Monday Molskinary

Tuesday 24th January: Broken Bowls

Wednesday 25th January: TV and Sewing

Thursday 26th January: Cake Night

Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th January: Cranky and Decorating

Sunday 29th January: Painting and Decorating

Monday 30th January: Brr

Silent Sunday

Painting, decorating, and moral support

We are at Pip's parents house this weekend. Purportedly to help them finish decorating their living room. To be fair, all the wallpaper is now up, but I didn't really personally do very much.

I provided the moral support and the documentation! 

The living room will mostly be finished off tomorrow, with some furniture moving back in. 

Here are some of the photos.









I also provided tea.

Everyone needs tea during decorating.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Stand-to birthday cake!

January had not one, but two parental birthdays. Pips mums is tomorrow. My mums is next week. Cards are made, presents are sorted (although, sorry mum, there is no way I'm posting your present. You can have it when I visit. You also get your cake then!)

But cake is needed. Easy, tasty cake. Cake that can be made by someone not entirely with it after work. This cake is an awesomely easy, awesomely tasty cake. Coffee cake. Nom nom nom.

It comes from one of my favourite recipe providers; the BBC. What would I do without them.

Here goes. Make one. Make it as coffeey as you like! And do add the jam. I know it seems weird, but it really works. With apricot jam too!

Ingredients
150g caster sugar
150g butter or margarine
3 eggs
150g self raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp hot water
1 tbsp instant coffee (add more if you like it strong)
For The Icing
225g icing sugar
100g butter or margarine
1 1/2 tbsp instant coffee
1 tbsp hot water
Strawberry jam (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 160C, 325 F,gas 3.Baseline and grease two equally sized sandwich tins. Add the sugar and the butter to a bowl and whisk until very fluffy and a pale cream.

2. Whisk the eggs in a mug with a fork and then add them gradually to the mixture with 1 tbsp of flour each time. Make sure you don't use all the flour.
Add the rest of the flour and the baking powder to the mixture and fold it in gently. Dissolve the coffee in the boiling water and add to the mixture still folding. Divide into the sandwich tins and cook for 30 minutes

3. Meanwhile Cream the butter and the icing sugar until light and fluffy. Dissolve the coffee in boiling water, making sure you don't add too much water or the icing will be runny and add it to the butter and icing sugar. Whisk and leave in the fridge until the cake is done.

4. Once the cakes are done and have been put onto plates spread the icing on the bottom of one of the cakes (leaving around half of the icing for the top) and spread the strawberry jam ont the bottom of the other. Spread the remaining icing ontop of the cake. decorate with cherries or walnuts.

(recipe taken from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/8421/creamy-coffee-cake)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Dubbed

Watching Borgen tonight.

Love the show.

Don't love the failure of their English accent for the Prime Minister. Dubbed (I presume) with a completely British English accent. Everyone else spoke with a Danish accent.  It was terrible. So obvious.

This irritation probably stems from my hatred of dubbing in any form. Give me the original language and subtitles any day. It detracts so much from the original when speech is dubbed. I find you loose a lot of the meaning of it. Also, the Danish language kinda sounds awesome!

Can you handle dubbing, or do you prefer listening to the original speech intonation?

This post was brought to you by late night TV watching.

Half-baked

Half-finished; half-baked; not yet ready.
But getting there.

Everything is beginning to look like the end of an era.
Moving on from a life made here. Moving on after university. At last.

It's waiting for the change. But its moving to the unknown.

It's months to go, and yet, feels like it is just around the corner.
Both scared, and confused; eager and willing.

Caught in-between the emotions of both the end and the start of something.

Half finished, but also halfway to starting over.

Hopefully to someplace better.

Thoughts are flying all over today. It may be a sideways step indeed that I am about to embark on. But at least it realigns me to be moving forward.

Happy Tuesday all.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Monday Molskienery

May tomorrow be a better day right?

Sunday Stitchery

I've been getting stitchey with it. Teapots are fun!

Teapot

Bad Puns

Almost Done

Done

Now to just get me some more cross stitching material. :(

Shopping on a Budget

This is week two of the no-spend, food budget in place year.

It's actually going well. We have come in just under budget both weeks. £38 pounds out of £40 for the weeks food shop, including loo roll and coffee. We were not sure that we would do it. But hey presto. Magic.

The standing around adding things up feels awkward though. So we have been writing prices down, then finding a quiet place to add it up.

If you don't have budget, give it a go one week and see where you come out! Knowing how much you are spending does wonders for spending less and not throwing all sorts of random goodies in the trolley.

Now, how did those hobnobs make it in?

(seriously, tea and hobnobs. Delicious.)

But I haven't bought anything outside of the food shop this week, so I'm looking good on the no buy plan! I do have to renew my railcard this month though, which is somewhat annoying. Saves in the long term though!

Have a happy Thursday!

Emergency cookies

Sometimes, just sometimes (and maybe more than just sometimes) you really need some chocolate. Something sweet. Even more so when you are trying to loose weight.

This is my stand-too cookie recipe. Today I mixed it up by taking out the syrup and adding coco powder instead. Chocolate cookie heaven. I ate quite a lot of it raw. I don't usually use smarties. Chocolate chips work great.

Opps.

The recipe originally came from a good food magazine, probably almost 7 years ago.

Smarties cookies

100g butter

100g soft dark sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

150g s/r flour

3 tubes Smarties

Pre-heat oven to 180c.

Beat butter and sugar together.

Beat in the syrup.

Work in the flour.

Add your sweets.

Make into balls. Or make one huge cookie. That works pretty good.

Cook for 12 minutes until pale golden on the edges. Cool.

Go on. Make some emergency cookies.

Enjoy.

Monday Moleskinery

It was a great weekend. Got lots done, as well as lots of totally relaxed time out.
But, as always, back to work today. It's fairly quiet at work (January, so of course) but that makes the time drag!

Watched quite a bit of telly too. Is anyone else watching Borgen? It's like a Danish West Wing. I love it! If you like WW, give it a whirl. BBC iPlayer!

Living for the weekends right now. Counting down!

Silent Sunday

Days gone by in Polaroid.

I don't have a polaroid camera. 

I wish I did.

I do however have an app for that.

Photos range from 2008 to 2012. Watching the years go by.
Is that me growing up? No, it can't be. A very scary thought. H
ow do you cope with the idea that time is moving so quickly?
It terrifies me that this year I will be 25! Where did those last 7 years go?

Alas, one can do nothing but look back at the memories and try and focus on the good that comes of being older, wiser, and more mature. Right?


 Now, where are my crayons... 

(This post brought to you by spending some time browsing through iPhoto.

Boy, do I have a lot of photos.)