{35 at 35: Dress made for Daughter, check!!}

Yay - I've ticked the first item off my 35 at 35 list!!! I have successful made, not only a dress, but trousers and a headband too, for my gorgeous little baby girl. I'm uber chuffed with myself! I had a wonderful teacher, my dad's wife Jo, and she went through the whole process with me step-by-step. I'm hoping now I'll be able to continue to make outfits on my own. Here are the pics:

Cutting out the pattern

Nearly there...

The finished dress!

Matching dress, trousers & headband

Awww....!

{February Sunshine Award}

I've been passed on the 'February Sunshine Award' from Kate on Thin Ice and I had thought I better answer the questions asap as today is the last day of February - yikes, how the time flies!

So, here we go...

Favourite colour: grey

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Favourite animal: I'm not a big fan of pets (sorry!). However, I did see the cutest teeny tiny dog at the park on Sunday... and I mean tiny - I could have easily stepped on it if I hadn't been watching where I was going and it was smaller than my shoe so would have been crushed *eek*. In terms of other animals, I think my favourite would be an elephant. I was in South Africa on holiday in 2005 and took an elephant for a walk round an elephant sanctuary that we visited. It was amazing.

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Favourite non-alcoholic drink: soda and lime (favourite alcoholic drink just now is still a mojito, in case you're wondering!)

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Facebook or Twitter: Both.

Favourite number: 14

Favourite day of the week: a sunny one please, preferably on one of my days off!

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Getting or giving presents: I love the process of choosing thoughtful presents for people, wrapping them up to look beautiful and then seeing their reaction when they open them, so definitely giving.

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Favourite pattern: I bought some gorgeous Amy Butler fabric to make a summer dress for my daughter.

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Favourite flower: peony

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I'm not going to tag anyone for this because February is now over... however I think I've been tagged on some other memes so watch this space!

{Recipe: Chicken curry with star anise, lemongrass and coriander}

My personal trainer is putting together a recipe book for her charity, Michael's Movers, and she has asked for members of the running club, clients etc to submit some recipes for the book... healthy or otherwise! So here's the recipe that I'm going to share. It's a thai chicken curry and I make it a lot. It's fairly straightforward and if you present it well it's great for a dinner party.

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Chicken curry with star anise, lemongrass and coriander.

Serves 4

{Ingredients}

1 tablespoon oil

2 onions, peeled and chopped

2 teaspoons of garlic paste (e.g. Schwartz Easy Garlic tube)

1 teaspoon of Bart Lemongrass

3-4 teaspoons of ginger paste

1/2 teaspoon crushed dried chilli

1/2 teaspoon dried cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon medium curry powder

1 star anise

1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped

1 tin of half fat coconut milk (400 mL)

Couple of squirts of lime juice from a bottle

500g skinless chicken breasts cut into cubes

Fresh coriander (1/2 a 20g pack)

6 spring onions

2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce

Salt and pepper to season

{Method}

Heat some oil in a wok.

Fry the chopped onion, garlic paste, lemongrass paste and the ginger paste over a high heat for 3-4 minutes.

Turn down the heat, add the crushed chilli, cinnamon, ground coriander, curry powder, star anise and the fresh chilli. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the spices are toasted and aromatic.

Pour in the coconut milk. Simmer for 15 minutes to reduce the liquid slightly.

Meanwhile, heat a splash of oil in a frying pan. Season the chicken and brown it in the oil in small batches. Don't cook it all the way through.

When the curry liquid has reduced a little, add the chicken and allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes until the chicken has cooked through.

Add the coriander, spring onions, lime juice and fish sauce and incorporate into the sauce.

Serve with rice or noodles.

If I happen to have mange tout, sugar snap peas, baby corn or whatever, then I'll chop these up and add to the curry also.

Yum!!

{11 Questions}

I have been tagged by @scattymumofboys to complete the '11 Questions' meme that is currently doing the rounds :-)

Here are the rules:

• You must post these rules *check*
• Answer the questions the 'tagger' listed for you in their post and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
• Choose 11 people to tag and link them to the post 
• Let each blogger know you've tagged them.

Here are the questions I've been set and my all important answers...

1. Do you use real names in your blog for the real-life people who feature?

Yes and no. My real name is indeed Sarah, but I've chosen not to use the names of my children and refer to them as son & daughter or toddler & baby. The other people I refer to occasionally, for example, my sister Alison and my friend Becky are real names too.

2. How long have you been blogging and why did you start your blog?

I started blogging in June 2011. My friend Becky had been blogging about her wedding planning and I thought it would be good to share some of the things that I've been learning on my journey through motherhood. There's a bit of parenting, shopping, DIY, fashion, art & craft... all the things that I love.

3. Facebook or Twitter?

Both. I use Twitter for blog-related goings on and general mummy stuff, whereas I use Facebook to keep up-to-date with close friends and family.

4. Real friends or Cyber friends?

Real.

5. Which is your favourite (or one of your favourite) blogs to read?

There are so many blogs that I dip in and out of when I get the chance. I love Florence Finds for fashion, PuglyPixel for design inspiration, Kate on Thin Ice for grooving mums challenges, Joy the Baker for food ideas and amazing photography....I could list loads and loads!

6. Have you ever had a celeb tweet you?

Lorraine Kelly... in reference to Raa Raa the Noisy Lion!

7. Peanut butter - smooth, crunchy or not at all?

Smooth

8. Tea, milk first or after tea bag?

After the tea bag please! Milk, no sugar :-)

9. What's your guilty pleasure as far as TV's concerned?

I've become obsessed with ER (as anyone who follows my Twitter feed will know!) but I'm not embarrassed by that fact. I'm embarrassed that I've still got 90 episodes in my Sky planner to get through... I just can't keep up!

10. When did you last laugh until you cried?

In January, when I was moving furniture with my sister at my house. It was like the Friends episode when Ross was moving his sofa...'Pivot'!

I did a bit more than cry though... those damn pelvic floor muscles just aren't working after having had 2 children!!!

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11. How many of my 11 bloggers do you think will actually get round to answering my 11 questions?

I'm going to take a wild guess here.... 9!!


Right, now it's my turn to write the questions and to tag some fellow bloggers (I totally won't be offended if you don't have the time to participate):

@Melaina25 / Transatlantic Blonde
@gemmadeeray / Storm in a K Cup
@MishMashMum / Mish Mash Mum
@mummy_plum / Mummy Plum
@theroomset / Making It As Mum
@SEccBla / Identity-Mummy
@haggismummy / WIPMum
@susankmann / Susan K Mann
@thelovebump / My Love Bumps
@mrsmcgregor23 / Mrs McGregor
@helloitsgemma / Helloitsgemma

Here are my 11 questions for you...

1. Have you ever been pulled over by the traffic police?
2. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
3. What is your favourite flavour of crisps?
4. What's the last movie you watched?
5. What is your favourite thing to wear?
6. What does your last text message say?
7. What were you doing at 12 noon yesterday?
8. What is your most treasured memory?
9. What do you think is the single best decision you've made in your life so far?
10. Do you have a pet?
11. What is on your bedside table?

Ready, set... go!

{Listography - Mugs}

I'm joining up this week with Kate Takes 5 for her Listography blog hop. I've only participated once before, but I saw a few people talking on Twitter about this week's topic and I thought I'd join in as it sounded right up my street as I was sure I had quite a few interesting mugs. How wrong was I - my mug collection is so dull!!

My favourite mug that I bought for myself in London a few years ago. And yes, it's true - I absolutely love spreadsheets!!

'Fabulous Pharmacist' mug

My mum bought me some mugs for me when I was a teenager (for my having friends over for coffee - I'm sure I was 16 or 17 at the time and still living at home, so I would have just used the mugs that were already in the house, but anyway...!). This is the only one that is left - I wish I had looked after them better.

This mug is massive, and it was a bargain from Country Baskets a wee while ago!

A perfect, classic white Denby mug... This was part of our wedding gift list and it reminds me of my perfect wedding day.

Seeing how my collection is totally boring... I thought I'd share a couple of mugs that I wish I owned:

If I do say so myself! {image source}

I bought these mugs for my friend Becky and do love them! {image source}

Yes, indeed I would!! {image source}

Someone at my work has this mug and I think it's rather amusing (people with PhD's are rather sad!!) {image source}

{Things I'm Loving Right Now}

Pampering - I love having a facial and I've been really missing them since my therapist went on maternity leave. I've got cleanser, toner, exfoliant and moisturiser in the house and I've been trying to make more of an effort to look after my skin myself as I've noticed that the condition of my skin is worsening (might be stress though!). I've booked myself into my local hairdresser for a hair cut and colour at the start of next month and I'm very much looking forward to some me-time {image source}

Chocolate & Cake - I could eat chocolate all day long! I just love chocolate, and I love cake!! I would much rather have a piece of cake than a glass of wine. My son seems to inherited my love of cake and he is also obsessed, oh dear! {image source}

A moment to myself - I'm really starting to appreciate some quiet time to reflect on everything that's been happening lately. This is a photograph by my friend Becky... isn't it just so serene {image source}

{The Pinterest Challenge}

I am so excited to be taking part in The Pinaddicts Challenge with Kerry, @thelovebump. Check out the rules here.

I was going to share the dress that I made for my daughter which some of you may have seen on my Twitter feed, but it wasn't from any of my Pinterest boards and I need a bit longer to do a tutorial for it... so watch this space.

In the meantime, I thought I would share two of the Valentine's craft projects I've done with my toddler.

The first is the Valentine's cards that we've made for his little chums.

I spotted on Pinterest that you could shape a toilet roll into a heart to make a heart stamp - what a novel idea!

Original from Pinterest {image source}

So my toddler and I set about making some Valentine's cards using this technique... Here he is in action!

Toddler, still in PJs! What a mess we made!!!

Our kitchen roll 'heart stamp' and heart stamp that I cut from an old sponge

The finished cards! Yay! (we added glitter heart stickers which I got from Baker Ross)

We've also made some little favour bags for his nursery friends which we filled with Starburst sweets and I made a personalised tag to seal the bag.

Original from Pinterest {image source}

And here's our version... I've blurred out my son's name which I put in the balloon shape and it reads "I'm bursting with happiness that you're my friend, Love XX" and on the reverse I put "Happy Valentine's Day". In retrospect I should have glued the tag but I was lazy and used my stapler which perhaps doesn't look as good.

You can follow me on Pinterest here.

{Reading List}

This is a post for Kate on Thin Ice's Grooving Mums blog hop...

Like my good friend Becky, I do love to read. However with the kiddies, being back at work, my DIY efforts, running etc I rarely have time to finish a book (I will get around to reading the huge pile you let me borrow Becky... may just take me a while!). My favourite genre would have to be a tear-inducing autobiography or on the total opposite end of the scale - some chick lit!

I think you can learn a lot about a person by the book's they choose to read. Thankfully the checkout assistant at Waterstone's didn't comment when I purchased all of these (I may have burst into tears if she had!)... I'm not normally one for venturing into the self help aisle, but I thought I might get some words of wisdom from these novels:

'Secrets About Life Every Woman Should Know' by Barbara de Angelis (a recommendation by Catherine, @theroomset over at Making It As Mum). I'm only on page 20, but I already love it.

'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert

'You Can Heal Your Life' by Louise Hay (a recommendation by Kelly Menzies, Healing Mum)

'Just Get On With It' by Ali Campbell - the tagline for this book says it is a 'caring, compassionate kick up the ass!' Just what I need.

Lonely Planet's The Kindness of Strangers

I've also signed up for a Psychologies subscription using my Tesco clubcard vouchers.

What are you reading right now?

Sx