Domestic Goddess Success

I asked Mr H to choose the cake he would like for his birthday this year. Usually this is partly his choice and partly which ever child speaks loudest about what they want.

This year he gave me two options - A White Christmas or a Giant Chocolate Cake. I don't get why he would want a cake decorated like a snowy Christmas  for his birthday.

I went with the choccy one.

I quite enjoy making a cake. But I don't like having to serve the cake to people other than the kids who think anything covered in icing is a master piece.

When it became clear I was going to have 10 people at dinner to eat the cake I got a little nervous.

But away I went.

The cakes are so decadent that it took over two hours of cooking time for them.

The ganache icing has 700grams of chocolate and a tub of cream.

It was more a game of being patient and letting time do its job of cooking/cooling/setting.

And when if finally came time to serve it up it was well worth the six hours this cake took from start to finish.

It didn't look like the picture. But it did look and taste mighty fine. 

Do you think you can have too much chocolate in a cake?

I paid my friends to come over and visit

I paid some friends to come over the other night. 


I asked them to come over, have a little snack, and chat for a couple of hours.

I had to find five friends to come over (some said no - even when I was paying them!) and we all sat around the dining room table, and talked about kitchen towel and toilet paper.

All in the name of research.

Market research is important for your business and one of the best ways to get it is by asking your clients, or potential clients about how they use your product, why they don't use your product, or what affects their decisions around your product or service.  There are lots of opinions, even on what we wipe poo with. Pattern or no pattern, packaging, scented rolls, the list goes on and on. But also they have ideas...one idea from the our focus group I am expecting to be sent straight to the R&D team for fine tuning.

During the focus group I realised just how set in my ways I was about the paper products I buy. 


I thought I was pretty relaxed about something so basic but I learnt that:


- I never consider the option of buying home brand toilet paper
- No matter what marketing you provided I probably wouldn't buy scented toilet paper.
- I don't use paper towel, thinking them an environmental waste, but I use shower wipes, window wipes, baby wipes...
- I don't know how many tissues are in the box of tissues I buy or the price per tissue
- I use a 'stick' to store our toilet paper on, others find this tacky or even germy and never use the roll at the bottom, they throw that one out.
- I keep tissues in the kitchen - not everyone does this, each home has a 'home' for their tissues.

Very boring image showing where I keep my tissues. Research people like this.

Who knew?


If you are a business, do you regularly ask your clients about your product/service? Because you see even the humble tissue has a lot to be discussed. 


For coming over and participating in this research my friends each got $70, a night away from the kids and a chat. 

Easy money. Good for us and good for them.

Would you come over to my place if I was going to pay you...even if you had to talk about toilet paper?

Good smells required

Operation Open Fire was a mere simple plan.

A plan to remove the unused, though working perfectly, gas heater from our front lounge room and use the space for an open fire. The picture was simple. Open fire roaring, with me lazing in front of it, glass of red wine and the weekend papers.

Once the gas man and the electrician had been to visit, the chimney sweep refused to come over saying the chimney had never been used so clearly didn't need soot removal, we got to work building a fabulous big fire.

They say when first getting the chimney going you need to get it roaring to really warm up the chimney and make the 'draft' work.

No one said we should check the height of the chimney and that the hole at the top needs to a precise size (minimum 10% of the opening at the front of the fire).

Next thing you know Roaring Fire = Smoke Filled Lounge Room. Camp fire smoke. Even the expensive 'non smoking, enviro logs' were billowing smoke into the house. With the fire roaring we couldn't exactly pick the logs up to remove them.

Fire Alarms going off - check.

Clean washing all hanging in the lounge  - check.

So Operation Open Fire has not yet been a success.

Instead we have washed the walls, the roof, the ceiling fan, skirting boards, all the cushions, linen, clothes again, carpets, books and still the smell of campfire remains in the house.

Roses from the garden, room sprays, reed diffusers - I am trying what I can (other than smelly candles as the fear of more smoke terrifies me) but the campfire stench remains.

And I don't even like camping.

Please send good smells asap.

DISNEY ON ICE: LET'S CELEBRATE - TICKETS!

I am learning that school holidays come around pretty quickly. Terms do not seem to go for very long at all.
When the school holidays arrive it is useful to have a couple of special days with an activity or a destination that gets you out of the house, tires out the kids and gives them something to remember from those holidays. Sometimes for us this means going to the indoor pool and staying until you get wrinkly. 
On extra lucky days it means heading off to Disney on Ice: Let's Celebrate, the latest Disney production. 

I have no idea what it will be like, I can't tell you that you are going to love it, all I can tell you is that I love having it all organised and that we are going. I will also be using it to bribe the girls to brush teeth, hair, go to sleep, stop whinging and not ask for anything for the next 6 weeks. I like to get value out of such things. 


I do love a musical, great costumes and nearly any live performance so I expect to enjoy it myself!

Immy is mad about Minnie Mouse, she may squeal like a tween at a One Direction Concert.

I can also tell you that I have 8 tickets to give away. 


I am going to split them so that there will be 2 winners of four tickets each for you to use with your family or friends. This is four tickets - not a family pass - four tickets.


THERE IS FINE PRINT - But I am making it the MIGHTY FINE  - DO NOT MISS IT PRINT.


YOUR TICKETS ARE FOR 

Thursday the 5^th of July at 2:30pm, in MELBOURNE

Each ticket is valued at $42.50 which means four tickets = $170. That is the value of your prize. If you don't get to this presentation time, you do not get $170, you get a message saying, bad luck.


To enter this giveaway is very very simple. Just tell me why you want to go. 
Last comments accepted at 8pm Monday 28 May. AEST Time.
Best two answers will be selected on Monday 28 May. Winner will be announced when I get time to post it, likely on facebook and twitter first. 
If I do not have an email address for you, please include it in your comment. 
If I do not hear back from the winner with 72 hours of sending my email the prize will be redrawn.
Entry open to anyone who can make it to the event at the time mentioned above.






Note: The spacing on this post is wrong, I know it, I just can't get it working and am giving up for the moment.






Edited: 28 May 2012: This giveaway is now closed.


Winners are MichVee - as a bonus prize for finally getting her licence at age 32 and Kari, she has never even seen the snow. But Kari has not supplied her email address - she has 72 hours people!

Don't visit

There is gastro in the house.

Popps vomiting from a virus and me from the smell of it.

Excuse me for a few days while I disinfect the house, wash forty thousand towels and spray Glen 20 on every surface on a half hour schedule.

I am bringing in the "Change the empty toilet roll" Star Chart.

I saw a tweet today suggesting that you could use a star chart to teach your children correct coughing etiquette.

Really?

 Just how many star charts have people got going on in their homes?

Are the kids not sure what to do for fear of losing a sticker on a chart?

If you need a chart, I found this very pretty one at a blog, you can download
it yourself at: All Things Simple.

So far I have seen charts that are suggested for toilet training, fussy eaters, bad behaviour, sleep routines getting ready in the morning, getting home reading done and now correct coughing.

That could be a lot of star charts, especially if you have a few kids.

If we are going to have star charts to teach kids to cough/blow noses properly, what else do you think we could use them for?

The best answer wins a big fat star sticker from me.

Here are a few to get you started...

- The Close the door the heater is on star chart. 

This one gives stickers just for closing the door and if the chart is full then we don't get sent to the poor house when the gas bill arrives



- The empty toilet roll holder chart 

The person first to get 5 stars on this chart gets a weekend away to a resort, because I am 100% sure the only person to get a star will be me.


What else have you got for me?






Disclaimer: I don't care if you love star charts and use them I just think the whole star chart fad is going too far.

I have a secret weapon

You can call her Mary.

Proud Mary really, but just Mary for short.

Mary is the only song I have found that actually makes me get running on the treadmill.

Me and running are never going to be friends but Me and Mary, we can belt out a kilometre on the treadmill at a fast pace.

I know I have a few friends and twitter peeps trying to improve their running skills, so here you go, just add Mary to the Ipod, the smart phone or even the CD player.

If you're lucky enough to not be running, put Mary on while you cook tea and you will notice how much more fun it is, be careful of high leg kicks and disco duck moves, don't go putting your back out.

If you need more hard factual evidence - just check out Tina's legs after a few decades of prancing around to Proud Mary. The lady has legs that I want when I am 60+.

Not so secret weapon any more.

Mental Health Day off school

Tonight's dinner was spoiled.  Not by the usual and acceptable comments of 'what is this Mum? I am not sure what I am eating?'.

Tonight there was crying, screaming and downright close to vomiting over a 5 cent piece size of roasted zucchini.

Popps was not going to try it.

I was not giving in.


She threw it across the table, smashed it up, let it go cold and damn right refused to try it.

It went on way too long.

It eventually went in her mouth and then the bin and she begged to go to sleep.

She was still crying as she prepared for bed, nearly vomiting as she cleaned her teeth.

By 7.30, she who never sleeps was exhausted and asleep, but not before needing to talk about her latest love - school choir, and the stress of trying to eat lunch and get to the toilet before the choir teacher told her off for being late. And what happens if she forgets the words at assembly on Monday. Or the ordeal of having to sit with a kid in sick bay who fell off the monkey bars. She was worried about what would happen if I couldn't get a car park in time and was not there to pick her up one day. Lastly all those w h spelling words were swirling in her head giving her a headache and she couldn't talk anymore

She worries too much.

I have announced tomorrow Mental Health Day for Popps.

She doesn't know it yet, and I am not even sure how she will take it. She may be excited, she may be stressed that it is against the rules.

Either way, she is getting the chance to recharge and learning that sometimes you need to look after yourself. You also need to eat your greens.



Do you give your kids a day to rest every now and then?