Measuring off another year!

In Icelandic, the word "afmaeli" which is loosely translated to "birthday", strictly means "to measure off"...  It's not so much about the day you were born, as how many years you have survived!

Today I have survived thirty nine years!  I've been telling people all day that I'm either celebrating my first 39th birthday, or my tenth 29th birthday!  In actual fact, I don't mind getting older.  I don't even feel as though the main part of my life has started yet, so far it feels a bit like dress rehearsals before the main production.  Of course, this would be completely scandalous to some people, because, well, today could be my LAST day of life, but to me, it just means the best is yet to come and I'm excited to see what that is before it's been pretty damn fine so far (despite my copious whinging over the past couple of years).

I thought, in celebration of today, and in preparation for the big 4 0 next year, I would write myself a bit of to do list.  A list of all the stuff I want to achieve before I turn 40.  My is calling it my bucket list, but there's not way I'm kicking the bucket in 365 days time!  Here it is...

1. read 40 novels
2. do a class/course at th wheelers centre
3. write two more novel precise
4. find an agent
5. finish my masters
6. paint a large painting and hang it
7. get some portrait photos taken of our family - including Dave!
8. go to a gold class cinema screening
9. spend at least one night away at a hotel with Dave
10. go to the beach
11. self publish a coffee table book of photos of things I love for me
12. get a short story/poem published
13. finish the colour on the boys tattoo
14. get Dave's tattoo
15. get the lotus tattoo
16. get a pedicure
17. track a copy of skólaljóð
18. join a writers group
19. join a book group
20. get an iPad
21. cook a roast (all by myself)
22. learn how to make a pavlova
23. buy 4 albums
24. learn how to sew (really simple stuff) on a sewing machine
25. crochet a granny square blanket
26. decorate my belly cast
27. get a 1 year subscription to Better Homes magasine (yes really)
28. go to the dentist
29. writer letters to all my children telling them all the things I would want them to know if I died
30. write a will
31. sort my jewelry and take better care of it (like a grown up)
32. get an all white manchester set
33. learn how to use a lawnmower
34. make mum's fruit and cream birthday cake
35. go to a musical
36. cut my hair super short and colour it something bold
37. volunteer
38. save $4000
39. learn how to download whole seasons of shows
40. write a 45 things before I turn 45 list 

I can already tick off #34, because as soon as I wrote the list, I rang mum and asked her for the recipe, and it turned out to the be the simplest thing around!

Three glass cake

This first photo is rather grainy because my five year old had been playing with my camera, and I didn't notice until after the cake was made.  Basically it shows the ingredients in the sponge, and measurements.  Take any three identical glasses, put 2 or 3 eggs in the first glass, and that'll give you the measure for the sugar (I used raw sugar) and the self-raising flour.  Then you whip the eggs and sugar together until they're light and fluffy and you slowly cut in the sifted flour.  Heavily grease a cake tin of your choice (I used a 25cm flan tin) and bake for as long as you'd normally bake a cake in that tin (for me it was 20-25 minutes).  Let the cake cool, and turn it out.  Decorate as your please.

I decorated my cake with fruit cocktail and whipped cream.  Alternatively, I could have put any single tinned fruit, or fresh fruit, or berries and cream.  I also pour some of the tinned juices over the sponge before topping it.  Then I let it sit in the fridge and settle.  It's so yummy on a hot day!!!

For fun (or because I'm quite insane), I decided to try and get a photo of the four boys TOGETHER today...  It took many crap shot to get a good one...  Luey didn't want to be in the photo at all - can you tell?

Come on, Luey, smile, you know you want to smile...

Erik, Ari, look at the camera!

Maybe this angle with work, Ari, look at mummy...

Aw, come on, you guys, SMILE!  Ari, look. at. the. camera!  Bryn, that is NOT a smile!

Nearly, just one more...  I promise it'll be the last one (if you just look at the damned camera and smile, pleeeease!)...

YES!  Finally!  Hurray!  Okay, it's not centred, and Luey isn't looking directly at the camera, but honestly, this is about as good as it gets these days...  Maybe we'll do better by the time I turn 40?