Persistance is the key.

Back in 2008, my grandad purchased gift vouchers for the girls as Christmas presents from long standing children's wear company, Adams.

It promptly went into administration and closed up all its shops on Boxing Day 2008, as was the trend with many high street stores that year.

Countless angry phone calls to Adams got me nowhere. They didn't seem to understand or care that they had taken £30 of my grandad's pension money, with the promise of goods up to that value, and due to their lack of financial foresight could not honour their side of the deal.

They refused to let me use the gift vouchers via their online store or in their department store concessions, which were still operational.

The girls were basically left with worthless pieces of paper.

I contacted the company dealing with Adam's demise and put in claim for the value of my children's gift vouchers.

I told them that the company should be ashamed of themselves for allowing people to purchase gift vouchers if they knew they were on the verge of collapse. Accusing them at one point of being no better that common thieves!

I posted off my supporting evidence for my claim and sat back... for 4 years!

I received long winded, legal jargon letters from the administrators on a regular basis, none of which made any sense and were just the pointless death of a tree.

Until last week, when I received a letter telling me that all unsecured creditors (that meant me) would be receiving their payout. A cheque was to follow shortly!

Woohoo! Score!

Finally I was going to get the £30 back that I (sorry, I mean the children) was owed.

In my excitement I did not read the small bit about the "final distribution being to the value of 16.06 pence in the pound."
Imagine my disgust when Ian explained to me that I would not be receiving the £30 expected but a much more modest figure.

So my cheques grand total?

£4.82

That's right a measly £4.82 to be split between 3!

I not good at maths and I can't be bothered to find a calculator but I know it a pretty pathetic amount!

It has cost them more than that to post all those updates and the minutes from their share holders meeting to me over the last 4 years!
And that is it, I can do no more, I can argue it no more, I am suppose to gratefully accept my payout and put the whole thing to bed, which I will do after I have the final word;
TOSSERS!

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting

Some more cupcakes by Ria.

They are slightly decadent with Nutella in the cake batter, cream cheese in the frosting and honeycomb pieces to decorate.

Her decorating skills are improving a lot.

But I forgot to get the butter out to soften... again!

Winter warmer recipe swap - part 2

Here is the recipe I received as part of the swap.

Taco Soup from Shiloh Stone.

The recipe itself was very easy and straight forward.

Shiloh had tried to send me a recipe that wouldn't include any hard to find ingredients, but sadly Taco sauce isn't stocked on my local supermarket shelves.

Never fear however, as the Internet is here.

One quick click on google and I found the recipe for Taco Bell's Taco sauce and although I didn't follow it to the letter I added the required spices to some tomato passata and it tasted like taco's to me!

For the tortilla chips, I thought I'd try to be fancy and fry my own, with a dusting of Mexican seasoning.

I was trying to emulate the tortillas that came with the chili beef con queso dip that you used to be able to get from "Chiquitos". Those chips and that dips used to be divine, but they don't do them anymore. Boo!

It was quick to cook, and it was eaten quickly too.

I think it will definitely be made again.

Thank you Shiloh for sharing your recipe with me.

Winter Warmer recipe swap

Last Month I signed up to Annika & Fiona's Winter warmer recipe swap.

Here's what I sent off to my swapee Aimee from Husbandry & Wifery.

It's a childhood favorite of mine.

Sticky Toffee Pudding.

I had it printed on a postcard so that Aimee could store it easily in her recipe box.

The recipe is very simple and I hope Aimee likes it as much as I do.

I obviously had to make some to be able to take the photos for the postcard.

Then of course I was forced to eat it.

I had to make double of the sauce though, because my other half presumed, and men should never presume, that the brown liquidy stuff in the jug was leftover gravy and tipped it away!!! but the brown liquidy stuff in the gravy boat that smelt like gravy and was actual gravy, that stayed untouched! Men!

Tomorrow I will showcase the recipe I recieved.

More photo fun with Logan

If you have a baby and a leftover sticky bandit moustache, its wrong not too...

Shame I can't use these as her passport shot!

Baby passport photos

Taking photos of an 8 month old baby for their passport, that will have to last them until they are 5 years old is tricky.

You don't want them to look gormless,

...bored,

... like they are filling their nappy,

...distracted,

(well the cats were fighting in the hall and that is way more interesting than posing for mummy!)

...bathed in a wierd blue aura,

...gurning,

 

...having cheeks so chubby, they glow,

...sucking their thumb,

 ...or refusing to take their hands out of their mouths,

...the top of their head (a passport control favorite!)

...waving to all their fans.

But out of what seemed like hundreds of wasted shots, I got this one and I'm happy with it.

Now I just have to find the money to pay for 3 child passports at £49 a pop!!!!

I suppose those are the breaks when you don't go abroad for years and they all expire at once.

Ria's first cupcakes

Ria and I made her first batch of cupcakes last week using her Christmas present

Choco-Mocha cupcakes.

She even decorated them herself.

I'd like to think that this fact was obvious and that you expect a slightly higher standard of decoration from me.

They tasted very nice..."even though Ria made them" (Ian's words not mine!)

I gave her use of my kitchenaid.

Cheating I know, she has to learn to cream butter and sugar together by hand if she really wants to make cakes for a living. That means I also have to remember to take the butter out of the fridge to soften before thinking a 7 year old can cream rock hard butter! Lending her the kitchenaid was the least I could do!

Just so you know, this is what they were meant to look like!

Christmas 2011

Presents were opened... too many presents!

Logan did a lot of posing.

and chewing of new toys.

And the traditional silly hats were worn.

I'm late with this, what with Christmas being a now distant memory, but I've been reluctant to pick up my "blogging baton" again.

To be honest I've reached a point where I've thought about giving it up all together.

Being post-natal does not inspire you to write (or lie) about how fantastic your life is, and whilst I am feel determined not to let this beat me today, tomorrow I'll probably be back to feeling shitty again.

PND combined with January-itis is no fun. My insecurities and frustrations just make me horrible towards Ian & the kids. Whilst they've grown used to it by now, that only makes me feel worse.

I have all these plans, ideas and projects for the year ahead but zero motivation or clue about how to go about doing them. So I end up spending yet another day drinking coffee and avoiding life in front of the computer screen, some days I might get round to mopping the floor and then only because I have to because Logan is crawling on it!
Now that the kids are back to school properly, I can maybe put my head and home back in order during those sacred quiet hours of 9 til 3.

I am setting myself small goals each day, yesterday was to tidy up and fold the washing. Done ✓
Today was to clean the bathroom and put the guest bed away. Done ✓
Each one of those little projects is building up to bigger ones but I'm no position to bite off more than I can chew right now.

To finish on a slightly lighter note, did anyone else see these over the xmas period?

Was anyone brave enough to try them?

And did anybody else attract wierd looks for taking photos of crisps in Tescos?