Been Having a Whale of a Time!

The year has got off to an amazing and busy start!

I turned 40 and I will do a whole post about the amazing day I had but here are a couple of highlights:



Cocktails after work the day before my birthday.



Homemade birthday cake, thank you Mrs GottaCraft, at my crop (how great to have a crop on my actual birthday!).



Monday saw me handing my notice in at work. Yes I have a new job and yes I'm very excited.



On Tuesday I was very spontaneous and went to Paul's for dinner. Yes I know a 212 mile round trip is a bit excessive for dinner but he thought it was a 'fantastic surprise' so it was well worth it.



Wednesday saw me recovering from my trip to Paul's but Thursday was crop day so I was playing with paper and glue.



Friday was boring but Saturday was busy. I helped my friend move in the morning, what a work out that was!



In the afternoon I was back at Paul's and scrapping. He picked the title for this layout which, I hasten to add, will be going on his wall not in my album! :)



Sunday was great and me and Paul spent it together watching films while I scrapped, bliss.

Now it's Monday and back to work :(

I hope your week goes well.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

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My Week

Well it has certainly whizzed by and I can hardly believe how quickly it went.  I'm pleased I've been able to take  photos every day and I'm hoping I can keep it up for the whole year.

Here's how my week shaped up:

 Monday I took the Christmas decs down and had a spring clean while Maddie put her feet up!

 Tuesday I was back to work but found time in the evening to bake Paul a marzipan fruit cake.

 Wednesday I found time after work to go to the pub with Lauren.

 And Paul arrived for a few days.

 Thursday I went to a crop and scrapped this cute photo of Maddie at Christingle.

 It's one of my favourite photos of her.

 Friday me and Paul went to bingo and both had a little win which was nice.

 Saturday was my friend Sarah's 40th birthday and we had fun playing Abba Just Dance.

 I beat her...twice. She blamed her superior age because she is a week older!

 Sunday and I had a lazy day of scrapping.

Maddie had a pained grin rather than a smile in this photo!

I hope you've had a fun week, dashing off to watch the amazing Sherlock now.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Experimentation

Happy Wednesday to you.

I normally like to do lots of baking in the run up to Christmas but because of all the crazy knitting I was doing I just didn't have the time.  This has changed now that Christmas is over and I have been baking a few bits and pieces.  Last night, for instance, I quickly knocked up the Nigella marzipan Christmas cake.  I did it because Paul's coming tonight and we didn't get a Christmas together so we're going to make up for that now.  I can't tell you how nice the kitchen smelt while it was baking and I may just have to make a few Christmas things throughout the year now :)

Anyway, the week after Christmas I found a couple of apples at the bottom of the fridge that Maddie refused to eat (she's like that if they've been there for more than a day) so I put my thinking cap on and came up with this:

 An apple cinnamon cake!

I beat together 6oz of butter and 6oz caster sugar then I added 3 beaten eggs a bit at a time.  I folded in 6oz of self raising floor, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp of vanilla essence.  I put half of the mixture into a cake tin, grated 2 Braeburn apples over it then put the rest of the mixture in.  I baked it at 180 for about 35 minutes and left it to cool.  Once it was cool I drizzled icing, made of 4oz icing sugar, 1 tbsp of lemon juice and enough water to make it a but runny.

And it was delicious.  Maddie doesn't like cooked fruit and neither does my friend Clare but they soon wolfed it down!  It made a light alternative to a cake filled with butter icing and I hope some of  you may try it yourselves.

Today, in keeping up with being spontaneous, I went to the pub after work!  Now I'm off to get ready before Paul arrives.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you're all well
Jo xx

Happy New Year - 2012

We had a very quiet New Years Eve, just me, Maddie and Alfie.  We toasted the New Year in with a Calypso coffee, cup of tea and a slurp of water!

I love seeing in the New Year, it feels like such a fresh start, and this year is certainly a biggy for us here at Buckingham's Palace.  I turn 40 in less than two weeks and Maddie is 18 in June, I can't believe how quickly the time has gone!

I haven't really made any resolutions this year, just a few things that I want to concentrate on:

1. I want to manage my time better.
2. I want to put myself first more.
3. I want to read more - my reading has slipped a bit since I stopped getting the bus and started walking to work.
4. Be more spontaneous, I am already quite spontaneous but I want to take it to another level this year.


Talking of being spontaneous, I started yesterday - how good it that? Paul saw the New Year in at Disneyland Paris, how lovely I hear you say but I can assure you it's awful.  I worked there at New Year for five years and it is freezing.  You would be totally surprised (maybe) and gobsmacked (possibly) if I tell you the amount of parents who take their children to Disneyland Paris, at New Year and don't think they'll need a coat!  Do they think that the sunshine in Disneyland Florida is provided by Disney and they'll be afforded the same weather in Paris?  It always ends in tears (and blue lips) before midnight.  Anywhoo I have totally digressed.  Paul was returning to the UK yesterday and was having to make a stop at Clacket Lane services, a mere 50 minute drive from me!  What did the new, spontaneous Jo do?  She hopped in the car just to spend a mere 30 minutes with her man, not only that but she remembered to take a photo so she could write all about it in her Document 2012 album!

 A bit dark but he looks so handsome in his uniform!

Yesterday I cracked on with my JYC album and managed the first 8 days!

 While Alfie laid on the sofa next to me, I think Christmas and New Year have exhausted him - typical man, didn't do any work but still had to have lots of naps! :)

I hope your New Year got off to a great start.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Where Have I Been?

I know I have been AWOL for a while and this is why.  I have a skill, one that I have mastered to a fine art, this skill is called procrastination! Back in April or May I decided to knit my friend a cardigan for Christmas, I'd already knitted her the matching hat and she loved it so this year I was going for the biggy, the cardigan.  I was very organised and bought the wool in July and then finally got my needles out two weeks before Christmas, yes TWO WEEKS!!!  I was doing a full day at work and coming home and knitting until 2 or 3 in the morning to get it done, hence why I've been so quiet on here.

 Was the midnight knitting worth it? Yes it was because she loved it:

I was also busy baking because we decided to have a Christmas bake off at work, this is a cake from Gemma which looked absolutely fantastic:

 Alison made these unusual meringue topped cupcakes:

 I made coffee cupcakes and came second in the competition!

Alfie enjoyed trying to guess what was in my crop advent swap, I really was spoilt with some beautiful stash that I can't wait to use.

 This year was the first year that there was only me and Maddie for Christmas morning, lucky Paul is away in Austria.  We had a lovely, quiet morning before sound levels rose to epic proportions when we went to my 'beautiful' sister, Jemma's, for Christmas dinner:

 Isn't she a knock out?!?! I even managed to appear in some photos this year and here I am with my sisters Jessica and Jemma:

 And with one of my brothers, Jon - my other brother Jamie is in Thailand.

 Maddie joined in with the fun at Jon's playing on the Wii Just Dance Abba with one of my nephews, Archie:

 And then she found time for a picture with her old mum:

 My nephew Jack had had far too much excitement for the day and crashed on the sofa, amidst all the noise and chaos:

 And finally my sister in law, Lisa, the real dancing queen of the night.  All she kept saying as she was dancing the night away was that these pictures better not appear anywhere!  Well we won't tell her will we?!?! :)

The only downside is that my 90 year old grandad got taken to hospital with chest pains on the Friday before Christmas (I promise you he's not the Duke of Edinburgh) I did mention how he was trying to keep up with the Royals though!  Thankfully he is doing ok at the moment and further tests on Wednesday will hopefully tell us what the problem was.

I hope that you all had an amazing Christmas, ate lots, smiled lots and spent time with the people you loved. 

Right now I'm only 27 days behind on my Journal Your Christmas and I have about 4000 blog posts to read so I guess that's what I'll be doing for the rest of the year :)

Thanks for stopping by, can't wait to blog hop and see what you've all been doing.

Jo xx

Story Telling Sunday: A New Word for Christmas!

I had a eureka moment the other day.  I heard a song that reminded me of something and I thought, at last, I have an apt story for Sian's Story Telling Sunday!

This is part of the song I heard:

When Santa got stuck up the chimney

he began to shout

"You girls and boy won't get any toys

until you let me out"

And here's my story:

When Maddie was in nursery she was taught lots of different songs. One Christmas she came home singing a new song she'd learnt, all about Santa getting stuck up a chimney.  She sang it for me but she used a word I'd never heard before, a word that she had created, and I think it's a perfect word for Christmas.  Here is Maddie's version of the song:

When Santa got stuck up the chimney

he began to shout

"You girls and boys won't get any toys
untince you let me out"

How fantastic and very festive is her made up word?!? I could do nothing to convince her that the word she was meant to say was 'until' and, even now at the age of seventeen, she tells me that it is a word that exists!

Yes Maddie, it is a word that exists, a very special word in OUR Christmas vocabulary and I love it.

I hope you like my tale, I hope that your December has got off to a good start and I hope you'll pop over to Sian's and see the other stories and even tell one of your own.

Thanks for stopping by

Jo xx

December's Here

And so are my advent presents!

This year I've finally decided to join in the advent swap with the girls at my crop. A present a day for 25 days, can't be bad!

As I'm still stuck in my sick bed Santa's Little Helper delivered my parcel today because I missed the little get together they had the other evening. It looks gorgeous:


How cute is that and how cute is this?:


It's full of lovely gifts:


And, when I feel better and can really enjoy it, I shall start opening them :) thank you Santa.

It's nearly the weekend and, if I'm well enough, I shall be putting up the tree.

Hope your week is going well
Jo xx

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