January 21st 2015 - I'm going back to school

January 21st 2015 - I'm going back to school

Today saw me go back to school for a 10week family learning course in Literacy.  It is being run by the local council and is all free (including the tea/coffee and biscuits!!!)

It all came about the end of last week.  My middle son brought a letter home about it and then the next day so did the youngest, they both asked if I would go on it with them, so I filled in the form and returned it to school.  Yesterday when I picked up the youngest he declared that he had a letter for me.  I opened it and had a look and it confirmed we had a place on the course starting today!

The only downside to this is that I actually have to be up and dressed and out the door by 08:35am in order to get the boys to school for 08:45am for register, the course strats at 9am.

Today was mainly about filling in paperwork and getting to know each other - most of the parents doing it already do know each other but it was nice.  I knew two of the mums on it already quite well and a 3rd that i've spoken to in passing etc.  They seem a nice group and I may actually make some more friends from it.  We also had to make invites for our children to come and join us over the next few weeks.

The last week of the course is actually a full day trip away from the school for us parents and our kids, again all free (except lunch).  They are looking at going to 1 of the local farms that has a big indoor soft play area as well.


I will kepp you posted on how it goes.

January 20th 2015 - What can a bearded dragon eat?

January 20th 2015 - What can a bearded dragon eat?

The answer is lots  of things, but this isn't helpful when i'm stood in the supermarket with no internet signal to check as I can't remember!

So today's pin is another linked to my phone - I am compiling a list to my phone of things he can eat daily/regularly and not so often.  I did have 1 up until my phone went in for repairs and I never re-made it.

I found a pin about bearded dragon food on pinterest so I have linked to that as well as the interent as there is a wide range of things they can eat not on this list. 

My beardie is really funny, although he (she maybe as not checked its sex but were told male when bought it) will eat alot of vegetables it goes crazy for greens!  spinach, kale, dandelion leaves, peas and pea shoots etc.  I'm not sure if beardies can tell colours or not, but he certainly goes more mad for them than anything else he gets given.

here is part of the list on my phone

January 19th 2015 - nutella pastries

January 19th 2015 - nutella pastries

Today I decided to try and make these nutella pastries. They look really nice and they don't look very hard to make.

First off I cheated as I used shop-bought pastry (me and cakes/pastry etc don't go very well together, despite my wanting them to).  I COVERED the worktop in flour, only for the pre-made pastry to be on a nice grease proof sheet!  never mind!

I then cut them into squares (of sorts more like 4 sided shapes than squares), maybe i should use a piece of cardboard as a guide next time - next time she says, don't even no if they have worked this time yet!!!  Onto each "shape" I placed a dollop of nuttela chocolate spread.

From here I folded them into "triangle type shapes", would have been easier if they had been proper squares, but its pastry and mouldable, so I mad them as triangles.  A few had a bit too much chocolate and it squeezed out abit but you can never have too much chocolate right???  They then went into the oven to cook.

Well they haven't quite worked as my pastry was puff pastry not shortcrust so they have expanded and gone all fluffy! LOL!.  So I will have to try again using shortcrust pastry, i'm hoping that once they cooled down will still taste nice.

January 18th 2015 - trapped

January 18th 2015 - trapped

Although the photo of today's pin was taken back in Aug 2014, when my phone got sent off for repair in december 2014 I had to remove everything off it and I never got round to re-putting it back on my phone.

I saw the original idea of someone being trapped inside your mobile phone here.  Hubby wouldn't do it but my son did.  So for today I have re-added his photo to his name, and now when he rings me, it looks like he's trapped inside my phone.

Here he is:

 It was really easy to do - he stayed inside the house and pressed his face up against the window, I went outside to take the photo, which wasn't as easy because the flash went off and you couldnt see him, then there was loads of reflections from outside showing (there's still some but not as bad), they he got up cos he thought I had finished. lol!

January 17th 2015 - Polite request

January 17th 2015 - Polite request

I'm not sure if you know how pinterest works, but basically its an online noticeboard, you can have sub-boards for different things, and to these you can "pin" links to internet sites and photos and ideas of things you want to do/places you want to visit/receipes you want to try etc. 

The owner of the pin is the person to whom's blog it originates, so when you "pin" them you are basically borrowing their image and/or idea.  Most people are happy to let you "pin" their items but some get very protective and request that they are removed (ive had this happen a few times).

Anyway, I have spent a great many hours (far too many hours) on pinterest searching for things and pinning them and making my own boards about different things.  I have no problem with people re-pinning them within reason, as I said above I don't actually own the pins (well I own a few that are my own photos that I have used.) However, saying this I am protective of my boards as I have researched them and sorted them into alphabetical order and even split some boards into extra sub-boards to make finding things easier. 

When you log onto pinterest on the top right it tells you a number next to your name, and this relates to how many of  your pins have been re-pinned and by whom.  Yesterday I went onto it and the number was 346!  YOU WHAT?!?  How did that happen?  So I looked and was in total shock most of them were from the same person and they were all of 1 board.  Yes this person had copied my entire board linked to my "pirate party" including my personal photo's and removed the information about where the pic had come from.  Said person had also copied some from my main "party ideas" board.  This really made me mad.  It's not just re-pinning a few but blatently copying everything I have worked hard on finding and making.

So I made my own pin and have given it it's own folder called "please read".  The pin I made is this.
It reads:

Im disapointed that I have had to do such a thing but I thinkit is very rude to copy a whole board.  Yes it has 1 re-pin on it and that was me as I have re-pinned it to my 365 board as todays pin.  It will be very interesting to see if it gets re-pinned by others. 

Rather than just re-pinning from the board click on the image and see where it takes you - hopefully it takes you to the original image and you can pin it from there, yes its about 30seconds longer but your still getting the pin you want without upsetting other pinners by copying their boards.  I try to do this as much as I can, and I try not to copy/re-pin more than 5 pins directly off someone elses board.

And yes I did block the person that copied all of my board!!!


Rant over, have a great day and happy pinning! 

January 16th 2015 - Plastic Bottle flower vase

January 16th 2015 - Plastic Bottle flower vase

I saw this tutorial on pinterest of how to make a flower vase from a plastic bottle  it didn't look that hard but looked really effective.  Now I don't get flowers very often as Hubby doesn't me them, so this was 1 of those pins that would probably sit forever on my board.

That was until the neighbour came round with a bunch of tulips for me as an appology for not removing her food from my freezer (had bits since christmas as  she had no room).  Its not a problem and its not in my way.  Well the tulips spent 2 nights in a jug until I found this pin.

Here's the pics:

the plastic bottle with the top cut off and slits in it

the bottle with slits now opened out

the finished thing

the finished thing

with flowers in it

It's worked of sorts.  Mine hasn't got as big a frill/lip/rim as the 1 in tutorial and it doesn't lay flat like tutorial.  Plus some of the strips that you weave have already popped back out.  So not sure if my stipe were long enough or what but I can say I tried and it didn't work brilliantly!!!

January 15th 2015 - cleaning the microwave

January 15th 2015 - cleaning the microwave

Today I was after a simple pin to do as in lots of pain with my knee again.  Now you might think that the task of cleaning the microwave isn't easy, well I thought the same until I came across this pin that has 31 hacks for cleaning.  I was abit skeptical as to whether it would work or not but thought I would give it a try.

It says "Get it out with a bowl of 1 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Microwave for five minutes, then wipe down with a paper towel or sponge."  Yea right like thats going to work!!!  

This is what the inside was like before I added the mix, not the worst it has been but could certainly do with a clean - 

Well I added my cup of water and vinegar to a bowl and put on the microwave on high power for 5mins as it said.  I got a scouring pad and started to wipe the water that had formed on all sides and it didn't look much different.  I took the glass plate out and wiped that with kitchen towel and then a tea towel to dry it, placed it back in and took another photo and  as you can see below there is a big difference.

So a 5minute clean up and the microwave is clean.