30 Days hath November - 3 blogs I can't get enough of...

Now this is a tough decision as there are so many blogs that I love, and my favourites change from day to day depending on my mood.

I admit I prefer ones I can follow on Twitter as well as reading the blog as it lets me keep up to date with when they post from my most used medium (I spend a silly amount of time on Twitter).

My current favourite 3 are:
Atlas Obscura - a compendium of the worlds curiosities, wonders and esoterica - it is full of great stuff about the world, places, sights etc. I love to daydream about visiting EVERYWHERE on the lists...

Rugby Media - a great bloke called Nick who produces rugby based content and went to the world cup. He is very funny and just breaking into TV. He tweets often and writes well thought out rugby commentary, I am a fan of his work...




Jim's Pancakes - I found this the other day. Jim makes Pancakes, the blog title does what it says on the tin. But he makes the most frickin cool pancakes you have ever seen!! They are for his daughter and recent ones include a 3D Millennium Falcon, a little Easter chick and a present box made of pancake, with the actual present in it... I think you will admit that is pretty damn cool. And I love the fact that he does it to amuse his daughter - she ranks his attempts. It is sweet...





30 Days Hath November
Twitter: #30dayshathnovember

Negative Space art - and why I wish my job was reading blogs

I could spend hours reading blogs. Seriously, I could while away whole days just reading, clicking and being fascinated by all the stuff people put online.

Billions of photos are uploaded every day, thousands of blog posts are published every minute and it would take hundreds of years to read all the blogs on the internet.

I love finding interesting things on blogs. I just read a gorgeous article on negative space art and here is my favourite example.

I really need to concentrate but the rest of that blog looks so interesting! Perhaps just one more page...

I really need to make more of an effort

I am struck today with an inherent realisation that I have been a pretty lazy cow of late...

I haven't been blogging, I haven't been keeping in touch with my mates as much as I should, I haven't been concentrating properly.

I put this down to 2 things:
1 - I have a baby and a husband. This leaves pretty much bog all time or money to do anything else. By the time I have got home from work, put the baby to bed, cleaned up all the toys, made dinner and put on some laundry, I have pretty much lost the will to live and want to go to bed.
2 - I read too much. When I am not flapping around the house like an anally retentive idiot, I sit and read. A lot. I read very very quickly and get massively sucked into books. I therefore tend to stop paying attention to what is going on around me.

Recently this has been the fault of a series of books recommended to me by my mother by Diana Gabaldon. So far there are 7 books, I am on number 5. They are not that big, maybe 600 pages each but as I only read after I have done everything else, I am getting frustrated that it has taken me over 3 weeks to read the first 4 books. Before my son was born, I would happily spend hours on a Saturday just sat on the sofa, drinking tea and reading my latest book. However, playing with him and taking him for walks is a lot more fun, but I do miss my reading time!

A further reason I get bugger all done is that I spend far too much time on the internet. As this post would show, rather than having the realisation that I have been a lazy cow about certain things lately, having a word with myself and cracking on with things, I chose to blog about it.

Yep - of all the things I SHOULD be doing, I decided the most pressing thing to do was to reinstate my blog. I have a poor sense of priorities sometimes. But writing about doing nothing is preferable to actually having to do things...

The Beauty of Online Recipes

Today I decided to cook Jersualem Artichokes... fancy eh? Problem was, I have never cooked them before. Where do I turn - the magic of the interweb of course. I never tire of looking at cooking and recipes online where I can find a recipes for any ingredient, to match any style of cooking and other ingredients.

The BBC recipe site is pretty good for this as you can narrow down recipes from the ingredients that you have to hand.

It is amazing how many sites, blogs and forums there are dedicated to the pleasure of eating. Everyone has an opinion on the best way to cook everything, from the humble spud, to the fanciest ingredient. Ironically, all the celeb chef sites are never that handy, as they don't want to give up their precious recipies without you buying the book.

So, I have found a delicious recipe for my artichokes on Abel and Cole - the veggie delivery folk and I shall be sauteeing them in stock, garlic and rosemary with a dot of sour cream. To go with it, there is a delicious shoulder of slow cooked lamb, fresh gravy made from scratch and some kale - all seasonal, all organic and all as local as possible...

And it's all made possible by the sharing, posting and viewing of recipes on the interweb!