But then it makes it up to me

by showing me sites like this... http://www.fictionpress.com/s/1867565/1/Not_Your_Average_Dictionary_Homelife_Edition

Brilliant!

The internet hates me...

I love online shopping. The ability to filter the options so I only see black sleeveless tops, or purple wedge sandals, or children's toys suitable for 12-18months, or table sauces and condiments, is wonderful. The ease of picking an item, adding it to a basket and having a nice man bring it to my door, fills me with the joy of all that is wonderful about the internet. I do all my grocery shopping online these days, and I plan to get most of my Christmas shopping done this way too.

Well, I will if the internet stops hating me. I don't know what I did to make it take agin' me, but it has and it's been going on a while. The first major incident was with a very well known electronics supplier who told me they couldn't deliver my order because the delivery address didn't exist. In my surprise I nearly fell off my chair and through the non-existant second floor of the non-existant building. Thankfully I caught hold of my desk in time to save myself from falling into nothingness. The second time, I had disagreement with another well known company over their failed delivery of a very expensive camera. By the end of that week I had two, one for each eye. You would not believe how hard it was for me to give one of them back. Even people buying me presents online have had difficulty (so I know it's personal). The Brig once tried to buy me a lovely Kenwood Chef and instead was sent a body fat analyser...they obviously knew I'd be using the Kenwood for baking some day!

So my most recent difficulty is with a very large payment processor. They have frozen my credit card and won't allow me to use it until I send them details of what I had for breakfast two weeks ago last Thursday, and my grandmother's, grandmother's, aunt's maiden name.

If I didn't know better, I'd think The Brig had had a word to stop me spending the last of my maternity leave pay...

No hope of my clothes ever fitting again

I am in awe of those who can bake. My sister and mother in law are very good and my sister in law is a baking demi-goddess (the kind of good that goes on courses about how to make cake decorations) so I have been feeling the pressure to perform. My problem is that I am not sufficiently precise to bake. I understand why it is necessary to make sure the ingredients are exact, but I can't really be bothered to measure everything perfectly. I prefer things like casseroles and stews where I bung in whatever I find in the cupboard and it doesn't really matter.

But given the new husband, baby and house, and enough counter space to put my lovely stainless steel bowl'd Kenwood Chef, I am being a good little Wifely and learning how to use the crazy oven. The thermostat is all over the shop, so I have to guess by how much to reduce the temperature. Initial efforts suffered a minor flaw, being as they were, inedible. I made a lemon drizzle cake for Beautiful Girl's christening which had a chargrilled exterior with a moist, lemony interior. However, a few pounds of butter and flour later, I managed to produce a cake which was quite tasty even if it needed a butter icing face lift. Thank God for strawberries; they cover a multitude!

Anyway, today is the jewel in the crown of my baking career. With thanks to Rachel Allen I made a very creditable orange madeira cake (http://www.rachelallen.co.uk/recipes_april09.html#r4), and even more tasty, vanilla melting moments - nom, nom, nom! (I can't find the recipe on any of her sites, so it's below if you want it.) Anyway, if you fancy a change from the vanilla scented glory of the butter icing, they are also yum with the lemon butter icing left over from the christening cake or nutella, and I'm thinking about trying a bit of raspberry jam with the vanilla butter icing. I can see a cholesterol test in my near future...


Rachel Allen's Vanilla Melting Moments

Biscuits:
175g self raising flour
125g cornflour
50g icing sugar
225g butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Vanilla Butter Cream:
50g butter, softened
125g icing sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 160 C/ (325 F) Gas mark 3. Place the flour, cornflour and icing sugar in a food processor and whizz briefly to mix. Add the butter and vanilla and whizz until it comes together (a minute or two, I do it slowly). Roll into 40 small balls the size of a large marble. Place trays on (no need to grease or line) and flatten down a bit with a fork. Bake for 10-15 minutes until still very pale in colour but, slightly firm. Remove carefully and cool on a wire rack.

Keep the same bowl in the processor and whizz the ingredients for the butter cream until they come together. Sandwich the biscuits with the butter cream. Makes 20.

Where's the explorer gone?

My internet explorer icon has gone missing. I'm not sure how I go about reporting it. Do I have to wait til I'm sure it's gone at least 24hours? I can't say when it vanished, as I tend to use firefox. I save explorer for when I want to look up something embarrassing (like wedding stuff I'm still interested in, coming on to a year later...I know, I know, a very shameful habit) or shopping for things I don't want The Brig to know I'm looking at (like more shoes, or more shoes, or sometimes even presents for him). Then, y'see, I can delete the browsing history and he's none the wiser, where if I delete the history in firefox, all the saved usernames are gone and I have to try to remember what I called myself for the online grocery shopping, or the newspaper, or my email... My tech support (ahem, The Brig) has had stern words with me in the past about not changing up my usernames and passwords between sites or at regular intervals, so thank God for auto-filling boxes.

But now I'm in a quandry...if I ask him to find the explorer he's going to want to know why, and I really, really, really want to google Uggs!

Erm...

Every time I makr reference to The General, a little bell tinkles in a far off part of my bain. I thought it was some sort of neural short circuiting, but I've just realised that I've given my lovely husband the same nickname as a notorious criminal... oops! Might have to change that one... Let's go for Brigadier-General, The Brig for short.

Mammy Rites of Passage

Well, as of today, I think I have completed all of the Mammy Rites of Passage. In Beautiful Girl's four months she has
1. pee-d on me
2. poo-ed on me
3. farted on me
4. got sick on me
5. kicked me in the boob
6. punched me in the boob
7. suddenly pulled off a breastfeed in public
8. and in front of my Dad
9. and in front of The General's Dad
10. burped in my face

and today, she got sick into my mouth.

These are the bits of being a Mammy no-one tells you about, and for good reason.

His name is The General, and...

He's a World War Two addict.

Yes, the tv is back, and with it The History Channel. The nice man from telly land came yesterday and drilled a hole in my wall, put in some wires, gave me a remote control and asked me to hoover up the dust. I can sleep easy now the plasma tv is fulfilling its purpose with a HD connection (I might need new glasses, it doesn't look all that different to me) and we can really believe we are reliving Pearl Harbour. Phew.

Four channel land

There I thought four channel land was a mythical place, far away in time and space, maybe somewhere east of Narnia. But nope, it's here in County Dublin. We finally had the nice telly box man around after waiting “7-10 working days”. Apparently our cables are too old for HD tv, and since that's the only acceptable option, we have to wait for another nice man to come and string wires all over the place...here's hoping it's soon, we're running out of dvds...

The wonder of wiring

We love our new house. We're slowly managing to unpack boxes and find new homes for more stuff than I ever thought two people could possibly own. Mind you, the small one we've brought along for the ride probably has as much to herself as The General and I have collectively.

So, our house was previously owned by a man keen on DIY. There are some lovely shelves and a light or two in places I wouldn't have thought of, but all in all we thought, happy days. That was until we wondered where the telly in the kitchen was plugged in. And where the pull cord for turning on the electric shower in the ensuite was... hmmm...

So far we have found the following, lets call them unlikely, connection points:
kitchen tv is plugged in in a cupboard over the fridge;
pull cord for the ensuite shower is in the main bathroom, we have still to find the switch for the electric shower in the main bathroom;
the gas meter is hidden in a wardrobe (?) in the converted garage;
the lights under the kitchen cabinets are turned on by the “oven on” switch, which I suppose means I'll never have to cook in the dark;
there's a second switch that has to be turned on to make the oven work;
there are six light switches in the hall beside the front door, and I have no idea what 3 of them are for;
I managed to turn on a light in the hall on the day we moved in, but haven't been able to find the switch again since.

I have no doubt our lovely house will continue to unfold her delights in the next few weeks!