i successfully ignored my bad mood today!

i was so tired. and terribly premenstrual... moody, in need of ridiculous amounts of chocolate, crying at the newspaper i'm lining my compost bowl with... this morning i was tempted to not do anything, to stay at home and clean and tidy up and nap when emm sleeps and then laze about for the rest of the day.

but thankfully i changed my mind! instead i baked 16 carrot and pineapple buns, brought them up to mum&baby coffee morning and spent a lovely 2 hours, as did emm.
then, even though i'd more or less decided i wasn't going to go into town for my colleague's birthday lunch, i changed my mind, and called to say i'd be a little late, got petrol for the car and we went in! that way i just joined them for a dessert and coffee, instead of the whole wine and dine occasion, which would have been too expensive, and too long for emm to sit through! she had a great time playing with several of my colleagues, i got to catch up with my friends from work, and by four o'clock we were on our way back home, in great humour, and with possibly girly drinks planned for tomorrow night!

sometimes it's good to just ignore the tiredness and feeling down, and make the most of the day! err, probably always, really! as long as there's a smidgen of energy left in me!

the physical tiredness is catching up though, so i'll be off to bed now!

a perfect sunday afternoon

After an already great Saturday with cycling (with Emm and my friend Deb) and lunch (where P joined us), today turned out to be lovely too! I finally mowed the lawn (as the ground isn't like a sponge anymore, yay!), in the meantime Emm crawled around the rest of the garden, which resulted in her first set of clothes doing the rounds in the washing mashine by half twelve.

Then we headed out for a surprisingly good value lunch in 'Seasons', to the pound shop for a bucket and spade, and then to the beach, where Emm had an absolute ball, as did her parents. She was so content, she loved everything, the sand, the seaweed, all the stones and shells, paddling in one of the low tide puddles... She conked on the way home in the car and was transferred to her bed without even blinking an eyelid. Which gave us time to mess around in the garden a little more. In the evening we just picked up some pizzas, as we were all drunk on sunlight and fresh air.

We'll have to be good for the rest of the week and bring packed lunches and no more ordering out, the quota for eating out and lazy food is definitely used up already! Thankfully I have a stew ready to be finished tomorrow and fridge and pantry are stocked well.

Such a treat, a whole sunny weekend! My freckles have come out, my toenails are painted, I daresay, summer is here! Hopefully it'll be a good one for a change!

bread

After lots of cookie baking i made some easter bread to bring down to the inlaws last weekend, it's a lightly sweetened white yeast bread dough, with sultanas and raisins mixed through, glazed with a mix of honey and butter. The eggs in the centre are died with red onion skins (not really the colour i was expecting) and the chocolate bugs and bunnies are from germany. 

I'd love to be the type to bake my own bread every other day, but unfortunately I'm not... Luckily our local shop recently started to sell Aisling Bakery Breads, they do a great 'Turnover', it's only a euro and has all of four ingredients: Flour, water, yeast and salt. It's really delicious! And only on Tuesday I discovered they also started to sell Soul Bakery Breads, the fancy, fruity ones! I got a Raisin and Apricot loaf, no added sugar, no crap, but it's so sweet and lovely, especially toasted, spread with a bit of salted butter! I hope it's not a once off and they'll continue to offer them! 

I've just put Emm to sleep and better start thinking about what we'll have for dinner tonight and make a shopping list...

IKEA bootie

Hours of unpacking and assembling later (I can feel my arm and shoulder muscles something shocking!) here we are with our new set up! I think I will need an oilcloth tablecloth, as the veneer won't last long with Emm at the table! It looks lovely and uncluttered, although it'll take some getting used to. It's so stark and dark, whereas my old table and chairs were light and warm...

But there is so much more space now, and the table extends out on two sides, so we'll still be able to have people over for dinner (hence the two extra chairs in the corner (they'll go into the attic for my sewing table and the desk (formerly known as kitchen table). It's nice to properly sit 'around the table' as a family now, before it was always one of us sitting next to Emm, which was really awkward for helping her eat.

The dark furniture brings out the dark bits in the wooden floors, and the lower design makes the room look higher, but at the moment the focus is really drawn down, I will have to get some dark picture frames, and maybe some wallmounted shelves (scary, with our hollow walls...), so there is a bit of contrast above 'waist level' in the room! The kitchen and dining area don't flow as well any more. I was all for getting the light ash colour, but P loved the dark, and it goes better with the chairs. We didn't go for the Tobias chairs in the end, it's very wide and bulky.

Emm's new shoes

Aren't they too cute? I got them 2 weeks ago for her! She sometimes takes off her much more expensive proper pre-walkers and brings me these to put on her!

busy busy

we've been keeping busy here, no crafting to speak of, but visitors from germany, childminding, visits to P's parents and lots of cooking and baking.

today we've got a trip to ikea planned, to look at the bjursta table and the tobias chair, and to get an antilop (for little visitors, and to bring down with us when we visit p's parents (we usually go on a sunday when the house is quite full, and there's always a short supply of chairs, so bringing the handysitt is not an option))

oh, i just saw the new chair by handysitt! http://www.minui.com/Products---UK-190.aspx?ProductID=PROD16&VariantID= together with the seat (that we already have) it makes a high chair, or it can be used on its own! http://www.minui.com/Products---UK-190.aspx?ProductID=PROD14&VariantID=

if we go for the ikea chairs, it'll be quite a shift towards the modern from our relatively traditional current dining furniture. the table isn't ideal, i much prefer solid wood to veneer, and i prefer slightly tapered legs, but we're looking for a smaller table that we can extend, only when needed, as the dining area is so small and emm loves to drive her little car and hopefully soon she'll be walking and running, too! we don't want to spend too much money, as in a few years we hopefully will be able to extend out the back and make a dining room there.