Things I have been doing when I haven't been blogging...

Unfortunately I haven't managed to find half the time to blog, do or watch things to blog about as I had previously expected. I guess I had high hopes that my small fur-less overlord may have 3 hour naps in the middle of the day for me to get things done in. This mysteriously is not the case.

So in case you are wondering, these are a few things I've been doing when I haven't been blogging....

Baby wrangling/caring for/ entertaining. This has turned out to be quite time consuming and I've only managed to write with the small one strapped to me that one time. I managed over 200 words on the first novel. (I may finish it yet!)

Giving in to my social media addiction and spending far too much time on Facebook on my phone. Sometimes I enjoy it and other times it infuriates me, so I think that I need to spend a few days away from it.

Ferrying Tuxedo the cat to the vets and pet hospital. This is a recent one and an expensive way to spend time. I do not recommend it as he miaows very loudly!

Compiling a mental list of things I should do and then forgetting to do them...

Twiddling with the ending of my first novel attempt. This has happened roughly once but I still live in the hope that I might get to finish one or two novels I've started one day. Preferably before I return to work.

Dreaming of a proper night out with food and drinking... as well as a holiday abroad, going belly dancing or to a gig again. I think at least one of these should happen in the near future!

Getting acquainted with Mr Holmes, aka Sherlock Holmes through the television series and a paperback I picked up at Sharrowvale market a few weeks back. I've managed about three stories from the Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. These are a little different from Jeanette Winterson's book Stone Gods but interesting none the less.

Making a few more trips to the garage than I'd like to have my tire repaired... this is another work in progress.

I've also had a few trips to my home town to see my relatives, a visit to my sister in Nottingham, lunches with friends, my first trip to Our Cow Molly and my first beer festival experience as well.

All in all I guess I've been a tad busy but you know what they say... no rest for the wicked!

Banana biscuit attempt.

So a while back I wrote a list of 14 goals for 2014 and I've not been amazing at sticking to them but the year is still young. (Well young-ish!) One of the goals on this list was to try more new recipes and whilst I've tried to make a few new things recently I haven't generally followed recipes. Pureed butternut squash or sweet potato and carrot anyone???  I also didn't fancy blogging about that as this isn't intended to be a parenting blog.

I have finally found a recipe here to try that wouldn't take me hours when browsing Pinterest the other day. It was for banana cookies and if you know me you'll know that I like bananas but I prefer them not to be too ripe so I often have the issue of what to do with old bananas. In the past I've made them into banana bread and buns which are both nice but this appealed as it seemed quick and healthy.

The recipe called for:

2 large old Bananas
1 cup of quick Oats

The directions were to mash these together, then portion them into cookie sized amounts on a tray and bake for 15 minutes. (Well the photo directions suggested this.)  I decided to be lazy so I chucked my bananas and oats into my food processor.  I also added a tea spoon of baking powder, some rapeseed oil and the seeds of half a vanilla pod before blitzing the mixture.

I then started to put this mixture onto a greased baking tray before deciding they looked a bit bland so I added raisins to the last three quarters of the mix.  Once I filled the baking tray I popped the biscuits into the oven.  The original recipe said to cook at 350 degrees and I presume that's Fahrenheit but my oven works on Celsius so I cooked them at 200 degrees Celsius and checked on them every so often. After checking on them and thinking they looked a bit anaemic I turned the biscuits over and then got them out when they looked a bit more brown.

However, after trying them they tasted slightly over done so I had enough mix for three more biscuits and cooked them until they were just brown. I thought that adding some vanilla pod seeds may take a bit of the banana taste away but I still found that they mainly tasted of banana and Paul thought they were quite bland aka healthy. I gave my son one without any raisins to try and it looked giant in his little hands but he sucked away at it and chomped chunks of oat biscuit away so they seem to pass the baby test at least. I may make these again if/ when I end up with ripe bananas that need disposing of.  However, I should probably find a British recipe instead of winging it by freehand trying to interpret American recipes.

Thursday Film: Josie and The Pussycats.

This is one of those films that I had not found time to watch.  This turned into a bit of a bad habit and there ended up being a pile of them...

This was why getting through these films was one of the tasks on my goals for this year.  It may have taken me a while but I've finally started by watching Josie and the Pussycats.

A strange choice you might think but I decided to watch this first as I borrowed it off my sister and her boyfriend at some point last year. At least I think it was last year... The name and the cover of it don't look like my normal sort of film but it came highly recommended so I put my reservations to one side and sat down. You know what? It was actually quite good! Alright it wasn't Amelie or Garden State but as a film about music, friendship and suspiciously good luck go it worked well.  There are some cheeky songs in there, a few knowing jokes and a plot you could probably guess a lot of but that's all a part of the charm. It was a nice way to spend a few hours escaping from reality watching as Josie and the Pussycats worked out what was suspect and who was actually their friend.

I think it appeals to me as I always dreamed of being in a rock band and having a song on the radio as a child. (I also dreamed of falling into a ravine but I blame watching Indiana Jones too much for that...) Anyway if you haven't seen this film and have previously written it off because of the cover I recommend giving it ago because although it doesn't reinvent the wheel it is good fun.

Monday Movie: Her.

I was a bit unsure about this movie when I saw that it listed in the Kino Bambino listings a few weeks ago and thought it maybe a bit surreal. Part of me thought there maybe creepy robots in it but that could have been because I knew the main character had a moustache... I can't really explain what made me think that.

However, I had a change of mind and I'm glad that I did as it turned out to be a very nice film. It was gorgeously filmed and the accompanying music was absolutely lush.  I also enjoyed the envisioning of the not too distant future with the advanced gaming that pervades your living space rather than being encased in a screen and the computers you could talk into to write.  The only trouble I had was that at times it was a quiet film, partly because people don't tend to spill their souls out loudly.  Sadly as I saw this at a baby screening with my son I did miss some of the dialogue so I may have to re-watch this film to fully appreciate it. (I keep missing crucial conversations/dialogue at the ends of films for this reason and imagining what transpired then hoping that I figured it out correctly.)

If you want a film about melancholia, artificial intelligence and the highs and lows of love in the future then this is the film for you.  If you can't stand the idea of spending a few hours observing the life of a sensitive middle aged naval gazing divorcee then steer well clear.

New hair colour.

So one of my goals for 2014 was to experiment with my hair a tad more. I enjoyed having blue hair but as I have a deadline for returning to my office job I thought it best to use my maternity leave as an opportunity to try a few different hair colours.

So I went to the hair dressers on Saturday and got them to dye my hair.

So this is the new look! It's not a million miles from the old colour and I had hoped for a brighter green but I only bought one tub of Apple Green dye and I needed two so we mixed a bit of blue in there.  It's now a kind of teal/peacock green colour which is still nice but took a little time for me to notice the difference in the colour. However, it did help that I was complimented on my hair within ten minutes of leaving the hairdressers though! So I'll stick with this for the next month or so I think before going for another change.

14 goals for 2014.

It appears to be the norm to make a grand declaration of some vague desires that you resolve to stick to and then quietly despair as you have a human moment and break your self imposed vows. I've done this several times over the years and never quite managed to practise my instruments daily, lose weight or eat healthier. The thing is it seems quite counter intuitive declaring that you are going to eat healthier when there's chocolate everywhere the eye can see. (That's why I like to eat the chocolate then consider exercise and fruit...)

This year I've decided that resolutions are pointless wastes of breath and instead a list of 14 goals to do by the time 2014 is over seems like the way forward.  So here is my proposed list of goals for 2014.

1. Make a blog plan to help with writing You'll get what you're Given! I've been a sporadic blogger over the years but I'm slowly learning that if I don't organise nothing happens. (This is also true of a few other things such as meeting up with friends and getting anything done around cats/small children.)

A taster of what happens when I don't organise!

2. Bake birthday cakes for my loved ones. I didn't bake a cake for Paul last year, it would've probably made me sick but I think that this year me and the food processor can whip something up.

Something like this but a bit better hopefully!

3. Watch all the DVDs that I've got in my collection but haven't quite got around to watching yet... and return the ones that I've borrowed in the past. (Whoops!)

4. This one is about reading I started writing it but it got a bit long so to summarise don't just read quirk classics, Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde or The Walking Dead books and also read to my son as much as possible.

5. Try to make proper fudge again but it goes wrong remember that I can always make chocolate fudge.

6. Go to more parties and make an effort to see my friends and family more.

7. Dye my hair a few more colours before returning to work, blue is cool obviously but I may as well make the most of this freedom to try purple, green and red right?

My lovely blue locks... for now!

8. Have a bit of a CD purge.  Of course there are many CDs in the house from bands I know and love but there are also lots of old demos which I didn't like six or seven years ago and probably still don't like now.

Obviously the Belle and Sebastian & CSS cds are staying!

9. Stay silly. It's all well and good being a responsible adult but sometimes it's good to just be a bit silly and make up nonsense songs or talk in Gollum voices for no reason.

10. Travel a bit more and actually have a holiday rather than just a couple of nights in a London Travelodge. (This will probably turn out to be one of the hardest goals.)

11. See a few more live bands and acts as I count the number of gigs I went to last year on one hand. This makes me sad. (I also plan to award bonus points for each time I manage to take my son to a gig.)

12. Try out more new recipes from the many recipe books that have accumulated over the years.  Preferably one a month with a blog post but more if time/responsibilities allow.

13. Do at least ten active things this year, especially things I couldn't do last year. I plan to count walking and swimming in this so now I need to find eight more things...

I'd like to do a bit more skating this year for a start..

14. Don't get stressed about things I have no control over and formulate strategies for the things I can control.

I'm looking forward to seeing what I manage to achieve over the next year!  

Who inspires you?

Back in May I tried to blog once a day as part of a challenge set by Rosalium and one of the topics which was set on one of the days was: who inspires you.  Now I thought about this back in May and at that time I didn't feel capable of answering this question.

I guess that the issue was because I don't think that there isn't just one person who inspires me.

When I was a child I wanted to do lots of different things like farming, acting, film directing and writing.  It was possibly through an addiction to Enid Blyton books that I decided to start writing stories in the first place.  Although when my short stories started to read like mini carbon copies I was encouraged to read other books....

I love reading and I used to read whatever I could get my hands on and for this reason I don't tend to pay a great deal of attention to authors lives. (Unless I've decided to write a dissertation on them and in the case of those writers that was research/procrastination...)

Over the past year I've struggled with writing whilst pregnant and since giving birth to my son trying to work out how to write around caring for him.  What has this got to do with who inspires you?  Well hold your horses I'm coming to that!

Over the last year I've struggled to find time to write anything let alone my poor neglected novels and for that reason my respect and admiration for J K Rowling has grown.  I say grown because I have enjoyed the Harry Potter books since I was a young girl and used to read some of them by the light of the street light that illuminated my the street outside my house.

When I was despairing to Paul about how I felt like I was losing myself not being able to write whilst pregnant and worrying if I'd ever write again after the baby came he reminded me about J K Rowling. Daft as it may sound but it made me feel more positive.

Now I wouldn't say that she is my only inspiration but she's probably the main famous one I have.  The rest are people you've never heard of like my family members who've persevered in the hunt for a job in their chosen career despite the difficulties they've faced, who have gone through tough times and come out stronger and more positive, those that have had a chance to adventure and taken it. As well as friends who have worked hard and are now living their dreams.

I don't think I ever really envisioned what my life as an adult would be like as a child but I know that in many ways I've probably got what many people dream of. A house, car, little family and a job which I quite like. Despite that I don't think I've quite achieved all of my dreams or grown up but I guess that I'm on my way and maybe one day when I look back that I might be able to match up to those people that inspire me.