Angel Jem's City Cottage

The To Do List  by  Mike Gayle My rating:  4 of 5 stars How do you go about finishing off your to do list? All those annoying little things like the damp patch on the ceiling and the squeaking door? How about (if you're a writer) give yourself a finite amount of time to get it done and get a book deal via your agent to make the effort worth the while? Essentially that is what Mike Gayle does. He writes his list out (all 1277 items)and sets himself a deadline; by his 37th birthday he will have finished. This book sits very nicely on the shelf with the other 'so long to do this' books, like  The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible or Gretchen Rubins books,  Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life and  The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight R...

I love my husband, I really do, and we have had fun in the past with meals out, presents, weekends of lurve and all sorts of things, but gradually we have settled down about Valentines Day. I mean, really, I know he loves me and I love him and we do this ALL YEAR ROUND and I know a lot of people really enjoy making a fuss of Valentines Day with presents and stuff, but we are too overburdened with STUFF. The past few years Mr Angel Jem and me (I?) have been striving to do more without adding more. No massive piles of gifts, no extravagant gestures of balloons, flowers or anything that suddenly shoots up in price at this time of year. No, we don't buy a card. Mr AJ bought a really lovely one about 3 years ago, it;s perfect, and I like it. It comes out every year and that is really all I need, card wise. And I make him a card. Last years was marzipan covered with chocolate. The year before I made cupcakes and we all enjoyed them. This year it was a sample card for a Guides cra...