My Imperfect Life

I’ve always loved quotes. When I was younger I used to painstakingly write them all out in my neatest handwriting and blue tak them to my bedroom walls, much to my Mother’s delight! I was sorting out some paperwork a few days ago and I came across one of my favourite quotes, from the film A Message In A Bottle…

“If some lives form a perfect circle, others take shape in ways we cannot predict or always understand.”

My life has definitely never taken the shape of a perfect circle – from getting pregnant at 19, becoming a single mother at 20, meeting Liam two years later and having another child together, and then getting married…it's been quite the rollercoaster! Ten days ago my life took another twist when Liam and I decided to separate and he moved out. It’s been a while coming, hence the lack of posting on the blog these past few months. I don’t want to go into detail about it here, but I just wanted to mention it, say that we’re all as ok as we can be, and start trying to move on.

I'm not promising that I'll suddenly start writing daily again (did I ever do that??) as sleep and long chats with friends are definitely still taking priority, but I do really miss writing here! Weather permitting, me, the children, and my little sister are off to Bath for the Christmas market this weekend; and I received the most amazing foodie penpal parcel this month; so I definitely have some things I want to share with you in the near future, it's just finding the time and energy to share them. After Liam & I told Izzy last Friday about our decision, she had a few nights of not going to sleep until 10pm, and then when she settled back down Toby got ill and for the last two mornings he has been coming into me wide awake at 5.30am! And of course I am having to deal with it all on my own now, so not much sleep around here! I am very lucky to have supportive family and friends, it makes such a difference.

One of my friends has also been having a difficult couple of weeks so we have been spending lots of time together trying to put the world to rights! Another quote we like is…

(source)

This definitely isn’t the end of my story, but maybe it can be (yet another!) new beginning.

What are your favourite quotes? Any positive or inspiring ones to share with me??

Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers, and I hope everyone in the UK is keeping safe with the current weather. We had quite bad flooding locally yesterday, and Izzy’s school was closed, but things seem to be back to normal – for now at least – I’m keeping my fingers firmly crossed that we don’t get anymore heavy rain!

Foodie Penpals October 2012

I’m a few days late writing this post – half term has been very fun but super hectic! Family Halloween party this afternoon, but I made the – slightly embarrassing, but definitely necessary – decision to buy cakes rather than make any, so that has freed me up for a couple of hours!

So, last month’s foodie penpals. I sent my parcel to Charley who writes at Charley’s Kitchen, and I received a lovely parcel from Emma-Louise, who doesn’t have a blog but does have a twitter account.

Emma sent me a really thoughtful parcel and included a recipe for white chocolate & cardamom mousse which I am looking forward to trying soon. Coconut palm sugar, cherry juice drink, apple & plum puree, tabasco sauce, dried cranberries, cardamom pods, sugar mice and Montezuma’s orange & geranium dark chocolate.

As per Emma’s suggestion, I gave the sugar mice to the children…Izzy refused to eat hers for a few days though though, haha, keeping it as a “cute decoration” instead…

Toby, on the other hand, gobbled his up straight away – little sugar addict!!

Emma forgot to include her note with suggested uses for the items, so instead emailed it to me. A lot of these included porridge…not sure whether that was deliberate or not re my blog name, but it did make me chuckle!! And so the next morning I made a big bowl of pumpkin porridge and topped it with dried cranberries, Montezuma chocolate, and palm coconut sugar…divine!

I think this may have even been my first hot porridge “of the season” and what a good one it was…I loved the combination of dried cranberries and orange chocolate, so festive!

I loved all the contents of my parcel, thank you so much Emma!

As Emma doesn’t have a blog, and neither does the person who sent it to her, she asked me to include a few words from her about the parcel she received…

Yay! Received my first ever foodie penpal today, chock full of treats! The lovely Laura explained in her card that she lives on the Norfolk/Suffolk border where I know for a fact they have a glut of wonderful farm shops and the area is famous for its apples. I have received a lovely looking bottle of Norfolk Pure Apple Juice where the fruit is grown and pressed on the farm, as well as a pack of delicious looking apple crumble biscuits (everyone in the office is eyeing them up), a hot chocolate stick complete with marshmallows (perfect for this time of year), an apothecary style bottle of cinnamon extract that I’m looking forwards to trying out this weekend as I reckon it’ll pack a punch into my gingerbread men, a bbq spice mix that’ll come in very handy, and a jar of local mint jelly which is a winner as I love roast dinners! To top it all off, there’s a card with a picture of a kitten drinking out of a cup that is just terrific and is going to have pride of place on my desk.

 I can’t wait for next month, my first foodie penpal experience has been really wonderful and everyone has been so lovely!

If that inspires you to join in, go to Rock Salt’s blog to find out more details and fill in the form. You can read about many other foodie penpal swaps on Lean Green Bean’s blog.