Words of wisdom

Today's words of wisdom are

Left over mince pies and maltesers

Are not a proper breakfast

:-) I didn't actually have this for breakfast but yesterday I was very tempted. I waited til later and had them with a cup of tea. We saw off the last of the turkey yesterday as well so it feels like Christmas is over. DH is already threatening to take down our tree! Had a super time, don't often get to see brother, Dave, and all the rest of my family turned up as well on the day and then 3 days of quiet and chill time. Lovely presents, DH bought me a Pandora necklace so I can now put my large hole beads on that as well, I have worn a different combo every day so far since I got it. I love it. Here's how I'm wearing it today.

Brilliant tin from sister, Sharon. I complained to her about it when I saw it in Lakeland one Saturday in November when we were on the craft market together. It's in a lovely pink/silver Art Nouveau style and I coveted it greatly for my collection but the biscuits it contains have got palm oil in it so I forbade myself from buying it. Sharon bought it for me, ate the biscuits herself (she's so self-less!!) and left me a note inside about elves eating them so she replaced them with palm oil free chocolate! Inspired!

Super selection of books and DVDs, one was a compendium of loads of different knitting and crochet stitches with photographs of swatches knitted up. I've had tons of fun playing about knitting some up, combining stitches to see what I can come up with myself. Merlin series 3 DVD ... was really hoping to get that and am half way through the excellent How to Survive in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.

Highlight of Christmas day has to be getting Sandy back over the tongue poking out mug incident. When I put her warmed plate in front of her ready for her to help herself to vegetables, I sleight-of-handed my photograph underneath it and giggled to myself all throughout lunch. I could hardly wait to say "Anyone for some christmas pud?" When we cleared the the table, she was passing plates to me. She picked hers up first and was so intent on grabbing dad's and then mum's that she didn't spot it until after the fourth plate had been passed along! She jumped a mile when she noticed it (c'mon ... I'm not that scarey!) A great reaction and it was a huge laugh.

However, I had a shock when I got into the shower on boxing day, she had placed it very carefully so it wasn't noticable until you actually got into the cubicle BUT .... but ... as it's a photo of ME sticking my tongue out, not her, she hasn't got me back .... yet!

Christmas card

This year's christmas card money has been donated to Doris Banham Dog Rescue. Many thanks for all my friends and family who don't mind getting a christmas card from us to enable this much needed donation to be made.

Warmest Christmas and New Year wishes to all who are reading.

xxx

Plus licks and woofs from Missy.

Eeek!

DH has gone out this morning armed with a list of the last few bits and pieces that we still need for the 25th that got missed off the big shop yesterday. He is also visiting friends, Kev and Mandy. Kev made our Christmas pudding last year, his own secret recipe and it was absolutely brilliant. It was so good, my family have said they will only come to me again this year if Kev is making the pudding and fortunately, he is supplying us with another so DH is also picking that up too.

I have been diligently cleaning the kitchen today and didn't notice a text was sent to me by DH an hour ago ... a whole hour ago ... innocent enough message:

"Have we got potatoes?".
"Arghhh! NO, we have no potatoes", I urgently messaged back. No reply. I rang him, no reply so I don't know whether he is getting any or not! Help! What if the shops are all out tomorrow due to frozen ground? I have probably got too many carrots, anyone got a good recipe that makes carrots look like roast potatoes?! Quick!

EDITED LATER:

No, he didn't get any potatoes so without any cup of tea after his journey or me asking him how Kev and Mandy were, I sent him straight back out to get some and phew, we now have potatoes. However, my little panic pales slightly compared to Kev and Mandy's, they are so laid back, they haven't even bought their turkey yet, which is probably fine if you have ordered one (we picked ours up from the free range farm down the road yesterday). But, they don't have one on order, I suppose the shops still have them for late comers but I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving it til tomorrow ....

And THEIR little panic (which they aren't actually panicking about, I am panicking for them) pales in comparison with some other friends, Martin and Suzy, whose story was related by Kev to DH. Martin and Suzy came home with a frozen turkey crown yesterday but had no room in their fridge to put it. For one thing I don't know how they have no room. I know for a fact they have TWO big fridge freezers because when we moved into a house with a built in fridge and freezer about 5 years ago, we gave them our old one one which was quite new to keep in their garage for "overspill" items (they have a big family). Anyway, they decided to put their frozen turkey crown in their oven to defrost. Suzy started doing some baking this morning and unfortunately, forgot the frozen turkey crown (complete with packaging) was in the oven ... they now have to get another one and are talking about becoming vegetarians. ;-)

Etsy shop

Opening up an Etsy shop was going to be one of my New Year resolutions so I feel extremely organised to have accomplished this feat before 2011 has even started.

Due to the craft market cancellation today, I have gained a day this week. I was tempted to get on with all of the jobs I need to get done before the 25th but as today was going to be dedicated to my business, selling jewellery in Cambridge I decided there's still plenty of time for all the Christmas preparations (breathe slowly and deeply ....) I have instead earmarked Wednesday and Thursday for list-busting and so the time was re-allocated to creating the Sooz Jewels Etsy shop.

For the time being, I'm concentrating on my recycled/upcycled glass jewellery. I only have three items in there at the moment, the majority of the recycled range were photographed before I got my new photography set up so I'll be adding to the listings as soon as I get some nice new photographs of the stock.

My New Year's resolution has changed from "Create an Etsy shop" to "Stock my Etsy shop". All the hard work has been done now and the rest should be easy (she says).

Best laid plans

I'm afraid the market has been cancelled for today. I was just setting off about half an hour ago when I got the call. It's not too bad where I am (about 50 miles North of Cambridge) but freezing fog and icy roads have forced many stallholders to decide not to travel. You really need about 10 stalls to make a decent showing. There were 15 of us on Friday and Saturday was full with over 30 stalls.

I will keep an eye on the forecast for tomorrow but Countryfile were forecasting a big lump of snow for Tuesday; they're often wrong on predicting snow so I can't say whether I'll be there tomorrow or not!

It was quite funny when my mobile rang because we were sat in the drive about to leave and heard the tone, I'm not familiar yet with receiving calls on my new mobile. It sounded like an alarm on the car, we went round checking the doors were closed, seatbelts etc. before it rang again and this time I felt the vibration and realised someone was ringing me :-) I couldn't get hold of the market manager (busy ringing everyone else no doubt) so I tried my sister, she had her mobile phone turned off. She normally stops overnight at my mum and dad's house after she's done the Sunday main market (they live much closer to Cambridge) so I tried ringing there but Sharon had decided to go home and so I woke them up! :-/ Ooops, sorry mum and dad!