What Sarah Kate Says

Yesterday was Saturday and I found myself abandoned by my boyfriend who wanted to watch grown men get all sweaty and beat each other up (not an underground fight club by the way - it was a legit boxing match). So with the prospect of hours alone to do entirely as I pleased, I decided to embark on a "mini" organisation project I have been meaning to do for ages. Now that phase one is complete the description of it as "mini" really does not do it justice...I'm exhausted! In our Living room is a fabulous sideboard (complete splurge at  Barker & Stonehouse ) which has been a great ally in hiding all that life clutter that you need at hand but could really do without seeing on a daily basis. It started out as a nicely organised space, but as usual we just kept squirrelling stuff away in the thing and it was beginning to groan under the pressure! Now as it is such a huge piece of furniture I knew that I would not be able to complete this in one sitting...

Left: Me, Middle: Sarah, Right: Sarah - yes we are all called Sarah! I'm very lucky to still be friends with girls I grew up with. We don't live near each other anymore and rarely get together as we are all so busy, but when we do it is just as if we saw each other yesterday. This for me really epitomises what true friendship is. They have both grown up to be fabulous, inspiring women and I wanted to dedicate this post to them and all the years of friendship we have shared. Recently both came to stay with me in Leeds and my sides still hurt from all the laughing. Our lives are so separate now, but when we get together we revert to the giggling teenagers we used to be...but with a disposable income! Here are just a few pictures that mark our last get together. Pre shopping cuppa Shopping refreshments..randomly near an ambulance! Photo bombed in style by the great waitress at dinner! Enjoying my purchases from that weekend I did not take ...

Since I embraced my inner planner geek I have grown to love Sunday's the best of all the days. The main reason for this is it is time to organise and plan out the new week. Nothing warms my soul more than turning to a crisp, clean week in my Plum Paper Planner  and then spending about 10 minutes wrecking it with badly stuck down stickers and spelling mistakes! Hey it's good to have a hobby. So today I thought I would share the before and after planned week.  Now bare in mind that this will be NOTHING like the beautiful planner shots you see all over Instagram, but I am improving week by week - I think. Before : 10 minutes later : I currently have a horizontal planner (next one is vertical as I fancied a change) and I use the left hand page to keep track of the good habits I am trying to keep going, Blog ideas when they strike and things I want to accomplish during the week: The right hand page that is a day by day breakdown I use to keep t...

I recently shared with you a blog about our stay at the  Bolton Arms Pub  in North Yorkshire and thought I'd share with you a bit more of the beautiful Asgarth Falls scenery we experienced. I just love living in Yorkshire and having all this beauty pretty much on your door step is fantastic.  I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into the beautiful countryside as much as I did visiting it. Where are your favourite parts of your home county/state to visit? Thanks for scrolling to the end :)

Life can be stressful. Over the years I have experienced stress and witnessed it in others. From exam stress, work related to even general life event stress. It's a horrible thing and everybody has different limits of what they can cope with and has different ways of coping. I thought today I would share how now, as a woman facing her forties, I try to manage my own stress levels. Now a lot of this post will be common sense and nothing earth shattering. Please know that I am not claiming in any way to be an expert. I am merely speaking from my own personal experiences in the hope they may help out someone else who may be feeling the pressures of life at the moment. Here's the rub...stress can be a good thing and help us deal with circumstances we find ourselves in, however, as with Chocolate, too much and it can cause us harm. That's why it is important to be able to recognise the symptoms of stress in ourselves and develop a tool kit we can call upon to help us ...

There are good habits and there are bad habits in life. I don't know why, but bad habits are always easier to form than good ones....or is that just me? I confess I have gotten into some bad habits lately. These include getting sloppy with the housework, eating bad foods too regularly and not drinking enough during the day (I do not mean alcohol btw). I had some time off work recently so took the opportunity to think about my behaviours and tried to come up with a plan to switch into good habits instead. First I spent a bit of time thinking of the impacts my bad habits were having. Bad habits always have consequences : Sloppy housework was leading to build ups that would take longer and more effort to shift. The mess was growing and with that so were my stress levels. Consequence? Me in a bad mood and a bit stressed out! Eating bad foods too regularly had led to me putting on weight. Simple as that really. It's left me feeling bloated and lazy, which has led to ...

The After Our house was built in the very early 1900s which is great for tall ceilings and character, but sometimes the space is not as fit for modern lifestyles as we would like. The Before Case in point - we have a very long, very thin hallway from the front door leading to the stairs and dining room. It's used only as an entry way but I found it a bit dull and unwelcoming. For a while now I have wanted to give it a refresh and so we did. Now I confess I am purely the creative director and all the hard work was done by my long suffering boyfriend! We decided to decorate using the same colours as in our Living room (Aspen Silver by Crown on the walls, eggshell on the woodwork), creating a better flow and overall more elegant feel. As it's thin we opened up the space with that reliable old trick of adding mirrors, in our case three of them, along a previously dead wall space. Wall colour and wood work now match the Living room We also got rid of th...

For two years now we have been lucky enough to be gifted a voucher for Christmas to stay at the Bolton Arms in the village of Redmire ( http://www.boltonarmsredmire.co.uk/ ).  It has meant that we have been able to enjoy a quiet country break, but most importantly we have been able to take Lucy (our Fur Baby) with us (blog post:  Meet my Lucy ). The B&B has three "dog friendly" rooms within a converted outbuilding and for a single charge of £5 your dog can enjoy a holiday with you. I'd recommend you ask not to stay in room 3 if your chest is at all aggravated by damp. Being an old building there is a damp issue in this room which meant we had to sleep with the window open and have the dehumidifier running all night. This meant our first night was one of little sleep, but by the second night we were so zonked after all the great Yorkshire fresh air and good food we slept like a couple of proverbial logs! Bar area (dog friendly!) It really is a fabulous ...

Given my poor performance in June I have decided to only go for two goals this month. July should be a month of BBQs and beer gardens but in typical UK style the weather is interfering with that plan.  So instead I'm going to use this month as an opportunity to deep clean the house. Yes the whole house. "No way" I hear you cry but there are two motivational factors for me that guarantee I will do it... 1) I have a week off work and will be spending Monday to Friday mostly on my own, as boyfriend is working, so may as well apply myself usefully. 2) I have my too oldest friends coming to stay for the weekend soon.  I cannot let them witness the dog hairs rolling around the floors! So I'm feeling quite optimistic about achieving that one. I've been debating my second goal quite a lot. Swinging from a blog based one to a lifestyle one. The winner is...blog based. Since my May Goals , I have managed to consistently blog twice a week, except for one...