#71 Replace My Food Processor

Wow, this blog is turning out pretty lame. I used my old food processor all the time, then it melted and I was so sad. Five years on, I finally broke down and got myself a new one. It does make life easier and cooking quicker even if it doesn't give me a lot of blogging material.

#41 Buy A Really Nice Vacuum

I don't know if it's really nice, but my new Dyson is much nicer than any vacuum I have ever had before and it has totally revived my living room rug! Go Dyson!

#33 Take Ivy Swimming Again

We went on holiday to Catalonia back in late September. The weather was beautiful and sunny everyday but one and when we weren't sight seeing we lived in the pool. I mean, we went to the beach too, but the pool was where it was at.

#38 Get the Bathroom Floor Done

I regret not taking a before and after photo of my bathroom floor. The before was pretty gross. Here's what happened and why it became worthy of goal status.

In the UK it's pretty commonplace to have carpet in a bathroom. That's what we had. Unfortunately, we also had a shower head that spurted everywhere and a completely insufficient shower door. Consequently, our bathroom carpet was always wet and (although it was pretty new carpet when we moved in) smelly, so we had to either wear shoes in bathroom or walk around with wet socks all day. Yuck.

So just after we moved in O ripped the carpet up and underneath were brown and olive and mustard tiles. Ewww. Plus they were covered with bits of carpet pad and streaks of tacky glue we just could not clean off. It was bad.

Anyway, after months and months (pretty near a year actually) of debating what to replace that nasty carpet with we finally chose some lino and were done with it. YAY!!!

A big bubble appeared a week or so after installing it though. Gah!

#50 Be Given or Buy Myself a Big Bunch of Pink Tulips

Mother's Day has always been an especially difficult time for me.

As an adolescent girl, as far as I could see I was the ONLY girl in the world who didn't have a mother. I felt so sad to watch my friends showering their own mothers with cards, flowers, special meals and gifts. I suffered many school art projects in the Spring involving making some gift that would invariably end up in the garbage, many rehearsals in church and school choirs of songs to be preformed for an audience of everyone else's parents.

The one thought that got me through that particular holiday each year was the idea that I may not be able to have a mother, but that I would someday be a mother myself.

I got married and we started trying for a baby two months later.

Enter eight years of doctor's appointments, all sorts humiliating tests, ovarian cysts, miscarriages and mystery fertility issues, all while watching my friends become mothers themselves, some of them as many as five times over.

Oh the world can seem a cruel place on Mother's Day.

Then, in November 2010, my life changed. I wrote a very tentative email to a friend who had just had a baby herself tearfully admitting that I was imagining having pregnancy symptoms. She very matter of factly replied "Sounds like you're knocked up to me. Go and get two pregnancy tests and make a doctor's appointment." So that's what I did. And suddenly, I was a mother. A mother, in charge of an entire tiny person. And as she grew inside me, so did my heart. And it continues, if she's not happy, I'm not happy. If she needs something, I am determined to get it.

So yeah, I got my big bunch of pink Mother's day tulips this year. I also got cards and jewelry. But the very best gift I could ever have gotten was just being able to celebrate Mother's Day with my precious little peanut.

#16 Learn to Make Corn Tortillas

When I was only a housewife/part time Sales Associate, I used to make a lovely dinner just about every night. I used to have people round for dinner. Sometimes as often as twice a week. Goodness.

Now, my days and nights are filled with amusing Peanut, my gorgeous 10-month-old baby, piles of laundry and omelettes for dinner. Sure, I make the odd something scrumptious from scratch, but most often it's a casserole, muffins or something I can toss all the ingredients together in the slow cooker and set about changing nappies, singing silly songs, and playing peekaboo the rest of the day.

What possessed me to volunteer to make a complete Mexican meal from scratch for a friend tomorrow, I have no idea.

After a very full day of being a mom including one very crabby Peanut at bedtime, I set about the prep work tonight.

Three hours later and we have the beginnings of Cuban style black beans, chicken marinating in the fridge, 16 wonky homemade corn tortillas, a backache, pile of dirty dishes and the first item ticked off my list.

*Having now sampled those tortillas, the above mentioned marinated chicken, and black beans as well as some homemade pico de gallo and guacamole, all I can say is YUM! Not to toot my own horn or anything, but those were the best tacos I have had in a loooong time.

Annette's Super Good Pico De Gallo

3 large tomatoes, roughly diced

2 small red onions, diced

a large bunch of cilantro roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 jalepeno, minced

sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

juice of one lime

splash of balsamic vinegar

splash of vegetable oil

drain the tomatoes in a sieve while you are chopping the rest of the ingredients. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and let it set half an hour. Enjoy!

I have experimented with this recipe a lot. Green onions, different sorts of chilis, bell peppers, I even omitted the tomato and used cucumber instead once. You can't mess it up!

The Day Zero Project

A friend of mine recently turned me onto this website http://dayzeroproject.com/about/ and I thought it looked like fun.

I started my list of goals immediately and while it took me a couple days to finish the list, I am super excited about it. http://dayzeroproject.com/user/AnnetteBrunette One of my goals of course, was to start a blog and write in it at least once a month. So here I am, weirdly nervous. Both because whoever reads this will get to see my goals and know whether I am actually working on them and because although I talk a lot, I don't know what I am going to say.

I intend to publish my list of goals on this blog somehow, and then write about each goal as I accomplish them. I kinda figure I'll be more inclined to stick with it that way.