Things I Love Thursday

© The Sawdust Secret – This was a book I loved a kid. Something about a boy who lives with this aunt and uncle or visits their lumber yard a lot. He calls the aunt’s friends ‘The Gingerbread Ladies’ because they are always giving him delicious home cooked cakes, biscuits and gingerbread. Things start to go missing and it turns out that enterprising thief is hiding the stuff in the sawdust bins. I’ve thought about it a lot of the years but just couldn’t recall what it was called. Google searches were no help until now. I’m so pleased that I have found the details of this again. It’s also reminded me that (a) just because it isn’t on the Internet yet doesn’t mean it will never be and (b) keep looking and trying for what you want. One day you might get it.

© Gifts where the thought really does count - I had so many really thoughtful gifts over the festive period. Ones where it is clear that the giver really knows you and has taken the time to organise something very appropriate. A very dear friend arrived at my house with a cute green bag. When I admired it she said it was a present for me. Looking inside I found a laptop lunchbox. She knew that I had wanted on for ages but would not buy one for myself. And she got the green bag for it made just for me! My sister bought me a load of sewing odds and ends including green trimmings(I love anything green) and cupcake shaped pincushion. My parents bought me two Icing t-shirts for my birthday and then made it a theme with a cupcake badge (handmade), charm and card. And big mention to Dear Heart who bought me an adjustable dress form so that I don’t have to keep trying to pin stuff around myself when sewing. I want to alter then necklines on the Icing t-shirts so they will probably be my first project with my new aid. I need to give the form a name and I’m thinking ‘Miss something’. The question is Miss what?

© Getting back into a routine - I didn’t party as much in the approach to Christmas as usual because (a) I am older and more sensible and (b) I was ill with horrible cold that robbed me of my appetite and the urge to anything except hide under a fleece on the sofa. However that’s not to say I didn’t do any celebrating at all over the festive period. When I wasn’t partying I seemed to fall into a state of hibernation. Hence I am thrilled to be feeling much more awake and getting on top of the organised chaos that is my house, my routine and my life. It also means that I’m back to blogging.

© Sequinned green berets – Dear Heart’s family bought me this fabulous knitted beret with sequins. I’m quite taken with wearing it around the house to (a) ward off the arctic temperatures we have been suffering and (b) because it makes doing anything much more fab.

© Lilies – Another present related one. Dear Heart’s mother sent me flowers for my birthday. They have been opening and look gorgeous. There was a stem of closed white lilies which have been slowly opening. They smell amazing – just the thing for January.

Dinner dilemma

Clearly Dear Heart and I are reaching the age when birthdays stop being a cause for celebration. We celebrated Dear Heart’s yesterday by carrying on as normal, except for a short bout of present opening. He even decided to have cheese on toast for dinner (normal for a Thursday) despite my offers to cook something more … er... complex. No a drop of alcohol passed either of our lips.

He did indicate that Chinese food would be good tonight but prefers to get a takeaway to eating out. I pestered him about Saturday night thinking that he might want to do something then – maybe go out somewhere and met up with friends?

Negative, although he did mention buying a steak for his Saturday dinner consumption.

And this does mean that I need to do a bit of thinking. We used to quite often do ‘free choice’ evening where we’d both cook different meals but eat together. Or we’d share a portion of carbohydrate but find out own accompaniments. We haven’t done it in quite some time though so I’ve gotten out of the habit of thinking of recipes that I want to try out. I’m also quite keen to ensure that whatever I consume makes use of the food I have on hand. This is most notably courgettes, but I also have beans in the freezer, seiten, dried gluten chunks and probably a few other odds and ends.

I thinking of making stuffed courgettes with a variety of fillings that I can freeze for later consumption. I don’t want to devour all the courgettes though. I was inspired by a recipe in one of the Sarah Kramer books. Courgettes fried in sesame oil with garlic and little 5 spice are yummy and served on noodles keep well in the fridge for lunch.

Have a divine weekend and I'll try and rustle up some photographs of my creations

Happy Birthday Dad

This is the present bag I made for my Dad's birthday. It's his birthday today so I'm not spoiling the surprise. I tend to find it quite difficult to work out what to buy for him as he seems to want for nothing (which can only mean he's very content?). Here are the back and front views of the closed bag.

Here is the open bag. It contains a couple of pairs of trousers (a sort of cross between jogging bottoms and pyjamas). Just the thing for wearing on the days he works from home. In the smaller pocket is a Starbucks - for the days he has to leave the small town in the country he resides in and venture into big smoke.

I usually make up present bags for specific people or occassions. However, I've had a little time recently and made up these two that I have no immediate use for.

There's this drawstring bag with three hearts.

And this little yellow bag which has turned out to be exactly the right size for a CD.

I'm thinking of putting them on Etsy. It's a bit scary though. The first few sales on Ebay were a little worrying but once one has picked up the form and knows the procedures it's OK. Selling sometjhing you've made yourself is putting your work (your art?) up for public discussion. It's good to do thing that frighten you though so I'll give it a go in the near future.

The curse of the roller disco

I fully intended to post an entry about celebrating my sister’s 30th birthday the day after. However, we spent the evening at a roller disco. Roller skates and alcohol are a dangerous combination (particularly when you have no natural sense of balance). I came off better than my Brother-in-law (looking forward to signing the plaster cast on his wrist).

My sprained elbow is improving. However, I find myself reaching further than it will allow me at times. Over the last couple of days I’ve replaced a book on a head height shelf, found I couldn’t raise me arm high enough to get the book on, but neither could I bring my arm down. Solution? Use my head to head butt the volume into place.

My behind is also rather bruised and clearly needs to have more fat on it (hello vegan cupcakes).

What else have I been up to?

• I’m up to book 12 of the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. A big thank you to the lovely friend who made me read them when I wasn’t sure.
• I’ve discovered Facebook.
• I wore the dress I made my Mum’s old skirt. I’ll post a picture here soon.
• I changed my summer clothes over on Saturday, slightly earlier than last year. It was just as well I did as I certainly couldn’t lift a suitcase off a wardrobe at present. Alas when I tried to dress for work this morning I discovered that all linen trousers needed ironing (never a talent of mine even without a sprained elbow). Having located a pair of trousers with a patterned weave (excellent for hiding creases) I then discovered they are enormous around the waist. Clearly I need dessert more often.

I think I’m in something of an energy slump so I’m going to go with the flow for the next week or so and assume that high levels of energy will return as my bruises fade…

Santa visited my house!

I had a splendid Christmas curled up at home with Dear Heart. He did home-made pizza for Christmas dinner served with champagne.

So many people bought me thoughtful presents. Dear Heart bought me (among other delights) some vouchers for a local sewing shop. I’m so exciting by the prospect of buying patterns and fabrics!

I also had some lovely gardening themed presents including slate markers, stuff to scrub my hands with (and boy do I normally need it after a session on my allotment) and then make the nails all nice and a welly airer (no more wet wellies).

A feast of Sudoku puzzles with an enormous pack of pencils. I was thrilled to solve a ‘killer’ (where you have to make the number equal the total in dotted line box) for the first time ever.

My birthday is just after Christmas, so I was showered with presents once again. My sister bought me a totally genius card with fuzzy felt front (see http://www.fuzzyfelt.com/ if you have no idea what I’m talking about). It showed a birthday cake and I’ve made loads of different pictures since. That’s definitely going on my desk to play with when I’m stressed or need to be creative.

I got loads of Benefit products. I was really excited to have so many different products. Some of them were things that I would never buy brand named (such as make-up remover) so it rather nice to give them a go even if I never buy them again. I’ve had a play with some of them over the festive period but have decided that I’m going to put some of them away and open them in June so I can really appreciate this kind of abundance.

I’m really touched that so many people bought me such lovely things and have taken the time to think about my interests and what I might like (anything green rocks).