No pancakes, no pop

So, did you all enjoy your pancakes yesterday? I was very jealous as everybody seemed to be mentioning them and I wasn't having any. I'd like to say it's because i'm being super healthy but I'd be lying. It's more to do with the fact that Dan wrote off the frying pan a few weeks back and I've not got around to replacing it yet.

Pancakes yesterday (at least for most of you!) means that Lent starts today. I always try o give something up so this year decided to combine my no Diet Coke for 30 days challenge with giving it up for Lent. I know it doesn't sound that difficult but I swear the stuff is addictive. Those of you who know me well will know I'm always clutching a can or bottle of it. It felt very strange not popping in the shop on my way to work this morning for a can.

By about 7.30am this morning I was suffering Diet Coke withdrawel. Getting really supportive comments from the husband such as "the first few days will be like Trainspotting" and "I can offer you methadone in the form of Panda pops". He can mock but I will do it!!! Already wondering what I'm going to drink when I'm out for a meal on Monday though.

In other news, I'm still doing well with the letter writing challenge. I've got 13 to reply to but they've all arrived since the weekend so I'm more or less up to date. Getting through the books for the reading challenge - I'm finally reading The Lovely Bones and know I will end up bawling. Next week I'm off to York for the day to meet up with a lovely penpal. That'll be another challenge ticked off and she seems to have made it her personal mission to help me find Daves so look out for more of them!

I Can Do This

I love swimming. So when I first heard of the Great Manchester Swim it sounded like a good idea. Enough of a challenge while doing something I enjoy and a great opportunity to raise some money for charity. Now I've actually entered it I'm less convinced it's a good idea. It just sounds scary now. One mile in open water round Salford docks - what was I thinking?!?

I'm determined to do it though. It'll be a good achievement and hopefully I'll be able to raise quite a bit of money for my charity. If you read my blog often you'll know that World Vision is a charity I support. I sponsor a child through them and have been so impressed with everything they do. Sponsoring Princess has been such a rewarding experience so now it's time for me to give something back. While child sponsorship is a big part of what World Vision do, they do so much more.



"World Vision works to make a serious and sustainable impact on poverty and its causes, especially as they affect children. We are committed to long-term change, which means connecting people. Whether it’s enabling people in developing communities to support each other, or linking donors to those in need through child sponsorship, or creating networks to campaign for justice, we believe that getting people connected is the best way to make a difference.

That’s one reason why we put so much emphasis on advocacy. While individual programmes can mitigate the effects of poverty, it’s only by speaking up for and with those who are marginalised that we can influence the policies of governments and international bodies and so address the underlying causes of poverty."

 

They can't do all this fantastic work with no money which is why I want to get involved and do some fundraising for them. So back to the swimming, as I said it seemed like a good idea at the time. I keep saying I can swim a mile no problem. And yeah, I can in a nice heated pool with a natural gap for a little rest every 25 metres. I'm guessing it's not going to be quite the same in the ship canal though. For a start it's gonna be cold. I was over there the other week and it looked cold, wild and choppy. My swim is in July so I'm hoping it will be warmer but let's face it we're in Manchester so I'm not holding out too much hope for hot! The other thing that only dawned on me last week was that I won't be able to touch the floor - that means I've got to do the whole mile non-stop!

 

I went to the swimming baths this morning to get some training in. After working out I wouldn't be able to stop on the day I decided to forget about distance and speed and just concentrate on stamina, swimming as far as I could without stopping. I didn't manage a mile but I was pretty impressed with my little self. I swam 46 lengths in 25 (ish) minutes. I make that 0.7 miles - not bad for a first attempt. Still work to be done but if I get myself a decent training plan and stick to it, I reckon I'll be ok. Terrified but ok!

Salford Watersports Centre also do open water swimming training sessions a few times a week so I'm going to try and get down to a few of those after work. They're not on yet as it's too cold so I'll have to try a few of those.

Anyway I've wittered long enough - basically all I'm trying to say is yes, it's gonna be tough but I AM going to do this. If you want to support me and support the fantastic work of World Vision then please visit my sponsorship page at www.virginmoneygiving.com/janetyarwood or click on the link on the right. Thank you :-)





Soooo behind

It doesn't seem to matter how hard I try, I'm always behind with something. I'd love to be one of these really organised people who has everything under control but that's just not me. I try my best but never quite manage it :-(

One thing I'm always behind on with my letters. I love letters! I find writing them really relaxing and getting them is great. Its always nice to see pretty post bringing good news and gossip rather than boring old bills. I've got loads of penpals so I've always got letters to write and nice post coming through my letterbox. Its great! The only problem is with so many penpals, a couple of nights of not writing and I've got a huge pile of letters needing replies. I always seem to be behind. I finally managed to get caught up with my letters at the weekend though. At one point I had nobody to write to. So this seems like the perfect time to start my reply to all letters within a week
challenge. I've got to keep it up for a month. Its easy at the moment a I've got a pile of three - two came yesterday and one today. I just need to make sure I get those replied to tonight before the pile grows a bit more tomorrow. I really enjoy writing my letters so if I could just manage to get myself organised this challenge shouldn't be too difficult to complete.

There's loads of other stuff I'm behind with but I'all get there in the end. The main one is this blog. Ive been rubbish at keeping it updated lately. There's been quite a bit going on though so I need to make the effort to get blogging again and tell you what I've been up to. I'll never make it to 100 blog posts at this rate!

Yum!

Anyone who knows me will know I like cooking. I love messing about and trying new recipes to see what I can come up with. And without being big headed, I do alright. I 'm pretty confident in the kitchen and I'll give more or less anything a go. I've never really done much baking though. I make a cake and I reckon it'd taste alright, it just wouldn't look that great. I haven't got a clue where to start with decoraing them. You see all these gorgeous cakes and cupcakes and I'd love to be able to do something like that. That's why I decided to put going to a cake decorating class on my challenge list.

While I've never really been much good at making cupcakes, I'm really good at eating them! Some of my favourites are from Hey Little Cupcake in town. It's not far from Dan's work and every now and again he'll suprise me by bringing a cupcake home. They are scrummy. I was really chuffed when he got me a voucher to do a cupcake decorating class there for christmas.

Today was the day of the class and I set off feeling all excited. I was a little bit nervous too though as I've never done anything like this before. I was convinced everybody would be better than me and I'd come up with the worst cupcakes they'd ever seen. I don't hink I did too badly for a first attempt though. Here's what I managed to create

The cupcakes were ready made for us, as was the buttercream. They did go over how to make everything but it was more about teaching us how to pipe and decorate.

 



We started nice and easy with the cookie monster - no piping! We had to smooth butter cream over a plain cupcake then roll it into blue sprinkles. The eyes were made with white chocolate buttons and chocolate drops and we used a mini cookie for the mouth. Really simple but it looks great. He's so cute!

Next up was the oreo cupcake. This was a chocolate cupcake with an oreo baked into it. Then came my first attempt at piping. Plain buttercream with a plain round nozzle. Getting all the air out of the piping bag was a bit tricky but once that was done the piping wasn't as difficult as I expected. Two and a half swirls then finish off with a mini oreo and some oreo crumbs.

La Paris was next. I love this one, it's very me with all its pinkness. Its a chocolate cupcake with strawberry buttercream. Trying to remember which nozzle it was, some kind of  inverted swirly one I think. I need to get my head round them all because I want some. The little hearts are chocolate and were just scattered over the top.

This one is like your classic cupcake and it's called Viva Las Vegas. Chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream, gold dragees and white chocolate stars.

My spring garden was the most difficult cupcake to make. The green buttercream is just plain vanilla with colouring added. The piping was tricky. It was like a spaghetti press and instead of swirling round you had to lift up and do a splodge at a time. The flowers and butterflies are made from sugarpaste. They had some really cute little cutters and I want them too! It was all a bit fiddly but worth it in the end. I love the colours.

The final cupcake was a cute little rose. The piping was tricky on this one. I'd got used to swirling up from the ouside but this one was piped from the cenre out and needed to be kept level-ish. It took me two attempts but once the buttercream was on I added a sugarpaste leaf and some edible glitter.

I had a really fun afternoon. I'm dead pleased with how well my cupcakes turned out and I'd definitely feel more confident to have a go at home now. I'm feeling a little shopping trip coming on when I get paid to buy nozzles and piping bags and other cute things to decorate with. I want to do some of their other classes too. In the meantime I've got six cupcakes to get through. Me and Dan have halved Cookie Monser and Viva Las Vegas and the were both yummy. Have to admit I'm a bit gutted about destroying my hard work but the feeling doesn't last long once you're eaing them. Yum!

Back to work tomorrow :-(

I suppose i shouldn't complain really. Apart from the norovirus its been a good holiday. Christmas is always my very favourite time of the year and it was another good one this year. And I've managed to get lots of challenge-y stuff done whilst I've been off. I've done lots of reading, mainly books i got for Christmas. During the holidays I managed to finish The Christmas books by Charles Dickens, With Love at Christmas by Carole Matthews, The life by Martina Cole and The Life and Times of the Real Winnie the Pooh by Shirley Harrison. My pile of books read for the read my own height in books challenge now stands at 48.5 cm - a third of the way there!
I've done quite a bit of craft when I haven't been reading. I've made a good start on the felt and cross stitch decorations that Kerry kindly sent me but I forgot to buy stuffing when I was in town so I can't finish them off yet. I've done a bit (and I mean a bit!) on the family tree cross stitch and I've been trying to get my head round knitting. I've not actually done any knitting yet but I've no real excuse anymore. I had a lovely knitting kit, how to knit book and knitting for dummies book for Christmas so I should be all ready. I'm still hoping my mother-in-law will take pity on me and give me lessons. Problem is she's seen my one and only attempt at knitting and it wasn't pretty. That's why its on the list!
Dan bought me a voucher for a cupcake decorating class so that will be another thing ticked off the list next week. I can't wait, it's at a gorgeous little place down Spinningfields. I get to bring six of their cupcakes home so I know however bad the decoration ends up, the cake will still be yummy :-)
He's also paid my entry to the Great Manchester Swim which sounded a lot less scary before I was actually committed to it. I did my first training swim yesterday and I'm quite chuffed with myself because I did manage to swim a mile. It wasn't particularly fast and it wasn't non stop but I can work on that. It wasn't bad for a first attempt. The fun bit is going to be when I transfer it to the open water. I've never done anything like that before but I've got until July to get myself ready. As well as getting the swimming challenge done I'm hoping this can be part of the raising £1001 for charity. I've got a fund raising pack from World Vision and hopefully I'll be able to get loads of sponsorship in to support their fantastic work.
Talking of world vision, I've had three letters from Princess over the holidays. It's always great to hear from her. Makes the work that world vision do seem so much more real. Of all the challenges I've completed so far sponsoring her has definitely been my favourite. It's such a rewarding experience. When you think that for me its one less can of pop a day (and I'm supposed to be cutting down) the difference it makes to communities like Princess' is amazing.
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without films and sales and they've both helped me out with challenges. I added quite a few films to the A-Z challenge and got some lovely plates in the housing units sale for January's purchase for the house.
So there you have it, two weeks off work, lots of fun and lots of stuff done. Just a shame it has to come to an end.

Christmas Craft

So one of my challenges was to hand make five christmas decorations. Shouldn't be too difficult right? I love christmas and I love sewing, all I had to do was work out how to combine the two. Imagination isn't my strong point though and I was struggling to come up with ideas.

Luckily I know the incredibly talented Kerry. She is the kind of crafter I would love to be and she's always making gorgeous stuff. Check out her blog to see some of her lovely makes. Anyway Kerry was nice enough to email me lots of links and ideas for christmas decorations I could make. And then this arrived through my letterbox!

It was a complete suprise but Kerry posted me this lovely package of christmas crafting goodies. So kind! Thank you so much. Kerry has a 101/1001 list too and I know one of her challenges is to do some random acts of kindness - big tick here!!! I love it all, especially the really cute snowball trim.

So with all this help from Kerry you'd think I'd have all my christmas decorations made. Errr.....no!!!!! I'm blaming the kitchen, it hasn't exactly been a nice relaxing place to sit and craft in. I'm going to make a start on the felt bauble stitch kit tonight though. I know most people do their christmas crafting before christmas but I've never been one to do things the normal way! And anyway the tree is still up so it's still christmas and theres still time to get them up. Well I'd better go and find a needle....

I'm back!!! (with a brand new kitchen)

Hello again everyone. Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. For my buy something new for the house each month challenge I bought a new kitchen in November and a dishwasher to go in it in December. That's been going in over the last few weekswhich has meant I've not had the time or the space to get on the computer. It's been absolute chaos, stuff everywhere and nothing where it should be. I suppose I knew it was going to look worse before it got better but I wasn't really prepared for this!

Luckily that was about as bad as it got (although it felt pretty bad at the time!) and it's now looking lovely. It's not finished yet - still a window to go in and some tiling to do but it's usable at least and I can feel howit's going to be now. I love it!!!!

There has been progress with some of my other challenges too. I saw NaNoWriMo through to the end of November and whilst I didn't make it to 50,000 words I was proud of what I did manage to write. I enjoyed it and I'm going to give it another go next year. It's the wrong time of year for me really - would be much better in August with nice sunny days and no work!!

The lovely Kerry sent me a wonderful package of stuff to help me with my christmas crafting challenge so big thank you to her. I'll be telling you more about that in the next few days. Also thanks to everybody who has sent me a postcard to help wih the 101 postcards challenge. There have been a few over the last few weeks that I need to take photos of and get on here.

Hope everyone had a lovely christmas. I was totally spoilt with lots of lovely stuff including lots of things that will help me with my chalenges so look out for that over the next few weeks!