Cooking with Connie

It's time for another cooking with Connie post. My vacation is over, and yet I have today off. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I'm working this coming weekend, so that gives me a day off today, and again on Monday. 

During our vacation, we visited my brother. Jonas and I went down there on Friday, and Frank came on Saturday to celebrate my brothers birthday (his birthday isn't until November 14th, but my parents couldn't make it then, and since Jonas and I were all ready there it seemed easier).  In his backyard is a HUGE apple tree, and there were hundreds of apples on the ground. Since my brother isn't a big apple eater, he told Jonas he would get 1 kr (nearly 20 US cents) for every 10 apples he picked up and through in the garbage. When we were collecting and ended up getting a bag of the nice ones to make apple sauce. I think we picked 100 apples and there were still loads on the ground, but Jonas earned 10 kr for his piggy bank. 

With all those apples I made apple sauce. I found a super easy recipe online, just boiling the apples with water, adding sugar and vanilla and boiling a bit more. I ended up putting a blender through it, since I'm not a big fan of pieces of apples in my apple sauce.

And just because the recipe suggested to eat it with vanilla ice cream I did. I just had a small amount of vanilla icecream left in the freezer, so I had a little snack. 

 I always thought it was so difficult making apple sauce, but that was super easy, the worst thing was peeling the apples... so how hard can it really be:) Enjoy!

My way to relax and a few finished projects...

One of my ways to relax, and get my mind of things is crocheting. Lately I have done quite a bit of crocheting, and not so much blogging, and it resulted in a few finished projects, and a bit clearer mind.

One of the projects I have finished is a pillow for our chair. I love the design of the chair, but it really isn't too comfortable, so you need a pillow for it to be more comfortable, and after making the blanket for my parents, I liked the pattern and decided to use that for a pillow as well.

Another few projects were a Halloween "devil" and a Kähler vase. The devil was part of an assignment I signed up for on facebook. We received a part of a recipe 5 days in a row, not knowing what we would end up with. So mine didn't quite end up as is should, because reading and understanding doesn't always follow along. But I still like the outcome and so does Jonas. The Kähler vase was because there was so much fuzz about their anniversary bronze/copper vase here in Denmark. People went wild because an Internet store had said they would put x thousands for sale on a certain date at 10.00 am, and their website went down, which lead to a lot of angry women and ended up on the news. So as a joke I made my own, it has a glass vase inside so I can be used as a real vase.

When we were in Turkey in May I bought some yarn, and had promised Jonas to make a blanket for him. You can't believe how many times he asked is it finished now... even when I only had done a few rows, and it wouldn't even cover his feet. I made it a bedspread, so it is really huge and a bit heavy, but he likes it, and this morning he dragged it through the house into my bed so we could cuddle.

 

Last year just before Christmas I saw a star Christmas tree carpet, and decided that before Christmas this year I needed to make that instead of the really ugly felt one we have. So have just finished that the other night, and are actually quite happy with the outcome, now I just need to wash it and stretch it.

On December 5th it's my parents 50th wedding anniversary, and I made Jonas a butterfly, I just finished that today, well almost finished it, I still need to buy so velcro for the closing. The biggest project will probably be getting him to wear it... he didn't quite mind trying it on, but I'm not sure how he feel when he has to really wear it.

So that was what I have been up to the last couple of months, no blogging but a lot of creative therapy and crocheting.

Where did those 2 months go?

I'm still around, but I guess I just have been busy, and honestly I haven't had the time or energy to blog.

I have tried to relax doing quite a bit of crocheting, so I guess I need to do a post with my recent finished projects. If you follow me on Instagram (conniedahlchristensen) then you might have seen some of them.

Yesterday I was looking for inspiration for new projects online... Well I ended up creating an account on ravelry... Oh boy, now I need even more time:) all those Nice things I would love to make.

I am now off work for the next week, and tomorrow we are dropningen off Jonas at my parents, and go on a mini Cruise from Kiel, Germany to Goteborg, Sweden. We will be back on Tuesday, and then Jonas and I have the rest of the week off together, which I guess will involve a trip to Legoland for the last time this season.

I can't believe how big he is getting. And how good he is getting at English. When he is going to sing a birthday song he will sing Happy Birthday instead of the Danish version.

I will try to do a little recap during my week off.

Block Party

Yesterday we attended our annual block party. In the morning/noon there were activities for the kids. Jonas loved it, and really had fun all day.

 Chasing clothes pins as tails on the other kids, Jonas had a blast, though he didn't always realise that he had lost his pin.

 Egg run, Jonas was really slow, but I was quite impressed at his balance, and his concentration. He was very proud that he didn't drop it, but I think 2 other kids passed him, in the same time he used:)

The block party was Christmas themed, and instead of dressing up as Santa and his helper I dressed up as a Christmas tree (my cousin had a dress I could borrow), and we made Frank a gift costume, though he took his off pretty fast, because it was really not handy moving around in. Though the hula hoop in the bottom of my dress gave me a few challenges as well. We had a great time, but are really tired today.

Drained

Lately I seem to be drained of energy. 

I have to drag myself to work, and I don't care to be there. Since I got a new position on October 1st last year, well thing just changed. I decided not to be a sales leader anylonger, and "just" have a regular job. It's been hard, especially because I stayed in the same department. It's been hard finding my place, some still see me as a leader, at least it feels like that, because I get asked everything, I still have some of the same assignments as I had before, which also makes it hard finding my place. 

Back in October we also got a new boss in our department, and let's just say that she doesn't fit in that position. She still has a lot to learn, and sometimes it feels like everyone expects that it's my job teaching her everything... Well then they are not paying me enough. 

At times I feel like I'm the only one taking any kind of responsibility to get things done. Just a simple thing as checking her e-mail, well she doesn't do that everyday, maybe twice a week if we are lucky... Well this resolves in a lot of lost information.

If it was for my colleagues, well then I don't know what I would do. We try to stick together, and I guess we have to ride this out.

Survivor party

So this weekend was our 6th survivor party, the weather unfortunately started our really wet and rainy, but it clear up during the day. 

Get ready for a picture overload, and a few comments along the way.

 The first competition was skiing, each team got 2 boards and some rope and had to walk from one end of the backyard to the other and back.

 Here they had to flip a blanket to the other side while all 3 of the were standing on it.

 Using a flyswatter as a racket, and a balloon as a ball. They had to get the balloon to one end of the backyard, switch player and back in the basket. If the balloon touched the ground they had to start over, though we had to change that, because it was too windy.

 Throwing cards at a watermelon, they only had to get one card to stick, but this one guy was really good at it and had to show of:)

 Hole in one... well getting a pencil in the bottle, but since we didn't want it to be too easy, each team had to have 2 players getting it in the bottle.

 Building a Lego car, one had to guide and one had to build. We ended up having to stand between them, because of course they tried to cheat looking over each others shoulders....

 Placing m&ms on top of a straw with another straw, this was guy actually super fast, the girl he competed with got none placed by the time he finished... maybe she was more drunk than him.

 Who could eat 10 crackers the fastest without drinking. Well two of the girls started spitting at each other, and were disqualified.

 3 finalist at the plank, though one guy didn't last long. He actually didn't get much of a chance to get up there, but as a referee you have to be strict, otherwise this last game will take way too long.

 The final 2, we ended having them stand on one leg, jump from one leg to the other etc.

 Here they had to touch the plank, and in the end she fell of and he won. It was actually the second time he won, he also won back in 2012.

 Celebrating with champagne...

And his very nice teammates throwing him in the pool. Well they were nice enough to let him get his pants of first.

All in all again another great survivor party, though thinking up new games is getting hard, so if anyone has any good suggestions please let me know!

A finished project

I have today off, and for once I really feel like I have got a lot done. This Saturday we are hosting our 6th annual Survivor Party, so Jonas and I started the day of getting our shopping done. When we got home we got things arranged, did a little cleaning and as I write the last load of laundry is being washed.

I also got around to take a picture of a cardigan I finished last week, though I haven't got around to wash it yet so it's rolling a bit, but I hope washing it will help. Sorry for the bad picture, this selfie thing just aren't something I'm good at. 

I have now started a new project, a blanket for Jonas. I bought a lot of cotton yarn when we were in Turkey, it was a bit cheaper than here. At first I thought the price was pretty much the same as a lot of yarn here, but the quality seemed a bit better. I wasn't until I got home I realised that it was 100 g balls, instead of the regular 50 g. So it was actually really cheap. 

The picture isn't the best, the colours are much better live, the part I have crocheted is more green.

Have a great day:)