New Year’s Resolutions

(in no particular order)

Be kinder

Eat more fruit and vegetables

Write letters

Find a way to be with that person I need to be with

Learn some Italian

Finish the Day Zero Project

Exercise

Be outdoors

Drink herbal tea

Relax

Keep my room tidy

Spend time with friends

Stay warm

Drive less

Read a ton of books

Get dressed up

Listen to people

Have a bedtime routine

Be thankful

Tell the people I love that I love them

Work harder

Wear bright lipstick

Take lots of photos

Breathe

Save money

Go to bed early

Hang out more with children and old people

Lose those few pounds

Compliment people (genuinely)

Spend time alone

Smile

Watch less T.V.

Nap

Make lots of lists and start crossing things off

Be brave

Stop gossiping

Dance

Read the Newspaper

Sleep-in at the weekend

Be gentle

Laugh

Cook more

Bake more

Get a massage

Be yourself

Survive another year

Thing #96: Make my own Christmas cards

Last year, I made a promise – a promise that if you sent me an email with your postal address, I would send you a card.  It was one of those situations where I had a whole lot of love inside me and I didn’t know what to do with it – so I resorted, as I often do, to expressing it through stationery.

I didn’t tell you I was going to make the cards.  That was the element of surprise.

I thought I would have a few extra cards to make and write… but it turned out that I got a lot of emails and what I imagined to be some leisurely Christmas crafting turned into a two-day factory-style card-making extravaganza.  There is zero complaint in that sentence.

I used regular acrylic paints to do the illustrations and blank cards and envelopes from Paperchase.  It was so much fun.  Thanks to anyone who took part, and for all the lovely cards I received back.

This year, Christmas is looking a little like Crazytown Central, so I didn’t make any promises (I still love you).

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Day Zero Project: an update

If you’re a regular little t reader, you will know that I have been doing the Day Zero Project (working my way through a list of 101 things to complete in 1001 days).  You may have noticed that Day Zero has come and gone.  I was supposed to be all done by October 3rd.  1001 days seems like a long time, until those days start ticking away.  When I realised my time was nearly up, I thought it would be better to just keep going.  I’m a little over half way there and I’m not giving up yet, even if it ends up taking me 2002 days.

Anyone else doing this?  How is it going?

Thing #5: Buy a good camera

Photos taken at The Ewe Sculpture Gardens, Glengarriff, Co. Cork

My new toy is a Panasonic Lumix FZ62.

I’m not about to pretend I know camera talk and do a fancy tech review.  Instead, I’ll just tell you what I like about it.  No jargon.

The FZ62 is a bridge camera, which is sort of a cross-between a compact digital camera and a ‘professional’ SLR.  It does lots of the things a bigger SLR camera can do, with both manual and automatic settings.  The ‘intelligent auto’ setting is there for inexperienced and lazy photographers like me – it works incredibly well and is one of the camera’s main selling points.  The other selling point is it’s wide-angle 24x super-zoom lens.  I promised no jargon.  Sorry.  It’s super-zoomy.  Video recording is more intuitive than most cameras I’ve seen with a simple start/stop button at the top of the camera, enabling immediate recording without having to switch to ‘movie mode’.   The continuous shooting setting operates on the same principle, with a separate button for  ‘burst’ shooting beside the shutter button. There is a ‘scene mode’ on the camera with predetermined settings for 18 different shooting scenes including portrait, scenery, panoramic, food (this one has been particularly useful)(!), sunset, night etc.  I’ve had a lot of fun using the creative control setting, which allows you to apply different filters (similar to those on instagram) before you take the photo.  You can also edit photos on the camera afterwards.  

I bought this camera direct from Amazon and I am so pleased with it. I ordered this bag too.  It fits the camera perfectly, with a little space left for lens cleaner, memory cards or other small accessories.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #27: Make my own ice-cream

I did it!  At the weekend, I made the Barrack Obama of ice-creams.  I’d like to thank my Sister, Fiona for her unwavering support and encouragement and God for not letting the custard curdle.

The whole tub has been consumed, exactly 24 hours after I started making it.  Of course.

Recipe here.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #94: Join the Gym

If a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?  If I join a gym, then never go, does it make any difference?  These two questions are essentially the same question, and the scientific answer is no.  It doesn’t make a sound.  It doesn’t make a difference.

It seems like it would though, right?

I was tempted, in order to support my argument, to do a ‘before and after’.  A photo of me before I signed up, and another one a few hours later, after I had parted with my membership fee;  a few pounds lighter… or a few euro at least.  I could have posed for the first sullen-faced in a tight, flesh-toned onesie, while nursing a particularly bad hangover.  For the second, I would put on a bra, some make-up and something black and flattering.  I’d smile toothily to prove how much happier I was about my body, and my life in general.

“How did you do it Thelma?”

“I joined the gym”

If only it were that easy.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

 

Thing #93: Go to the theatre

I never know what to say when people ask me the question Why do you write a blog? or that other one, What’s it about?  Uuuuuh.  The answer to both is simply I don’t know.  If ever I’m asked these questions, or if for some reason I’m finding it difficult to write something for little t, I think back to when I first started writing it over three years ago.  Back then, it felt so much easier to write because I knew for sure nobody (seriously not one person) was reading it.  I just wrote whenever I felt like it, simple things, that were true.

So, I’m going back to that place, and today I am going to write one true thing:  I don’t like the theatre.

I wanted my Day Zero List to be mostly fun, but also challenging and at times to push me to do things I ordinarily would not.  I included some more cultured things: learning to play chess, visiting a museum, a book signing, buying a piece of art… the theatre was one of those things. 

I went to see Snow White.  Maybe a person who chose to see a production with a target audience of 3-8 year olds isn’t qualified to be making  these kind of sweeping statements but I just don’t like the theatre.  There I’ve said it (twice).

I don’t like the larger-than-life characters  or their depressing handmade costumes.  I loath that I’m half watching the production through some-guy-in-front-of-me’s camera and half watching it in real life.  The soliloquys always bring to mind ancient episodes of Sunset Beach and The Bold and The Beautiful.  Any kind of audience interaction makes me cringe.  I hate that there’s no snack bar.

That’s all really.  That’s all I have to say about the theatre.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #84: Host a dinner party

There are times in all of our lives when we have to make dinner for our friends.  There is no point trying to avoid it, your turn will come.  Dinner has been made for you seventeen times now and you haven’t volunteered to do it once.  Not once.  People are starting to talk.  There are no more excuses.

If the thought of hosting a dinner party causes your heart to start beating like a dryer with shoes in it, I understand.  I’ve felt the fear and done it anyway, and when I did I realised there was nothing to be afraid of after all.

There is nothing scary about The Dinner Party.  We’ve already established that you will eventually have to feed your friends at some point – it’s just good manners.   The Dinner Party is merely a way of feeding your friends in a predictable environment.  The last thing you want is to find yourself staring into your kitchen cupboard during an unplanned feeding crisis, wondering how you can make two tins of beans and an old potato look like dinner?  (Real life).  The Dinner Party allows you to plan, to buy fresh ingredients, to arrange some soft lighting and put together a chilled-out playlist.  The Dinner Party is indeed a grown-up affair, but it’s nowhere near as stuffy or pretentious as you thought.

Still afraid?  I have some tips.

Don’t do it by yourself.  Co-hosting is easier than hosting.  A three-course meal is daunting for anyone to undertake alone; taking charge of one course is much more doable.  Baby steps.

Have everything ready.  Only cook things that can be prepared (and ideally completely finished) ahead of time.  When your guests arrive, you will want to spend time with them.  Things to avoid:  steaks cooked to order, recipes with the word flambé anywhere in them, risotto,  roast dinners or anything with lots of ‘sides’, béarnaise sauce or homemade custards, anything that needs last-minute ‘assembly work’, soufflés or anything else that will require your attention when you should be refilling everyone’s drinks.

Stick to what you know.  At a dinner party a couple of months ago, I served Spaghetti Bolognaise as the main dish.  There is nothing sophisticated or showy about Spaghetti Bolognaise but I’ve been making that dish (dare I say well?) since I was fifteen.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it and all the plates were cleared.  Success.  Do you watch Come Dine With Me? (My Mam is obsessed).  It always baffles me how often the contestants attempt a recipe for the first time on the show.  That’s just taking a bath with a toaster.  There is nothing wrong with easy and simple, if it tastes good.

Eat later than usual.  I’m slightly hesitant to reveal this one but… giving your guests a little time to work up an appetite will make whatever you serve taste better – so make them wait.  Leaving some time between the main course and dessert has the same effect.  My secret’s out.

It’s not all about the food.  I mean it’s not really about food at all, is it?  It’s about spending quality time with friends.  Of course.  You knew that.  My friends and I started this little tradition recently.  Every time we sit down to eat together, before we dig in, everyone shares one thing they are grateful for and (just for fun) one thing they are not grateful for.  It’s a nice way to start the dinner conversation.

Make it special.  Clean up, tidy up, dress up.  Light a few candles. Heck, string some bunting.  Buy the good wine.  People will notice.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #80: Start a Tradition

Here’s the tradition:  a family picnic for Ferragosto, an Italian holiday celebrated on August 15.  My family claim no Italian roots and my Italian friends tell me I can’t even pronounce it properly. Pffft, I sound exactly like this.  Anyway, I have no idea why this is the tradition, but it is!

Ferragosto  2012, Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny (I blogged about it here).  I love that photo of Jamie and I anxiously taking photographs of the food.  My family like to reminisce of a time when they were allowed to just eat their food without anyone taking pictures of it first.

Ferragosto 2011, White Gap, Curracloe, Co. Wexford

Both years, the celebrations have coincided with my return to the UAE for a new school year so it’s always been bittersweet.  This year, it will make a nice change to not have to say goodbye to everyone afterwards!

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Doc 2 Dock

I wanted to let you guys know about Doc 2 Dock, a non-profit I’ll be supporting through my personal Day Zero Project.  This organisation saves usable medical supplies from the US and ships them to where they are needed most.  Watch the video and support!

Thing #54: Drink Champagne to celebrate nothing

Pop the champagne and make it rain!  There was nothing to celebrate, I just always wanted to say that.

Photos by Lucy Jones

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #88: Make a birthday cake for someone

Peanut Butter Birthday Cake, pictured with Marie’s famous brownies

Marie makes the cakes.  That’s how this whole thing stays together.  If there is a cake that needs baking… a birthday,  an engagement, a new job?  Marie has a cake for that.  There’s no big fuss about it either.  If you walk into Marie’s apartment when she’s baking, she doesn’t look like a hot mess and she doesn’t tell you to come back in an hour when she has her shit together.  She can hold a proper conversation with you, while she carries on weighing and measuring and beating and folding (that’s a baking word I learned from Marie).  I think she actually likes it.

The other thing is that everyone loves Marie.  Really, everyone.  She’s a crowd-pleaser type of person.  I should be clear that this has exactly nothing to do with her baking skills.  Marie, as a person, is sweeter and lovelier than any of the cakes she’s produced.  Even the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

I tell her all the time how glad I am to have her in my life.  But that’s not enough.  She deserves more.  On her birthday, at the very least, she deserves a cake that she didn’t have to make herself.

So, that is what I gave her.  I knew I couldn’t pull it off with the same panache as Marie, but a cake was called for, and a cake I made.  I put on some old school Smashing Pumpkins and followed the goddamn recipe.  I listen to The Smashing Pumpkins while I bake cakes.  That makes me a badass.

It’s a tremendously easy cake to make.  In fact, the most difficult part of this recipe is not eating too much of the frosting before you are entirely sure you have enough to cover the cake.  That requires willpower beyond my limits. 

Anyway, here it is.

Peanut Butter Birthday Cake

This recipe is adapted from the Joy the Baker cookbook and makes one 8 or 9 inch round cake.  The original version is a double layer cake, which I also made, but wasn’t entirely happy with the result – I felt it wasn’t the right cake to frosting ratio, but maybe that’s just me.

What you’ll need:

for the cake

150g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

100g peanut butter

50g unsalted butter, softened

60g caster sugar

60g brown sugar

2 medium eggs

150ml buttermilk (I used this substitute)

for the frosting

300g cream cheese

100g unsalted butter, softened

100g peanut butter

250g icing sugar

Seeds of 1 vanilla pod

pinch of salt

Here’s how:

• Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).  Grease the cake tin.
• Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together peanut butter, butter and sugars for about 3 minutes (I use a hand-held mixer because that’s all I have).
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating at medium speed for 1 minute between each addition.
• With the mixer on a low speed setting, add half of the flour mixture. Slowly pour in all of the buttermilk. When it just starts to come together, add the remaining flour mixture. Remove the bowl from the mixer and finish incorporating the ingredients with a metal spoon.
• Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.
• Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
• To make the frosting, just beat all the ingredients together with an electric mixer until smooth.  Use immediately (at room temperature) to frost cake.  If you need help, here’s how to frost a cake.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #74: Buy nothing unnecessary for a month

Unnecessary:  Essie in Haute as Hello (coral) and Fiji (pale pink-white)

The Rules

Things that I deemed ‘necessary’ and thus, exempt from the shopping embargo for the purpose of this project: 

1. Food, even biscuits.  I didn’t think it wise to try to curb unhealthy shopping habits and eating habits at the same time.  Good Lord, I am only human.

2. Money spent on nights out.  On alcohol, yes.  You try working in my job for a week and then tell me Teacher’s Medicine is not a necessity.

3. Birthday presents and other gifts, because your friends shouldn’t have to suffer through this ‘thing’ with you.

4. Internet and telephone.  I doubt that my provider would have entertained the idea of cutting me off for one (unpaid) month anyway.  That’s my story.  Sticking to it.

You’re probably thinking my rules make this very easy indeed.  I also implemented the ban in January, making it even easier on myself since everyone seems to be tightening their purse strings at that time of year.  But easy, this was not.  No clothes (even January sales bargains!), no beauty products, none of my little sporadic pick-me-up purchases.  No really, this was dang hard! But, I can be pretty determined when I want to be.  I was going to nail this one on my first attempt if it killed me, which thankfully it did not.

The first thing(s) I bought after the month was up were Essie nail polishes in ice-creamy colours (pictured).  A completely unnecessary, but completely guilt-free purchase.

I don’t know if this ‘thing’ really had a positive impact on my spending habits in the longer-term (I don’t know if that was even my intention?), but either way it is good to step back sometimes and remind ourselves of the difference between what we need and what we’d like. 

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #69: Make my own candles

A quick google search tells me that Arsonphobia is the fear of fire, but what is the opposite of that?  What’s it called when you have a weird fascination with fire?  Not necessarily setting things on fire (don’t be afraid friends…), but when you find yourself in a state of tranquillity while watching things burn?  I have that, whatever that is.  Have I gone too far?  Did things just get weird?  You’re afraid now.  Rest assured that most of the time, logs are the only thing I’m watching burn.

How do I find my way back from this tangent? 

Candles are a fun (and safe) thing to watch burn. 

There we go.

I love candles so I decided it might be a nice idea to make my own.   My brother Richie bought me the materials (such a thoughtful gift!) and I sort-of followed this tutorial, substituting two old pots in place of a double boiler, glass jars instead of teacups and ignoring the need for a thermometer.  It all worked out just fine.

I think this would make a sweet DIY gift.  I’d wrap it up with cellophane and a little ribbon and attach a card with this quote from the book One Day, by David Nicholls:

You’re gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence.  It would be the gift of confidence.  Either that or a scented candle.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #87: Have a ‘Staycation’

This is Liwa Desert, Abu Dhabi.  It is also my home, for the next eight weeks at least.  And the last eighty nine.  Ugh.  Really, what was I thinking? 

It’s been a whole year since my Dad, Mam and my sister Fiona came to visit and I showed them around this strange little country that I’ve come to know so well. 

Staycations have some major advantages.  There’s no time wasted getting your bearings, dealing with jet-lag, adjusting to the heat or the culture shock… you already know the bakery for the best early-morning croissants and the barman who will mix the best late-night Tom Collins. 

If you remember, I also had a plan.

Dubai Marina at night

Dubai Fountain and a (surprise) fireworks show

Afternoon tea and birthday celebrations at the 7-star Burj Al Arab

Views of city and desert from the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world)

Shopping at Dubai Mall, the biggest mall in the world.

Dune bashing in the desert

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi

See my full guide to Holidaying in the Emirates here.

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.

Thing #51: Become a Vegetarian for a Month

So I became a vegetarian for a month.  No biggie.

Times when this was hard:  that time we went to Fuddruckers and I ordered an extra-large side of mashed potato, forgoing the main event.

Times when this was easy:  the rest of the time

Vegetarian-friendly recipes that make this an easy thing:

Tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons

Nectarine Pizza with Basil and Balsamic

Parmesan and Spinach Orzo

Roasted Pear and Chocolate Chunk Scones

Peach, Tomato and Mozzarella Crostini,

Notice how the majority of these recipes contain cheese.  Now, giving up cheese was another story entirely.

Is little t turning into a food porn site? Maybe…

€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’.  Click here if you too would like to donate online.