What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday 180

I'm back!!  I would have been back last week but half an hour before I was to sit and write the WOYWW post my hard drive died.  I really thought that the universe was scheming to keep me away... and I didn't have my back-up external drive plugged in so lost everything from the point of leaving Canada. Poop. :(  Luckily Chris got me a new one ordered and has spent days putting my pc back to some usable state.

So this is my desk this morning.... see?  Nothing!!  I guess people who might visit would expect to see something but you have no idea how hard I worked get the desk to this point. LOL

I'll even give you a stepped back shot... and if you think that is a mess, really you should have seen it when it had the contents of five boxes spread all over it!!

Then we pan right and you can see my 'pooter and piles of 'stuff'... yeah, I'm still working on an acceptable solution to the fitting a litre into a pint pot!!

and this is a pan left through the archway into the sun lounge and the remaining boxes to be unpacked and sorted... yep, could take a while but I am getting there!!

So now you have seen my space, pop over to our leader of the desk nosey, Julia, and have a look though some of the lovely spaces of other mad peeps!!

"The Egg and Bacon Thing"

You know how we all one meal from childhood that takes you back in time?  This is Chris'... he has mentioned it many times over the years and always describes it as the 'egg and bacon thing'.  Well, when we went South at the end of September we dropped in on Chris' sister and she gave me the recipe for the 'egg and bacon thing'!!  (a recipe without quantities and no visual aid as to what it should end up looking like)!!

But... we had the recipe and we had Chris' memories so giving it a go seemed to be the next sensible step.

The Egg and Bacon Thing

Casserole dish

Butter dish well

a layer of breadcrumbs

a layer of minced bacon

a layer of eggs (raw, just drop them in)

a layer of tomatoes

another layer of breadcrumbs

top with a couple of knobs of butter

cook in oven at 180c - until egg yokes are hard and bacon is cooked.

OK... now I did have a mincer to do the bacon but after checking the contents of my cupboards and not finding it... I sort of figured out that the last time I saw it was in South Africa prior to 2006.  I have no idea where it went and it could possibly be in some of the boxes yet unpacked from that particular trip and not feeling inclined to compound my unpacking and packing situation we opted to buy a new one!! ;)  Chris ordered a nice smart electric version and it arrived yesterday morning.  

When I inquired into the timing of the recipe he mentioned that his Mum always cooked it in a Pyrex see thru casserole dish so you could tell when it was cooked... and yes, I am sure I had a set of those too... but they aren't in this kitchen so we went and bought one!!  (this recipe just cost me £40 and I have no idea if I am even going to like it and I am now thinking that £40 would get me a nice restaurant meal)!!

So I started grating a couple of slices of bread to make the breadcrumbs... and very soon realised that life is too short to grate bread and used my hands instead..

Chris played with the shiny new electric toy of a mincer and made a packet of bacon vanish in seconds and we were ready to go...

layer of breadcrumbs (3 slices of bread)

layer of bacon (1 800 gram pack)

dropped raw eggs (5 eggs)

sliced tomatoes (2 tomatoes)

and the rest of breadcrumbs on top.

Bake in centre of oven for 35 -40 minutes or until your egg yolks are firm

and Chris says it tastes just like his Mum made!! :)

Oh, and I liked it too!  I would have it with a side salad but Chris said it needed potatoes... potatoes in the form of chips!! LOL

Cybercrop Class with extra mini

The Secret Diary of a Well-Travelled Lady

UKScrappers are having a cybercrop and I was asked to do a tutorial so surprise, surprise, I chose to make a minibook.... and I had a couple of those matchboxes sitting there so made this.  Now don't laugh, but I actually shipped those matchboxes from Canada to Scotland and if you had seen the look on the face of the guy that was packing the scraproom when he pointed out that I wouldn't be allowed to pack matches... when I promptly emptied the contents into the bin and told him I only wanted the actual matchboxes anyway!!

Inside one of the matchboxes is a smaller mini and the instructions for making it are:

You will need:

2 chipboard covers 4" x 2 1/4"

8 pages 3 3/4" x 4 1/4" of single sided patterned paper

Offcuts for the tags

Ribbon, buttons, flowers etc for decorating.

Cover the fronts and backs of your chipboard covers.  Sand the edges and then ink them.

Fold the cut pages in half and put double sided tape at the top and bottom on each back. 

The centres need to free of tape so that you can put tags into the pockets that are formed when you attach the pages to each other.

Attach each of the pages to the next one so that you end up with double thickness pages except for the first and the last... these will be attached to the inside of the front cover and back cover.

Make small tags and decorate them.

I used my circle punch and cut little semi circles on the pages to make inserting the tags easier.

Decorate your pages and front cover with ribbons etc.

Insert your little mini into the matchbox of your larger version.

Your done!! 

MIA... and I'm off to visit the wizard.... the wonderful...

I think this post should get award or something... because it is the longest period of time between posts ever on my blog!   Its not like I didn't have anything to say, or pics to show, though they wouldn't be anything crafty as I haven't done anything crafty in quite some time!
Coming home has been a pretty stressful time, very busy with trying to get the house and garden back into shape after being neglected for a couple of years and visiting family we haven't been able to see for too many years and the boxes... yes, the boxes.... they haunt my sleep and drain all joy from my waking hours.  They have also given me physical pain!  I popped a rib and pulled a chest muscle so bad each breath was agony.
If I had blogged I would have been miserable... and if you think this post is miserable... let me tell you I am trying to be as upbeat as I can!! ;)

This is Chris' son James and me holding baby Caitlyn who was born while we were in Calgary, she is such a cutie and didn't mind playing pass the parcel with people she had never met!

and Libby who we haven't seen for 4 years... yep, she has suddenly become a young lady!

This is Chris and his eldest son, Glyn... wouldn't be able to disown each other,would they?

The boxes are much reduced in number but there are still far too many of them waiting to be unpacked and now we have our new assignment..................

Brisbane in Australia

and I need to start to packing again.... which is proving to be a major challenge because I now have boxes to unpack and boxes to go... and the temptation is to lie on the floor like a two year old and flail my arms and legs around.... just that I don't have enough floor space to do it!! ;)

WOYWW 12th September 2012

The Vixen is back in her lair!!  Some people may recognise the wall in my lounge as the photo at the top of my blog... and perhaps not have realised that it is one of my home.... but it is and I am back in it!! I know, it's not everyones' idea of home decor but I love it... visitors either step back in horror and remember a previous appointment or they are fascinated there is no happy medium!!

TomTom and Pandy survived their journey and have explored the house... every inch of it!  They both love the sun lounge which is connected to the scraproom, it has windows on all sides so they can look out on the garden and its sunny so they sleep the day away in the warm rays of the sun.

But... it is WOYWW and you are here to see my desk.... 

it's behind that lot.... LOL!!  Yes, I think I made one or two trips to Michaels that I didn't need to!!  The really annoying part is that I have boxes in all the rooms and really have to unpack and put everything away in those before I start on the scraproom... 

Some folk may recall the library table and chairs I bought when I was in Canada... happily I can report that it survived the journey and is now at the end of my kitchen and looking good!!

and the daybed from the States and trunk is now in my spare bedroom!!

So I am getting sorted... slowly... it took two days to go through the accumulated mail of two years!

I may be sporadic and slow in visiting but I will take a break from cardboard boxes and come and visit!!