Stitching Success

My old makeup bag had a hole in it. Ok, so it was more like a whole side-seam which had come undone, so it was rendered useless. So I decided to make a new one. I've never made a lined purse before so this was a foray into the unknown, but I'm really pleased with the results.

The fabric is from one of my favourite designers, Tanya Whelan, and can be found here. I absolutely love the Dolce range

I even learnt how to line it! The zip is slightly bunched up at the end, but it works and is pretty, which is what's important. I'm going to practice making these some more.

I had a look at a number of online tutorials to make these, but the two which stood out were here and here.

Recipe: Brownie Heaven

I could quite possibly be in heaven. These are, quite frankly, the best brownies ever! I've been having a bit of fun baking lately and have ended up making no less than four batches of these. I sent my husband off to work with a batch and have been asked to make more already! Someone even suggested I go into business! Now, I'm not sure about going into business off the back of one winning recipe, but I can definitely tell you, that these will have you coming back for more.

This isn't my own recipe, I did find it somewhere on the internet, however I can't remember where so apologies for the lack of linkage. But I'll share it with you, just because something so good shouldn't be kept to oneself.

Ingredients

185g unsalted butter

185g best dark chocolate

85g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

50g white chocolate

50g milk chocolate

3 large eggs

275g golden caster sugar

1. Cut the butter into small pieces and tip into a bowl. Break the dark chocolate up and add to this. Fill a small saucepan with water and put on a low heat, placing the bowl on top so it's not touching the water. Stir occasionally to mix the butter and chocolate together as it melts. Remove the bowl and leave the melted chocolate to cool.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4. Line a 20cm square tin with baking paper.

3. Sieve the flour and cocoa powder into a medium sized bowl. Chop the white and milk chocolate up into small chunks and put aside.

4. Break the eggs into a large bowl and tip in the sugar. Using an electric mixer, whisk together until it is thick and creamy and leaves impressions on the surface when you dribble some across it. (This can take a few minutes).

5. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse and gently fold together with a spatula. Do this until the mixtures are one and it's a dark, mottled brown.

6. Hold the sieve over the large bowl and resift the cocoa and flour over the eggy mixture. Gently fold this in. It will end up looking nice and fudgy :0) Finally, stir in the chocolate chunks.

7. Pour the mixture into the tin and put in the oven for 25minutes. When it's done, take it out and jiggle the pan slightly. If the brownies jiggle too, it needs another few minutes. One of my batches I didn't quite cook for long enough and it didn't bind together properly. Still tastes lovely, but falls apart when you try to cut it into squares!

8. Leave to cool before cutting into squares.

These are best eaten warmed up for 20secs in the microwave, and if you're feeling indulgent, a scoop of vanilla ice cream to boot! Enjoy!

Seasonal Musings

August has been a funny old month, one that has stretched out into a vast expanse of nothingness, one that has resulted in a general feeling of nothing having been achieved, and yet various things having been lost in the process. It's been a bit quiet on this blog as a result.

There are seasons in life that we travel through aimlessly, hoping to merely survive rather than actually grow or become anything greater than what we already are. Not much desire to improve or progress, but just to get there, to the end of the season and into the new one, which promises much more positivity and a sense of hope.

In fact, 2010 has consisted muchly of this type of season for me but I'm starting to see that there might be an end to it, and maybe, just maybe, Spetember will be something of a more hopeful month.

I've always loved September for its sense of new beginnings. It's like an extra New Year celebration, probably due to our school calendar ingraining this into us since childhood. I always make new year resolutions in September. Just little resolves of things I might do or achieve. In fact, this 'Winter Term' is normally my most productive season of the year because I have a little panic over what I will write in my annual newsletter come Christmas, and so feel I must achieve something of interest so I might appear to lead a life that people might want to read about.

 I guess when you have kids you write about all their exam results and extra curricular activities, but when it's just us, we have to have something new to say rather than "This year, I carried on with the daily grind, and I survived. Merry Christmas". What a depressing thought, that that might be our annual newsletter!

I have some plans brewing, I can feel my creative mojo creeping back, and I'm hoping to catch up on some much needed sleep this weekend, so maybe I'll be back to my normal self soon. And maybe, as we change into autumn (although right now it feels like winter!), I might experience some sort of transition also.

London, the place to be

A while ago, tired of commuting and the high cost of living, we were thinking of moving to Colchester, where I work. However, we recently visited the Museum of London and it made me realise that I truly love this city and would never want to leave. As long as it's humanly possible, I will be a London girl.

The Museum of London was so interesting, but what I loved the most was around the walls there were quotes from famous people, poems and literature about the spirit of London, and how over history, it has always been this addictive place where everyone wants to be. I loved that even two or three hundred years ago, there were still people who swarmed to this great city and made it home.

I was also thrilled to read that even in 1734 there was a significant amount of coffee shops. I'm sitting in Starbucks as I write this and the coffee shop culture is something that I really love about London. I remember in my History of Journalism module at Uni, that it was the coffee shops and pubs that made Fleet Street the hub of British Journalism as newspapers were formed in the 1800s.
And so I'll be remaining in London Town for a little longer, as this wise man, Dr. Johnson, said in 1777 "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." Next time I think I am tired of living my London life, I'll come back to this and remind myself how blessed I am to live in this gorgeous, exciting, bustling city.

3 years ago...

Three years ago today, I married my best friend, Mr Jon Davies. And what a good decision that was! Three years on, marriage is great. In fact, for all the single people out there, I'd recommend it!

When we got married, we were told by lots of well-meaning friends that "The first year is the hardest" - I guess because you're still getting used to each other. It wasn't. We sailed through, not without silly arguments, but it definitely wasn't hard.

After our second anniversary there was a distinct increase in the amount of people who asked "Well, when are you having children then?" The answer? Obviously not yet, and obviously I won't tell you if I am!

After the third anniversary, things seem to have calmed down a bit. People tend to just accept your marriage the way it is, and are just thrilled that you're enjoying the journey. Us? We're just happy getting on with things in our own way, as we always have. Together. As a team. And who could wish for a better team mate?

As for me, I tend to over-analyse things. And after each mile stone I turn to Jon with a panicked look on my face and say "But Jon, we're XX years in, and what have we achieved??? Where are we going???" And Jon always says with a smile on his face, "Just enjoy the journey." I love that I have someone who keeps me grounded and keeps me in the present. Not analysing the past, and not worrying about the future. Whereas I'm definitely the person in our little team who drives things forward and pushes us to the next level. It's good to complement each other!

Anyway, Happy Anniversary, Mr Davies.

Life in a Folder

I've been wanting to get a Filofax for ages. I cleared out my bottomless handbag the other day, and in amongst the knitting, magazines, make-up and old receipts I dug out a grand total of six notebooks. Six! All with different purposes!! Time to get organised and have everything filed in one place I think! So at the weekend I treated myself to a Domino Filofax. A very reasonable price and my favourite colour! Perfect!

I had to restrain myself in buying all the different inserts! But I did purchase an extra set of notepaper, because I tend to make an awful lot of lists and take a lot of notes! Unfortunately the diary doesn't start until the beginning of July, so I have to wait to insert all my plans, but I did immediately set to work in making lots of lists and separating them into categories! (Oh the geekiness!). Here's my things to do....
... and my spending record - please ignore the two (2?!) entries for Starbucks, I have no idea how that happened! Anyway, on the whole am feeling a lot more organised, and my handbag is feeling a lot lighter!

Stitchy Stitchy

Remember last week I showed you the appliqued lion t-shirt which was on its way to my new baby niece? Well, in my stitching experimenting this is another one that I came up with. I love this pink fabric. It's from Saffron Craig's Fields range, I believe I got it from Fabric Rehab, although they no longer have it in stock, but it's well worth asking them if you like it.

Beautiful Books

How cool are these book covers? I only bought two unfortunately, but there are a whole series of classics with covers designed by an illustrator called Coralie Bickford-Smith.
She's done two sets, and I've got Wuthering Heights and Alice in Wonderland so far, but I'd love to collect them all. They would look amazing just lined up on the bookshelf in the alcoves in our living room. At £12.99 each it might have to be a gradual progression though, so if anyone's in the business for buying me present.... *hint hint* ;0)

Squares

At the moment I'm knitting squares. Eventually they'll be turned into baby blankets for still born babies, but for now I'm content to just be knitting squares. How cute are these colours together? I'm thinking I might be able to get two or three checked blankets out of these two balls of yarn. The blankets don't need to be big, as the babies are normally so tiny. It's so the mothers can take something home as a precious memory - apparently they often want to take home the hospital sheets, but the hospital needs to keep those, so they'll be given a knitted blanket instead.

I love how the stitches look so neat all together. If I'm just knitting on the train on my own, I like to pray for the mother and family who might end up with the blankets. I hope that through having something carefully handmade they might know that there's people out there who care, and who are praying for them. Who knows how God might use a baby blanket. When they're all sewn up I'll try and show you pictures.

When I have chunky yarn, myself and some girls from church are knitting scarves for rescued girls who have been sex trafficked. The A21 Campaign is doing an amazing job in helping to abolish sex slavery Greece and Eastern Europe so the scarves go to them. It's nice to think that through making something for someone, and praying for them, that God might use it to let them know that they're loved and valued. It's just a small thing, but a precious thought.

Park Life

Yards from my house, there's a huge park which is used by the whole community. If there's one good thing about London parks is they're really well looked after. In built up areas like mine, it's really important to preserve the open spaces and make them areas where the whole community can come and exercise, spend time together and appreciate nature. I love our park!Seeing as summer seems to have come to visit, I took the opportunity to head out there today to have a play with my camera. Now, I'm no photographer, but it was nice to take a walk and look at all the tiny details of the gardens through a lens. I spent most of my time in the Ornamental Gardens, which are absolutely beautiful, and you could think you were in one of the Royal Parks if you didn't know. There's so many different sections, with different types of flowers and trees, landscaped rock gardens and rose gardens.

We even have palm trees!

... And a totem pole for some reason!

When I look at all the flowers, the detail and the intricacies of nature, it makes me wonder how anyone can doubt the existence of a divine creator. How could this wonderous beauty come into existence without some sort of outside force guiding the way? And this beauty is just to be found in a man-made park, imagine the wonder of creation which is out there in the wild, in the places that we don't see, those hidden places!

Those hidden places, in the depths of the sea, the deepest darkest jungles, where there's no one to admire the beauty, they were still created by an awesome God, so that they would bring glory to Him. So that one day, as the human race continues to discover the unknown, as creation unfolds to our finite minds, we might come across all these hidden beauties and wonder how they got there. How? By a divine, awesome God who took care in carving out this wondrous beauty and binding it all together on a planet where we might slowly discover it. How awesome is that!

"Take a look at God's work. Who could simply and reduce Creation's curves and angles to a plain straight line?" ~ Ecclesiastes 7:13

"Let heaven and earth praise Him, the seas and everything that moves in them."

~ Psalm 69:34

The Last Supper

Oh oven chips, how I love thee,

But you and me, we're just not meant to be,

It's time for us to say our goodbyes,

As truth be told, you're bad for my thighs!

That's right, it's high time I started getting a little bit more active, eating a little less convenience food, drinking a little bit more water, getting better sleep and generally being HEALTHIER! I've also come to the conclusion, that I need to go full pelt, 100%. Go cold turkey on all the bad stuff, and absolutely crazy with the exercise, otherwise I will very quickly slip back into bad habits.

I'll let you know how that takes shape!

This is what I got up to at the weekend. How cute! It didn't take too long to do but was nice to get some confidence on the sewing machine. This is now on its way to a special little girl called Grace. :0)

I also had a play with another one but no pics of that one at the moment.

A bit of nostalgia...

Thinking about my favourite book, Emily, yesterday, got me to thinking about other books that I used to enjoy. This one was the first that sprang to mind: Tall Inside, by Jean Richardson. Now, if you know me then you'll know that I'm pretty small and have yet to reach the 5" mark! So when I was a child I was really slight, I look back at some pictures and think I look like some kind of pixie! Sooo glad I grew into my head!

Anyway, so the point is, that I really related to this story. It's about a little girl who is small and she's at the circus and is feeling a bit insecure about it. Eventually she hides in a corner and cries, but then a clown comes along and tries to cheer her up. Turns out, he's small too and is just wearing stilts! I think that's how it went anyway, but I remember loving it!

Another one of my favourites is the bible story, Zacchaeus. Once again because he was short! I can see a pattern emerging!

Emily the Travelling Guinea Pig

I was looking through my bookcase yesterday and I came across this, Emily by Emma Smith. I remember as a child I felt so special because I had a book that was named after me! Myself and my sister would often share our books and toys but this one book was so clearly mine. I'm not normally one for hoarding books. I have so many but none that I keep for years and years - this one, I've never been able to throw it away.

You can see I wrote my name in the front, 4M, Oaklands Junior School. So I must have been about 8 when I was given it. I don't have a clue who gave it to me. The words "From Charlotte" are also written in the front, but I don't know who Charlotte is! It was published in 1960, and when I looked it up on Amazon there was one copy, being sold for £65!
Emily was a guinea pig who woke up one morning and decided to go on an adventure. The book chronicles this adventure and also lets us know how her husband is getting on at home, fending for himself! At the end she gets homesick and decides to head home. Every so often there's these darling coloured pictures on glossy paper - I remember looking forward to those pages!

Of course I wasn't named after Emily the guinea pig - I was born in the 80s! But it was so lovely to have a namesake to make me feel special.

I was actually named after this girl, Anna, of Mr God, this is Anna. Ok, so my name is Emily, but my middle name is Anne, and I found out recently that my mum was reading this book when she was pregnant with me, so my middle name is in tribute to Anna - a young girl who has such childlike faith in God. It wasn't until last year that I actually read the book and was horrified to find that Anna dies at the end! (Sorry if you wanted to read it!) - but it is a beautiful book.

Hello Petal!

I went into Sainsbury's the other night to buy breakfast bars and cheese. I came out with a dairy milk, a copy of the latest Ideal Home, cheese and a bunch of tulips. I just couldn't resist! I absolutely love tulips, they're so sunny and colourful.
So, they weren't exactly on the shopping list, but they were on special offer. I totally forgot about the breakfast bars but hey, I got distracted!
Aren't they pretty?!

I was a little bit inspired as I was at my mum's house at the weekend and there were tulips everywhere! She put a vase in the downstairs toilet, and there were a number of guests for my grandfather's birthday party and we were instructed to direct them in there, because that was where the flowers were!

These flowers were used for the table centrepiece and the cake, and ok they're fake but still so pretty. So now my little bunch sits on our bathroom windowsill. So sunny and bright to look at :0)

Am I nesting?! I am constantly finding that I want to surround myself with pretty things. Our flat is lovely with regards to space and light, however it's in severe need of re-decoration and needs freshening up a bit. Unfortunately because we rent, it's not something we can do ourselves - although I would love to paint everything white, hang bright curtains and lay laminate flooring throughout. I guess for now, I'll have to settle for the occasional bunch of tulips to brighten up the place!

What do you do to give your house a fresh look when you can't redecorate and refurbish throughout? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Back in Business!

I now have the internet at home, so blogging will resume to normal service shortly. Stay tuned, I have some exciting things coming up!

2009 review... and here's to 2010!

So despite my prolonged absence on the blog in the latter part of last year, it doesn't mean that I was being unproductive and not achieving the goals I set for myself. In fact, it was quite the opposite! Although I didn't achieve all the things that I set out to at the start of 2009, I did have many other achievments - after all, life does not always bring what we expect and some things have to be put on the back-burner for a while, whilst other things move to the fore-front.

So, 2009, what a year...
- I got into knitting in a big way and learnt to knit hats as well as scarves!
- Although I didn't make much headway with my debt, I did increase my earnings, as did Jon, and manage to make it to the end of the month without habitually using credit, so I didn't increase my debt either, and due to bigger earnings there is now a disposable income to use towards debt.
- We saved money by WINNING a free trip to Vegas and very much enjoyed some time just for us.
- I unexpectedly got a promotion and now carry the title of "Deputy Editor"... it sounds glam, but my office isn't exactly Devil Wears Prada stylee if you know what I mean.
- Jon too got a promotion to "Team leader" which basically means he's in management.
- I learnt that being busy all the time doesn't mean that you are productive.
- I learnt to prioritise my commitments, and that some me-time is normally a top priority if everything else is to get done.
- I learnt how to say no.
- I decided to spend more time with my parents, and enjoyed it immensely.
- I realised that I have a great marriage and a fantastic husband, and that I need to invest in that no matter what the cost.
- I read so many books I lost count!

2010 here we come......
- I've signed up to a 10k run in aid of the A21 Campaign on March 14th. I've done no training whatsoever but am hoping that this is the start of a new habit, have got a week's free pass at the local gym. Sponsor me here.
- I've made a decision to make more of an effort to see old friends and to invest in new friendships, which means my Friday and Saturday nights are booked up for a while - and also that my cooking repertoire will have to expand!
- I've gathered together all our relatives' addresses and birthdays, maybe 2010 will be the year I actually send greetings cards (it's kind of expected of me in my new job!).
- I now have a disposable income which means we can pay off debt as well as live relatively comfortably.
- Having reviewed my priorities and commitments, I know that I can now give 100% to my responisbilities rather than spreading myself too thin. It also means Jon and I can work as a team! (AKA The Dream Team!).
- Have decided to just go for it in all things! - knowing that God is eternally faithful and will provide for every eventuality no matter what.
- I want to learn to sew! Which means giving myself time to practise rather than trying to do a rush job and expecting it to be perfect!

So... apologies for the lack of pictures! There will be more blogging in the near future, pics and all!
x

2010? How did that happen?!

Where did 2009 go? I can't believe it! I guess I better go back through my goals and see what changed, where we're at and what is to become of this coming year ahead.

There's so much I want to tell you but I simply don't have the time to put it into any sort of cohesive thought, but I will have a think tonight and maybe pop back in the morning with my 2009 news.

I am still without the internet at home so I'm finding it really hard to make the time to blog, which is a real shame as that was one of my goals. But, there are means and ways, I just need to decide to DO IT!

We shall chat soon my friends, we shall chat soon!

x

She runs, she runs!

That's right people, I have been running no less than three times this week! And I feel great! Even in such a short space of time I've noticed an improvement in that I'm running further and further each time and I'm not feeling like I will die when I get to the end - meaning that I'm slowly working my way up to push myself harder each time. This morning I even included a sprint at the end just to expend all the extra energy!

I was lucky enough a few months ago to win some She Active vouchers and last week had a day out in Brighton where I was able to spend them. I was thinking about getting some new trainers but seeing as they didn't do proper testing of your running style I decided to not take the risk and so bought some new running gear. So now, I can run at least looking like a pro!

Ronhill Aspiration Gilet SS09, £31.99.

Nike Women Dri Fit Tech Capri 09.

Nike Women Sleeveless Half Zip Top, £22.99.

Today, I also bought this DVD.

I figure I can't run everyday day, and as much as it will improve my fitness it probably won't change my bodyshape a huge amount seeing as I don't have that much fat to lose :0) But, I do need to tone up and I really enjoyed Pilates last year when I tried it as part of Sweat in the City, and these 10minute workouts will fit easily into my day! I'll let you know how I get on!