*Yawn* happy Sunday, campers! I have a gem of a quote today which is actually often incorrectly attributed to the teachings of the Buddha (although I’m sure he’d agree with it). Nobody really knows who came up with this one, but whoever they were, they knew what they were talking about: I once had a friend who let me down really badly. Needless to say I felt angry, I’d expected more of that friend and really felt disappointed by their actions. After cutting ties with them, I was ranting to another friend about just how angry I was. That’s when the friend I was ranting at sent me the above quote.
My former friend didn’t care that I was angry. They were completely unaffected, their life went on as usual. So who was my anger hurting? Well, me. I was the one who was stressed, bitter, upset, wasting energy that could have been used more productively on being hopping mad. Not that I’d want someone else to suffer just because they’d upset me, but even if I had, it would be a futile endeavour. My ex-friend was completely unscathed and I was the one suffering.
Sometimes in life, people do crappy things – we’re all only human and we’re all trying our best – name me one person who hasn’t done something crappy in their life. But we have three choices as to how we react to other people’s crapness (totally a word): resolve the situation and forgive, cut our losses and move on or just be angry.
Personally, that last one doesn’t make much sense to me. Next time you find yourself furious at somebody, remember that you’re hurting yourself and not them, send the situation love and move on to better things.
Welcome Darling Lovely makers and bakers to our first tutorial! I thought I’d start with something so super easy that even I can do it without adult supervision! These make great little treats for the cold winter months, take no time at all to make and are sure to please little tummies (but not too often, they may involve fruit but I still wouldn’t call them healthy)!
Baked banana and chocolate melts
You will need
♥ One banana (ripe, but not over ripe)
♥ A chocolate bar of your choice. I have found the best options to be Mars, Malteser and Snickers, but it’s all down to personal preference.
♥ A sharp knife
♥ A chopping board
Step one
Preheat the oven to 160°C / 325°F / Gas mark 3
Step two
Slice the banana open so that the fruit can be pried apart but the bottom of the skin is still intact, creating a clean line down the middle.
Step three
Dice across the top of the banana so that it can be more easily pried apart but not so you chop any of it off.
Step four
Cut three quarters of an ordinary-sized chocolate bar into small and thin pieces.
Step five
Literally stuff the sliced open banana with the chocolate pieces from edge to edge, making sure it’s full but that it won’t overflow or tip in the oven.
Step six
Put the banana and chocolate on a baking tray and put it in the oven for ten minutes. The skin of the banana should be black and the chocolate should be melted.
Step seven
When the banana is ready, carefully take it out of the oven (using oven gloves, of course) and serve still hot with a spoon! Yum!
In September and October, John and I took the trip of a lifetime driving down the west coast of the USA. We started in San Francisco and drove down towards LA before heading across country into the deep south and taking a plane to Florida for a fun-filled few days of amusement parks. Over the next few weeks and months we’ll be recapping some of the highlights of our trip, particularly the ones we think Darling Lovely Life readers might love to do, and a few of the Darling Lovely places that captured our hearts! First up is San Francisco, the place that our big journey started.
There are very few cities in the world that I love. I’m a country girl at heart and I find cities a little overwhelming and (I’ll admit it) more often than not, ugly. Sure, every city has its nice areas, but as someone who swoons over little thatched cottages and farmhouses, I had yet to find a city after my own heart.
That all changed when I visited beautiful San Francisco.
There are three exceptionally magical things about San Francisco – the food, the shopping and the architecture. Sure, we did all the touristy things, visiting Alcatraz (which was a really fascinating tour, I would have loved to have scored night tickets but left it a bit late) and the Golden Gate Bridge, but in a city like San Francisco just walking around in the Haight-Ashbury district is enough to fill a day.
I couldn’t get enough of the Victorian houses with their beautiful painted planks and gilded ornaments and mouldings. I wanted to live in every single house I walked past.
The Painted Ladies (above, bottom right) were gorgeous, but really they’re just the tip of the iceberg in a city rich with incredible architecture, vibrant street art and even pretty, painted shop signs.
Speaking of shops, that’s another thing San Francisco does really well. From the glossy, big brand names on Market Street to the small, vintage shops around Noe Valley, it’s easy to get carried away on a small (maybe not so small) spree!
We ate in a few great places but one place in particular stood out (incredible soft scrambled eggs – I could have eaten them all day) The Universal Cafe where we met up with fellow blogger, Preeti of Big Fat Indian Wedding fame! It was wonderful to see her in her new life on the other side of the world and get her tips for some brilliant places to visit!
I was sorry to leave stunning San Francisco behind but after two nights, the road beckoned (a night in a particularly special redwood lodge, which we’ll cover next time) and we rented a car to start our epic trip!
Welcome, Darling Lovely readers to the first of what we hope to be many posts on our brand new blog, Darling Lovely Life.
Some of you already know us, we’re the team behind Under the Vintage Veil wedding blog. After two and a half AMAZING years at the helm of Under the Vintage Veil, we made the bold and exciting move of taking all of our wedding content with us and starting a fresh new adventure under a new name.
We love weddings, and we’ll still be covering them, but we both felt we had way too much to show and tell to limit ourselves to one category of this Darling Lovely Life we live! We’ll be writing about love, life, travel, shopping, interiors, weddings and celebrations, hair, beauty, style, baking and crafting, DIY and so much more!
We’ll be starting with one post a day and adding content as the site grows with us. You can read our manifesto and all about us here, but for those of you who haven’t come across us before, here’s who we are (and what we do):
Sara – editor and owner of Darling Lovely Life
Sara is the editor and owner of Darling Lovely Life. When she’s not blogging, she’s busy with freelance PR and journalism work, and her many creative hobbies which include (but are not limited to): photography, singing & songwriting, baking, crafting and knitting, creative writing and looking after her many pets!
John – IT, web and advertising manager
John is our self-billed geek in residence. An IT manager by day, John provides tech and business development support to Darling Lovely Life in his spare time.
How can you get involved?
If you like what you see so far and you want to be involved with Darling Lovely Life, there are several ways to grace our pastel-pretty pages!
The first is to send us a DIY, crafting or baking tutorial. Send your idea over to [email protected] and we’ll send you our guidelines for creating a Darling Lovely Life tutorial.
The second is to send us pretty pictures of your home. If it fits with the blog we’ll either ask you to take more or send one of our lovely partner photographers round to capture the loveliness.
If you know anyone who lives a Darling Lovely Life, doing what they love and being excellent at it, we’d love to interview them. Nominate someone amazing for our “The Darling Lovely Life of” feature, which will start soon.
And finally, if you like any of our features and think you have something fabulous to say that could fit in, we’re always happy to hear your ideas.
We can’t wait to get to know you all and for you to be a part of this new adventure! If you want to contribute, comment or just say hi, please feel free to email [email protected] – follow us on Twitter and Instagram with the username @darlinglovelies, like us us on Facebook and find our Pinterest account here.
