January 31, 2007

The world has gone mad

Well it has here in Northern Ireland anyway. We have been in our house for about 8 years now, it is the first house we have ever bought and we never intended to stay in it forever. We thought we would move on at some point, I have always had this fear of being stuck in one place forever, I don't know why, but I just don't know how people can stay in the same house for 20 years! But the way things are going unless we move far away we can forget moving on.

The property market here has gone completely crazy. When I say crazy I mean totally CRAZY! I just can't emphasize enough. We got our house valued this morning just to see how much money we would have to play with if we saw something else we fancied. Just to give you an idea, we live in a pretty standard 3 bedroom semi-detached house, with a very very small garden. Its in a pretty good area and is close to a lot of schools and just a 15 minute drive from the centre of town. But I am absolutely sickened at the estimate. The estate agent said he would put our house on for £275,000 and we would probably even get £300,000+ for it!!!!!!!! Now some people might think this is great news for us equity wise but really it isn't unless we sell up and move away or something. It also means that we would be looking to pay up to £400,000 if we wanted to get somewhere a little bigger. Its just crazy. Its not right at all that house prices should be like this. It only seems to be here that they have had such a massive rise and it still looks set to continue.

Anyone looking to buy a house for the first time might as well forget unless they have a top salary. Banks are now letting people have 5 times there salary to try and afford somewhere, which is totally wrong and leaves people with property they just can't afford.

I am bewildered by it all and if I don't end this rant now I could go on forever.

Posted by Maxine at 04:06 PM | Comments (6)

January 29, 2007

Thanks Sal

I have been trying to think of a creative project I can do from the comfort of the sofa, whilst watching TV. As every night this seems to be where I end up and I just don't have the energy for anything else. So I thought I would knit a patchwork blanket for Harrison. Now I can't knit (despite what you think Sal! thanks for the vote of confidence anyway), well only in straight lines anyway. So I thought this would be a reasonably easy project for me.

I asked Sal for a bit of advice and she told me about this book she has 'Blankets and throws to knit' book, by Debbie Abrahams. I had a look at it on Amazon and went ahead and ordered it! Now I have no choice but to put my plan into action, have a project, learn to knit a couple of patterns and get some creative satisfaction.

Just have to buy the wool and figure it all out now. Fingers crossed.

Posted by Maxine at 09:02 PM | Comments (3)

January 27, 2007

Delightfully Delicious Decole

Velda has yet again come up trumps with a wonderfully irresistible collection of Decole to purchase from her store. This is just a sample of what I simply couldn't keep my hands off and what will be appearing at my door in the very near future. There is a whole lot more to choose from, including her fungi teapots and teacup tower and a house planter with chamomile seeds. I don't know how I managed to stop myself. I think every house needs a bit of decole sunshine, so go check it out.

Posted by Maxine at 08:36 PM | Comments (6)

Buttery Goodness

Look what I got! I got sucked into ebay the other night and and ended up buying this wonderful Alessi butter dish. Just what I need for the lashings of buttery goodness for my toast and scones and whatever else! Bad but good! The steam coming out the top is a handle for the butter knife, very clever really. I love the Alessi products, but I generally don't feel justified in buying them. Ebay is so so very addictive, especially when there are pages and pages of each product. There must've been about 20 pages of butter dishes and yes, insanely I looked through them all!

Posted by Maxine at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2007

Winter Fun & Baking

Its been a very very long time since I attempted scones and previously they have ended up as rock cakes rather than lovely crumbly treats. So I thought I would give it a go and made these apple and cinnamon scones. Now they did turn out a bit flat and I think I know what went wrong here so I can rectify that next time I make them, but let me tell you they were absolutely scrummy! I am so pleased with how they tasted, even if they weren't perfect.

With not much time or energy for much else in the way of crafting for myself, on Emily's request we did a bit of wintery craft. It was really good fun. We used bubble wrap to make a snow scene and put the paint thickly onto the roof of the house and turned it up to make it melt like real snow. Both of these ideas come from cbeebies - TV is not all that bad! The birdy is a great idea from 'The Little Hands Art Book'. You cut out the shape of the bird from a flattened muffin cup, draw on eyes, decorate with feathers if you wish and glue the body part down - this leaves the wings and tail to flap around. Add some cotton wool for sky and you have the perfect birdy scene! I will have to try this one again with her when she is a bit older, I think lots of fun could be had with these birdies.

On the cooking front, we also made lovely lentil & sweet potato soup, salmon fishcakes (which Emily refused to eat despite the fact that she loves salmon and mashed potato) and an absolutely scrumptious banoffee pie. Yum!

Posted by Maxine at 01:54 PM | Comments (4)

January 15, 2007

If I Can't Create...

What better way to keep a creative blog going than through the use of your childrens artwork! I know, I know, its purely because I still can't do anything myself, its very lame of me but hey! Anyway isn't this picture amazing, Emily drew a picture of her daddy and honestly it is so like him in real life! It is the most recognisable drawing she has done so far and it was on her magic sketchy thing so I couldn't even keep it - aaah! So I did the next best thing and preserved it forever with a photograph. She normally just scribbles like mad and never really focuses on drawing actual things so this made me very proud.

On another note my mom came over again to celebrate her 50th birthday. As we couldn't make it over to them my step-dad surprised my mom with a visit to us. We had a lovely time, went out thrifting and then out for tea at a local restaurant. It was great. We don't see each other that often, so its nice to catch up and do the ordinary things that we miss out on. Happy Birthday mom!

Posted by Maxine at 10:13 PM | Comments (1)

January 09, 2007

Is it 2007 Already?

Well I can hardly believe we have made it to 2007. What a year! Unfortunately, like a lot of other people, we had an anti-climax of a Christmas due to illness. Emily started getting sick on Christmas Eve, we couldn't believe it. Of all the times to get sick, poor thing. We didn't manage to put any food out for Santa or the reindeers but at least Warren was able to leave Santas footprints from the front door to the presents (we don't have a chimney so we have to improvise!). Although Em was still sick in the morning she still managed to get excited by the footprints and open a few of her pressies, the rest we saved for the next day.

To cut a long story short I then picked up the bug and was sick for a few days, by which time Warren picked it up too. We were sick right up until New Years Eve. In fact my mom took pity on us and sacrificed her New Year plans to fly over and take care of us and help me out with the kids! How amazing is that?!

Since then we have managed to fit in a few things, although not much I have to say. But we met up with friends, had play dates, did a bit of crafting and baking with Emily, went out for lunch and generally tried to get back to normality.

I am finding getting back into the swing of blogging very difficult and in the evening when I have some free time I am just far too exhausted and collapse on a heap on the sofa watching an episode of House before going to bed. In fact its Ems first day back at school today which is why I have five minutes to do this post! My RSS feeds have almost reached 500 unread and I figure I am going to have to wipe the slate clean and start again as there is just no way I have the time to catch up on all my reading. It is taking all my effort just to make sure the laundry is done and we have tea.

I am not giving up on Noodles and I am gonna try harder to post a bit more regularly and most importantly actually do some things to post about!

My biggest New Years Resolution - be positive, stay happy and embrace my friendships. After lots of complaining last year what more could I aspire to do.

Happy New Year everyone.

Posted by Maxine at 10:01 AM | Comments (3)