Lucy Van Pelt - Thought For The day!

You gotta love this gal!

Back to it!

Back to work tomorrow!  Boo!

Christmas Tree Down and Packed Away - Check

Baubles Dusted off for another year and packed away - Check

Fairy Lights packed for another Year - Check

Festive Bunting Folded and stashed - Check

Frosty the Cheesy Snowman Boxed away for another year - Check

Snow globes and Mr Frost Russian Dolls safely Stashed - Check

Cards stashed for next years crafts - Check

Festive Chocolates Eaten - Must try harder

Christmas Cake Eaten - Now where did I put that Christmas Cake?

Laundry Mountain - OMG

Vacuuming the daily 'Dust Bunnies' - hmmm will get round to it...

Feeding Offspring - Well there are still some Twiglets, Candy Canes and KP Nuts left!

New stash stashed - I am still admiring it!

Chicken Coop Cleaned and beautified - Check

Oh no!  There is the Christmas Pudding - Check

Nag kids to tidy their belongings - Check

Tidy Living Room - I know it's in here somewhere...

Sort school bags and clothes - where are they?

Avoid Christmas Alcoholic Tipples however tempting - Or then Nothing on this list will get done

Work work - Always last on the list

Play newly discovered 'Motivational Music' to Clean to...Very weird but it works!!!
 ( I 'Stumbled' Across this on 'StumbleUpon').

Music to Clean By!

Hopefully when the above list has been accounted for I may have a 'Crafty' bit of me time!

Blogging 'New Years Resolutions' - How to Increase your Blog Traffic - Reasons to Use 'Stumbleupon'

I am amazed I have been blogging for almost a year.  That is a long time to stick at something for someone like me with the attention span of a butterfly.  It enjoy 'the technology of keeping an 'Online Journal/Diary'.  It has just become part of what I do.  I am a little ashamed to say though I am motivated by Blog Traffic.  I would hate to be wittering away to myself.  At the last peep at my 'Flag Counter' I have had visitors from 117 different countries...Belize being the last country to pop over.  That is over half of the countries on the Globe.  I may stop when I have collected them all!  I would like to keep blogging and to keep increasing my traffic.

Where does 'Stumbleupon' fit in to all of this and why use it?


Three Reasons to Explore Stumbleupon:

1)  Stumbleupon 'help you to explore new and interesting things from every corner of the web'.  You narrow down your interests, hit the stumble key and you are taken to all sorts of places you would never have found. 

2)  It is a great way to share your Blog Content with a wider Audience by submitting  pages that you would like to drive blog traffic to.

3)  It is another place for connecting and networking with other bloggers.

 Stumbleupon is free and very easy to start using...I limit myself to a few 'Stumbles' a day as it is highly addictive!

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

If you do sign up let me know so I can connect with you on Stumbleupon.  It would be fun to see you there.  I am hoping it will also help me to find the other half of the globe audience!  I am finding lots of innovative craft ideas over there and also some brilliant recipes:

I love this Crochet Doily Lamp

I must make these 'Peanut Butter and Oreo Brownie Cakes too!

I think Euan could make this Hula Hoop Rug

This is clever - How to Make a Lunchbox from a Milk Carton

We thought our Paper Snowflakes were cool, but these are out of this world and you can download the templates from the site Here:

I could go on and on and on...over at Stumbledupon you save a list of all your likes and when you connect with others you can see and 'Stumble' all their likes...  Try it, I think you might just like it!

January the 1st 'Happy New Year'!

"2011" Looking back and Looking Forward "2012"

Looking back over 2011 we have had some 'Adventures'.  What a busy year, all those adventures made us hungry!  I hope we have even more 'Adventures' in 2012.  What a Blast!

And thirsty  hic!...I tried to use as much of my homegrown ingredients as possible.  Did somebody mention 'Healthy Eating Plan'?  Oh no!  Not for 2012!

I hope my Garden is good to me in 2012.  'As you sow so you reap.'

These were a great addition in 2011.  I hope they continue to stay healthy and have as much fun as they do now in 2012.  Long Live the Chickens and may there eggs be plentiful!

I hope there is lots more 'Hooky' time waiting for me in 2012.

I would also like to keep spinning.  (I really need the cupboard space).

Happy New Year and Best wishes for 2012.

Lots of Love

Lucy xxx

Pie Day Friday (3) - Delicious Calzone

My word is it 'Pie Day Friday' already?   I followed the recipe exactly from my 'New' Hairy Biker Pie Making 'Bible.

Calzone is basically and inside out Pizza.  You use a Pizza dough like a 'Pasty Shell' and put all you Pizza topping inside as a filling.  Henry's High School canteen sells them as 'Pizza Pockets'.  They are very portable and would make a great lunchtime snack for 'Teenagers' with places to go and people to see.
They use a basic Pizza Dough.  I made these once before but they were not a hit as the dough was about  3cm thick.  This time I got it right and used the rolling pin to roll out the dough to about half a cm.

I wanted to get creative with the topping/filling but kept to the recipe, which turned out delicious.  I found it useful to assemble all my ingredients together in smaller bowls as soon as the dough had been put to rise.  The Kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, but these are really worth the effort.

Tomato Sauce:
Finely Chop an Onion and fry it gently until it starts to brown.  Add one clove of finely chopped garlic.  Cook for one minute.  Add 1 tin of chopped tomatoes and a teaspoon of sugar.  Let it cool.

Fry 150g of finely sliced Mushrooms in butter until they start to brown and let them cool.

I had some pepperoni in the fridge but in future would keep these 'Vegetarian'.

Two Mozzarella Balls, drained and diced.

Ground Black Pepper for seasoning.

Fresh Basil leaves.

Assemble your Pizza Topping, then I used water to moisten around the edge of the dough so it would stick when I folded it over.

Make sure the Calzone is sealed well to keep all those flavours in while they cook.  Bake in a hot oven for 15 - 20 minutes.  I made eight of these lovlies.  Very tasty, economical and filling...might make a change from turkey :)