Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Some blogs are full of posts which start: Recently, *big company* sent me three pairs of expensive shoes / five bars of delicious chocolate / a free holiday ... This is not one of those blogs. But, recently, a company so small I'm not sure it really exists yet sent me a free cake mix, on the condition that I filled in a survey about it and took a few photos.  Blogging about it was not a condition, but just in case the owner makes it to the big time, you heard it here first! So the Hope Makes It Easy Matcha Cake Mix popped through my letterbox on my birthday (good timing to start) and the rather pretty package sat on my counter for a few days until I'd assembled the ingredients.  Most cake mixes require a few extra ingredients, but this one needed milk, eggs and butter, plus cream and possibly white chocolate for the icing.  Not exactly all-inclusive.  On the plus side, it helpfully provided a cute origami cup for measuring the milk, a line to show you how m...

Be appreciative It had been one of those days where I felt I was dashing around a lot for very little reward.  Tidying, vacuuming, chivvying the kids around - and now I was in the kitchen starting on dinner while the rest of the family was watching TV.  I'd just finished pummeling the pizza dough into submission when Theo wandered into the kitchen.  He looked at the beige blob in the mixing bowl and exclaimed, "Wow, that's amazing Mum!  You made that!"  A smile broke over my face, and I realised: Yes.  I did make that.  And actually, it is pretty amazing. What is just as amazing is how a tiny pinch of unadulterated appreciation changes how we feel.  Like the yeast in the bread dough, a few kind words turn a sticky lump of a day into something growing larger and lighter.  So I resolved to try and give that gift to myself and to others more often this year.  To stop and look and say, "That's amazing!  You did that!"  To be ap...

It's time for some Christmas photos!  Not the best photos in the world, it has to be said, and remarkably lacking in all the other people we saw over the season.  We spent Christmas with Graham's family, getting very well cooked for by his sister, his parents, and his aunt and uncle.  My parents came to stay the day after we got home, and left the morning of New Year's Day.  A quick tidy-up and we were ready for our second annual New Year's Day party, catching up with friends from the village and from church.  But here's some photos of other things... Our treat before Christmas was a visit to Lichfield's A Cathedral Illuminated.  Six projectors provided an awesome 20-minute light show on the west front of the cathedral, including giant rolling baubles and singing angels.  Inside were dozens of decorated Christmas trees (I liked the one with teabags), a nativity and hundreds of paper angels. Look at all those presents!  Toby especially w...

How much would you pay for a pink razor? Not as much as before, fortunately, with Tesco's recent announcement that it is reducing the cost of its women's disposable razors to match men's ones.  However, you're probably still paying over the odds if you favour shampoo, deodorant or body wash aimed at women. In fact, once you open your eyes, it appears that the number of products that women pay more for is simply staggering.  If you can bear to read it, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs put together a 76-page report detailing just how much more a female customer is likely to pay over the course of her lifetime. Perhaps, like me, your initial reaction is, "Why don't you just buy the men's version then?"  But of course, the issue runs much deeper than that.  Paula Cocozza , in The Guardian , comments that spending 50p less for men's shaving gel just "make[s] you smell like a cheap man".  Cheap or not, the all-pervadi...

Well, I know it's not the end of December yet, but I thought we'd have a whole bunch more photos once we'd got through Christmas.  So here's the rest of the month (also quite Christmassy). Christmas lights at Calke Abbey Toby - has been really struggling with illness, poor boy.  He's had several occurrences of being sick in the night, plus hives and swollen eyes, plus a cold. - was pleased to meet Marshall and Chase from the Paw Patrol at Markeaton Park. - enjoyed a Christmas-themed Inspire Day at school - I got to go and do lots of crafts with him for a morning. - managed not to eat all the sweets before making a christingle with them. Theo - was a sleepy shepherd in his first pre-school nativity. - describes anything he likes as "so beautiful". - carefully hung as many baubles as possible on the bottom branches of the tree. - can tell you all the names of the Paw Patrol characters, but was not so sure about...

Finally.   Jesus got through the suffering and the death, and reached the glory.   The happy ending – or possibly the happy beginning.   This is what it’s all been leading up to.   Did he really have to go through all that hard stuff first? As you can probably guess by now, the answer is a resounding yes.   Across the pages of the New Testament, it rings like a clanging bell:   “Cross… glory.   Cross… glory.   Cross… glory.”   It was only through the humiliation that Jesus obtained his exaltation.   Only through being born in a stable that he became king of the universe.   Only through dying that he gave eternal life. And the amazing thing is that once again, we can share in this.   Jesus was glorified as a person ; the whole point of his coming was to bring our humanity back into the presence of God.   We are human whether we like it or not.   He is human because he chose to be; and in that choosin...

Outside, a white frost covers the ground.   Shrivelled brown stalks stick up out of the bare earth, and the trees stand leafless against the steely sky.   The light comes late, and leaves early, casting long shadows as it goes.   Life and colour has faded away.   This is the season of death. Yet we know that under the frosty soil, seeds and roots are preparing for their rebirth in spring.   Green shoots will sprout, dancing daffodils appear, and the world will come to life once more.   And between the death and the life, we celebrate Christmas. We don’t fear the death of winter, because we know that it is only the prelude to new life.   Jesus, too, spoke of his death as the means to glory, and used the analogy of a seed in winter.   If a grain of wheat isn’t buried, he said, it stays just that: one solitary seed.   But when it dies, it can bring forth a whole new plant, bursting with heads of grain.   And he issues a cha...