Christmas Spice and all things nice.

I am spicing things up this Christmas...I made some Chilli Jam yesterday.

It's really easy to make and tastes delicious with cold meats, cheese or just about anything. I love the combination of sweetness with the fiery chilli.

I used Nigella's recipe. All you need are fresh chilli peppers, red peppers, jam sugar and cider vinegar. I like mine extra spicy so I didn't deseed all the chilli peppers.

These are the jars of gorgeousness, looking all glowing and festive! They make great gifts too.

I finally got round to making some Christmas cards. I used scraps of fabric sewed together on my sewing machine and then made into Christmas(ish) trees, using wadding and backed with calico. (I don't think I'm explaining this very well, but hopefully you'll get the idea from the photos some of which are a bit blurry because it was very late and very dark when I took them with my iphone.)

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas, filled with joy, laughter, spice and all things wonderful, glorious and nice.
With very much love,
Ayozie xxx

Christmas makings and bakings..

I find the buildup to Christmas a bit of a mixed bag of elation, excitement and overwhelm. I put myself under so much pressure to enjoy the buildup to Christmas that I end up doing too much rushing around and forgetting what this season of advent is all about. Advent is a season of preparation, but it's also one of calm and reflection. As the mayhem of Christmas commercialism whirls around me, I am battling to say true to what I think is important. I don't always win and I often get sucked into a panic that I'll run out of time and haven't bought enough presents etc etc.

I so want things to be different. I have been spending time making gifts,  It is time consuming, but I suppose the point is that it offers an opportunity to slow down and think about and appreciate the person for whom the gift is being made. The tricky part is that all my issues around being enough come to the surface when I am making a gift for someone, will they like it or just think it's rubbish?, will it be enough? Does something have more value when you spend money buying it or does a handmade gift have equal or even more value? These are all questions that I'm grappling with.

Anyway here are a few glimpses of my gift making so far...

I learnt how to make these bags in my sewing class. The patterns are in this book.

I made this bag for my daughter's friend, with a matching notebook, which I covered with fabric, felt and knitted squares.

I'm enjoying making the fabric covered notebooks. They are fun to make and are an inexpensive gift idea. The patchwork covers are a great way to use up any bits of leftover fabric from another project and of course feature one of my favourite things, crochet flowers!

It's Christmas baking time again, and I made these cakes for the Winter fair at my daughter's school. The Christmas trees are made from sugar paste with mini chocolate buttons stuck on, and the icing is vanilla buttercream.

The holly leaf is made from sugar paste and the berries from red fondant.

Hope you are enjoying this Christmas season and all the joy it brings.

With much love.

xxx

Thanksgiving, the joy of family and moving into advent...

Yesterday we had a family thanksgiving gathering. We wouldn't ordinarily celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK, but my sister and her family were visiting from the States and I thought it would be lovely to get all the family together. I got really excited about planning it. It was such a special day and I wanted to share some moments from it. The photos are courtesy of my friend Elle, who joined us and took some wonderful, precious photos. The table decoration looked wonderful, I was so pleased with how it turned out, I'd been collecting pumpkins for weeks! I also used halved pomegranates which I dried in the oven on a very low temperature and made pomanders with oranges studded with cloves (they smell divine).

For tealight holders, I used old jam jars with autumn leaves stuck on with glue. They looked so lovely when lit.

 For the actual dinner, we enjoyed roast turkey with all the trimmings, and for dessert I made an almond cake, a coffee and walnut cake and a chocolate orange cake. 

 

I am so thankful for my family. They are so wonderful. We had such a joyful day yesterday, with each other and with the friends who joined us. It was wonderful for my mother to have all of her children and most of her grandchildren together at the same table. 

Precious moments....

As we move from autumn into winter and as advent begins, I am hoping to have times of stillness and calm amidst all the hectic buildup to Christmas. I want to stay true to the things that are truly important and I want to maintain an attitude of thankfulness for all the wonderful things in life.

Wishing you all many precious moments this advent.

Much love.

xxxx

Five Uncomplicated Things..

Yesterday I tried an experiment, and it seemed to work, In the midst of the overwhelm I've been feeling lately, I decided to focus on 5 things that I consider to be uncomplicated, (because everything feels complicated when you're overwhelmed), and to focus on and do those 5 things first before anything else.  It kinda worked yesterday and I was pleased because when I'd done those 5 things, I had a sense of achievement and ended up feeling really good about my day and it ended up being productive.

So today I was keen to try it out again..
My first task was to get dressed (yes really!). Seems uncomplicated enough right?...I was doing so well until a minute before I had to leave the flat to go to my singing lesson, I realised that I didn't have any socks. I didn't even have time to sort through the tumble drier to see if I could find any, and I knew my older daughter Daniella didn't have any socks in her drawer either because I borrowed her last pair yesterday. (My ineptitude with laundry is a continuing saga..) So off I went out the door with bare ankles and wearing very purple shiny shoes. I wore these shoes because the only other pair of everyday footwear I have are my black boots but the laces broke and I didn't have long enough ones to replace them, so on each boot I had two sets of laces, one black and one blue, and my 9 year old told me the other day that I look like a tramp. So I decided not to wear them today. The problem with my purple shiny shoes is that they are hideously uncomfortable. I bought them online because I couldn't resist their purple shinyness and when they didn't quite fit I couldn't be bothered to send them back and I deluded myself into thinking that I could break them in. They are so uncomfortable to the extent that after walking to the end of the road I was worried that I had fractured my big toe, but I was running late and so I couldn't go back to change into my tramp boots...which leaves the bare ankles..I ended up rushing into a shop in Euston station to buy socks because I felt embarrassed about my bare ankles and it was raining and I really didn't like the sensation of dirty street water splashing on them. Then I had to put my newly bought socks on, (the most tame ones in there were black with sequins on them) in the cramped and very warm shop whilst juggling two heavy bags and a large umbrella and feeling like I was going to spontaneously combust.

My Purple shiny shoes..

So off I went in my purple shiny shoes and sequinned socks to my 2nd uncomplicated thing, my singing lesson. My singing lesson went well which is great because I cried all the way through the last one. There's something about feeling wobbly and having to breathe deeply and put sound to emotion that meant that I couldn't stop crying which is kinda fine except that I was properly crying, snot faced and everything. But today was better, I laughed lots and sang well which was good. (I think my teacher was relieved!)

My 3rd uncomplicated thing was to come home and have lunch. I had some leftover beef stew with some bread I made last night.

Number 4 and number 5 I am yet to do, because I have just spent the last hour wrangling with bloody Sainsburys about my grocery delivery which didn't come. (Good job I wasn't waiting for the delivery in order to have lunch because that would have ended up being very complicated indeed!)

 Number 4 involved me doing some sorting of my shelves in the bedroom but I've decided that that's very complicated because I will descend onto the slippery slope of perfectionism and I'll start to look at everything else that needs sorting round the flat and how the walls need repainting and we have too much stuff and I don't know where to start and I don't particularly want to get rid of anything because I quite like our stuff even though there isn't enough space for it all.

I had intended to do some sewing as my 5th uncomplicated thing. I have my sewing class tomorrow and I thought it would be a good idea to practise, but time has overtaken me and the kids are in from school and I have choir tonight so I'm going to do the most uncomplicated and beautiful thing of all,..spend time with my children.

xxxx

Life in a bowl of Lentils.

It's a Monday evening, I'm cold and very tired (which is a bit grim because it's only the beginning of the week!)  The flat is a tip, the laundry basket is full as usual, and I have two kids who are home from school and hungry, waiting for dinner. I'd like to be able to say that within all of this I am struck by the wonder of little things and small moments of gratitude etc etc, but actually I'm not. We all have moments like this when every little thing feels overwhelming, and I feel so prickly and cranky that I don't know what could make it better.

But at least I have a pot of lentils on the hob. Not because it's a cold autumnal day outside and I thought that a bowl of lentils would be lovely and warming, but simply because it's the only conceivable thing to cook in my cupboard, because I haven't got round to doing the weekly shop.

So here we are, a bowl of the lentils...

There's that saying from the film Forrest Gump, 'Life is like a box of chocolates...'

My saying today is, "Life is like a bowl of Lentils because sometimes that's all that's left in the cupboard."

Much love to you dear friends. Have a great week! xxx

The Little Things...

Little things that point to the truth. 

Random discoveries,

Moments of colour...

I was uploading some photos on to my laptop from my camera, and found these photos that my youngest daughter had taken one afternoon in the park opposite where we live.

They made me smile so much, and reminded me of how wonderful it is to see the world through the eyes of a child.

Here are some photos she took of her shadow. So cute!

 

 Last week, we made crayons, or at least repurposed them. It was fun. We chopped up some wax crayons and put them in a cake tray and baked in the oven for about 5 minutes. They came out really well. (You have to wait until they're completely cooled and set before removing them from the tray). I got the idea from here.

It was lovely to play and experiment with different colours, and it really brightened up our day.

I've started working on a new canvas. Not sure what it will be yet, but I am enjoying playing with different colours. I am enjoying the act of just painting, without even thinking about the finished product. I am rediscovering a sense of play, so wonderfully present in the lives of children. So easily lost as an adult, but just so lovely when I find it again.

Here are a couple of little corners of my canvas. The photos are a bit blurry because I didn't take them in natural light, but anyways you get the idea.

Little things....

The Little things that bring joy.

Much love.
xxx

Lately...

Lately I've opened up my heart to lots of new things. It's been scary and wonderful all at the same time. Saying YES to living life to the full is always a good thing, despite the 'what ifs' and maybe I won't be able to do it,  etc etc. It has been really sunny here and the flowers are blooming. I feel that keenly in my heart too in this season. Some areas which had suffered the pain of disappointment, especially when I first became ill, are starting to heal and blossom again.

I'm learning that it's important to give myself what I need and the things that make me happy. I started having singing lessons again and I've joined a choir. It makes me really happy.

 The girls and I sat in the park recently and I encouraged them to write a message to themselves on a piece of card. (Before you start thinking that my kids are perfect, I should confess that I had to bribe them with the promise of ice cream for them to do it!) But it was a lovely thing to do nevertheless.

 

This was my one.

 My 9 year old wrote this one. Always direct and to the point!

 My 12 year old wrote this one. I love that she is able to have this realisation even in the midst of the struggles of secondary school and the huge pressures to conform.

Crochet flowers are still featuring strongly and vibrantly in my world! Hooray!

Making art with friends is a wonderful thing. I had an art date with my friend recently. What could be better than having lunch, then sitting at a table together, playing with paint and making new artistic and life discoveries together. Very very good for the soul!

Hope you are enjoying the sunshine dear friends.

Much love. xxxx