Done: Spend all possible extra cash

My new netbook is the biz. Look at her, she's pink. How can she not be amazing??





10.1 inch, she fits in my handbag! Can't deny her performance is nothing on my HP laptop, but for what I need it for, it's perfect!

Progress report: 2011 so far

Hmmm. When, I wonder, did I expect to start this project? It has not begun yet. I have three full weeks before I go away now. One weekend with be spent with an amazing friend in England (the trip on which I will buy a netbook :) ), one weekend will also consist of my going away dinner.

On a plus, I am almost at a point of completing one goal - Australia! I was accepted for a 6 month holiday Visa yesterday. I'm also writing more. So some resolutions have not been forgotten. Though it isn't February yet...

To do: Clear room of worldly possessions that have lost their worldliness.

I am, I admit, a horrific hoarder, a befuddled borrower and an indecisive Irene when it comes to the things I own and may no longer need. As I'm off to travel the southern hemisphere in a month, I need to declutter this bedroom of mine because I know what happens bedrooms in my house when people go off to the southern hemisphere - they are gutted, their contents is generally emptied/moved to another area or room and nothing is sacred or safe from the prying eyes of the rest of the family, or at least those who are left.
I must admit to being instigator of the 'clear out' when my eldest sister took her second trip south becuase I wanted her room. I no longer inhabit her room, but at that time, at the ripe age of eighteen, it was, and I am sure of it, the only thing that kept me sane on that summer of selling clothes and living at home. Though it is true that many would argue that binge drinking and disregarding all parents' wishes was not sane, at the time, I believed it was.
So henceforth a plan must emerge that leaves my bedroom, and its contents in absolutely tip top shape and ready for any eye that may want to pry.
Exit any old letters not fit for such eyes and such. Enter a beautiful bedroom, glistening with pride of place and lacking any clutter and ridiculous nick nacks that no longer mean what they once did. Bu-bye wee bear of relationship passed, so long mini skirt from 2004.
Hello Space.

To do: Apologise to blog for abandonment and put into cyberspace my resolutions for 2011

Ahem.
I apologise, blog, for not writing in ages. You see, if you give a busy man a job, he'll do it straight away, but if a girl who's been unemployed for two months gets a part time job her entire life suffers. Her room gets really messy and her blog gets abandoned.
So I sold shoes for five weeks, and now that's over my life is back.
I have my resolutions written now, thanks to beaut.ie and here they are:

1. Achieve at least one goal (Australia in March will be one…hence the ‘at least one’)
2. Don’t let anyone walk all over me!
3. Read 30 books (robbed from Cornflakegirl but lessened slightly)
4. Realise, for now, what job I really want and go about looking for it.
5. Write more – whether it be blogging or letters or in a diary.
6. Don’t forget resolutions by February.

I haven't included the inevitable lose weight/exercise/be healthier becuase I need to establish that as my life and not a resolution that I will forget, if not by February then by March!

Grá mór for 2011,
Gabberific xx

To do: My first hour long live radio show...alone...as gaeilge!!

Last week, I did a show on Athlone Community Radio (athlonecommunityradio.ie) with a fella called Eugene called Inniu Inné Amárach. This week, Eugene isn't able to do the show, so I got the gig!
I'm scared s**tless, but I will do it and I will be happy I've done it! I'll post my script after the show.
Wish me luck!

To do: continue driving lessons and be legal about it.

Well I've done my second driving lesson. It was scary as hell but I survived the worst bridge junction in the history of time, a really confusing set of traffic lights and a big massive roundabout. Result.
I am also now insured on Mammerific's '09 Yaris so I can practice (under her supervision as she clings to the passenger door for dear life) to my heart's content.

To Do: Make cookies from scratch for the first time

Inspired by Jamie Oliver and the contents of my kitchen press, I decided today to make cookies. I followed Jamie's recipe from The Ministry of Food and this is what I did.

First I gathered my ingredients (above minus egg!):
 125g Butter
100g Caster Sugar
1 Large egg
100g Plain flour
25g Pinhead porridge oats
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 packets of white buttons :)

Method:
Mix butter and sugar in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon until thick and creamy. I found this hard and put the bowl in the microwave for 10secs to help it along!
Beat egg seperately, then mix well with butter and sugar.

Seive flour into the mix along with oats, baking powder and salt. Mix until smooth.
Here, I added my Buttons (quatered) and mixed in well.
As per Jamie's recipe, spoon mix onto cling film and roll into a sausage with diameter 7cm, and put into the freezer for 30 mins.

Preheat oven to 190deg.
When the 30 mins freezer time is up, unroll and cut 1cm slices of the sausage. Place faaaaaaar apart from each other on 2 baking trays and bake for 10-12 mins until a golden brown on the edge. Leave to cool for  five minutes and then keave for a further ten on a wire rack.

Et Voila! The finished product. They may look like slices of bread but they taste like little pieces of yumminess.