New Year’s Resolutions and Review 2009

Once again having a blog means I can keep track of these things, last year I wrote on the subject of writing

New Year Resolution 2009: Boy Lacer starts nursery (so five mornings or five afternoons) in September, so that will give me a lot more time, until then I need to stop searching fruitlessly for big chunks of time and concentrate on the smaller gaps. The other writing resolutions is to start carrying round a writers notebook for ideas and to get that first draft done!

I never did really find those smaller gaps, although as predicted it did get a lot better when Boy Lacer started nursery and I did manage to get a first draft done. I never did start to carry round an actual writer’s notebook but since changing to an iPhone in the summer, I’ve been really happy with the note taking abilities on that, so have been storing ideas on that.

Another writing promise I made to myself in 2009 was to submit two pieces of work, I only actually submitted one, back in the spring and as it was to a publishing house that doesn’t believe in sending out even form rejection slips, I think the length of stony silence is definitely an indicator that I didn’t succeed with that one. The piece I submitted was very very tailored to that particular publishers and will need quite a bit of rework before being submitted again but it will happen, it’s just the length of time I had to wait before the time they specified was up (about six months after submission), other story ideas pushed in and that particular piece lost it’s place in the queue. I am fairly fond of that story though and it will get reworked at some point.

So, my writing New Year’s resolutions 2010 – continuing to aim to submit two separate pieces of work a year, ideally one large piece (a novel) and one smaller piece (a picture book, non fiction or even just a magazine article). I’m currently editing that first draft and I am confident I will be submitting it in 2010.

The big thing about my writing in 2010 will be time or lack of it, Boy Lacer starts school full time in September, I may or may not have started ‘proper’ paid work prior to that and therefore will have even less time than before or if we can successfully get our DLA changed to a level I think it should be at, I’ll be able to remain off work, caring for my son (and of course daughter to) in a way that I feel I need to (there are big questions about whether we could even find a child minder to take Boy Lacer anyway) and if we were to be in a better financial situation so that I could remain off work, then of course from September I will have even more time to write whilst Boy Lacer is in school.

On the subject of money last year I wrote

Money will be a big issue next year, I have to control it now on an even tighter leash and decide whether my book selling is economically viable. I could do with getting more tuition clients but I’m not sure how easily that will happen with the recession.

Well money will be an even bigger issue in 2010, to an extent where I really need to go back to work about a year earlier than planned and then of course that was always under the assumption that I’d be able to find work (I’ve been looking, it’s turning out quite difficult) and that I’ll be able to find suitable childcare (an issue with Boy Lacer). I have given up on the book selling and have instead opened my Etsy shop, which I’m a lot more confident about or at least it is far less of a financial risk than the book selling was. As for tutoring, it is getting harder and harder to find clients and from next September (I think?) I will have to register with that new register if I wish to continue working and that’s going to cost me quite a lot of money when at the moment I’m seeing one client every two weeks if I’m lucky, so I may register and actually not get my money back. So I need to decide whether to continue, to be honest it’s not my more favourite of jobs but out of all my little businesses it tends to bring in the ‘most’ money (she says, falling about laughing), so maybe I just need to somehow find more clients.

So, until then, before I somehow bring in more money I need to concentrate on saving money, me being at home full time means that I can do things that save us money, this Christmas with my handmade gifts saved us a lot of money, I am vaguely hopeful that this may be the year we get an allotment, I’m getting better at making clothes, I need to spend more time in the kitchen, it goes on. I can contribute to the finances by staying at home but unfortunately without the extra figures going onto the bank balance.

On the subject of cooking I wrote

Cooking is a fine line, I need to make sure I plan for recipes that aren’t going to be too expensive and aren’t going to leave unfinished jars etc. that won’t be used. I think in 2009 I need to make my cooking simpler.

I took it too far towards simple this year and the menu I was producing got simpler and simpler and more reliant on frozen foods I knew weren’t going to go to waste if I wasn’t going to use them. In 2010 I need to start cooking a greater variety of dishes again, stop letting Boy Lacer’s extreme fussiness defeat me and most importantly bulk cook, 2010 will be the year my freezer will truly be my friend.

Finally on the subject of craft, I wrote

Looking at the things I had made up to the beginning of 2008 is a good feeling because I’ve added so much to that list now. I feel that I’m now reasonably ok at embroidery and I’m starting to develop my own style. My soft toys are much better (not hard when compared to my 2007 efforts). I never did get round to knitting again but that will be this year. Oh and as for the sewing machine, I did get it out, managed to thread it up and it does work but I’m sorely in need of someone showing me how to do it properly, instead of a book, so I’m strongly contemplating lessons in January, as in 2009 I would like to start making my own clothes and furnishings.

Well, that was successful! I have knitted and although I’m still not brilliant at it, I am far more confident. I got the sewing machine out in January and I am amazed twelve months later what I can do with it! My New Year’s Resolutions for 2010 is to develop the stock for my Etsy shop and sew (and possibly knit) far more of my family’s clothing. I also want to practice my drawing skills, which can only help develop my own embroidery designs further.

Back to school

So, school’s back, Girl Lacer is now in Year 1, her classroom located in the hub bub of the main part of the infant’s side of the school. I caught a glimpse of her new class teacher, she’s a new teacher to the school and I suspect from how young she looks (argh I feel old), new to teaching to, but she looks human, that’s what counts!

Boy Lacer isn’t starting nursery for another two weeks, we walked past nursery though on the way to Girl Lacer’s class (we were soooo early today, that’s not going to last), they have majorly improved the playground outside the nursery classroom, lots of purpose built climbing stuff, hopefully as long as Boy Lacer has the confidence to try it, the climbing equipment will really help improve his mobility skills.

So, that was summer, it was a good one, we saw lots of things but didn’t totally overdo it; the bird centre, both Tates plus a bit of the V&A, a trip on the river, the museums, London Transport Museum, Kew and Wales, twice. The kids had lots of chances to relax and it was great to see Girl Lacer unwind and play more imaginatively, not that she doesn’t relax and play imaginatively normally but school can be hard work, even in reception (it’s all that playing you see) plus she does lots of stuff with her dance. It was great seeing her put the knowledge she’d learnt in reception into action away from the classroom, she was doing lots of maths with things like working out in her head how much it would cost for us all to get into an attraction and she was reading words on signs, plus after a particularly heavy bout of playing a certain game on Nick Jr. where the score was in figures, she learnt how to read three digit numbers. She’s also learnt to identify Cabbage White butterflies, something she’s rather proud of.

I’m going to miss her now she’s at school (and I’ll miss Boy Lacer when he starts nursery), she really is a pleasure (most of the time) to be around. She’s not flawless, but who is? She’s been getting a bit too eager on passing the buck and she’s still not adverse to using the old waterworks when she’s not getting what she wants, but she’s growing into a really lovely girl.

So, now it’s autumn, in two weeks time I am going to have a lot more free time to myself (a grand total of 12 1/2 hours!), as I’ve always said, this is the year where I have to concentrate and try and prove that I can make an income without having to return to the ‘proper’ working world. I’m not after a ginormous income (although that would be nice), I just need to replicate the sort of income I’d get if I went out and got a part time job locally working school hours and preferably school term time, which to be honest would not be that much money. Even if I got a job like that we would still end up having to probably pay some child care, so I need to bring in an income that would match that part time job minus the cost of child care, because obviously working for myself I don’t have to pay for childcare as I can work around the kids. Obviously with just 12 1/2 hours a week, I’m not going to make that but if I can do well enough to say that yes, once Boy Lacer is going to school full time and I therefore have more time, I will be able to work more and bring in more money, then that saves me having to go and get a job in January 2011 (my deadline). So, I’m trying to think of myself as a ‘corporation’, with three businesses incorporated into this corporation, at various stages of success, currently my most ‘profitable’ business is tutoring (I already have for this academic year a new student, he’s starting tonight, which is a very good sign, I don’t normally get business this early and the client was from word of mouth recommendation), five tutoring students would mean comfortable, ten tutoring students (about the maximum I could take) would be doing very well for myself. So I’m planning on advertising earlier than normal this year. Tutoring is not my first love, by far, but it brings in money and it keeps me in touch with my scientific side, so I’m not complaining. Business number two, my Etsy shop, which will be opening this Autumn, I have spent the summer thinking up designs and studying the market, I am realistic, a lot of Etsy shops very obviously, make very little money, if at all, but some do and well, I’m not going to know if my shop will make that group unless I try. I’m also planning on doing one, possibly two Christmas craft fairs, there my stock will be fairly different from my Etsy shop, noticeably in that it will be cheaper items, there I will be using my experience from doing Christmas fairs for the last two years with my books, expensive does not sell at Christmas fairs, small items, popular with kids, do. Finally, the third ‘business’, my writing, currently my work in progress has not been touched for weeks and weeks and weeks, I was really good at the start of the holidays, but then I just couldn’t find the time or the space and I don’t see the point of trying to force it now until Boy Lacer starts nursery. I’m about two thirds the way through my first draft, I know what’s going to happen and I know how it’s going to end, I just have to sit down and write the thing. My plan is once my first draft is in editing stage, to start a new project, so that I have more than one writing egg in my basket, I’ve read recently on a number of the writing blogs I follow, down there on my blog roll, that it is not a good idea to concentrate all your writing energy on just one project, what if that project sucks? So I’m going to try and increase the number of writing projects I have on the go at any one time, in an ideal world I’d be editing one story, writing another and doing the research on a third, but like I say, I only have 12 1/2 hours. Of all my three ‘businesses’, I am realistic, the writing is the least likely (very least likely) to bring in any money at all, I have to believe in it and keep going at it, but the tutoring and the Etsy shop have to have a certain amount of priority.

New Year Review and Resolutions

Ok, now I’ve been reading last year’s resolutions and as I wrote them down I can be a bit more critical about whether I actually made them. This is what I wrote last year on writing.

 

Writing

I’ve been following Susan Hill’s creative writing course on her blog and her last post on the matter for the year was a kind of put up or shut up ultimatum, basically a ‘are you a writer or just somebody who says they want to be a writer?’ and the ultimate thing, what writers do, it submit to be published and that in 2008 has to be my goal. So far in my ‘writing career’ I have submitted unsuccessfully three short stories and three chapters which I’m still waiting to hear on. I am currently working on a children’s picture book idea which needs more research but if I actually got down to doing it wouldn’t actually take that long (it requires some trips to the British Library, so it’s more of a trying to find the time issue), I am also still trying to finish my Egypt project. So those two projects have to take priority in my writing time, no more attempts at short story writing (although I’ll finish my current one that I’ve posted the first half of), I’m not very good at short stories, short stories require a different discipline to writing novels and I prefer writing longer stories. I am also a pragmatist, although I know my chance of making money at this is slim, there is very little money in short stories and alot more money in the commercial fiction I am attracted to. I’m sorry, typing this sounds like I’m trying to ‘debase my art’ or something poncy like that, but I need to make a living, I have a slim hope that I could do it writing but to make a living writing means having to think about money.

I need to plan my time more carefully concerning writing, researching and the all important reading. My experience doing NaNoWriMo this year made me realise that although I may long for all day to write, if I allow myself vast amounts of time I can’t actually write for that long anyway! So I need to stop feeling resentful at the other domestic chores that take my time away, as there is time to do both, I just have to be (and I hate this phrase) more organised about it. Last Autumn I was lucky, Girl Lacer was at nursery and Boy Lacer napped, so I had two hours free each day and what did I do with it? I faffed, that’s what I did. Ok I did use that time to complete a 40 000 word novella during NaNoWriMo, so I guess I did something but I then spent the whole of December recovering! Once Girl Lacer goes back to nursery I will not have the luxury of Boy Lacer napping anymore, as he appears to have grown out of them, so I need to find my time elsewhere and unfortunately I am not an evening person but all I think I need for the moment is an hour each day to read, write or research and that will be progress and my resolution.

 

Ah RIP Susan Hill’s blog, I still miss that, although I have since learnt that she was probably in the minority of writers who don’t feel monumental self doubt about their work and that there’s nothing wrong with monumental self doubt, it doesn’t necessarily mean your work is cr*p.

Well, I didn’t write any more short stories (hooray – I suppose) but I never did find time for the research on the picture book story, the Egypt story is still stuck in research hell and I’ve got myself bogged down on research for my Charles story, see a common theme there?

It was interesting about what I wrote about how given all the time in the world I wouldn’t be able to write all day, I’d forgotten that and the fact that that means technically I have time to do everything else and write. I still fall into the trap of thinking I don’t have hours and hours to spare and therefore I shouldn’t write at all. I need to remember that’s not true.

New Year Resolution 2009: Boy Lacer starts nursery (so five mornings or five afternoons) in September, so that will give me a lot more time, until then I need to stop searching fruitlessly for big chunks of time and concentrate on the smaller gaps. The other writing resolutions is to start carrying round a writers notebook for ideas and to get that first draft done!

On the subject of housework I wrote;

As referenced in my previous resolution I do need to spend more time doing housework and to stop resenting it. I tried Flylady twice last year and it was successful, which annoys me even more know as I know there’s a method out there that works, so I’m annoyed at myself for not doing it. However it is soregimented and that is just not me. I think I need to find my own plan, something that works for me, using some of the tools from Flylady (some of which I still try and do even though I’m officially off the Flywagon). I spend too much time using the fact that we live in a tiny flat as an excuse, we could, in all likelihood will be, here for years, I can not wait until I get that big house I lust after. It is not just me who lives here, my children do to.

At least I didn’t go back on the Flywagon but I do still need to make more of an effort, yes living in this tiny flat is a nightmare but the only possible way we’re moving over the next few years (and years and years) is if the bank forced us out and may that not happen. So no more thinking ‘oh it’ll be better when we’re in a bigger place’ because it ain’t going to happen, so I need to make it better here, so that’s the housework resolution, same year in, year out.

I wrote on the subject of the internet

I need to spend less time on it. I am already fairly controlled with it, I know that there are some sites like Facebook, that if I got into that I’d never be off the computer and I have my messenger off most the time as well but I need to be more controlled, use my time more constructively. However on the other side of the resolution I do resolve to continue blogging! But less time on the internet means more time for housework, writing and the kids, which can only be a good thing.

Ooh, at first glance I did not do well with that as in 2008 I got onto Facebook, however I’m pretty much off that now, the novelty wore off very quickly. I still need to remember not to spend too much time on the internet though.

On money and cooking I wrote;

Money

I’m still learning but I need to be in better control of it.

Cooking

I need to use my vast collection of cookbooks a little more often and to stop relaying on Captain Birds Eye and pasta!

 

Money will be a big issue next year, I have to control it now on an even tighter leash and decide whether my book selling is economically viable. I could do with getting more tuition clients but I’m not sure how easily that will happen with the recession. 

Cooking is a fine line, I need to make sure I plan for recipes that aren’t going to be too expensive and aren’t going to leave unfinished jars etc. that won’t be used. I think in 2009 I need to make my cooking simpler.

And finally on crafting I wrote:

I’ve been getting ’sewing urges’ for a few years now and so far it has totalled up to a nearly completed doodle embroidery, a toy dog for Girl Lacer, a scarf for Boy Lacer and a sewing machine I brought 3 years ago and have so far been too chicken to use. I buy books on how to make your own clothes from a vintage handkerchief or how to make a quilt and I have a collection of baby knitting books which are useless now as both my children are too big, although at the rate it takes me to knit something and with the fact that I would in three years or so like another baby, that maybe I need to start knitting now. So my resolution for next year is to be more crafty, I have the urge to knit my own socks (?!?) and Imust get out that sewing machine

Looking at the things I had made up to the beginning of 2008 is a good feeling because I’ve added so much to that list now. I feel that I’m now reasonably ok at embroidery and I’m starting to develop my own style. My soft toys are much better (not hard when compared to my 2007 efforts). I never did get round to knitting again but that will be this year. Oh and as for the sewing machine, I did get it out, managed to thread it up and it does work but I’m sorely in need of someone showing me how to do it properly, instead of a book, so I’m strongly contemplating lessons in January, as in 2009 I would like to start making my own clothes and furnishings.

Finally one last resolution, which didn’t feature last year, I must start running again, my waistline says so!

Just pass me a great big black bin bag

You may remember this time last week when Boy Lacer was being demanding (actually, he’s getting that way almost permanently now, I think now he’s 3 he’s gone from developmentally being a sweet 18 month year old to a terrible 2) and I couldn’t find time to find Girl Lacer’s tap shoes and consequently I had to explain to the dance school owner why I was sending my daughter into a tap class with no tap shoes. Well it’s that time of the week again and I still can’t find them. It’s been a busy week and I haven’t had a chance to have a proper look until today and I’ve just torn the flat apart and they are nowhere to be seen. So now the flat is even messier (Mr. Lacer left for work this morning as it is with the leaving phrase of “Not being funny or anything but you are going to do some housework today arn’t you?” and now it looks even worse. I’ve searched all the rooms and they’re not there, so either they’re somewhere very strange in the flat or they met with some freak tap shoe disappearing accident somewhere between tap and home, last (and the first time, frustratingly) she had them. The only consolation (and it’s a very slight one) is that the shoes were on the tight side, as I’d brought them off ebay, tight enough in fact that if I’d brought them in real life I probably wouldn’t have brought them (hate buying shoes online), so Girl Lacer was due some more tap shoes pretty quickly anyway but a month or two would have been good!

So now the contents of my bedroom floor are now on my bed, I’m sitting on the only remaining little bit of space on the sofa and I know exactly how bad it is under the sofa. I will get off here in a minute and try and tackle it all (I’m having a quick, much needed break) but a really big gigantic black bin bag would be great because I’ve obviously got no where to put all this stuff. I can feel myself starting to cough to from the housework, from the allergens I’ve been grubbing around in, I literally feel like I need a bath but I have (looks at watch) argh only half an hour until school’s out (sigh and now Boy Lacer is throwing an artistic tissy over some felt tip pens). I’m going to be in a right state by the time we get to dance class. Oh I have so much work to do, my tutoring ‘business’ (she laughs) gets back from it’s summer break tomorrow with my first student and I haven’t prepared yet and I need my front room to be pristine for that and I need to advertise for more and I’ve just bid for a cook book writing job on a freelance writers website because well, the work would be useful (and that particular job would also be fun) and oh god I can hear a mouse scratching around. Ok I need a big black bin bag and a big mean cat.

Blue

If my life were a cartoon I’d be literally coloured blue right now. I am in the midst of sorting out a group of medications for a condition(s) I have mentioned on here in the past and one of them is disagreeing with me vehemently right now. I will write about it properly when everything is sorted, I think one of the medications will work and I don’t want to ‘curse’ it by writing about it too optimistically before I’ve given it time. Anyway I’ve been to the docs today to get a repeat prescription of the successful medication and to discuss going off the one that’s been making me feel literally like the colour blue (amongst other things) and the doctor agreed with me, so I’ll be off the one that is disagreeing with me in just over a week. But meanwhile I’m trying very very hard not to comfort shop, you would not believe the price of the stunningly beautiful tapestry kit I’ve been drooling over and I don’t even do tapestry, yet. I think (if I can control myself, which I have to), this may be making it’s way to me instead at the end of the year as a self brought Christmas / birthday present or mmmm if I do really well at my book selling events coming up?

Whilst there I happened to have yet another coughing fit and (and I wasn’t there to see the doctor about my cough) the doctor goes “oh dear”, listens to my chest, agrees with my suscipion that it’s my asthma worsening (I reckon it’s due to my hayfever) and I’ve been prescribed the preventative inhaler, I should have sorted that out ages ago, maybe then I would have been able to have actually run the race I did yesterday.

Anyway I’m working in 10 minutes, groan, just what I need, although I did enjoy the spot of research I did earlier today for my tuition session tonight on the arguments for and against global warming, I think the for argument won but I tried to be balanced.

Edited to add – it’s now 8.10pm and my client hasn’t shown up yet which is strange (for him). Private tuition can be plagued by clients not turning up but this one is reliable and whilst I could do with not working tonight (a nice hot bath and a good book sounds really nice right now), I could also do with the £20!

Edited to add again – it’s now 8.20pm and still no client, I really don’t think he’s going to turn up but you just know if I go and grab that bath what will happen. So I’ve been playing with Paint, this is me as a (very bad) cartoon.

Mmmm ok, it doesn’t look like WordPress likes my Paint files, jpg may I point out (i.e I don’t think it should have a problem). You’ll have to trust me, it was a work of art (not). Oh I want a new scanner, then I would have drawn something by hand.

Anyway thank you dear anonymous (mostly) WordPress readers, writing this has actually cheered me up a bit. I still have stomach ache (another suspected side effect) which a bath would cure, but we know what will happen then, even though it’s now almost half way through the session that was booked. Oh well if I can’t have the bath, I can still have the book.

Yet more editing (8.35pm) – oh it did work ↓, see I told you it was art

Fuzzy headed

I’ve just finished an afternoon of work, sitting on my office chair, aka my bed, with my laptop on my desk, aka my lap and I have that fuzzy headed feeling of someone who has spent the afternoon present in body but mind elsewhere. For those that don’t know, although I am principally a stay at home mum I do home tutor, I currently have just one student, principally because I’ve been a lazy a*sed so and so and not advertised, I can when I advertise attract significantly more students however I’ve been feeling spread thin and although tutoring is bringing (and can bring) in money whereas writing really isn’t bringing in any (I have some articles on a website that occasional feed money into my Paypal account and this just about means that I rarely when I use Paypal have to actual get funds from my account as the articles put money in there for me, so basically it funds the occasional Etsy puchase) but anyway I think if I’m ever going to earn any money as a writer I need to put some effort into it even though it’s not earning money. Anyway writing dreams aside I’ve been at the virtual chalkboard today preparing for a lesson I’m giving on Monday, the electromagnetic spectrum. Now when I stated tutoring about 3 yeas ago I had to put a lot of effort in as I had no teaching materials but I was working on a long term plan that eventually I’d have all the subjects covered and then each year I could reuse the notes, which was just about to happen when of course they changed the syllabus, now I wouldn’t mind so much, I enjoyed creating the original notes, a chance to think even about the electromagnetic spectrum instead of Iggle Piggle or the intricacies of weaning was put it this way, refreshing but seeing the new syllabus just disheartens me now, as all the newspaper coverage at the change over claimed, they’ve dumb downed science and it makes me worry for this nation’s future doctors, engineers and scientists. And they’ve made it overly political, reading the syllabus you can almost hear some government suit peering over the syllabus creator’s shoulder “Now don’t forget to put in about the polyunsaturated fats because we much teach the nation’s proles how to read the back of a marg packet” or “Don’t forget to put the bit in about how the triple vaccine is really really good for you”. I’m all for obviously teaching relevant science but not at the expense of the fundamental basics that act as the building blocks for those pupils who go onto to study science at A-Level and onto degree. I think possibly the answer is two tier science qualifications, a qualification for those students interested in going to study further and could probably read the back of a marg packet without much hand holding and then a science qualification for the rest, giving enough to equip the population with the knowledge to live in today’s scientifically literate age. However there is one flaw to that, I don’t think 13-14 year olds are in much of a position to judge what they want to do, when I was 13 I hated biology, I then started my GCSE course, had a different biology teacher, someone who actually inspired me and well the rest is history, until I gave up work to have kids, apart from a brief spell as a science teacher I had spent 7 very happy years working as a biologist, including gaining (by studying in the evening) a Masters in Microbiology, but if you’d asked me when I was 13 “Do you want to drop biology?” I’d have leaped at the chance.

Anyway, I’ve been struggling with the ‘new improved’ (yeah right) electromagnetic spectrum part of the syllabus this afternoon, vague, missing out important features (I can’t use my slinky anymore, I used to like doing my slinky demonstration) and spending alot of time talking about not very important stuff. But enough of my whinging, I just hope by the time my kids do science GCSE they’ve sorted this mess out. On one final note, whilst searching the interweb for some form of inspiration on the electromagnetic spectrum I came across the following article ‘A physics teacher begs for his subject back’, read it, he puts it far better than me.

Other than that, this morning was ballet, Girl Lacer had fun, I could hear her laughing through the closed door. She came out bearing a letter full of exciting details about preparations for a summer concert, which I’m looking forward to, although it involves purchasing a costume apparently,our entire disposable income seems to be spent on fancy dress costumes at the moment. After ballet we walked back to pick up Boy Lacer for a shopping trip but Boy Lacer persuaded Mr. Lacer to come along to, which was nice, we don’t get out much as a family, even if it was only to the shops. Girl Lacer had her World Book Day voucher to spend so we went to the bookshop, Boy Lacer loves bookshops and now he’s mobile it’s very easy to loose him in them, although searching first near the cookbooks is always a good idea as he as always headed straight for them after giving Postman Pat a quick glance over midflight, obviously takes after his mummy. A real life actual children’s author was in the bookshop today talking about his book (a story about a flying cat I recognised from CBeebies as having excellent illustrations), I had to stop myself gawping or should I say drooling with envy. After that it was a McDonalds and a very cold walk back by the river and downhill from then on.

Ham and Cheese Muffins and General Chit-chat

Just to prove I am still cooking (I haven’t done a cooking post for a while – that’s because cooking when you’re meant to be on a diet is pretty dull) but I made these tonight.

They’re the ham and cheese muffins from Tana Ramsay’s Family Kitchen, which I have to say I cook a darn sight more from than the couple of her husband’s cookbooks I own. It’s a simple recipe, basically a savoury muffin with ham and cheese, I’ve cooked it before and it always tastes delicious, however it’s been one of those recipes that have gone back into th metaphysical recipe cupboard, never to be used (until tonight) since we worked out that a lot of Boy Lacer’s problems were due to cow’s milk (sigh, I so miss making macaroni cheese and lasagna, yes I know you can make cows milk free macaroni but it’s a hassle and also more expensive and as for the lasagna, well my favourite, guaranteed to work lasagna recipe involves a tin of condensed cream of tomato soup which well, contains cream). Anyway I decided to dust down this recipe tonight, having to go to the hassle of dividing the ingredients into two bowls, a ‘normal’ bowl and a ‘cow dairy free’ bowl (I used Pure instead of butter and hard goats cheese and goats milk) and making sure I wasn’t going to mix anything up or contaminate anything, I made 6 between me, Mr. Lacer and Girl Lacer and 6 for Boy Lacer (he does have some luck).

All this hassle was because Boy Lacer finally has a psych appointment tomorrow, even though he is now alot happier than he was when he was referred back in November and the appointment is at 11am and is for an hour, so I am desperately hoping the appointment is on time because even if it is it’ll only give me 50 minutes to get Girl Lacer to nursery (who by the way after her morning milking her cold for all it’s worth, was so much better she went to nursery absolutely fine this afternoon). So with a very rushed lunch in mind I thought the ham and cheese muffins would be perfect.

Other than that, may I urge you, if you’re at all UK based and interested in making sure that Shakespeare is taught to our children in a way that is actually interesting, to check out the RSC’s campaign and add your signature, as they so rightly point out, Shakespeare was a dramatist and should be studied as such, not dryly, as purely words on paper. I just hope that when my children get to Shakespeare in school it’s taught by someone who believes in the RSCs principals. Oh I’m getting more and more excited about seeing Hamlet in August.

Oh and one more absolutely final note and on the more immediate future, me and Girl Lacer have just signed up for our first race together (she’s 4), we’re doing the Sport Relief Mile, in central London in a couple of weekends time, she may very just run faster than me.