The Maggot Aftermath with its ups and downs, and some welcome housemates who engage in baking with me!

I know, that last post was just disgusting, wasn't it? well, in case you were worried, the cupboard is now officially clean and spotless; no sign that the maggots were ever there:

See?! Ta dah! All better now! Of course, I wasn't all better - all the yucky maggot cleaning meant that I slept really badly the following night, and then was really vomity the next day, and really ill and whiny. My poor parents! They received numerous phone calls where there was nothing they could really do! But once I'd had a good sleep I felt I much better, and a week later I'm all good!

My housemates have almost all arrived back now, and I no longer have the house to myself - booo! but it does mean lots of good conversation and some wonderful friends who are willing cleaners! We are not your typical students...

I baked with one of my housemates today, Libby (the one who owns Norwegian Blue fish!). She has just started getting a children's magazine made by a particular well known global company which makes films about princesses and mice in clothing for children. So I taught her how to make shortbread, and she made these biscuits:

Not bad, huh?! We had leftover dough which didn't want to turn into the cartoon mouse heads, so I rolled it out and she chose another cutter from my box. the hearts go well, I think! The mouse head was one of those cutters where you cut the shape out, and then they give you another tool to press the face markings in:

Now, I'm normally a super lazy chef, and I just stick the biscuits in the oven straightaway. But as any baker will tell you, if you do that, your biscuits will spread. And we didn't want deformed biscuits. So we chilled them in the fridge first, then popped them in. And they came out very clearly! My recipe for shortbread is a very simple one, from the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book - I think it's under 1-2-3 biscuits. I double the amount, and tweak it a little. But, just in case anyone doesn't know it, here it is:

1 oz sugar
2 oz butter
3 oz plain flour
1 splash vanilla

Mix your butter and sugar together, then stir your flour. Keep stirring, even though it looks too dry, and it will eventually form into big lumps. Squash those together into a dough ball. Pop it in plastic wrap or a food bag and pop it in the fridge for 20 minutes (or not at all if you're feeling lazy!) Take it out and roll it out on a well-floured surface so that it's about 1/4" thick. Cut your shapes out and place them on a tray covered with greaseproof paper. When you can't cut anymore out, squash the dough back together and re-roll and cut untilt here's no dough left. Pop the tray into the fridge for another 20 minutes whilst you preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Pop the tray in the oven for about 8-10 minutes. take them out when they're light golden in colour.


And that's it! Try not to re-roll the dough or fuss with it too much, as it makes it tough. And be aware that the biscuits should still feel soft-ish when they come out of the oven, but they will harden as they cool. If you leave them in the oven until they're hard, they'll be horrid later! Of course, you know all this, I know, but it helps to say it anyway just in case!

Tomorrow I'm back to church, and Monday I start at my placement - I'm working with a family this semester, and they're lovely people. I had lunch with them on Thursday. Plus, they live only a 20 minute walk from me! Bargain! Wish me luck!

Love love xx

Poorly sick, Cakes and Knitting

I’m still poorly sick. It just won’t seem to go away, it’s like an uncontrollable cough which makes me dizzy and gives me pain over the top of my head. I went into college on Tuesday, but I’ve had the 2 days since off ill. It’s getting really frustrating, because I hate lying around doing nothing, but every time I try to do anything it just makes me more ill again.

On the plus side, when I was in college on Tuesday I had a lot of fun. I had cooking, and we were baking and decorating cakes as part of a module on planning children’s parties. My party theme is Thumbelina, so that’s the type of cake I did – look:

Even the cake inside was dyed blue! I don’t normally dye cakes, because I like my cakes to look their natural colour. But I think it worked with this cake! My teacher seemed impressed with it. I really enjoyed doing it, too. I think it helped that I planned what I was going to do before I did it – some others hadn’t, and things didn’t quite work out for them.

I’m getting along well with my knitting, too – it’s almost finished! I just have to knit the button bands and join the sleeves into it.

Hopefully I’ll be better soon, and I’ll have more interesting news to report!

Love love xx

Absence and illness, Gardening, Mandibles, Gorgeous Gifts from Family Friends

It’s been a while again, hasn’t it? It’s always been a while nowadays! I mean to be better, but Nanny College is so busy, and exhausting, and recently I’ve caught a lot of germs from children and been rather ill. I mean, it’s all very well washing your hands regularly, but when they cough and sneeze right at your face, there’s very little you can do. I caught hand, foot and mouth from a child, and I’d barely recovered from that than I caught another virus, which wiped me out. So I’ve been home with my parents for a few days, recovering. The problem with viruses is that there’s nothing the doctor can give you to recover more quickly. With bacterial infections they can give you antibiotics, but with viruses it’s the old fashioned bed rest and fluids method. At least my immune system will be stronger at the end of it!

Mamma and I have been in the garden today a little. I still get floppy and tired after too much time doing, so I’m currently on a rest – but we’ve emptied the flower pots, and transplanted a couple of roses into new compost. We went to B and Q this afternoon and picked up some lovely plants to go in the pots, although mamma doesn’t want too many pots that she has to look after.

I also saw a good friend today, Mandibles. She came minus the baby, and had lunch with us. It was great to see her; she is a darling, and I’m so fond of her. She signed some of my paperwork for Norland to do with acquiring experience with newborns. She’s been spending the warm weather clearing her stables, and making progress at backing one of the horses (getting him ready for riding). She put a great photo up of the horse with his saddle on for the first time! Once he’s used to it she’ll start adding things like the stirrups, and so on.

There he is - doesn't he look good!

I came home to a beautiful gift from a family friend. She recently allowed me to make off with most of her baby yarn stash, and photocopies of some of her baby clothes patterns. Well, I came home to find a gift bag containing a baby clothes pattern book; a knitted toys pattern book; and the bits and bobs to create a knitted toy, too! How amazing, how brilliant! Totally unnecessary, but appreciated very much! I can see that it will come in very useful indeed!

I also received another lovely gift from a family friend, who had heard that I wasn't well, and so dropped by with a cheering up present! It came in a lovely, reusable bag made of all recycled materials...

And inside was this...

It's a thermo wheat pack, one of those wheat bags you put in the microwave to heat up! Isn't that sweet of her?! And it has lavender in there too, so when it's warm it should smell amazing and send me right off to sleep!

Well, I have a quilt block I want to do, and some more gardening, before I go tomorrow evening. So I better get on with it!

Love love xx

Snow, Veggie burgers, Illness and hairstyling, banana pancakes, January the unprocessed month leading into February the month without internet

 It was all lovely and snowy last week. College was closed for most of the week, so the whole world came to a stop. I spent lots of time cosied up with the girls from 4 doors up, watching films and baking, and just generally enjoying doing those indoor activities which keep the cold away. It thawed last night, though, and has been raining ever since.

I made veggie burgers last week, using this recipe I pinned for inspiration. I really like the idea of using quinoa as the base for burgers. But I couldn't find kale anywhere in the supermarket, so I used savoy cabbage and spinach instead. They turned out to be delicious! The cabbage isn't overpowering, but adds a lovely flavour and texture to the burgers. The burgers don't taste like meat burgers at all - but they do taste amazing!

I spent some time playing with the Octopus' hair last week as well. She's been ill all week with tonsillitis, so she was quite content to sit and watch a film while I played with her hair. I did a German braid for the first time! It worked quite well too, I think. Her hair is very fine, and lovely and long, which makes it great to play with. It was so nice to work with cooperative hair, too, rather than wild hair like my own!





 This is two strands of hair, each twisted one way, then twisted the other way around each other so they hold. My sister has done this many times, on various people - hence why I knew how to do it - but I'd never done it before.












This is just two of the same twisted strands as above, then twisted back against each other again. It looks a little messy here, but I think it looks quite clever close up!









See what I mean? you get all those twists of hair diving in and out of each other, a bit like a piece of rope.













Here's the German braid I did! See! How awesome is that?! I've never even managed to do a French braid before, but I remembered preferring the look of a German braid, so I decided to do that instead. I did big strands pulled in, and then once I tied it off, I teased the actual braid out to make it a bit bigger. I also did one starting at one side of her head, and twisting round the back of it to come to below her ear on the other side of her head. It worked okay for a first attempt, but I managed to forget to take a picture of it!







This is the last style I did. It's another of the twisty things, but I did it with a small strand of hair, coming round the side of her head. Then, once it was twisted and tied, I reached through between the two twists and pulled strands of loose hair back through. I actually really like this style - it just looks so pretty!


I made banana pancakes today. See, I saw this recipe and just had to try it! It works really, really well. They taste like banana pancakes, and have the texture of scotch pancakes. I'm still slightly amazed at how well it worked. They were delicious pancakes, and really quick and easy - I know pancakes are quick and easy in general, but these were even quicker!

A fuzzy picture, I know, but you can see that they basically look just like normal pancakes. I gobbled them all up! They made an excellent lunch. Do I feel guilty? not even remotely. Containing just banana and egg means that I would consider these to be extra healthy!




So I'm coming to the end of my unprocessed month. It's been both easier and harder than I expected. It was easier in that a lot of my meals are unprocessed anyway, so I didn't find it too difficult with regards to cooking for myself; it slid into my life quite easily. On the other hand, it was hard to find certain things, like bread, as most of the stuff in the shops was processed. I did find one which wasn't, but it was three times the price of the bread I usually buy. Otherwise I would have had to make bread for myself. It was also frustrating to not be able to just eat some chocolate if I wanted it, or a yoghurt. Snacking was harder. I managed the first three weeks fine, but the last week has been quite hard. I slipped up a couple of times - once with baked beans, once with a biscuit I just really wanted! I don't feel bad though, because it wasn't a resolution or anything. It was a goal, and I feel like I've learnt a lot from it. I'm confident in my ability to make healthy food choices for myself, and I'm also more aware of the way we eat things without reading the label to see what extra unnecessary chemicals we're eating with it. the bread really hit me with that!

So next month I have said that I'm going offline - yikes! I think it needs to be specified that I will still be checking my emails, as important information comes through to me that way. But I will not be on facebook, blogger, pinterest etc. for the month of February. This should mean that I will have lots of time for old-fashioned entertainment, such as reading, sewing, knitting etc, I really enjoy doing these things, but they often take a backseat to surfing the Internet. But for the month of February, they will be pushed to the fore, I hope, by all the free time I have to fill! And I will update on how it went in March, at which point I will be aiming to take at least 1 photo everyday. I'm feeling really good about this method of making goals, as I can try new things for a decent amount of time, and feel the benefits and drawbacks without trying to commit to it for so long that I get bored, and without feeling the pressure of it hanging over me.

I'm going to go now, and get some sleep! I have some more recipes I want to try this week, and I'll try to update once more before I'm gone.

Love love xx

mini update, poorly sick, wife, Fill in the Blank Friday, maybe's

So I went swimming like I'd planned to. And I made cookies. I didn't sew. I have all the pieces cut out for another square, but I haven't done the actual sewing. Maybe today at some point. I did laundry too.

I'm rather tired today. I'm not sleeping well, as every time I lie down my nose blocks up and so I have to breathe through my mouth which doesn't feel right and leaves my mouth dry and awkward and my throat really dry and sore. Add to that all the pain in my right wrist, and you've got yourself a bad night's sleep. I don't know what I've done to my wrist, but it hurts like anything when I try to move it. It's something that's gradually appeared and then got worse, and I now find even lifting a cup or plate in that hand too heavy and really painful on the wrist. Very frustrating!

The wife's coming down today - yay! She told me yesterday (I think that was when she actually decided to do it at all) that she had been going to surprise me but then she realised that I might go out or something and miss her. I am incredibly overjoyed though - it's so thoughtful, and I do miss her something awful.

And of course, today is Friday! So here are my blanks filled in:

I started my blog because it seemed like a good idea at the time? I'm not really sure if I'm honest. I think I wanted somewhere to document some of the more interesting things that had happened to me. It was kind of meant to be an online diary but I realised I was screening the most emotional stuff from it, so I started a paper diary for myself. And then this carried on going anyway.

 One thing I love seeing on other blogs is pictures. I love seeing the pictures of what people have been up to, and the stories that are completely relatable. These are also the things I worry that my blog lacks.

Something I love about blogging  is the let-out. You can put things up that are too small and petty or too hurtful to say to an actual person. But you can write them in your blog and feel better for it.

A favourite blog post of mine is this one. Because it really feels like it was at a turning point for me - I was on the verge of changing jobs, everybody had left for uni, and I had made that frickin' awesome quilt for the wife. Okay, so it's the quilt stuff that really makes it for me - it just meant so much to me to do it; and having pictures up of it makes me feel really fuzzy and warm inside! It was also a time when I was sad because everyone was leaving, but in myself I felt truly content and positive. I can spend a lot of time feeling sort of vaguely miserable and tired and it can be hard, because there's often no real reason. But when I wrote that blog post I was feeling really happy in myself, despite my sorrow at people leaving for uni.

Something that my friends in real life know about me that I've never before mentioned on my blog is that when I'm really angry I become much politer in my tone. The words coming out will include swearing, which is something I avoid on my blog; horrible clipped insults which leave people without a leg to stand on; and a tone of voice that makes people step back - I don't yell at people. When I'm angry, my voice is lower, and quiet, and slightly slower because I speak clearly. The none thing you do not want when you're speaking to someone angrily is to have to repeat yourself. I don't get angry very often, in truth. But I don't get angry on my blog at all.

My new favourite blogs to read are My Milk Toof, which is an awesome blog that creates stories about two little milk teeth with models and photographs. And The Bloggess. I guess she's not so recent for me - but she is more recent than a lot of the other blogs I follow. And she's hilarious, so I always feel the same as I did when I read the first post by here - the one about Beyonce the big metal chicken. Beware, by the way, as that link is really slow to load for me now, it has so many comments!!

Some things I tend to avoid doing on my blog are swearing and naming people. I want to talk about the other people in my life, but I'd rather not have to ask them if it's ok. So I make them anonymous instead. Then I can be as rude as I like!

So that's that! I don't have much else to say today, really. Maybe another day. Maybe I'll bake today. Or sew that square up. Or just go back to bed with a book. I don't know.

Love love xx

cold snow and little sleep, Sunday, box, box, plans

It's very cold. We had some snow yesterday, but none today. We still have yesterday's batch, though, which is melting so so slowly that I still can't go out. I wanted to go swimming today, and then maybe try going to church at Leigh Sports Village. But getting there is too dangerous. And I have a cold, so mum reckons swimming isn't a good idea today. Maybe tomorrow, instead. Depending on the roads. This weather is so frustrating. Also I woke up this morning at 6:30 despite the fact that I'm not working today and intended to sleep until 8, instead. I fell asleep again around 7:30, and got up then at 11:30. So I'm feeling a little crabby - disturbed sleep and a waste of a morning makes me an irritated child.

On the plus side, it's Sunday, so I've enjoyed looking at the new Postsecrets. I thought it was a challenging selection this week - no truly definable journey or theme running through, but a strong balance that touched on lots of things. I also made my second fabric box last night, and I'm greatly pleased with it. I'd been pleased with the first one, don't get me wrong - but I knew there were problems with it. It was a bit saggy on the sides, and a bit thin. And the way of putting it together had made it impossible to match the inside and outside evenly, so the sewing had been messy in many places.

Here's the second box:

 I know, my photography skills are pretty poor, so it's rather fuzzy. But it's happier than the first one, no? I think the colours went together better, and I prefer them. I got very excited and added some decorative stitches. I had the top thread as white, and the bobbin as dark blue so there was the contrast where I stitched straight through both layers.

Can you see here how it stands up better?I considered using interfacing to achieve this, but I really needed quite a rigid, medium-weight interfacing and we barely had any at all, never mind of the right weight. So instead, I used a double layer of wadding in the middle, which helped a lot. If I did it again I would still use interfacing if possible, but this worked well to solve the problem and soothe my impatience. I also did everything in a different order. In the instructions they ironed the wadding onto one of the colours before it was sewn up at all, then sewed both colours' fronts and sides together and then sewed them to each other. Trying to sew with wadding makes seeing what you're doing really difficult, though, and this meant that on the green one the two colours ended up different sizes. So this time, I sewed the two colours' fronts and sides together, then pinned them and the wadding together to sew the top, making sure that seams matched and that the wadding was sized more precisely to each face of the box. And I used a more rigid card in the base, and used a layer of wadding on either side of it this time, instead of just on one side.

Overall I'm very happy with it. There are still mistakes, and bits that aren't great - but, considering I've never sewn anything where I've had to go round a 3D corner, it's not too shabby!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. I could sew something, or I could knit. At least I could knit if I could remember what I did with my yarn. I have no clue where I've put it all. I guess supper needs thinking about, too... And I have letters to write. I sent day 3's letter of LetterMo to nanny college, and day 4's to E. Day 5's is to the wife, and I'm planning to send Day 6 to my sister.

Love love xx

Childminding, roads, safety, temper tantrum, month of letters, London and Les Mis, Fill in the Blank, soft box, ballet

So! Through another week of childminding! It's certainly been interesting, and a little stressful if I'm honest. Tuesday and Wednesday were fine, although BB's been more challenging recently. This is mainly because she's so tired - she's getting up in the nights for her parents, and really early in the mornings too; and she's basically standing at her gate yelling at them. They keep trying to leave her to yell until she gets bored and goes back to her bed - but she's stubborn! She's always been much more of a firecracker than B, who was born with a laid-back personality! But we've had a couple of naughty steps recently, which is unusual, because normally I don't have to ask her to do anything more than twice - twice is when she wants to do something else first. But now she's being a bit pushy, and trying desperately to manipulate me with whining and telling me that she 'wants mummy' or 'feeling poorly', and the bottom lip comes out and she looks up at me to make sure I'm watching. Which I'm not, I'm afraid, because with BB the best thing to do is ignore her until she's either done what was asked or calmed down so you can tell her again.


But basically, come yesterday she must have been quite tired - and recovering from a cold, too. So she was dosed up at lunchtime with calpol, and we made the afternoon school run to pick up B. We were most of the way home, and stood at the edge of the pavement waiting to cross the road. B took a slight step back away from the edge of the pavement, and BB decided that that was the moment to run into the road. Right in front of that oncoming car. I swear, my heart stopped for a moment. Thankfully the driver was paying attention (and I cannot stress how much this demonstrates the value of the rules against using a phone in the car or other distractions!!) and he stopped. I had leapt into the road as she ran in, screaming her name. I'm not sure why - I think my first reaction was just to try and grab her out of the way of the vehicle, maybe. But I did grab her and brought her back to the pavement.

We got home safely, and nobody was injured, thank goodness. But I tell you, I have never been so scared before. I've suffered a road accident myself, and suffered the terror of operations from the dentist (which are far scarier than anyone can truly understand). But seeing BB run into the path of an oncoming car beat all. It would be devastating enough if she were my child - but she's not. I didn't want to have to imagine telling her mum that I'd let her child get killed whilst in my care! So from next week we're reinstalling the wrist-strap for a fortnight or so. Because none of us can afford to risk her getting killed. It would be too much. And you don't take chances on a child's safety. For the past 3 months, I have enjoyed having a toddler who knew about roads, and would stop at the end of the pavement if she ran ahead, and would wait for me to tell her it was safe to cross the road. And now we're going to have to rein her in. It's a little bit gutting.

So there was that major incident which rather tore me up. And then, when the girls' mum got home, BB - being tired and grizzly from everything - decided to start crying loudly, which her mum ignored (good policy on attention-seeking behaviour usually!), and it soon escalated into a full temper tantrum violence accompanied by hysterical screaming. I have never seen that from BB before. I've seen her cry, both for real and for attention. I've seen her sulk. I've seen her hit her sister occasionally when she's angry or frustrated, and I've seen her hurt people by accident when she's got carried away in a game. But I've never seen a temper tantrum like that! She calmed down eventually, and her mum then dealt with it and spoke to her. But Thursday was not the best of days overall.

But it is a Friday today! I'm going out with some friends later today, which should be nice - it's been a while since I've had the opportunity to enjoy company above the age of 5! I've also begun my Month of Letters positively, with a letter going out to I, my friend from Malvern, on 1st; and a letter going out to a theatre on 2nd. I feel this was a bit sneaky, as I had to send the tickets back so they would send me the ones for the new date I'm going - but I did include a note to say thankyou to the Customer Services team for being so brilliant!

They truly were. What had happened was that the wife and I were due to go to London and see Les Mis on 4th August this summer. Being as dumb as I was, I was the one who had booked it, and I'd forgotten that the Olympics were on. So trying to sort out accommodation was next to impossible and way out of our price range. So I rang up the Customer Services for the Delfont Mackintosh Theatre group, and a brilliant young woman helped sort me out so that we could go 2 weeks later, which would have us going down to London in the time between the Olympics and Paralympics instead. She really was lovely and helpful, and she even waived the fee for changing the tickets and talked me into a cheaper postage option. She just went above and beyond, and made me feel so secure about rearranging the tickets. So now we're going to see it on 18th, instead, and we have our accommodation booked and paid for! And going a fortnight later more than halved the price of it! So now all we have to sort out is the train journey down, and that would be better to be done nearer the time.

Last thing of note - it's a Friday! Which means I will finally be able to Fill in the Blank on an actual Friday! So here goes:

1. If money wasn't an issue, the first thing I'd cross off my Life list is to go to New Zealand with the wife. There are lots and lots of things I would love to be able to do with that money, but the most expensive and unlikely thing on the Life list I share with the wife is a trip to New Zealand and a tour of The Tribe sets, so that would be what we would do! And of course we would tour Hobbiton too...

2. The idea of adopting asian babies is something I like that other people think is weird.

3.  If my life were a movie right now, the title would be Until she burst. This is in reference to the stress I've been feeling recently, and also the amount of chocolate I've been consuming. My hips have disappeared into rolls of fat. Ah well!

4. Three things I am looking forward to this month are the possibility of house sitting in a house my parents bought, doing a bit more exercise, and doing lots of fun, crafty things!

5. My favourite song to sing in the shower is currently the theme song for 'Charley Bear'. I know. This is what happens when you're introduced to children's television. you develop favourite shows and theme songs. And this one is really good! Otherwise I'm loving Fredrika Stahl's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

6. If I found out that the production of Quavers was ending this month, I'd go out and buy as much as I could tomorrow.

7. One thing I'll never grow tired of is the wife. I'm pretty sure, anyway. I worry sometimes that she'll grow tired of me. But I don't think I could grow tired of her.

So that's this week's done, and on the right day, too!  I'm going to stop now, as I could do with showering before tonight, really!! Plus I have little else to say... oh! Here's the picture of the soft box I made:

 Not too bad I think, for something that asks you to sew round the corners of a box!!

What I like best about these pictures is that you can't see that it's filled with chocolate in various forms! It's my chocolate box, and I love it very much. Now, if I could create a lid to hide the contents, I wouldn't eat so much of them. But it is demonstrative of my positive change in attitude towards unhealthy foods!







So that's all! I will try to post soon - like, when I've made the other box. And I'll update you on where I have sent letters as and when I do. Today's letter is to Norland College with some of my forms, tomorrow's is (hopefully) to my friend E, since she's way overdue one.

Love love xx

PS. I forgot to tell you about the ballet my mum and I saw. It was Beuaty and the Beast by Birmingham Royal Ballet, and it was excellent - the choreography and casting were ideal, and the dancers did it true justice. It really was enchanting! Also I made more soup and it was yummy.