Lemon meringue nummyness

Since I saw it on her blog I knew I had to make it. Julianna of The Crumbs & Dirty Dishes blog (link to the right on my page somewhere) shared a lemon meringue pie recipe.

Officially it was the first thing I baked in the new homes oven. Followed by my choc-pecan-banana muffins this evening.

I had to use several google searches in the gram to cup/tbsp conversion process and it was a learning experience in how good the oven is!! And I made it in a tray slightly too big for the recipe but it was lemony yumminess none the less!

I took it round to ms Kate P's for judging, following her culinary skills of a saturday night dinner and it went down rather well with a cup of tea in between nibbles of Kate's yummy caramel slice.

So all yee who will be visiting chez nic-lime please ensure you give notice and I'll see what I can whip up for you!

Motivation

I have always hated new years resolutions. If you're gonna do something do it. Don't wait until the start of a new year to try it out! Is it not best to already have started whatever it is you want to accomplish then aim to spend an entire year continuing this?

So I joined a gym a few weeks back... Between feeling a bit rough, moving into our own place, and like today; forgetting my damn trainers... My commitment levels have been much to be desired. I NEED the gym. If I want to continue to eat as much as I do now going forward then I need to balance it out with exercise. Recent photo's on Facebook have even reminded me of the unsightly arm flab that has appeared in the past year...

And right there is a piece of my jigsaw I call my motivation!!

1- arm flab
2- bikini holiday in October with liams friends (there is nothing worse than semi-friends seeing you at your least dressed and not at your best)
3- my love for food - especially dessert...
4- it will get rather warm in summer and fattiness = sweatiness. Noice
5- For any clothing alterations it is easier to cut bits off than add things on!! Or shrink enough to fit into them in the first place...

And there is my motivation. Alas today in the absence of my trainers I will finish off my gym drinks bottle at my desk. As it has a tendency to leak if you neglect it and don't take it to the gym.

May I suggest for all of you with broken NYE resolutions. Give them a go again now. As long as you lick um by christmas then next years continuance will be a breeze and they won't all be broken... Again...

The wildlife

Oh what an old woman I am. As much as technology has re entered my life. I have been soooo looking forward to sorting out our courtyard/garden thing.

There was an overgrown bush - now butchered. And a tree taking up too much space... Which is still taking up too much space due to a discovery we shall call The Spiders Nest. Yuk Aargh Yikes Eweth and spine tingly...

I did so well not making too many squirmy noises while pulling out weeds and the overgrown bush even when spiders ran out. But this type of spider wildlife... I was very tempted to get my hairspray and a lighter and attack. But like all arachnaphobes my fear then considered the wild and perhaps unlikely consequences of such action:

1 - the burning spider attacks
2 - I accidentally set the tree on fire - wouldn't want to start a bush fire in winter after all...
3 - the warmth of the burning causes millions of spiders to hatch and invade the house...
There are other idea's that are so crazy I won't say them as then I really will get committed...

But be careful one and all... Who knows if you have a spiders nest hiding in your tree or bush... Eweth!!

A life less technology...

..is a life less some life really!
Broken skype dates, a lack of UK updates, no blog entries... Oh what a dull existence.
Now don't misunderstand me, I am all for getting off the couch (or beanbag as it is currently) and going out there to live life. But the right technology can add so much to it all!
And now we have the PC out of storage and all set up with shiny new webcam, the fabulous new collected this morning working I-phone I'm writing this blog on. And the world feels a little less big and the UK that little less far away.
I am back online!! And the world (or at least mine) is a happier place.

Newsflash! I am bored!

I am the most bored gatekeeper in the history of gatekeeping! I don't
get to sit around looking windswept with weird clouds and lightening
overhead. There's no giant marshmallow man popping round for a cup of
tea. No. I sit in an office waiting for people to complain to the
ombudsman so that the ombudsman emails me.
But if noone's complaining to the ombudsman then I am BORED!!! I can
only view company websites and there is NO other work I can do.
There are 3 of us temps - all bored. And we're not even allowed to
chat to each other even though the twat across from us has the loudest
most irritating ringtone in the history of the world. Not to mention
the gob on the woman who chats him up every 3 (ok maybe every 5)
minutes.
I have discovered tht some people do not treat temps with common
decency let alone a scrap of respect!! I know that I have never acted
like that. If any of you do REPENT! Repent i say! And while repenting
- pity us for our boredom... :o)

Porn

We all have things that make us tick.
Miss Barbary for example.
Buy her something Alessi and you may very well see the same look in
her eye as a teenage boy when the hot girl next door forgets to close
her curtains...

For me the same thing occurs with flatpack furniture! Love it! I would
work on ikea's helpline but I'd just get frustrated not to be doing it
myself.

Liam today bought us supplies in the form of tools for our flat pack
adventure and the absolute sweety bought me my own girly purple and
green hammer (with a portion of the sales going to Aussie breast
cancer charity). Does anyone have a man that good?

Do you know what your porn is? Is it even porn itself? Who cares as
long as it floats your boat.

Now with one chair down and 11 more flat pack boxes to go... I'm going
back to my porn ;o))

Home Sweet Dumping Ground

Finally! We have our casa de nic-lime!!
Albeit rather messy!!
We have very 'minimal' furniture. Buy plenty of 'stuff'. We spent a
weekend trying to buy all the furniture we needed but that didn't
quite run too smoothly.
Our fabulous new grey sofas will arrive in 5-6 weeks so we bought some
temporary bean bags. After all the bravado in store and on the way
home of Liam saying his was the better beanbag and how much I would
want to sit on it. And how mine would be it's poor cousin... Upon
filling them Liam has discovered mine is of course the better one.
Much more comfy and more likely to be comfy still in 5-6 weeks!! Us
women just have a sense for this sort of thing don't we?
We have seen but not met a couple of neighbours. On the right appears
to be a young but nosey couple. Curtain twitchers if you will. On the
left we have discovered through their paraphernalia such as the mother
Mary et al in the car; are slightly religious. As Liam and I are going
to hell and blaspheme on a regular basis they may not appreciate us.
Or our senses of humour!! We'll keep an eye out for pitch forks!
And a few down we have old woman. Seems nice and polite although she
stared at lime funny... Maybe he terrorized her in his teenage years....
But so far no sign of a mad Harry wannabe! Yey!!!!
Now... On to the shipping crates...