In the spirit of Christmas I have one copy of How I Met My Match to give away. This is a great book for Young Adult’s and the young at heart and makes a wonderful Christmas gift! All you have to do to win is comment on my blog post with your favourite childhood Christmas memory. Competition will run until Sunday 14th December and winner will be picked at random.

About How I Met My Match:

When Lacey breaks up with her boyfriend, Jake, she watches as her popularity, friends and social life goes with him. Managing basketball, school and everyday life is a lot to deal with when you only have one friend by your side, so in the hope to make some new friends, Lacey joins an online dating and friendship site, MeetYourMatch. Then, Lacey meets Chad. Lacey’s dream guy who she couldn’t have more in common with, but is it fate? Or is it to good to be true?

There’s a lot of really cute Christmas recipes going around this year but there’s one that really stuck with me. I’m not really one for baking but I think I will have to try this (:

Ingredients

• 125g butter, at room temperature
• ½ cup (110g) caster sugar
• ¼ cup (60mL) milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1½ cups (225g) self-raising flour
• ½ cup (70g) custard powder
• 290g pkt NESTLÉ BAKERS’ CHOICE White Melts, melted, plus 1 cup (150g), melted, extra
• 16 white marshmallows
• Green, red, orange and black food colouring
• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• 50g NESTLÉ SMARTIES

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Christmas shopping is hard, especially when you’re on a budget. There’s so much pressure to find the perfect gift but often they are so expensive.

I’ve compiled a list of gifts you can buy that are good, suit all kinds of people and they won’t break the bank.

Gifts for the animal lover: I come from a family of animal lovers and one of my favourite gift ideas is getting a portrait done of their animal. There is heaps of artists advertising their talents on places like Facebook and Twitter and you can get a bargain at only $20.

Failing that, I love the art prints on www. felt.co.nz they have some adorable animal prints for a bargain and some artists even send you a little bonus gift.

If you have an ultimate animal lover on your hands, perhaps you could gift them a copy of my self published book Don’t Shop, Adopt. You can feel good because, not only are you supporting me, a portion of your sale will be donated to the South Canterbury SPCA. You can visit www.dontshopadopt.co.nz to have a look for yourself.

Gifts for the book lover: Book lovers can be so hard to buy for, can’t they? Some of us will only read certain genres and some of us are willing to read any genre at least once. There’s a heap of cool websites related to books that you can check out but my favourite is Whitcoulls. They often do little features with new release books, good books for her and good books for him. Failing that, why not gift them a gift voucher and they can choose their own present! Everybody wins! However if you really want to give a physical gift perhaps you could ask for an exchange voucher. If it’s not their thing, they can swap for something that is. Continue reading →

If there is one thing I believe in, it’s Christmas wishes. Kind of like New Years resolutions except I only make them at Christmas.

I remember when I was a kid I would always wish for a new toy or something that one of my friends had and then I would wish that my family was happy always.

Now I’m all grown up and only one of those wishes has stayed the same. I’m sure you can guess which one. I guess, as we grow up, we lose sight of material things and begin to focus on what’s important: Family, friends and living life to the fullest.

This year I’ll be wishing for good health, not only for me but everyone I know. I’ll be wishing that everyone I know make the most of life because life is far to short so you might as well enjoy it. Seriously, you’ll regret it one day if you don’t.

I’m a person that can often hold a grudge if someone hurts someone I love and me, to a degree. My Dad always gives me one piece of advice and I try to remember this always: Be the bigger person, don’t waste your time and bring yourself down holding a grudge. He’s exactly right and to be honest, most of them probably don’t even care that I feel that way. Infact I should probably be thankful to those people they show me how I never want to make other people feel.

Most people tell me I’m a pretty nice person and that really means a lot to me but next year (and the rest of this year) I want to focus on being even nicer. I’m happier when I’m making others happy. My Christmas wish is that I might inspire others to do the same.

I love quotes and Christmas. So, naturally, I love quotes about Christmas 😀 Here are my top 6 favourites:

1. “Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps means a little bit more” -The Grinch.

2. “Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting.”

3. “We are all like a snowflake: Beautiful in our own different way.”

4. “I hope you get the best present of all: The company of those you love, good cheer and a smile.”

5. “Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”

6. “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”

I would love it if you guys shared your favourite Christmas quotes with me too (:

I know I’m a little late to the Blogmas party but I really love writing so I’ll do four Blogmas posts today in order to catch up. Starting with: What Christmas means to me.

It’s very easy to lose sight when it comes to the festive season. Retail stores get very into the Christmas spirit which is wonderful but often you can find yourself thinking it’s all about material items. But, it’s not.

In my opinion, Christmas is spending time with family or friends and just having a bloody good time.

Eating two or three courses of the main and forgetting your diet while you help yourself to lots of sweets and puddings maybe even trying something new. For example, last year my boyfriend, Shaun, had never had trifle and I had a blast introducing him to one of my favourite puddings.

Christmas is laughing and joking with your family, forgetting all of the worries and stress you have been dealing with all year. Getting out the back yard cricket set and hitting a few wickets. Making fun of your brother while he takes the absolute piss out of you, complimenting your mother on the delicious food and enjoying watching your father relaxed and carefree. Getting excited with your eight year old niece about all the presents and smiling at the memory of when you were that age. Continue reading →