I've been quiet

I know, but it's been the usual hectic routine. This week I finally got verbal confirmation from work that I could come back full time, this is brilliant and I have to thank my boss for making such an effort in proving my worthiness to come back on flex-time. It's a 3 month trial but already I'm feeling the benefit of working a more "normal"day. Previously I was working an 8.5 hour day, through in a lunchtime of 30 minutes and travelling time and that was totalling 9.5 hours easily. Not a great system and I was feeling squeezed all the time. Now I feel less stressed by it all, knowing that I'll be in the office 5 days rather than 4, I wont miss the normal day to day goings on either.

That's enough about work. My Open Uni course started this week, and it's been really lovely to see that the University got rid of their horrible First Class software that acted like a forum and email system - to be honest I hated it and finally stopped reading emails and only looked there if I was desperate for help. This year they have taken a different approach and I can see my fellow students emails pop into my personal email account. It's been nice reading the relevant ones and just deleting the ones I don't want. Though it does clutter up my hotmail account on the odd occasion when a discussion heats up.

I decided to stuff the separate Web Design certificate course after completing the first of the 6 courses I realised that I really REALLY hated writing reports and that in all honestly I was crap at writing them too. I went back and looked at my options and decided to get it all over and done with and just do another 30 point level 2 course but when I looked there was very little left that I could choose from and it came down to picking either "Developing Concurrent Distributed Systems" or another course that involved a project - I decided I'd rather face my Achilles heel than complete another report or project, so developing concurrent systems it is!

I'll let you know how it goes - but fingers crossed, after the normal 3 hour exam in October I'll get my results in December and then hopefully I can attend my award ceremony. The cool thing about this is I get to choose where I accept my certificate, and I really fancy Ely Cathedral. Looks impressive doesn't it?

So what else has been happening - not alot, but I did make time to host 2 dinner parties for some friends. For the first one we did a Burns night and had some Cock-a-leekie soup, followed by a nice haggis with mashed neeps and tatties, and for pudding I made some Cranachan with raspberries but instead of using whiskey in the cream I used some mead and it was very very lovely.

For the second dinner party I skipped making a starter and went straight to Pheasant in a claret and orange gravy, with roast potatoes, peas, carrots and sweetcorn. Very similar to the recipe in the link above but with some minor differences. We then followed this with a choice of either apple or rhubarb crumble with Cornish ice cream. Lurv-ley :)

We (Tosha, Lisa and I) tried to arrange a night out for some grub but it all fell through when two of us became ill. I came down with some nasty viral thing again that had me feeling really nauseous ( I was a little sick) and now I have the most awful sinus infection. It was so bad even my teeth hurt. Sinus infections totally suck , suck suck suck. I've now been taking sudafed decongestant for 3 days and this has been my only source of relief though I still have 3 litres of nasty sticky gunge that is lodged in my head - grrrr.

Anyway I'm being called to watch Wall-e for the hundredth time. Enjoy :)

Cheshire Cat Says Smile

Budding David Bailey?

We bought Emily one of those VTech Kids Camera this week and let her go take her own photos (saves me hovering over her when she's pinched my camera - just in case she drops it!)

So here are her first photos:

Whoops

So much for the items listed in etsy - they were removed because of infringement! I had to laugh at this as there were lots of other people on etsy doing exactly the same. So maybe I'll go and sell on ebay or freecycle?

So what have we been up to this week - well I thought I would have time to blog a bit more but I've been cramming in stupid amounts of housework, taking the kids swimming at my gym after school. Cooking meals from scratch - I made some lovely red pepper soup today and everyone loved it. Many thanks to Vicky in Australia for that recipe - she's given me a recipe for Turkish Delight cake. I've got the ingredients for that so I'll be making it later this week after we finish of eating the cakes Phoebe brought home from school. Yum Yum

Emily has started at the local playgroup, and she loves it. She goes there most mornings and one afternoon, and the rest of the week, apart from Tuesday, she's with her childminder. It means I can go back to work full time now - which is a bonus.

My last uni course starts in two weeks time - so I'm going to try to pack in as much of the allotment as I can just now. I should have a Bsc in something by the end of the year- whoop whoop!

I need to start to dig in some of the compost and get some seeds planted for the first crops of the year. We have some great plans for the allotment - hopefully Beckie can keep me right on what to plant and when we should be in for an excellent year of fresh veggies and maybe some fruit if we are lucky.

We are looking at putting our house on the market some time soon - I think its time we gave up on the council getting the garage next door to adhere to the jet wash opening times. So fingers crossed we can get the house tidied up without too much cost and find somewhere a little bigger, thought I doubt we'll find anything that has a great garden like we currently have. We could go for a similar aged house and possibly find something that has a great sized garden - ideally it would be fantastic to have a completely walled in garden so the kitties can run around outside and have more freedom. It would also be nice to move in somewhere brand new - that would be exciting.

I wonder what this year holds for us all. :)

The other list

Things I have accomplished this year

1. Put baby blankets on my etsy shop - whooop!

Things to do

List of things I want to accomplish this year

1. Organise 40th Birthday Party
2. Sell my homemade baby blankets on Etsy
3. Start final Open Uni course, sit exam and get my Open Degree
4. Chill
5. See my friends more
6. Buy a bigger house (well one with 4 bedrooms - we could live with a smaller garden)
7. add more things to this list

Happy New Year !

Happy New Year Everyone!

Snip! Snip! Snip!

Yep the boys got neutered this week - doesn't he look happy?
Snip!

Snip!

Snippity snip - first hair cut!

Snowed out

Emily's first tattoo

Emily and her icicle lolly

Emily wearing her hat and gloves (thanks Aunty LoLo)

me and the gals spent about an hour this morning just sledging up and down the drive. Thoroughly exhausted but it was fun.

Vid's

Piccies and stuff

Emily took this photo of my feet and at the top left you can see Phoebe's new spotty socks

Em's and her Dad

This is a picture of the super present that didn't arrive in time :(

Erm...

Do I look like I'm excited?

Well I could be if I could get the box open

Stocking filler

Silly big sis

Hahahhahaha

ok the blog looks a bit odd at the moment - once I get some spare time and don't feel like falling asleep because I've eaten too much, I'll get round to sorting out the margins of the columns.

In with the new

time to update the look of the blog i think

Cowabunga! Now that's snow...

The Dam (cold)

The Dam (frozen)

The hills

Exactly where is it though?

Smile!

Erm...

The view of the drive

Icicles

Santa wont be parking his backside here for sure.