40 things - Try three new hairstyles

Last night was prom for my old class.  Lately I've been trying more ideas with my own hair and Isabella's to prepare for my sister's wedding next month. I thought the prom would be a great chance to try some different plaits.  Nico's cousin has amaying hairstyling skills and always looks fantastic so she gave me some tips with Isabella and I tried them for myself.  

I loved the combination of an 'up' and 'down' do, it stayed up all night and I had some lovely waves the next day!  I'll definitely be having something similar for the wedding and trying this more often.

This is a side do that I saw on a friend and tried out a while ago.  It's different and keeps my hair out of the way in Summer. It felt odd at first as I always have either a ponytail or wear my hair down but it was nice to have something different.

My third hairstyle was a French plait that I tried on myself.  Unfortunately I don't have a photo and it most certainly wasn't perfect but I will have another go and keep practising on Isabella and myself.

Recipe: Sausage Rolls

Ingredients:

• 300g flour
• 200ml water
• 15g yeast
• 4g salt
• 10g butter
• 14 small sausages

Instructions:

1. Mix all ingredients except the sausages into a dough.

2. Roll out the dough ca. 4mm thick.

3. Cut pastry into 2cm strips.

4. Wrap each sausage in a spiral of the pastry and lay on a baking tray.

5. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes at 200℃.

Make it Monday - Hama Beads

I saw this idea in a magazine a few weeks ago and I've always wanted to try something with Hama beads so I made a quick Amazon order and got cracking.

It was actually more fiddly than I thought and though I'd promised Isabella she could help and I did let her try, it's not suitable for a three year old.

I am pleased with the result though. It covers a glass with a hole in the middle for a straw to stop wasps sharing your drink in Summer. I think it works well.

Recipe: Asparagus and lemon risotto

Yesterday we had this yummy risotto for tea. I love risottos but this was new in that I've rarely cooked with asparagus. I really liked it but I would cut it smaller next time.

You can find the recipe here.

Song...

Lately I can't get this song out of my head:

Make it Monday - Oil Painting

Last week we finally got around to trying oil painting after Nico bought me the supplies for my birthday.

I read the book and was keen to get going on something small and simple. I did this still life of one of the tulips our friends brought last week.

I'm pleased with it as a first attempt. It was much harder than I thought. The book said to do the highlights last but because the paint takes an age to dry (literally months), the colours start to blend on the canvas.

Patience is a key factor. I'm looking forward to trying this again though and Isabella joined in with her mini easel and children's pants. It was good fun. Thank you Nico!

Make it Monday - Weaving

This week I tried something new - weaving! There was a free kit with this month's Mollie Makes.

As my first ever weaving, I'm pretty happy with it. I love the colours and found the weaving quite relaxing.

I found the instructions a little unclear when it came to finishing the piece so I'm not 100% happy with it but I plan to watch some videos and try again.

I love learning new skills!

Crochet!

My new crochet course finally arrived and I'm loving it!

It's the same company as the knitting course I've been doing for two years now. They also send wool to make a patch each fortnight or week and at the end, you sew them into a blanket.

The first issue has two patches and as it's easier than knitting while feeding Joshua, I've finished them already! It's very therapeutic and I'm so happy learning something new.

Symphoniacs

Loving this band at the moment - amazing talent. Already bought their album for Christmas presents.

Recipe : Stuffed Aubergine

Still on the Paleo train, we tried this recipe last week. I'm a big fan of this kind of thing - it's easy, healthy, filling and delicious.

I love that we're finding more time to cook from scratch and filling the bio-bin. We'll definitely be trying this again.

Girl Power

Becoming a homeowner has led to me trying several new things over the last month or so, and while none of those things were on my lists, it's been quite empowering.

Before the move, I had never painted a room before. I've now painted six with help from family. I've learned how to prepare the room and how to clear up afterwards too.  First it has made me very grateful for all the times my dad painted our rooms growing up - thanks Dad! (I'm afraid Isabella may be doing her own when she gets bored of yellow.) It also makes me wonder how my grandad did this as a job. I'm exhausted each Saturday when we are done.

My favourite new thing was building the above log fire. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of things like that and normally leave them to my chemistry teacher husband but he taught me how to do it this week and I felt quite proud of myself.

I'm sure there will be many more things to learn over the next few years as we get the house done and work on the garden and I'm really looking forward to it!

New Experiences

This weekend the new Rewe opened over the road from us - it feels like we've been waiting forever!  It's so great to have somewhere to get gluten free goodies on the doorstep.  One of the new opening special offers was a bucket full of fruit for 5 Euros so we went for it and tried persimmon fruit for the first time ever!  

It was delicious!  It's a bit like a melon or a mango but less watery or juicy.  I'll definitely be trying it again!

Honey Glazed Salmon Stir Fry

Here's my latest new recipe attempt - honey glazed salmon stir fry from the Weightwatchers Fast and Fabulous book.  It was delicious.  I love how fast and easy stir frying in the wok is anyway and it was nice to include fish in that too.  Lovely.

New Adventures of Pete

As I mentioned, Pete has been enjoying a new hobby while we were on our travels - namely exploring.  Nico's Mum bought Pete a special cat lead and walked him around outside for an hour a day while we were away.  He acts really funny on grass, although he had gotten more used to it by the time we came back.  We've ordered one for our flat and can't wait to take him to the park!

28 things - Visit a New Capital City!

This Summer, we decided we needed a real break - rather than just heading to England to visit friends and family.  I've had the target of visiting a new capital ever since I went to Paris two years ago so it made a lot of sense to head to Amsterdam by train the day before my railcard expired and fly on to England from there so I have lots to update you on after the last two weeks.  I will go into Amsterdam and our week in England in more detail but first of all, I wanted to pass on the highs and lows of this new city.

+ Amsterdam is the flattest, smallest city centre I have seen in a capital which made it really easy to get around.  The city that has been least taxing on my feet so far.

- The two twin 'features' of Amsterdam - cafes and the red light district.  While I find both of these concepts totally acceptable in principle, they attract certain groups of tourists that I'd rather not be around.  The number of groups of rowdy male stags or students made the centre a slightly uncomfortable place to be at times.  While this is not unique to Amsterdam, it certainly seemed to be on a wider scale here.

+ We visited the city from Monday to Friday and while there are still things I would go back for, I felt like I had 'done' the city to a certain extent.  In anny other capital city I had visited, I felt like I had missed out on something.  Here, I completed my wish list (Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum, canal sitting / people watching).

- Our hotel was nice - good value and cheerful and in a relatively quiet area of town - despite this, our biggest problem was the noise - right next to the zoo and a tram line and with doors that seemed prone to go bang in the night, neither of us slept especially well.  I have to admit that I did cope better with this and it was extremely satisfying to slam our door as we checked out before six am.

+ This may sound strange but in every capital I have visited to date there has always been a time and a place during my stay where it stank of sewage - something I think is hard to escape in a large city - this is one thing I didn't experience in Amsterdam.

+ The amount of people speaking English.  It always feels uncomfortable to me to be somewhere where I can't communicate properly.  I always feel tremendously guilty to rely on my English rather than to try some of the local lingo.  It felt good in Amsterdam that the language is in some ways similar to English and in some similar to German but overall, when we asked one waitress what she preferred, she said English, so we didn't feel so bad then.

28 things...Attend a jazz night.

So after our dinner date last week, Nico and I headed back to the bar where we first got together for jazz night.  They hold a live jazz night on the first Wednesday of every month.  Unfortunately as it is mid week, it has taken us over a year to get there but it was well worth it.

One of the expectations I had with jazz, was that it would involve a saxophone, or maybe a trumpet but what we saw was a trio with a drummer, a guitarist and the double bass.  I have never seen anyone play a double bass live before so that was an experience but what really stuck with both of us was how into the music the musicians were.  The drummer literally played with his eyes closed and when the guitarist lost one of his strings, he just calmly switched to another guitar and carried on.

I found it hard to believe that the event takes place - there were maybe twenty people watching and tickets are just three euros each but I did like that it was so intimate.  I thought it may get tedious after a while but the pieces they played were individual and different and the show lasted an hour which was perfect in my eyes.  If I can get up the energy again mid week once we are back at work, I would go again.

Something New - Iced Coffee at home!

Some of you may remember the Summer Blog Gift Swap that I did a few weeks ago where I received a lovely iced coffee maker - thanks Carly!  Well it was certainly hot enough last week but I had sworn off coffee so this week I finally got around to it and it was amazing!  

I way overdid it with four of the eight coffee cubes in one glass of milk but I normally like my coffee strong - it took a lot of milk and I will use less next time but other than that, it was delicious.  Looking forward to lots more over the Summer!

Something New - Power Tools!

My something new this week is using power tools!  When we bought the new handles for the wardrobes, we had no problems on the new wardrobe but the old one had much too small holes so we had to drill new ones.  I haven't drilled before and hate the responsibility but I had a good teacher and managed to do it!  It wasn't even as scary as I thought.  Now the new handles are all looking great!

Something New - Ginger Beer

When we went for lunch on Sunday, Loreto asked for ginger beer.  We managed to find her something similar but I had trouble explaining what it was as it's something I have never tried and although it is called beer, I knew it couldn't be alcoholic because it crops up on so many children's adventures in Enid Blighton novels, in fact, that's probably the only place I had heard of it until then.

Coincidentally we came across some ginger beer in the Asia food shop while we were out and about on Monday so our first new adventure of these summer holidays was trying that...

...and we were pleasantly surprised.  Nico introduced me to all things ginger after we started going out and he discovered that I am always cold.  It was a little sweet and probably didn't fit in with the diet but it was one can and I'm glad we tried it.