What Sarah Kate Says

Oh dear. This month has not been my finest to be honest. Set myself three achievable goals and have managed only one. Putting a more positive spin on it I have completed one of my goals at least.... This is as much energy as I could muster for this months goals! So how did I do and what went so wrong? First June goal was to step on my fitness.   Well rather than step on I kinda stepped right back. No excuses - it was just a series of bad, lazy choices by me. I'm most disappointed in myself and have ended the month feeling more determined to get active in July. Yes I know you've heard that before! Second goal was "30 bags in 30 days" where I had high and mighty ideas that I could gradually declutter the worst corners of the house by using this technique. I think I actually managed 3 bags in 30 days, so not really trail blazing on this one either. Despite feeling inspired by some great women of YouTube I couldn't get motivated to really attack the ...

So one of my goals this month was to sort out the monster mess that was the spare room.  I shared a week or so back the very attractive before state of that room [Linked post here] , so now I thought I would share with you the after. Ahhh a nice clear space to work in The challenge: As I've explained previously this a room of many uses for us and it tends to breed clutter due to all the laundry drying and waiting for ironing that goes on there. I'm thinking a July goal may well be to re-think how we do laundry in this house...perhaps a dryer would be useful?! It's a vicious cycle really - as the clutter grows the room becomes a pain to keep clean and then we don't so then more clutter gets dumped in it. You can actually see and get to the bed now! The process: It began very gradually.  Every time I went into the room I'd try and bring something out to its proper home or pile up ready to give away. It probably took about two weeks of this g...

I am quite new to this blogging malarky (posted my first one back in March this year) and today I felt like sharing some of my reflections on my time as a blogger and what I feel I have learnt...so far anyway. I have fallen in love with the process. I enjoy the whole process from thinking of post ideas to publication. I find myself looking forward to squirrelling away at my desk and the sense of satisfaction when even just one person reads the thing is a lovely payback for the effort. It really has helped me through a very busy and stressful time in my day job. No matter how pants the day has been escaping to my blogging world has helped keep my spirits up and keeps reminding me there is more to life than just work. There is so much advice out there - literally a tonne of material full of advice on how to create blogs, build readership, utilise social media and even monetisation. There are so many bloggers out there doing their thing that I realised very quickly what a s...

Prepare yourselves for a look into the horror of a mess that is my spare room. One of my June goals I shared earlier this month is to finally sort this room out and figure out a way for all its different uses to gel together better. I wanted to use my blog to document the before and after as a way I can look back and see the improvements made (hopefully!). The room is quite large and includes a built in wardrobe that I use for my clothes and we share for out of season coats and shoes. Sadly the room is not like the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter - this room doesn't change for what your needs are that day automatically and I'm honestly getting a little tired of swapping things around or climbing over things every time I want to use the room. The room itself gets used as: a guest bedroom a gym an ironing station a laundry drying room a blogging space With all these there comes different equipment and stuff that accumulates all...

OK so confession time - deep breath.... My name is Sarah and I am a sticker geek.  Sad but true. It's not a recent habit I have developed, more of a rediscovery of my childhood self. So if stickers are not your thing then I will not object to you skipping this post! I remember as a child deciding that the light switch in my bedroom was just too dull as it was, so I chose to cover it in butterfly stickers and as I grew older I strangely NEVER regretted doing it.   As I became a working adult I tried other, more grown up things like post it notes and page flags. These are great but no where near as much fun as stickers! Then a year or so ago I got my new planner ( Plum Paper Planner Review 2015/16 ) and started searching around on Etsy for planner related accessories....the result is that I now have a bit of an addiction to all things planner sticker related. So rather than hide my sticker shame I thought I would instead embrac...

Firstly I want to apologise for missing my first mid-week post in a number of weeks. It felt very wrong, but I'd just had one of those weeks where I couldn't get myself organised and truth be told the heat made me lazy. Speaking of lazy, today I thought I would share with you a recent spa break a friend and I took to Whittlebury Hall & Hotel Spa down in Northamptonshire.  Links at end of post We found an absolutely fantastic deal on the internet whereby we got: a deluxe twin room for one night use of all the spa facilities including their Heat & Ice experience on the first day (check-in by 10am) the leisure club facilities all meals included - lunch, 3 course dinner and buffet breakfast a 50 minute hot stone back, shoulder, neck and scalp massage. Heavenly! From the moment I arrived I knew I was going to really enjoy my stay there.  The reception staff were warm and friendly as well as organised.  We booked into the Spa, had...

Well it is Sunday that I'm writing this blog, so seems a fitting topic don't you think? Summer has finally arrived here in the UK and with the heat comes an even bigger appreciation for not being at work and being able to do as we please. So I thought I'd share my typical Sunday morning "routine". My typical Sunday begins by me waking up first in our house and heading to the kitchen for that all important first cup of coffee.  I also feed the dog and "rescue her" from the kitchen where she sleeps overnight.  As soon as she's gobbled her food and I have brewed my coffee it's a race as to who can get up the stairs and back on our bed the quickest (I pretty much always lose that race). I then enjoy coming slowly round sipping my coffee as the dog snuggles into my boyfriend who is usually still fast asleep at this point. They doze on whilst I take the opportunity to catch up with my favourite You Tubers (see previous posts linked here ...

Seasons change and I get my usual compulsion to sign on to Feel Unique and see what great deals I can unearth.  I've used this website for quite a while now and always enjoy shopping from the comfort of my sofa. So today I thought I would share my recent haul as a way to help justify the splurge! Disclaimer:  This post is not sponsored and I am not affiliated with any of the brands I talk about below. All opinions are 100% my own. Face: I treated myself to my tried and tested Maybelline-New-York-Eraser-Eye-Concealer , but thought I'd try mixing it up with the   Rimmel-Wake-Me-Up-Concealer  this time.  I purchased the shade "True Ivory" and have to say it is a little orange for my pale untanned skin, however it blends well and layers nicely under my favourite Maybelline. I also bought a few lip products from NYX Cosmetics in the hope it would encourage me to wear more colour on my lips (I tend to just throw on some lip balm and hope for the best to...