Birthdays Are Coming

Birthdays are the most wonderful sorts of days, only surpassed by Christmas Eves in which everybody joins in the excitement. When I was little Birthdays meant wearing a badge on your blazer to school proclaiming your new age. Birthdays were for friends for tea and a party at the weekend in the village hall. They were, quite literally, for jelly and ice cream and musical statues. I hear from friends with little ones about extravagant events and if that’s the way its going, I’m sure my nephews would think I lived in utter poverty with just a game of pass the parcel and party songs which were solely meant for twirling to.


It is TH’s Birthday soon and this year it falls during the Easter weekend. We are having about ten people over and I’d love to do a really pretty theme. I hope to have the house covered in pastel colours and hopefully it will be a nice weekend as we plan to have a BBQ. The kids can be entertained with an egg hunt, and the grown ups entertained by some pretty drinks! I’ve got these cute little glasses and some of those paper straws I’ve seen everywhere. I also bought some Happy Birthday bunting and I think you get really sweet paper plates etc. now so I will get those too. Hmmm, I just need to get a present, eek!

Christmas Commandments

1. I will not buy great big presents because I feel bad for not visiting people enough.
This is something I do an awful lot of. I forgo visiting good friends and having a wonderful time with them, I undoubtedly feel bad about it and try to make up for it with expensive and elaborate presents. This is ridiculous and a punishment to yourself twice over. It is silly and not something that I’m doing this year….hopefully. I have another little post in a wee while once my project is finished that I can show off. It’s the first make this year and although it is little I’m quite excited as it is going to be made by TH and myself together.

2. I will give what I believe is appropriate and not what others expect.
Every year there is a friend of a friend of a friend who comes to a party that we receive a present from and in turn give something back. I would never dream of giving any gift that is not intentionally mean for that person. They like books and are allergic to perfume, you don’t get them perfume, you get them a book, right? Wrong! This person continually gives inappropriate gifts and in turn complains out loud at whatever you give them. I know that I should have the strength of character to deal with this and put a stop to it, however I am aiming this year to have the strength of character to not put up with this charade.

3. I will not attempt to live up to a Disney fantasy.
We all love the Christmas movies, but attempting to live our the perfect blazing pudding scene when you have had very little sleep is silly if not dangerous.

4. I will not organise ‘fun’.
This mostly leads on from commandment number three. I love Christmas for many reasons and one of those is that you get to play silly games which normally you wouldn’t entertain. This is wonderful…however, it does not make or break the day. This is a lesson I had to learn from last year where I was much too tired to go to Christmas Markets. TH got horribly ill and rushed away by the Drs and we still attempted to visit every fare in the region. Its not important. Its not one bit important at all, so I will not give it the time of day. I will give the time of day to other things which leads nicely on to..

5. I will know what it is about.
You may not be religious or have a Christian faith, but I do and I know what Christmas is to me. I know what it was to me when I was younger and that’s what I want it to be about now.
You may know that it is about family. You may know it is about friends. You may know its about charity. You may know it’s the only time you can eat until bursting point. As long as you go into it, as long as you go into anything with something good in your heart, that’s ok. That means you’ve got it. It can be any number of things or none of those at all, but as long as you go forward knowing that its not ok to be put down or stressed or in any way upset then that’s when you’ve got it.

Moving the Stress

Moving is super stressful…(for me)FACT. Christmas is (sometimes) stressful…FACT. What makes these two things less stressful? Prep! Failing to prepare is preparing to run around the house shouting at people who are trying to help then falling into a corner and crying.

I can’t magic any of this to be less stressful, but we’re trying to do everything we can to make the new house as homely as possible in December. I do not want to be stuck in a rut at Christmas of all times.

We do have the new house to ourselves as we try to get the worst of it sorted. There is an awful lot that is to be considered under the banner “the worst of it” which we are trying to get our teeth into now. This means that technically we can move some possessions over in the run up to move in day, but we really have to get the whole place painted, bits of it papered and then get some carpets down too.

Our hope is that I can tidy away the last tenant’s belongings (part of the reason this is working out to be a good deal is the time involved) and move some things that I wouldn’t normally need.

When it has not been stressful, and when we feel that we have done an awful lot and sit down for a wee rest we look into the crackling fire or take our cup of tea out to the garden to get a better view of the forest.  This picture is at the houses quite near to us, so although just about a mile away...they'll be our closest neighbors! We walk around and breathe. We don’t just breathe to survive, we take great gulps of fresh air. We sigh and stamp our feet in the cold. And we can’t wait to be in for real.

Holidays are Coming

The other day I set out for lunch time like any other day. We’re allowed to take lunch between 12-2 and we can take the whole two hours if we want to, just as long as we make up the time. On Thursdays I normally go to the lunch time concert at the Art Gallery which is a building beautiful beyond belief and has always been my place of calm whether physically there or whilst meditating when getting a reiki. Anyway….i set out to get to my concert in time when what did I see?

The coca-cola lorry! THE holidays do start when I see that advert. Oh that and the Irn Bru one, the John Lewis one……..
This has to mean the beginning of Christmas. I can’t wait to start seeing all of the other things that mean we’re well and truly in the jolliest season.

Welcome November

November time again and I find myself wondering where the year went. The jumpers have been brought out and freshened up from their exile on top of the wardrobe. There are so many pretty cosy things in the shops right now that it’s easy to stay warm and stylish in this weather. I find the prettiest clothes are always found in shops in the colder months, but then again if I could get off with cropped t-shirts and mini skirts I might think differently.
November is a busy time at home normally as the imagination has to be put into overdrive attempting to think up meals with the odd things found in the second freezer we’re trying to empty for Christmas food making an appearance. It’s busy as I never make enough gifts to give out and need to buy-and so this is the last month to realistically do shopping too.

November this year is quite different as we are moving. We need to be in the new place by the time our first advent calendar door is opening up and this means that our Christmas time stress has just been squared!

I hope you are all having a much better time pottering around and getting your lovely crafts sorted.

We are Moving

We have had an awful lot of going back and forth, but we have finally decided that we are going to move house. I am someone who is totally averse to change and as we don’t hate the place we’re in, that’s a good enough reason for me to want to stay. We have, however, been given an amazing opportunity and the chance to live in an area that I’ve been in love with since I found it.

There is going to be a little bit more stress attached to this move, as we only have the month of November to sort out two houses. The new one needs the walls to be plastered and skimmed throughout, sanded down and painted, there needs to be carpets put on floors and other floors buffed and polished. There are various cupboards that need fixing and an awful lot of tidying. The old house-where we live now-needs to be put back the way we found it which isn’t really a lot, but its an awful lot that needs packed up.

AND BREATHE….

TH has holidays to use up and so will use plenty of those to get everything in order. I have half a day to last me until the end of the year and so will not be following suit.

I can’t wait to get my laptop sorted and share some pictures with you. Its been broken for so long its really annoying as I have so many already, but time marches on and they become less relevant all the time!

Anyway-lots of change and impending stress soon….hope things are brighter where you are!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I still do the occasional shift at my old job in the big black and orange DIY store. It is good for pin money, discount and I have a lot of good friends there.

Apart from it being a place for me to get good value garden things round about this time of year it becomes a good place for me to see Christmas things!

I know that it is annoying when shops do this, I completely agree that starting to doll the place up in glitter and glitz this many weeks before Christmas makes it water down the excitement that you do get.

However when it first appears and it does look sparkly and new it is quite nice, and normally made better because if you do get one small thing from the pile of decorations and fairy lights it makes you feel very organised and smug!

I have been working the last couple of days because of all of the people taking time off while their little ones are on holiday and now is the time that I am seeing all of these decorations being put on the shelves.

I'm even prematurely congratulating myself because I have been earning a little extra and have not yet blown budgets when I leave shopping until the last minute! Hmmm shall we wait and see how long this lasts!

I'll be standing in line...

The line for the Christmas panto tickets will be round the building, so I'll have to get there early.  The tickets for Christmas Eve sell out very quickly, and if you have a lot of tickets to buy its even harder.  So instead of opening up my advent calender on December first, i will shoot out of the door and head right on into town.  It also means that I'll be there early enough that it wont be horrible trodding around town collecting parcels and ribbon.