K. WOODWARD PERSONAL FINANCE
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Random Thoughts

Day Out: East Grinstead & Sparrow's Nest

24/2/2014

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I hate sitting at home not doing very much. This weekend I felt exhausted following travel from Goa so Harry and I did loads of sleeping and watched two films:
  • The Tourist and
  • Inglorious Basterds
Both great films. We also rewatched Chris Rock's Never Scared Tour; very funny. 

Anyhow, this morning I woke up wanting more relaxation so we woke up to some mindless TV (Frasier) then I suggested a country drive to East Grinstead. 

We discovered the area by accident last summer and found a lovely cafe there called Sparrow's Nest where we read and ate for 3 hours Today. 

The Kiwi loaf cake and ginger loaf are both to die for. The butternut squash and apple soup seemed a bit thin at first bit it was bursting with flavor so I got used to the thinness. 

We'll be back. 
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Harry, the driver
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Our Intro To India! Goa, Here We Come!

20/2/2014

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Day 1: Friday 14-Feb. First Impressions Of Mumbai, India
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India was great fun! I thought this would mostly be a text-based blog post but I discovered the YouTube Capture app on day 1 of the holiday which made it easy for me to create and upload vids from my phone...so I made videos.

Click for the YouTube playslist of the journey through Goa or just watch each video below.

Day 1, Later That Night...As It Was Valentine's Day...
My gifts plus what I said the first time Harry said those three words.
Day 2: Saturday 15-Feb. First Day In Goa
We randomly found a driver called Babu. He took us to some old churches, Spice Farm and a temple. The highlight was seeing Modern Tarzan climb up a tree then shoot down really fast. It was amazing but out of 15 people only Harry and I thought he deserved a tip!
Day 3: Sunday 16 Feb - Black Girls Get A Lot Of Attention In India!
Day 3: Sunday 16 Feb - The Beauty Of India - Come Open-Minded
Day 4: Monday 17 Feb - Dark Skinned Indians Mostly Absent On TV
Day 5: Tuesday 18 Feb - Is This Is Why They Stare At Black Girls?
Day 6/7/8: Wed 20 Feb - Last India Vlog: Couple's Massage, A Bride For My Friend & The Sangeet (Wedding Party) 
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Homemade Carrot & Parsley Soup - It Will Rock His World!

9/2/2014

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All I had in the fridge were some limp carrots and wilting parsely. I also had onion and garlic so I made what turned out to be a husband-stealing carrot and parsley soup. Fortunately for you girls, I am happily married :), lol.

Ingredients
  • Carrots - 4 large
  • Onion - 1 large
  • Garlic - 4 cloves
  • Parsley - a bunch (or any other fresh green herbs like coriander)
  • Vegetable stock - 1 cube
  • Hot water - 500-650ml
  • Optional - meat pieces. I prefer mixed seafood pieces but the soup in the picture was a meat free soup.
Method
  1. If your herbs are wilted like mine were immersed the bunch in very cold water. 
  2. Place chopped carrots, onions and garlic in a large pot with a teaspoon if oil. Fry on a gentle heat with a teaspoon of mixed dried spices and a pinch of salt. Stir periodically. 
  3. When the onions are fully sweated, add the stock cube and enough hot water to fully immerse the carrots. 
  4. Boil on a gentle heat until the carrots are fully soft. 
  5. Remove from heat and throw everything from the pot into the blender. Throw all the herbs in two. Herbs don't need cooking to preserve flavour. 
  6. Blend completely. 
  7. You can serve or re-simmer for two minutes if you want your herbs a bit cooked. 
  8. If you are having meat chunks fry them with minimal butter until they are fully cooked then throw the blended soup on top of the meat and simmer for two minutes. 
Serve!
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Yummy Carrot & Parsley Soup
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Proud Moment: Little Sister Is One Of "14 African Women To Watch In 2014. #8 Tiamo Katsonga-Phiri (Malawi)"

6/2/2014

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Below, is my little sister doing big things for the world! Well done her. I could not be more proud!
Post by The Afropolitan Woman.
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I Just...Got Married To Weebly! Review 2 - Two Years On.

1/2/2014

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It's 10.30 p.m. and given the day I have tomorrow I really should be in bed but I just felt I had to write a testimonial for Weebly, AGAIN!

Here is my first review, written in early 2012 - two years ago.

The web-building service that Weebly provides has developed enormously in the last couple of years. These are my favorite things about weebly:

 1.  Easy To Use

There is ease of use and then there is weebly. Whoever came up with the user interface has a mind like Steve Jobs. Weebly is super intuitive and you can figure out how to use it without using their FAQ pages and without any coding skills whatsoever. When I started using Weebly in 2010 I figured out what to do immediately.

 2.  Fair Pricing

Their pricing is ultra fair. I have been subscribed to Entrepreneur magazine for a few years now and every now and again there's an advert for a new drag and drop web builder. I usually go to the website to see how they compare to Weebly and EVERY SINGLE TIME they are charging more than Weebly but offering less.

I get so incensed by it! This brings me to my next favorite feature...

 3.  Great Variety of features

You can do whatever you want to do with Weebly without having to write any code. Changing fonts, colors, headers, the features of the blog side bar is ultra easy. You can change the entire look and theme of your website at the click of a few buttons and I have done that several times myself without any stress.

 4.  Fast Rate of Development

Weebly are developing new features all the time and my business has been growing with them. Importantly, weebly allow customers to suggest new features and they take suggestions seriously.

 5.  Customization

A lot of people ask why I prefer weebly to WordPress. This is the biggest reason: when I visit a WordPress site I usually know it is WordPress. Many of their themes have a similar feel. I have tried to use WordPress in the past and I don't think they are nearly as easy to use as Weebly.

Conversely, Weebly is so customizable you can make your site look very different to any other site out there. I run over 10 websites with Weebly and they all look very different.

 6.  Mobile friendly

The mobile version of a Weebly-based site which comes as standard is second-to-none! This applies to both the general webpages, blogs and eCommerce. I think them coming into eCommerce later paid off rather than backfired because they appear to have learnt from the mistakes of all the eCommerce platforms that came before them. That brings me to my next point...

 7.  eCommerce

I have been struggling to decide whether or not to use the recently launched eCommerce feature on Weebly. I have been using sellfy.com for digital goods for over a year now and they are quite good. I also tried DPD and they were quite good too. 

A friend recommended 3dcart very strongly but I thought they were awful. Even with a First Class degree in Economics from Cambridge I was struggling to use 3dcart. It was not easy.

I thought that being so new Weebly’s eCommerce facilities would be far too basic for my needs. I deliberated over it for a couple of weeks and ultimately thought to myself: 

  • Do I trust weebly to have released a platform that will be easy and quick to use?
  • Whatever the current state do I expect Weebly to fix bugs quickly and release improvements rapidly?
  • Do I like the look of the stores that I have seen using Weebly’s eCommerce platform?

The answer was yes to all three questions so I bit the bullet and paid the $469 fee to use the platform for two years. The amount sounds high but if I consider the fact that I am paying $135 to MailChimp monthly, it's not much at all - it's $19.94 a month. When Weebly create an email management system they have a good chance of getting that business too because I don't feel MailChimp's pricing makes sense at all...but that's another story!

After two days going through Weebly's eCommerce thoroughly, I don’t regret it. In fact, for suggesting a feature improvement Weebly gave me a couple of extra months for free! That brings me to my final point:

 8.  Awesome customer service

From the start, Weebly have responded to emails in 24 to 48 hours. Although they have grown massively, they still respond promptly. As someone with a small business growing faster than I can believe I know how tough it is to maintain that kind of responsiveness so I really appreciate it.

IN SUMMARY...

...If Weebly was a man, I would say we were engaged before and with me buying into the eCommerce platform – we just got married! This is a tool I believe I will be using for life.

Weebly makes my life easy. It has simplified my life for coming up to four years now and the day I discovered Weebly is one of the best days of my life – and trust me, I have had a very good life! lol 

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    By Heather
    ​Katsonga-Woodward

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© 2007 - 2025 Heather Katsonga-Woodward, a massive personal finance fanatic.
** All views expressed are my own and not those of any employer, past or present. ** Please get professional advice before re-arranging your personal finances.
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