Crochet, cakes and cleaning

Having just about recovered from the Big Brownie Birthday event at Butlins last weekend, this week has been about sorting out a few odds and ends, as well as applying for yet more jobs (and being rejected from jobs, I'm apparently 'a good candidate' but 'not experienced' enough for the role), hopefully someone will employ me soon!

Inspired by this post by Laura, I've started my own Less 365 project.  The aim is to get rid of one item from your home per day, for a whole year.  'Get rid of' can mean throw away, donate to charity, whatever is appropriate for the item, really.  I am not a minimalist by any means, I have lots of knick knacks (which I've always thought is a rather odd term, apparently knack is an old term for 'toy') and I always think a house is much more homely when it has stuff in.  However, I am not a hoarder, either.  I like to be able to see the carpet, I like there to be room on bookcases just in case I acquire any more books, I like to be able to use my desk as a desk without having to move piles of paper and general accumulated stuff.  So getting rid of one thing a day doesn't seem too arduous, although I can imagine it will get harder as the year goes on. I'm not removing an item each day, but it's hopefully going to average out as that, keeping a list will hopefully keep me on track.

So far I have got rid of:

A 500 piece jigsaw that I am never going to do as I don't like the picture, two cupcake recipe books I've never used, and probably never will as I have so many of them, a Christmas themed jigsaw puzzle I'm unlikely to do again, several fiction books I've read this month and won't reread, some receipts for items I no longer have (why did I still have them?!) and all the shredded Butlins paperwork.  Almost an hour I spent sorting out and shredding that paperwork!

In line with Less 365, going through my recipe books, and wanting to try new recipes, this week I made an apple cake from this excellent Mary Berry book, a present from my Mum a few Christmases ago.  I changed the recipe a bit (I didn't have any walnuts so I used pecans, I added a lot more cinnamon because I love cinnamon) and I'm pleased with how it turned out.  Not sure if I'd make it again, perhaps if I had a lot of apples which needed eating up.  But it's another new recipe done!
 

A friend of mine from university is expecting her first baby in the summer, and this week I finished off this baby blanket.  I found the free pattern on Ravelry, and chose to do rainbow colours, I love how bright and colourful it is.  It's all Stylecraft Special DK in 7 colours (from centre, Pomegranate, Shrimp, Sunshine, Spring Green, Aster, Magenta, Wisteria) with a row of Cream separating each block.  It's a bit bigger than I was expecting (although to be fair, I hadn't even looked at the measurements on the pattern) but I don't think my friend will mind!  

 

The weather this week has been dreadful (rain, rain, wind and rain, rain, hail, more wind) and whilst sorting out my baking equipment I found some hot chocolate sachets in a cupboard.  It's not my hot drink of choice, but I also found some mini tongs and some mini marshmallows which go out of date today (how convenient!) so that's my plan for the rest of this evening, to curl up under a blanket with a book and this drink, and hopefully warm up a little bit!

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