Here we can all be heard for a little while. Part 2

whitewing

DH had to leap out of bed at 8.15am yesterday when the doorbell went. What a lovely surprise - DS had sent me a bunch of tulips via moonpig. They are beautiful.

Littlewing gave me a daffodil card made at school, and a Special Mum teddy bear (which arrived with Grandma later). I also had a shop-bought card from her.

MIL came over for lunch and was delighted with her pretty cake tins. I was at work later than planned on Sat so had to make the cornflake cakes and Victoria Sandwich on Sunday morning. Just about got it done.

DH had to go off to work so littlewing and I went for a quick lie down before we visited my parents. But we fell asleep so ended up going over for tea.

My mum loved the tea cloths that littlewing had decorated. We also gave her a box of chocolates and a box of cornflake cakes (as we had some we couldn't fit into MIL's tin).

Came home after Call the Midwife, and had a couple of glasses of wine.

So, all-in-all a very nice day.

Sue, I loved the cakes. especially the tea party ones so I may steal that idea in the future.

MIL loved the tea cloths for Granny too so I think we will have to get some more and do them for MIL's birthday.

SingleSue

Yours will probably look oodles better than mine whitewing....although I did kind of like the wonky look of what was supposed to be my tea cups despite them looking more like mugs!

Here are my other attempts at cupcake decorating, starting with the very first one



Second workshop

Izadora

Morning All,

Sue, those cakes look fabulous and I'm very impressed with the teeny flowers. Years ago I was decorating a wedding cake and had to make soooo many of them and got so frustrated with how annoyingly fiddly they were that I ended up throwing a big ball of icing across the kitchen!!

Tea, there are quite a few people like that in my office as well. If you managed to respond with anything more polite than "So, the fact that you're leaving absolves you of all responsibility to be a vaguely decent human being does it?" then you're doing much better than I would've done. And I don't have pmt at the moment...

SingleSue

Aww thanks...the teeny flowers were done by cheat methods, she had a little tool where you pressed it into the icing, wiggled it a little, cut it and then to apply it to the cake, you just pressed down on the plunger. Not that I had to do much work, my hands wobble anyway, so the wiggle stage was not something I had to remember to do :rotfl:

Pyxis

Sue, they're fabulous! Yum! :T








Tea, you have a dishwasher in the office kitchen? Crikey!

Beats a sink full of dirty cups any day!

tea_lover

Tbh I think the dishwasher causes more trouble than it's worth! Am trying to tell myself that things like dishwashers and washing machines and terrible customer service are just not important in the grand scheme of things but am not having much success.... may just have to give in to being a moody cow today and embrace the grumpiness.

Or start on the chocolate already...

onomatopoeia99

We have no room for a dishwasher so just a sink, and I just rinse my mug each time I use it. If I use anything else, I wash it up when I'm done as there is so little space (I'm far less efficient at home as the only person put out by unwashed crockery there is me).

Experimenting with photobucket, here is my office mug, hopefully sized so as not to break the thread. No prizes for guessing what my drink of choice is (the text is from the novel 'Mansfield Park' by Jane Austen)

onomatopoeia99

Sue, those cakes are excellent, I can just about spoon some royal icing onto muffins and even doing that I make a complete mess

Waves_and_Smiles

Look at the little cakes! Sue, I love them! I can barely ice anything! I can make but the decorating part is beyond me. You are so clever.

Good news! My lovely psychiatrist said I can cut the extra dose of antipsychotics by a 2/3rds! We are going to keep it a little higher than normal and keep the antidepressant increase but I can begin to slowly reduce the one that is giving me the most side effects. He agreed that I don't have a satisfactory quality of life on the current dose, I am so relieved! I will still be out of it for another week or so because we need to reduce slowly to prevent withdrawal but things should get better from here. We are first going to reduce and eventually cut out the afternoon dose, after all of my sleep yesterday I was back in bed by 7pm and have just woken up now at midday. It's so silly!

Waves_and_Smiles

Good luck for today, Faerie. You know, friends can become your family after a while, I am far closer to my friends than I ever was to my family. Because I became estranged from family through my own choice 26 years ago now I don't really miss having a blood related family at all, but I would be lost without the friends who have replaced them. I know it can make you feel sad and really hurt, it did me at first. It does get better though and there are even positive sides like despite the fact that there are some things I cannot do I am fiercely independent in my nature. I had to learn to cope alone from 21 onwards knowing that there was no home to run back to and it has made me very strong and very able to advocate for my needs. No one else was ever going to do that so I taught myself and it gives me a lot of confidence, it is one of the reasons I can still live independently. I know if push comes to shove I can keep myself safe and get myself help if I need to, I learnt to do that at very young age and those involved with me medically know that I can do that too.

It is easy to think when you feel down that things would be better if you had a supportive family, you know the type the media loves to represent at Christmas with everyone laughing and eating around a table, full of happiness and love. Families are rarely like that, they can come with their own sets of problems that can be very painful, it isn't always better. You do have people who care for you Faerie, they including us are your family now, friends can sometimes be far more supportive than family ever can. Please let us know how you get on today.