Secret – or not so secret – Santa

Posted in Christmas, work by

This was totally a success. My recipient is eating a pack of noodles as I type and is so happy 🙂 with both the joke and the gift.

I received this from Sarah P – love the poppies. It’s a DMC kit & I will swap out the aida for linen. #BK546

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My boss is a bit of a jovial round sort of fellow. Hard to buy for, as if he wants it he’ll just pick it up. Equally wary at gift giving time is T, our head of Marketing. Usually she gets crayons and colouring books (regift alert!). But this year F’s very happy with his gift! While T’s is a variation on the theme…

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and I just got a $50 Bendon Lingere gift card from a supplier. Clearly I didn’t work hard enough to p*ss them off this year! Or maybe I did? I’ll never know.

Officially

Posted in Christmas, work by

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I’m 22% nice. That seems awful low!

http://socialsanta.co to check yourself out (you have to have a Twitter logon).

Proper post later on today if I get a (shareable) Secret Santa present. My person will be exasperated – I brought them a plant pot, pottery Sage tag, sage seeds and a gardening notebook (their new hobby) but I only had two boxes at home. One was about 5mm too small, and the other was far too big. I didn’t have much packaging material to make sure it doesn’t get broken, so I improvised.

She’ll also have 20 odd packs of chicken flavoured Two Minute Noodles. As one person said, completely non PC, she’s Asian, she might appreciate them more than the actual gift.

 

 

Deep Thoughts

Posted in Uncategorized by

Oh so funny. Smile peeps! You all know someone that you could have used a line like this on!

Deep Thoughts

If you’re an astronaut and you don’t end every relationship by saying “Look, I just need space,” then you’re wasting everyone’s time.

12 Days Project Update

Posted in 12 Days of Gifting, photos, travel by

Si is now looking for the gifts. Only took a few days! Today’s is a photo frame with four openings. I had initially planned to have one shot of each of the kids holding up a word but put that aside as being a bit naff – plus he’d never display it! I quickly printed out four shots he liked from our recent trip to New South Wales:

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Wollongong Harbour (with the old lighthouse, he made several comments about the construction as we walked around it. You can take the engineer out of the workshop but…actually, you can’t take the engineer out!)

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The post office at Kiama

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Nobby’s Surf Life Saving Club at Newcastle

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The WWII memorial at RAAF Rathmines

I wrote a quick note on the gift tag that he should choose what he wants printed. Will be interesting to see what he does pick!

Last night I went with B & M to St Lukes mall. It was empty. As in, no queues in the food court nor in any shop except the supermarket. We rocked thru the place. Like most people in retail, I’m waiting for the Christmas rush. As with summer, it’s not yet hit us (one retailer reported a huge rise against last December in thermal clothing (!!!). What’s it like in your part of the world?

And finally – my friend M and her hubby M need your prayers. They are seeing consultants regarding recurrent miscarriages; as a mum I can’t imagine being without my children and (usually) regard them as both inevitable and a blessing. I never, EVER thought that I wouldn’t be a mum and my heart hurts so much for them. Thank you all – I pray in turn that you feel absolutely blessed as you pray for M&M.

Oh, I wish it was still NaBloPoMo!

Posted in family, Journal, me, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

the subtitle could be: Hard evidence that I haven’t planned any blogging!

Blog. Posting has slowed down a bit. I’m looking forward to Myfanwy’s prompts for January, but I wish she would publish them now so I can write them down and feel like I’ve planned a bit! Hint hint! I think however I will plan a third theme day into every week; I’m sure you would love to know what I’m reading/watching. Right?

I’m under more than a little pressure. Christmas dinner won’t be at mine this year, which means I have to transport numerous cooked and chilled items plus kids plus presents. Presents are actually no excuse; let’s face it, I can take them up to the SIL’s as soon as they are wrapped. Kids? I have to take them with me anyway, it’s the law. Food? This is where I need to sit down and plan carefully with the others. Let’s hope for good weather so we can eat outdoors!

Work is messy – I am putting off about 30 minutes of ick by writing this post. However I’ve told myself that once done, I can go to Kings Plant Barn & get my secret Santa present. Carrots again. Points if I don’t come home without something for me! Only 66 store emails when I peeped at that inbox earlier today. Ugh.

Craft. In the light of day 100 stitches seems nothing! But over the course of the year this is one area where I have done better than planned (in some areas – I didn’t complete 12 TW smalls, just three, although Stretch was one of them) and I didn’t touch Tapestry Cat (which I do want to see finished and I’m glad I didn’t pass onto a FB “friend” to do, as she turned out to be a complete liar) but my TUSAL jar is nearly chockablock (photo on the 31st!) and will stuff an ornament easily. Stitchers reading this will know about TUSAL and smile. FYI I set myself up with the large Moconna jar so was quite ambitious. I also didn’t keep up with all the surface embroidery techniques but I am happy I went to the class & want to do some more next year. Maybe start a little simply and chain/satin over an existing print to personalise cushion covers?

Pintrest. I’m itching to do a few things but these will have to wait for my leave in late January. Me and the sewing machine have a date, and by the end of the week I’ll have an amazing outdoor table plus covered seat. I love Pintrest; it’s a huge time waster but oh so gorgeous. Lots of funny things too. Amazing recipes, beautiful things. House envy sometimes!

I suppose I can share that there is a reason why I have the blahs. The Screaming Teen (who can be known as The Only Teen for another 15 months) did something incredibly stupid. And illegal. And has shocked the sh*t out of me, to say the least. I find it really, really hard to even hold a conversation with him, I’m that angry at his blasé /victim attitude. I’ll get over it, I have to; but he really took the shine out of his school award and behaviour. At home he now has all the chores that Z would do on top of his own and is grounded for the summer, with no access to anything electronic, including FB and his phone. Yes, I know it’s now the end of the world as he knows it, but he doesn’t seem to care! And to think everyone told me girls were awful as teenagers…they lied. Praying that Tough Love works as I don’t know what else. Boarding School?

Feeling grateful

Posted in 12 Days of Gifting, grateful, Nora Corbett by

No matter how blah I feel, I’m not like one of my poor gouramis. He’s bloated! Concensus is its because he’s greedy and swallows air when he feeds, so everyone is on a 48hr fast. Tomorrow they get de-shelled peas. Hopefully that deflates Captain Ego quickly.

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I also managed to get some stitching done. Maybe around 100 stitches and I had to frog a bit, but I’m happy to be stitching with minimal pain. Photo on Wednesday!

Also Si kept playing with his Batman ornie, and loved his gift today. Sucess!

Still got the blahs

Posted in Christmas, family by

Altho Si took us walking today. We started to explore the Manukau Coastal walkway, doing a bit from Mangere village to Wakaraka Cemetery.

The weather held off and it was a good way to blow out some cobwebs.

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Love that the Pohutukawa is finally flowering. It’s also known as the New Zealand Christmas tree and grows around most of the shoreline.

Si is busy ignoring his first present 😦 I might just spend gift #2 on myself escaping!

I’ve got the blahs

Posted in photos, Project Life by

Or as I said to a group on fb, cantbearseditis. Rarely fatal, boy is it lingering today. Nearly eight at night and I’m only now posting?
I did do some catch up on December Daily last night. Re-reading the kids lists made me laugh. And three of the Twelve Days presents are good to go. That’s satisfying.

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