Blissed out

I've been busy - honest

It's been a busy week and I've just come out of a very 'cocooning' period of not doing very much at all so it's taken it out of me a bit to be honest.

I had a lovely weekend last week at my gorgeous friends who've just moved to Heswall on the Wirral. Not only are they the kind of friends that are restorative to be around and make you feel as though everything you do is not only OK but absolutely wonderful, they also have the most beautiful house in the world.  It has tons of light coming in from a multitude of skylights, and has a fantastic view overlooking the river.  Oh, and they fed us really well!

We went for a lovely walk on Saturday and ate a whole load of cake. I'd taken some amended lemon cupcakes - thank you soooo much for the advice on frosting.  The full fat makes much better frosting than the low fat I'd been using. 

Cole and I experimented and came up with some berry cupcakes too - fluffier than the lemon with berries stirred into the batter.  I just need some ideas for frosting because neither the cream cheese or the butter cream seemed to work that well.  Answers on a postcard please as the kids TV presenters used to say!

We took about 20 over there only to find that my friend had made the most fabulous carrot cake.  I'm a woman who knows good cake (I don't think I ever met one I didn't love!) and believe me, this was good cake!  So suffice to say, I ate a LOT of cake over the weekend - the diet re-started on Monday as it was fairly well shot to pieces in the face of all that!  Still, what's life without being able to enjoy cake?

Then on Sunday evening I went to see Radiohead with another friend and it was fantastic.  I've not been to a concert in ages and was a bit worried that, although I love the band, it might be a bit dour.  It was also forcast for rain and an open air concert - now isn't that a sign of age?  Worried that it might rain?  But thankfully it didn't - in fact the sun came out and the atmosphere was so joyous and upbeat that we had the best time.

One of the best things about the weekend was that both my friend on the Wirral, and my friend I went to the concert with have had multiple miscarriages and either now have a baby or are well into their pregnancies.  And I found that so healing and hopeful.  I'm still struggling a bit at work with my colleague but it is getting easier - I'm not wincing as much every time her pregnancy's mentioned (although I do still feel like I'm some awful pariah foretelling doom and misery when I'm around. A bit anyway.)

We've got the invitations printed for our wedding party.  I love them and thought that a few little sequins would set them off really well (and give them that slightly home made look which, as you know, I always love!) I just need to get them posted out now.  And I've ordered lots of tissue paper to make tissue pom poms for the hall. 

I'm slightly concerned about lighting - how do you light a hall (and it's a very basic church hall) that, as far as I know, has no accent or ambient lighting? (it's florescent strip lights or nothing from memory)  We've not got a huge budget (it's rather teeny actually!) and I've thought of having fairy lights on the tables in bowls and some net fairy lights hung on the walls but will this give off enough light once it goes dark?  I'm really struggling with this one so any help or advice will be really gratefully received.

I'm off on a course this weekend so more busy, busy.  Who knows, I might actually get time to do some sewing or knitting soon (fingers crossed!)

Jo x

Proud Of Myself

As a Brit and someone who's not been raised to feel proud of their achievements (why is it that pride is considered one of the deadly sins anyway?) it feels a bit strange to say I feel proud of myself. But I do.  As you know, I went back to work this week and faced my fears - my colleague who's pregnant.  And it was ...well, awful if I'm honest.  At least, it was at first.  In fact, the shock of seeing her with her nice round little bump (why was it a shock?  what did I expect her to look like?) was more painful and upsetting than I'd convinced myself if would be.  In fact, after only a couple of minutes in there I had to leave to lock myself in the loo and sobbed and sobbed.  You know when you're crying so much that you just can't imagine being able to pull yourself together?  It was that sort of crying.  But I somehow, eventually did managed to get it together and went back in. 

Last night I felt wiped out and honestly couldn't imagine being able to go back in there.  Seeing her made my heart break all over again thinking about what we'd lost.  This morning I cried the whole way into work.  But I managed to hold it together when I got in there.  And it wasn't as bad.  I had a few meetings, amazed myself at how professional I was able to be (I was actually competent!  Honestly, after nearly 2 months doing nothing more demanding than work out how to use bias tape I wasn't sure I'd still be able to hold a conversation!) And then I went back into my office and saw my colleague again.  And it was a bit easier still.  I forced myself to look at her lovely round bump and I managed it.  And it felt a bit easier again.  By the end of the day I knew I'd be able to handle it all.  I knew I'd be ok. 

And I'm proud of myself.  Because I was physically sick at the thought of doing something and I still managed to do it.  I still feel weird about it and can't say I love the idea of going in but I know I CAN do it and that makes me feel incredibly strong.

Lemon Cupcakes

I've been plotting and planning my wedding party in a month's time and whilst I'm still fuzzy about LOTS of the details, one thing I am sure about is that I'm having cupcakes - lots of cupcakes.  I'm going to do a tower of them so have been experimenting with flavors.  Today I tried lemon and they turned out really well.  I need to perfect the cream cheese frosting (it's a bit runny - but I used low fat cream cheese so maybe I need full fat instead) but otherwise they were most yummy.

The basic recipe is as follows and taken from the BBC good food magazine for basic cupcakes.  I then replaced the milk with plain non fat yogurt until it made a nice consistency and added some natural lemon essence, and some freshly grated lemon zest.  I'm an instinctive baker - a bit approximate with my measuring and they always seem to turn out ok so I'm sticking with it.  I tried the cakes out of John and 2 of my friends and the vote was a definite 'yes' so I just need to perfect the frosting.

Recipe:

125g butter

125g caster sugar

2 eggs

225 extra fine sponge flour

1tsp baking powder

50ml milk

50ml plain yogurt

Grated zest of 1 lemon

tsp natural lemon essence

Cream butter and sugar together and slowly add the egg.  When adding the final bit of egg, add a bit of the flour to prevent curdling.  Add the rest of the flour and baking powder and then the milk and yogurt (I find that I need to add the milk and yogurt towards the end of adding all of the flour - otherwise it goes a bit too stiff to mix well.) Then add the grated lemon zest and lemon essence - I've given amounts as a guide - you can add your own to taste.

Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases in a muffin tin and bake at 180c/Gas 4 for 20-25 minutes.

Cream Cheese frosting:

When the cakes are cool, mix some cream cheese with a few tablespoons of icing sugar and a few drops of lemon essence.  Mix until smooth and then add food coloring if you wish.  them smooth onto cakes and leave to 'set' in the fridge.  Eat and go 'Hmmmmm' a lot!

A great side effect of this was that Cole realised he liked the taste of lemon after all.  I quite often make sweet/cakey stuff with fruits that he says he doesn't like (but is actually just too nervous to try) and then tell him afterwards what was in them.  It's worked with raspberries, peaches and plums so far.  Then we settled down and watched Dr Who from Saturday - Oh my goodness!  I love it when it's getting to the end of the season - they always have such good finales and it looks like this one's going to be very exciting.  I'm not sure who enjoys it more - me or Cole!  And Catherine Tate was fantastic this week.

But all of this baking is playing havoc with my weight wathering - I've not lost anything this week and it's been a bit of a struggle sticking to my plan.  It really didn't help that yesterday we went to a birthday party where they had about 6 different types of cake - and as I never met a cake I didn't like, I felt obliged to try and little taste of each one, which probably added up to quite a lot of cake!  Crisps, chips, cheese and peanuts I can usually leave no problem but put a piece of cake in front of me and I'm a lilly livered weak willed big girls blouse!  There's something just so comforting about baking (and eating) lovely cake - plus the house smells so divine when there's lovely things baking in the oven.

I suppose I'm like many women (and I hate to generalize - I just know so many more women who have strong emotional connections to food then men) that I use food for so much more than sustenance.  I eat when I'm hungry yes, but also when I'm sad, anxious, happy, celebrating, tired, cold - I love to cook and to bake and to nurture both myself and my loved ones.  I eat healthy most of the time and I exercise regularly.  So I guess I'm pretty balanced.  I'm just struggling to lose the 10lbs I've put on over the past couple of years and would just like to feel like my weight was under control.  Still, I'm getting there, albeit slower than I would like and going back to work this week has been a big thing for me.  I was really anxious about it - I mean, really anxious.  I was imagining all sorts of terrible things happening and fortunately it wasn't nearly as bad as all that (are the things we worry about ever quite as bad as we imagine them to be?) So a bit of cake won't do me too much harm. 

I have to say a big thank you to the divine miss Twiggy Peasticks for the gorgeous sparkly card she sent me.

Not only is it a lovely thought but it's a totally beautiful card - look at the little stitches.  I'm a very lucky Missus.  Not if you'll excuse me, the cakes are a calling ...

Jo x

What a difference 5 months makes

I'm on a making 'roll' now!  I found this duvet cover in a charity shop when I collected Cole from school on Tuesday (£2- bargain!) and thought it would make a nice pair of lounge pants.  After getting Amy Butler's In Stitches book for Christmas, I made my first foray into clothes making back in January when I only had a JML Easystitch to work with.  The pattern is super easy but back in February I was so inexperienced they took me 3 nights to do (and that was working 3 or 4 hours each night!) 

But that sense of pride at making something that was actually wearable - and looked good was addictive and I was hooked.  I'm still very much a beginning seamstress but this time the pants took me just over an hour - an hour to make!


They're also super comfortable to wear and perfect for those sloppy weekend days where you don't get dressed before noon (OK, more like 4!) and they're not quite PJ's so I don't feel embarrassed wearing them to put the washing out.

This weekend I've got a stinking cold but at least feel like I'm more of my old self - I've done all of the work I needed to do (albeit at home) for my 'proper' job, and I've got a Uni assignment which I'm determined to get finished this weekend. 

It's nice to be using my brain again and crafting has slotted nicely back into it's lovely place of creating to relax, chill, release and zen out.

I hope you're weekend treats you well too. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to lounge!

Jo x

Sewing Gifts

I've finally made something!  i don't know what's been going on with me for the past couple of weeks since I've got back from holiday/honeymoon but I've just not have the umph to make anything.  My creative muse seemed to be having a nice long nap!  I've got quite a few WIPs but they weren't floating my boat for some reason.  I've been pretty preoccupied about going back to work so that's been taking a lot of my mental energy.  I think I'd developed a bit of a phobia about going in.  I've been off for 8 weeks - a long time by anyone's standards.  Every time I thought about going back I got panicky and tearful - not a great reaction.  But I knew I couldn't stay off forever (I thought about leaving believe me but there's that pesky mortgage that needs paying!)

But it was one of my closest friend's birthday's and I knew she'd really liked the Amy Butler bags I'd made recently so I made her one of her own. 

She's quite into color analysis and is an 'autumn' so the colors in this Belle print are perfect for her. 

I added the teal satin ribbon and some vintage brass buttons which seemed to compliment the brown in the fabric - and it's another excuse to use (and therefore have to buy more!) buttons - well, you can never have too many!

I went round with a gooey chocolate cake, some flowers and some pampery stuff last night (and the bag of course) and we had a really nice girly night.

And making the bag obviously woke up my creative side because I've been busy all evening tonight making.  I've been trying to 'refashion' a sweater I'd bought a while ago in a charity shop but it's just not working!  And I spend ages trying to work out how to bind the monkey baby quilt I'd started before I went away. I've not used bias tape before and (I feel completely dim for admitting this) I couldn't work out how to get it to work AT ALL!  Eventually I did a google search and did an audible DOH! when I realized just how blinking obvious it is to use (sometimes my brain is not logical at all - it's almost scary!) 

But it's nice to get creative again and having the urge to make things.  I've got a weekend without Cole coming up and although I've got a ton of Uni work to do but I might be able to squeeze in a bit of chill out time too.