100 days of happiness... Summer's end

To round up my 100 days of happiness (well, kind of 100 days... I stopped counting... Although I do like these wee round-ups, rather than one a day) here's some recent/ recent-ish photos of the people and things that made me happy the last while, as Summer came to an end, and I finally got to go back to college, and back to my life...

100 days of happiness... Day 24: Strawberries

So I was sitting around, and it got pretty late, and I realised I hadn't anything for my 100 days of happiness... Then two of me mates, Sean and Grainne, called around with some of the most yummiest strawberries that I've ever tasted! Thanks guys :) ...Yet again, I get pressies! ...I suppose having cancer has to have a couple of perks, eh!?

....Although I also just get pretty things 'cause I'm awesome like! xXx

100 days of happiness... Day 23: Vegan baking cookbook -Ms. Cupcake

Almost forgot until today that my lovely friends Grainne and Thom picked me up this present -A vegan baking book! "Ms. Cupcake -The Naughtiest Vegan Cakes in Town!"

Flicking through the pages, there is some awesome looking cake, muffins and cupcake recipes... Can't wait to get started on making some of them! Will keeps yous updated with how I get on and of course, recipes to follow :)

100 days of happiness... Day 22: Taste of Dublin

On Friday I went to 'Taste of Dublin', to watch Frankie Says (an 80's/90's tribute band that Bicky plays with). My very first time at it, and have to say, was brilliant!

Even managed to find a couple of vegan dishes (very few like, but still, a couple is more than I expected). Would have been great to have seen one of Dublin's vegan restaurants at it, but alas, couldn't find any.

Apart from the main act of Frankie Says, a James Brown look-a-like sang, as well as a talented young musician called Scoops -Sorry didn't get any good photos of him playing, but

100 days of happiness... Day 21: A bita more nature

As a follow-up from yesterdays 100 days of happiness, few more nature photos -this time from helping around a garden... well, a bit of varnishing a fence and replanting daffodils to be exact... then I lazed around a bit and took some pics, as you can see!

100 day of happiness... Day 20: Rainbows

Some stormy weather, crazy colours and rainbows = Pretty sky.

100 days of happiness... A recent round-up

Yop -My name is CrippleBaby, and I have an issue with lack of blogging *sits down and waits for applause*... So rather than go through the last 10 or so days individually, I'm just going to do one big ol' post for the '100 days of happiness' days which I missed -which was many, many days. So here's the round up, and in no particular order, as I'm too lazy to do so, quite frankly:

Dancing with Thom 

These lads: The Seasons

This boy... Plus his awesome jukebox...

100 days of happiness… Day 8: Lovely friends who did a lovely collection

I'm really late in writing this up, so apologies to all (and of course I've been totally lacking in my '100 Days of Happiness' experiment in general!), although I've tried to thank as many people as possible, through Facebook, face-to-face... still, I feel it deserves a blog post also, as I really cannot express my gratitude enough....

My lovely friend Sarah, and the good folk at 23 Seats (see their Facebook page here, and give them a like: 23 Seats, and also give Sarah's art page a likey too: Studio Crow Street) organised a money collection for myself and Simon recently. Originally to help with travel to radiotherapy, although we then received a taxi service (from the lovely Carrickmacross Cancer Society). The money however has really helped towards general bills -which have unfortunately been on the back burner the last while (with issues in not receiving the medical card yet, etc.).

Just over €145 really is alot to us, and me and Simon really are so touched -I honestly had NO idea that this had been organised, and I feel so unworthy (although I was immediately warned by Sarah that I wasn't allowed to give the money to a charity... which I very nearly did, haha). Again, thank you all to everyone who contributed, yous are all absolute sweethearts!

100 days of happiness... Day 7: The Rise of the Sidhe (by Christina George)

After the previous grumpy post, I think it's time for another exciting round-up of today's '100 days of happiness' experiment...

A friend of mine has written a book, and of course I'm super proud! :) She recently released it for sale on paper back, and I only got around to buying a copy today -So naturally enough, this is my happy thing for today! Cannot wait until I receive it in the post!

Here's an extract (chapter 2, taken from the website):

The Rise of the Sidhe  

The light up ahead now was a welcome sight.  The cool air refreshed his skin as he finally reached the mouth of the shaft, his eyes revolting against the harshness of the afternoon sun.  He breathed the air deeply, and headed towards his digs to report to Carter, who at least would understand. The bustle and noise was welcome for once as he made his way along the labyrinth of high mud walls.  He sometimes felt like a rat in a run when he walked along the trenches, and there were plenty of rats scuttling in and out of the nooks and crannies for him to feel the notion was based in reality.

He was pulled from his thoughts as a teenage boy bellowed at him from up ahead, ‘You Captain O’Neal?’ Bran almost kept walking.  Sometimes he forgot that he was O’Neal, it being the first name that had come to mind as he signed up on that grim London street two years ago. ‘Yeah, I’m O’Neal,’ he yelled over the tumult of noise as the men ran to and fro in preparation for another attack.

‘Mills wants you to report to him immediately,’ the young boy replied in his broad cockney accent.  He nodded in assent.  He would have to face the music now and

100 days of happiness... Day 6: A present (from me to me)

Ok, so not really a 'present' if I pay for it myself, but anyone with fallopian tubes (and not to be sexist, am sure some lads too) will tells ya, that when we order things on-line and receive them, it does almost feel like getting a present! -Particularly if it's from E-bay... we feel like we've 'won' something. Again, even though you've actually paid for it yourself.

As shallow as it sounds, that's what made me happy today -receiving two plain, cheap tops (that I myself ordered and paid for) from Boohoo.com

...I'm easily happy today, I guess!

100 days of happiness... Day 4 & day 5: Doggies & juicing

And so here's the happiness posts for Monday and today... This experiment is harder than I thought! Either that, or I'm a narky bitch! ...If so, doing this may be the cure for that...

Monday 26th May:

Doggies

When in doubt what to be happy over, animals are a good choice. On this day, my sleepy little fur-babies (aka dogs) were the things to make me happy. 

Emily

Louis (Lou-Lou bear) and Simon (Bicky)

Tuesday 27th May:

Juicing

I've had a really bad day with hip pain -sore to lie down, sore to sit up, sore to stand and near impossible to walk. So it's been hard as feck to find something to be happy about. I would usually say 'bed' in this circumstance (har) -Although as I said, cannot get comfy lying down... so bed, you can kiss my ass ya shithead...

As yas all probably know by now, I adore my juicer. Bicky too. It's a deadly way to get in the extra vitamins when ya just can't eat any more. After researching it a bit, we've decided to do a total juice "detox" (for lack of a better word, I'll use the dumb, unscientific terminology) -that is, eat nothing, just get all our nutrients from vegetable and fruit juice.

It's a great way for obese people to lose weight, while resetting their taste buds -from what I've seen and read, after about a month of doing it, when the participants go back to eating, they actually crave vegetables and fruit -rather than their usual chips and cheese burger (chips=fries, for my US readers). This can only be a good thing. This is kind of what happened to me when I was 13 and half-ish and decided to stop eating meat -I eventually went from being afraid of certain foods, to loving them. The more you consume something, the more you actually do like it. That was my main reason for turning to a mostly vegetarian lifestyle -I had extreme food issues (like many people -nothing on the plate could

100 days of happiness... Day 2 & day 3: Vegan 'ice-cream' & friends

Continuing on from last Friday's beginnings of '100 days of happiness', here's Saturday and Sunday's happy times...

Saturday May 24th: 
Vegan banana and biscuit 'ice-cream'

I came across this vegan 'ice-cream' recipe totally by chance, and as it seems very popular amongst veganists... veganites? Vegan people? ..Thought I should probably give it a go. It's really simple, surprisingly similar to ice-cream and quite healthy (but of course).


Ingredients 

• Bananas -chopped and frozen for about 24 hours, or longer (I used about 6 to make a big bowl)
• Soya milk (I used about 300ml, but you can leave this ingredient out altogether and just use the bananas)
• Chocolate bourbon biscuits (I used about 5... Surprisingly most

100 days of happiness... Day 1: Vegan cauliflower and asparagus soup

I've seen the '100 days of happiness' posts around Facebook and thought I may as well join in, partially to celebrate finishing radiotherapy, and in general, everyone could do with a bit of happiness -Thought I'd share mine around! ...I'm such a fucking hippy these days, I know. Or crusty... Is that the smelly ones? Yeah, crusty.

As you can expect (and as I've seen with everyone else's posts too), most of these will probably be food related (well, at least until I do the 28-day juice thing, but that's a story for laters...), and sure why the hell not?

Guna kick this shit off with my vegan cauliflower and asparagus soup. This is sooo what made me happy today. This recipe is stupid-easy to make. As well as quick, healthy, cruelty free and tasty as hell...

Ingredients 

• Cauliflower (fresh or frozen) -around 3 cups worth 
• Asparagus (fresh) -around 7 spears 
• Spring onion -around 4
• Soya milk (either sweetened or