January…wtf am I doing again?

Ok…so we’ve all had a December to be proud of. One of those of which we done very few of the fun festive family activities we convinced ourselves that THIS was the year we’d finally do them, but still done enough to know that a festive period was actually had. You know the ones I mean, all the ‘Buddy the Elf’ stuff…eating sugar plums, singing Christmas Carols, covering the house with handmade decorations that the family lovingly made together without anyone bursting into tears or storming away in a huff. Nevertheless, it was still a pretty good Christmas yeah?

We had the added Christmas treat of my 12 year old son, Ryan, slipping on ice, splitting his forehead open & being rushed to hospital in an ambulance. Cue the teary, panic attack-ridden mother filled with the guilt of 1) not being able to prevent such an accident & 2) the total abandonment of my job 1 week prior to my annual leave. Thankfully, Ryan is A-OK & is now rocking a nice Harry Potter-esq scar on his forehead that I’m sure he will use to his advantage in his early adulthood to captivate an audience with the tale.

So, now the turkey has been devoured, the bubbles have been sipped, we’ve all stopped saying ‘Happy New Year’ to anyone we come into contact with & the decorations have been shipped into storage for another 11(ish) months. Here we are, on the 6th of January in a brand new year, still in the festive hangover period where we fondly remember last week & are confused about whether or not we’re still allowed to consume the remaining Ferrero Rochers & After Eights hovering around the fridge. It is in this window of time we try to remember wtf our priorities were before we started gift wrapping everything in sight. What do I do as a job again? How do I work the hoover? What’s on a normal shopping list now I don’t have to buy Baileys every time I walk into Tesco? The moms of us start to produce lists upon lists of what needs to be taken care of & we look to the year ahead. Absolute nightmare!

Talking of the year ahead…I have some very specific, potentially life changing, aspirations for 2018. I’ve been speaking a lot about goals recently; it’s a strange thing that it can sometimes be easier to realise your goals by speaking them through with someone you hardly know than with those closest to you. I have had an excellent opportunity recently to work with Alexis Miller ‘The Creative Marketer’ and have the scope to figure out where I want to go & what I need to do to get there. Having a fresh perspective and some clarity can really be a positive step when you have goals to chase down. I will discuss these goals and how I plan on getting there throughout my series of blog posts. I’ll also be discussing various snippets of our family life, how to live in a house of boys and retain your sanity (albeit only just) and how to feed them too!

As promised, I will begin with the method for making my husband Shaun’s excellent Chicken Noodle Soup which you can make in your slow cooker. A bit of insight first on why; Shaun & I both pour over recipes online, in books and on some T.V. shows, change things around, we talk about food a lot & often cook together. Our meals together are anticipated by our kids (well…3 of them, the toddler is in his ‘picky eating’ phase- joy!), they talk about food with excitement and it has become part of our family life. That, and repeating ourselves constantly because, it would seem that the first four times we ask for hands to be washed or beds to be made, it doesn’t count. Shaun & I either cook together or take turns depending on the meal.

This one is Shaun’s…& it’s one of my favourites!

You could do this without using the slow cooker by sweating the onions, celery & garlic first in a little olive oil, cutting your chicken breasts into strips & frying for 30seconds before adding the rest of the ingredients as detailed below. Adjust your cooking times to 1.5 hours on a low heat before shredding your chicken etc as detailed below & a further 20 minutes before serving.