2. Visit Vienna & 5. Visit Budapest

Ian and I are off to Vienna and Budapest on the 12th of October.  We'll spend 3 days in Vienna and 3 days in Budapest, taking the train between them.  We'll celebrate my birthday in Vienna and then our wedding anniversary in Budapest.  I'm really excited about the whole trip, they are 2 places that I've wanted to go to for ages.

Ian has been busy making lists of place to visit and things to do in both place while I've been planning what I want to eat in each place :-)  Lots of cake will be involved I think. 

Ian's booked restaurants in each place for us to go to dinner which are a surprise.  I'm finding it a bit strange to have no idea what he has planned as I'm normally the one that plans everything.  I'm a control freak, can't help it.  Maybe I should have put something on my list to do with that....

16. Try A New Recipe Once A Month For 12 months & 89. Use The Slow Cooker At Least 12 Times

I'm combining a few tasks into one on this entry :-)

I decided to dig out the slow cooker and make something for dinner tonight as Ian's parents are arriving from Edinburgh this evening.  They arrive in Amsterdam at 5pm so hopefully they'll be here around 6.30 or 7pm depending on the traffic.  I'm really looking forward to seeing them as it's been a few months.

So I'm making Dublin Coddle which is basically a sausage and bacon casserole with potatoes, onions and carrots.  As sausages are one of my favourite things to eat I'm hoping that it turns out ok.  With so few ingredients I can't see how it could go wrong really.

42. Make A Photo Book From Our Honeymoon

Another task to cross off the list!

Ian and I spent quite a while making a photo book of our honeymoon yesterday.  I can't believe that it will be our 3rd anniversary next month! 

We've ordered both books so hopefully they won't take long to get delivered as I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out.  We used Photobox before to make a book of our last trip to South Africa with Ian's parents in April and that turned out great. 

Ian is finally allowed to sit down again but only for short periods of time :-)

41. Make A Photo Book From Our Japanese Trip

We've pretty much been 'grounded' by Ian's chiropractor as he's not allowed to sit down, he has to lie down flat or stand-up.  Poor Ian is going stir-crazy having to spend most of his day lying down. 

In an attempt to relieve the boredom we decided to sort out the photobook from our trip to Japan.  Ian spent hours looking through over 1200 photos to find the ones that we had chosen to put in the book and then loaded them into Photobox.  Then we had the fun part of arranging the photos onto pages for the book. 

It's been a while since I looked at these photos and it was lovely to remember some of the places that we visited and the things that we did when we were there.  I think that the trip to Japan was one of my favourite holidays that we've done so far and I'd really love to go back but there are so many other places that I keep adding to the list of future holidays that I'm not sure that we will go back.

One photobook read to order, one more to go...

20. Knit 3 Gifts Including One For Ian

Ian has been wearing his socks and he seems to like them! 

I uploaded this photo into my Flickr account as I wanted to keep all of my 101 Things photos together and someone marked it as a favourite which seemed a bit strange.  So I had a look at their flickr account and it seems like it's someone with a sock fetish!  But only for mens feet not women's as he didn't mark the photos of me wearing my socks as a favourite... I don't know how to unmark it as a favourite so I've deleted the photo from Flickr and I'll try uploading again without 'socks' as a tag word.

20. Knit 3 Gifts & 47. Finish The DIY Jobs In The House So We Can Sell It

Socks! Yeap, more socks. 

I've knitted a pair of socks for Ian which are the same as mine but in more manly brown and bigger so that they will fit his feet.  He hasn't actually tried them on yet as he's hurt his back doing something for task 47 Finish The DIY Jobs In The House So We Can Sell It  - and can't bend over very well, poor thing.  Hopefully he'll be better soon.

Some of the other wool I ordered has finally arrived so now I can knit something other than socks, yipee!  I might change my mind about 'yipee' once I get started.  I'm going to attempt to knit a cardigan, nothing like taking it slowly... but that will be for me so doesn't really apply to this task.

47. Finish The DIY Jobs In The House So We Can Sell It - we're getting the kitchen prepared for when we replace the worktops, tiles and hob in a couple of weeks.  It's a bit chaotic but it will be worth it in the end, the kitchen will look a lot more modern.  Then we'll start on the other jobs on the list...

78. Make Cakes Using 5 Different Types Of Vegetables (2/5)

Cinnammon Banana Bread

This is the second of my cakes using vegetables - courgettes with this one.  This must count as 2 of my 5 a day as it has both courgette and banana in it.  I have actually made this before but it turned out different this time, not sure what happened.  It might have had something to do with the fact that I swapped the nuts to a different kind.  Next time I'll stick to the recipe and see if turns out the same.

19. Knit something for me

Knitting the socks turned out to be pretty easy and quick.  They're really warm and cosy.  I think I probably have enough wool left to knit another pair but I also have wool to make Ian a pair of socks so I think that it's only fair that I knit his next. 

The socks didn't turn out quite as stripy as I wanted because I had to use 2 balls of ball at the same time and knit with double strands to make it thick enough but I still like them.  Maybe I'll have a look for a pattern that uses thinner wool so I can knit with one strand but that will probably mean using double pointed needles which I haven't done since I was at primary school when I knitted mittens.

18. Start Knitting Again

I have been thinking about knitting something for ages.  I learned to knit in primary school but haven't really knitted much since then.  I did knit a teddy bear for my niece when she was born last year which wasn't too hard until I had to sew it up which caused me a lot of stress.  Let's just say the bear has character (for that read a little bit lop-sided).

Before I started this project I tried to start knitting something again.  I went to the local wool shop on a mission to knit something but they were so unhelpful and all of the patterns were in Dutch that I left the shop empty handed and feeling quite put off.  But I'm not really one to give up on something and with this project in mind, I spent some time surfing the internet and found some lovely patterns and wools (what did we do before the internet?).  I must admint that I got a bit excited and ordered rather a lot of wool, quite a few patterns and a set of bamboo needles which are still meandering their way here from the UK. 

Being the impatient person that I am, I then decided that I should knit something small while I was waiting on this and found a pattern for socks on the internet.  It's supposed to be for easy-peasy socks, knitted on 2 needles rather on 4 double pointed ones.  Of course now I needed wool for socks so I ordered some more wool from a shop in the Netherlands - and I'm still waiting on that.

Unsurprisingly enough I found myself back in the first wool shop this morning :-)  After explaining to the more helpful assistant that I wanted wool to knit socks and the size of needle that I needed she told me that the wool I had choosen wasn't thick enough.  I want stripy socks so I need this wool, so she told me that I could use it doubled and voila I'm now knitting a sock.  Not quite as stripy as I wanted but still pretty...

74. Sort Out Desk In The Office For When I’m Moved To A Flex Desk

As I'm in the office today I decided that I would clean out all of the stuff from my desk that I don't want or use in preparation for getting moved to a 'flex desk'.  It really didn't take long as I hardly ever use my desk drawers, I try to keep everything I need on the network or my laptop so that I have it to hand if I'm working from home.

The contents didn't come to much more than a New York travel guide from 1998 that I had lent to someone, some earphones and some paperwork for the wedding.  That shows you how often I open the desk...

I'm a little sad about my desk though, it's always been my desk since I started at here.  I have a nice view over the canal and can watch the birds and rabbits when I'm on boring tele-conferences.  I'm one of the few people that have sat at the same desk for the whole time that I've worked here which is over 7 years now.  How did that happen??? I was only coming to stay here for a couple of years and yet here I am.  It's must be Ian's fault, if I hadn't met him then I would more than likely have moved somewhere else by now ;-)  Funnily enough he says the same thing about me.

78. Make Cakes Using 5 Different Types Of Vegetables (1/5)

Cappuccino Cupcakes

As I'm home alone tonight I've decided to make the first of my 'healthy cakes'.  These are cakes made using vegetables instead of fat from this book. The cappuccino cupcakes use sweet potatoes but you really don't taste it, they taste just like normal cakes. 

I'm suppose to ice these but I actually prefer not too as I normally find icing too sweet.  I think if I make these again I would make the coffee taste a bit strong as it's really subtle but that might just be me as I like really strong coffee.  If there are any left when Ian comes home then he might think differently.

Would it be wrong if I just eat these for dinner?  They must count as one of my 5 a day if I eat enough of them surely?

The Beginning

I read about this project on a forum that I use and it seemed like a great idea.  Reading the blogs of a few of the posters inspired me to write my own list and give it a go.

I'm sure that Ian now thinks I'm having a mid-life crisis - is 40 mid-life?  In the last few weeks I've decided to start baking cakes and to try knitting again.  Add the list into that and I can see why he thinks 'mid-life crisis'.  I did think I should wait until after my 40th birthday in October to start this project but then I realised that by creating this blog I had already started and to wait until after my birthday would therefore be cheating.

Some of the things on the list are already in the planning stages, others were only thought of as I wrote the list.  I'll update this blog as and when I plan, start and finish each item on The List.