My oven is a piece of...

I just had the most awesome ridiculous cake disaster ever. Hahaaa. I think I should start using quality ingredients. I mustn't cut corners with things that are actually supposed to turn out well. I think I'll have to buy the posh ingredients at a time such as this - I must not be budget. I know I'll have trouble spending more than 39p on a thingy of flour and £1 on a carton of eggs, but I must force myself. I made a 12" vanilla buttercake, and it was more like a 12" cornbread ass crust chunk thing. I shoulda taken a picture before I chucked it. I used the flour that cost 39p and crap eggs, and I didn't have a sifter. Plus my house was so cold this morning that the butter WOULD NOT get to room temperature, so it wasn't really smooth, like, at all. Plus, my oven sucks. At first I thought it was just a horrible recipe, so I made a huooge batch of another recipe and stuck it in the oven for an hour or so, and out emerged another pan of baked poop. Stupid ingredients. I'll be venturing to the supermarket tonight to get some quality stuff and give it another go tomorrow. Yeeheeeee. Oh - so I looked online to see if maybe I could find Betty Crocker or Pillsbury cake mixes in England, and I did, but look at the price of ONE box.

Betty Crocker Yellow Cake Mix

Yes, that says £3.39. Yes, that means about $6.50. That is a crime! It costs like 99¢ in America!! I think I need to start selling cake mix on the black market. I could send Elijah to college with the profits. Shooooot.

We're getting some free furniture today! I think we're getting a set of wicker-type outdoor/conservatory furniture, some side tables, and another big furniture thing. I'll let you know how it is when we get it. I don't know where we're gonna put everything, probably in the garage for now.

I posted some more pictures on the site. The other day we went to a place called Kearsney Abbey in Dover - it's a beautiful park with lakes and fields and flowers and swans another other pretty things. There's also some pics of my Mother's Day presents - haha - you'll have a good laugh.

Elijah the drag queen

New awesome video of Elijah:

Elijah Cleaning

Oh man, Elijah woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. Hopefully he won't be like this all day. Whiny whiny whiny. Last night we went to the pub, I only stayed for about 15 minutes and went home to put Elijah to bed. Weee...how exciting. We watched Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny - it was ok. Some funny parts, but The Complete Masterworks is much funnier. We have Pan's Labyrinth on the way, I'm excited to see that!

Today we're dragging our whiny child out sight-seeing. He's been king of the whines lately! Nothing is good enough for him - sounds very much like the rest of us, dontcha think? Ha. We went out yesterday afternoon to look at forts for Elijah (they're old ruins of war bunkers and stuff), and he wanted to see MORE and MORE and MORE, NOWWWWWW! Lemme tell ya, the little punk got a nice trip home. Every day, his cinnamon toast has too much butter, his shoes are too tight, he doesn't want his white underpants, he wants grey ones, he wants two candies, not one, he wants to go left instead of right, he wants green beans, not broccoli, etc. etc. etc. It's exhausting. But still, I love that whiny kid. He made a little flower bouquet for me at playschool the other day (for Mother's Day - it's Mother's Day in England tomorrow). Anyways, not only is my son the whiniest child in the world, he's also the very sweetest. He came running up with the flowers and handed them to me and then reached up and gave me a huge hug and said "I loooovvve you Mama". Awww, what a sweetie. There's a few pics of the flowers on the site.

My house is an eternal pit of mess. I cleaned all day yesterday, and already this morning it's a wreck again. Arrrgggh! If I'm ever rich, I'm gettin' a maid fo' sho'. I'm gonna go clean again...ta ta.

Housewifey duties & house demo

Here's a great video of Elijah boppin' to the music in his carseat, and catching Paul singing like retard-o reggae, so funny -

Groovin' in da car

Good marnin'! I'm sitting here waiting for Elijah to finish his cereal, then we're off to playschool and I'm off for my jog. It's a beautiful day - yay! Spring is a-comin'. I'm gonna spend my day doing laundry. I don't think I've been completely done with laundry since I've been here. As you know, it takes 2 hours to run one load in the washing machine. We finally got a tumble dryer, but that also takes a long time, so I can only get so much done in one day, and by the time I'd done, the laundry basket is full again. Stupid housewifey duties. Ha.

Yesterday we went to one of Paul's friend's baby's Christenings. The Christening was during the service of a local village church, and ohhhh myyyy. Not to knock, but wow - that was possibly the most boring hour and a half of my life. After the Christening the crew went up to the pub, then my little fam went to Paul's parent's house for Sunday roast. That was nice.

Check out the House Progress section of the website - we did some major demolition this weekend. I guess we're doing this whole thing in stages, as to avoid the council man as much as possible. Paul put a make-shift door up at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, and the whole back area is now open. I guess we're gonna put a temporary wall blocking part of the garage and then totally finish the back lounge and dining room, at least so it's livable. Then we'll get the council man up here after that. I've designed a built-in desk/storage thingy for our eventual entryway. I guess that has to be the office, so I gotta make it work. It'll be great when it's done. I want that room to be my job - I wanna do it from start to finish. Now I just gotta convince Paul.

Here's a video of Elijah at the pub yesterday. I was squishing his face making him say "Chubby Bunnies". Hahaaa.

Chubby Bunnies

That's about it from here. Oh, and for all of you who might care, the UK's daylight savings isn't the same as the US, so our daylight savings is on March 25th. So we'll have 2 weeks of being an hour closer in time.

8 meeeelion dollar dress

It is so windy here it's absurd. It's been windy for the past 3 or 4 days, non-stop. Our little fam went for a walk way up on the cliffs the other night to show Elijah the old machine gun bunker things from the war, and we literally couldn't let him walk by himself cause he was blowing over. I wish I brought my camera cause it was quite comical. This morning I had my jog and took Elijah to playschool and I had tears streaming from my eyes cause of the crazy wind. My jog was probably slower than a walk. It's insane. It'd be pleasant weather if it weren't for the wind - hopefully it won't last too much longer.

So let's see, what's going on in England...um...not much new really. I called the city council yesterday to find out about getting permission to turn our garage into a living space. Paul thought it would cost all sorts of money and that the council man would have to be up here every step of the way, but it sounds like (cross your fingers!) we won't have to do anything at all, we can just get goin' with it! The lady said that unless there's something in the archives about our house having a ban on changing the inside, we're free to do what we want to it. Yeehee!! If that's the case, the demo will be starting any day now. Woohooooo I can't wait to knock that wall down in the kitchen! We may even have that area livable by the time everyone comes out in November. That would be grrrrreat.

The wedding planning is kind of standing still at the moment. I went wedding dress shopping this weekend and found a GORGEOUS dress. To the tune of 8 Meeeeelion dollars. No, it's £680. To all the English folk, £680 for a wedding dress is a steal. To me, not so much. That's over $1300 - haha, yeah right. I've found nothing cheaper, so I think I'm gonna have to take a chance and order one off the internet and pray it's not a piece of crap. Paul thinks I should buy the one for £680, but seriously, I could fly me and Elijah out out to America round-trip, AND buy a wedding dress out there for that money. Shooooot. I think we're gonna hire a harpist for dinner though - that's gonna rule. You know this wedding be fo' da Queen and King and all...

Elijah and I have been having dance parties all the time. He's awesome. Check out his moves:

Dance Party with Elijah

I've posted a few more pictures too.