When April rolled around

When April rolled around I said to myself "Myself, you have to write more blog posts this month, you should make time for the blog because you enjoy doing it and you always have these brilliant ideas/thoughts that pop into your head on the way to/from the office, you should jot them down and write about them."

Well obviously that hasn't happened, we are half way through April and I have only done one post! Tsk tsk!! Shame on me!!

The truth is there are things I enjoy more than blogging - like adventuring around my new city, cooking and squeezing in a workout here or there when I can. Then there are things that I have to do, that I don't necessarily enjoy more that blogging - like attending lectures, doing housework, my job, and sleeping. I need to find balance and get my groove back.

That being said, I have been working on a new look/design for the blog, and I'm working on moving the blog over to wordpress, so I'm spending all the time I would have spent writing posts on trying to design my new header, logo, buttons etc. I have a very clear vision of what I want the blog to look like, with about 2% photoshop skills to do it and approximately 231 559 pins (okay maybe not THAT many) on my secret blogging board with inspiration and tips on how to move to wordpress and create your own this and how to do that - So it might take a while.

Anyway, once I have that (and a few other, more personal things) down and sorted I will be back in the swing of things (hopefully!!). But for now, I will be content with writing sporadic posts about life and our adventures and my thoughts.

2014 in summary

2014 was quite a year, it was challenging and rewarding, we had lots of fun BUT it was frustrating at times and it definitely taught me A LOT!

January:
In January I learnt A LOT about myself, besides the fact that I confirmed that I'm a little dyslexic - I've known it all along (See pic above) hahaha! I learnt that I value myself more than others' opinions and that I actually don't care what others think or have to say about me because I am a good person, I do things with love and kindness from the bottom of my heart and I like who I am and I won't be changing for anyone.

February:
In February we competed in our first warrior race, for those of you that don't know what it is, it's an obstacle course race that sees you running climbing walls crawling through mud and swimming through dam water, it was absolute fun - beside the fact that I nearly died...slipping off the edge of a platform a few stories high as I was about to jump into a pit of water, my head missed the side of the pit by centimetres and I completely winded myself, not fun!! We chose red as our team colour, needless to say that shirt never made it back into my cupboard!

March:
March was amazing, besides for it being a huge birthday month in our family, I graduated from UNISA, with my BCompt Accounting Degree, after 5 years of part-time studying, the hard work and dedication paid off! Booya!! But of course it doesn't end there, I enrolled for ACCA and wrote my first exam in the beginning of December, hopefully by this time next year I'll be qualified!

April:
In April we celebrated our first wedding anniversary, we went to Swaziland for the long weekend and had some well deserved R&R! The first year of our marriage flew by and I can't believe that we are already running head first towards our second wedding anniversary.Oh, I also cut my own bangs back in after the weekend in Swaziland, it went quite well actually but I get bored so quickly so I let them grow out again.

May:
May was pretty uneventful, but we did get our gorgeous little black kitty, Arya. South Africa also had it's fifth general election, unfortunately corruption still triumphed and the ANC won the elections again. Hopefully next time the DA wins.

June:
I'm already over this post, recapping on a year is such a long post!!! Hang in there peeps, we're half way! June was pretty uneventful for us, but I did bake this awesome chocolate fondant for Fathers Day, best chocolate desert EVER!!

July:
In July I baked a lot, is it just me or do I seem to be getting better and better? JK!I'm enjoying the baking challenges this year, I did lots of very awesome cakes. I almost forgot and had to come add this in after re-reading my post... Our Flavourful Life was born this month, I've enjoyed every step of the blogging journey so far and I thank you guys for reading and the comments, much appreciated!!

August:
In August I went to Dubai, it was ridiculously hot, but it was awesome, it's such a beautiful place with so much to see and do, we will definitely be making a stop over for a couple of days when we come back to SA for a visit!

September:
September saw us telling all our friends and family that we'll be immigrating to the UK, with only 10 days to go now, it's very real!! Luckily our family and friends are supporting us all the way, and they are excited for as, they are the absolute best!

October:
I dyed my hair purple!! It wasn't as much of an impulse decision as I had been contemplating it for a while. I loved it! BUT it's high maintenance, it fades unbelievably quickly despite being a permanent colour. I also baked my second solo wedding cake for friends of ours, it was delicious! The cakes are definitely getting better and better!! I took part in my first blogtober, it grew my readership and I think it made me a better blogger! Also we can't forget that Oscar Pistorius got sentenced for murder...5 years in prison, not enough if you ask me...

November:
November was quite chilled, I went to Durban for a week, we threw a surprise 50th birthday party for my Dad, started sorting all our plans for Paris and London and I finished up with work for the year. I can't believe I've been done with work for a whole month already!

December:
And finally, December, it was easily the busiest month of my life, I wrote exams, we sold almost all our belongings, packed what was left into a few boxes and suitcases and moved out of our house, in between all of that we have had farewells, Christmas and New Years. It's been super busy but lots and lots of fun!

A few of my favourite songs from 2014:
John Legend - All of me
Taylor Swift - Shake it off, Blank Space (I'm loving Taylor Swift lately, it's all about the catchy lyrics!)
Meghan Trainor - All about that bass
Ed Sheeran - Thinking out loud
George Ezra - Budapest
Coldplay - A sky full of stars
Ellie Goulding - How long will I love you
Imagine Dragons - Demons
The Vamps - Somebody to you

A few things I'll be happy to see stay behind in 2014:
Justin Bieber - This little boy needs a smack!
Miley and her tongue and gyrating antics.
Kim K and her butt, and her sex diets, BS!!
Hacked/Stolen nude pics and sex lists, seriously people, this stuff should be private, don't put it in the cloud.
Missing planes.
Internet trolls.
Bae.

A few things I'd like to see more of in 2015:
Celeb group selfies like this one

People treating other people the right way.
Honesty in people and also less corruption in governments.
More feminism...

That's the end of this long-ass post!! Thank you all for sticking around with me and stopping by throughout the year!

What would you like to see more/less of in 2015?

Discovering new blogs

I love stumbling across new blogs, reading blog posts has kind of taken over from reading novels lately.

Besides for a few blogs, I'm busy reading "The fault in our stars", unfortunately I watched the movie before I started reading the book, I'm the type of girl that prefers reading the book first, it's just better that way! I did the same with "The notebook", but surprisingly I enjoyed the movie more than the book, Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling did such a good job at portraying the characters!!

Anyway, back to the discovery of new blogs! I was recently nominated for the Liebster Blog Award, by Charlotte. This girl is so sweet, and seriously talented!! We may have to make a plan to meet up once we're in the UK!

The idea of these blog awards is to link up to smaller newer blogs (with less than 200 followers) that you've discovered and to help fellow bloggers discover these hidden-gems too! I love it, spreading the love and sharing the lovely content in the community that is blogging!

So before you read any further pop over to Charlotte's blog & browse around, have a look at her etsy shop and show some love, maybe leave a few comments...bloggers love comments!

As it goes with these awards, there are rules! Obvs! (Hahaha I couldn't resist, Sorry, not sorry!) Here they are:
If you are nominated you must...
- Link back to the blog who nominated you - Done!
- Answer all of their questions - Read on!
- Write 11 facts about yourself - Read on!
- Link 11 blogs with less than 200 followers and tell them you've nominated them - Read on!
- Ask 11 questions for the blogs you nominate to answer - Read on!

These were Charlotte's questions:
1. What time is it right now? It is 1pm (13:00)
2. Would you rather be a fish or a bird? I would rather be a bird (a parrot to be exact - they are smart and they can talk), fish are slimy and gross and have a 3 second memory, birds can fly and they can poop on people they don't like! Awesome skills!!
3. What kind of genre of book is your favourite? Fiction and romance, if I can have both in one book, even better!
4. When lightening strikes the sea, why don't all the fish die? I think you have to be grounded to get electricuted? I don't know, science was my worst school subject.
5. What is to the right of you, right now? Stock sheets, files, my pencil bag, cellphone and water bottle.
6. Why is your blog called what it's called? The day I decided to start my blog I decided that I would write about all the food I make, the stuff I bake and our life in general, I had just gotten the opportunity to work abroad and thought it would be a good way to keep our family and friends up to date with the goings on in our life, and so our flavourful life was born!
7. What goes on-top your Christmas tree? My parents used to have this horrible angel doll (which I made in primary/pre-primary school) on top of the tree, then we got a fibre optic tree that has a star on top that lights up, so the angel got demoted from top of the tree to shelf ornament.
8. What did you leave out for Father Christmas when you were younger? Milk and cookies (had to be chocolate chip), one year we left him a beer because we thought all men like beer and he must get tired of all the milk!
9. Which came first the chicken or the egg? Ha! If we're going the bible route it was probably the chicken? But who knows, it could have hatched from an egg that evolved from the dinosaur days?
10. What is the last film/movie you saw? Gone girl. You have to watch that movie, when you walk out of the cinema you'll just be like "WTH just happened? Who does that?" Then you'll want to watch it again to pick up on things you may have missed!
11. Your favourite Disney film is....? Beauty and the Beast! Hands down! I watch it at least once a year.

Time to link up! I'm seriously only nominating smaller blog's that I actually read (so I might not make the 11 mark), I'm nominating my favourites and if you've already been nominated I promise I won't take offence if you don't post about it all over again, but if you want to, then go for it!

1. A love triangle - Charlotte haha I had to, this blog just speaks to my soul!
2. XO Kerry
3. Londonlotta
4. Our journey to everywhere
5. Polished tickles and Beauty
6. Musings of a wanderer
7. The parisian wannabe
8. Wonderfully made

And now the fun part, my 11 questions for my nominees!
1. What is your favourite Christmas tradition?
2. Where are you right now while replying to my questions?
3. How's the weather?
4. Do you beleive in ghosts/paranormal beings?
5. If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
6. If you could be any Disney princess, which one would you be and why?
7. What is you favourite Christmas food?
8. What is the one app you can't live without?
9. What is your day job?
10. If you could change one thing in the world what would it be?
11. If you could live in any country/visit any country which country would it be?

AAAAAHH! I almost forgot the 11 facts!
1. Yesterday I went for my first full body massage, it was incredible!
2. Today is my last Monday of work in South Africa!
3. I can't go without peanut butter, I eat it at least 3 times a week on average.
4. I have green eyes with "chocolate sprinkles" as Riaan would say.
5. My favourite Marvel Heroes are Thor and Iron Man.
6. I prefer eating healthy to take-outs.
7. I'll be crossing off my number one and number seven on my travel bucketlist in January!
8. I can't stand people who think they are self-important and better than others.
9. I really want to learn how to do photography, and take really nice pictures.
10. I hate bugs, all of them, except Christmas beetles, they are the first sign that Christmas is around the corner.
11. I haven't finished my Christmas shopping yet, that's really bad for me! Furthermore, I write my first ACCA exam in 2 weeks and I haven't really started studying, so much to do!!!

And I'm done!!
Don't forget to let me know when you're done so I can see your answers to my questions!!

Facts about me...#Blogtober14 Day 30

I very excited today!! I got my UK Visa and it's now official that we'll be moving to London in January!! That's fact number 1! As for the rest of this post I am just going to tell you a bunch of random facts about me today, some might be super random and others you might already know since I did post a few facts about myself on my One Lovely Blog Award Post.

I love it when people get personal and reveal a little bit about themselves, it just makes them seem more real.
It also gives a bit of insight about what kind of person they are. Hopefully my facts give good insight to the type of person I am...Here they are:

- I really want to learn to take amazing photos, so we'll be investing in a kick-ass camera soon!!

- Riaan say's I went to Hogwarts because our school song was not your normal school song and I loved it there, I actually went to Colin Mann Primary School, I really did love it there,though!

- I won the Best Chocolate Cake in South Africa Competition last year, it was awesome!

- I have big feet...size 8 to be precise!

- In school I enjoyed sport, I played netball, cricket and soccer, I also did cross country running, swimming and shotput.

- My favourite TV show in highschool was Ugly Betty, I could relate to her. It was second to Grey's Anatomy though, which is still a firm favourite of mine.

- I prefer red wine to white wine.

- One day Riaan and I will run the 2 Oceans Half Marathon, it's claimed to be the world's most beautiful race.

- I love animals, especially giraffes, they're my absolute favourite!

- I enjoy being active, running, riding bike, exercising, you name it, I'm game!!

- My cocktail of choice is a frozen margarita.

- I love the sound of rain tapping on a window, I also love sleeping in a tent when it rains, it's so peaceful, haven't done it in years though.

- I love being creative, I bake, scrapbook and paint to release my creative juices.

- I'm a bit of a social media addict, not too much though.

- I love watching live bands, I hope to see Coldplay, Green Day, My Chemical Romance and Mumford and Sons live.

- I was born on my mom's 21st birthday!

- I am one of those girls that's lucky enough to have an awesome mom-in-law, we get along like a house on fire!

I think that's enough for now, hopefully you enjoyed it!!

I never thought blogging would...#Blogtober Day10

Sjoooe! Hahaha, this is a tough one! Said no blogger ever! We all have different expectations for our blogs, personal, business, pleasure, leisure, you name it, there is a blogger out there with that expectation.

As you know by now, I'm still very much new to the blogging thing, but I have an honest answer to today's prompt!

In so many ways, blogging really is not what I expected, it is much much more than I expected!

I NEVER thought blogging would be so challenging! Having good content constantly is quite a challenge!

I really expected it to be easy, because there are SO many bloggers out there doing it!!
I never thought it would take as much time, or effort as it does.
I never thought I would need to take photos of everything I like, see or do, but you never know when you might need a photo! I also never knew how badly I need a new camera!
I never thought it would make me want to attempt nearly every-single DIY home decor project EVER!
I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I am, sure I thought I had alot to say, I wanted the world to hear my voice, or whoever was interested to hear it. But I never thought I would grow to be so fond of it!

When I started my blog I thought to myself, I don't really care if nobody reads my blog, I know my family will and one day our children can see all the mischief we got up to, that's why I started it in the first place, but now whenever I log into my blog dashboard, I check my stats, how many page views I got, how many comments, where are my viewers from, its just all so exciting!

I really enjoy blogging, it's my little corner of the internet where I get to share a little bit of me with the world! I don't think I be stopping any time soon, I think it's a great way to look back on your life in the future and see how you've grow, how much you've accomplished and how things have changed!

*Image sourced from Unsplash

10 Things I wish I told myself when I started Blogging...#Blogtober14 Day6

This is only my third month of blogging, and to be 100% honest with you, I'm hooked!! I would be lying if I didn't tell you that I have learnt alot in this short time! Not only about myself, but about my blog too, I initially thought I would blog to keep family and friends up to date with our life, but shortly thereafter I found that I wanted to blog about EVERYTHING...well, almost.

So these are the 10 things that I, as a newbie, would tell myself:
 
1. Blogging takes alot of time, and prep! Good posts don't always just come together!
2. You think you have alot to say (especially if you're a chatterbox like me), until you sit down in front of your laptop - take notes whenever an idea pops into your head, otherwise you WILL forget it!
3. Stay true to yourself, and blog about things that you enjoy, like-minded people will find your blog...eventually!
4. Read other blogs and comment! This increases traffic, and eventually followers! EVENTUALLY!!
5. It's fine that you don't have 500 or even 5 followers for that matter, in your first week of blogging, these things take time!
6. Turn off the "track your own page views". I nearly fainted when I saw that my blog had 50+ views on day one, only to later figure out that 49 of them were me checking out my layout and 1 was Riaan.
7. Hone in on your creativity and don't be shy to express who you really are.
8. Read other blogs for inspiration but don't try to be like them, you are you, embrace it!
9. You're probably not only going to blog about one thing, eventually you find yourself trying out new things just so you have a interesting story to tell.
10. Enjoy it, it doesn't have to be hard work if you make it fun, and don't force yourself to write a post if you're not "feeling it".

I know it's not much but HEY, it's 10 things I had no clue about 3 months ago!

And, I know its a couple minutes late, BUT it's still day five somewhere in the world!

What would you tell yourself when you started blogging? Or me, as a relatively new blogger?

My spring bucket list...#Blogtober14 Day 5

So I missed Day 4 - My favourite photo I've posted on Instagram, its only because we had an awesome bachelorette weekend for a friend of mine. As it goes with bachelorettes, we had very little sleep and tons of fun, it started on Friday night at 7:30pm and ended this morning at about 11!! I'm finished, but it was great and well worth it!!

This is my favourite instapic, it's of our gorgeous kitty, Arya, we got her in May and this photo was taken about a month after we got her, she has such character and is so cute! We love her to bits!! You can follow me in Instagram here.

Moving along, since "Fall" has already come and gone in SA, I have decided to do a Spring bucket list, I'm keeping it short and realistic because Spring is already 1 third gone and I'm a busy lady!

So here it is:
1. Plant flowers in our garden - our plants had a rough winter!
2. Have a picnic that doesn't consist of only Woolies foods.
3. Make and fly a kite - I haven't flown a kite in years!
4. Take the Hartebeespoort Cableway.
5. Hike in the Magaliesburg/Drakensburg mountains.
6. Complete the Honeydew A-maze-ing mazes.
7. Go to a Drive-in movie @ Menlyn Park - Grease style!
8. Kiss in the rain.
9. Rent some bicycles and find a park to ride around in.
10. Pick flowers and fill a vase with them.

I will keep you guys up to date as I cross off the items on the Spring bucket list! It's definitely going to be a busy season!! What is your Fall/Spring bucket list??

Blogging basics

When I started my blog, I had no idea what I was doing, BUT, as with everything else I take on in life, I did TONS of research - the blog even got it's own spreadsheet!

Alot of other blogs told me I had 3 big decisions to make before I started:

1 - Why/what will you be blogging about?
Well! I hadn't thought this one through...The day I started this blog, I was off sick, in bed with Bronchitis. I was SO bored, lying in bed, wandering what to do to pass the time, when I had one of those little "lightbulb" moments. "I'll start a blog! It can't be that hard." So decision 1 - why/what will I be blogging about... I don't know,... baking, recipes, DIY projects, a bit of travel - just life really! I have alot to say. I was born with the gift of the gab. I can blog! Afterall mom did always say she gave birth to a mouth and I just grew onto it, and every single school teacher said I was a friendly child but I disrupted the class because all I wanted to do was chat with my friends! Yes, I have lots to talk about, so I'll start a blog about our life! Ok, so that's decided then.

2 - What will the blog be called?
Well this one was rather tricky, it had to encompass what I would be blogging about - Mainly baking, recipes and our life... after narrowing the name options down to three from about nine (3 of which were already taken! You NEED to make sure your blog name is available!!), I consulted with a few bloggers and we all preferred "Our Flavourful Life". Nice! That only took about 3 hours and umpteen visits to the thesaurus!

Damn! Who knew blogging would be so time consuming!!

3 - What blogging platform will I be using?
How will you create your blog? I knew that you could create a blog using wix, I had seen it when I made the website for my cakery, but I wasn't crazy about the appearance of the blogs. All the other blogs I read spoke about using Wordpress and Blogger. I had tried to use wordpress when I was making the cakery website, but I'm not too technically inclined, and html is rather confusing, you need some knowledge of it to use Wordpress, so that made my decision to use blogger a swift one.

So there I had made my three big decisions, I was ready to tell the world our story, and so the fun began.


I'm still very new to blogging, but in the short time that I have been blogging I can tell you a few things that I love about using the Blogger platform:

• It time stamps and dates the posts when you publish them, this way you can see when your blog traffic increases in relation to the time (and day) the post was published.
• You can see how many views your blog has received in a day, week, month etc.
• You can see which posts were viewed and which countries your readers are from.
• You can customise the blog to look however you like, there are alot of templates available for download or purchase on which to base your blog.
• You can link up to all of your social networking sites and you can make your posts pinable.
• Its easy to use and there's lots of online advice and tips for when you get a little stuck!
• With a little bit of html knowledge (or a hubby with lots of html knowledge), you can make alterations to the layout of the template and the html code to have a blog that looks exactly how you want it.
• You can export your blog and back it up! Better safe than sorry, right!
• It's easy to insert pictures, links, videos and lists into your posts. 
• It has spell check - this is great, I'm a rather fast typer and often switch letters around so this is a godsend for me!

This is not an extensive list, I could carry on, but I'm sure you get the picture!

As a side note I would like to say a few things:
1 - Stay true to yourself and who you are, remember why you wanted to blog in the first place. Don't write about things that don't interest you, even if your readers like it. You're interests and writing style are probably going to change over time, so be it! Write about things you love.
2 - If you don't have anything to blog about then don't blog. Quality over quantity!
3 - Let your personality and uniqueness shine through in your blog design and blog posts. If you're crazy, be crazy. If you're witty, be witty. If you're bitchy, keep it to a minimum, nobody likes a bitch. Jokes! Be a bitch, if people don't like it then they shouldn't be reading your blog.
4 - Who cares if your photos are not taken with a dslr? Chances are you're doing the best with what you have. After all, I have never seen a camera that can take a good photo without the photographer.

It's almost 3 months later and the focus of my blog will soon shift slightly, when we move I'll also be using the blog to keep our family and friends back home up to date on our weekly shenanigans as we continue on this adventure called life!