The Saturday Update

Well the first week back on the blog has been a busy one - the start of September, two projects completed, another goal in the pipeline and almost finished with my latest classic - David Copperfield.

There will be more on the projects next week but I will tell you that they involved another new recipe and an unexpected sewing project.

On the work front, I finally reached the bottom of my work to-do list (the first time in five weeks!)  Even though my timetable is much fuller than last semester, I am feeling good about work - I have some really lovely classes this year and everything about school is feeling better and more comfortable.  At the moment we are looking into having more staff representation (a bit like an internal union, not something that we had in England) which is exciting too.

I was really excited to find this language learning website this week.  I am stuck into the German and Spanish sections and may try something new later too.  Unfortunately their English learning sections are only for speakers of French, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian and not German but I have recommended it to some of my more diligent pupils anyway.

We have booked our accommodation for Copenhagen - just four and a half weeks to go! - I am so looking forward to the break.  This week's goal is to arrange travel.  My guide book also arrived so I'll be delving into that, as well as getting more tips from friends.

If September continues as it has started, it will be the most productive month of the year yet, and I will be completely ready for the autumn break in October too!!

P.S. This made my week.

Project Life Week 22

This week in Project Life was all about our class trip to Ristedt.  The pupils faces are blurred out for obvious reasons but I think you can get an overall feel for the week and I like the kind of orange theme for this week.  

 

While we were there we had various activities going on, those in the spread include, the museum where we made waffles on an open fire, building huts in the forest, visiting the viewing tower, and the disco!

 

I'm striving to get better with tying the spreads together in terms of a theme or colour and it seems to be working.

I was spoiled for choice with the amount of photos we took on the trip and then I added a couple of appropriate quote cards to finish things off.  Apart from that there is nothing extra special for this week.

I am glad to be using those postcard 'headers'.  They only really feel appropriate when I have been away somewhere and so that is only the second one I have used so far but it really helped to tie the orange theme in.

Overall, I am still really enjoying this project and developing my creativity with it.  I plan to continue my weekly updates now that the blog is back up and running.  You can find out more about the project here and here.

Scotland - Our Honeymoon

For our honeymoon, we decided to spend a week travelling around Scotland.  I had been before, and fallen in love with the beautiful countryside there.  My great grandmother was Scottish and I wanted to share that part of my heritage with Nico too.  He also has a little whisky hobby so he was happy to travel there with me and visit Oban distillery.  

Also, I sponsored a penguin at Edinburgh zoo as my wedding present to Nico so it was a great chance to go and visit the little guy!

At the start of the week in Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

The view over Edinburgh city centre

Taking in the view

Edinburgh city centre

The penguin walk at Edinburgh zoo

Awesome penguins!

Wedding present

A wide awake panda!

Roselyn chapel (from the DaVinci Code)

On the road to Helensburgh

The front at Helensburgh

The view from Helensburgh pier

On Helensburgh pier

On our woodland walk

On our woodland walk

Love this country view

The Firth of Clyde

Loch Lomond

Writing postcards

Loch Lomond

Honeymoon magic

A journey with a view - the start of the highlands

Oban

Fish and chips on the front

The view from our Oban B&B

The park at Oban

Lighthouse from the ferry to Mull

At Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull

Duart Castle

Duart Castle from the ferry back to Oban

Island from the ferry to Oban

Something new - scallops!

Doune Castle - set of Monty Python

Rained out!

As you can see, we had an amazing week and generally, we were lucky with the weather.  We are excited to go back at some point and next time, directly to the highlands which were our favourite part. 

Recipe: Gluten Free Orange and Honey Cake

My cousin, who is studying at catering college and made my amazing hen night cupcakes, was kind enough to send me this amazing recipe for a gluten free cake last week and I tried it over the weekend.  

I love trying new gluten free recipes and this was the first time I separated eggs by myself (not as hard as I thought it would be), and it was totally worth it - the cake lasted about five minutes once I managed to remove it from the cake tin!

Ingredients:-

•  115g gluten free flour (I used a 50/50 mix of rice and cornflour)
• 115g butter
• 1tsp baking powder
• 115g caster sugar
• 1 large orange, juiced and grated
• 2 large eggs
• honey to serve

Instructions:-
 

1. Pre heat the oven to 180c / gas mark 6.  Grease a 9" cake tin.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light, fluffy and almost white in colour.  Separate the eggs, adding the yolks to the butter mix.  
   
3. Combine the flour, baking powder and orange zest. 
   
   Add this to the butter mix and mix well.
4. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites into a stiff peak and mix into the cake one third at a time.  Add the orange juice and mix well.
5. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 30-45 minutes.
   
6. Remove from the oven, cool completely, serve with honey.
   
7. Enjoy!!

Craft Corner: September Birthday Cards

 Every month, I struggle to come up with cards for the men in my family.  Somehow, women are just so much easier with flowers and a bit of sparkle.  I read this advice from Rebecca at Lucky Rainbow Designs a while ago and found it very useful.  Mine are far from being in her league but I'm improving all the time and I'm quite pleased with this month's.

 I really recommend finding some good card stock.  I liked matching different colour schemes this month and found they tied in really well.  I also like adding a bit of texture or depth to the cards - either with those double sided sticky pads or with little embellishments like the one above.

I also need to work on my calligraphy.  Sometimes the cards require a message on the front but I don't like my own handwriting on there.  I'm looking for some online help.  This is my goal for the next months.

Cards for younger boys are generally a little easier as there are more products out there such as this cute little horse stamp I had from a Christmas kit.  I also love using the deco tape which was from Tchibo.

As I mentioned above, cards for women are much easier.  However, I did keep it simple this month, with the deco tape, simple stamps and a little bit of sparkle.  I love the contrast of these colours though.  A great start to the new crafting month!

Back to Blogging

My idea of Summer relaxation

There have been many changes for me this Summer and after a nice long break from the blog, here I am, feeling refreshed and ready to go again.  

I hope you like the design changes I've made here.  For me, the look is much cleaner and more personal.  That picture up there is from our honeymoon in Scotland and the colour is my favourite - as well as very clean and calming.  I'm still making some changes to the layout so look out for those in the next weeks too.

As to the content of this blog, I took stock of what I was posting and while there are some things I want to keep, such as my monthly goals, there are also many things I want to introduce more of, such as my projects and crafts, so look out for that.  

I read a lot of advice about writing a good blog over the Summer and one tip that came up time and time again, is to write posts that I would like to read.  It sounds so obvious but is something I had lost sight of. 

I'm working on some posts updating readers on some of the major events for me this Summer - our wedding, the honeymoon in Scotland, my brother's wedding and the return to school - they'll be mingled in there with some of the newer content, so watch out for those!

September Goals