Blog Everyday in May - day 14. Cake. #BEDM

So I haven't managed to keep up with the blogging everyday thing very well because I've been busy with work, helping my boyfriend survive the election, counting votes after the election, getting my hair done, going out, looking after my son... you get the picture!
After all of that I haven't found much time to engage in either of my writing projects or any of my other hobbies. Then yesterday the toddler decided to have a nice long nap and enabled me to bake!

Hurrah!

Every cake should be served on a dinosaur plate.

I got to make a sponge cake with some butter cream and I went slightly overboard with the jam. It tastes lovely. "Nice" even... that's what the little monster said about the cake mix and the cake. Little joys!

Blog Everyday in May - day 4. Guilty pleasures. #BEDM

I must admit that I'm not a very cool person, in fact I'm a bit geeky. (Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm a nerd as I'm not interested in binary code...) I don't tend to think of myself as having guilty pleasures as life is too short! I readily admit that I enjoy Doctor Who and Star Wars. I prefer my entertainment to be fantastical or action packed so there are only a few things that I watch that buck this trend like Sex in the City or Revenge.

Musically I have reasonably eclectic tastes and mainly enjoy listening to Indie-pop, rock and a bit of motown/soul.  That said I quite enjoy a few chart acts like Meghan Trainor and that Bills song by Lunchmoney Lewis.

I think I have more guilt about the food I eat than the films, tv or music I enjoy.  I think this is true of most people.  It's not that I diet or obsess over it I just know that eating a block of marzipan is wrong yet it doesn't stop me wanting to... or knowing that I ate Marshmallow Fluff from the jar when I was pregnant.  Lets just say I'm not surprised that my son loves sweet food.  Another guilty pleasure of mine that at least has vegetables in it is baked aubergines, which is a guilty pleasure as it has two balls of mozzarella in it. Yum!

I also really like cake, cookies, donuts and scones but I am trying to eat healthier now partly because my metabolism won't let me pig out any more but also because I want to teach my son healthy habits.  It's hard but sometimes when I crave chocolate and have an apple instead I find myself really enjoying the apple. (Sometimes I want an apple but my son takes it right out of my mouth!)  With guilty pleasures I think everything is good in moderation, want that donut then eat it! Just don't eat it if your bored make a cup of tea or change tasks instead.

Blog Everyday in May - day 3 Silly Sunday! #BEDM

So the topic today is supposed to be self care Sunday but I have actually spent today eating buns, bacon butties, chocolate and ramen so I'm not sure if that counts as self care.... It was fun! Although the ramen eating was occasionally interrupted by my toddler trying to feed me some of his breaded sweet potato and butternut squash cake. (I didn't resist very hard.)

I did do a few star jumps after the chocolate mainly because it entertains the little one.  Anything for a laugh, eh?  Thankfully there is no photographic evidence of that but here are a few other whimsical and silly pictures.

The animals have the draining board.

It's not freezing here honest!

Much prettier than mugs and glasses...

I hope that you have had a good Sunday too and managed to at least contemplate relaxing.

Blog Everyday in May: day 2 - adventure. #BEDM

When I was a child I loved the idea of adventure and excitement possibly due to living in the suburb of a town sandwiched between two cities. Nothing interesting seemed to happen there so I liked to dream about dinosaurs, time travel and swashbuckling heroes.  I went through phases of idolising King Arthur, Marty McFly, Indiana Jones, Robin Hood and Peter Pan... I'm not sure why but I never imagined being a princess or bride or anything.

Later I started reading and hoped foolishly to get to Narnia one day... then I enjoyed the escapades of the Famous Five and Secret Seven before moving on to Harry Potter, The Dark is Rising and the Earth Sea Quartet.

Now I'm older I realise that maybe being in a fantasy novel might not be the best idea I've ever had, especially not Game of Thrones or Gormenghast! These days with the help of a little film called UP I realise that there isn't just one type of adventure.

I would love to have a grand adventure exploring the world and experiencing different sights and cultures.  This is not a dream I plan to give up on but it may not be possible to travel the world for a few more years... I may have to stick to the corner of the northern hemisphere with occasional excursions to the south of Spain and parts of the British Isles.

 The other adventure I have is the big adventure of buying a house with my partner Paul and living in it with our cats while trying to raise our son.

I guess it's easy to think of travelling as being the epic scary adventure and general day to day life as being humdrum but life isn't that simple... you get challenging situations everywhere in Sheffield or Shanghai!  For now my planned adventures miniature steam trains, farms, polling stations, public transport and Ryanair.

What are you adventure plans?

Blog everyday in May 2015: day 1 introduce yourself. #BEDM

 It's that time of year again... hay fever season... I mean the blog everyday in May challenge time! I thought it might me fun to have ago at blogging everyday to procrastinate away from novel writing get into better blog writing habits.  The blog a day challenge is nice because there are suggested topics to follow everyday but I may have to deviate away from some of them to other things I might actually be able to write about... more sci-fi than beauty I think!

Anyway, the topic suggestion today is introduce yourself, so here goes. 
I'm in my late twenties, I work part time for a Sheffield based company and I live with my boyfriend, 19 month old son and two cats.

Frankenstein enjoys being photographed.

I have a lot of interests like playing guitar/ukulele, baking, dancing, sewing, reading and hula hooping which I try to pursue in my bounteous free time. Ha ha ha! I also like to watch my local roller derby teams play and took my son with me to their October bout.

Go team!

We've also been to art galleries, rock climbing groups and day time gigs together as well as the swimming baths, cafes, restaurants and cinema...

On maternity leave I decided to treat myself and dye my hair blue, I also tried green and purple but have settled on blue for the time being as it makes me feel like a comic book character. Once upon a time I would've liked to have looked like a 1950s pin up but now I would rather look like a superhero as I feel like one some days.

So that's a bit about me.  I could babble on about independent films and music, trying to learn Spanish from an app or coding from a website or the many parenting lessons I've learnt since 2013 but I won't. The night is here and my bed beckons with promises of sleep and dreams. Good night!

Little victories.

Whisper it quietly... but I managed to finish the first draft of my first novel! It was a nanowrimo novel and it's only taken just over 3 years to get to this point. Before you ask, no you can't read it.  It is one big horrendous plot less piece of writing but it is MY big horrendous first never-to-see-the-light-of-day novel.

Now I need to work on finishing the second more interesting/fun but stupidly complicated one between toddler wrangling and work. Wonder how long that will take?!?  Wish me luck!

Leeds lunch and afternoon cakeage.

So this weekend when I wasn't busy chasing after my toddler and introducing him to the delights of fancy breads I managed to escape to another part of Yorkshire.  I somehow managed to get a bit of free time for myself and met up with my friends Heather and Beth in Leeds.

While in Leeds they took me for Indian Street food and beer at Bundobust.  It was quiet when we got there shortly after 1 on Sunday afternoon but very nice.  They serve excellent Indian food (all vegetarian) and craft beers so it would have been rude not to partake! Unfortunately I was having such a nice time I didn't actually take any pictures so you'll either have to go for yourself or I'll have to have another fact finding mission.

After stuffing ourselves with bahjis, dosas and okra fries we had a little peruse of some of Leeds stores including the rather nice Travelling Man a comic book and game shop if you are not familar with it already.

Once we got our appetites back we headed to a cafe called Mrs Atha's which was very busy but also served three different types of hotchocolate and a good variety of cakes. Again I failed here to take a picture of either the cafe or my gianormous slice of red velvet cake.  I need to have words with myself... the cafe itself had lovely food and was furnished with vintage furniture so I'd recommend it if you like those sorts of things.

Basically I had a good afternoon in Leeds eating all of the things and putting the world to rights with my friends in some very nice places.  Thanks Heather and Beth!