31st January 2010

What can I say about January , it started with snow and is leaving us with snow, and I absolutely loved it , so pretty.



There have been happy times and sad times .



There has been lots of cooking which is going to continue along with Simones Friday Cake Bake. The Rachel Allen cookbook is still with me and has been renewed at the library, I did tell them they weren't getting it back !! I found her website too, go check out the recipes . I'd love to here if you make anything and then you can give me some pointers , can't you ?



There has been some knitting although the things I showed you here, still look exactly the same .



This gorgeous pussy willow is all that is left from the bouquet I recieved .

I'd also like to thank everyone for staying with me and for all the advice and hints and tips given over the past 31 days, you are all stars.

So now I'm saying bye bye to January -- see you again next year.

30th January 2010

I had a full post planned for today starting with how when I went to bed last night the sky was grey and it was freezing, when I woke at 2am my bedroom was bright pink and outside there was a huge snowstorm and I mean huge ..... which resulted in about 6" of snow this morning -- of course the boys thought it was great.
I was also going to take you on a trip to my favourite shop but I'm going to save that for another day......... why have I changed my mind you might ask, well I'll tell you

The moon , have you seen the moon tonight - absolutely gorgeous and huge. The first full and the biggest and brightest moon of the year, it's what they call the Wolf Moon.





I took these pictures about 6.30pm this evening , apologies for the bluriness ( is that a even a word ?) Apparantly it's also the best night to see Mars too , and I don't mean the chocolate bar !!

This one I just ran to the front door and took and it's 9.45pm --- brrrr shivers



If you are interested the next full moon is February 28th and it's called the Ice Moon..

29th January 2010

Is it just me or has this month just totally flown by ? I can't believe in 2 days time I will have completed a full month of posting every day and then I will have to decide if I am going to continue on through February or not - what do you think , would you like me to?
Some days thinking of things to talk about has been quite hard but soon I will be starting my sewing month and there will definately be more crafty things to talk about. I've finished knitting a couple of little things this month but can't show you yet as I am waiting for a ball of yarn to come through the post so I can actually finish the set - I don't want to show you just bits you see. You are intrigued now aren't you, I can tell .... chuckle.

So today is Friday and Friday means Simones Friday Cake Bake and I have to say her Chocolate Fudge Cake puts me to shame !!
I went for a really hard option today ......



Coconut macaroons with chocolate bits , one of the easiest things to do it has to be said , but once again I didn't get them quite right. I added a bit too much egg white and they are sooooo sticky , tasty but sticky. My report card would say - needs to try harder . Better get the cook books out for next weeks effort.

I did mention the other day that I recieved an award and this is it, lovely isn't it.



This is the Sunshine Award and it was sent to me by Sharon from Bliss Knits . Now this award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspires others in the blog world... WOW, fancy that, little old me an inspiration, brought a big smile to my face I can tell you. Thank you so much Sharon.
There are rules to go with this award and here they are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or within your post;

2. Pass the award onto 12 bloggers;

3. Link the nominees within your post;

4. Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog;

5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

I would find it impossible to pick just 12 as there are so many inspirational people out there so what I am going to say is if you have commented on any of my posts since January 1st then consider this award yours.

See you tomorrow ...

28th January 2010

Yesterday I mentioned Carbonara ...... so just for Anna here is the recipe. It really is the simplest sauce to make and yes I did make Eton Mess with the egg whites with a little help from my neighbours electric whisk....... they were both yummmmmmyyyy.



One thing I need to ask you guys though, because you bloggers are a fountain of knowledge is this.....
A lot of recipes in this book use cream and as we know this can be rather bad for the old waistline. Now I've heard that cream can be replaced by either creme fraiche or fromage frais which is a bit lower in calories. Is this true, can cream be replaced in all recipes or just certain ones or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether?
Help.................................

27th January 2010

The last two days have been a bit hard here in the Periwinkle household . Hub is now booked on a flight to Ireland leaving very early tomorrow and won't be back until Saturday. Thank you so much for all your kind words, it really means a lot to us.

I did have a few posts planned but seem to have lost my way a little .... I was going to talk about the boys favourite book at the minute and tell you all about the carbonara I made which was deeeeelicious even though I say so myself, and ask a few questions about cooking. I've also been given an award from Sharon over at Bliss Knits , which I really appreciate , thank you.

Tomorrow, back to normal .................

26th January 2010

For Hubs Gran who passed away in the early hours of this morning.

R.I.P. Aggie x

25th January 2010

I am at a complete loss at what to write today, the weather has been grey, grey , grey - a bit like my brain I think.
I made potato gloop for tea , in other words mashed potato gone wrong , how I managed that I have no idea!
I tried to take some pics of my knitting but because of the light they looked awful so I'll try again tomorrow , fingers crossed.
So I'm going to show you a picture I've shown you before , on the 25th January 2009 to be exact. My first snowdrop of 2009 - I do so hope they will still be there in 2 years time.....

24th January 2010

We decided to celebrate Hubs birthday today instead of yesterday and his choice of things to do was to go for a walk in the woods, Chopwell Woods to be precise ,oh how I love these woods.



There were logs all piled up along the paths where they had been doing some thinning so we counted how old the trees were and made patterns from the rings . Can you see the flower top right?



Last time we were here we had somehow missed this carving, what a beauty





and what an awesome view it looks out upon.



Apparantly this is a good spot to see Red Kite but unfortunately we didn't see any, maybe next time.
We did find dinosaur eggs though -- wow



It was a lovely family day , despite the mud



You all know how much I love my trees ...........



Oh, and I've started knitting again -- yeah

23rd January 2010

Just a short one today , Happy Birthday to my Hub, sorry your day didn't turn out as it should have ...............



Love you x

22nd January 2010

Last week when I was doing a bit of blog reading I noticed that Simone was having a Friday Cake Bake, so not really needing an excuse to bake a cake I signed up.



So this morning me and my little helper set to work.



Although he thought eating the spoon was more fun !



And I have no idea as to why he has taken to scrunching his face up every time the camera points in his direction!!



Rice crispy cakes do count - don't they?

21st January 2010

You know, when you think about it, Blogging is quite a strange thing really. You open yourself up , express your thoughts both good and bad to what could potentially be thousands of people, show pictures of yourself, maybe your children and family, places you like to go and things you like to do, you build up friendships with many people from all around the world , sometimes with people you will never ever get to meet but dream that one day you might , you can chat maybe on a daily or weekly basis , presents can get sent back and forth and then one day you just disappear..... no blog update , nothing , just gone.

A few of my " friends" have disappeared over the past few months .... popular ladies, quite a few followers just vanished. Every so often I pop by to see if they have returned but nope, nothing. How long should you wait before you remove them from your blog lists ( that sounds awful doesn't it ). Sometimes family life gets in the way , sometimes it's work , could be anything really.

Last night I sadly removed about half a dozen friends from my list , sigh. I wish these people all the luck in the world and if you should ever return I will be more than happy to see you.

In my current list there are a few I read religiously but never comment on, I don't know why I just don't ............ one of them was a blog I found when I first started my own , when things are all shiny and new and you take those first tentative steps and pluck up the courage to comment on someone elses blog, I made a few remarks on this particular ladies blog and never ever got a reply , now don't get me wrong , I know in some cases it would be impossible to respond to every comment on every post... but just the odd - thank you, wouldn't go amiss,

Anyway, last night I went on the hunt for new friends , so many blogs on all different types of subjects - it really is amazing.

So I'm going to show you a few .. new to me Blogs .. that I found on my travels .

Andamento was the first one, I think the tree header first caught my attention, but it's a lovely little blog , what I think of as a family blog, with snippets from family , homelife and crafting too, oh, and she makes the most gorgeous leaded items too


( image from Andamento )

Next up was Sixty One A, once again I think it was the header that caught me and if you like things nautical and beachy with family and just sheer gorgeousness thrown in then I strongly suggest you pop on over and check it out




( both images from Sixty One A )

Then there is Dream Country Chat - I just adore where this lady lives and her style of writing and I would gladly sit down for jam and bread here any day


(image from Dream Country Chat )

Lastly we'll go visit Hardaker and Pope, check out the fabrics


(image from Hardaker and Pope)

One thing I noticed about these four in particular is their freshness and although they have all been going for a while now aren't cluttered if that makes sense , and they all have lovely headers. Hopefully these " new to me " blogs might soon become " new to you " blogs too.

20th January 2010

I've just realised that I haven't really kept you up to speed with my cooking attempts have I --- naughty me.



To be honest though there isn't really a lot to tell. I've managed okay ( sort of ) one complete and utter mess up was the chicken and coconut curry, which took forever to prepare and make due to the fact that I forgot to defrost the chicken stock and the fact that the sauce just wouldn't thicken. The boys were getting restless and grouchy as they were hungry and then I started to get stressed -- enter Hub to the rescue with a bit of flour . It got a bit thicker but it looked more like a curry soup than anything else. It tasted okay , I suppose. At this point Hub politely pointed out that perhaps I was taking on too much too soon and that it might be better to try a new recipe maybe once or twice a week instead of every night........... I think he was right . Tonight it's pork meatballs with spaghetti in tomato sauce.



When I set out on this little journey of a post a day for a month I didn't really think how hard it was going to be,, maybe I should have as my posts are getting more random each day and goodness knows what they will be like by next week!! I have the utmost respect for all you Bloggers out there who post every day and make it sound fun and interesting.



The pictures are just odd ones I took yesterday on the walk to school and of the hyacinth on our kitchen windowsill. It's weird the way that they have grown as they were all planted at the same time and have been moved about on the sill so they all got sufficient light but they have decided to grow in stages .... smell nice though .

19th January 2010

I strongly suggest that when you are as tired as I was yesterday you don't attempt to try knitting something that you have never done before..

it doesn't look too bad here



and the knitting in the round thing isn't too bad once you get into the swing of it ,

then you look at it a bit more closely



hmmmm, doesn't look like it's supposed to



frogged...............................

Gabe did sleep again last night , so maybe just maybe I might cast on and try again tonight!!

18th January 2010

So tired today , someone , not mentioning any names ....



decided he wasn't going to sleep much last night , someone decided to wake up and stay awake just shouting in his bed for nearly three and a half hours , mammy I need a cuddle, mammy my blankets have come out , did he shout for Pops , oh no, not once ..... THREE AND A HALF HOURS !!! Yet today he still managed to run around and act like he had had a full nights sleep whereas I needed matchsticks to keep my eyes open...... and that's why I've ordered a takeaway for tea .
Fingers crossed tonight he will stay asleep.......... please!!!!

17th January 2010

Ok , I'll give the 80's thing up as a bad job with a big thank you to my 3 commenters.....

Instead I'll show you a few pics from today .......... Milo was at a friends birthday party so I took Gabe to the park to feed " the ducks". The pond was still mostly frozen so we were inundated with seagulls and pigeons ...... I thought it would be fun to try and attempt to take some photos of seagulls in flight.













it's not easy throwing a piece of bread up with one hand and trying to grab a picture with the other .

16th January 2010

Well ( chuckle ) looks like yesterdays post went down like a ton of bricks !!!

Are you guys trying to tell me that you don't like 80's films or was it the vampire thing? Come on , I don't believe it , what about ermmmm

St Elmo's Fire



or The Breakfast Club



Ferris Buellers Day Off



Pretty In Pink, Mannequin, Back To The Future............... the list of classic 80's films goes on and on.

Or........ do you think different??

Notice, I didn't even touch upon vampire films ................ yet..

15th January 2010

Oooops , sitting here watching Private Practice and having an argument on Facebook about vampires with someone I don't even know when I realised I hadn't done todays post.

This friend of a friend , thinks that Lost Boys although a classic was lame and, and then says that Buffy started off the " vegetarian brooding vampire / werewolf/ witch thing ". Now I'm sorry but as much as I love Buffy , Angel and watched nearly every episode we all know that there were soooo many other vampire films/books that had brooding non human drinking vampires with werewolves and witches , what about Anne Rice or Dark Shadows ......... yes, I know everyone is entitled to their own opinion but ooh she rattled my cage .. can you tell?



I mean Lost Boys.............. come on " Death by stereo " is definately not lame !!