Simple Sundays - Back to the Country.

This weekend I was visiting my parents. I always say I'm going 'home' when I head back to my mums, but the reality is that I've not lived there for about 5 years now. There's something about your parents house that will always be 'home' isn't there? It's where you grew up, and it's where you experience that feeling. You know the one, it's comfortable and safe. I don't think I'm going to grow out of saying that anytime soon.
I have some photos I'm going to post tomorrow as I'm just in the door and am too tired to be editing anything.
This weekend was really fun though. I went into Braehead with my mum on Saturday to go shopping for ski clothes for me. I've been saving up for a while, as I really wanted to buy myself a nice ski jacket for my holiday in January. I wore my mums last year and it was just a bit too big for me. I had only planned on getting the jacket, but by the end of the day I had a jacket, ski trousers and a shiny new helmet. All kitted out and ready to go! I then found a £20 note on the side of the street and took my mum out for some lunch! A good day indeed.
Today I went for a lovely walk through the country, took some photos and hopped back in the car to drive back up to Dundee!

Apologies for the brief post. I'll make it up another day!

Simple Sundays - Life update.

I really love Sundays because they are the only day of the week where I actually get a chance to relax. I think posting on Sundays might be a good idea. More likely than not, I'll have some free time to sit down and write about anything that's happened this week.
I've posted twice today, but this was mainly because I was too tired to write up anything when I got in last night. Ideally I would have liked to post that yesterday. However, lucky you gets two posts today!

I thought it might be nice to do a quick life update, like what I used to do on here a few years back. Since then I've graduated and have been working at an app company as their lead designer. My first year in a full time job was maybe a bit different from most peoples experience. We struggled to get an office so work involved signing in on Skype every morning for a catch up. It was a difficult way to work and did ultimately take an impact on my mentality. Nothing too serious, just some bouts of sadness or cabin fever. I'm quite a sociable person and rely a lot on my peers, so having no one around me for a while and no outlet or routine was a struggle. I think this was because I had been constantly surrounded by people for 4 years whilst I was at Uni, and the contrast between that environment to living alone and a new job was distressing.
Luckily I have some pretty amazing friends who I could talk to and they helped to pull me out of that when it got to be too much. This July we managed to eventually move into a space and since then it's been much better. After a year of working from home, getting back into the routine of waking up earlier and leaving the house actually improved my work and rekindled my love for design again. It was slowly sucking the passion out of creating for me, and I'm glad to have found that again.

I've also been living alone, like I mentioned earlier, and that's been a new experience for me too. Since my time at uni I've lived in a flat with 6, 5, 8 and finally 2 others in different years. Each year had it's pros and cons, but I think living in my own space has been far more exciting. Apart from all the negatives I've spoke about already, there are huge cons to having your own place. I don't think I'd go back to sharing again if given the choice!

There have been so many other exciting things that have happened, but I think trying to fit anything else in at the moment might be information overload! Right now I feel like I'm in a much better place than I was last year, and that's why I felt I could talk about it openly on here. This blog was always an outlet for me in the past, and as previously stated in another post, I'm really looking forward to having that again.
Hence post galore! and perhaps an overuse of the word post in this post.

I had an adventure of my own on Friday which was a new experience for me and something I'm planning to write about soon, but for now enjoy my foody day out from yesterday and my tiny little bald patch in the picture above! I bought that jumper yesterday and I think I'm in love with it already.
AUTUMN IS HERE.

SYGN - thats not ketchup.

I went up to Edinburgh to see my friend Fiona for an afternoon of shopping and food. The latter being more important to us!

In the morning it was absolutely pouring down but it managed to clear up by mid afternoon, which was a nice surprise as we left the restaurant. 

Speaking of restaurants (not subtle), we went into a place called Sygn. This place was pretty ace, and was the highlight of the day. We had both never been before so it was a nice surprise inside. There was an american vibe with lots of vintage looking signs and awesome visual design on the menu's. The windows had this weird bottle display which I never got a good photo of, and inside they had an old school popcorn machine that made the place smell amazing.

In the end we were spoilt for choice so we ordered two burgers and had half of each. We chose chorizo & pork and the cajun chicken with a sharing side of halloumi. This was a good call. The place does mainly pizza, hotdogs, salads and nachos, but their portions and food are great. 

I think in the end the cocktail we chose was the 'Flying V', containing Tanqueray gin with cherry and violet liqueure, lemon and an absinthe rinse. It tasted a bit like liquorice. 

They also had a variety of sauces, one of which was definitely not ketchup but a rather spicy chilli sauce. I realised this too late, don't make my mistake!

The ranch was beautiful. 

Food talk over!

I would love to go back there actually and I know Fiona will be going back because she lives near. Lucky. 

After that we were pretty full and I decided to head back at around five so I was home in time for Doctor Who. I have my priorities!

Simple Sunday. (I'm back?)

I left Blogger a while ago to post elsewhere and focus on work in my final year of Uni, and since then have kind of forgotten to keep this space updated.

'IndigoTeacup' is a name I've left behind. I feel a bit sad about this as it's where I used to go speak my thoughts.
Thats not to say I haven't been active on the internet though, and I'll link in another post to some of the other places I frequent to update.

I'm going to try posting on here again. I use my other blog for work related/design posts, but I'd like my old space back to talk about day to day life. I used to find a great amount of joy in blogging, and I can't quite put my finger on why I lost that love. I think it's still there, buried away.

I'm going to start off with my weekend and see how it goes from there!

Yes I'm going to write about yoghurt. I bought this stuff on a whim the other day and it was honestly the highlight of my day. So thick, so creamy and ridiculously tasty. I'm aware I sound like an advert, but it just that good.
I'm not a huge yoghurt person, but over the last few weeks it's been my go to choice for breakfast. I usually just buy some plain natural yoghurt and add some cut up banana and honey. I swear by this combo.

I'll be on the look out for other flavours of The Collective Dairy, their russian fudge and luscious lemon looks fab.
Can't believe I've just given you a yoghurt review. Stay Tuned folks!

 I also just found these today. This was a gift from my mum from a while back. I never really use cases for my glasses because they pretty much stay on my face all the time! But I can't deny that this is cute.

Another new experience from this past few weeks has been trying out various Lush products. They're so popular already and I think everyone is pretty much in the loop about what their products are like, but I had never tried their bath bombs before and was pleasantly surprised. After getting over my initial fear that my skin would turn a vivid purple after looking at the colour of the water, I think they're pretty fun. The one pictured below is called Space Girl. This was actually the least exciting of the three I bought, the best being the Big Blue. My bath has been some amazing different shades of blue and purple! Will continue to experiment. 

I went shopping today and got me some new dresses! I love autumn because all my favourite types of prints come in. Lots of woodland creatures and fall colours. Autumn has always been my favourite season for clothes, so I'm really looking forward to next month when all the shops will start to really get all their autumn stock in.

For now here's a wee teaser, will post better pictures at a later date.

Check out those racoons!

I'm going to finish up there! I think thats enough yoghurt and bath bomb chat. Here's a picture of my miserable looking face, incase anyone is curious. I also just love the collar on this top!

Life Lately.

I haven't done any blogging this year mainly because my time is split over so many things that personal blogging can seem like I'm procrastinating. Which as we all know is baaaaad.

 2013 has been great for me so far. I can't remember everything that has been happening so I'm going to talk a bit about easter and what I've been up to in April.

I went home for a few days at the beginning of the holidays for a much needed break. Uni work can get very stressful and sometimes it's nice to visit home and escape your responsibilities for a while. There's nothing better than mums home cooking and a cosy fire, especially with the horrible cold weather Scotland's been experiencing. Snow in March? You're kidding me Scotland!

Whilst I was home my mum and I went for a walk at Prestwick. When I think of Prestwick my mind immediately says 'airport', so it was nice to see a different side to the place.
We went a walk along the promenade first which was really windy. I don't know if it's just me, but walking in colder conditions makes me feel like I'm doing more exercise. I think it might be because I'm battling against the wind. We picked up some nice driftwood for the fire and carried them along on the way back.

Afterwards we headed to a place called Elliots for some lunch. We drove past this place on the way in and it looked really good so we made a mental note to go there for some food. And food we had! It was really lovely inside, because it has a kind of conservatory as the main dining area. The sun was out that day too so it was lovely and bright.
I had sizzling garlic butter and chilli oil king prawns and my mum had something called 'Cullen Skink' which is basically a really thick creamy fish soup. It arrived in a pan!
Both are meals were gorgeous so I really recommend the place.

There's also this place down the road which was called Costley's, and it sold amazing looking ice cream. Everything about the place screamed eat me. So we went in and got some ice cream to eat in the car. No regrets. This place had meringues the size of my face.

All in all, it was an excellent day out and some quality time spent with my mum.

I also had a day in Edinburgh, which I spent with my friend Fiona. She's getting married in October and she has chose me to be her bridesmaid! This day was spent going from bride shop to bride shop with her two mums (present and future step mum) looking for the perfect dress. I think we pretty much found it in the first one we visited, which is very typical! I can't really post pictures of the day unfortunately as that would come under the category 'spoilers'!
however, we did visit Pizza Express, which was a new experience for me.

Man, that place does some tasty pizza.

Everything else over easter has mainly been about my university problems, and if you're at all interested in that side of me I have another blog here, which is regularly updated with my latest dilemmas.

Hopefully I'll be able to update you on upcoming adventures but till then it's back to work.

Lino Printing

I've started lino printing again. I've wanted to get back to it for a while and over the past few months I managed to get all my equipment and make a first attempt!
The one in the photo above in a work in progress and I've yet to put ink to it. It's based on a quote that I've been looking at for my honours project this year, which is all about bookstores and their effects. I thought this mini poem was beautiful and had such lovely words, so I drew them out and started carving. Fingers crossed it will look okay!

The one below is a test I did a while ago. At the time I was watching episode after episode of Pushing Daises, hence the whole Pie thing. Boy, does that show make you want to eat pie! 
I made a peach one after watching a few episodes just to satisfy my cravings.
The first time I made this print I carved it back to front. It's so frustrating when that happens! and it happened again to me this time. Apparently I don't learn from my mistakes!

A Wee Walk.

Fiona, Tom and I took a walk around Kirkmichael the other day with Arthur, who is Fiona's new puppy! 

He's been living with us for a few days now and he's the cutest little thing. The walk was really nice too and I managed to collect another pinecone for my small collection. 

The picture above is a funny little incident involving fiona giving me a lift over the mud because I wore the wrong shoes. We managed to get stuck, it was one of the funniest things. I remember being really shattered for the rest of the day after that! 

Louisa, my other flatmate, eventually came back from France that day too and our flat became whole for the first time. 

Living alone here since July has been quite lonely, but I'm really glad that the other two are finally moved in. For those of you who live alone, you'll know how it can get sometimes. When the house creaks I immediately think someone is coming to kill me. However, that is all over now and the house is alive with noise. It's good.