The Power of Cake

 One of the
 cards I got for my birthday this year perfectly expresses my love for cake.

‘Cake is your friend’.

This AMAZING monster of a birthday cake was made by Rob's own fair hands, yes it is a giant Oreo cookie cake and yes it tasted friggin awesome! Particularly good with Cookie Dough Ice cream!! Unfortunately it didn’t last very long *licks lips and then looks guilty* Thanks Rob I’ll have another one of those next year please!! (Or next week if you get bored...)

I had a lovely bday, as we had literally moved that week it was all a bit craazzeee but had a few friends pop in for a nosy round and a piece of cake.  I think Issy and Jamie had the most fun having balloon fights in the naughty corner, and there were lots of places for Issy to explore in the garden!

Priorities

We’ve been officially moved in for two weeks now and settling in the first week we had to make sure we got our priorities right.

I’ve certainly got mine right, much to Jamies disgust...

Jay decorated the fridge…

After our journey into DIY discovery I decided to use some of my new found skills and turn an old white cabinet into a fancy one that matches the wall paper in the front room! Oooh get me! I've been watching too much Linda Barker on the telly!

For my birthday Lucy bought me an amazing paint your own gnome kit for our garden, so I used my day off wisely and painted the newly nicknamed ‘Super Gnome’ (or Norman to his mates) He just needs to be varnished and he can go and sit by the pond!

Do It Yourself

A journey of DIY discovery…

Chaulking ‘Chaulk everything! If it’s a straight line chaulk it!’

Sanding - when you look like a snowman, sand a bit more

Varnish - until you get a bit too happy from the fumes

Gloss - this stuff does NOT come off your hands, (yet it takes 16 hours to dry whatever you’ve painted) for weeks I felt the need to apologise to random people in case they thought that perhaps I don’t actually wash

Painting – the first wall I painted I was ecstatic that we had got to the painting stage quote: ‘we’re nearly there Jay we are painting! Hoorah!’ erm…no…not nearly there…the last wall I painted I wanted to throw the paintbrush down and dance around it (in fact I’m sure I did do a little dance *whoop*)

We dabbled with painting/equipment of all varieties…brushes, rollers, ceilings, walls, skirting’s, doors, frames, cutting in, I even painted my glasses, my hair, clothes and my arms (those last few were not intentional) Also tried a new fangled gadget from the ideal home show a ‘paint pad pro’ Tommy Walsh you should be ashamed to have your face on that box! Recommended if you want a lovely smear effect on your walls if you can manage to keep the pad on there long enough to smear anything that is…

Singing and whistling while you work is recommended, throw in a bit of dancing/wiggling to amuse the neighbours

I have never realised there are so many different types of paint, why can you not go into a shop and say I’d like a tub of paint please

I hate B&Q

Masking - making sure you don’t get paint where you’re not supposed to…and trying not to peel paint off when removing the masking *sighs*

Priming – oh you can’t just paint everything you know! You have to prime things first, which basically means even more painting

Whitewashing – yes essentially yet more painting

Budgeting and watching money evaporate – we got really good at this one (well the last part anyway)

Learning from mistakes – all you can do is what you think is right and learn from the mistakes

Its been two weeks since my last confession...

Week 17 – yes we are still going...

I have discovered many things over the last 4 months, most recently that wallpapering is like trying to wrap a giant, extremely awkward shaped present.  Although saying this I didn’t really do much of the wallpapering it kind of ended up with Jamie doing all the work and me standing there to make sure it looked straight (which is obviously an equally important job).  The wall paper in the front room looks beautiful! We still have the dining room chimney breast to wallpaper which is going to be even harder as it has an awkward lip half way down the wall but we’re trying not to think about that.

 

I haven’t done a blog for so long I can’t remember what had and hadn’t been done...the floor downstairs is now laminate all the way through front to back and was laid by Jay and his dad Danny, it looks awesome!! Very VERY chuffed with that!

The bedroom is finished (yes FINISHED) complete with blinds (which took me and Rob 4 hours to cut each slat individually) homeowners please note I have a tip for you...buy made to measure blinds.  However they look wicked so it was worth it.  Rob enjoyed it anyway he spent most of the time cutting the slats and pinging them at me from all angles, I had one that stuck itself to my forehead for several seconds, some also  ended up flying out of the window.  I’m sure it was amusing to passers by.

Robert modelling for B&Q...

The wall sticker, yay I love it! People may start to notice a tree/flower theme around the house, I can’t help it everything I buy just happens to have trees on it.  Having done the sticker first and moaned that it took 30 minutes to peel the backing off and a further 20 to secure it in place, we realised that this is way easier than hanging wallpaper so may have to get some more of those!!!

Rob and Jay manoeuvred the washing machine and fridge into the utility last night so they can finally be used! So, I hear you say, when are you moving in then? I don’t know!!! I hope on Sunday, I am taking stuff round there over the weekend, but really it depends on Jay as poor lamb, it is all coinciding nicely with his exams again, so he has not even had time to think about what he is going to pack let alone pack any of it, whereas I have been packing for some time...so we will see, what will be, will be but it’s there, it’s ready!! There are still bits and bobs to do, the blinds in the front room (which are the same as the bedroom) *shudders at thought of doing that again x3* and the edging on the floor.  Little things really, the main thing is it LOOKS like a house, it IS a house, it is OUR house and I can’t wait, time to excited!!! Woooooooooo!

A review of the book within the book

The End of Mr Y (Scarlett Thomas)

Ok when I started this book I instantly thought ooooh this is going to be really clever and exciting and gripping.  I did from the start think it was bizarre and to be honest it is not an easy story to explain but i’ll give it a go.  Ariel (our heroine) comes across a mysterious book, extremely rare and rumoured to be cursed to those who read it.  So obviously she reads it.  The book is called the End of Mr Y.  In this cursed book she comes across a recipe which in the story allows Mr Y to travel to some other world (alternate universe?) where he can jump into other people’s minds (amongst other things).  Ariel has her suspicions (valid) that this might be a real recipe and so tests this out.  There then follows a long and winding string of consequences which form the rest of the book (the one i’m reading) does this make sense? Not really? Neither does the book...

I did enjoy it and it suggests some interesting things to think about, sub consciousness, thought process and various science stuff but it delves a tad too deep for me, I did get lost quite a few times and to be honest I was very disappointed with the ending, well I’m not really sure what happened exactly.  But if you want something to read that taxes the brain then go for this.  Some great ideas and very original but i’m not sure it altogether makes sense,  but that could just be me being a bit dense.

My question is this...If the book ‘The End of Mr Y’ is cursed to those that read it, then by calling the book the same title as the book in the book are they trying to make me think I’m now cursed?     

Oh the picture? Yeah there are talking mice in the book too...

Week 15 - Painting like a crazeee lady

Easter break for me has meant lots of time off, but although it’s been time off work I’ve been busy at the house.  In between eating chocolate eggs,  I’ve been working my socks off to get the front and back rooms painted, glossed and all ready for Danny to fit the laminate flooring! And I’m nearly there, front room is finished and the dining room will be finished tomorrow... (Apart from a bit of wall papering, this will happen at a later stage).  I spent hours varnishing the window frames and the wooden cabinet and am so pleased with it, it looks wicked! It was so nice to get rid of the nasty net curtains too!  Although I have now got varnish on my hands as well as gloss that won’t come off!   

This week we have had a visitor...

The Heron has been eating all the neighbour’s fish and we caught him staking out our pond! Luckily Graham was round at the time and managed to construct some mad looking rope/stick/mesh contraption to cover our pond while the Heron is about (I should have taken a picture of that) but we might have to get something more permanent if he sticks around as otherwise our little fishes will be munched!!  It’s such an incredible looking bird though, can’t believe how big they are, and he was just perched on our roof!

Had a couple of the neighbours pop in for a sneaky peek today, they seemed impressed (and also a little jealous of our giant cooker).   I’ve been trying to persuade Jamie to move in, the last week I’ve been whispering in his ear, complaining, talking really loudly about it, writing it in my blog on the internet for all to see... but now I guess *sighs* it would now make sense to wait for the floor to be done before we move in, which is being started on Friday.  But I don’t know how long it will take or if it will all get done over the weekend we shall have to wait and see.  The drum kit has moved in all on its own ahh bless.  I have been packing stuff up and sorting out my things at home and my room already looks a bit empty, very weird indeed.  I just want to move in now!!!! I have been very patient (for me) up until now. Come on little house not much to do now, I can’t wait to see everything finished.   

Week 14...Coffee deprived Carpet Fitters

Our house finally looks like a home, hoorah! I haven’t blogged for ages, for one thing I’ve been so busy over at the house that I’ve just not had time and for another all the painting we had done was, yes you guessed it...white, so the photos would not have been very exciting.

But still, after looking at the pictures I last posted and looking at some I took today it really does look different, all these hours slogging away is going to be worth it. 

The carpet is ridiculously light, it looks amazing but I’ve decided no one is allowed to walk on it!

The front bedroom as of today...all done and dusted, mattress was delivered today aswell, just waiting on the bedstead on Friday and we can actually sleep in our house! Yippee!

Second bedroom we’ve painted the chimney breast black and glossed everything although some will need a second coat. 

Jamie’s Dad Danny has been working really hard every weekend, fitting skirting’s and door frames, the cooker and all sorts of stuff for us! He is also going to do all the laminate flooring downstairs, the next big job on the horizon!

Hall way and staircase are all done now...apart from the hand rail, didn’t manage to get that painted in time for today.

I was so excited to see the carpet down today.  I did however piss the carpet man off as he wanted a coffee and it hadn’t even crossed my mind...we don’t actually have a fridge plugged in so no milk, oh and I don’t really drink tea or coffee so although we had a kettle (which was still in the box) we had nothing to put in a cup, he was a tad grumpy after that!

Downstairs looks much the same as it did before as we’ve been concentrating on the upstairs but the cooker is in and looks very posh ooooh I wonder how you use it?

There is just still more painting to be done downstairs now, argh I used to love painting, I think I will be very relieved when I put down my paintbrush for the final time, in fact I may throw it down and dance around it in joy.

Over Easter we will hopefully start moving our things into the house and we may move ourselves in too depending on how things go!

It's...nearly...in...reach..............