Random retrospective thought, Truffles and Gingerbread Houses, Fabric and Themes, New Year Goals

So I was transferring some pictures into a folder on my computer, and I happened to flick through the old ones in there and I came across this particular image:

It feels crazy now to think that this was a part of my life for an entire year - and to think that I've been without it for 9 months. Looking at it now, it seems almost sort of grotesque. Yet at the time it was a part of me, much in the same way that my glasses or contact lenses are. I need them and so they feel like a part of my body, yet I can remove them. I think back over that year and I don't know how I did it. And I know that I did it because there was no choice, there was no option about it. You deal with what you have to in life. But, now that I don't have to deal with that, I don't know how I managed to do it. it feels... foreign, somehow.

Anyway, randomness aside, I thought I'd show you some pictures of the gingerbread house I made, and the truffles I made just before Christmas!





 These are the truffles - aren't they beautiful! I think so, anyway. I love how smooth the white chocolate turned out on the outside, albeit for the little lump on top of each of them. That's where they were speared on a cocktail stick for dipping.








 And dark on the inside! I love the contrast of the outside shell against the dark inside. The filling was rich with almond liqueur and dark chocolate, so the white chocolate coating balanced it really nicely. I gave some of these as Christmas gifts, and the rest were gobbled up by family!




 And the gingerbread house:

Not bad for a first attempt, huh?! I've never made one before, so it was all new to me. I used this recipe - I've got to be honest, it didn't really work so well for me personally. But it did work in the end, it's just I got a soft gingerbread rather than the biscuity, crunchy affair I'd been expecting! And it turned out alright, I think. It was really fun thinking of quirky twists to make to the house, like:








The cat-flap - can you see it? That way a gingerbread cat can come and go as he may please! Also a shed on the back, which was decorated in the same way as the front door and shutters:








I used a pastry brush to brush the melted chocolate on. It gives it a bit of a texture which I think looks quite like wood.













The last thing I did was to make these Christmas trees for the garden. This is done by cutting out 2 trees from the dough; then, once they're cooked you cut one of them in half whilst it's still hot. Once they're all cool, you glue the 2 halves to the other tree at right angles so it has four branchy bits. I used caramel as the glue for both the trees and the house. Then I sifted icing sugar over everything to make it look like snow.



I went shopping today with my mum. We went fabric shopping for Nanny College first. Our next sewing project is a play mat which is both double-sided, and doubles up as a bag for carrying the treasure baskets we make. Since I'm theming all my work under the theme 'Once Upon a Fairytale', I chose fabrics which look like The Little Mermaid:

See, they're all shades of turquoise. The one on the far left is mottled to look like the sea, and that will back-to-back with the one with spirals on. The other I got a scrap of, as I figured it would come in useful somewhere in this project.










I also bought this fish appliqué, as I felt that some appliqué and extra bits like that would look really good on this. Technically, students don't normally do things like this on the project. But the projects that we do are designed to ensure that all students learn basic sewing skills. Since I've been sewing all my life, the majority of what we do and learn is just reinforcement for me. I like to be stretched; I don't like things to be too easy. So I've been doing a few little extra bits like this here and there to maintain my interest and focus. I think that brushing up on my appliqué skills will do this - it is something I've done before, in a couple of different ways, but I know there's room for improvement, and the practise will help.

I bought one other fabric whilst i was out with mum. I didn't need it really, but when I saw it, I knew I just couldn't leave it behind:

 See what I mean?! It's so bright and cheerful, and the bobbins and needles are just so darn cute! I don't have a use for it right now, but I'm sure I will find one at some point. For now it will join the stash.

I also went clothes shopping with mum, and I bought some boots and a winter coat. and then I came home and made broccoli soup for supper. Yum!

This leads into my wacky New Year Goal for January: go unprocessed. By this, I mean that I plan to eat foods which contain natural ingredients only, and have not been processed so much that they are unrecognisable compared to what they started out as. I know, this sounds a little confusing. But basically it means that I'm going to aim to eat foods in their original, natural state. And for anything that isn't, like cheese, or butter, or pasta, I want to be able to read the ingredients list and recognise and understand what every ingredient is on there. And I want there to be no more than about 5 ingredients on the list, too. If there are too many then I will consider it processed. Obviously, I'm on the second day of this. I've not got into it quite yet, but that's because I'm still at my parents' house. I can't expect them to be okay with all my weird things that I like to try out and experiment with. So instead, I'm trying to use these few days to wind myself down to this goal; starting by reducing the amount of processed foods I eat and increasing the amount of natural foods I eat. So I'm not worrying about it too much until Saturday, and that's when I will get serious about it. We'll see how it goes!

Other than January, I've written down an initial plan for my wacky goals for most of the months - a couple are still empty. None of them are set in stone. A lot of them are things I've always wanted to try, like learning the piano or fasting or running. Some of them are challenges for me, which I think I will enjoy tackling, like no Internet for a month, or taking a photo everyday for a month. I expect the order I do them in will change, and some of them will be changed for new ones as I come up with things that I want to do more. The idea is to strive for things that I would otherwise think of doing but never actually do. That's why they're wacky!

With regards to my other goals, I have the new book I'm going to read for January already. It's my Christmas Present from the wife: The Shack Revisited. She was the one who originally lent The Shack to me, and I loved it. It gives understanding to some of the harder questions surrounding faith, and I've found ever since that if I'm struggling in life, I can often relate my problems to some part of The Shack, and see where my understanding is missing. This in itself can allow me to see how to solve my problems. Plus, I find it's always a great book for reminding me of what an amazing God I love. So the follow-up story was a brilliant gift to receive from the wife, and I'm really looking forward to reading it! I started it straightaway, but then I stopped myself, as I remembered that I have a 5-hour coach journey back to Bath on Saturday, which will be ideal for reading.

I will also be doing my January craft project tomorrow - I will be making as many of the QATWII squares as I can, whilst I have access to my mum's sewing machine. I've been really neglectful of the group since I went to Nanny College. But my aim is to get back into it! It's being able to access a sewing machine that is the challenge. so now is a great time to do as many as possible. This is also my second post on here for January, so hitting that goal pretty easily. that one's mainly about the stamina to maintain it all year, so we'll see. My letter writing and responding will have to wait until I'm back in Bath, but I'm confident about it. I really like my miscellaneous category - it's full of those things that I always want to do but never get round to. So hopefully they will happen at some point throughout the year.

I'm going to go to bed now! Tomorrow I want to be up early to tidy and sort my room; pack a few bits and pieces; and do lots and lots of sewing!

Love love xx

Books, Peak District, knobs, necklace, patchwork, wife, Trafford, childminding, NaNoWriMo, plans

Goodness, how time passes by. Before you know it, you've missed posting for ages again! Life has been quite busy, though. So! Last time I posted it was just after my birthday, wasn't it? And I'd just got back from visiting the wife.

Well, all the books I received for my birthday I have now read and enjoyed very much. I found it curious that I hated Animal farm when I read it, yet 1984 I felt was far more interesting. Both by George Orwell, but both very different qualities of story to me. I felt like nothing ever really happened in Animal Farm, whereas 1984 was busy and constantly fascinating to me. Fire was a good, easy read, as was Graceling which I read a long time ago by the same author. I also read Stephen Fry's chronicles, which I enjoyed immensely. His reading is difficult to read without concentrating, but really amusing and quirky. I've also reread The Shack recently, which is always a fresh read. I always come away with it feeling strong and positive and understanding myself better for having read it.

So - the weekend after I was away with the wife I went up to the Peak District with my mum and a couple of her friends from school. One of these friends has a daughter who's just a few years younger than me, and she is an awesome person! She's really clever and funny and good, and I love her company! So we stayed in the Peak district and visited Chatsworth House, where I found some amusing little novelty gifts for H, such as a campervan recipe book (!) and a book based on the telly programme Meerkat manor. I also found a coaster which made me laugh so much I just had to give it to her; and she knew why as soon as she saw it. It was a picture of some hills and there were a few sheep across the front - three pairs of sheep, in fact. And it said underneath 'double ewe double ewe double ewe'. I get that on its own that's just a bit of a corny joke and not that clever. But, having watched Gavin and Stacey about six months ago which the wife lent to me, all i could think when I heard that was of Uncle Bryn saying, 'And the best thing to do is to think of something to help remind you, like with me now, I think of "whiskey with water" which was my brother, God rest his soul, my brother's favourite drink.' And of course, since the wife has seen this too - and with it being a regular quote between the group - she got it straight away!

So I got her those little bits and I got for myself  a slightly ridiculous something:

Door knobs. Or knobs for something like that, anyway. Yes, go on, laugh like a little child, I still do in my head everything I hear the word 'knob'. Aren't they adorable, though, with their tiny buttons all over? They are really buttons, too, they're not painted on. I know I don't have a use for them just now, but I got a pair of each and I'm sure that at some point in the future I will find myself wanting super awesome handles, either for a door or a drawer or a something. And then I will be glad to have them. For now I'm keeping them in a drawer, waiting for their useful time to come But I knew I'd regret it if I didn't buy them. So I bought them!

I also bought a swirly necklace which is very pretty:

And we bought a bakewell pudding, which was very underwhelming.

It was a lovely weekend - the cottage we stayed in was delightful, but freezing and a little small. There was nowhere I could go and get some privacy really, and I value my time to myself a lot. But I did enjoy it despite that, and we arranged to have the other girl, I, come up to us and spend a week, which she did last week.

So yeah, I was up last week, and she made lots of patchwork squares for a quilt for her bed. They were really pretty! She did applique squares rather than piecing, and she did some with just a big flower in the middle in white on a pattern background, and she did some which were four hearts coming out from the middle in patterned fabric on a white background. We also baked Viennese fingers, which were nice, and pecan cookies which are to die for and do not last at all. I've made them twice since she left and eaten them all in a few days! We were going to go to Manchester for a day when we needed to get her brother's cricket stuff to him at the station anyway, but then he was so late that there was no time for us to go to Manchester. But otherwise it was lovely.

And the same time that I left, the wife came down for a brief visit. At some point over the week I had managed to get it into my head that I'd bummed her off somehow and she was in a mood with me. I don't know why I thought that, but I was absolutely convinced. And so when she invited everyone round on the Sunday, I didn't know whether to go or not because I didn't want to annoy her any more than I thought I already had. But it was all alright in the end, because at some point I managed to realise that she wasn't in a mood with me and that i was just a little bit crazy is all. And so I rang her and told her all about it and she just said that she wasn't in a mood with me and that her only problem was that she didn't know how to make things better so that I wouldn't convince myself of things like that randomly and without warning. But we went to the Trafford centre on the Monday, so it was okay really.

yeah, so we went to the Trafford centre on that Monday as part of a plot to cross a couple of things off the list - if you look at the list you will see that things have been crossed off! So we went to the Arcade in the Trafford Centre (who knew they had one of those!!) and we played on the Dance Mat and she beat me. In my defence, it was my first time, and there was a tiny baby that I could see a little way from my screen that was totally distracting! And then we went and played air hockey, and she won, but only just. it was on a drawer and she got the deciding point, is all. don't let her tell you differently. Another round and I would have beaten her! And then we did bowling, which I already knew I was atrocious at because, well, I am. And I kept insisting to her that I was really bad and that it wasn't the best idea, and then on my first round I got a strike! I think she was convinced after the next two rounds when I missed all of them! She was actually alright, she got quite a few spares and a couple of strikes too. In the end, my score was 69, at which she said I had clearly been aiming for that score because it was the rudest number I knew and typical of me! And then we did lots of window shopping and had a cuppa and came home. We did get a lot of funny looks because we were holding hands as we walked round, and she said that she'd seen a couple of people who looked like they were trying to work if we were lesbians. Meh. It didn't really bother me. As far as I'm concerned it's just like holding my mum's hand. But H is my wife I guess, so...!

So yeah! This week I started my childminding job, which is serious fun! I can't believe I'm being paid to do it! It's a lovely job to have, it really is. I've had a few issues getting there in the morning, but that seems to be working itself out now, so no worries! And aside from that, I have no more news - I'm done!

Oh wait, no I'm not. I'm also doing NaNoWriMo this year, and so far it's going awesomely. It's very easy to write, I think because I'm using a lot of what I know already and my own experience to write it, and I usually find that easier.

So today I'm going to write a letter in response to my sister, post that and the letter to my brother, and get my word count for today. i try to do 2000 words a day, to help ensure that I'll hit my target and to tide me over if I don't manage to do any on the days when I child mind. They are long days, after all, and I'm usually in bed very early on them! I've just received a package from Joe Browns, so I'm going to go for now and open that parcel!

Love love xx

headache, shop, ballet show, fabric shopping, soup, sleep bag

So after my last post where I aired my grievances with shameless abandon, I was intending to write a nice, light post. But I cracked my head on a door about five minutes ago and a headache is just starting to take hold, so I'm going to keep it short instead and hope that makes it light enough.

I'm considering setting up some kind of online shop, like etsy shops, but for the UK. Whaddya think? I'm seeing lots of baby sleep bags like the one I made before, and onesies, and that sort of thing.

H holding up the sleep bag for measurement

So I went to see a ballet show today at lunchtime with my mum. It wasn't anything special, just a local dance school my mum's made costumes for before, the head being a friend. And it was good, it was enjoyable. but it was also... not. It's difficult, because I have an appreciation of it as an audience member. But then I have an understanding of it as both a dancer, and as someone who was once in that community. So as an audience member, I really enjoyed the music and the dances and so on. As a dancer I was able to really see the kids who were working hard, and the ones who were really good and enjoyable to watch. But I was also able to see when there were kids just not making the effort which was annoying to watch. I was distracted at times by the way the costumes were not all identical when they were supposed to be, and the way sometimes the movements were not as sharp as they were supposed to be. And as someone who was once an insider of the whole way it works, I was able to use experience and understanding to point out the lucky kids who were naturally good dancers or performers, or both even. I could see which kids thought a lot of themselves, admittedly with good reason. I could see who were favourites, and who were not. I could see which ones put all their effort into it for very little return, either because they got little return in terms of talent or little return as in they were always at the back. And part of me still enjoyed watching the gifted or favourites at the front (the audience part) but the other part found it awful to watch, knowing how so many of those kids at the back would work their butts off, as I had, and almost never see the front line, almost never get the special twiddly bits reserved for favourites, and almost never feel like they were actually good at what they were doing. So a wonderful show, great choreography, music, dancing, etc. But strange to watch when personal experience was applied.

We also went straight to Abakhan in Liverpool after the show, and picked up some nice fabrics for a quilt I'm going to make. As yet, I don't know how much I want my mum to participate. I don't want to hog it, but I think I want to do most of it myself. Probably. I'm not really sure.

I have an interest in making soup tonight to go with the bread I made... yesterday? The night before? Sometime a bit ago. I'm thinking butternut squash soup would go really well with tomato bread, what do you think? And this'll serve as supper for me. I know dad wouldn't consider it to be a whole meal, because, well, he just wouldn't. But I would, and I think it'll be really nice. So yeah! I'm feeling soup a lot just now. I haven't made any yet. But I'm feeling it.

So I'm gonna go and make some, and I'll leave you with some more photos of the sleep bag since it was so cute!








Love love xx