Christmas Cake Recipe

 

You'll need the following:

1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
4 large brown eggs
2 cups of dried fruit
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of brown sugar
Lemon juice
Nuts
1 bottle of whiskey

Sample the whiskey to check for quality.
Take a large bowl. Check the whiskey again.
To be sure it's the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat.
Turn on the electric mixerer, beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar and beat again. Make sure the whiskey is still OK.

Cry another tup. Tune up the mixer. Break two leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.
Mix on the turner. If the fired druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it goose with a drewscriver.
Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. Who cares?
Check the whiskey. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.
Add one table.
Spoon the sugar or something. Whatever you can find.
Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees.
Don't forget to beat off the turner.
Throw the bowl out of the window.

Check the whiskey again and go to bed.

(A friend found this online and passed it around the Staffroom today. Seems as good a recipe as any really?)

Thass Life Mom...

What IS it with teenagers?

Some days I feel as though I am the only person in this household actually walking on the ground; everyone else  appears to be travelling alongside on a trampoline on wheels! Up one minute, down the next, laughing turning to bickering in a flash. One moment I am having a conversation with a (reasonably) civilised human and the next I'm fending off a termagant whom I have just mortally insulted...and as for the poor Noddy car- well I'm surprised the passenger doors are still attached with all the slams they've received lately!

If Life is a washing machine I've been stuck in the 'spin and drain' cycle for some years now!

I really do feel that in the Instruction Manual for Life with which we are all (not) issued in the Maternity Ward, there ought to be instructions on activating a personal 'seatbelt sign' like they have on aeroplanes, just so I get a split second warning to duck before any particular daughter goes stratospheric....y'know?

Nuclear fallout is dangerous when taken regularly in large doses and close proximity.

So much for the teenage years, with us they appear to be lasting well into the twenties!

I thought that when the girls were little they were lovable and I couldn't possibly be happier with their company. Then when they were toddlers and the whole house was in constant turmoil with their antics, I thought that was the best time. Each began school and I thought that watching them learn was the most interesting and revelatory (?) experience, despite very rocky patches through the secondary years.

When Eldest went to College it was scary and hilarious but she came home with laundry and stories and disappeared again with half the pantry and that was great, whereas Middlest seems to bring most of the Drama Department home on a regular basis so that I have had to learn all about Ravening Hordes and The Warfare of Genghis Khan...which training has stood me in good stead for Youngest and her school friends.

I have recently entered the peculiar phase of getting to know boyfriends, which, let me tell you, is a whole new minefield of guesswork and twisted ankles (metaphorically speaking- big word!!) and brilliant fun in a 'how much can I get away with?' way.

At each stage, despite tantrums and stern talks and occasional despair, I thought THIS is the best time! But finally I am coming to realise that every time can be the best time, even the evenings I want to knock their heads together or when Middlest comes home with yet another tattoo...

If I take nothing away from the last twenty four years except the experience of Motherhood, that's ok, it still makes me one of the lucky ones.

Of Decisions and Chocolate...

Have you ever had to make alone a momentous decision which will have repercussions for everyone who is important to you? Trying to see the issues from every angle, considering all the main people it will affect, staying true to your-own-self and at the same time knowing that which ever way you turn things won't be the same again.

I think there are certain events or acts in one's life which yank skewif the whole fabric of one's habits, belief, faith, outlook etc. Sometimes it can be an inadvertent yank such as an accident, sometimes it is anticipated but not to the extent it side-swipes you, like one's first child, and sometimes it is something you never ever thought would zoom over the horizon to thwack you.

This decision or choice comes under the last category...and its not 'luck' or 'patience' or 'thought' which is needed, its a blinkin' crystal ball!!!!

I have always though that as long as one lives mindfully, making careful decisions and choices, then whatever happens (be it good or bad) one can at least believe that at any given point in one's life one made the best decisions given the information or circumstances of that particular time. But what if, years down the line, all those tiny or middling sized choices turn out to have lead up to a massive horrible choice? Can I still say that I did my best even if my best has led to the present situation?

I don't believe in pointless recrimination, never have. I don't look back with regret, largely because I forget stuff! For better or worse, I am a 'present moment' person, which drives my family and friends (and Principal) demented much of the time: I really have tried to change, but it hasn't stuck...which brings me back to this present present...

Just to put events back into their true perspective...a girl needs chocolate, right? Well when I went to get the newspapers after Church I saw Tesco had a special on Thornton's:

Ahhhh! Thornton's chocolates....delish-ness extraordinaire!
 

I could have resisted, of course, but it woulda been rude to do so at the price that was in it!!!!

So I didn't!