Best Bits: November 2016

And here we are at the end of November, about to step in December already! I honestly can't believe how quickly this year has gone! It doesn't seem like 11 months have passed since chloe and I saw the New Year in over a night of Chinese food, snacks, Mario Karts and watching the fireworks from the comfort of her sofa with her parents, three dogs, two brothers and 15 other teenagers - friends of one of her brothers.

Celebration of my last day. To celebrate my last day at the old job, a bunch of us headed to the pub for a few drinks. We even saw a few familiar faces that also left earlier this year so it was lovely to see them again. I didn't stay out too late as I didn't want to pay for a taxi so bagged myself a lift with one of the girls.

New job. This one has made it into a few posts that I've shared with you recently. Now, I can finally say that I've actually started and been there for just over three weeks. The team are lovely and I've already been included in a few things (the Christmas lottery, our team were given an advent calendar each and an invite to the company Christmas party which is actually this weekend). 

Catch ups. Jamie and I finally caught up during the middle of the month! We had been meaning catch up for weeks and this was the first time he was able to see my new place. Sj and I also had another long overdue catch up mid month as well. Although our catch up started off with some reorganising. We had planned to go to a cafe just around the corner from where I'm now working, but that said turned out to be closed for the evening so we had to head to another one of our usual spots for our catch up.

Foodie nights. This month, I've had a couple evenings where we've based the night on eating as much food as we can while watching hours of TV shows on Netflix. First, Cat came round and for Pizza and prosecco over Stranger Things. Josh, Cat and I had one pizza each - not to share, each - and we demolished all three! And then Cat and I both had a bag of chocolate EACH! Only a week later, Chloe and Sj came round for a much healthier dinner of homemade shepherds pie and veggies. Only, we ruined that by spending the following three hours sat in the 'fun room' (what is really my attic but has a TV, Xbox, Nintendo Wii, and a variety of games and DVDs all placed in front of two blow up mattresses set out almost like a reclining chair, cushions, pillows and blankets which hide the usual attic items like suitcases, Christmas tree and decorations and other things that don't have a space anywhere else in the house) and watched Blue Mountain State and Crazy Ex Girlfriend while divulging in a tub of caramel ice cream, celebrations and heroes.

Cleaner eating. While my eating habits haven't been 100% healthy as in the whole 5 a day and little to no 'junk food' - because let's face it, the likelihood of me actually living my whole life without chocolate is a low as unicorns walking the grounds of the earth and breathing rainbows - the source of my food is becoming a lot cleaner. My stepdad started working in the islands slaughterhouse, meaning he has access to fresh meat and we no longer have to buy as much store bought meat. Unfortunately, chicken is one bit of meat we eat very often but still have to buy from the shop. We have been using a lot of mince meat in shepherds pies and spaghetti bolognese's. With the need for more potatoes for the shepherds pie, we've also been making more homemade chips, a variety of different things added to the mash we make, soups, and we've even had a go at making our own crisps! 

Black Friday deals. I'm not normally one for paying all that much attention to deals to come out of Black Friday as I'd like to think I have quite the eye for spotting a bargain. This year, however, when the day itself came around, I suddenly remembered how Josh and I keep saying how we need to get a blender. So of course it was only fitting that we searched Amazon for a good deal, rather than your everyday deal with a couple of quid knocked off. We believe we found one. With a saving of £62 (yes, £62 saving, you did read the right) we snagged ourselves a blender. While it hasn't arrived yet, it's due to arrive during the first week of December.

Christmas shopping. I started my Christmas shopping over the last week. While I've not finished it, I'm still looking for certain gifts but I've still started and got most of it sorted.

Blogging. Compared to most other bloggers, I don't blog anywhere near as often as I should. This month, however, I've played catch up. I've had a little more time in my schedule and have been able to finish off a couple of posts. The recipe I followed (mostly - I found it need a bit of tweaking to suit our tastes ever so slightly) for the pumpkin soup I made at Halloween is now up which you can find here. However, there is one or two more to write but I'm still working out how to get the best photos for those specific posts.

That's pretty much it from me for this month. I'll be back here tomorrow with my first instalment of Blogmas.

Charlotte.