Of sugar and spice

My melee campaign in the barren wasteland of my kitchen produced yet another victory last night.

Feelings of guilt and gratitude (go figure) inspired me to plan a surprise for my over-worked hubby yesterday. I recall him asking me to bake him a chocolate cake a couple weeks back and me blatantly refusing him. (I was at home already, and baking a cake would mean going out to shop for the ingredients. I was tired, okay. Don’t judge me.)

So, into my little car I hopped after work, I went to get the spawnling, and off to the market we rode, in the crimson twilight. Purchases in hand, I set a course for the kitchen and deigned to cook a meal (oven-bake fish and chips; with a side of gem squash) and bake the envisioned cake.

The kid was comfortable enough on the floor for a while. I had bought her new shoes (pink ones) and she was intently attempting to get her teeth into them, attached to her feet as they were. Regardless, she allowed me to get the food into the oven, and start mixing the batter. All went well. Hubby was home earlier than expected, so he was able to feed the kid when she started wailing for her din-dins.

I’d forgotten to add the baking powder, but the self-raising flour mitigated that oversight. The shop had no caramel, so I substituted condensed milk and cherries for decoration.

Dinner was a success.

I plan to one day have a dining room. There will be table settings, runners, tablecloths, napkins. My hopes and dreams are simple ones. I wonder if I’ll be able to incorporate the colours of my wedding: wine red and gold. Maybe some oranges and browns to bring in those warm tones…

Tonight’s meal remains a mystery.

home schooling blues

I need a chair for my desk at home.

At this stage it looks like my studies have come to an abrupt halt because I am now fully planned at the office with actual work. What a bummer!

At home, there is the problem of not having a chair for my desk, so I never sit down and study.

When I do scrapbooking, I sit on the floor, because I need a lot of space. We have 2 desks, but no chairs for them. And the sofas are just too low.

As things stand now (ha-ha), until we spend some money (we don’t have) on some decent PC type chairs, I won’t hit the books again. And, that would be a tragedy.

And, no, the patio chairs we borrowed from his parentals are not adequate. Not only are they too hard, they are also too low and restrictive. No amount of pillows can fix this. I need comfort for the academic process to initialise!

In other news, the baby has taken to loudly declaring “babababa” and “dadadada”. She also indulges in yanking hair and jiggling keys – loudly. On hard surfaces for maximum effect. She is cute as a button though.

Today (and yesterday) I have lower epidural area back pain. This started when I carried the kid around at the mall yesterday. I thought my back would break. It’s not her fault that I am weak. But, I’m in some real pain today. It’s not fun. I had similar epidural ache for about 3 to 4 months after I popped the kid. It’s just a little eerie.

As I have mentioned, at work I am engaged in various projects; nothing too harrowing at present. I’m in a comfortable little niche at work. I know the people and their abilities; I know who’s work needs to be triple-checked and who’s doesn’t. Management is nice to me. Even more so ever since I passed my CISA exam – finally!

Financially we are still in the crapper.

I am happy. It doesn’t make for great writing.