My weekend - but I am a good girl

 

Monday morning greeted me with a headache, knotted stomach and feeling of nausea which is rather annoying as I was the very opposite of a party animal over the weekend.

Saturday the sun shone while I did 8km. Then it was down to some serious time with my sewing machine. I'm doing a stall with Carla from Ducking Fabulous at Barges and Bikes next weekend. Hence I had a load of half completed pieces that I needed to finish in order to sell.

I got more sun and fresh air at my allotment on Sunday morning. I was also really pleased to bring home a couple of boxes of strawberries.

Sunday saw me spend more time sewing. I like doing the construction of pieces like bags but I love doing embellishments and appliqués on them. I sorted the various beads, fabric scraps, ribbons and so on into jars by colour earlier in the year. It was well worth the time as I could easily find what I was looking for when I got creative.

I also found time for some cooking. I made a batch of sultana and carrot muffins for the freezer and adapted last week's beer bread to make a version of Stromboli. The Stromboli is for my lunch and the muffins are for the mornings I don't eat breakfast at home.

So note to self: next weekend party like it's 1999 and see if Monday dawns with that fresh-as-a-daisy feeling.

 

 

Reasons to cheerful - social butterfly

I've had a busy week and time for blogging just slide away. However I've so many things I'm happy about (and who doesn't want to look at the good stuff at least once a week?) that Sunday evening seems the ideal time to be cheerful.

Posh frocks

Tuesday night I had an excuse to dress up and drink champagne. It was the annual reception for peace and friendship at the Japanese Embassy. My grandfather was a prisoner of war in Japan many years ago which is how I got involved in Pacific Venture.

This year I wore my Grandmother's dress from the 1950s and spoke to some interesting people. I always meet a fascinating mix of people and am reminded of the common ground we share with Japan.

Decorated nails

I always paint my nails green and lately I've been experimenting with layering and patterns. Nothing make me smile like lots of shades of green mixed together.

Time to read

I'm often pushed for time to read and worry as the pile of unread items increases in size. However I'm clearly getting better at finding extra minutes. This week I've enjoyed Up for renewal by Cathy Alter (true story of women finding meaning of life and true love through advice from magazines), My side of the story by Will Davis (very readable coming of age tale) and I have finally finished The Music Instinct. I've been reading 10 pages a day of this because that's all I can handle. I'm really glad I read the mix of physics, biology, music theory, history, sociology and psychology but I probably did miss a lot.

Other stuff *sewing *London Vegan drinks - great company and great food *wandering across cool places by accident *green dresses *sunshine

What's in my lunch box this week? - loafs and veggies

This lunch box was a real reminder that lots of vegetables make pretty satisfying lunch. I'm always worried that without some serious carbohydrates and proteins I'll spend the afternoon dreaming about bags of crisps instead of doing something useful. Happily this combo of beer bread, bean loaf and vegetables mean I was able to avoid that possibility.

Clockwise from top right:

• Radishes and celery
• Cucumber
• My take on the Wellington filling in The vegan Lunch box. As ever I just could stick to the recipe and threw in sunflower seeds and pickles while omitting walnuts and most of the suggested seasonings. Turned out great anyway but I don't think you can go that far wrong with this one. Although there was the time I put rather a lot of celery in and the time I added grape jelly...
  
• Carrots and slices of home made beer bread

My weekend - it's (almost) all about food

After last week and the various things going on in my life I knew I would really appreciate my weekend.

I kicked things off by buying loads of good food on Friday. I think the guy on the market was a bit distracted as I only realised that I had no peppers when I was deciding on pizza toppings.

Saturday I went out first thing and got some fresh air while walking 8km. Then I popped into the library to return a book and came out with a load more. I love having a pile of free reading materials to dip into.

I was expecting to perform some burlesque pieces at a carnival late afternoon. First my lift dropped out and then, while I pondered if I should drive myself and where I should park, the whole thing was pulled due to the weather. So I took the opportunity to make another huge chunk of patchwork.

I got my burlesque dose on Saturday night, by watching some burlesque programmes I'd recorded on Sky, while I did some knitting.

Sunday I made a good start on the day by making a nut and bean loaf and beer bread. I'd hoped for lots of produce from my allotment but the weather seems to be taking it toll. I was sad to see lots of unripe strawberries knocked off the plants by heavy rain. The rocket and spinach are still doing well though and I'm hoping the beans will do ok.

The rest of the day was all about food and sewing.

I enjoyed a big brunch before going through the sewing projects that I could easily complete in the next week. Then I ordered some midorigreen mini cards from Moo. It'll be great to be able to give them to people when I tell them about my blogging and Twitter activities.

 

Then I enjoyed an awesome plate of food while watching some daft programme about aliens. I'm really inspired by some of the blogs I read that have fantastic looking food. At present I'm really enjoying Keeping healthy, getting stylish. She has some really tasty, healthy, fresh looking food for me to aspire to.

Looking back on the weekend I want to make bread more often, keep eating lots of fresh stuff, get exercise and keep sewing. That's how to recharge my batteries and keep living life.

 

Things I love Thursday -friends and fabric

It's not been a very jolly week so it seemed even more vital that I take some time out on a Thursday evening to celebrate the things in my life that are good.

• Memories of sunny days without worries
• Lovely evenings at Mimi's eating, drinking tea and chatting before dashing to Burlesque class
  

• This glorious under bust corset in my favourite colour
  
• Making plans with friends
• Green dresses, especially my new lace one
• A belt that goes with everything
• Hours of patchwork creation
• A floor coveted with fabric scraps
• A pin board covered with sewing ideas
• Getting inspiration from Mollie Makes magazine -almost tempted into a subscription but happily I can't decide between print and virtual
• Cheery emails from chums
• booking tickets to see Alice Cooper in October
• crafting plans for the weekend

What's in my lunchbox this week? - the consolation of food

For various reasons which I won't go into this week is not going to one of the best of my life. So lunch is time to console myself with a few pages of some shallow literature and distract my mind with food

Clockwise from top right:

• Boiled Jersey Royal potatoes - so amazing they don't need any kind of dressing or seasoning
• Scrambled tofu - I had loads of celery in the fridge so I threw some in when I made this. My advice to anyone considering a similar course of action - don't! It's ok but...
• Celery is really good when it's eaten raw and spread with a little peanut butter
• Nothing like home grown - this is a mix of rocket, spinach and fresh herbs

My weekend - cocktails, shears and unripe strawberries

I actually had a rather excellent weekend. I arrived home on Friday feeling relaxed after a bout of acupressure but was soon frazzled about domestic routines. Plus it was incredibly windy and raining.

So what's a girl to do? Well start by taking it easy on Friday night with a single glass of wine (because sometimes less is more!) and a reasonable bedtime.

Spend Saturday morning practicing Burlesque routines, playing bass and sewing patchwork. Follow up with an afternoon in the company of Carla from Ducking Fabulous. We talked blogging, crafting, cars, food, life balance and business. Several cocktails and one green lace dress from Truly Madly Vintage later, I was buzzing with ideas and ready to re-engage with life.

Alas this bout of enthusiasm lead me to getting rather too enthusiastic with the shears and shoulder high grass growing around my allotment. I make the same mistake every year. I get carried away with the process of hacking everything down and then have to endure shaky, achy limbs for the next few days.

Alas my strawberries still haven't ripened.

Then it was time for brunch, a bit of paperwork and more sewing. Sorting my fabric stash into colour coded drawers has been brilliant for allowing me to see what I actually have and make use of it. I might be doing a craft fare at the start of July so it's just as well my sewing mojo has woken up.

Other weekend antics- *finished The Japanese Fish Girl by Robert Rankin (highly amusing in places) *tried sesame popcorn *wore bright blue tights