Went to bed before midninght, woke again at 2:50am. Gave up trying to go back to sleep at 4am. Dicking about on internet now.
For christmas could I have a sleep pattern that isn't broken please?
- Location:bed
- Mood:
awake
I'm catering/throwing Robyn's 21st Birthday party at Uni tomorrow night. It's going to be a sort of Fajita/Chilli bar affair with Cupcakes for dessert. So I have done all the planning, then the shopping and now the cooking. So far I have made: 2 types of chocolate truffle, plain and milk chocolate with Cointreau, peppermint patties, vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, a vegetarian chilli, tomato, red onion and sweetcorn salsa and I have done all the prep for making fajitas tomorrow. I have then made up the truffles and peppermint patties into grown up party bags or favours as I believe the americans call them! This is for approximately 14 people.
Tomorrow I have to transport: a slow cooker of chilli, a bowl of salsa, a bowl of marinating chicken fajita mix, 2 dozen cupcakes, 14 party bags, 1 box of wine, 1 case of fizz, 6 bottles of soft drinks, 2 bags of doritos, 2 tubes of pringles, 2 heads of lettuce, 1 tub of creme fraiche, 3 dips, 4 packs of tortillas wraps, paper plates/bowls, banners, ballons, tablecloths, my overnight bag and myself across the Pennines in a Clio with slightly dodgy tires*. Then I have to set up the flat for the party, check into my hotel, change, get back to the flat, cook and party.
I have met some of her friends once and her fiance is now going to be coming so I will be playing billy no mates in the corner all night coz I DON'T LIKE PARTIES!!!! Also where was I supposed to be sleeping before I put my foot down and found a hotel? SHE CANNOT PLAN ANYTHING!!! Which is why I'm determined to make this a really great party for her. My 21st was shit. Mum was in hospital and I was in Japan and I didn't even get a cake when I got back 2 weeks later! Also I'm overcompensating for the shit state of my life right now. If I can cook like a demon and throw a great party then my life is not worthless and there is a point to me taking up space and oxygen.
But it's sodding knackering!
* Oh yeah, my life reached it's feminist peak yesterday. I went to do the shopping for this party and came out to find my rear tire looking decidedly flat. Did I panic or flounder? I did not! I whipped out the electric pump, hooked it up and then danced about in the cold for a bit while it blew up the tire. There were at least 3 blokes in cars watching me and not one of them tried to help, obviously I looked like I knew what I was doing! (I didn't but it was an adventure!) Then as the piece de resistance I put everything away tidily and got out a pack of wet wipes, which no man would have thought to have handily in the car for such emergencies... alright, I admit the wetwipes are mostly there for getting chocolate and ketchup off my face but still! I did car stuff and had wet wipes. I rock!
- Location:bed
- Mood:
tired
Ok, that last one I totally understand but I'm a clutz so filling cups of flour is the quickest way for me to get it everywhere! Sometimes more complicated is better. But even acknowledging that it is quite a good idea in general why doesn't it convert easier? Whenever I see a recipe calling for 1 cup cake flour, 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 lb semisweet chocolate and 1/2 cup light corn syrup* it doesn't matter how good the finished product looks, I'm outta there! I'm sure it works the other way too and I scare off many Americans but this is my LJ so I'm on my side!
*I wonder what I just made there?
- Location:bed
- Mood:
frustrated
I haven't got a clue what to ask for for christmas. What I really really want is a cocker-poo coz I met one while out shopping the other week and fell in love. But I'm not going to be able to get a dog of my own for years yet I should imagine, if ever. I'd also quite like the bright pink Laguiole cake set from Habitat or the Laguiole 'Brights' sets from John Lewis but when I pointed them out in a magazine mum was all dismissive saying that £35 was a ridiculous price for some forks. I see lots and lots of little things but you can't really ask for things so specifically, I just have to assume that my family, having spent 25 years with me, will actually have a clue what I'm into... I'm usually wrong. Ordinarily I'm easy to buy for, if it looks like something you'd find in Cath Kidston I'm sold! But I don't want homeware this year because I have no home. I'm in limbo here and I don't want to get loads of kitchen and home stuff just for it to sit in a box in the garage waiting for life to finally cut me some fucking slack.
I see stuff around and I think it looks good but if I actually ask for something I get told it's not suitable, so no doubt mum'll just buy me whatever she thinks I should have and pay no attention to what I actually want... if only I could make up my mind about what I want. This is yet another lesson I leanred from a young age. Don't ask for what you really want coz you sure as hell won't get it. Perpetual disappointmet is better than hope any day. If life has taught me anything it's that hope is the shittiest emotion going coz there's never any point. Life has fucked me over at every opportunity. Christmas presents are no exception.
( And this is where I veer off on a little emotional breakdown so I'm cutting this. )
- Location:bed
- Mood:
sad
Does anyone know if I can get replacement keys online anywhere from the UK?
I phoned the helpline and the guy said I'd have to send the laptop in for an assessment and then they'd probably send it back with a quote coz it's accidental damage and then I could send the laptop back in for repair. Which is fucking stupid! I need a little white clip thing not a whole new sodding keyboard like he said! ARGH!!!! Could cheerfully kill the dog and the "help"line guy too!!!!
ETA: FIXED IT!!!!!!!!!!!! There was a bit of plastic that had flown across the room and once I found that it all went back together again!!! Yay!!! The dog is forgiven, the helpline guy is not.
- Location:bed
- Mood:
pissed off
- Location:bed
- Mood:
annoyed - Music:wopwopwop
When we're in Italy staying with Emily she brings up brioche for breakfast and they are divine! They're shaped like a croissant but they're made of a delicious sweet bready dough and often have jam inside. I think they're particular to the Como region. I have been desperately searching for a recipe to make these lovely things for months and I could only seem to turn up two recipes that even seem to come close. Well, strike one off the list, it's very nice but it is so not what I was after!
The dough was HELLISH to work with. I dug out mum's kenwood to do the mixing for me as it was so wet and even then I had to add tonnes of flour to even begin to roll it out. This dough was a right diva. Absolute nightmare! Took me a good 4 hours to get, well it'll do for breakfast tomorrow... and the day after that... and the day after that for that matter (didn't think the recipe was going to give that much as it did, when I wrote it down I got the conversions wrong and then once I'd started had to scramble to get it right). Anyway, the hunt for a brioche recipe continues. If I spoke Italian I'd probably be away, alas I don't. But I'm totally getting Emily to ask the local bakery for their recipe. Hopefully they'll give it to me on the basis that I'm in another sodding country and can't nab market share!
- Location:bed
- Mood: annoyed
Then I moved on to an elaborate fantasy/plan involving what would happen if someone were to spill coffee down me in Starbucks prior to the interview. Then the dog left me. He absconded in the middle of the night to go back to sleeping in mum and dad's room the little turncoat!! So then I was unsettled coz I missed the dog. Then the rabbit started thumping her feet out in her hutch but it took me about half an hour of freaking out to figure out that it was the rabbit. Eventually I just passed out from exhaustion but I didn't get more than 4 1/2 hours sleep and woke up feeling like death.
The high point of my day was supposed to be finally buying the madeleine tin I've been lusting over for weeks, only when I got to the shop they'd put up the price by £1, making amazon much cheaper instead of mildly cheaper so I didn't buy it and will now have to hit google again. ARGH!!!
I did, however, get some shoes that don't fit but are exactly what I was after. My left foot is a size(ish) smaller than my right foot and I have very wide feet. I tried on 10 pairs of shoes today in 3 different shops and the bigger size was always too big, the smaller size far too small. I'm hoping to work something out with socks and insoles coz otherwise I'm fucked! I also got some shorts for winter wear with tights, a pretty top and some mittens for 99p. Interestingly these exact same mittens with little pearls sewn on cost £7.99 in the same shop. Apparently pearly plastic is expensive!
And to top it all off I am starting with the cold that's been going around the family. My throat is scratchy, my nose is stuffy, my head hurts and my sinuses are complaining loudly. I don't want to be ill. I am supposed to be going out with gran this friday, just for a drive about and lunch but I'm looking forward to it and if I'm ill I can't go! I'm now curled up with a box of biscuits I made in the shape of ghosts and bats turning my tongue a lovely shade due to food colouring and feeling sorry for my self. I expect to wake up tomorrow and have a better day or else!
- Location:bed
- Mood:
sick
- Location:day bed
- Mood: annoyed
I thought I'd lost the cat earlier as Oscar was nowhere to be found. We looked EVERYWHERE, in every little nook or cranny in the house, we shook biscuits, we called for her, we did everything. The only conclusion was that she'd got out. Oscar has never been outside, she's afraid of the sky, she wants to know why there's no ceiling! So we started running about outside calling. I was falling apart as I thought I'd have to tell mum I'd lost her kitten. I went back inside to give one last sweep, we were up to moving whole pieces of furniture and opening locked cupboards by this point. I thought I'd have one last try with wet food rather than dry... and out she sauntered... the useless sodding cat was RIGHT THERE THE WHOLE TIME!!!! She'd been hiding under the sodding duvet!!! I could cheerfully have killed her right then. She was very nearly a hat! (And, yeah, she's called Oscar, there was a mix up! I call her Doodles.)
The dog has abandonned me now that he has all of his people back so I'm without my shadow. This whole week I have never been alone in a room except when showering and even then he was lying outside the bathroom door across the threshold! I kinda miss him already. It will be interesting to see if he goes to bed with mum and dad or me.
I hit the farmers' market in Ripon this morning. I got a whole bunch of squash for an autumnal display and a celeriac. I've never had celeriac but I thought I'd give it a go. I also got dad a chilli plant so he can eat his own chillies, which he likes. As far as markets go it was obviously smaller than the usual market but it had 3 different meat producers, only one for veg but a separate one for herbs/plants, where I got the chilli. I also got Elephant Garlic to plant up. We'll see how that works out!
I also picked up more butternut squash for soup, which Robyn did not then eat and I also made fresh plaited bread rolls, which, again, went uneaten! I did manage to force a blueberry muffin down her throat, which is a little consolation. I also managed to make a very passable roast, the chicken was lovely, really moist good quality bird. I made far too much in veg though, but last time I made far too little, c'est la vie!
Now I'm going to sleep for a week, someone else can walk the damned dog!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
lethargic
Basically my mum bought a phone yesterday. On her own. Her phone had broken so she went back to the shop and the guy said it was broken and she'd have to buy a new one. She said she wanted a Nokia with X, Y and Z. The cheapest Nokia did not have Z so the guy sold her a Samsung saying it was "exactly the same". Yes, it's exactly the same. Its a telephone. However even I say that the system is ridiculous. It is not intuitive at all. There's always a certain period of adjustment with a new phone but this one is just crazy! Mum cannot cope. Hell, it had deleted Home from the phonebook!
So, assuming that since it was less than 24 hours sinc she'd bought it and it was in no way "exactly the same" as a Nokia we recconned we were in with a good chance of managing to exchange it for a more expensive phone. Nope. No way. Not a cat in hell's chance!
We went to the shop and waited for 5 minutes for someone to acknowledge us. He listened to our problem, looked at the phone she does want and called customer services. Baiscally they won't do anything. Mum kicked up a fuss so they said they'd have to speak to the guy who sold her the phone, who is in tomorrow, and see what he said happened. Yeah, coz he's going to remember selling a random PAYG phone on a frenetic saturday when the shop was packed to the rafters. They said she'd have to come back tomorrow. Um, hello, job? So then he said she could call and he's see if that would be ok but they usually need you to be there in person.
While we were waiting we saw a notice posted below knee height on an already incredibly busy space saying that they don't accept returns or exchanges unless it's broken. What the hell has happened to make businesses feel that this kind of behaviour is acceptable? What happened to "the customer is always right"? What happened to being mildly helpful? What happened to all our wonderful rights and regulations that protect the consumer from being bamboozled and ripped off? Because that's what happened here. Mum doesn't get phones or technology. She trusted the guy when he said it was "exactly the same" and now that she has a problem they'll present a united front of 'stupid woman doesn't know what she's talking about' I'm betting.
How exactly would it hurt them to let her switch the damned phone? Why the need to investigate? Customer says X therefore X is true. You take the phone back, sell her the more expensive on and everyone is happy. Now they just have an extremely pissed off customer who is going to be kicking up a fuss because surely there's some European regulation or other that says 'don't bloody argue' and at the very least will be giving them hell for the absolutely dismal customer service on top of being lied to in the first place! It's only more paperwork for them!
Honestly. I actually could slap that man today because now mum's in a pig of a mood and so am I and all this is on top of Gran having a small nervous breakdown and stopping eating and throwing a wobbler. It's been a hell of a week!!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood: pissed off
ARGH!!!!! I could strangle my mother right now.
She has been going on and on about how the household budget is getting out of control and how we've got to pull our horns in and make some economies etc etc. She has also been going on and on about how stressed she is and how she doesn't have enough time to do anything ever. So I said I would take over cooking dinner so she didn't have to worry about it and would have more time in the evenings to do things.
Last night I planned a week's menu and wrote a shopping list for her. I even priced it up. The menu was beautifully crafted. For example eating out of the freezer, which is epic, getting 4 meals out of one chicken and getting a massive bulk pack of mushrooms so they could be used throughout the week and not go slimey. I thought about this menu damn it!!!! I told her that if she wanted to make any changes then I could work them in if she told me.
She just got back from the supermarket and basically did exactly what she was supposedly trying to avoid. Not only has she got the stuff for the menu but she got loads of other bits and pieces that were on offer. She has also decided to change Saturday's meal to Squid. Saturday's meal was going to provide the basics for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday as well!!!!! Basically my whole menu is bollocksed and we will end up with leftovers going to waste and things not used and half of the damned shopping will go straight in the freezer and fill up all of the space dad had made and I really could kill her right now!!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!
Why do I bloody bother???
- Location:day bed
- Mood: pissed off
It is perfect I love the interface, the tools do exactly what I want to be doing with them and it was free to download. I downloaded 5 other programs today but none of them worked out, this one was doing brilliantly...
... and then it crashed... and crashed... and crashed...
However, in an interesting twist it only crashes while opening the pictures I actually want to edit. If I try opening another picture that I'm only opening to see if it'll open it's fine. If I try opening one to actually work on, bam, gone.
I have tried moving the files, renaming the files, copying them to a new location, going straight from the original, everything I can think of but no, it is not playing. And I am really really mad about it coz it is the perfect program for me!!!
I am obviously not meant to do anything graphic or photo related. I barely have the skills to start with, if the software is turning against me now I have no hope of getting my website sorted!!!
Add into this the generally funerial pace of my laptop at present and I think I may be making a trip to PC World tomorrow... and may be Jessops to look at cameras. Could be an expensive day.
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
angry
I am thinking about getting a new laptop and a digital camera.
The reason for this being that I have filled my little 40GB hard drive on this laptop and am currently trying to move things onto an external hard drive to free up some space but I need everything... well I don't but I might!! The other problem is it is struggling to do the things I want it to do. I just don't have enough RAM... not that I recall how much RAM this thing has but everyday usage shows that whatever it is this is not enough!!!
The reason I want a camera is coz I am currently using my cellphone camera. Yes, it is 5 megapixels, which is far better than the digital camera I already have, but it still isn't great. What it is is bloody convenient. But I want a camera I can take photos at night and most importantly I can photograph my food with!!! I'm by no means a photographer, I just want to have a camera that I point and click at things and it takes lovely, non yellow, focused pictures. I'm not that demanding! Although if I just managed to take photos in natural light instead of inside at night I'd be away. However, I live in England. Between August and May if I want to take a photo of my dinner it's going to be at night. So I should probably look into some kind of light too... hm.
But yeah, I am bracing myself to spend a lot of money but first I must research cameras. I believe my last one was bought for me on the basis of what was cheapest. If only my damned laptop were working fast enough for me!!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood: annoyed
- Music:The chuntering of my hard drive and fan.
( Slave labour, arguments and injuries. AKA The state of mylife. )
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
distressed
I think I have spent so many years being a stroppy, hormonal bitch that now when I am genuinely upset or have a legitimate complaint my family just assume I'm being a stroppy, hormonal bitch and feel free to completely ignore me. It's either that or they do actually hate me and Robyn is their favourite and they just don't care about what I think or feel. I'm hoping they think I'm just a moody cow... although even if I were a moody cow it would be nice if they ever actually listened to me.
Still don't know if I'm going on holiday. Mum was about to book the ferry last night and then Robyn said she wanted to wait in case her theatre thing needed more time, even though she's been waiting to hear for 3 days already and we've been planning this holiday since June. So naturally Mum still hasn't booked the bloody ferry and we still don't know if we're going coz Robyn couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery if her life depended upon it. ARGH!!!!
There's a lot of deadly nightshade about... I bet I could get people to believe she ate it by accident... in fact, everyone would believe she ate it by accident, she's cute but really stupid at times.... hm...
Just to be clear I am joking about killing my sister. I may fantasise but it would all be too much hassle to actually do it.
- Location:sofa in the conservatory
- Mood:
cranky
Yay, wet dogs!! Fun!! Frodo has a little coat so he doesn't get wet. Well, his head and paws do, dad won't let me get him wellies, but the rest of him is dry. I just walked 10 dogs in the rain, imagine the smell. I also scrubbed out 3 cat pens, which are easier than do pens. All in all today was much better than yesterday. Mostly coz I didn't come home crying. I think that I've grasped the routines and rhythms of the place and it helped that Jen mostly left me alone to do stuff so I could get on with it without worrying that she was peering over my shoulder or something.
It is kinda heart breaking though. Frodo is never ever going to prison unless it's life or death. There's this one little dog in and when I knelt down to put her lead on she just threw herself at me, climbed up on my knee and pressed herself as close as she could. I gave her a good cuddle but you still have to shut them in and leave eventually. I hope that I'll have more time for the couple of dogs they'll have in when I'm up there. I move in next Thursday for 2 weeks. I'm not sure if they have internet but I have my phone and Robyn's dongle so I'm sure I'll cope.
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
drained
Basically I hate it, it's a lovely clean place and all but it is prison for dogs and cats. They get no love, just cleaned, fed and emptied. It is hard work as well. At the minute there are about 10 dogs in and 6 cats so repeat this list times that. Hopefully when I'm in charge it'll be 2-4 dogs and an indeterminate number of cats.
( Click on the cut for how to run a kennels. I thought I'd spare your flists a bit! )
I'll be staying overnight in case of emergency... although noone has told me what to do in case of an emergency like the barn burning down... I've been told to call vets out if they're sick but if the barn is on fire do I just release all the animals? Try and put the cats in boxes? What about the dogs that bite other dogs, do I let them take their chances? And do I let the geese out too and have them get eaten by dogs? Oh the worries!!!
But aside from that I'm hoping that dad will be doing the hard work most days, I'll do weekends or something, and I can do the evening walk and answer phones etc. They have a whole load of admin needs doing, it's a freakin' mess, so I'll probably end up sorting that out for them. But I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to be doing or if I can leave in the afternoons or what. I'd just like a straight answer but they don't seem to be straight answer kinds of people. I can see why dad gets on with them so well!!!
So yeah, I'm now knackered and my wrists are about to go big time. I see ice packs in my future. So we will see how this goes. They leave on the 4th September and I leave on the 18th so it's two weeks... plus whatever they decide they want me to do in the mean time, which was definitely NOT a part of the agreement, but then so little was.
Note to self, if dad ever asks you to do something, JUST SAY NO!!! It's not worth it!!! I came home today and burst into tears on dad. Frodo was frantic, he is very good at licking up tears though, which is nice if rather gross. I like knowing that someone cares. I think I scared dad off though coz he was out the door like a shot. Bloody men!!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
anxious
So I'm all scratched up and then the dog decided to escape and bolt acoss the road, I managed to skin my knee and my hand trying to recapture him. I am not a happy bunny. I didn't even manage to get the damned dog back, mum did!!!
Speaking of mum she's in a hell of a mood as per bloody usual so I'm getting absolutely no smypathy. It's one of those day where no matter how you try to help you're doing it wrong and she will yell at you for it. However, if you don't help the she's "the only one who ever does anything around here" and the rest of us are useless layabouts. Joy.
I'm hiding out in the garden 'keeping the dog company' and nursing my wounds. I'm going to have to just slather the right hand side of my body in sudocreme tonight and hope! For now I am off to get as much read as possible before the internet fails on us after dinner as it has done every bloody night this week.
- Location:garden table
- Mood:
listless
My keyboard is full of silver birch seeds so some of the letters are unreliable, my favourites list in up to about 100, only 50 of which I actually use with any regularity, the rest being 'must check that later, can't be bothered right now' kinda saves or communities that I thought were funny to start with and have since gone a bit nutso (lots of that going around right now.) I just haven't had the time recently to catch up on everything, my internet has been rather dodgy for a week at least and I've been prioritising job applications, obviously. I finally caught up on the jackxianto comm from the 30th July to now but torch_wood can go whistle. I'll catch up on the mulit parters I'm reading but nothing else, I just don't have the time!!
My food blog is starting to get whipped into shape too. I've been cooking a lot so I've had lots to update and I'm trying to get pics in there and generally make it a more useful site... you know, in case anyone ever actually uses it!! At this point I'm mostly hoping that Robyn will find it useful at uni.
So yeah, busy busy. The great thing is that after renovating the conservatory I now have a lovely sunny room to sit in and work and on days like today I can shift onto the garden table and sit in the sunshine surrounded by flowers. Our garden really does come into its own in the summer.
I'm looking forward to seeing Sam next week, trying to think of all the best places to go/what to cook etc. should be fun!!! And I get to meet Yuk!!! Sam, any dietary requirements likes/dislikes I should know before I start menu planning?
- Location:sitting at the garden table
- Mood:
relaxed
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
buffologist- Scaramouche
Syndicate
