My brown eyed girl

Started in Photoshop Stoneage and finished in Photoshop Shiny! Much excitement.

Should have thought this through a little more

I am going to edit my SP list for July again ;) At the moment there are a number of things on the list that I actually can't do until right at the end of the month, as they are linked to my or the Monkey's birthday, and suddenly I want some other stuff to do! I won't go nuts though, school goes back next week and the first two weeks are going to be all kinds of craziness, not looking forward to that I must admit.

Baking - Bah!

Well I decided to give the Nutella cookies another go to get them absolutely perfect this time and what do you know - they were not great at all! No where near as nice as the first time.

I am not sure what happened but I think I put too many hazelnuts in, and may have forgotten to put the full amount of cocoa in. The mixture was much more damp this time, and they ended up with much less flavour.

Sigh. Between the Snickers cookies debacle and the Nutella cookies being sub-par, it hasn't been a great month for me baking wise!

It does remind me though how much of a science baking is, and how good it does feel when you actually are successful at it.

Snickers Cookies

I have to say, I was so looking forward to baking these and was so very dissapointed in them. The HTC didn't think they were too bad, but I didn't like them much at all. To be honest I stuffed up the recipe anyway, they need both castor sugar and brown sugar, and when I read 'Mix the butter and sugar' I totally forgot about the brown sugar. If fact, I forgot to add it to almost the end, so I am sure that was a huge part of the problem.

Although that said, I am not confident that even if I had followed the recipe properly they still would have turned out as beautiful cookies. They were really heavy and doughy, and didn't rise or spread much at all. SO basically, they were a flop in my eyes. I would still like to try to make them again, although I think I will try find another recipe because I am not keen on this one.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the mediocre Snickers Cookies. I won't do a proper review on them because realistically I am not going to be attempting these again!


ETA - Ooops, too funny, it looks like I printed it straight off a website and forgot to save a digital copy, which I never do! So maybe I will take it as a sign and not post the recipe at all. I will hopefully post a more successful one in it's place soon!


And in more baking news, I am going to a friend's for morning tea and had my heart set on trying the Nutella Cookies again to see if I could improve on them, but another friend is dying to try the Apple Pie Cupcakes as well. So maybe I will do both if I have time? We will see

And while I am at it....

The study.

Before....

And after!

I am loving the study now it's all tidy and mostly organised. A couple of things have been packaged and moved to the shed for storage, a lot has been thrown out, although most of what has been thrown out is mine, the HTC is a shocking hoarder and it drives me bananas.

It is getting more difficult though, since having the Monkey we suddenly have a whole heap of stuff we want to keep in case we decide to try for a Monkey sibling - big stuff like her bassinnette and clothes and rocker and so on. Lucky we have a huge storage space in the shed, although that needs a huge clean out as well, but all in good time!

Unfortunately we still have more books than bookshelves, which has been a problem in this house forever, which is while there are still things on the floor. The problem is we actually want to install a heap of shelves in this room, but still haven't gotten around to doing it, and we don't want to just buy one shelf that won't match the rest when the time comes. So it's not perfect but on the whole I am happy at all the space I have created and that it is a functioning study again!

Oh and to be honest, the desk didn't look quite that bad when I started (although nearly!!!), I had already started sorting the filing cabinet when I remembered to get the camera out.

Confessions of a gardening virgin

Today's work!
Before........


And after!

Let me just say, I am so much of a gardening virgin that I consider pulling a couple of weeds out of the ground 'gardening'! But one of my SP's for this month was to get into the garden which the HTC and I never do - which is exactly why it is in such a huge state. We are so slack with it the weeds are threatening to take over absolutely everything, it's horrible.

Anyway, I had been patiently waiting for green bin day which was this morning, and after spending an hour in there this afternoon the green bin is full and there is another small patch I have managed to clear. I think the key to me getting all of this done is chipping away at it without thinking about how much more there is to do. I have been doing pretty well with this line of thinking too, everytime I walk past the garden now I concentrate on the patch that I have done which makes me happy, rather than the many hours still to do.

I am limited somewhat because I don't want to go nuts and rip everything out and have no way of getting rid of it, so it is helping me to take it at a more sensible pace considering I keep having to wait for green bin day.

And now for a small confession - while I was out there today there was a tiny part of me that actually enjoyed it! I never ever thought I would say that. But the sun was shining, the weeds were so easy to pull out because it has been raining, and I worked out a way to do it without aggrivating my back which is great. There was a part of me that was a little disappointed when I had to stop when the bin was full.

Now I see I am slowly getting somewhere, my thoughts are starting to turn to what we could actually do with the garden once the clean out has finished. I think I will look into some ground coverings which may help the weeds and maybe even some hardy bushes and flowers that might suit the space.

And one more

Just a simple one, but I like the colours in it. It doesn't look like I will have any trouble meeting the digiscrap part of my challenge for July!

Queen of productivity!

As much as I am missing the Monkey today and as quiet as our house is, it's amazing how much you can get done without a little one underfoot!

I have spent a lot of today doing some digiscrapping which has been great. Unfortunately I think my version of Photoshop (PS Elements Version 2 - at least 6 years old I think!) and/or my computer are on their last legs so it has been rather frustrating dealing with files that won't open and close when I want them too. But even so I have managed to get three pages done and am working on my fourth.

Again they are all Monkey based as they will be going into her First Year Digiscrapbook. The 'Headstands' one incorporates a Jessica Sprague tutorial on overlays that can be found here. I have been wanting to do this for ages so it was once again good to see how easy it was.

And in other news, I am very proud to say the study is almost perfectly tidy now, will upload some pics tomorrow as proof. I forget how lovely it is being in here when it's all nice and organised.

Big Cleanup

Well, not the type that requires moving furniture around the place and big garbage bags, but a clean up of sorts anyway! I finally got to sorting all my digiscrap stuff out yesterday and did a complete disc clean up on the computer while I was at it, and managed to free up 10 gig which isn't too bad! Plus that's one of my SP's done already which is great.

I would love to get a new computer sometime soon but realistically there are other things we need to be spending money on at the moment, but I am happy that my little clean up has meant my computer is no longer having 'episodes' whenever I try to open a heap of windows (which I do all the time).

SP for July

Well, another month, another list! I have added ten items for this month. Most of them are organisational things really, bits and pieces I want and need to do that I haven't got around to yet. I also added two small displeasures (tidying study and weeding - ugh!) because I know that I will feel fab once they are done. There is also a bit of a birthday emphasis as my birthday is at the end of July and Monkey's is at the end of August.

So here it is - the July SP list! I want to improve on the 6.5 completed from last month hopefully.

(1) Download twenty new recipes
(2) Tidy study
(3) See a movie
(4) Bake cupcakes for my birthday
(5) Fill green bin with weeds
(6) Organise and print photos for Monkey's collage
(7) Buy new baking items
(8) Print and send Monkey's birthday invites
(9) Organise all digiscrap items
(10) Go out to nice dinner for my birthday