My List Of Things To Do Before I'm 40!

by 31 Comments

Recently, I read this post from Two Point Four Children about the things that she wanted to do before she turns forty. It rang a chord with me and (despite commenting to someone earlier that I don't do goal lists or to-do lists) it made me question what I would like to do by the time I hit the big 4-0 in six years time.

When I was 25 I set some targets that were unfair on myself and didn't allow for the return home and almost starting my career again. Therefore, these targets are going to be (mostly) small and realistic, achievable and attainable. And there may be some ridiculous ones in there:

So I'll get the biggy out the way first and then carry on more sensibly:

  1. Have another child
  2. Train myself to go to bed by 11pm
  3. Train The Boy not to wake up before 7am
  4. Lay the floor in the porch (it's been concrete since it was built in April last year!) (March 2012)
  5. Finally get rid of all the rubbish in the attic
  6. Get my dad or husband to finish glazing the greenhouse with perspex not glass
  7. Lose the weight I've gained over past ten years and get down to the weight I was when we married
  8. Redecorate the kitchen
  9. Read that stack of books (that's growing) in my bedroom
  10. Sort out the second bedroom so it's not a dumping ground and is actually a bedroom
  11. Grow vegetables in the garden
  12. Learnt how to use the manual settings on my DSLR (Getting there, November 2012)
  13. Developed a healthy and successful relationship with the ironing pile
  14. Pay off my car loan
  15. Pay off other loans
  16. Learn to be tidy and not slovenly
  17. Start piano lessons (we already have a piano)
  18. Read Pride and Prejudice
  19. Go to see Father Christmas in Lapland
  20. Learn how to ride a bike (shut up you at the back who's laughing!) or at least manage to pedal it for further than 100 yards without falling off or crashing.

The original post had forty items listed and I'm not sure if that was related to the age set, but I need to be realistic because I'm rubbish at fulfilling objectives. I'll update this list as and when I achieve them!

I'm going to tag the following people to write a list of things to do before they hit their next decade (not just forty). They then need to copy the url of their post back into the linky tool on Two Point Four Children's post.

  1. Mummy Mishaps
  2. The Crazy Kitchen
  3. Reluctant Housedad
  4. Coombe Mill
  5. Mummy Central
  6. Not My Year Off
  7. Mum 2 Four
  8. Susan K Mann
  9. EdSpire
  10. HonieBuk

Winter Warmers

by 20 Comments

I like love Winter when it's cold and frosty, the sun is shining and the sky is blue, the grass crunches with frost underfoot and the birds are tweeting in the skeletal trees. And, despite the past week where it's been grim and grey, today it was just like that! We went to Roath Park in Cardiff for The Boy to practise some more on his balance bike, we fed the swans and the ducks, we froze our little noses and ears off, and then we went to soft-play.

Then we came home, had a little rest and I made a dinner ready for Nana and Grandad to join us. I decided on some serious warming food for a seriously Wintery day! Vegetable stew and dumplings, followed by this little beauty:

Plum, Pear & Apple Cobbler

Ingredients:
Serves 4-6

  • 500g plums, stoned & quartered
  • 300g Bramley apples, peeled, cored & sliced
  • 160g caster sugar
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 300g self raising flour, sifted
  • 85g unsalted butter, cubed
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3 tbsp milk
  • 150g Rachel’s Low Fat Natural Bio Live Yogurt

Method:

  1. In a saucepan take the plums, apple slices, 100g of the caster sugar and add the water, cook until the plums and apples soften. Tip: leave the fruit to cool before adding the cobbler pieces this will stop some of the fruit bubbling out over the dish.
  2. To make the cobbler, add the sifted flour, butter, baking powder and the remainder of the sugar (60g) and using a food processor or mixer whiz together for a few seconds on pulse speed until fine crumbs form.
  3. Add the milk and yogurt and whiz again until a soft dough forms . You can either spoon the mixture in scattered clumps over the fruit or add a little more flour and roll out the dough using a cutter. Leave some gaps for the cobble effect.
  4. Bake the cobbler for 30-35 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit is visibly bubbling beneath.

It was seriously gorgeous. As discussed with @Jessies_online, I am not a fan of fruit crumble but this was gorgeous! The pear made the fruit much more mild, and the yoghurt in the dough topping made it rise beautifully which meant it was light and fluffy. I thoroughly recommend trying some of the gorgeous Rachel's Organics  yoghurts, but in a cake or dough mixture.

I was supplied with some samples of Rachel's Organics products to try this recipe.

366 #2

by

I was overwhelmed with last week's response; I had no idea that so many of you were doing a Project 366 or Project 52 this year. Keep at it, this first month is the hardest until you build a routine.

There is a Facebook group in order to help support those taking part in this photography project and to help build a sense of community. We've made it a closed group so that not every Tom, Dick or Harry can see the content but if you'd like to join just click the 'ask to join group' button in the top right hand corner of the page.

Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.

Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries, and if you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!

ShowOff ShowCase

Where Has He Gone?

by 19 Comments

So today has been the first time that The Boy has been looked after by anyone other me, Mr. TheBoyandMe or my mother. It has been a monumental moment for me, not so much for anyone else, or it seems, for The Boy. Today, he started in playgroup.

Last night I dreamt that people were trying to take him from me, that they were trying to prove that I was unfit to be his mum. I slept fitfully as a result. Luckily, The Boy chose last night to have terrible teething pain and as a result he ended up in bed with us, so I was able to hold him and reassure myself that he wasn't going anywhere.

We've led up to this point by reading him a personalised 'Peppa Pig & The Boy start at playgroup' book, and last night he argued with daddy that he didn't want to build blocks in playgroup (like the him in the book) but that he wanted to paint. Result! This morning I explained to him that he would be staying there and playing with Little Miss Chatty (his friend) while I did shopping. I showed him his bag and explained that he needed to ask the ladies if he needed the loo.

I don't know why I was worried. He confidently strode into playgroup, looked around for Little Miss Chatty (who wasn't there yet) and started playing with the easel. I told him I was going shopping, kissed him and was kicked out politely by the nursery nurses.

I went shopping. I sat in Starbucks for twenty minutes. I checked my phone every thirty seconds. I came home and wrote a blog-post. I rushed out the door and raced into the building to pick him up. The Boy, was helping the ladies to stack the chairs and move them. When he saw me, he ran across the hall with the biggest smile on his face and leapt into my arms. We had an enormous cuddle while they reassured me that he'd only cried when his bike wobbled, he'd asked to go to toilet and had been a good boy who'd had a marvellous time.

When did this boy…

…become this one?