½ cup cocoa powder
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
⅛ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon vanilla

Mix the cocoa and the water in a saucepan. Heat and stir to dissolve the cocoa. Add the sugar, and stir to dissolve. Boil for 3 minutes over medium heat. Add the salt and the vanilla. Let cool. Pour into a sterile glass jar, and store in the refrigerator. Keeps for several months. Yields two cups.

Nothing could be easier than that eh? Anyone know one for chocolate spread (without nuts – we’re not allergic but my son likes the pure chocolate rather than the nutty kind.)

I stumbled across another one today My Verbosity – it’s just all sorts of posts, nothing too heavy.  I’m sure there are a lot of them about.

I’d much rather  dot about the web these days than flick about with the TV remote control – I’ll leave that to my husband. He seems very attached to it and not inclined to give it up since we replaced our 22″ screen with a 37″ LOL One of these days we might even advance to cable …

I only know this because we are redoing one bathroom and have just fitted another and the planning stage is again taking longer than I expected. Sometimes more choice is not a good thing.

You know how it goes, if I fit in a vessel sink with waterfall faucet will I have room for the stone bath? I I squeeze a bit from the area around the toilet to fit in that super duper double curved shower will I still be able to sit down on it?

Anyway luckily there is loads of information out there on sinks, bathtubs, shower fittings and everything in between to help – but you need a month of Sundays to get through it all.

But I actually found it quite funny as I have two kids and hadn’t heard of any of the stuff. It seems to have only been invented recently for people with too much money and not enough sense.

Mind you we even had too much stuff 19 years ago when my first child was born and the things which proved useful were far from the things you thought you would need day in day out.

Most useful was a hubbie who liked caring for his son as much as I did and gave me a lot of rest when I needed it. It’s a pity you can’t buy one of these for all new mothers.

Not sure exactly what  would use this utility for, but if I don’t make a note of it I’m sure down the line I’ll be looking for a pink photo or something and I’ll wish I had!

Of course, that’s not to say that the weather will cooperate. It rarely does that here. It’s no good saying I’ll have a barbecue on Friday unless you are prepared to have it in your house.  And even if it’s Friday and the weather is fine, who is to say in a few hours time it won’t pour down.

But this summer has to be fine I have decided because I am about to invest  in a new patio set (and the prices of garden furniture means that invest is the right word – at least my bank thinks so). White plastic will no longer do. I want something substantial and made of wood like proper grown up garden furniture. But I’m using a buying checklist for my garden furniture purchase and making sure that I don’t overpay with this article on comparing prices for patio sets.

Well, we’ll see if that makes a difference. In any case I don’t want it to rain too much on my new garden furniture purchase once I make it!

Course the weather here doesn’t help – it’s either not sunny enough or I forget to water everything in a sunny spell because the rain usually does it for me!

Still, I’m going to have a go with a few more herbs this summer so this post will remind me where to look for help

I have a house I’ve lived in quite a few years with some horrendous curtains which I haven’t managed to replace yet. Big windows are great for light but not so great when it comes to paying for window coverings.

So I made a note of these sites which talk about how to choose window curtains and save money in the process and how to choose window valances. (Because if I’m going to spend money on these curtains they have to look spectacular without breaking the bank).  I really didn’t think there was so much to think about so the checklists there will be handy. They don’t have curtains or valances for sale – they are just guides – but I will probably buy locally anyway if I can find what I want.

You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.

Given that I have put on a few pounds lately it hit home a little.

Seriously we ought to look after our bodies a lot more than we do. Why is it only when they go wrong that most of us even think about them?

I definitely don’t think about mine when I am downing a delicious glass of wine or a large slice of chocolate cake.

On second thoughts, maybe it’s as well we don’t think about our bodies the whole time. I’m sure we wouldn’t be the happier for it.

Just take a look at this reading test and see what you think. I expect you can read it too.

How do we do that? Maybe it’s just the shape of the words that we recognize or we see what we are expecting to see or something. Anyway I thought it was funny and interesting when I stumbled across it today.

I’d also like to know how that differs from what someone sees if they have dyslexia. Anyone know?