Vegan Valentines Peanut Butter Hearts Recipe (3 steps)

The perfect chocolates for valentines day, only 2 ingredients and 3 steps!

I made both peanut butter and biscoff chocolates but you could do one or the other.

•  Melt chocolate in microwave for a couple of minutes, you can add coconut oil to thin the chocolate out but its not a necessary step if you don't already have coconut oil in the cupboard
• Fill moulds half way then leave to set in fridge for 10 minutes

• Add your peanut butter or biscoff on top of the set chocolate 

(I melted the peanut butter and biscoff spread in the microwave with a little coconut oil to make it a easier to pour into moulds but again, not a necessary step)

• Fill the rest of the moulds with melted chocolate (I'm sure yours will be neater than mine ha, I was eager, ok..) and leave to set in the fridge for 30 minutes or put them in the freezer if you can't wait that long!

• Run to the fridge and bust those chocolates out of the moulds!

This recipe is so simple and easy and they are so rich and chocolately that one is enough, so they might actually last you longer than an hour... they might. Enjoy x

Marks & Scars.

I'm always writing about illnesses here on my blog, which is what I set out to do but it turns out that health isn't the only subject I have something to say about, so I thought I could share a little piece of my mind with you, on something I often see people insecure about, incase you needed to hear it.

We're all born with a blank canvas and as we grow our canvas changes, whether they are changes we choose to make ourselves, the mark of a healed wound or natural changes our body makes on it's own. I don't look at any mark on my skin and think that it's ugly, it's just my skin. I actually find the longer I look at the stretch marks, the scars, the freckles and the moles on my skin, the happier I am about them, no one else has that exact pattern on their skin, no one else can look down and see those unique markings that you see on your body and I don't think that is something to be ashamed of. I'm always working to love the parts of me that I spent so long trying to hide by just appreciating why they are there, I have stretch marks because I have grown, I have gained weight, I have lost weight, I have scars because I have had surgery to keep my body going, I have battled a mental illness, I've also done some damaging falling over many times while having fun as a child.

We all get caught up in the magazines from time to time and begin to search for the next thing to help make us that little more perfect but I think thats the thing, perfect is only really possible in magazines, after its been touched by people who have adjusted it to make it their own idea of perfect, even then someone will find a fault. It would be no fun if we all lost those interesting, distinctive features that stitch us together, we would also never get to laugh together over the story of how a shetland pony caused my imperfect looking nose...

This body is keeping my alive, I know I've disliked and felt let down by it at times but it never stopped and my perfectly imperfect skin is protecting all of the important parts, it's keeping me together, I shouldn't even mind what it looks like. I am grateful for the growth in my life and I will happily embrace that showing on my skin. This is the only body we will ever have, how can we waste time feeling anything but love for that?

Tips For Spoonies Abroad. (Preparing, During & Aftermath)

Before you go

Understanding your illness - 

I think the most important thing to know and understand before going away is your illness. I mean, I doubt I'll ever fully understand my illness and what's actually going on with my body but this past year I have become more aware of what my illness is capable of and that's made me understand why certain things happen and prepared me for when a bad day does comes. Paying attention to the way your illness affects you, learning what helps and what doesn't; the things you should avoid and learning to actually listen to your body should make things run a little smoother. 

Company - 

Make sure you're going with people who will respect your limits and understand that you're going to have to approach everything a little different than your 'average healthy person'. From experience on both ends of the spectrum I can confidently say that if you go with the right people everything else will just fall into place, even if you get there and you aren't well enough to leave the room, go with people who understand and they'll respectfully leave you to do what you need to without making you feel bad about it. 

Go somewhere familiar - 

I think going somewhere you've been before is a good idea. I had stayed in the place I went this year a few times before and being able to envision exactly where I was going was really comforting and took a lot of the 'being away from my comfort zone' stress. As soon as I arrived, I could relax straight away, I knew exactly where to go and what to do, I didn't have to worry about finding the local shop or somewhere to eat. Knowing your way 'round the airport, where to get a taxi, the places to go and how to find your way back to the hotel takes a lot of stress off of an already stressful experience.

Don't leave it all till the last minute -

Shopping, packing, printing off boarding your passes and hotel vouchers... Do it over time, don't realise the weekend before you go that you don't have a suitcase (aka don't be me). Don't be afraid to start shopping a year before you go, just make sure everything is prepared early, so you're not putting your health at risk the day before travelling, reserve those spoons!

Stop panicing -

Ok I don't have many tips for this, I was terrified to leave the house on the day of traveling and I threw up all the way to the airport (cute, I know) but I had the best time once I was there. During the panic I just tried to keep the thought of being there in my head, knowing that none of the feelings would matter in a few hours when I'm having dinner chatting to my friends. So if like me, you're in a panic about sending your broken body abroad, I can tell you that if you can just push through the hard part, it's totally worth it. 

During

Don't stop pacing -

I know part of us wants to go a little crazy once we've made it there, it is hard to keep holding yourself back when there's so much you could do but for the sake of tomorrow, take it steady. Maybe you can't do everything you wish but just be grateful for the small things you can do while there and you'll have a jolly good time, whether you're doing some crazy water sports or just sitting under an umbrella on the beach, watching your friends do the crazy stuff. Take extra care on holiday because it's easy for us to say that PEM is worth it at home because we know how to handle it, it's easy to just write off the day and let 10 hot water bottles cuddle you in bed but when you're on holiday, although you could spend the day in bed if you needed to, it would be much nicer to just do a little each day and not over do it all on the first night.

Take a time out -

For me, there came a point in the day where it was all a bit much, a mixture of the heat and just being out in a busier environment overwhelmed me, so I would either go back to the room midday then go meet my friends for lunch a little later or I'd go rest after lunch. I think taking myself out of the situation and just resting each day really helped my body keep up, whenever I felt I was running a bit too low, I would go restore some energy, so I didn't ruin the rest of the day for myself.

Stay out of the sun -

I've never been one to lay out in the sun because I've got that wonderful porcelain skin that likes to fry but I'm extra conscious now that the sun does crazy stuff to my symptoms. As much as heat helps me out in some ways; relaxes my muscles which eases my pain, it really exhausts my body and drops my, already low, blood pressure, which does not do me good, so I just made sure I stayed in the shade, stayed hydrated and listened to my body; going inside when it felt too much. I know we'd all love to rock a nice tan on holiday but I just gave myself a faux glow beforehand and tucked myself under the umbrella, avoiding a bad situation!

Don't drink alcohol -

I don't know if every spoonie out there is intolerant to alcohol but I know most are on medication which shouldn't be mixed with alcohol and seen as we can't get away with much, I'm sure it does affects us all in one way or another. So maybe it seems stupid reminding us not to drink but when my body first had a bad reaction to alcohol, I thought it was just a bad hangover, or a one off, I never related it to my illness, so I kept doing it until I realised the two were related. This may apply more to the people who are going away with friends, its probably easier to decline a drink when you're away with your family but when you're around other drunks, the memory of what it does to you is probably not as clear. I'm use to being sober around drunk people now, I've gotten use to it but I know at first it's hard not to feel like a spare part but no one else is paying attention, so just have fun with being the sober one, being aware of everything you do is not a bad thing. I use to think I could sacrifice a day, dealing with the aftermath for a good night but no, no and no, it's never worth it, we suffer enough from the everyday activities, so if there's ever a chance we can avoid any extra suffering, we gotta take it.

Eat & Stay Hydrated -

Probably the most obvious one but I feel like I had to include it. I would recommend taking some food in your suitcase, I took some trusty cereals and cup a soups, just incase I wasn't able to go out for food or I didn't have an appetite, I would be sure to eat something. I think we all could drink more water than we do on holiday but try to keep a bottle with you at all the times, no matter how many times you'll have to pee in just one hour!

Back home

Worry about the unpacking later -

Drop that suitcase, get into bed and build yourself into a duvet wall! Get all the rest you need while dreaming of the fabulous time you had!! Be proud of yourself; you did it!!

I was going to write more about the holiday itself, more personal, not just about the spoonie side of things though I wasn't sure how informative that would be but if you do want to know more about where I went, what I got up to, how I dealt with anxiety and how I ended up with a tattoo... with all the spoonie struggles and management in-between, please say so because I did try to write a diary while I was there. 

If I do write another post, I'll ask my friends if they're cool with me uploading the video of our holiday, again you'll have to let me know if that's something you think would be interesting to see. The video doesn't relate to what I write on here, just a fun thing I'd add on that would probably show you the bigger side of my personality that doesn't just scream ill person.

Leave me a comment with any spoonie traveling/going away tips of your own and let me know if you want another post. :)

 Happy holiday-ing!!

BLUE SUNDAY 2015 - THANK YOU

Wow. It's 18:30, my Blue Sunday tea party is coming to an end. I'm still sat drinking tea, wrapped in a blanket outside and still overwhelmed. Together with my online and offline donations, we've raised £553.60!! I can't believe it, I cried. Then my mum cried, so my sister cried. There was a lot of joy! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated to this important cause, I can tell you that the ME Association and us as sufferers, are incredibly grateful for every single penny you've kindly given!

Anna has done an amazing job at creating this wonderful event, I hope she's super proud of herself because we all are! Thank you for doing this and giving everyone an opportunity to get involved and raising so much awareness, it's people like you who we need more of.

I want to thank everyone who helped me make the day possible, my friends and family who baked for me and also spread the word, it all meant an awful lot to me.

For the people who asked about my T-Shirt you can buy it HERE 

http://www.meassociation.org.uk/shop/gifts/t-shirts/

This day meant a lot to me as this was the event that I'd heard about last year, the one which encouraged me to get involved and start this blog. Last year I attempted a cake that ended up looking like a Yorkshire pudding and I just had a piece in bed while I joined in online, so the fact that I was able to host my own event and have my family and friends involved this year was amazing and showed how far I'd come in the past 12 months. Thanks again for making all of that possible, Anna!

If you haven't yet donated and you would like to. The Blue Sunday justgiving page is still going and you can find my page here, you can also see all of the other teams amazing success here. I am so proud of everyone who held their own tea party, I know the planning, hosting and the following days aren't easy on us but you all inspired me to get through the day and it was all 200% worth it, I couldn't be happier with how it went!

Thanks again for all the donations, I can't stop thinking about everyone's generosity, the money is going to an amazing cause and I'm so glad you've all been there to see and contribute to that. 

M.E AWARENESS

No ones lives their life expecting it all to change in a matter of weeks, days, minutes. We're all aware that bad things happen in life, we see bad things happen on the news all the time but it's always something we just hear about and we feel sympathy for those people, we say that we wouldn't know what we'd do if that happened to us but we are no different to them, they didn't prepare for their life to change for the worse and they don't know how to handle it either. Bad things happen to everyone at some point in their lives but we live our lives preparing for all the good that we hope to come in our future, life would be sad if we woke up every morning and planned tomorrow as if we were going to be less able than today, we plan and imagine the future in the best way possible because we are told that we can do anything if we really want to and that we've all got plenty of time to do it.

What happens if one morning you wake up and you're no longer able to sit up? How would you feel if one day you were dreaming of traveling the world and doing all the things you wanted to just because you could, then the next day every dream was crushed because your life had changed and you were no longer able to think about the future, you had to watch everyone else around you get excited about life ahead of them while you, after planning hospital appointment after hospital appointment, wondered if you even had a future. How would you feel if suddenly your life came to a holt, you had to stop all of your plans and accept a different path? A path of pain and complications.

I became ill at the beginning of high school, I had just began realising the exciting adventures that were possible in life, me and my friends would talk about what we were going to do after high school, we'd have exciting conversations about holidays and festivals together, I enjoyed school and I thought that my teenage years were going to be so much fun. They weren't. I spent hours in hospitals, I spent days wondering what was happening to my body, my friends would be complaining about their boyfriend issues while I wondered if I was dying. Other days I wondered if I was just imagining it all, people would make me believe I was, make me think I was the problem, that it was my fault that I was suddenly unable to move about and function well.

After years of desperation I found out that I had M.E. The mystery that had taken over my life and changed every aspect of it, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. A condition that disables myself and millions of others around the world.

M.E, known to some as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/CFS, is a condition that causes extreme fatigue that does not go away with sleep, sleep is made difficult, insomnia is a big symptom, difficulty getting to sleep, difficulty waking up and disturbed sleeping patterns. Pain is a big symptom too; painful joints, muscles and migraines. Sufferers feel flu symptoms daily, sore throat, headaches, body aches, nausea, irregular temperature, dizziness, painful swollen lymph nodes and palpitations. This condition also delightfully comes with cognitive difficulties such as; poor concentration, short term memory loss, difficultly planning/gathering thoughts, a general feeling of disorientation. Everyones symptoms vary and we all suffer differently but something that is usually guaranteed is that symptoms will worsen after psychical or mental activity. M.E has no cure, we assume its occurs after a viral infection but no one knows too much about it as there isn't a lot of funding.

This condition leaves people bed bound, unable to move or carry out minimal actives such as getting washed. Sufferers are often unable to attend school or work and are left socially isolated and depressed because of their restrictions. Don't be fooled by someone who looks well, a couple of days a month I'll have makeup on and be outside looking well but the following days I will be in bed with my painkillers, unable to sit up.

We all say that our illnesses don't define us but it's often hard for them not to. M.E gets in the way of every aspect of my life, I'm sure you've missed school before because you've been unwell and when you go back you realise that you've missed a lot and there's lots of work for you to do and you don't understand the conversation your friends are now having and it's only been a few days... What if that was every single day for you? Years. Then you'd really be out the loop, you see peoples lives move forward while yours stands still and demands a fight from you.
M.E causes me excruciating pain, it makes my body slow, it makes my breath short, it sometimes makes me lay awake all night crying, it makes my brain fuzzy and it makes others judge. I didn't want this, none of us did, it's not our fault and we shouldn't be treated differently because of it, it's just something we have that's made our paths a little different and yeah, I'm sometimes sad that this may be my forever and the future does scares me but most of the time I'm happy. I'm happy that I'm in this position because I'm the one that understands and I'm lucky enough to be able to voice that. I get to meet incredible people who understand too, who inspire me daily. I had never heard of M.E 6 years ago, I wouldn't be writing this post and raising awareness today if I didn't have this illness. This is now my life, it's not changing anytime soon, so together as M.E sufferers; lets make it our job to do the best we can for us all, to raise the awareness we need and push for the research and acknowledgement we deserve because every single day we are the ones that have to understand this nasty illness a little bit more.

I am also part of Team BLUE SUNDAY for M.E Awareness week. The wonderful Anna and her Blue Sunday event was the thing that inspired me to get involved last year, so I'm happy to be hosting my own tea party for my family and friends this year. You can support me HERE, or text 'KBTP55 *amount you want to fund*' to 70070. Funds go to the ME Association, they are a campaigning UK charity that help support and provide helpful information for people with M.E, they also fund research into the causes and to improve treatment. 

Thank you!

I hope this post found it's way to someone who before had never heard of M.E and that you learnt something from it.

A chronic illness support group via podcast

Last month I asked what you thought of the idea of me starting a podcast and I've spent lots of time since then thinking of ideas and organising it.
I haven't yet recorded the first episode as energy isn't always on my side but it's given me more time to think about how I actually want to do this and now I know the direction I'd like to take it in. I would like not only to cover certain topics but to have it like a 'support group'. I'm not going to ask everyone to join me on a Skype call once a month and talk about our issues but I'd like stories to be shared. I've been thinking about what I would have wanted out of something like this when I was feeling alone when first diagnosed. There's a dark time where you're on your own, in denial, not speaking out, not asking for help but still sort of looking for information to make you feel less alone. I didn't always have a blog to write, to share how I was feeling, I never talked about it, I just silently searched around for other people stories to make me feel normal. If I had come across a podcast a few years ago that I could listen to after those nasty hospital appointments that I left feeling ignored and broken, if I could come home and just sit and hear other peoples stories shared without having to make my presence known, I think that would have helped me a lot. I know having the option to anonymously write in and then hearing my email read out and others agreeing and making my problems seem 'normal', would have helped me a lot in coming to terms and speaking about my feelings. So this is what I want to create, an environment that makes chronic illness sufferers feel united and understood, a environment where your presence doesn't need to be known but can be if you choose. I want listeners to tune in and leave feeling not so bad about their illnesses. Maybe family or friends want to listen, to build up an understanding from us, of what their loved one is going through.

I know there are many Facebook groups and other support groups out there but I also know some people aren't ready to put their name out and speak about it yet, I know I wouldn't have been comfortable writing as openly as I do now, 3 years ago. There are thousands of sufferers out there that have no one to speak to or anyone to listen to them, who could benefit so much from feeling part of a strong community, so my goal with this is to be the voice for the past me, I want to be the person to share what's going on in her head because she wants to be heard but she's not quite ready to speak up yet.

I'm of course, not expecting this podcast to kick off immediately, the first episode may just be me telling you my story and some topics I plan to discuss in future episodes but I would like to think we could get something good going. I'm going to record the first episode in the beginning of May, so if you run into any problems throughout April that you'd wish to share, please do, the contact information will be at the bottom of this page. Anything from a frustrating conversation you just had with a family member who just doesn't quite get it and you want to rant about it (we get it, don't worry!) to a concern about a new symptom that has decided to stop by this morning and you're wondering who can relate. I'm happy to talk about just the little things that we face every day or the bigger things that happen in relation to our chronic illnesses, so whether you'd like to come on the podcast and share your whole story with us or just send an email, asking to be read out anonymously or not; I'll look forward to any responses!

Email HERE 

Message or post on Facebook wall HERE

Tweet HERE

I don't have a big audience to share this with but I think it would be a good, beneficial thing to be involved in, so if you could, please do share this around and hopefully we can start something great. Thank you!

I can't get no hair satisfaction! (BLACK HAIR)

The last time I dyed my hair, I shared it with you and I mentioned my love for dark hair and I also said that I would love to dye mine black, so today it only feels right for me to share this with you too.

After months of spooking myself out of dying my hair black, I realised I was thinking way too much about a reversible thing, so I went out and bought the damn dye. I coloured it yesterday and as much as I love the colour, I have to say that it was a bit anticlimactic. I went for a 'natural black' because as much as I like the idea of resembling a witch, I thought I'd play it safe but I think all my anticipation and excitement was a little OTT as it's only now a shade or two darker than before. My obnoxious blonde roots didn't take to the dye much either (the grease probably repelled it) and theres still a warm hue on the top, making it look more of a dark brown, so I'm going to colour it again soon and hopefully then it'll be as BLACK as the lovely night!

I used John Frieda's Foam Hair Colour in 2N Luminous Natural Black and would you look at that? It did actually make my hair look luminous. If you read my last hair post, you know I usually use 4 boxes of dye but this time I only had to use 2!!! Either this foam stuff is just super good at covering a lot of hair with little product or I'm going to tie it up and discover a nasty patch of brown hair still in the back... I'll leave that one for the person stood behind me to worry about.