Work in progress....

Poor me.  I am having such a blah day.  No reason really, 'cept I'm feeling on the sluggish, fat side and I turn 38 next week which is really not that far away from 40.  Poor me.  Play the violins.  I should probably not have eaten the entire wee tub of chocolate covered proper fresh raspberries that I bought home from Tassie with me.  Or the marshmallow chocolate snowballs from the chocolate factory.

 

Something that always makes me feel better is to pleasantly waste the day away on Pinterest looking at pretty things. 

 

I came across this pretty thing recently and knew straight away it would be perfect for my brother's as yet unborn baby of no known sex!

 

I loved the greys, the yellow and the black in it and am shamelessly copying the beautiful colour palette that Vicki has produced in this blanket.

 

The pattern is called Sunny Spread and is really simple to follow and looks amazing as a finished square.  It has this quite funky stitch called a front post treble crochet where you make your treble behind a previous stitch which then creates the ridges you see on the square!  Very fancy!

 

 

 

 

 

Has anyone ever actually tried crocheting with black wool?!  Well nigh impossible!  Wear glasses!  And have a good light right behind you!  And squint!

 

 

 

So far I have only done the border on one circle just to see what she looks like and I think it's marvellous!  It may need blocking though as they all have a tendency to curl up on themselves.

Sad Sundays

You know those days when you wake up in the morning and you're already in a poop of a mood? 

That was me today.

It starts with a late night, over indulging on garlic bread which you wake up still tasting and then finding your three your olds little head sharing your pillow while you lay curled on your side on the edge of your bed, any sudden movement leaving you on the carpet at your bedside.

Your mood worsens as you end up standing in the freezing cold wind for over an hour watching U8's football.  Instead of being involved in the game in any way, shape or form, your child is the one who spends the entire game jumping in mud, playing with his socks and taking his mouthguard in and out, eleventy billion times!  Let's not forget the other two charming small people attached to your legs also bemoaning the freezing cold wind, their boredom and the lack of worthwhile food items.

Frankly I felt worse because it must have been Peppy Parent Day today as every other parent seemed so happy and proud of their poppets, cheering and clapping at every touch of the ball while all I wanted to do was screech across the football oval to leave his fucking socks alone, stay out of the goddamn mud and at least pretend to be interested in the bloody game!!!!

Kinder maintenance this afternoon had in no way improved my mood.  Taking cold grumpy children and a jumpy puppy to pre school to help sweep and clean was a wild mistake.  Their enthusiasm for raking waned after five minutes, poor Milo freaked the other families' little boy out and again there was a lack of worthwhile food items!  I find it hilarious that out of six families rostered on for the weekend only two managed to show up. 

My Sad (whingy whiney) Sunday is now being Vastly Improved by this large and delicious pepperminty Haighs chocolate frog, a wee bit more random granny joining and for my viewing pleasure The Mentalist and Castle.  For the ad breaks I have the sweet new Mollie Makes magazine at my side!  All the grouchy tired people are in bed, including the husband (who's snoring I can hear from the other end of the house!) so the best bit is I don't have to bloody share with anyone!!!!

First world problems really are so easily solved!

Have you had a Sad Sunday or have you had a Super Sunday?

My coffee date.

I have been having a coffee date each Wednesday morning with my middle guy.  This is only going to last for the first school term though as he eases his way into Prep (the school gives them the day off).  We normally just duck into a cafe for a quick coffee and a milkshake but we took it to the next level this morning and went to Max Brenner and oh my goodness!  Indulgence and half!

Chocolate milkshake which was literally just melted chocolate in a cup! and a decorate your own biscuit tray!  The boy and I were in seventh heaven!

Choc chips and sweetened condensed milk

I think the only thing to do after having a tantrum filled morning today was to bake

 and these are the yummiest choc chip cookies ever!  I always tend to eat way too much cookie mixture before they even make it into the oven!  Apart from the choc chips, I think the reason lies with the sweetened condensed milk.  I've had a fond relationship with sweetened condensed milk since my Grade 8 school camp where we went to a place called Digaloo (!!!! and yes, you really did have to dig a loo if you needed to go, which I didn't for the 3 days we were there...) and were encouraged to do our own grocery shopping for the event.  I believe my groceries consisted of chocolate, yoghurt (which of course went off) and several tubes of sweetened condensed milk!

This makes bunches if you keep your cookie balls a reasonable size.

250g butter, at room temperature

2 tsp vanilla essence

2/3 cup caster sugar

200ml of sweetened condensed milk

2 1/2 cups SR flour

375grams of choc bits

Line some baking trays with baking paper and heat up your oven to arround 180.  Using your electric mixer cream the buitter, sugar, vanilla and sweetened condensed milk till its well combined.  Add the flour and choc bits and roll into nice balls.  Pop them on your trays, give them a little press with a fork and bake away for around 12-14 minutes.  Let them cool a bit on the tray before transferring them to a wire rack.

Eat 1 or 2 or praps 3 with a nice coffee or tea and reflect on the joys a 3 year old full on tantrum in the middle of the NAB can bring you!

Just discovered this....

Tantrums are clearly exhausting!

In the (Lady) Lion's Den

Saturday nights change after you have children.  You probably knew that already. 

Mine looks like this on a fairly regular basis. 

The small people are sleeping, my husbands away.  I may have a fairly dreadful movie on tv (The Ugly Truth... and it is pretty ugly... except of course for Gerard Butler!).  I have developed blisters from cutting  out those lego men.  And a large percentage of those m&m's may have already been consumed.

What do your Saturday night's look like?

The bonus of Tasmanian relatives

I am well aware that this does not look super appetising but let me tell you right now - this is the yummiest chocolate snowball EVER!!!!  It is made with the softest, smoothest marshmallow and covered in real chocolate, then rolled around in even more flake-like chocolate.  My in-laws are visiting with us for a few days before they trek off to Switzerland and they bought us these delicious morsels from a place called Anvers in Tasmania.

Yesterday there were 24 of them, today there are 18 left. 

I think someone needs to stage an intervention.