It's Always Sunny In Here

Saw this today and loved it. Very retro. Very christmassy.



Love

This Girl

• is my middle child.
• is 12 today.
• is quirky and kooky and creative. i love that.
• works really hard and is conscientious. she always does her homework well before it's due (except today, when she asked if, because it's her birthday, she could leave it).
• sees things differently to most. she has a way of looking at the world that is uniquely her own. i love that about her.
• has a range of emotions. i call that passionate. she gets this from me.
• is a worrier. unfortunately she gets that from me too.
• is an amazing writer. she writes with real depth of emotion and far beyond her years. she gets that from her dad.
• is beautiful. stunningly so. oh, how i would love her cheekbones.
• is honest (sometimes too much so...)
• is growing up right before my eyes, she needs to stop. now.
• used to be afraid of everything but now? not so much, part of growing up i suppose.
• can eat. you can't tell it to look at her but oh, boy...
• is a joy and a pleasure. i love her so much.

Happy 12th birthday my girl.

Noah, Entrepreneur

My son is an entrepreneur. He is always thinking of ways to make money. Sometimes I wonder if I should be worried? I mean, after all, I don't want to raise him to be materialistic or money hungry. I don't want to raise a Gordon Gekko (spot the movie reference). On the other hand I do want him to be sensible with his finances and he's not at all egoistic either, often telling us that he will give all the money to us. (On a side note he is very generous with any money he does have, always wanting to give a tip, from his own wallet, when we go out for a meal)

Today's money making idea? A weapons and model shop, or store (comment added by the man himself!), selling, well, from what I can see, mostly swords. Swords of all shapes and sizes, mostly made with his own fair hands. Swords ranging in price from £5.60 to £12.11. A bargain, I'm told.



There is one item that is clearly not a sword. Upon making enquiries I have been reliably informed that "This is a one of a kind. No, seriously, it's a one of a kind. It's either a bi-plane, bi=2 by the way, or you can use it as a weapon by throwing it and it spins, round and round". Very intriguing and fashioned from an old door handle spindle, some Meccano & the old bathroom locking mechanism!



How much do I love this boy? Let me count the ways...

Oreo Cookie Cupcakes

OK, so I promised people that I would post the recipe for the Oreo cookie cupcakes I made a few weeks ago and I know it's ages later but I am finally getting around to doing it. I can't remember where I got this recipe from originally but I have a feeling that it may well have been from Shimelle... I apologise to whoever it was if it wasn't Shim!

Oreo Cookie Cupcakes

Ingredients:
180g unsalted butter
400g brown sugar
250g dark chocolate
3 large eggs, separated
2 teaspoons vanilla
200g plain flour
100g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
8 Oreo cookies, smashed to bits (I usually use a whole packet though, sometimes more, depending on how biscuit-y I want them!)
1 3/4 cup milk

• Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Set aside but don’t chill.


• Heat the oven to 180C and line cupcake tin with papers.


• Beat the butter until it is soft, then add sugar and mix until fluffy.


• Stir up the egg yolks, then add them to the butter and sugar.


• Add the vanilla and the chocolate (just make sure it’s not so hot that it cooks the eggs)


• Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, alternating with the milk.


• Stir in the bashed Oreos until evenly distributed.


• In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until peaks form.


• Fold in the egg whites, until no more whites show.


• Scoop into the cupcake liners straight away, filling them 3/4 full.


• Bake for 20 minutes or until chopstick comes out clean.


• Cool on a wire rack before icing.

Now for the frosting the recipe I had originally used a cookies and cream, more traditional type, frosting but recently I have used a homemade marshmallow topping and, I have to say, it is delicious! I've never even thought you could make marshmallow yourself at home so this was really interesting to try.

Marshmallow Frosting

Ingredients:
4 egg whites
300g sugar
120ml golden syrup
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Mini Oreo cookies (you can buy these in a tub from Sainsbury’s) for decoration

• In a large bowl mix egg whites, sugar, golden syrup & salt until combined.


• Place the bowl over simmering water and whisk until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot. This will take about 3 minutes.


• Remove from heat and beat, probably using an electric whisk if, like me, you have weak wrists and don't want them to fall off, for 5-7 minutes until frosting is cool and stiff peaks form.


• Beat in vanilla.


• Spread or pipe onto cupcakes and use mini Oreo cookies to decorate.

It's amazing how this gloopy yellow mixture suddenly turns fluffy and white. The frosting is slightly runny to start with but sets to a real marshmallow-y textures in a couple of hours.

I Am Alive!

Just to reassure you all there. I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth. I am still here, I have just been very, very busy.

I won't bore you with the details, suffice it to say between gearing up for the end of the school year with 3 children and all that entails and work coming out of my ears, I don't feel like I've had a spare minute in the day.

I will bore you, in another post, about my running progress and my Race for Life thoughts and results but I'm going to keep this post short.

I have managed to do some cooking, for which I've promised to post the recipe for a particular Oreo cookie cupcake (watch this space), and have fitted in some digital scrapbooking so I'll leave you with a couple of layouts:

[click image to enlarge]

Supplies:
Merry and Bright - Kate Hadfield & Kaye Winiecki

[click image to enlarge]

Supplies:
Patterned Papers - Bombay Flower - Amy Hutchinson
Krafty Papers - Naturally Krafty - Kate Pertiet
Painted White Paper - Fly Me To The Moon - Gina Miller & Jacque Larson
Flowers - Various Kits - Studio Flergs
Glitter Alpha - 1 Night - Gina Maria
Swirl Brush - SS Foliage Swirls
Digital Glitter - Mine

I intend to do a page to go with the last layout to show the actual photo that I used on our Christmas cards that year so hopefully will get this done soon. I know, they're Christmas layouts. Christmas in August? But I've never been one to scrap seasonally. So there.

And in terms of scrapbooking I do have a plan. Let's hope it all comes together. And the plan? It's a loose one I admit but I'm going to try and hit a year at a time, hence the 2 layouts above of 2002, starting with the photos I've taken since we moved to a digital camera. Those photos will be scrapped digitally. I'm then intending to get them uploaded and printed in a nice bound book via Photobox or something. I'll think about the pre-digital photos some other time!

A List of 5

A random list of random things.

• Loving opening up the calendar for next week and seeing Richard has written in each of our personal columns: Earl R, Duchess J, Maid K, Maid H and Stable Boy N


• Looking forward to Susie and her lovely daughters coming over later, we're going to bake cookies


• Thinking about my brother, it's been 2 years today


• Trying to balance work with the huge pile of laundry that has built up (where does it come from?) and second guessing what Maid K will want to take with her on her Duke of Edinburgh award weekend!


• Smiling every time I remember opening up the fridge one morning and finding this:
  

I Did It!

I completed the Couch To 5k running programme. All 9 weeks.

It's unbelievable. I feel like I should pinch myself to see if I'm really awake and haven't dreamt the whole thing.

This year was my second attempt at it. The first time I tried was summer time last year and I did manage to make it to week 2. Yes, all the way to week 2. Woohoo! LOL. The problem was that we went away for 5 days and even though I took my running shoes with me I just didn't have the courage to go running in a new place and I just never picked back up when we came back home.

But not one to give up easily (well, OK, maybe a slight exaggeration, alright, alright a big exaggeration - I usually give up very easily!) I decided to try again this year. You can read my updates on my progress here, here and here but I thought it was about time that I brought you completely up to date.

So I finished week 9 a couple of weeks. Week 9 consists of 3 runs of 30 minutes duration. And I ran them all. Impressed?

I am. In fact, and I probably shouldn't say this but, I am very proud of myself! It has been hard, there have been ups and downs. Some runs were great, I finished feeling amazing but if I'm honest most were hard. Never impossible but hard. And yet despite this whenever anyone asks I always reply that I love running. However let me clarify that statement. I love the feeling I feel after I've run! I've not ever looked forward to going for a run but then I've not yet thought about not going either. But that feeling after you've completed your run? It's amazing. The sense of accomplishment. The looking back to see how far you've come, from those early days where the thought of 8 x 60 second runs filled me with dread, to that dreaded 3rd run of week 5. All of you who've done this programme will know what I'm talking about - that first run without a walking break, a full 20 minutes of non-stop running! But it's been worth it and each and every run I completed I could see an improvement. My breathing improved, my speed improved, I ached less, it took less time to recover (no longer 2 days to just stop hurting)!

So does this mean at the end of week 9 I was running 5k? No. It doesn't. In 30 minutes I can run around 3.8km so not quite 5k, close but not close enough.

Which brings me to today's run. I had a slight health problem last week and the doctor told me that I had to rest for at least 48 hours. What? 48 hours? That would mean I would miss a run!!! Oh my, that would mean that I would fail! That would mean I'd never get back on track. I'd give up and not carry on...

In fact I ended up missing 2 consecutive runs and today was my first run in a week. I was really nervous, trying not to think about it when I woke this morning. I thought I'd ease in gently and just do a 20 minute run. That would be do-able, wouldn't it? It was. But do you know what? I ended up running for nearly 39 minutes... I ran 4.91km... which in my opinion is pretty much a 5k run (what's 90 metres between friends?).

So my fears were unfounded. I'm back running and plan on keeping it that way. But what's next?

Well, I'll be running the Race for Life this year and if you feel the urge you can sponsor me online by clicking here.

But in the meantime I'm going to participate in a few local Park Runs. If you don't know about these they are 5k runs organised in various local parks all over the UK (and Denmark for some reason). And what's more they're free. All you need to do is sign up online before hand and then just turn up on the day. Simple as that. They log your times for you and keep a track of how you're doing, logging personal bests and all sorts of other information, like age grading. What's age grading? Age grading takes your time and uses the world record time for your sex and age group to produce a score (a percentage). This score allows you to compare your personal performance against other people's performances even though they might be a different age and a different sex to you. And for a statistic/gadget freak like me that's all very interesting! If my scores aren't too dire I may share with you...

Right, enough talk of running now, next post will be a scrapbooking one. It's about time :D