Month in Numbers - February

For the shortest month of the year, February does seem to last a very long time.  

I downloaded an app called Collect which gives you a calendar page and each day it prompts you to add a photo taken on that day. So it was really easy for me to look over the month this time.  Kind of like a very mini Project Life without the journaling! Here's my month in pictures:

The highlight of the month was booking our summer holiday. 7 days in Lake Garda. Well, not actually IN the lake, but a hotel overlooking it. So in preparation for it, the husband and I are learning Italian via a free app called Duolingo.  It was recommended by the IT coordinator at work and you can learn many different languages - I'd really recommend it. At the time of writing this, I have completed 11 Of the lessons. And have mastered all the essentials like ordering pasta for lunch with a glass of white wine, and the Italian for ice cream with chocolate cake. Along with other, hopefully non essential, phrases such as 'The snake is in my boot'. 

  

I had 5 days off work as it was half term. And remembered how much I loved being a SAHM. 

 

I made the 4th and the 5th sample block from the Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine and sent off the Friendship Quilt square off to Amy who is the 4th person on the list.

 

I've made 2 cakes, one 'just because it's half term and I've got time to bake a cake' cake, and one 'Jon's home for the weekend and although it's not his birthday until the middle of next week it's an early birthday cake' cake.

 

I went to my monthly cookery club where I learnt 4 vegetarian dishes and tried 2 glasses of wine. Although one of the dishes was dessert and I'm pretty sure that most desserts are vegetarian. 

 

There was only one birthday in February, my nephew's.  32 candles bite the dust.

 

As you will see from the final photo in the collage, the pre-birthday cake which we will be having tonight is bordered with 2 packets of chocolate finger biscuits and about 200 chocolate M&Ms.  I can hardly wait for dinner time!

 

This is brought to you as part of Julie's Month in Numbers meme.  She's had a busy month with kitchen appliances ganging up on her, having her bumps felt and getting an extra head.  Go on, pop over there, you know you want to. 

Half term holidays, half way through

OK, so it is a universally known fact that the days where you don't have to go into work go by twice as fast as the days where you do.  Which is how it is already Wednesday afternoon and I am officially half way through the half term holidays. 

Don't get me wrong, I have been busy working ...

and I am now itching to start a new project - what to do?  Decisions decisions.  I think a cushion cover may be next in line.  I have also made and sent off the next Friendship quilt block to Amy, but won't share it here until she receives it there.  How long does the post take to get from the UK to Australia - I'm not sure! I've been trying to keep up with the Block of the Month in my quilting magazine and I had been putting off last month's as it was circular and had lots of segments but I stuck with it and so long as you look at it from a distance with your eyes kind of squinty it looks OK.  Let's just say I won't be rushing to make a whole bed quilt from that design!  The top 'twirling baton' square was fun to make and only took an afternoon to do from start to finish so that was a relief and I'm all ready and waiting for the March edition to arrive.  I've also made a small project from one of the earlier editions but that is going to be sent onto someone who may read this and I want to keep it a secret!   As you can see, I've also bound and finished the quilt for J's old bedroom - just ready for his visit home at the end of next week.  When I mentioned wondering how I would 'sash' the finished square, Deb said that that 'was the easy part.'   I was a little dubious to say the least but hey, Deb, you were right! 

So what else have I been up to.  Well, we've booked our summer holiday.  Shall I give you a clue?  Well, where is famous for it's pasta, prosecco and ice cream?  Yup - it's going to be 'Ciao Italia' for us this year.  We've booked for Lake Garda.  In a small hotel, just 36 bedrooms in a converted country house and it looks lovely.  I'm counting the days already.

The weather seems to have calmed down a bit this week.  A lot of trees have come down around our town, in the recent storms and I've used these for a 'zoom in, zoom out' collage

This one had fallen across the boundary of someones house, through their hedge and onto a pathway leading to the church. It must have made quite a noise as it fell as the photo does not do its size justice - it was a really large old tree.  The 'zoom in' part is on the splinters of wood from the trunk; hard to believe that a tree which was so mature and gnarly on the outside had such a bright, light heart inside it.

Hope everyone else is keeping safe from the weird and wacky weather conditions that the whole world seems to be experiencing.  As for me, I can't wait for Spring!



 

 

Simply a Moment in February

The noise from the rain hitting the glass roof of the conservatory is almost deafening, and whilst I am warm and dry inside I am already dreading my turn at walking the dog later this afternoon.

I am surrounded by the Saturday papers; tales of floods and devastation on the coast cover the front pages.  In comparison to many we have been extremely fortunate, one cannot imagine the heartbreak that some are facing with their homes and possessions many feet under flood water.

A couple of weeks ago our town became an island, with all country road routes in and out flooded; today we are being held hostage by fallen trees forming natural barricades across the roads. Old trees with their roots ripped from the earth by the force of the wind last night. 

I realise that whilst reading, the strength of the wind and rain has diminished and I hear my husband upstairs calling down to me "just come and look at this!". I rush upstairs, the dog scampering just behind me, not wanting to miss out on whatever 'this' may be.

A double rainbow. In the midst of cruel, harsh weather, Mother Nature has thrown in some beauty.

Simply a Moment is organised by Alexa Please pop over there to see what other moments in time are being recorded this month.

Joining in with Abi's idea of sharing one photo with twenty words.

Queen of Puddings. The meringue rose amazingly well this time. It is one of the Sunday lunch favourites around here.

What would you be?

So we've been interviewing for new teachers this week at work, and part of the process is for the applicants to be interviewed bt the school council. There's representatives from all year groups who get the chance to ask questions on behalf of the students. Some say it's the hardest part of applying to join us! They ask for a member of support staff to observe the meetings - to ensure no inappropriate questions are asked, and on Monday it was my turn to sit in on the interviews.

Mostly it was the kind of thing you'd expect. "How do you think your students would describe you as a teacher?" "What's been your most rewarding incident?" "Why do you want to work here?" as my mind started to wander, I heard them ask "what 3 essential items would you put into an emergency teaching pack?" Emergency teaching pack? What kind of emergencies do you get in geography for goodness sake? The humanities department suddenly seemed a lot more exciting. Apparently an essential part of teaching geography is a regular supply of tea, as they all chose tea bags as one item. And just as I was wondering what 3 items I needed the most to do my job (patience, sense of humour and the ability to eats copious amounts of cake) the next random question was asked. "I think that's almost everything, but one last question ... If you were an animal, what would you be and why?". That made them all sit up and think! Because they couldn't just say an animal, they had to come up with why they chose it.  Sneaky eh?

So since then, I've been wondering what I would have chosen,  first choice - penguin.  Obviously. But take away the cuteness and the amusing waddle of a walk, I can't say I share their love of cold weather and I'm not a good swimmer.  An ant? I'm little and I work hard and when I set my mind to something, I'm very determined. That would go down well with a prospective employer surely? But ants can be annoying and no one really wants them in their house so I'll scrap that idea.  A zebra? The strength and hard working of a horse wrapped up in an unusual coat? No. I think I'd have to go with a dog.  Loyal, faithful, easily trained and will do anything for a treat! 

What would you choose?

My Month in Numbers

Whats the strangest thing anyone said to you this month? Mine has got to be the comment "Oh Debbie, you're looking very Irish today." Irish? Is that a compliment or an insult? I know I'm small but did I have the look of a leprechaun about me? And the teacher who said it is Welsh, so it's not as if she saw me as a kindred spirit. And before you ask, I can assure you that I was NOT doing Riverdance round the staff room either.  So anyway, here I am, not being Irish, sharing my Month in Numbers as part of Julie's meme. 

January has not been the best month, with post-Christmas slumps, the numbers on the scales looking a little higher than they did in December, and oh my goodness, it seemed to take a very long time for payday to come round again.  So, in an effort to get everyone in a good frame of mind for surviving a VERY LONG month let me share my absolute, most favourite song at the moment.

 

 

Everyone feeling upbeat now?  Those of  us looking and feeling Irish Riverdancing around the lounge?  Good, let's get down to the numbers ...

We had one lovely Christening this month. My great nephew was the star of the show and despite everyone's predictions, not one tear was shed. He looked pretty bemused when he ended up having a bit of a hair wash in the middle of the church but nothing that a whole bag of few chocolate buttons didn't put right afterwards.

We had a birthday too.  Just the one. But quite a big one, I think you'll agree. My mother in law celebrated 87 years; quite an achievement.  An on the subject of old ladies (ahem) I passed my driving test 38 years ago today. Let's not dwell on that length of time. 

The local river turned into a huge bubble bath this month.  Really.  Honestly, I know it's hard to believe but it's true. A mild chemical spillage in the local river meant there was a 16ft high wall of foam along the riverbank. I guess we now officially have the cleanest, shiniest fish in Hertfordshire. I can tell you can't believe me so check out the report of it in the local paper!

I've been busy sewing and I now have all 20 blocks ready for my quilt. Now if someone could just tell me how to join them together I'll be very happy. I've got to that 'really want to get it finished' stage. Swiftly followed by the 'Help! someone tell me what to do next' stage.

At school, we used to all bring in a cake on our individual birthdays but this ended up with us having cake almost every other week (I didn't see this as a problem but some other people did) and so now, once every half term the people who have birthdays in those 6 weeks get together and we have cakes on one day.  This week we had the choice of baked cheesecake, carrot cake, coffee cake, chocolate cake or fresh fruit skewers.  Over the course of two days I think I may have managed to try a tiny little bit of all 5 items (there was enough cake for a second round of 'left overs' the next day!) 

Now Julie suggested that the communal count should be the price of bread.  Which should be easy, right? But we're not huge bread eaters here. I do have a bread maker and have phases where I use it regularly at weekends but on the whole we rarely eat a whole loaf during the week.  So we tend to buy one of those small sized whole meal loaves, the ones that cost about 85p. Now, how many 'new' things did I try?  Well.  I tried some new recipes - the most requested 'please make that again' one was biscotti.  But I also found a great oven baked risotto recipe that does away with all that stirring and adding a spoonful of stock every five minutes. The other thing I tried was a sports therapy massage.  Don't be taken in by the relaxing sound of the word 'massage'. My goodness there were moments when it was pretty painful.  Apparently my knee problem isn't in my knee, but the muscles that go down the back of the knee from the thigh to the calf.  We discovered this when the answer to 'does this hurt?' as she pressed and prodded all around my knee changed from 'no' to 'aaaarghhhh'. Hopefully the pain I went through over the following 90 mins will mean that it gradually gets better now.  Watch this space!

Let's sit and have a cup of tea

Come in, come in.  The kettle's just boiled and I've got the mugs out ready. I see you looking at the one I've set out for myself.

It was a Christmas present from Coco.  Apparently I am officially the best Nanny and puppy hugger in the world!  Do you fancy some homemade biscotti?  I'd never made it before but it has been a great hit, especially with all who love pistachio nuts and cranberries.  If you're interested, I can give you the recipe.

 

I would ask you if you came to me by any route that brought you past the river.  There was some kind of chemical spillage at the weekend and a large stretch of the river turned into one gigantic foam bubble bath!   Quite a surprise to people who live in homes that back onto the riverside I would think.  Thankfully it was harmless to fish.

 

We would have to clear the table in the dining room before we could sit down.  The sewing machine is still in good use.  I've made 14 of the 20 squares I need for the quilt I am making and I'm now impatient to get onto the next part.  The only problem is that I have never made a quilt like this before which needs 'sashing' and I'm a little concerned about how to approach it. I will be asking you for your opinion and advice!

 

If you had read my previous blog post, I am sure you will be asking me how my breaking up with 'meh' was going.  I would tell you how I was convinced that 'meh' had followed me to school on Friday and listened to me listening to the calls on the 'absence line'.  That way he would have heard that a virus was going round the school, and I'm sure that he rang up that virus and asked it to visit me on Saturday so that I felt drained of energy and just a bit 'bleurgh' all day.  He's also been in cahoots with my knee which has got progressively more painful.  So much so that I have booked an appointment with a sports massage therapist on Wednesday.  Hard to keep away from 'meh' when you can't begin to drive anywhere much or sit comfortably for any length of time.   Just be aware 'meh' that in the words of Taylor Swift 'we are never, ever, ever, getting back together' and I'm not giving up without a fight! The weird thing is that I climb stairs like an elderly woman with arthritis yet I can still do my hour long Fitsteps class fine.   This is a strange injury!   Have you heard of Fitsteps?  Do check out their website here and if you decide to have a go yourself, let me know what you think. 

 

I would tell you about the Christening that we went to yesterday.  My great nephew was the star of the show and it was lovely to see all the family.  He was such a good boy.

 

As normally happens when you spend any time with a Brit at this time of year (any time of year actually!) we will discuss the weather and when we thought we may get our first snow fall.  Although the temperature has dropped, I don't think it's forecast for the near future.  Who knows?  At least in this area we have escaped the flooding that other places have had.  No flooding, just a 16 feet high wall of foam!

 

It's time for you to brave the elements and pop back to Abi's where I know there's a warm welcome waiting for you.  I'll help you back into your coat/hat/gloves and Coco will definitely be around to say goodbye.  Same time next month?  It's a date!