I've had enough

I feel restless, fed up - on the verge of a big change.....

Fellow bloggers may have noticed that I have stopped following your blog.....please don't be offended, I was just getting overwhelmed with blog updates, but I still have them on my internet favourites, and will be dropping by from time to time....

One blog I have followed for a long time is Let Her Bake Cake, by Hilary, a canadian girl transplanted to London. Now I love this blog - it is my mostest favouritest blog of all. I found it one day by link from Shimelle (well known to you scrapper gals) and I love the tone she sets, and I love her love of baking. Do drop by, because she seems like a nice chick (she nearly always comments on the comments you leave) and quite often she has a damn fine recipe featured there. To this end, I have been having a go at the Ottolenghi brownie recipe she featured fairly recently, and this is the brownie stack I made for Dad's 65th birthday:

They are, very good brownies. Although the general concensus of opinion is that half of one at a time is enough. There are four 100g bars of choc in the recipe (makes 9 biggies). I chop up one bar as an 'addition' and boy, it's rich.

On Thursday Oliver and I trollied off to Plymouth to see the Horrible Histories show, Awful Egyptians. It was really very, very good. We both love HH - it is just the bees knees, the mutts nuts, the top banana of kids entertainment masquerading as education. Here we are with our boggle goggles on. The second half of the show used a 3D screen, and it was brilliant. I screamed like a girl, along with the other hundreds of real (under age 12) girls in attendance.



Mark, Oliver and I went to the cinema this morning and saw Voyage Of The Dawn Treader. It was great, although my eyes leaked tears (really - not crying, just welling up and spilling out) throughout the last 10 minutes when the children were leaving Narnia, and Reepicheep (sp?) was heading off to Aslan's world. I fear I am becoming (more) mentally unhinged. Have had a headache since.

Gotta sign off - nearly time to dish up our Saturday night roastie - I thought we were having pork, but when the meat was defrosted and ready to go in the oven, it looked suspiciously like lamb. I hope it is lamb, because I have chucked in a load of rosemary with it.

it's a new day, it's a new dawn, and I'm feeling

extraordinarily tired, actually.

Went to Haytor on Saturday as the sun was shining. Again I found myself cursing that the English weather had conned us in to thinking it would be a lovely little trip out. It was bloody freezing up there, although very pretty.

Oliver (well, Mark paid for obviously) bought me these flowers at Trago:

Mark and I had a heated couple of sentences, not even a squabble, really, over a new spelling initiative he started with Oliver last week. Think in truth, I spoke out of turn and thoughtlessly, and he massively over-reacted. Hence forth, no spellings have been done, and we both feel shitty. Sigh. Why is life so tricky. No answers on a postcard please, it's a rhetorical.

We have finally worked our way through volume one of the Story of the World history book, which has been fantastic, and kindled an interest in history for Oliver, and fuelled my passion for the past. Will be trying to get hold of volume two soon. Another piece of Egyptian history was added to the timeline last week, and this week we are off to Plymouth to see the Horrible Histories on tour show: Awful Egyptians. Both looking forward to that.

Well, better get going. Really I am just delaying the inevitable washing up, wrapping up of ebay parcels, preparing a veg casserole, avoiding strangling the dog and then getting bullied by the Biggest Loser Kinect game. etc etc etc. Now, do I insist on getting cracking on some home-ed worky stuff, or do I leave Oliver whilst he is quiet and playing an energetic Kinect game of football? Find this the constant dilemma of home-edding.

To do, or not to do, that is the question. No, no answers needed for this either.

so THAT'S where all the toilet roll goes

Oliver and Kinect boxing. Sigh. All very comendable in the initiative deparment until one needs a big poo and there's no loo roll around because he is being Rocky Balboa in the living room.

My entry for the fire colours journal:

This is the last one in the circle of ten, tomorrow I am due to receive my journal back, so will show that off later in the week.

today's table

looks like this:

Disclaimer: the hair straighteners and wine glass are nothing to do with home education in any way, shape or form.

In fact the meagre amount of lovely cold white wine I just quaffed was to compensate me for the sweaty and shaky half hour I've just spent at the Doctors having a mole surgically removed. Oliver cried (real tears) at lunchtime when he realised he had to accompany me to this 'procedure' and then once in the Docs surgery promptly went from sitting in the corner with his ipod and headphones on and eyes shut to pulling up a chair to the end of the bed and telling me gleefully that there was 'blood dripping from the injection'. What a ghoul.

On the table today we have maths (Saxon 54) and Sudoku. The maths is going extremely well, and it is something I enjoy with him, because he gets it and likes it. The sudoku is a new thing, prompted today by an email from the lovely Louise re Activity Village. He gets it and is enjoying it. It works on logic, and needless to say, me and logic are not best mates. In fact we are not even on nodding terms. Glad to see that the boy does not take after me in many aspects of life....

Also in the pic is Oliver's new notebook for spanish sessions at the hut - I didn't even realise that everybody else took a notebook - so my poor little lad has been drawing on loose bits of paper like a pauper! tsk tsk. So today we went and bought a lovely new pad and some pens - it was great, reminded me of the first day of term at school with lots of delicious new stationery.

And finally....

This is Ladram bay on Sunday. Lovely, one might think. But - no. In this pic you should just be able to make out my dog, buggering off up the beach back towards the car. Mark (unseen in the pic) is strolling off in the opposite direction, patently ignoring the impending screaming at the dog to return. Also note the evil glowers coming from the hiking fraternity on the far right. (no dogs on the beach apparently, which we decided to ignore....) Clearly Harvey is a better reader than us because he left the beach of his own accord pretty sharpish like .....

junk journalling

Welcome to my 'new' thang. Junk journalling, as far as I can gather, is pretty much just bunging anything you want to into a book which you think looks good, and lots of paint. To this end, here is the beginning of mine - an altered book. I won't 'do' the cover until much later, but at the moment I am finding gentle satisfaction in slapping paint about.

Here is a 'naked' page;

The 'nude' front cover;

a few 'ready-for-entries' pages;

a couple of completed pages;

Tres enjoyable. Also picked up my cross stitch again, pic to follow of progress made with that.

Home edding update to come.....

I have lost £3.....

....no, sorry, that's 3 lb that I have lost this week. Ha ha - it's a joke - see how I did that? £ - lb?? Never mind. It was funnier in my head.

And helping me along the way in my quest for a less chunky moi is an Xbox Kinect game - the Biggest Loser. Now, this is apparently a game show type programme on tv (never seen it) for tubbies who need to lose weight before they die of a cardiac arrest. It is, as confirmed by the reviews of the game, a difficult one to control. If you were thinking of getting a Kinect - and I think it's a fab concept because it generally means that instead of your kids sitting on their arses getting blistered fingers from using handheld controls, they are up on their feet using energy and co-ordination. No, it doesn't compare with being in the great outdoors for real, you puritans, but it is a good step for lazy gamers (of which there are millions) - anyhoo, IF you were thinking of getting one - you need alot of room. I frequently find myself backed into the farthest reaches of the room pressed up against the corner of the sofa trying to be seen by the sensor whilst preforming a series of 'jab crosses'.

AND, the point of today's diatribe is - this game is shit. Buy it if you want a programme of controlled exercises to follow on a regular basis (I do), but if you are not deft with the old control aspects of gaming (I am not and frequently swear at the console) and the constant drawl of American twang jars at the very core of your patience (good jaaaahb, perfect pose - just like a yoga master) then don't buy it - you will end up very angry.

AND - today, because the stupid pile of shite (the console, obviously - not me) hadn't saved what I'd done last week (3 workouts, no less), I had a terrible score and ended up at the bottom of the 'leaderboard' and up for elimination!!!!!! What utter bollocks. What happens if you get eliminated from your own game that you bought and paid for and can turn off at any time is a bit of a mystery to me. I ended up watching the elimination process in fascinated horror as it came down to me, or 'Amanda' getting kicked off the show. Luckily, 'Enzo' voted for me to stay, not Amanda, and I live to workout another day. Phew. I noted my character, a little fat round object in a red vest, collapsing on the podium in sheer relief.

Truly, I fear for our future.

ok, ok, don't faint

I am back in blogworld. The reason for the break? Er, Christmas, disillusionment with scrapbooking, holidays, blah blah blah....

So, Christmas was good - highlights and lowlights as ever. Great pressies received by us all, and it passed peaceably enough. We had the fortune of going to Lanzarote just after Christmas to join Mum and Dad in a villa in Puerton del Carmen - somewhere I have not (and never wanted to) visited before. How narrow minded am I?? It was, although a tad purpose built and touristy, lovely in it's way. The weather was idyllic - hot days, cool evenings, the resort was not busy. We had a villa with our own pool (that's a luxury that I will now demand from any holiday, I can tell you) just up from the main promenade, near the shops (tacky or not, I don't care - shops is shops), and I loved being able to bimble along either way along the beach/prom for a walk. Pics:

Cheezers:

Oliver and his nemesis, the front crawl:

Canarian sunset:

studying the specials board:

Madre y Padre:

Now this - this was an experience. Mum and Dad talked us into a stroll out to see the planes land - YAWN I think to myself - but - sacre bleu - how wrong could I have been mes amis - it was bloody fabulous, free entertainment!!! The runway was yards from where we were standing, and they came in at a speed of at least one million miles per hour and brushed the top of my hair.... well, it seemed that way anyhow. It was well good (as I would say if I were young enough to get away with it).

Get yer fill of that blue sky.......