* Lazylol *

Prep

For some strange reason I've been awake since 4:55 am this morning and although I do love to be up early, I think my usual 6:10 is early enough.  So seeing as I have some spare time until I go to work I decided to have a quick blog!

   

My plans for the weekend are

• go to B&Q for new christmas tree lights, paint and a mouse trap (don't ask!)
• paint the living room (it's just a freshen up job so won't take long)
• clean ready for trimming up next week
• make our first mince pies of the year (my family suddenly love mince pies!)
• make family cards and start wrapping prezzies

There are some great offers and vouchers in the newspapers at the moment.  Yesterday I got a voucher for 15% off at B&Q, there is 60% off trees and lights at Focus.  Asda are sellling some mobile phones for £8 and have 17.5% off TVs and DVD players.

How Long?!

Don't panic but it's only........

 

I've spent the weekend at home so I made the most of it by starting the christmas clean, you know, the one before trimming up.  I can remember helping my mum do it all those years ago! 

Another thing my mum did at Christmas was make a trifle and seeing as today I was in the mood for trifle, I decided to make one (just like Mother used to make - lol)

 

I sliced up a strawberry swiss roll and placed it in the trifle dish with some tinned strawberries.  Then I drizzled some brandy over the swiss roll (ok - maybe my mother didn't do that but OMG it is so good with brandy!) I then poured a strawberry jelly over it.  When it was set I topped it with custard and  lightly whipped double cream.  To decorate I sprinkled over some crunchy chocolate bits (Asda).

So easy.  So good.  So 70's!

Weekend

If moving home is supposed to be one of the most stressful experiences in life, I'm sure moving offices can't be that far behind.  At work my office has been re-located and I've already spent a week emptying cupboards, throwing things out, carrying piles of things to the other office, moving equipment but I still left the new office looking like this when I locked the door on Friday afternoon. I'm not looking forward to Monday morning!

In the middle of 'office hell' we decided to hold a cake stall to raise money for BBC Children in Need.  I stayed up until the early hours of Friday morning, baking and decorating lots and lots of cupcakes.

 

We raised £100 !! So the hard work (and lack of sleep) was worthwhile and I watched Children in Need last night without the usual feeling that I should have made an effort and done something.  I was amazed at the amounts that different groups had raised.  There are some very nice & generous people out there. They had made seriously large amounts of cash.

Did you know that they raised over one million pounds from people sending in old mobile phones?  This is an ongoing project so I am going to spread the word around at work and at home.  You can just pop an old phone in a envelope and post it to

CHILDREN IN NEED

FREEPOST

more details here

After work yesterday we headed to the caravan for a quick visit, I am back at home now but we had nice but very short break.  The weather was so mild for November.  I took a  pictures of the pretty sky above the caravan when we were out walking in the early evening.

If you are in to cardmaking/rubberstamping etc - Little Bird Design is having a little giveaway.

Sunday

Hope you all had a good Halloween.  Ours was pretty quiet in the end and that's it done with for another year.  Let the Christmas preparations begin!

I am back at work tomorrow after a week off for half-term. So it is my last day of freedom.  Even more depressing is the fact that my working hours have increased - not my choice I might add. So now I will be working from 8 am to 4 pm Monday - Friday.  It's bleak.

It's been a cold week here and today is no different, so we are having a snuggly day indoors. I need cheering up so I am cooking a proper Sunday dinner for the first time in ages, I mean we do have one most weeks, but not usually on a Sunday.  My sons are at that age where weekends are for avoiding home at all costs and being out & about.  They fly in for 5 minutes to get something, charge their phones, change or get ready to go out.  They eat all their meals out at various friends, girlfriends, takeaways, etc. I daren't even ask what they eat but I do make proper meals the rest of the week to make sure they get a bit of balance!  Anyway, all this thinking about Christmas gave me the urge to eat sprouts with white sauce on so I've decide we are having a Sunday dinner today and have called the clan together - who knows if they will turn up? I'd have invited my parents but they've gone to Germany to visit baby Emily.

 (update - it was just me and Mr Fuzz for dinner - the lads dinners are still waiting to be eaten and it is 8:05pm - note to self 'don't bother in future') Mr Fuzz & I enjoyed it though so prehaps it's ok.

This afternoon I've decided to challenge myself to a fate worse than death - the tidying of my craft boxes. The problem is I have 8 large plastic lidded boxes and enough stuff to fill about 20. My craft stash is growing at an alarming rate, with no signs of slowing down, even for the credit crunch. Seriously, I need a craft room but I've no chance for a year or two yet.

Maybe I could actually make something - that would reduce the stash a bit!