Here it is the meagre beginnings of collecting my copper coins to help the local school with their minibus. Not sure it'll buy much yet but its a start and its early days. All 1p and 2p coins are welcome so if anyone wishes to contribute please feel free, I'm hoping I'll soon need a new tin and lets face it what can those odd little bits in your purse do other than make them heavy and for men all they do is make holes in your pockets. On their own they don't get you much but put them together and hopefully we can help the school either keep their minibus on the road or start the fund for a new one. Mini buses and a must for schools, without them the children loose out on so much. Sometime ago I did a tandem parachute jump to help the school purchase the one they have now, I raised £500.00, I'd really like to raise a lot more this time, so come get rid of all those useless bits of shrapnel and those coins to good use. Anyone wanting to help can contact me through this blog via twitter or on Facebook. Well that's it appeal over I just hope it works.

Continuing on from my personal messages, I'm pleased to announce I have contacted 18 more Facebook friends. That's a grand total of 54, slow and steady wins the race, that's what I say. Another continuation is the recipe book. I actually tweeted the Hairy Bikers and told them what I'm doing with their book. That is I told them, and I quote 'Hi guys, challenged myself to cook every recipe from your Hairy Dieters book, Risotto last night a....ma...zing.' Well I couldn't exactly explain the whole 50 for 50 thing could I Twitter doesn't allow essays.  I keep checking but there's no reply yet, I hope they read it and are interested, just like I'm secretly hoping people are interested in reading this, otherwise what is the point of it all? Anyway to continue, two more recipes have been made and eaten. I had the crumpets for breakfast, yum yum another must do again, and for tea tonight we had the Italian style meatballs, (see pictures below). Everyone but one really enjoyed it, it was the carrots that put them off, they simply don't do them, never mind at least they gave them a go and I would definitely cook them again. 

There really is not much else to report for today other than I've remembered to take my daily photo and my elder son's girlfriend has looked to see when we can go and give blood. Looks like that is happening sometime in February. I'm thinking there will be quiet days when nothing much happens, which I suppose means there will be days when I either won't write much or won't write at all. I expect I'll just have 

Hey look my party accessory pack arrived! really pleased with it just a shame it arrived 3 days too late. Still, got plans to use it for a 50 for 50 event later in the year and as they say better late than never. It'll be a test to see who spots it on the blog, keep 'em peeled. Just one thing, I don't seem to have had a response to my email I sent the company as yet!

Moving on,  I started another one of the items on the list. For tea we had the first recipe from my chosen cook book. The cook book is The Hairy Dieters, not because as a family we are trying to loose weight but purely because it was bought for me for Christmas and as we haven't tried any of the recipes from it. Choosing one that I've not looked at or tried and tested some of the recipes before makes the task more interesting and lets face it this year was meant to test me at times. Besides that trying to emulate the food and make it actually make it look like the pictures without practising them first is not always easy unless your a fully qualified chef of course. Have a look at the photos and see if I met the challenge. 

And the families verdict is in on taste, yum yum yum. Thank you Si and Dave this one will become a family favourite.

What a birthday weekend! Friday, the actual day of my birthday, was planned out for me by my beautiful 6 year old Grandson. He decided that we had to have party games so with the other children (i'm a childminder for those of you don't know), we began with pass-the-parcel, quickly followed by musical bumps, statues and chairs. As with all 6 year olds, grown-up's watching and being in charge of the music just wasn't an option so in joined Nanna J, me and Amie. It was a real kids party atmosphere which suited me just fine as I must be one of the biggest kids around. 
Checking my Facebook page throughout the day gave me the perfect opportunity to begin ticking off one of my 50 for 50 items. Messaging each person individually is time consuming but so much more personal and satisfying. The trouble or not, depending on your point of view, with Facebook is that although you can reach so many more people than say a phone call it does seem impersonal. You could say, kind of faceless. What do i mean? well you sit there with an electronic piece of paper writing a post about your inner most thoughts, what your eating, that your about to go to bed but you don't address it to anyone in particular. It goes out into the big wide cyberspace world for all to see. Where am i going with this, she is waffling, digressing just mumbling on i hear you say, but no i'm not.  I had mentioned that there was s reason behing the things i chose to put on my list and that i'd explain those reasons as i went along, well that was my reason for messaging each of my Facebook friends, to make a special effort to make sure my friends all mean something to me, mean enough for me to take time to 'speak' to them individually rather than with blanket responses. By the end of 
Saturday night i had sent a personal response or message to 37 of my friends, oh and one blanket message to apologise to anyone i hadn't got to yet, I know I know!
Two more items on my list, my web page and Blog go live. Not sure how or if this will be successful but they are on my list and complete them I must. I'm admit I've got a few reservations about this especially the Blog. Why I hear you say, well I'm not sure I've anything that interesting to say. What if no-one like what I've written? worse what if no-one actually visits it just once to decide if they like what I've written? Well I suppose there is only one way to find out. 
Taken daily photo starting on Friday of course. Note to self, must put daily reminder in phone to ensure I don't miss any on this or the ageing timeline I'm planning to create will not work and that will equal failure.
Saturday 12pm and our Grandson has gone home early so he can attend a family event with his mum, (Mum and Dad are not together anymore, but both are happy and what's more important is that he is happy). Anyway he goes home so the Cocktail party preparations begin in earnest. Oh no, the postman has just been and there is no sign of my party decorations pack I ordered. Wait a minute I ordered them to arrive Friday to be sure and they aren't here. Right think, what am I going to do? Check the confirmation email I recieved stating they had been dispatched on Monday 21st, yep they were, thought i'd got that one right. Next, phone the company to find out if there has been a problem. Ring ring, ring ring. 'Hello thankyou for calling ***********, I'm afraid there is no-one to take your call, our office is open Monday to Friday 9........' Now tell me if you think this is odd too, but this company deals with party supplies, parties mostly occur at the weekends but they do not open at weekends and there is no-one to help me with my problem. Of course I can send an email which they will respond to when the office re-opens Monday!! I take the opportunity to email them and politely but very firmly tell them my problem that I am unhappy with the service, think it's ridiculous that a company such as theirs doesn't have access to some-one for their customers at weekends. I end the email asking for a refund. I wait with baited breath for the reply. Ok so what am I going to do, ah yes the internet, ok I know its let me down big time once this week already but I can surely download some pictures and images related to the 60's to decorate my home with for the party, yes that's what I'll do. Knock knock the front door, oh yes this is brilliant my eldest son's girlfriend has just arrived and she loves arts and crafts. She doesn't even get one foot in the door before I give her a job to do, poor girl, readers you have my permission to feel sorry for her I do. I set her to work making psychedelic tissue paper flowers.
Flowers, pictures, quiz and other images done blue tac'd to the wall crisis averted.  Floors are moped, tables arranged, glasses polished and set out, cocktail shakers, swizzle sticks, umbrellas etc, cocktail ingredients all set up, Canapés lovingly made by My eldest who happens to be a chef and nuts all set out and the specially selected music is on. Time for a shower and change and wait for the other guests to arrive, family members are here already. 7pm let the party begin. Everyone gets a glass of my own specially created cocktail, the nifty fifty, I thank everyone for coming and get the party going. The evening is brilliant everyone has a great time, the adults enjoy  a variety of cocktails they make themselves, the children create their own using a selection of fruit juices and the canapés go down well. the quiz not an easy one so I'm told by several of the guests and looking round the room and the varying degrees of puzzled looks on faces I think they maybe right. We go through the answers and we have a tie. Two groups get 20/40, didn't expect that one help I need a tie-breaker question. Andrew my long suffering husband comes up with one ' During the world cup of 1966 the cup was stolen, what was the bread of dog that found the cup?' 'Jack Russell' comes the reply from one team, they win a bottle of bubbly. 
The party goes on till about 1.30 when the last of the remaining guests make their way to bed I finally drift off about 2.30. What a brilliant night, thank you everyone for making it so special for me, I hope you all had as good a time as I did.
Sunday morning and I'm awake at 6am, just three and half hours sleep, not sure I'll last the day. Everyone starts waking up and wandering through by about 7 so the big clear up begins, sides are cleared in the kitchen so breakfast can be done, croissants, hot cross buns or raisin toast on offer this morning. People start leave for their drive home and ll comment on what a lovely time they have had, I'm so pleased, it was a success even with the hiccups. I quite fancy doing it again! Clean up done, I won't bore you with the details of that other than to say I'm finding party popper bits where I didn't expect to find them. The rest of the day i quiet, restful and very very relaxing.

Below are a few of the photos from the cocktail party enjoy!

Well this is it, the big birthday. 50 years old today and I don't feel any different from any other day of the year. Right now that's a good thing, I'm fit and active so long may these unchanged feelings last. Just in-case they don't I'm planning to make the most of this year and celebrate this 'big birthday', as everyone around me keeps calling it, by doing 50 things for 50 years. Writing this blog and creating the website are two things on my list. the challenge for me will be keeping up the momentum to complete my list. Some things are booked because they are date specific but others are gong to be fitted in as and when they can be arranged. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family and friends in advance for helping me with this upcoming year and all the events, hopefully it will be fun and a year that will show there are no excuses for putting off those things in life you've always wanted to do no matter how small or big a task they be.
 
As I complete a task or event they will appear in red so it will be easy to track my progress, those in blue have been started or dates booked for them to take place.

Here is the list, my 50 for 50 list.

1)Go and watch a real football match. 
2) See the local Christmas light switch on 
3) Go to local canal day. 
4) Host a cocktail party where everyone brings the ingredients for their favourite cocktail.  26/1/13
 5) Have a cocktail made and named after me. 26/1/13
6) Go to at least one charity bingo nights. 
7) Adventure day at somewhere like go ape. 
8) Send an individual message to every friend I have on Facebook. 
9) Visit a town in England I have never been to before. 
10) Visit the natural history and war museums in London. 
11) Find and make contact with a school friend I haven't seen for over 25 years. 
12) Go to the races. 
13) Go to a Shakespeare play. 
14) Take dance lessons. 
15) Go to a music festival. 
16) Do a charity moonlight walk or similar. 
17) Choose a cookery book and cook every recipe in it. 
 18) Create my own web page. 
19) Write a Blog of my 50 for 50. 
20) Give blood. 
21) Plant a tree. 
22) Read all three 50 shades of grey books. 
23) Give a talk to a group.
 24) Take out life insurance. 
25) Save all my 1p and 2p coins for a year and give to charity. 
26) Buy a something to eat and drink for a homeless person rather than passing them by. 
27) Have a professional photo shot done. 
28) Have my make up professionally applied and then learn to do it myself .
29) Spend a weekend in the country with my husband.
 30) Have a go at a winter sport like ski-ing .
31) Try sailing. 
32) Go horse riding. 
 33) Visit Bruge Christmas ice sculptures festival. 
34) Decorate a room in my house and have it 100% complete. 
35) Create a calendar girl style calendar. 
36) Have something published. 
37) Register with the organ donor bank. 8/2/13
38) Do the Local circular walk. 
39) Trace my family tree. 
40) Take a photo of myself every day and create a time line of it. 
41) Work in a professional kitchen for a day. 
42) knit baby hats for local maternity unit. 
43) Volunteer at Katherine House Hospice. 
44) Have a girly day doing girly things. 
45) Visit all the squares on the monopoly board. 
46) Go to Hyde park winter wonderland.
47) Do something on impulse. 
48) Eat at a restaurant owned by a top chef. 
49) Get a mention on tv or radio.
50) Left to my family and friends to shock, surprise and/or entice me!!!!!!