(no subject)

So many things to update about.

First things - Adam hasn't been working much at all. Work has really dried up around here, and we have lots of savings but I hate eating into it.

I might have to look at going back to work, which is sending me into all sorts of depression.

Liam's breastfed and I definitely don't want him on formula so I don't want to work more than 5 hours a day. All the 5 hours a day jobs I can find are 5 days a week and Adam is all 'no, you can't work all week', and really, what's the point of being a stay at home mum if I hardly see Liam all week?

And even if I do find this magical job that is only a couple of hours a week, it might not be worth it as it will affect my goverment payments!

I don't know if those mystical 'work from home' type jobs I can do in the middle of the night actually exist. (Well, I know they do if you're a freelance writer or something, but that's not me).

I wish I was good at something - like, I wish I had kept up with my webdesign hobby or something. My SIL will start up her cake decorating business that she can do from home and my other SIL has a successful business making modern cloth nappies. I thought about taking up tutoring again, but when I did with Liam around it was too hard :(

Time to think!

Best Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe ever.

Hmm, now what's been happening since LJ has been down?

It was my brother's 21st. He had a big party and he asked me to bake him a cake. I made the most delicious chocolate mud cake ever made. I had high hopes and wild dreams about decorating this amazing cake, but like all of my projects, things came up and I didn't get to finish it.

So... I ended up having to slather the thing in Betty Crocker frosting (I know) and stick some strawberries on.

The recipe is my SIL Chloe's, who bakes cakes for people's weddings and birthdays. She's tweaked it many many times and I swear it's pretty much perfect.



Look, it's my family! Check out that bunch of flowers, 99c from the supermarket. Bargain. Check out my dress, $6 from the op shop! Super bargain! Also Liam's preppy khaki pants, $10, second hand Baby Gap, and his Marks and Spencer sweater, $7 second hand. Oh yeah, I CAN BE POOR.

Anyway, here's the recipe.

( chocolate cake recipe )

(no subject)

What else is happening.. umm, oh, I got Liam tickets to his very first gig! The Wiggles! :D We got really good tickets and was joking about on Facebook that Liam was too young for the moshpit at the Wiggles. IN TIME.

The two emergency foster kids got taken away that same day I posted, but apparently they've been taken into permanent care. Which is great that someone's taken them permanently but I thought they were going back to *a* parent at least - they didn't look at all neglected, to me. The whole taking-a-breastfed-baby-away-from-its-mother really upsets me, but I think they do take it fairly seriously before taking anyone away from their parents. My SIL went and visited them and her boobs were leaking all over the place whenever the little girl cried :(

Adam's decided to apply for the police force. This is all well and good but his driving record is deplorable so I had to send away a voluntary disclosure form stating his record to see whether there's any point applying. I bet that they'll send back a letter saying to reapply in 2 years once he's kept a clean slate. That's 2 years too far away :(

Bill and Cheryl are getting marriage counselling. I think that's really brave of them and I hope things work out. I mean, even if they do end up divorced, maybe the counselling will guarantee it won't get messy. To be honest, I've really been loving not having them around - Cheryl makes me feel really awkward and Bill is always the centre of attention and I never have anything to say to him and vice versa.

We were supposed to have dinner for his birthday last week (he usually has a giant dress up party, but not this year for obvious reasons) but he went and had dinner with his friends and sent out a mass SMS 'no family'. Which is odd because his family *are* his friends, and all his friends are friends with our family. Anyway, Cheryl had gone to the dinner and Bill didn't want Cheryl and us in the same room. But like we'd say anything. It's none of our business and we just want to see him happy.

So his mother organises a birthday dinner at her house for Sunday night, and we all turn up except for Bill. Who went out drinking. Apparently seeing family makes him sad. He did come to his niece's (and his nephew's) birthday though, with a present, so he's not being a total jerk. There was a cake and everything, so I turned it into a birthday dinner for me. Because you know, it was my friggin birthday too. And it was lovely :D

Word through the grapevine was that Bill and Cheryl were fighting and Bill took all of her clothes and shoved them at her and told her to Get The Fuck Out. So Cheryl left. And I don't blame her. That's a step beneath violence and abuse in my book. Everyone's on Bill's side because Cheryl is such a prickly grumpycake, but the way Bill's been acting, I think he knows he's done bad. He wants her to move back in, but Cheryl won't (and really, how can you work things out when you don't have your own space) but she's stopped looking for her own place and is living with friends.

Cheryl went and got laser eye surgery but she hasn't stopped partying or drinking and rested at all so her eyes haven't healed. Some peeps have got to start growing up, I think.