Stop whining: 5 good things

• I moan a lot about my day job (8 hours a week of mostly data capture), but I have a semi-regular freelance gig that’s a complete treat. I write blog posts for a software firm about architecture – everything from mid-century houses to apartments from film or TV. I get to spend time reading and learning about design, and playing with their very clever 3D models. So much fun, and I heard recently that they get an excellent response to my posts, which makes me feel clever.
• Life hack for very lazy people who kind of think they should maybe make an effort to look more presentable: wear a necklace! A while ago I decided to try wearing actual Outfits again instead of just clothes – mommy life has not been kind to my style, such as it is. After a while I realised the main change was just adding a necklace to whatever sloppy T-shirt and jeans I would have worn anyway. But it helps so much. I hear belts can work similar magic, for those of you with waists, and throw cushions are the decor equivalent. Accessories, people. Who knew? Certainly not me, with my irrational but longstanding resentment of ornament without function. (Looking good is a function. It turns out.)

• I’ve started an RPG with my kids (& A when he’s around) and although it’s pretty hard work keeping the 4yo engaged,  we all love it. I might finally be learning to have fun with my kids? Which according to a childless woman I once met was my whole problem.
• Ever since we moved in I’ve been complaining loudly about the absolute shittiness of my Tupperware shelf. Small and high up – getting tubs in/out is always a hassle and far too often results in everything crashing down around me. But I couldn’t find anywhere else to accommodate them in our titchy kitchen. FINALLY a solution occurred to me (involving disposal of a couple of much abused frying pans that really aren’t ever going to be used again) and I am feeling tremendously pleased with myself for being a grown-up and solving my tedious hausfrau problem that should have been solved four years ago BUT STILL.
• The heat has finally broken, and M’s best friend is back from holidays, and the last two weeks of school hols should be a bit easier than the past two.

Nos 29 & 30 of #52recipes: this “potato and summer squash torte“, which I would basically call a gratin, and made with zucchini because what the hell is summer squash anyway. The kids did not approve. Also an attempt at peanut butter brownies that started with this – purely because I had only one egg and this is the most promising recipe I found when googling “one egg brownie recipe”. It all went horribly wrong at the point where I added the egg – I think because, being “helped” by a hyperactive 4yo, I foolishly added the egg before the sugar and it basically scrambled. I mixed in half a tub of peanut butter (instead of marbling as intended) and hoped for the best. It came out as a kind of peanut butter brownie crumble. Not what I was going for at all, but with ice cream it made Armin very happy, which was the main idea.