The much awaited halloween post!

Hello folks!
I hope this blog finds you in good spirits. I have many a thing to mention tonight (on this lovely halloween eve... currently 2:08am, and I'm just sat watching Scrubs... spooky!), which I'll probably forget as I go on, so bare with me!

Firstly, well done to fellow blogger Gee - see his blog here - he won best writer of blogs in the Welsh Blogging awards, or something equally as amazing (It's late and opening a new window to find the exact title seems like hard work), and I must say it's well deserved. His blog is pretty darn cool, maaan!

In other news I've already forgotten what I was going to say. Silly me.. let's see... I started a new website with my fella - it's a mixed media kind of thing, where we're just posting funny little articles, pictures we find on the web, and video's from youtube etc. It's a work in progress, but have a look, and suggest things you think would be cool!

It can be found here.

As most of you know I have signed up for NaNoWriMo this year (user name Samsiren), which starts... oh, crap. Today! So from here on out I'm on a mission to write a 50,000 word novel. Woohoo. On the plus side it kind of ties in nicely with my creative writing course, as I'm working on building believable characters, so good timing!

I also joined Good Reads (user name Sam C), and am building my library and sorting out a reading list. I like having books recommended to me and this site seems to be the best place for it! yeay! More books! haha.

Finally - it's Halloween. I love Halloween, it's no secret, but this year I opted to not have a party, as it usually costs about £200 and I figured it would be nice to save my money. So instead I've been watching french horror films - I've watched Martyrs, switchblade romance, Inside and a couple of non french ones - being trick r treat and gingersnaps.

I can honestly say the worst out of the bunch was Inside. It was horrible. I couldn't watch most of it - and I love horror and gore. It was just awful, but brilliant!
As for martyrs - it was great. My boyfriend thought it was horrowing, but I just thought it was a great story, and such a rollercoaster. The story chopped and changed about 3 times and you never knew how it was going to end. In the end it was awful but great!

Switchblade was a film of suspense and had a huge twist at the end that I just didn't see coming, did anyone else, if you've seen it?

Trick r Treat was a fun horror movie - it was a classic and really cool. It wasn't scary really but it was entertaining, and creepy. And gingersnaps is just an amazing werewolf movie - the actresses who played the lead characters were great too and it was a canadian film, which you just don't tend to see that much.

So, hope everyone's halloweens were great! Let me know what you got up to!

Sam

Plate full!

No, not of food - everyone knows I gave up eating in January (and my size 14 skinny jeans are getting more loose fit as the days go by!).

Plate full with work. Not 'real life' work - no, I try not to think about that - after someones attempts to bully me at work (he failed, and is now on my hit list) and a lot of mathematical calculations (and I can't do maths!), I've switched off from work at the moment, which means my 2 week holiday from it after this week was well planned!

'work' being that stuff I'm trying to do to get on with my life. It's all experimental and fun and I'm excited about all of it. I've had to write a 'to-do' list just now, so that I can stop stressing about what I have to do this week and just get on with it.

The first on the list is - running. I need to start it up again properly. I did 3 miles the other day and it took me 50 minutes. Well... I lie, I ran for a mile and a half which took me about 20 minutes and I pretty much just walked really slowly to songs such as Coldplay and Aqualung (so slow motion!) for the rest. But I want to really get into running for prolonged periods of time. Anyone have any tips on how to break through that barrier of tiredness/ boredom?

The 2nd thing on my list to do is NaNoWriMo - which I've talked about before, and decided I'm going to participate in... probably not a realistic goal, but oh well! It's National Novel Writing Month in November - where the challenge is to write a 50000 word novel in 30 days. You can write whatever you want, it doesn't matter if its not brilliant, it doesn't matter if the plot is thin and not mind blowingly well thought out, the only thing that matters is you write... and you write those god damned 50,000 words before the month is up! And me, being stupid, decided this is the year I'm going to do it (see my profile here and you can watch my progress), so I have my novel in mind (something I thought about a while ago but never did anything with. It's not brilliant, but it's something!) and my pen in my hand. This week I have to write the plot out in my note book, write some profiles for the characters and try to draft up some chapters... scary.

Of course this all comes at the time of the website launch, which will be on the 31st October. Yes, Halloween. I still can't say what the site is all about, but it should be a fun site to share with people, friends, and if people like it that's all that matters. So this week I have to fully OK the layout, and make sure the design is OK and set up the content so it's all done and dusted, and of course, make sure all the links work and the email address is working OK, and the facebook page and twitter page is all set up (even though it's in the early stages, I wanted to get things ticked off the list). So that should be... a lot of work.

And of course - Uni work. I'm working through it all OK, and really enjoyed last weeks book, Othello. This week its The Duchess of Malfi, and we're learning about themes and love and death in Renaissance literature. Cool stuff. But I have my first assignment due in the first week of November.

So yes - a good time to take 2 weeks off work, because I'm going to be damned busy for the next 3 weeks I think!

What am I doing?!

Sam

Wordy words

Another wordy blog. I haven't blogged for a time. Probably only a week but it feels like longer! Ho hum!

I've been diddling on with my Open Uni work and really enjoying it. The creative writing side is fun, learning little tricks and exercises to help keep me writing. I didn't realise it, but blogging is probably a really good exercise for my writing - I just write what I'm thinking, but it's good practise just to keep the mind and the hands moving, right? :)
English Lit course is so far so good - we've only just started this week, and I've been reading Othello, and learning about the play and the meaning of the text etc. It's very interesting and I'm actually enjoying it more than I thought I would be. I mean, I don't understand what's going on really, but when I read I can kind of get the general gist of it, which is better than nothing!

Other than that I haven't been up to much. I haven't been working this week so it's been nice to have yet another week to just relax and ponder my new life as a writer/ literature understander-er.
I've also bought some new clothes. Now, to you, that might not mean much, but to me it does! I'm the worst person for buying clothes. I pick things up and by the time I get to the till I change my mind and put it all back because I just don't like it anymore. If I don't buy what I want in the space of 10 seconds I have second thoughts and put it back. But when I DO buy stuff, it's stuff I really like. I've always been like that, not just about clothes, but anything I buy. I don't mince around when I want something, and when I have it I keep it forever. I keep telling my boyfriend he should count himself lucky I didn't put him back on the shelf after a week! I jest, of course!

Anywho, the clothes I bought are a UK 14, which is nice. I always thought I'd be happy in a comfortable size 14, and I am. But... like most women who have something, we always want the next model up. So I'm kind of almost aiming to get down to a 12, but not really going to put a lot of effort into it. I'm at a point now where if it happens, it happens. I'm so zen! ha.

I'm off to a gig tomorrow night - my boyfriends uncle, who was in a band in the 80's and still gigs on his own is having a gig in Manchester. So, of course, we're on the guest list. It should be nice, I've not seen him since Christmas and he's lovely!

I'd best be off, I have many a thing to do this afternoon before I hit the gym for some Zumba!

toodles! :)

Sam

Apple Strusel Sponge Cake

Yes, this is the last one from my recent baking batch - pictures aren't that great as the cake didn't last very long. It was just TOO good. It was a vanilla sponge base, with apples on top and a lovely crunchy sweet crumble topping - had with cream this was pretty much my favorite thing in the world. Not too sweet like the rest of the cakes, and honestly by this point in the baking we had to make something 'healthy' because we literally could not face any more chocolate!

Plus, one of your 5 a day - how could it be bad?

Again, apologies for pictures - and the jacket potato in the back ground!

Oh dear.. I think I need to make another!

Recipe to follow!

Sam
x

Who knew?

Who knew there was so much thought that had to go into trying to launch a website? Well, I'll be honest, I kind of had an small idea but this is turning into a project and a half. I guess I don't mind though - I don't have much riding on this, it was just for fun - if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But I do want it to be a regular stop for some people, on their Internet travels. Ah, we'll see what happens. I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on what's going on.

At the moment, I'm just trying to figure out the layout - the theme is set for now, just a basic template as themes are something you can tweak along the way.

We're also trying to nail down the content - the content for the launch and the future content, and for that I need people to help. But until we go live I can't recruit anyone as it's all hush hush. I think I've only told one of my friends what the site is. She was kind of interested, but, well... she isn't an Internet person so she doesn't really care. I can deal with that though.

This is kind of just a bloggy blog for the time being. I just thought I'd let you know what I've been up to, which is basically panic about Uni. But so far, so good. the 1st week has been a fun one. My English Lit course starts on Saturday (Monday for me, as that's my allotted Uni day) where I will have to start reading Othello. Fun times. My writing course has been going well, just learnt some writing exercises which I have to do every day, but it all makes so much sense. You're supposed to write every day - they say that a musician practises every day, and artist sketches every day, so why wouldn't a writer write, just to practise - find your voice. Yes. I am on this page with them, I love writing - I love typing too, so blogging for me is a way to free up my creative self. I feel like a hippie. I don't know why!

Recently my boyfriend has been introducing me to David Lynch films. I loved the TV show he did, Twin Peaks and have always wanted to watch more of his stuff, and as my boyfriend has a collection of thousands of films (not exaggerated - movies are his life, and hopeful career) and a strong love of the Lynch he has them all on his shelf. So we started. So far I've watched Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Lost Highway - my favorite so far being Blue Velvet, but I can't get Lost Highway out of my head. I'm still trying to figure out what it meant. People think he's nuts, but I think he's a genius and we just can't see things on the level he sees them.

I've totally forgotten what else I've been up to - just Zumba'ing around at the gym and trying to keep moving every which way I can, be it a quick stint of yoga, a short run or some weights at home. Although nothing makes me ache more than the wii fit. I don't know why....

This weekends plans are - cinema, of course, to see Drive and The Lion Kind 3D. Well, I saw Jurassic Park at the cinema the other day and feeling all nostalgic for my childhood figured I'd better watch it! I'm also going to TGI Friday's which is my kryptonite. I pray I can keep my cool and resist all the bad food... praying they have a healthy salad on the menu!

I'll be off now - Going to blog again soon though - there's still a cake recipe or 2 to come and a blog about the new TV show Terra Nova, so stay tuned!

Sam

Chocolate and cheesecake brownie tray bake thing!

Yes, another baking blog. This is the 2nd to last one for now so enjoy!

Again, recipe will have to be brought to you at a later date, I've put my book somewhere... clever... and can't find it.

Blog about what I've been up to recently will be up shortly. I promise. It's kind of fun! (In my eyes)

nothing could prepare you for how good this tased. It was chocolate brownie, with cheesecake mixture on top, with chilled chocolate brownie pieces scattered on top... it was fulfilling in every way! God, I need it now!

Sam
x

Peanut Butter and Chocolate pie

AKA. The devils pie.

Let me tell you, when we made this we had no idea what we were getting into. The book didn't have a nice display picture so we were baking blind, if you will. I have never baked anything so sweet and bad for you as this pie is... but it was also SO good. The pictures didn't come out the best. I was going to pop a picture of a slice of it on a plate so you could see all the layers etc. but... well.. the slices didn't last long. It was destroyed quickly, what with my lovely siblings only scooping the layers they liked, and not taking full peices! Gotta love em!

The pictures come first so you can see what it is we were dealing with :P
I'll pop the recipe below!

If you're diabetic, look away now!

Quick note - I'll have to post the recipe later... I've misplaced my book! oops!

Sam