by me...it has the cutest Hello Kitty shower cap in it!!!

It might look like a lot of stuff but I was very restrained compared to some people.  Luckily Boots implemented a bulk buying policy this year, limiting the amount of each item you could buy to 6.  Still lots you may think but in previous years there have been people teaming up, blocking the aisles and sweeping each shelf clear so they could put it all on ebay.

I had a really good time, I'm really pleased with all my goodies and I can't wait to try some of the new things that I got!  

Did you go to the Boots sale today?  What did you buy??

Fitbit One review...

Happy Thursday!

Today I wanted to give you a review of without a doubt, the best thing I got for Christmas, the Fitbit One.
If you saw my Christmas Wishlist post then you will know that I was really hoping Santa was going to bring this for me and obviously I was a very good girl last year as he told my mum and she bought it for me!
The Fitbit One is the latest pedometer to be released by Fitbit.com/uk and costs 79.99

In the box you get the pedometer, a clip to attach it to your clothes, a usb dongle to sync it with your pc, a usb charger and a wristband to wear in bed (more on that later)

You may be wondering why you would want to spend £80 on a pedometer when you can get them for just a few pounds in Argos.  Well, this is sooooo much more than a pedometer!
It tracks your steps, flights of stairs climbed, calories burned, sleep patterns (by wearing it in the wristband in bed) and all syncs up wirelessly to your computer and via Bluetooth to your iPhone 4s/5 (and Android soon I believe) with their free app.

I've tried my best to include a screen grab of the dashboard (your log on the pc of all your stats), I am sorry it's a bit small but it is showing you all the items it is tracking, how much you have done, what % of your daily goal you have completed and also your daily and overall badges you have.

One of my favourite things is the badges that you get.  Every time you reach a certain goal you get a new badge on your dashboard.  There are daily badges and lifetime achievement badges.  The other day I couldn't get out after work to walk the dog so I decided to go for my next stairs badge.  I had to do 50 flights in a day to get this but the lure of the next badge on my dashboard really spurred me on.

You can also link the Fitbit up to other apps, such as My Fitness Pal....I haven't looked into this properly yet as doing Slimming World means I don't really need to track my calories but I am sure this will be good for lots of people.

I am totally in love with my Fitbit and I am definitely more active since getting it.  I really enjoy seeing how many steps I have done and I really want to go out for walks or do extra flights of stairs to reach and go past my targets.  I really hate the gym so is perfect for me.  I really can't rave about this enough.  As well as being more active since getting it I am also getting more sleep.  It's silly, I always knew that I didn't get enough (about 5.5 hours a night) but for some reason, seeing my sleep pattern every day on my app/pc dashboard has brought it home to me and made me do something about it.

I have also joined forces with a few of my friends on twitter to make a #pedometerposse.  We are all checking in every day to see how many steps we have all done, spurring each other on to get more active.  Hello to @t_toperula, @polkadot26, @Tinkally, @kookiethekat, @dexstreme and @jonesey1975!! 

My only gripe at the mo is that the sync between my Fitbit and my iPhone app is not great.  I'm not sure if it's my phone, or something else but I have sent Fitbit an email and I am sure they will be able to help me.  When I first got my Fitbit it seemed to be tracking too many steps but all I had to do was send them an email and they got back to me really quickly with  a few things I needed to do (like set my stride length) and now it tracks perfectly! 

If you are thinking about a pedometer to get more active in 2013 then I would definitely check out Fitbit.com  I know that they have also started selling their pedometers in John Lewis and @t_toperula noticed the One on Groupon yesterday with a 20% discount!  Fitbit also has their own bracelet style pedometer coming out soon, a bit like the Nike Fuelband.  

My next item to get is their Aria scales, their wifi smart scales.  I will definitely have to save up for these though as they are about £100 (but look so great)

Here's to a happy and healthier 2013!!

Slimmer soup....

In my attempt to fight the flab I am trying to address my diet danger zones (I'm full of these little sayings lol)
Snacking is a particular weak spot for me so I decided to make some soup that I could keep in the fridge to heat up when I get peckish. Normally my veggie soup creations can be a bit samey but this turned out really well so I thought I would share it incase anyone wants to try it.
You will need:
2 big onions
3 celery sticks
1 big carrot
Garlic (I used two teaspoons of lazy garlic)
1 head of cabbage
1 tin of baked beans
1 tin of 3 bean salad
1 carton of passata
2 chicken stock cubes
Pinch of mustard powder
Water to cover
Fry light

Method:
I chopped the onions and celery and added them to a big saucepan sprayed with fry light and softened for a couple of mins. I then added the garlic and carrot and continued cooking until the onions started to colour.
I then chopped the cabbage and bunged that and everything else into the pan and cooked until the carrots were nice and soft (about 20 mins)
Once it was cooked I used a hand blender and whizzed it slightly. I wanted the soup to be chunky but whizzing it slightly thickened it up.
It really was sooo tasty. I know there is no specific recipe for veggie soup and you can just bung in what you have but this was definitely the nicest I have made.

If anyone has any other good slimming suitable recipes then let me know!

New Year Resolutions...

Happy new year! It's been ages since I have blogged but I had to work a fair bit over Christmas so I've been trying to spend as much of my free time as possible with my family. Now the decorations are down and everything is getting back to normal it's time to get back to blogging!
I got loads of lovely things for Christmas that I want to talk about but in this post I wanted to put down my New Years resolutions. I'm not going to set myself anything crazy, just some things that I think I can stick to that will make a difference to me.
So, here they are:

1. Stick to Slimming World and get to my target weight. - The whole of last year I faffed about, switching between Slimming World, Weight Watchers, low carb, paleo, pretty much anything I read about I tried. I KNOW SW works, I lost 5 stone 4 after my son was born and although I have lost a good chunk since my daughter was born I still want to lose about another 1.5 stone. I weighed myself yesterday and I am going to post here every Thursday with how I am getting on. I may also post any particularly yummy foods/tips etc.

2. Spend less money. This is probably on most people's lists in current times. Don't get me wrong, there's no way I'm turning into someone who never buys anything new but it certainly will not hurt to use up more beauty products before buying new ones and planning my supermarket shop so I'm not in Tesco's every day to top up (and ending up spending an extra £15 on stuff I didn't know I needed.

3. Be more active. I'm starting small on this one...I'm going to take the dog out more rather than letting hubs do it. My Fitbit One that I got for Christmas (see my Wishlist post if you don't know what it is) will definitely help with this as I'm hoping to build up the amount I do week on week.

That's it for now. There's tons more things I want to achieve in 2013 but these are what I'm focusing on for now. What are your resolutions? Do you think you will be able to stick to them?