Bec - Mamamia Saturday 31 December 2011 10:05am

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Downton Abbey? The iPeriod app?  The music of Adele or Jesse J or Gotye?

What did you fall madly in love with in 2011? What made your life just that little bit sweeter? Or easier?

Here’s my list:

TV:  Fell even more in love with Offspring (lovin’ the addition of Dr Patrick) and really loved Downton Abbey and Q&A.

Music:  Adele all the way. And I would listen to Eddie Perfect sing the alphabet. Seriously.  His original tunes are one of my favourite things about Offspring. (I still laugh about the song he wrote – Six At Best -  for Billie when they were broken up and he slept with Nina. You can listen to it here.)

Make-up:  I don’t have loads of make-up because I’m hopeless at applying it. So the things that I really, really loved this year were Zoe Foster’s Amazing Face book (because it’s written both for make-up dummies like me and people who know what they’re doing like, well, everyone else).  I also bought one of these Cargo eye palettes (which I first read about on Paula Joye’s Life Styled blog)  because it’s like colouring by numbers.

Clothes:  Kmart.  Yep. I went shopping with Paula Joye in 2011 (while we were doing the Family Life Forums) and she took me into a local K-Mart and I bought three terrific items for the sum total of $30 including a long black and white stripey stretch skirt that I’ve LIVED IN over the summer. I also spent a rather unhealthy amount of time on www.hardtofind.com.au and www.birdsnest.com.au

Technology:  Mia put me onto the iPeriod app this year which helps you keep track of when your period is due and (if you’re trying to get pregnant) when you’re most fertile.  Worked for me!

Food: OMG — Lana’s legendary salad dressing.  You will never make another salad dressing ever, ever again.

Books:  My stand-out favourite?  365 Thank Yous by John Kralik:  a non-fiction book about a 50-something lawyer in America whose life is going down the gurgler (he has two ex-wives, his business is failing, his girlfriend breaks up with him and his kids barely talk to him … Good times!). So he makes it his mission to send one thank you note every day to somebody. Anybody.  The book is really about the impact Kralik’s decision has on his life and the people who receive his notes. Sounds schmaltzy but it was one of the books that kept me afloat this year. If I tried to live to a theme in 2011 it was this:  gratitude.

What about you guys?  What rocked your world in 2011?  It might be an experience. A lesson you learnt. Or even a delicious new food you discovered …