HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANTE, AND MOSAIC GROUP CHRISTMAS GET TOGETHER

 

HAPPY 13TH BIRTHDAY TO DANTE!

WE HOPE YOU HAVE A FABULOUS DAY.

LOVE YOU YOUNG MAN.

Gosh the lead up to Christmas this year is busy for me!

I have another Christmas get together today, this time in Cambridge.  The mosaic girls are meeting up for morning tea at 'Cs' home.  I am sure we will all enjoy that.

After morning tea, I will be coming home to sew up this lot:

ABOVE:  Two runners ready for the stitching phase.  That will take me the rest of the day I'm picking.

1/46 pm.  As you can imagine, I've had a fairly busy morning.

I sewed for a little while, then went over to Cambridge for our get together.

ABOVE: There was a nice bunch of us today, and we had a nice time.

ABOVE: Some nice views of 'C's garden, which is stunning.  It is full of mosaic ideas, and I'd like to try my hand at the balls and square planter next year.

ABOVE: on my way home I stopped at Bower Bird and got a few more blues and greens for wave runners.

After that I went to the post office and posted things to VICKIE...  I hope you get them!

Crazy time of the year to be posting anything really, but hopefully it gets there.

Now?  Lunch, then back into the sewing room.

5.17 pm, and Stew just arrived home, nice an early as we are going to Steve 'n' Bex's for Dante's Birthday dinner.

So, no WW tonight.  Just as well, I've gained at least 2 kilos.  I'm going back on Trulicity tonight!

That experiment did not work.  All I've thought about since going off it is... FOOD! 

ABOVE: Dante chose a very yummy Christmas Caramel Smash Cake.  It was bloody delicious.  Bex sent me home with some left over cake... I might have to divvy it out to myself over the next few days.  Just a tiny bit each day shouldn't hurt right?  😂

ABOVE: After Dante blew out the candles, I thought the little smoke swirl was awesome. 

We are home now, and I've had me injection... so hopefully that kicks in fast.  While I thought it wasn't being effective lately, without it altogether I'm bloody hopeless.

There's just too many goddam temptations at this time of year eh?  I really need to work on my WON'T power.

Perhaps that cake will be shared with my neighbours.  😊 

Time to sign off for the day, I need to put my feet UP.  I'll show you what's happened to them tomorrow.

CRAFT GROUP CHRISTMAS LUNCH

YEP, I slept in!

But I am up now, and rearing to go.

I'm going to spend a bit of time in Crabby Quarters cutting out more strips for more Blue Wave Runners.

I  want to have at least two more ready for next Saturday's market. 

It is our Craft Group's Christmas lunch today, so I am being picked up at 11 am by one of the village ladies.  Car pooling today, which is really nice.

After that I'll continue working on cutting out strips, until I feel I've got enough colours ready to go.

ABOVE:  Yesterday afternoon ... these kids enjoying keeping cool in their paddle pools.  It certainly was a hot day.  I'm bloody tempted to get myself a paddle pool as well.  I wonder if Coco would enjoy it too?

Hmmm.

ABOVE:  The red Table Topper on 'Hs' dining table, she also bought a small blue/teal/green runner for her coffee table.  She was so happy with her choices yesterday.  

Right, I'm off to do some work. Catch ya later.

1.35 pm, and I'm just in from our lunch, which was very nice.

Lot's of happy chatting going on, and very yummy food.

Now though, I'm straight back into the sewing room to continue making wave runners.  

I've got one half laid out, so maybe in an hour or so I will be onto the sewing part.

GREAT NEWS!  Stew has a date for his knee replacement surgery.

March the 5th, at Braemar Hospital here in Hamilton.

Just three months to wait, which is excellent.

I'm sure I can keep myself from throttling him until then.  😂😅😏

There's three options to get this operation done.

1.  Have private health Insurance and get it done privately and it doesn't cost you much at all.

We had health insurance years ago, but Stew was made redundant for a year and that was one of the first things that had to go.

Once he was re-employed, the health insurance was prohibitive because we (by then) had some health issues, which made it too expensive.  It is STILL too expensive given our health issues.

2.  Go on the public waiting list, which would take anything from 18 months - two YEARS.  And even then it wasn't a given he would get it done.

3.  Pay for it ourselves, and get it done privately.  Which is what we are doing.  It is a HUGE HUGE expense, only made possible because we downsized and have some savings.

As for me not being a 'Crabby Nurse' while caring for Stew during his recovery... anyone can come and give me relief ... ANYTIME you want.   😂  Home baking, meals etc happily accepted!  

'Baby sitting' the man so I can go out shopping also accepted.   "JOKING"  ON THE BABY SITTING.  Stew just took exception to that. lol

10.39 pm, end of the day.  I'm ready for bed, catch ya tomorrow.

A NEW TO US MARKET TODAY

 

Today we are off to a market we have not been to before.

ABOVE:  It's here in Hamilton, being the Hamilton Farmers Market, combined with  Christmas Craft stalls 'on the side'.  I think they do it every year?  Dunno.

All I know is we got invited to attend, so attend we shall.

ABOVE: "No Mum, I did not go outside and eat grass" ... said no Coco ever.

Funny how the 'evidence' tells a different story.

And with that little funny... we are off to market.

We are expecting Steve, Bex and the children to visit us at this one too, which will be lovely.

ABOVE: Sunrise at Claudelands Showgrounds.

ABOVE: We got to watch the Hamilton balloon go up too.

ABOVE: Phew... for some reason set up took us way longer than usual. But we got there eventually.  

It's now 8.11 am and people are slowly arriving...

10.23 am and wow. We are doing very well today. Selling across the board too. 

And 2 returning customers from other markets we've been to as well. And one lady is coming to our market next weekend to get another runner,  cos she ran outta money buying some today. Lol. 

ABOVE: A couple of lovely tourists, visiting New Zealand for 10 days, and they made a bee line for that runner!  They were lucky, because I'd already sold the other big Blue Wave Runner.

They were thrilled with it, and took a photo of me with it too.  😊

ABOVE: The kids did indeed visit us, which was so nice.  I love it when family visit us at a market.

Today's sales total is not over yet... I have to take three square table toppers down to a lady who lives in our village, as she couldn't make up her mind which one would suit her dining room table.  I will take them down for her to see them on her table later on this afternoon, once it's cooled down a bit.

Already, without the added sale this afternoon, today's market was VERY, VERY GOOD!

We didn't expect it to be as profitable as it was tbh.  We are really happy, it makes getting up at 5.30 am worth it. 

4.10 pm, and we've been out to Spotlight so I could buy more BLUE fabric!  Just for the sashings and bindings of Blue Wave Runners, that obviously I need to make over the next few days.  Then we went over to Steve 'n' Bexs and brought home all my batting, now that I have a shelf for it.

Now... relax for a little while, before I head down to see my neighbour who wants a table topper.

 

I didn't tell you about the guy who turned up at the market JUST before it closed, and did most of his Christmas shopping at our stall.   He was looking and looking, counting on his fingers how many things he wanted, then BOOM.  Spent a considerable amount of money, and left a very happy man.  I like people like that, who don't dick around,  and just go for it!

6.36 pm, and we went out for dinner.  TACO BELL in Hamilton East of course!

We ordered, then took our dinner down to Parana Park, and sat and enjoyed watching the river flow by, and kids jumping off the jetty's.

ABOVE: Taco Bell staff were handing out free key chains... mine is the 'I 💙TACO BELL' and Stew's is the FIRE! one.   

Now that we are finally home for the rest of the day/evening, time to just relax.

We will sleep well tonight, it's been a stinking hot, busy day.

Might just sign off now, cos I'm not doing another thing!

A FREE DAY ... WHATEVER THAT IS!

 

Today we don't have a market... but we do tomorrow.

So, let's make the most of today.

We don't really have any plans, we'll just potter.  I will try and get the last wave runner finished, so I can take it and the others to market tomorrow.

Stew will go and do his grocery shop (read buy Diet Coke lol).

Then we will probably go somewhere nice for lunch.

Late yesterday afternoon, our village was visited by a 'Santa Parade' of Vintage cars, music and carols, and Santa etc.

ABOVE: There were quite a few old cars!  The Anglia made me smile so much though.

We had an Anglia when I was around 10 years old.  My Mum loved that little car. 

Then one night Dad came home from the pub and told her it was getting picked up the next morning, cos he had SWAPPED it for a ten foot aluminium dinghy!!!!

My Mum was outraged, and screamed at him:  "Am I supposed to damn well ROW down the road to the supermarket then?"

I can still hear them laughing about it afterwards.  Dad bought her a new car the next day ... so crisis averted.

The ten foot aluminium dinghy was our first 'boat'... fairly quickly followed by the first of quite a few bigger and 'better' boats.

Funny how just seeing that little Anglia yesterday brought back some happy memories of my childhood.

ABOVE: Last night my friends and I did a Christmas Gift swap... and I ended up with a lovely notebook, with that on the cover.   'D' said she hoped I got it, as she thought it was perfect for me!  lol  She's not wrong.  

Now back to today... I'm going to do the housework, then head into Crabby Quarters to get that last runner done.

Oh and before I forget, Stew tried out the new sprinkler last night while I was out.  He said it is REALLY great, and covers a big area in one go.  That's great.  I will put it on the front lawn tonight, as he did the back lawn and pots last night.

12.30 pm, and Stew and I have been working all morning.  Me on the last runner for now, and Stew's done the shopping and is now putting a shelf on the sewing room wall for my batting.

ABOVE: And that's IT for runners for the time being.  I should have enough to cover the next few markets.

Stew has almost finished making the batting shelf, then we will head out to lunch.

ABOVE:  And there ya go, a shelf for me batting.  And I can probably hang stuff from under it too.  Excellent, thanks Darling.

LUNCHTIME I do believe.

ABOVE: Stew and I are creatures of habit.  We went to Foundation  and had Calamari, followed by a pizza for our 'dinner' today.  Yes, we have our main meal at lunchtime.

After that, we went to MADE in Hamilton East.

I wanted to get a little something for a friend.

ABOVE:  WOW!  We didn't know TACO BELL was now in Hamilton.  How neat, we don't have to go out to Taupiri anymore.

ABOVE: Stew carrying the bags out of 'What's Up Buttercup', which is a lovely gift shop at MADE.

ABOVE:  Got home around 3.30 and I decided to whip up another little runner, cos well... I wanted to.  So there it is, a little tree runner.  A easy and simple one Dogstars!!!

It is now 5.50 pm, and I'm totally done for the day, and we still have to pack the car for market tomorrow.  Luckily that actually doesn't take us long, we have it down to a fine art.

9.52 pm, and we've packed the car, watered the lawns and pots, watched a stupid movie and now... off to bed.

We have a 5.30 am start in the morning.  Oh yaaa.