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Autumn: These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things
Autumn, oh Autumn, I do love you! I am lamenting that glorious Summer as much as the rest of the country but I do look forward to Fall and the coziness it brings, most of all layering! Isn’t it a gorgeous feeling when you’ve been resisting the ever so slighter crisp mornings and suddenly you resist and yield to cozy cardigans? You feel almost cocooned! All one needs now is a Pumpkin Spiced Latte… right, let’s not get carried away, shall we? Whilst we’re still staying with my Husbands Grandfather, patiently awaiting the builders completion notice for the house, I’m still living out of a suitcase. Having been assured our…
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The First Walk Through Of Our House!
Well now I feel it’s really happening, we got inside our new house this week. The company that installed our ‘air to heat’ system invited us to come along for a demo in one of the complete and occupied houses. Air to heat is like a big fridge in my utility room ?. Basically, you don’t need gas or oil to heat your home, it’s an Eco friendly way of heating your house and works like a refrigerator only in reverse, pulling heat out of the air outside down to -22ºC. In the extremely unlikely event of Ireland going into a cold snap, below these temperatures, a back up boiler…
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Recipe: Chicken & Chorizo Paella – a sure crowd pleaser.
Whenever I visit my Mum, I rarely get to see her these days, she lives in Galway. We always plan to go out for dinner, big plans, get all dressed up and head out- it never happens. When I say it never happens, I mean my Mother likes her home comforts and her favourites, without fail, she always gives me that look and says “Can you make some Paella and I’ll buy you some wine?” How can you refuse such an offer? In fairness, Mum loves anything with rice, give her risotto or creamed rice and she’s happy -and it’s important to keep your Mother happy.. The thing about Paella…
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Interiors Update: Downstairs
Whilst we’re still waiting for our snag notice to come through from the builders of our new house, I’m doing all the fun bits and picking necessary pieces of furniture like sofa’s and dining tables. Okay, it’s fun to shop but not good for your blood pressure when you see your account balance getting lower and lower, it’s sort of like seeing your favourite expensive bottle of perfume fall and smash on the floor whilst the precious contents seeps down through the floor, once it’s gone it’s gone and you can’t pick it up. I’ve designed the kitchen, ordered it, got a great deal on floor tiles, bought them and…
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Shaping Up To Ship Out: Asian Style Red cabbage salad
In my mission to make more salads for lunches, eat more whole grain, natural plant proteins and fruit, I wanted to try my hand at getting more adventurous, I literally went shopping and bought all the fresh ingredients with the aim of using larder foods up before the move. The first night was a red cabbage Asian salad, normally I HATE cabbage, I can tolerate coleslaw so I was planning on making something similar. I sat with a mandoline, watching a movie as I planed the cabbage away into nothing, my hands turning regal purple from the cabbage, not sure if it was the hard work planing or just the…
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Shaping Up to Ship Out
We find ourselves surrounded by boxes and packing tape as we prepare to leave the apartment, in one of my last posts, I mentioned that our landlord had served us notice at the start of the year, he’s intending to sell the apartment. I never thought moving home was as stressful until now. We’re moving in with my husband’s 99 year old WW2 Veteran Grandfather until August, he’s a widower bless him and I adore him, so that’s ok. However, I never was one to be able to live out of a suitcase for a while, I like to be able to spread out and be comfortable. In the meantime,…
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The Women’s Mini Marathon 2018
Sooo, I’m signing up for the Women’s Mini Marathon this week for my third time, I’ve already made my fundraising page and roped my cousin into coming with me.. My Father in Law is fighting cancer for the second time and received treatment first time round at St.Lukes Oncology and Radiation Centre in Rathgar. I’m sick of losing people to this horrible disease and I swear I will do everything I can to help in the fight to find a cure, even if it means running a few mini marathons..every little helps, right? If you haven’t done the Mini Marathon before and tempted but afraid, can I tell…
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That place between here and home..
Hi guys, you might have noticed that there hasn’t been much action on my blog lately, I haven’t lost interest, things are just a little bit chaotic at the moment. I sort of feel like my mind isn’t clear, unsettled even, I’m not sure how to describe it really. No, nothing bad has happened, I’m delighted about our ‘house in progress’, we even went to see the building site last weekend and the foundations have been poured. However, our landlord gave us notice that he’s selling last week and now we’ve to be out (in May), three months before the house is finished- great, isn’t it? We have to pack…
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A Week to Recover..
It’s almost come to the end of my week off and I’m just about back to myself, fell in love with baking again, loads of sleep and a through clean of the apartment with an imminent pack in mind, it won’t be long until everything is being boxed up for the new house… We’ve gone to visit the site a couple of times since they broke ground a month ago and last weekend, the houses behind our one had the ground floor built already! I’ve never seen anything go up so fast! Is it premature to say I’ve picked my colour scheme already? I’m not going to get into interiors…
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Recipe: Leftover Christmas Ham- A Very Irish Carbonara Recipe
I’m sure you’ll agree, Christmas isn’t Christmas without Ham & Turkey, Irish families will cook enough ham & turkey to feed a small village, no matter how many people they’re cooking for, if, like my family, there’s only a handful of you, you’ll know what I’m talking about.. you’ll be eating it for days until you get the turkey sweats. Luckily, I was in my Mother in Law’s for dinner this year and there were 10 of us, and then the kids, so over two days, it was demolished. My ham, has become a little bit legendary, I’m saying that in the most humble way possible. We make two full…
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GREAT NEWS!!!
Hey guys! I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas ( if you celebrate it), I hope you managed to spend lots of time with your friends and family most of all…and yeah, a couple of nice gifts thrown in. ? ? Since my last post, our mortgage application WAS APPROVED and I’ve basically living on a cloud in addition to a very busy period at work. I worked right up until Christmas eve when I basically fell in the door and died, I was so tired, I then managed to make a ham, a batch of cranberry sauce as well as a salted caramel roulade for Christmas day lunch…
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There’s Light at The End of The Tunnel: Our First House is Happening!!
It’s been an exciting week!! You might have gathered from previous posts, that this blog started out as my adventures of living life on a budget whilst saving for a house in the middle of a national housing crisis. I’m a girl born in the wrong decade with expensive tastes and austere living has taken its time to get used to, not to mention an education.. Well, this week, after reaching an appropriate saving level to apply for a mortgage (insert squeal of delight here) and we think we’ve found the perfect house!! The house hasn’t been built yet but the development is to break ground shortly and we have…
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Recipe: Autumn Punch: So gorgeous!!!! Booze it up or booze it down, it’ll still be so good!
I’m all for spiced latte’s and toffee nut latte’s, hot chocolates and the like but one of my favourite is my home made Autumn Punch, It’s quite cheap to make a lot of it and can easily be boozed up with a little hard cider or rum. An Autumn drink to me has to be warming, spicy and can be enjoyed hot, warm or cold, this definitely fits the bill. It was at a work event recently that I was trying to think of a non alcoholic seasonal drink as part of a refreshment table. I brought along my drinks dispenser and whipped up a concoction which turned out well…..…
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Recipe: Boeuf Bourguignon – The Perfect Winter Meal
Okay so it’s October, we’re officially into Autumn, I think it’s okay to start talking about stews and soups again, isn’t it? I’ve already made an Irish beef stew this but there’s one stew that I can’t get enough of, Boeuf Bourguignon. A gorgeous Sunday meal, a meal for entertaining or just something to pop in a bowl and curl up on the sofa with on a stormy day (it freezes REALLY well). The best onions to use are pearl onions, the ones no bigger than your thumb nail, not to be confused with shallots and don’t be tempted to use pickled onions, they’ll just mess with the flavour. If…
A lifestyle blog by Sarah Cooke-O'Neill
