Satisfied!

I have satisfied my creative urges for the day!

I've been a little buzzy bee sewing away all afternoon and evening.

Here's today's spoils!

Here's the little heart idea I mentioned in my last post.  I've mounted it on some dark red felt (the lighting isn't too good here) and used some thick cotton ribbon as the hanger. 

As well as hearts I adore Roosters and have been wanting to make a rooster hanging for the kitchen for a while.  This is the stitched piece which I have literally just finished.  It needs pressing and mounting.  Not sure whether to put it on a black background or red - I'll try both and see how they look.   I'll report back when its' all finished.  I really enjoyed making this - the rooster design I found on the internet but the border was my own idea.

A finally I did another little heart possibly to mount or I may put it in a frame that I have waiting to be used.

Crafty!

Isn't it always the way.  The day before I go back to work inspiration strikes with a nice little craft idea.

I took some embriodery on holiday with me back in May and wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with the finished result.  I decided to make it into a wall hanging - so backed it with some nice green material and made a hanging rope from some string plaited together.  That's wasn't my inspired idea - but it has led me on to thinking about making some smaller hangings.  If you know me, you'll know that I love hearts, and my idea is to make some small hangers with red embroidered hearts on.   So that's this afternoon's tasks. I'll post a piccy up when I've done my first one.  I think I might make a start on some Christmas ones also ... 

Meanwhile here is the one I did today:

 

Sunday

Spent most of the morning and early afternoon cooking. We intended going out for a walk into Derbyshire around 4pm (weather permitting) so I decided that I needed to make the lasagne for tea early and ready just to heat up for when we got back.

Well, one thing led to another, and I had some avocados to use up - so the first thing I did was pull up a recipe for guacamole that I'd found recently.

I've never tried making it before but was really pleased with the results, so much that I had half of it for lunch. Healthy and raw! I'll get there in the end!!

Ingredients

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1/2 red onion,finely chopped
• 1 tsp chili (I used another frozen chili cube!)
• 2 tablespoonsCoriander
• 1 tablespoon of fresh lime or lemon juice
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 ripe tomato

How To Do

Cut avocados in half. Remove seed. Scoop out avacado from the peel, put in a mixing bowl. 

Mash the avocado with a fork

Add the chopped onion, coriander, lime juice, chili and salt  and mash some more.

Keep the tomato separate until ready to serve.

Remember that much of this is done to taste because of the variability in the fresh ingredients. Start with this recipe and adjust to your taste.

Pop in a dish with an airtight lid and put in fridge until you need it.

Just before serving, add the chopped tomato to the guacamole and mix.

I got a bit carried away and also a made a huge pan full of butternut squash and red pepper soup (thats lunches for me and Jenny sorted for the next few days) and some stuffed peppers.  Finally the thing I set out to do, I made the lasagnes!  A meat version and a veggie version. As I'm trying to stay away from dairy food, the stuffed peppers are for my tea which I might serve with the rest of the guacamole from earlier, and the veggie lasagne will do Jenny for tea today and tomorrow.

Oooh I feel all organised now!

The Stone Roses Save the Day!

Quite a pleasant day today! Becky is off on a field trip with school next week - to Whitby I believe! She needs some wellies so her, I and Jenny trooped off to Meadowhall yesterday to see what we could find. I half expected everywhere to be sold out as we have had so much rainfull this month (as of Thursday it was the second heaviest rainfall in June since 1910 - and may have gone into first place by now as Friday and Saturday were horrendous). 

We were really pushed for time though as Simon was taking Becky on a mystery tour (more of that later) so after a quick bite of lunch, Jenny went in one direction and Becky and I in the other. Walking past Republic a rail of Stone Roses t-shirts caught Becky's eye - they were reduced, and she's been after one for ages, so I thought I would treat her. The queue was really long and I was concious of the time, and that we'd still not bought what we came for when my eye caught shelves of trendy wellies over the other side of the shop. Ha ha - they had leopard skin or union jack wellies - Becky opted for the Union Jack ones. Cool Britannia. 

So panic over, and the Stone Roses (t-shirt) saved the day as we still had about an hour to spare so had a nice wander around doing a bit of window shopping. 

So we got back, and as Simon and Becky haven't been seeing eye to eye on much lately ( exam fever and uni choices, having a tidy bedroom and 'how many gigs are you going to this week?'!!!) - Simon decided that it would be nice to have some one to one time with her so organised a mystery tour. 

He took her to Starbucks (her second favourite place on earth) then to the cinema in Sheffield - they're both big fans of chick flicks and I think they saw The Five Year Engagement. Afterwards, the ultimate in Becky treats - her actual favourite place on earth - Nandos. I think that did the trick they were actually communicating normally when they got back. 

Jenny wanted to go to the cinema too so we headed off in the opposite direction to Chesterfield to see Men in Black III. Great film, with a really, really nice ending that I wasn't expecting. Made me go all 'ahhhh' and gooey. 

Food today was Cornflakes (and more rice milk!! Lunch was a very naughty but nice pizza hut deal, and tea was pasta with marscapone and tomato sauce. I'm not anticipating having lost any weight when I way in tomorrow again. I have incorporated some exercise this week though, which can't be a bad thing. Two cycle rides on Tuesday and Wednesday and a 3 mile walk on Thursday and again on Friday. I feel thinner, healthier and fitter, but the scales don't seem to be budging much! Oh well!!!