Week 11 Photo Challenge

Day 66's photo is me documenting how Ian likes his chips. They're very crispy!

Day 67 is a photo of the valentines gift that I got from a guy at work - all a bit strange - but I got free play-doh so I'm not complaining (although I forgot how much that stuff smells!!)

Day 68 shows what happens when you turn your back on Monkey at work.

Do you remember all those receipts I had back in Week X? Well, I decided to overhaul my receipt system, and instead of putting them in boxes and forgetting about them, I'm going to spike them like they do with orders in restaurants and then process them monthly. I looked online to see if I could buy a spike but they were all over £10 and I figured it was an easy system to implement. So now I have a placemat with a cocktail stick attached to it with plasticine. It's not pretty but the receipts hide that, and it's working out much better than my old system.

Day 70 I finally made Ian a cherry pie. It didn't go so well - I'll explain more in it's own post later!

On day 71 I had to break the news to my team at work that I'd accepted a new job in a different department, and figured the best way to do that was with cake. I always have some bananas on standby, so got up early to make a banana loaf. There is a guy in my team who doesn't like banana loaf though so I cracked out some of the emergency freezer cookies to ensure that he didn't have to face the news of my departure without baked goods to cheer him up!

Whilst making my lunch on day 72, I decided that this would make an interesting photo - not sure why! You'll notice there isn't a green pepper - that's because those things suck!

Week 10 Photo Challenge

Day 59 is joke time. We've been enjoying penguins as snacks at work recently, and the jokes are just as bad as I remember them. See if you can guess the punchline to this one.

Day 60 shows my attempt at a new lunch regime. My lunch is on the right - you'll see it's much taller a stack than Ian's - I've got a sandwich, some crudites and some houmous, strawberries, a yoghurt and a banana. I was really chuffed with the houmous - I love the caramelised onion one, but they never have a low fat version of that, so I finally worked out that I could buy the reduced fat one and add my own caramelised onions in - so simple but effective!

Day 61 was the first day of March. I'd managed a whole month without takeaway (even the extra leap year day!), and so we celebrated with Dominos. You'll see the big smile on Ian's face - it was a good day!

Everytime we go to ikea, I pick up this set of 3 scissors for 99p. Scissors always go walkies in our house, so it's good to have plenty - even if Ian thinks I'm crazy for always buying them!

A week after our trip to ikea, and the billy bookcases we bought remain on the floor in our dining room, along with the parcel shelf and head rests for the car!

After a bit of nagging, the car parts are back in the car, but the billy bookcases remain unmade. One step at a time I guess!

Day 65 brings exciting post to our door (or to the depot where I went to collect it, but that doesn't sound as good). I ordered a personalised address stamp from etsy and it finally arrived all the way from Malaysia. It's got two little owls in the centre of it, and it makes me really happy to send post now!

Week 9 Photo Challenge

I'm a bit behind on posting my photos, so behind that it's a little bit of a struggle to remember why I took some of the photos which was totally not the idea of the challenge and I'm feeling very silly for not being better.

Week 9 started with a photo of pancake party aftermath. I'm very good at remembering to take photos after everyone has gone!

Day 53 I came downstairs to find Ian had sneakily changed the board after the pancake party. It used to look like this, but I loved the altered version (and it stayed up for a few weeks too!).

Day 54 would have been a better photo, but I'd already removed my contact lenses so couldn't see anything to photograph. Instead you've got a picture of my lense, on my finger where I like to put them because it makes my finger all shiny!

Day 55's photo is of this annoying wardrobe that I want to get rid of - I'd love a corner wardrobe instead but am struggling to find one that I like (and with a non-ridiculous price tag!).

Day 56 I went off to try and capture the moon again - this time along with Venus. When I was unloading the car at my friends house after our ikea trip (not to get a wardrobe), it was much brighter and clearer, but it had moved and so I didn't quite do it justice (venus is the light in the bottom left - not the street lamp though).

The next picture comes with a cute warning. It's sooo cute. Unbelievable cute. I'm not lying, you'll make a funny aaaw sound when you see it. Ian wasn't feeling well so I bought him this cute monkey. I've just asked him if he's given the monkey a name. He said no. Then he decided now was the time to name him. He's called him 'penguin'. My husband is special. But anyway, here comes the cute!!

The next picture isn't as cute, but is still special. This was part of my present for our six monthiversary. Points for anyone who can guess what animal it's meant to be!

Week 8 Photo Challenge

We start week 8 with a romantic gesture by Ian on valentines day. We don't really celebrate valentines, but he surprised me by turning up at breakfast at work with a hash brown and ketchup on his plate. He likes neither of these and so I was a bit confused why he'd bought them, and then he said that it was a valentines hash brown for me! I was so excited and it was the tastiest hash brown ever!

I subscribe to several food magazines, and as part of reading them, I add post-its for recipes that I'd like to try and then photocopy them ready to add them to the favoured recipes folder if they cut it on the first trial. This months copy seemed to have lots of recipes I wanted to try, it makes the magazine look a bit funny afterwards!

Day 47 saw me and my friend baking cheesecake in an attempt to use up some marscapone leftover from Christmas pizza back in december that she'd frozen. Unfortunately the cheese didn't make it, but she rushed out to get replacement cheese while I tried not to be too nosey in her house. The cheesecake was very yummy and is a recipe I've made before.

Do you remember the picture of my tidy sofa a few weeks ago? Well, it didn't last - check out the mess! One day I'll master keeping things tidy - it only got messy because I was trying to sort through some boxes I found in the study and I got bored halfway through! (if you look carefully you'll see the undeveloped films on the left - we got those back, and they were all from Ian's first cruise back in 2002. We discovered that he didn't go to Dubrovnik for the first time on our honeymoon, he just forgot that he'd been before!)

My aunt came down to visit on day 49 for another games evening and we broke out a game we got as a wedding gift, our first ever cooperative board game, Pandemic. It's a different experience because you all have to work together or noone wins, and there's no ganging up on one person.

We finished off week 8's weekend by finally sorting out the curtain situation and we now have matching curtains, which I'm really in love with. We also moved the television and the bay looks nice and large and I can't resist dancing about in all the new space we've got. 

Day 51 was online shopping day and the arrival of pancake day ingredients. You'll know how much I love pancakes from my previous posts about them here, here and here.

I'm running about a week behind in my photo challenge posts as last week when I tried to post, flickr was broken so I couldn't add pictures and everyone knows posts without pictures are just pants. I'll catch up after the end of February because I only have two days left to read my book for this month and I'm only half way through it - oops!

Week 7 Photo Challenge

In blog news, all blog posts from my other blog are now integrated here. Hopefully the transition was seamless. I'm very excited about being able to share everything in one place now - although I'm not sure what to do about the name, should I come up with a new one for the new combined blog, or stick with the one I have?

Anyway, back to the photo challenge! On day 38, I noticed on the drive home that the moon was particularly large and bright. It's something that happens more often these days, me noticing things that I normally wouldn't because I'm looking for things to photograph for the day. There's a particularly nice tree on the way to work that I'd like to share with you, but it's halfway down a 60mph road and I'm yet to master driving that fast whilst taking a photo! Back to the moon. I tried to photograph it, but I'm still not clued up on my camera, and the only way I could see it was by hanging out of my bedroom window and it was cold! But, check out my photo - I managed to capture not one, not two, but three moons! Which ones the real one?

Day 39 shows me attempting to reduce the washing mountain that has built up in our house. This was load 3 and I've done 3 more since, and I'm still not happy to photograph the washing mountain to show you - which doesn't make it sound great but progress is progress!

Day 40 and we finally got some snow. Not enough to make a snowman, but enough for me to get excited when it started. There was more at work so I got to play in the car park on the way back from the pub which was probably enough for me (especially as I forgot my gloves!).

Day 41 is what happens when you forget to get meat out of the freezer, and you don't believe in using the microwave to defrost meat - you throw together whatever is in your freezer that you can cook from frozen. Leads to a bit of a bizarre dinner but it saved us from takeaway.

Day 42, Ian arrived home with flowers for me, to celebrate six months of marriage. There were quite a lot of flowers (all purple because he knows me well), and the majority are in a large vase, but this vase that we got as a wedding gift is much smaller so only has 3 sprigs in it, but I think it's extra pretty because the blue contrasts nicely with the flowers. 

In order to get the cash for the flowers, Ian popped into Sainsburys and picked up some baked goodies and got cashback. He chose these ones because he thought they looked amusing. What do you think?

Yesterday I was sorting through one of my many 'things to sort' boxes and found some interesting goodies. An odd sock, some top trumps, Ian's old passport, and lots of rolls of film that appear to be used but Ian has no recollection of what's on them. So, this weekend I get to take them to be developed and hope there is nothing shady on there from his past!

Hope everyone else is having a good week! And Happy Valentines Day!

Week 6 Photo Challenge

When we were eating all the takeaway, I was craving home cooked food. I found myself looking back at the meals I've blogged about and suddenly I was inspired by a particular entry. I find plenty of inspiration on the internet but it really pleased me to find inspiration in my own stuff. It totally reminded me why I've been blogging about it all! The entry that did it was here, and day 31's photo shows it, a year and a half on. It was still delicious.

I've just searched back through the entries, and I can't find one about day 32's dinner, so I think I may have to feature a post on this later in the week as it's one of our favourite dinners. The only downside of it is the fact Ian can't eat it without making a terrible mess!

Day 33 was one of the days where I found myself in bed having forgotten to take the photo for the day. I figured it was a good opportunity to tell you about my inability to draw the bedroom curtains. I don't know how it happens, but every single time I do it, I find myself lying in bed realising there's a gap that is going to let irritating light in that will wake me. Ian never has this problem, I don't know why, so maybe I need to get him to draw the curtains every night, even when he's not going to bed yet. Maybe I can get him to tuck me in too...

We may not have had any snow here in Eastleigh, but it has been pretty cold out, and on day 34 I wasted time before work as I didn't want to scrape the ice of the car until I'd gotten a picture of it! I like how you can see the scraper ready to attack in the reflection.

Similarly to the wedding book clearout last week, this week I decided to throw away some of the many boxes of receipts I have sitting around in the study. This says 2007 on it, but I had boxes going back to 2002. It was liberating getting rid of them all, and I do wonder why I hung onto them for so long!

The receipt cull took more than one day as I was concerned I might throw out an important receipt. I didn't find any in amongst the boxes so the effort might have been wasted, except I found the following receipt that had Ian and I giggling. I apologise for the childish turn to the post, but seriously, what is that first item?!

After all that receipt clearing, I needed a nice snack on day 37 so Ian and I finally tried the Mr Kipling pineapple slices my mum was raving about last week. She was particularly pleased with them because the candied pineapple within the sponge means you have to chew more so they last slightly longer than other Mr Kipling slices. I think I still prefer the angel slices as the pineapple slices are a little on the dry side. 

Week 5 Photo Challenge

This week was full of takeaway, as eluded to in the last post. We had takeaway 5 nights in a row! Thankfully, I took photos of more interesting stuff than takeaway! 

My first picture from day 24 is of one of my souveneirs that I picked up on my honeymoon. It's the cutest thing ever - I'm not normally a fish ornament person (I favour owls, penguins and snails) but I can't help but look at these and immediately attempt to create the same face. It's caused amusement to most of my friends and I'm sure the face I pull it pretty unattractive, but I just can't not do it! I'm considering another trip back to Croatia just to buy a whole load more! 

Day 25's picture is to show that I'm managing to keep my sofa tidy. I have a habit of collecting things around me on the sofa making it nearly impossible for people to sit on the sofa. It also shows my cool new owl cushion hiding in amongst the other cushions! 

Seems I'm hitting on an ornament theme for this week, as day 26's picture is of the new owl ornament I got for my birthday. I found another one on eBay so now I have them either side of my mantelpiece where they sit and watch over us. 

Day 27, spurred on by the tidy sofa, I attempted to tidy another corner of my house and found a pile of wedding related books that I no longer require (not planning on doing it again!) so these got donated to the charity shop or binned. 

On day 28 we had a games evening where we introduced my aunt to Carcassonne. We've not played in a while and I finally got to use my new purple meeples (the little people characters) that Ian bought me as a wedding gift. I even managed to win the first game (and my mum managed to beat Ian in one game and my aunt in the other so she was very pleased).

Day 29 I finally got around to buying the sewing machine I've been wanting for years. I've started simple and inexpensive so that if it doesn't work out, it's no big deal - but I've also started with a purple machine, so for me, it's perfect! 

Day 30 shows how we solved the takeaway problem. The reason we've had so much takeaway is that there is no food in the house, and no enthusiasm to go shopping. So, we've finally decided to go with online shopping. I'll miss being able to select my own meat and bread and although I enjoy looking for bargains meat and fish counters, if it means we actually cook and don't go crazy on takeaway, it's not a bad thing.

Week 4 Photo Challenge

Apologies for being a bit behind posting these, but at least I've actually remembered to take the photos! Plus, I took another look at my day zero list and I actually put that I need to blog once a month, not once a week, so I'm doing better than I planned already! 

Day 17's photo shows the preparation needed to pull of such an amazing rainbow party with our shopping list - if you look carefully you'll see just how many eggs the rainbow cake called for! 

Day 18 would have been a sneak preview into the rainbow jelly if I'd posted this earlier! 

Day 19 shows the amazing carpet at my friends house. It's so thick and fluffy, and you can lose things in it! I think it'd make an interesting desktop wallpaper. 

Day 20 was the last day of preparation before the rainbow party and everything went without hiccup except for the orange layer of the rainbow cake which decided to disintegrate. The layers of the cake were intentionally thin so that the rainbow cake wouldn't be gigantic but it did make it a slightly more delicate process when moving and assembling the cakes. Thankfully the damage wasn't too bad and I could stick it back together with the icing. 

Day 21 was a day of many photos but I decided to feature one from after the party for the challenge. My friend brought along some rainbow glow sticks that attached together to make a circle so after everyone had left we had fun spinning it round in the dark and trying to capture it on the camera. I'm not quite there yet with my camera, it may be purple but it is also quite complicated if trying to do something unusual instead of just using auto. This is another thing on my to do list so hopefully I'll get better at the photo taking. Hopefully Ian will get better at spinning stuff without letting go and nearly taking out the cake too! 

Day 22 sees us ignoring the clear instructions on our new lego set and assembling it on the carpet! We're such rebels. This was a much simpler set to the ones we do at new years so it didn't take long to put together but it was good fun and now we have lego pigs! 

Day 23's picture wouldn't have had such a terrible description if I'd written about it on the day I took the photo. This is because on the 23rd, I didn't know that the pizza we had would be the first takeaway in a run of five nights of takeaway! I'm so ashamed! (Week 5 will bring good news on this front though so don't worry, I'm doing better now).