Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips

Look away now if you don't want to read another nail post.

I know my last post was on nails, but we all know how obsessed I am with nails and nail art.

Yesterday, after dying my sister's hair and then losing some of my nail polish because I was using nail polish remover to get the hair dye off my sister's face, I decided to use the Sally Hansen Nail Polish Strips I bought a few weeks ago.

I put some on my sister last weekend and they barely lasted a day so I was a prepared for it to be short lived.

Well, like most nail stuff, it seemed to work better on my acrylic nails.  It stuck beautifully and I didn't have any corners raising up.  The effect was awesome.

I'm hooked!

I have tried the OPI nail art stickers previously and they were awful.  They were really thick and creased very easily.  The Sally Hansen ones are very thin and mould perfectly to the nail.

I can't wait to buy some different designs in the future.

xx

Nail Art Experimentation

As I have mentioned previously, I have a slight obsession with nail polish.

I also love nail art, but am too cheap and impatient to get it done at the nail salon.

While I was wandering the aisles at the chemist the other day, I came across french manicure stickers.  You know, the ones you use to paint the tips of your nails a different colour to the rest of your nails.  Eureka!  This is exactly what I had been hoping to find.  Except I had no intention of painting my tips the boring white colour of the typical french manicure.

My nails were already the dark purple (OPI's Dutch You Just Love OPI? for those playing at home) from my visit to the salon the day before.  So I thought to jazz it up, I'd make my tips a lighter purple.  I used OPI's Planks A Lot.  I LOVED them.  They were a bit messy, but I learnt from my minor mistakes and made sure to do it a bit differently next time.

Yesterday I painted my nails OPI's A Roll in the Hague and the tips OPI's Big Apple Red.  Much brighter than last week, but just what I need to get me through the last week of the school term.

I look forward to experimenting with other colour combinations.  I am also thinking of being a bit more adventurous by adding nail gems and using sticky tape to paint different patterns.

In other nail experiments, I put Sally Hansen's Nail Stickers on my sister's nails.  They were pretty easy to apply, though a bit sucky that I couldn't find a sticker to fit my sister's pointer fingers.  They also didn't respond well to the NT heat and didn't stick as well as I had hoped and started to peel almost instantly.  My sister has already 'lost' two...  However for the 20 minutes that they were all in tact on her nails, it looked awesome.

xx

My Favourite Pumpkin Soup

I love pumpkin soup.

Even though we don't get typical 'winter' weather, I am more than happy to eat pumpkin soup in any weather.

I have made many different types of pumpkin soup  Some more complex than others.

However, there is one pumpkin soup recipe that I hold dear.  It is the easiest pumpkin soup recipe that I have tried, and it is by far the yummiest.

I found it online years ago.  And recently I lost the recipe.  That's okay though.  Having the recipe in front of me was more for the security blanket factor.  I shouldn't need the recipe.  I've made this pumpkin soup HEAPS of times.

And now I am going to share it all with you.

MY FAVOURITE PUMPKIN SOUP

Serves 4

Ingredients:

750g diced pumpkin - I use butternut, but jap works quite well too
250g diced potato
1 onion diced (the recipe originally asked for 2 onions, but I have changed it to one for personal preference)
3 vegetable stock cubes (you could also use chicken stock cubes.  I use vegetable because my sister is vegetarian)
3.5 cups of water
salt and pepper to taste
250g cream
crusty bread and sour cream to serve

Method:


1.  Put all ingredients (except cream) in a large pot.  Let simmer until pumpkin and potato is soft (not mushy though).

2.  Remove from heat and blitz with a bar mix until smooth.

3.  Return to heat and add cream.

4.  Stir cream in and heat through.

5.  Serve with warm crusty bread and a dollop of sour cream if desired.

ENJOY!

This soup also freezes and reheats quite well.

Oh, it's also only 225 calories a serve (not including the bread and sour cream).

xx

Litchfield National Park

After living in the Territory for nearly 5.5 years, I finally went to Litchfield National Park.

Litchfield National Park is pretty much a NT institution and with many of the sights being accessible by sealed roads, there is really no excuse to not go.

So yesterday, two of my friends and I spent the day playing tourist.  One of my friends had already visited Litchfield numerous times (and she's only lived the NT for 18 months...), and the other (a true blue, life-long Territorian) had also never been.

It was beautiful.  The weather was lovely - not too hot, not too cold - and it was great just to get out of town and chill out with some awesome friends.

 A miniature castle in Batchelor

 Big termite mounds

 Wangi Falls - beautiful

 Buley Rock Holes

 Keira swam, but I was only brave enough to put my feet in...

 Florence Falls

Now, I just need to get off my bum and see the other amazing sights the Top End has to offer!

What I've been eating lately.

Gee, it's been quite a while since I did a food post.  My weight loss and cooking journey was the inspiration for this blog.

With getting ready to move, moving, settling in and the extreme amount of pressure I've been under at work it has meant that my healthy eating has taken a back seat in the past couple of months.  I have well and truly fallen off the wagon and I have the super grazed knees and the number on my scales to prove it.  I have gained 2kg - bringing my total weight loss down to only 6kg.  Argh!  I know it could be worse.  I have been eating terribly, so I am a bit surprised I haven't put more weight on than I actually have.

I am starting slow with getting back on the wagon.  I am doing a meal plan again, but am not being as strict as I know I should be.

I've made a few new things over the past few weeks.

Lentil Soup

This turned out much better than I expected.  I've had a few lentil soups over the years and this one was different in the fact that half of it was blitzed which added a thicker texture to the soup.  The lentil soups I've had in the past have all been very watery and this had the thick soupy texture that I love.  A thing I added that wasn't in the recipe was garlic.  It just didn't seem right to not have garlic in it, especially considering it had onion, carrot and celery.  It was also only 260 calories a serve.  Sweet!

Potato and Split Pea Curry

This was devine.  Pity I misread the calorie count and it was probably closer than twice the amount of calories than I had thought...  Instead of using a madras curry paste, I chose to use a yellow curry paste as I had heard that madras was VERY hot.  Well, the yellow curry paste was uber mild and while it had the curry flavour, it would've been even better if it had a bit more bite.  So next time - if there is a next time - I will be using a hotter curry paste.

Healthy Nachos

Now these surprised me.  I had chosen to make the nachos as an easy meal choice, and easy it was.  Refried beans, tin tomato, taco seasoning, cheese, corn chips (the recipe made its own tortilla chips...), spring onion and sour cream  Awesome, stuff I usually have lying around in my pantry and fridge anyway.  I got the recipe off the Weight Watchers website a couple of years ago and it reckons it was only 5.5 points (the old points, not the pro points) per serve.  I haven't worked that out in calories yet...  When I was making it, I was dubious as to whether there would be enough per serve.  So instead of dividing it into four serves, it was more closer to three serves.  Well, surprise, surprise, it was REALLY filling (probably due to the beans).  Like, stomach exploding filling.  So I now have no doubt that it would serve four very comfortably and will divide it appropriately next time.

Until next time,

xx

Look what I bought... :)

For a while now, I have been umming and ahhing about buying a new camera.

My current camera is a bit over two years old and has served me very well.  Especially when I travelled to the UK.  My parents bought it for me for my 25th birthday and it did everything I wanted it to, especially super zoom (a complaint I had about my previous camera).

My 'current' camera - a Fujifilm JZ500

Well, my current camera has been causing me a wee bit of grief.  Firstly, it picks and chooses whether it wants to take photos on the setting I have selected.  Often it will angrily beep at me then turn itself off, requiring me to turn it on and change the setting.  One of the rubber rings around the lens is also sticking out, which means it doesn't shut properly and the shutter cover thingy sometimes gets stuck, requiring me to flip it up with my finger.

So, it's obvious that my camera has more than served me well.  It has travelled overseas with me and has taken some exceptional photos.  Pretty spiffy for a standard aim and shoot camera.

A few different cameras have caught my eye over the last few years, and for aaaaages I was coveting a Panasonic Lumix TZ20.  Then a few weeks ago, I was window shopping in JB HiFi and a different camera caught attention.  A Nikon Coolpix S9300.  It kinda had an SLR look, but was still a standard digital camera.  I decided I wanted it and would try to buy it before I headed to Adelaide in 7 weeks time.  It retails for $398 and I found it online for $349.  Sweet.  I prepared myself for the possibility that I would not be able to afford it before my holiday though, knowing that money was tight, especially considering the exorbitant amount of money we paid on our airfares - ummm...  $760 return!!

Yesterday we were walking through JB HiFi again and lo and behold, they are having a 'Massive Stocktake Sale' and Nikon cameras were 15% off!!  That meant my camera would be reduced to $338!  BARGAIN!!  I still decided I couldn't buy it though, and left empty handed :(

I mulled over it all night and decided I would buy it.  I had some money in my holiday savings, but I wanted to see if I could get it on my GE Creditline store card.  Turns out I could!  I get 3 months interest free, and I already pay waaaay more than required on my GE card, so it should be paid off in no time.  And best of all, I didn't have to dip into my Holiday Fund.

My new camera :)

She's got stacks of cool features - including GPS, 3D shooting, easy panoramic and fireworks setting.  

She's charging at the moment, and I am chomping at the bit for it to finish so I can start playing with it!

xx

Still Here...

I know it has been a while since I have updated my blog.

Don't worry, I'm still alive and kicking.

I've just been REALLY busy with moving and work.

I will put a proper blog update up in the next week or so.

xx