Breakfast Granola | Recipe

Hello,
It's exam season at the moment, which means everyone I know and I are completely snowed under with revision. There aren't many things more depressing than cutting a lovely pub trip short because you know you've got to be up at 7 if you have any hope of getting a space in the library!

So because of this I've become a little bit obsessed with breakfast recently. It started with an unnatural addiction to cereal and then quickly progressed into a need to make my own granola. I looked up loads of recipes online but loads included honey (yuck), weird nectar substances or a thousand different types of nuts.

 I decided this was all too much. I made up my own granola recipe and it was so delicious that I've since worked my way through two big batches of it. Thought I'd share the recipe because it was just too good to keep to myself.

So first, I put 125g of butter and 100g of brown sugar in a pan. I melted them together until I had a nice caramel-y syrup.
Then I took that off the heat and stirred in about 250g of porridge oats, give or take a few handfuls
Once all the porridge oats were coated in the syrup mixture I added a few decent handfuls of raisins. You can add as many or few as you liked but I added quite a lot because I love them!
I also stirred in a few mixed, dried fruits and nuts. I bought them in a pack that said "breakfast mix" on it but really you can add whatever you like (I bet dried apricots would be really nice!)
Then I smushed all the porridge mix into a oven dish, I pressed it down quite hard so that the oats would bind together.
I put the dish in the oven at 200 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, every 5 minutes or so I stirred the mix around in the dish so that the oats at the bottom would get the same amount of bake as the ones at the top.
And there you go, wait for it to cool, pour some milk over and enjoy!

Cup of tea is mandatory.

This granola is so, so delicious! It fills you up for the whole morning because of the porridge oats and the dried fruit makes it super tasty. As well as this I think it's really cheap, much cheaper than buying boxed granola. I really don't think this cost me more than £3 to make and it lasted ages.

Give it a go, tell me if you like it. Or do you have a different recipe? Let me know and I can add it to my cereal obsession!
See you soon, Maisie x

This Blogpost Will Save Your Year

Ok so that's a bold statement...and it probably won't. But maybe it will save mine.

2013 was rubbish wasn't it? It started off really great and full of clichéd promises that this year would "be different" and this year would "be your year". None of them came true, the year is over and everything is just as pitifully rubbish as it was before. Just me?

For me January started off really awesome. University was great, there were super exciting new people in my life, everything was perfect. But I don't really think life ever works out like that and cracks always begin to show no matter how pretty you paint over them. I struggled a lot during the summer. I had been told to make friends and get along with my classmates and fall in love and then it was suddenly whisked away from me for a very long 5 month summer. I know that seems like such a tiny problem but I noticed that life away from home probably wasn't as pretty as my rose tinted glasses had told me they were.

When I moved back to Uni in September I was miserable. Miserable like I'd never felt before. People who I had valued the most in the previous months were now the one's who were nowhere to be found. Look through my drafted (but thankfully never published) blogposts and there are many a whiney ramble. I sat there and I thought 2013 has taught me things. It has taught me:

1. There is no such thing as being in love

2. You can't trust anyone

3. Everyone will leave at some point

4. Even your best is never good enough

For at least a month, I was ridiculous. I cried. A lot. I thank my flatmates a million times for not slapping me when I was so downright rude and ungrateful and full of my own wallowing sadness. 

I don't really know what snapped me out of my miserableness. I think one day I was trudging somewhere in the rain and I just thought "God, this is boring. All this being miserable, all this being angry at people and refusing to move on in my life is so incredibly boring". I carried on trudging through the rain (my walk home from uni is particularly grim) and thought about the things I thought 2013 had taught me and I thought about all the brilliant things that had happened whilst the rubbish stuff was distracting me. All the times I laughed until I thought I was going to die, all the interesting conversations I'd had, all the essay marks that had made me proud, all the nice food I'd eaten, all the songs I'd sung along to, all the books I'd read, all the friends who had picked me up when I'd drunkenly fallen over in the street. I started to rewrite my 2013 lessons:

1. There's no such thing as being in love (I kinda stand by this) but that doesn't mean you can't show someone kindness and friendship and caring when they need to see it. That's way more important than being in love with them. 

2. You can't trust...everyone. Yeah some people are arses who will break all their promises but trusting someone isn't a conscious decision and before you know it you'll be sharing your secrets with someone you least expected. Roll with it. The quiet bit of my brain always knows best.

3. Everyone will leave at some point...but that just makes room for super fun new people. And hopefully they'll stick around a bit longer. 

4. Even your best is never good enough for some people. But from now I'm going to measure my best by what's good enough for me not what's good enough for everyone else. It's MY best...not theirs. 

So Facebook keeps nudging me to look at my "Review of 2013". Well I don't want to. I don't care about it anymore I just want to look forward. I've got new places to go and new people to make laugh and the places I felt I didn't belong last year or the people who made me cry last year...they're just blips on my map of brilliance. I was always too good for them anyway!  

Maybe none of these words will make any sense to anyone else, really this is just a note to future me. Please future me, remember to be happy in yourself because you're alright sometimes - you've never needed anyone else to tell you that.

2014's gonna be fucking awesome mate. 

Making Freshers A Home

Heyaaa,

Yeeeah I know most universities started a couple of weeks ago but the first few weeks are a crazy, vodka-ridden mess so I thought no one would mind this post being a little late. It was definitely true in my case that I didn't really feel settled into my halls until the third or forth week when I really began to make the room my own. I think moving away from home can be really hard so it's important to have a nice place where you can just relax. I picked a couple little things I thought would cute up any fresher room (or shared house room in my case *booooo second year*) and make it a little more homely.

I'll pop the links for everything below...

Hope you like it! xx

Skull Cushion // Alphabet "Eivor Ord" Bedsheets // Vintage Map Photo Frame // Green Clementina Photo Frame // Kasbah Fairy Lights // LED Candles // Floral "Emmie Söt" Bedsheet


Just a note: A lot of halls won't let you burn candles that's why I've put LED Candles here which I would realllllly recommend getting. They just make rooms so much nicer! Also, you aren't usually allowed to put holes in your walls so if you buy photo frames make sure they're ones you can stand up on shelves. 

Quote Me On It #2

Welcome back to my weekly cheesey fest! 

Quick Apology

Oh hey remember me? No me neither...

Yeah I haven't written anything in forever and a day. Muchos apologisos! I've been really busy recently with lots of exciting (but mainly boring) things going on!

First - I finished my first year of university. Oh my God I can't believe it either, as if I survived. I honestly believe that I am the proof that anyone can survive uni as long as they have pasta, wonderful flatmates and friends and a hilarious Twitter feed on hand for those near exam breakdowns! The last 2 weeks or so have been revision heavy what with having three 2 hour exams! Going out on a high eh! Anyway I finished on the 10th which was actually quite a while ago but there have been many alcohol induced escapades since then so time has pretty much passed me by!

Too much fun had post-exams

Don't drink, kids. 

Finishing Freshers means I'm moving out of my cupboard (if you don't know I live in a teeny tiny shared room)! I'm so excited to move out of my Harry Potter like existence and have a proper room which I can dance around in without having to worry about my poor ol' roommate. Although I am super sad to be leaving halls! It's been such a crazy experience and one that I guarantee I'll never have again - so glad to have lived here!!

Flatmate love!!

On a more exciting note...I am now one of the Features Editor for the Norwich Tab. If you're not familiar with it The Tab is basically a student tabloid, it was set up in Cambridge by a couple of students but has since spread round the country! It's pretty much known for being the lighter side of student news! Anyway, I'm absolutely thrilled to be part of the team here in Norwich, they're all so lovely and funny some of the nicest people I could hope to work with! So if ya fancy killing a couple of minutes check out the Norwich Tab (or whichever one corresponds to your uni!)

Outfit for the summer ball just in case you care - love a good clashing pattern

More posts on the way asap! What have you been up to? Anything fun? I'd like to hear from you so drop me a comment puh-leeeeease!!!

p.s it's ma birfday on the 27th...just in case you wondered hahaha

My first university haul

(Left to right) Owl hat, £3, Primark. Grey infinity scarf, £4.99, H&M. Claw Ring, £3, Republic. Berry boots, £8, Primark. Floral blazer, £7 (Sale) New Look. 

Yesterday I had my first proper trip into town here in Norwich. I'd been a few times but this was my first time without a full on agenda, time to browse. The city is really nice here and there's a good selection of shops (3 New Looks though. Who has EVER needed 3 New Looks?!?) I hadn't brought that many winter clothes with me to university, obviously because I am some kind of idiot so I really wanted to buy some warm things (hence the adorable Owl hat and the Infinity Scarf). I think I found some good bargains, the blazer in particular I absolutely adore! I'm still getting used to the city so I don't really know where all the best places to shop are yet!

So, I've never really done a post like this before...do you like it? I really love hearing from people so pleeeease let me know if you read this...

Also I now have Instagram. I don't have wi fi at Uni so I'm not amazing at it but feel free to follow me (@maisiemaizz) 

Uni to know basis...

As I said in my last post I have recently started at university! This means I've moved away from my home, my family, my friends and everything I know and moved to Norwich (and believe me all the jokes about Norwich are true)
I was really scared about moving here because if I'm being totally honest I am not the best person at meeting new people and I love my hometown a little bit too much. But I love it here! So here's my dos and don'ts of moving for the big move to Uni...

Read more »

Everyone's your friend in New York City

So I haven't posted on here for ages. It's not because I'm neglecting it (well I kind of am but not on purpose). But two awesome things have happened in my life which stopped me blogging! Firstly, I spent a week in New York with my mum and my brother! So here's a short little post about my time there!

I was staying in a brownstone apartment in Brooklyn for my holiday. This was perfect for loads of reasons;  it was way way cheaper than staying in Manhattan, it was safer than staying in some of the other cheaper bits (like Harlem and Queens), it was a short Subway journey from our apartment to the Financial District of Manhattan, the Upper East Side and the Lower East Side and it meant we got to experience true New York! Not just the famous bits you see on tv (although those were awesome too!)

We spent a lot of time doing typical touristy things, all the things that you're meant to do whilst awake in the city that never sleeps. Including; Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island (most boring place ever), Empire State Building, climbing the Rockefeller Centre, Central Park! Being there I really understood why these places were landmarks! They were huge and beautiful - it was literally like walking round a movie set I couldn't believe I was actually there!

The portion size is RIDONCULOUS

We also did some less touristy things - we spent our penultimate day in Williamsburg which is like Hipster central and totally amazing! We visited a Smorgasberg and watched a dumpling eating contest! What more could you want from the most beautiful city on earth?!

Overall, New York was amazing! The only bad thing was there was too much of it to really take in! I now need to go back again - I didn't even get to eat a pretzel from a street cart!!

So the second exciting thing that's happened to me is that I've started University...but more about that later...

A Levels are scary.

Yesterday, college students around the country waited with baited breath for their A Level results. At my college envelopes were ripped open, a few tears were shed but overall lots of smiles and laughs were shared with my college achieving a 98.2% pass rate (the highest in its history)

I wasn't expecting to do amazingly in my exams, it wasn't that I didn't try it's just I didn't feel confident about any of my exams. This meant I had spent a whole summer totally preparing for the worst, planning amazing gap years and hoarding episodes of Come Dine With Me to watch in a miserable state. I managed to gain 3 C grades in History, Politics and English Language and a B grade in Psychology. When compared to the stories get get thrown around of 14 year olds jetting off to university  or triplets gaining 10 A*s my grades don't sound that amazing but I know I worked hard for them and that's the important thing...

The most important thing to me was that even though I didn't get the best grades my first choice university gave me a place. This means that I will definitely be studying History with Politics at the University of East Anglia *insert excited squeals*

Even managed to smuggle my way onto my college homepage which made me very happy

Whilst I'm on the subject of exams and A Levels I just wanted to share a word of advice for people who have just got GCSE or AS results and didn't get what they expected...it's not the end of the world! So cliché I know but it's so true! I've never been one of those people who gets amazing results but I've still ended up doing exactly what I've wanted to do since I was 13! The most important thing is to be realistic, don't set ambitions based on what others think you should do. Look at exams results and be completely honest with yourself about where you want to go, what you want to do and if that means locking yourself in a library for months to get there then just do it because it's so worth it in the end!

How did everyone do? Awesome? Better luck next time? Any advice for others?