Easy Stir Fry Recipe!

Serves 3/4

Ingredients:
vegetable oil
chicken diced/cubed
sauce (sweet & sour/chow mein/your choice!)
egg noodles/rice

Stir fry vegetables:
beansprouts
carrot
cabbage
mushrooms
onion
(any vegetables work!)

Method:

• Boil water, ready to add your noodles/rice!
• Chop up your chicken into strips or cubes, or you can buy the diced kind! Add a splash of oil into a wok/frying pan and chuck in all your chicken.You should have it on medium heat. Add a dash of salt. Keep mixing to avoid sticking until all cooked.
• Place your chicken in a bowl and put in the microwave to keep warm.
• Add a dash more oil, then chuck in all your vegetables, your should now have it on high heat.
• Your water should be boiled by this time so add your noodles/rice.
• After a couple of minutes, re-add your chicken, then after they've mixed with the vegetables, add the sauce of your choice and simmer at medium/low heat.
• When your noodles/rice is ready, chuck those in two so everything can get the flavour! 
• Serve!

Enjoy!

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Volunteering with Elephants - Prep!

In April 2015, I will be going to South Africa for 6 weeks to volunteer at an Elephant Sanctuary and I could not be more excited! Everyone keeps asking me, why and how I did this.

To start with 'why' :

I have always loved Elephants for as long as I can remember, and with me... I find myself changing my mind a lot and not really having something I've always always enjoyed - except my love for Elephants. I have always wanted to go and spend an extended period time with them! 

How:

I had a fair amount of savings and a fair amount coming in (at the time) and I decided whilst I have no children or mortgage to worry about, now was the perfect time to embark on this adventure. So I started by basically, googling it. I had a look at some information and projects from different companies, compared what they offer and the prices they offered it at and finally decided on Oyster Worldwide. I picked these because of the amount of support they offer, the prices and they offer an up close and personal five star lodge 'sleeping with the elephants'. Very exciting,

So I emailed a couple of questions, had a phone call and decided on some dates. I started organizing this back in June and decided roughly a years time would be ideal. Then obviously, I had to get some time off work organised which was fine!

Next was just saving, lots and lots of saving and lots and lots of  gradually paying of the price of the volunteering itself. This was £1509, a set price for two weeks then extra for additional weeks. Then I had to save and pay for the flights (which I've only just done!) which was £1033 - expensive times D:

I also had to consider what jabs I would need, me being the organise freak I am, I went about September time giving me 7 months to ensure they can all be done within the correct time span. The jabs I had was Typhoid jab and the Twinrix jab which is the combined Hep A and Hep B jab which consists of 4 (3 before and 1 a year after) All of these were free, I just need a Rabis jab which will be £150, so all in all... not too bad.

Then I had to get myself some travel insurance which I got via Global Insurance which Oyster actually recommend which makes this very easy. This was just £141.

What's next?

So, as mentioned - I need to organise my rabis jab then it's just a case of a few equipment/clothing essentials! My parents are getting me some walking boots, then I need a couple of basics clothing-wise and a backpack... and spending money! (Luckily I get paid the Friday before I leave so that takes care of that!)

I think nearer the time when it comes to backing and arranging lifts to the airport and such, I will be getting quite nervous.... at the moment though, all excitment! 

I can't wait to live my dream!

P.S keep you posted! ;)

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Review: Lush - Luxury Lush Pud

The Luxury Lush Pud is a bath bomb, as pretty much all the population knows by now - you just chuck these in your bath and they fizz up, produce amazing colours and smell gorgeous! This one is what I feel like is a pretty safe choice for any occasion. On one hand it's very simple, in the sense it just smells very calming and cleansing but on the other hand, it fizzes out a rainbow of colours the second it touches the baths surface and leaves the bath a rich pink with a slight hint of glitter! Very girly, very comforting, very very good. Only £3.50 at your local Lush shop, 100% recommend!

Here are some photos taken from my phone as I have yet to purchase a decent camera (roll on January sales!)

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Ooh My Hair!

Quick little update I guess!

As you may or.. probably have not known, not having a great time of things at the moment and I've just been taking steps to try and fix this. One of these steps being, completely changing my hair colour (pretty standard, I know) So, to back track... I was a beautiful rich red-ish brown colour which I did love, don't get me wrong. I then went crazy and took a lot of comfort in retail therapy so my hair had to take a back seat due to lack of funds. At this point I was sporting half red, then half brown roots and as you can imagine it was not a good look.

I had a week off, had my hair appointment booked for the Monday and I was buzzing until the morning of when I woke up and was very very ill so had to put it off for another week!

Anyway, in I went and I gotta tell you, hats off to my hairdresser cause I am one of the most difficult people ever. I had a full head of foils to start off with which took about 2-3 hours...

After this and a lot of toner, we decided that because my hair was basically two different colours it looked very weird and very obvious so she then put in a few highlights of a different natural shade of blonde, slightly darker than what the top of my hair on top was which took 1-2 hours, she then washed out a toned and finally came round to cutting and drying and a total of 5 1/2 hours and £107 later, I was DONE! And this is the before and after:

As much as I love being pampered in a lovely salon, I think 5 hours was a tad much, I will have to wait a good while to get more blonde put in before I do all that again I think! However, I do love the colour even though it's slightly gingery, everyone is saying how nice it is and how much it suits me which is lovely! I would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to my hairdresser Lee for putting up with me and my annoying hair requests - I promise I'll stop now! :)

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Time To Get The Facts!

Name

Amy Louise

Birthday

02/06/1993 (21)

Height

5 foot 2

Shoe Size

4/5

Subjects at School

A Levels in ICT, English Lit & Lang, Psychology and Art

Siblings

1 Sister (Older)

Number(s)

4... 23...

Animal

Elephant

Colour

Pink

Hobbies

Trampolinng, Archery, "Keeping fit"

Pets

5 Cats 

Tattoos/Piercings

1 Tattoo, ear lobes + top of ear (coming soon!)

Few random questions:

1. Were you named after anyone?
Not that I know of, my sister (Jodie) was named after Jodie Foster cause my mum liked her at the time and the name obviously, I was just named Amy because my Nan liked it I think?
2. When was the last time you cried?
I cried at Hollyoaks the other day.... proud moments.
3.Would you bungee jump?
YES, I have and I'd do it again. It was absolutely amazing,
4. What is your favourite cereal?
Weatabix! I used to have it every single morning without fail but I get up at silly o'clock now so I rarely even have breakfast until it's a normal time and I'm on my break at work...
5. Do you think you are strong?
Tough one, it all depends because you can never really answer it until you're put in a situation where you have to be strong. I've had a rough couple of months and overall I think I've handled it a lot better than some and people have even told me I'm doing really well considering. So yeah, I guess I am but really... it's only because I have no other choice, it's not an active decision that I'm making, it's just because well, what else is there to do?
6. What is the view from your window?
I can actually see fields and ... the village in the distance, it's quite nice really. On fireworks night you can see so many it's really quite pretty.
7. Have you ever crashed?
I actually hit a car a week after I passed my test, I just went round a corner too fast. Not too much damage done but I don't regret because it made me such a better driver because of it.
8. Where do you go when you're sad?
I don't really have a certain spot, it's usually my room or .. where I live in the countryside I'll go for a wonder round there.
9. What are your fears?
I've always hated people in full head-covering costumes, I really don't know why but they make me very uneasy and uncomfortable. I just can't ... deal with seeing them, or being near them, or seeing people talking to them... freaks me out. I always hatehatehate it when it's super windy, genuinely feels like I'm gonna fly away.
10. Who is your best friend?
Summer and Jess, we've been friends for ages and they're always always there for me when I need them, what more could you ask for?
11.What is your least favourite thing about yourself?
I'm not very confident, and I don't believe in myself. It's silly and cliche I know but it's true. I mean sometimes I think of all these things I should do and then I just don't and I regret it but I only have myself to blame. Sometimes I think like .. wow I'm super amazing but then at the same time I'm not. I guess this blog is perhaps going to help me with that?
12. One thing you want to do before you die?
I can't answer this, there's so much I want to do and if the situation was that I knew I was dying and I had a certain amount of time to live, I wouldn't make a list and pick what I wanted to do,.. I'd go out and just do absolutely everything whilst I had the chance.
13. Turn ons and turns offs?
Turn on... sense of humor? Things in common? Sexy beard. Amazing smell.
Turn off... awkwardness, bad smell...
14. Have you ever been in love?
I would say I have but it's over now - part of the rough couple of months I've had. All I'll say is...When you know you know. Timing is everything. Never say never. If I had known it would have ended this way, I wouldn't have changed a single moment.
15. What are your future goals?
Well, again, rough couple of months but I'm finally starting to put a plan together. Stay working until my trip next year then maybe find something ICT related because that's what I really want to do. That was always the plan but the last 4 years or so I've somehow got distracted from that. Or possibly something zoo/animal related, or maybe I'll stay in South Africa! A girl can dream.

Hope you feel like you know me a little better. 

Anymore questions you wanna know, feel free to shoot them my way!

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Hello! Welcome to all things amylicious♥

So, why am I starting a blog? Things suck for me at the moment, which I'm sure I'll share in due course but what better distraction than the internet? Also, in 161 days I begin my adventure to South Africa to spend some time with the beautiful elephants for 6 weeks and I wanted to have a blog in full swing so I can share and document my time there to look back on in years and years to come. 

I'll be posting my thoughts/opinions/fashion/beauty/food/baking/tv/lifestyle etc etc etc

....Stay tuned!

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