I hate shopping, except ......

I suppose for someone who has their own online shop, its a bit of an oxymoron that I actually hate shopping, but I do. Can always think of a million other things to do than traipsing around shops. particularly on such a hot and sunnny day as today. I do shop, of course I do, but 95% of it is online, that's my kind of shopping, knowing exactly what it is that I want, sourcing and buying online in the comfort of my own home and often watching Midsommer Murders, zero fuss and even less effort.

Today I went on a shopping jaunt with my sister, I needed 2 things, a black pepper mill, I broke mine ages ago and have been using a pestle and mortar which has been a tad inconvenient. I dropped the other one on my stone floor in the kitchen and a round black plastic disc thing on the bottom fell off. In my infinite wisdom, instead of handing it to my hubby to repair, which is what I would normally do, I decided as the pepper mill worked just fine without it I'd put it in the bin. Well that was fine until the pepper corns ran out and I had to refill and that black plastic disc thing proved to be an essential part and the thing fell to bits.

In addition to the pepper mill, I am once again back on the trying to lose weight regime, I've been on a diet, sorry changing the way I eat, since I was 16 years old and 30 years later I just seem to have got fatter, but once again I need to get a grip. One of the downsides (probably the only one) of leaving the rat race and working 70 hour weeks is that some days I ate next to nothing, as I was just too busy and whilst always fat, my weight pretty much stayed the same, as it all balanced at the end of the week (as weekends I'd make up for it) now that I'm off the corporate tread mill, I now have the time to smell the coffee, as well as drink the coffee, and eat the cake alongside the coffee. So whilst I've knocked diets on the head as they really do only make you fat, (it really is a change of life style and way of thinking) I do need to cut down on how much I eat and so, as psychologically I like a full plate, I decided to buy smaller plates and pasta bowls so whilst the plate will remain full, it will be half the portion of what I normally eat, genius !!! I'm hopeful it will work, I always am ha.

So pepper mill and plates. Below is what I bought

Casserole dish, I love vintage inspired and I have a few casserole dishes, all different, which I often use to serve veggies as well as meat dishes when people are here for dinner. I love the way my table looks, nothing the same but each thing beautiful in its own right.

Coffee pot. I love enamel wear and this is in my favourite white and blue. Whilst can be used for coffee or tea, it would also make a good gravy jug or to serve custard

New Pasta dishes, half the size of my current ones, I love the design as much as I love pasta, I could never give up pasta but need to control my portion size a bit better

Smaller dinner plates, I have this set which I bought from M&S about 2 years ago and it was a great find today to find smaller dinner plates in the same pattern at Home Sense. Just need to scrub off the price sticker. Downside of Home Sense their price stickers are like super glue takes a fair amount of elbow grease to get them off.

Bargain of the day, needed a new laundry hamper, well I say needed, to be honest I just really liked this one but and is the case with Home Sense they have one offs of things and the only one of these was ripped on one side

Now things are already cheap / discounted in Home Sense. This should have been £40 but it was on sale for £15 and they offered me an extra £5 off, so for a tenner I took it.

Now one up sides of being a crafter is that I have quite a few tools in the shed to repair such things. Ten minutes of my time, some invisible webbing and E6000 glue and e voila it's like new, I think 10 minutes of my time is worth a fiver.

My darling sister also bought me a pressie of a new photo frame which I wanted, I love it xx

Oh and I got the pepper mill.

Now I also fell in love with this chest of drawers and emailed a photo of it to Mr E, saying I love this where could we put it? - he replied that he loved it exactly where it was, funny boy. To be fair I don't have anywhere in the house to put it but I liked it none the less, very me, not so much hubby, he really loves the sleek modern look, so he really is very good to me and does indulge me in my vintage/ shabby chic style but will only go so far and this probably is one step too far ....

Until the next one Cxx