Good news on the Job front

I just got word that I have a job!It is a telecommunications company that runs campaigns for other companys. I will be on inbound calls for e-on. The initial training fortnight will be 9-5 with more flexible hours (and probably longer hours) coming after. They are happy to allow me to move to part-time hours should I get any part-time teaching work come September.

I will be starting in a call centre in a week and a half! This suits me perfectly. Next week I have a wedding to attend and some visitors are arriving to stay with my parents for 2 weeks, I have been volunteered to get their place ready as they are both working full time.

I have a friend returning to Canada soon, so I can spend some time with her next week before she leaves. (I may even squeeze in some touristy things.) Today I made some more blaeberry muffins but also some chocolate muffins. Tonight I plan to make fajitas - I will hopefully remember to take some pictures!

There were half a dozen of each - not sure where they disappeared to!

 For the chocolate recipe I simply modified the blaeberry muffin recipe. Instead of 4oz of flour I added 3oz flour 1 oz cocoa powder. Instead of berries I added chocolate chips (white and dark)
I thought the buns were delicious, not too sweet. The berries cut the sweetness and the dark chocolate and cocoa powder did the same.

Flavoured Mayonnaise

I love mayonnaise! It is such a versatile ingredient, since I am attempting to be healthy I have switched to the extra light mayo. One thing that I love are flavoured mayos, they are easy to make you just decided the flavour and the strength yourself.

I recently tried a Brie sandwich with cranberry mayonnaise and thought I'd like to give it a go. All I did was chop some dried cranberries and leave in a small container of mayonnaise over night. This is a very good trick if you are buying cheaper mayonnaises too!

To test out my flavoured mayonnaise I used up some left over pork loin and some stuffing. It was delicious, the berries had really been absorbed into the mayonnaise and brought an unexpected sweetness to the sandwich.

Job hunting

I am currently looking for a teaching post for September. I have been applying to any vacancies I find (trust me, I just sent my CV to an English School in Mongolia!!) but I have also been putting off getting an interim job.
That has to stop, I need a part-time or short-term job to tide me over and stop me eating into my savings. Having said that I have an interview lined up for a call-centre job on Monday. Fingers crossed!!

Hoarding

I am a hoarder! There I have said it! Now for the road to recovery! I have been trying to tidy stuff up now that I have free time, and I also need a break from job hunting now and again!
Somehow every time I try and sort out the storage space in my house aka the dumping ground I eventually give up in despair!
So, I am now hoping to become a minimalist, or at least an almost minimalist. I am starting with my clothes. I have just gone through my wardrobe and culled everything I don't wear. (there is also a maybe section full of formalish clothes, I will sort those out later.
The culled clothes & shoes are put into two piles donate & ebay. (Because I get a lot of my own clothes from charity shops I like to give as much as I can back. I only ebay the clothing that I think I can get more for than a charity shop can charge)

I don't want to end up like this!

I also will be culling books: text books, novels, how-to's etc. And whilst on this binge I will be ruthless with knick-knacks - I tend to keep things out of guilt because someone gave them to me, not because I like or enjoy them. All must go! I am not sure where I will be with jobs come September, I need to lighten my load and cut back to essentials!

Mountain Walk - Blaeberry Muffins

Hello, in between the showers yesterday I managed to get out and take my dog for a walk on the mountain beside the house. I had intended to pick the last of the Elderflower and I ended up with a little more than I expected.

Blaeberries (sometimes known as Bilberries or fraochán in Irish) are in season and despite the summer weather the crop appears to be plentiful. Luckily I had brought a spare bag and managed to pick quite a few.
I decided I wanted to try and bake something - possibly because of my failed focaccia bread I decided to keep it simple. Blaeberry Muffins.

4oz Flour
4oz Butter
2½ oz of Sugar
2 eggs
1 splash vanilla extract
4oz Blaeberries

1. Add the butter and sugar together then slowly add the eggs, mix until blended.

2.  Add the flour, baking powder & berries stir to combine

3. Place a spoonful of muffin mixture into each muffin case, filling each to just over half way - for best results leave in the fridge for about 1 hr before baking

4. Bake in an oven set at 200C for approximately 20 minutes

Flat Bread

I had intended to make Focaccia  Bread but I must have been distracted and added dessert spoons instead of table spoons of olive oil. So in reality it was just garlic and rosemary bread - it was still eaten mind you! I toasted it and served it with cream cheese and smoked salmon

Lazy bedside table upgrade

I wanted to upgrade a small dark unattractive bedside table for the spare room in my parents house. I had been thinking about it for a while, and had considered painting it but all the other furniture in the room is already dark. So I came up with this rather lazy solution

So it still doesn't look great from the front, but the chessboard sits perfectly on top and looks great beside his bed. It is heavy enough to sit in place, and I have not needed to attach it. My brother uses the room the most and enjoys chess so he can still take it off and play if he wants to. I doubt it will be this tidy when he starts to use it, but it now is at the same level as his bed and has much more surface area