Thursday 29 March 2012

Baking and Blocks (Bran-Muffin Recipes)


Hi, I've been suffering some with writer's block lately so I haven't been blogging, this is something I want to nip in the bud though.

So, before a Guide open evening tomorrow evening I'm baking muffins for the cake stall.

First spoony trick was a) buy chocolate and plain muffins in Tesco £1 for 12 deal.
b) make two energy conserving conscious batches of muffins, making 2 bran based recipes meant not cleaning out the food processor between the batches!
Please note: Should you have a Cat they may STEAL your seat while you slave in the kitchen, THEY DO NOT CARE THAT YOU ARE BAKING! *Sighs at lack of Cat/Human relations awareness*

Cran-Bran Muffins the Ceri way

a) Find recipe online that you can start with and fiddle with depending on what you have in the cupboard. (Recipe Here)
b) preheat oven to 150 Centigrade
c) get ingredients:
2 7/8 oz Bran flakes because they had them in value at Tesco.
a pinch of Salt
a pack of Crasins
2 7/8 oz brown sugar
1 Med egg (I had Duck eggs to use up)
a "glug" or 2 of sunflower oil
2 tsp of baking powder
about 2 tsp cinnamon
5 oz self rasing flower (I had no wholemeal or bicarb)
enough milk to make it like thick cake mix when you whizz it in a food processor

d) put muffin cases in tray, divide mix between muffin spacey things (I made 12)
cook for 20-25 mins

Banana-Bran Muffins the Ceri way
a) Find a recipe that, the same as the above you can play with! (Recipe Here)
b) preheat oven to 150 Centigrade
c) get ingredients:

4 1/4 oz butter
3 1/2 oz brown sugar
3 bananas mashed
2 capfuls of the little bottles of vanilla extract
2 eggs (I used the duck ones again)
6 1/2 oz SR flour (again, was out of bicarb and wholemeal flour)
3 1/2 oz bran flakes
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
 and whizz up in a mixer with enough milk to make a gooey batter thing
d put muffin cases in tray, divide mix between muffin spacey things (I made 18)
cook for  20-25 mins, realise oven doesn't seem to be working... take out, put back in after you think you have sorted oven out, realise you haven't, turn oven off and decide to bake in Mother's oven tomorrow!

The end

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Damage the new thing!

I remember this feeling, I have had it so often. I get something new and I can't use it coz I'll damage it and make it useless. I know it's kind of wrong to feel like this though, having fun is using it for something useful!
I have felt like this with everything, silver, glass, books, jewellery, comics. Tell you what.
From today I have decided that I shall just jump in when I feel like this and damage the new thing as soon as I get it until I am no longer scared.
This I believe will be the cure to the problem, however not today as my body is being all crap and MSie! How dare it? It's not like I pushed it at all is it? *whistles nonchalantly* Maybe the thing that I have no problem damaging is me, maybe it's coz I feel ruined already! That's a depressing thought.
Ohhh, Look! PIZZA!
Hooray!

Anyways, yes, I can tell you about my fabric!
So yeah, the Burberry type is just a silly skirt I got from a jumble sale coz it looked like I could use it for fabric.
The apple green satin came from Emmaus, a charity down my way and was £6 for a large amount (240cm x 180cm with a seam in the middle).
The kind of green spotty cream cotton fabric was 32 cm worth for £1.50
the three little rolls are fat quarters from Callyco in Cambridge whole lot for £8
and there are 50 squares of 4cm x 4cm cotton for £7.50ish off ebay
I'm starting to get there, I wanted to bring another colour into my beigey living room and decided for mainly apple green (though I'm gonna have some red in there too with other accessories).
Will hopefully get my first project done soon.
Horrah!

Monday 19 March 2012

Undateable?

Channel 4 has just announced a series talking about sex/relationships etc. with regard to disability called "Undateable".
Edit: I should have made it clear that I am not only talking about the channel 4 show here but the 70% of people who wouldn't shag a disabled person (from an observer survey through @lisybabe).

For me the term "undateable" itself is highly pejorative and insulting. It may not have been meant to suggest that someone with a disability and/or life limiting condition is in some way less worthy of love but that is outwardly how their advertising appears to be selling the show, that we have less worth within a relationship or are harder to love, though this may be trying to be ironic all it does is perpetuate a stereotype that is just gross and unacceptable.
In my opinion, having to deal with adversity is a commendable trait to have, in fact it often makes someone more emotionally mature, sensitive and capable of having a long term relationship and being more understanding.
In my eyes there's nothing quite so off putting as someone who would be so judgemental as to rule out a huge swathe of the population for dating purposes. Honestly, I find it really unattractive as a personal trait.

Some people might be into blonds or bums or people with glasses, choosiness is fine, however completely excluding people based on one unchangable aspect of their life really says more about the person doing the excluding than the ones being "excluded". I don't believe that it can be classed in the same way as sexual orientation, if you don't find disabled people sexy then fine but if you actively exclude people entirely based on this one part of who they are then you hardly come across as emotionally mature.

Maybe the dicks who are so judgemental as to not be interested in someone with a physical or mental issues purely on that basis are truly the "Undateable" ones!

Sunday 11 March 2012

Toxicity, thoughts about people.

I have had several reasons to post this recently but never actually did it, I think I was scared that people might think it's about them. However honestly anyone who has made me feel like this is unlikely to read it because, well, they don't care and if they do then maybe they'll think about how they treat people, either way..... PROFIT.


We like all animals are predisposed to addiction.
We like things that make us feel good, that give us a rush.
We like food and alcohol and chocolate and cocaine and nicotine and caffeine and people etc..
When any of these things gives us internal validation (generally through stuff like dopamine production) we crave more of it though, we need more and more of what we think we need in order to feel good, about life, about ourselves, all sorts.
I don't pretend to know exactly the myriad of reasons behind this, I do know that receptor cells when flooded with their matching chemical do eventually require more and more of said chemical to get the same reaction. Also, why would you stop doing something that feels good?
Therefore we partake in behaviours that, while we know are counterproductive and bad for us, feel good at the time. Regardless of long term consequences we drink to excess or chase the dragon, or have sex or hang out with people that flatter us.
Yeah, we don't always think about that one do we? The people who tell us we are good at stuff and brilliant and fabulous, and still are worth the world even when we know we're far from perfect. We crave someone who will think we're amazing, and while that's lovely it gets us to lower our defences, some people thrive on this, some people prey on the vulnerable.
Once they have found someone who is sufficiently laid bare, damaged and scared the abuse can begin, they will build us up only to tear us down. We will actually hang on to these people like nothing else, hoping to please them more while they treat us like dirt, it only makes the high greater when it does hit, when they do throw a stray nice word or compliment our way.

Some people are drawn to drama, I am not actually one of these people, though the catalogue of my life so far would seem to indicate otherwise. However, I'm learning, as we all are.
We eventually will spot the bellends before they get under our skin... before they tramp mud in the metaphorical house that is us.
But it'll take a massive amount of time.
Do not forget that you are not alone in having fallen victim to a bellend, however do not become a "victim" for it is then that they win.

Also, it's worth bearing in mind that though I'm not trying to excuse bellends I'm also not trying to entirely vilify them, they have just gotten into a pattern that feels good and are having to feed it with people.
People are just people, however, at some stage someone needs to realise that the relationship, just like a drug, is toxic, and that the best way forward is to remove the toxic substance from our lives.