Goals for 2013 update

Five twelfths of the way through the year is the usual time to check where you're up to with New Year's Rulins. Now I'm no Woody Guthrie but I had a reasonably taxing list.



- Join in Steph's baking challenge. Clem’s mum got us some wonderful kitchen stuff for Christmas and I can’t wait to start using it.

I've managed to bake a few things. I bought the Paul Hollywood how to bake book and I started out making soda bread because there are hardly any ingredients. That turned out ok so I got some bread flour and made a basic white cob. My first attempt was a sticky gooey mess which made a soggy only just edible loaf. It made me think that there was a reason buying nice bread costs nearly £3 a loaf and I decided that £3 is a perfectly decent price to pay someone else to do all the hard work for me while I happily never did that again. Then I realised there was two thirds of a bag of bread flour left over so I tried again and didn't put such a flood of water in it. It turned out great.

- Related to this is the goal to cook more ‘proper’ meals. I don’t eat very well and I’d like to change that. This will include cooking some more of my Grandad’s meals and trying a few recipes from the Game of Thrones cookbook.

Despite the good size of the kitchen in our current flat, the surface space to prepare food on is non existent. However, with a bit of balancing the bread board on the hob we can now cook:

• Italian Chicken
• Burritos (thanks Katie for the chilli kidney beans tip)
• Sweet Potato Glory (roast sweet potatoes with feta and guacamole)
• Lazy Toads (sausages in Mrs Beeton insta-yorkies)
• Sausage Bake

We even made a roast dinner with a joint of pork.

Have yet to make any more of Grandad's meals or Game of Thrones dinners. Any suggestions for quick delicious dinners please inform me!

- But before that comes the big move. My January goal is to move in with lovely Clement and between us make our new place soft and welcoming and comfortable. 

Success! Well half success, sort of. I moved and it is definitely soft and great but two things have held it back from being completely perfect. One is that we are in the process of buying a flat and because of that, we decided not to put pictures up/decorate here and we still have packing boxes everywhere. The other is that there is no central heating and oh my god was it cold this winter. However, it's now warming up and it's much nicer (particularly to be out on the roof in the sun), it's lovely to be with Clem and I'm really really looking forward to moving into our new place :)

- Complete the Goodreads 30 book challenge again

      

This one is well under way. Helped along by the fact that I now have an hour train journey to work and back every day. Plus I've been ill a couple of times which has meant lots of time in bed reading. My favourites so far this year have been Catch 22, Life After Life, and Letters of a Woman Homesteader.

- Go abroad with Clem, possibly to the Ukraine



Not yet. The Ukraine will probably have to be next summer as this year we are going to Glastonbury which will be our main holiday spend. We are hoping also to go and stay with Clem's godmother in the South of France for my birthday. She lives near Carcassonne and is always bigging up the Cathar castles - understandably, once you've seen the photo above.

- Sign up for a course – currently thinking printmaking or small metals.

The new part time/hobby courses prospectus has just come out for next academic year at the local college and I'm eyeing up Quiltmaking for Beginners and Pattern Cutting. I want to do ceramics and screen printing as well but as quilt making is already on my goals list I am going to start with that. Plus we are actively trying not to have so much clutter crap around the house and my attempts at pottery probably won't help with that.

- Make a quilt – I’d like to actually do it this year. I’ve got plenty of my dad’s and Clem’s old shirts to make it out of and I’m hoping to get a dedicated craft space set up in our new pad. 

See above! In clearing out clothes for the move, I've added a few things to my quilt pile, so will definitely have plenty of fabric. In the new flat there is a second bedroom which will for the time being will be a hobby room divided down the middle with twee washi tape. Khaki and trolls on one side, cutesy fabric and balls of wool on the other. We are nothing if not gender conformist in our hobbies. I will finally have space for my old Singer sewing machine table which currently resides with my parents, and I'm looking forward to bringing that over.

Alice
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