Archives for December 2005

There’s so much preparation and stuff to do in the lead-up to Christmas Day that by the end of the day you realise it’s all gone so quickly.

I went over to my family’s (sister’s) on Friday the 23rd as there was a street party on in the town where she lives and a friend that lives in the same town was singing at some Christmas carols so I thought I’d go then.

The street party was a bit of a fizzler. We did get there a bit late and the weather wasn’t that great for a summer evening. The Christmas carols was a bit more of a religious affair than I was expecting but my friend, her friend and my friend’s son all performed and it was pretty good. During the performance my sister took JJ home as she didn’t want to come out with us afterwards. I’ve hardly ever known her to turn down an invite to the pub but it worked out for me.

There was a 2-man band playing at the pub who were actually pretty good and quite diverse and I guess there were the usual crowd at the pub. There were quite a few young boys and before you second guess what I’m about to say, I was checking them out because they only looked like they were about 16 and it made me think that in 12 or so years time that could be my son at the pub having a few drinks. Scary!!

It was a late night (2am) and luckily I’d drunk spirits so I just suffered from tiredness the next day. It was a good day though. We all went (including my friend and her family) to check out a camping spot for around the new year. We went along the coast at Wauraltee to find a spot for a few families to setup camp. There was one perfect spot. It was a sort of a valley with sandhills surrounding it and not far from the beach at all. Unfortunately someone had got there before us. We talked to them to see if anyone else was coming to join them and asked how long they were staying. They said others were coming along and they would be there until the 2nd. We went further up and found a pretty alternative and hopefully nobody else gets it before us. We want to be close to the beach as that’s the drawcard for camping near there. The sea breeze will be good also.

After an early sleep so I wasn’t awake when Santa came it was Christmas day. It was the usual present opening frenzy and JJ was very pleased at part of his haul being a bug catcher. My sister’s partner had organised breakfast so her family, me and JJ, mum and dad, and another couple and their two kids had breakfast.

My sister and her partner then left to come over to Adelaide and I went to mum and dad’s to finish the day off with a lot of prawns and a rest.

See the photo wrap up.

Now, to prepare for the New Year.

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Last night a friend came around to do a bit of a Christmas present swap. She got JJ a little gardening set – the little spade, fork, some gloves and a cute bag that it all sits in. It also came with some seeds. He was really excited about it and immediately wanted to go outside and ‘do some work’.

My friend also brought around her dog. When Monty first met Toby, Toby hadn’t been socialised very well and he’d also just been desexed so all he did was try to hump Monty which annoyed her no end.

This time they were really good together. They’re the opposite looking, Monty being mostly black and Toby being nearly white.

I uploaded some photos I took of them together at Flickr. I decided to get a Flickr Pro account. It’s so cheap at $25 US, shouldn’t be too much in Australian dollars.

I’m off to my folks for Christmas tomorrow so will be off the air for a bit.

Have a great Christmas everyone. Try not to eat or drink too much – hard I know.

Enjoy.

I finish work this Thursday for three whole blessed weeks. I have not had three whole weeks off in a row since I left my job four and a half years ago to have a baby. Now that’s ridiculous. I’m well and truly due for a longer than two week break.

As a consequence of not taking many holidays over the last four years I have loads of annual leave under my belt and I’ll be taking heaps of it from now on.

I’ve got my three weeks off in three days time, then a week off in February to go to Kangaroo Island. JJ starts school in July next year so I’ll take some time off during that week probably and then I’ll probably take off two weeks in October when it’s school holidays.

Gone will be the wild and carefree days of dropping him off to childcare and knowing that this is there for him nearly all year. I will have to figure out what to do with him during school holidays. School hours just do not fit in the most workers. Vacation care will probably become my friend.

But in the meantime I look forward to not having to take JJ to childcare then drag myself off to work for three whole weeks.

I’ve started making jewellrey. I was inspired the other night when watching part of a current affairs tv show and someone made a pair of earrings and did it really quickly. This appealed to me for two reasons. One I like jewellrey, and two I like producing something quickly. Something that takes a lot of time and effort I will sometimes do but I do like quick results.

I started off making three pairs of earrings including my Christmas themed ones. This was a total accident. When I bought the beads it didn’t occur to me they sort of look like Christmas trees. Apologies for the blurry photo. I still cannot get the hang of taking a closeup with my digital camera.

Once I made this pair and two others I thought I’d make some for Christmas presents.

Off JJ and I went to the bead shop on Saturday morning and he helped me choose some beads and then helped me make some earrings later on that day.

We made four pairs that afternoon and I’ve even branded my earrings by calling it Jaycees Jewellrey.

I bought some cardboard and wrote the name on it so there’s something to put the earrings on. The earring findings are sterling silver even though this second photo looks as though they’re gold.

It’s quite addictive going into a bead shop and looking around for something that you like then making it into jewellrey.

I’m sure I will do more both for myself and for others for presents. And it is something that JJ and I can do together for the time being.

This morning I got out of bed at 6.30am which is unheard of for me on a day I don’t have to go to work. We walked the dog, came home and had breakfast and then went to Marion shopping centre.

It’s hard enough to get a park there on a day that’s not near Christmas and/or school holidays so I thought I’d get us there nice and early before most others. It paid off as I got a Hollywood park that I auctioned off to the highest bidder when I left (I reckon I could almost get away with this).

As well as doing our usual Friday grocery shop we did some bits and pieces including buying a tent. This is the first time I’ve ever bought a tent. I don’t go camping that much so I didn’t fork out heaps for our tent. JJ and I put it up this afternoon and it’s quite big. I didn’t want a small 2-3 person tent and the price difference between the 4 and 6 person tent was pretty minimal so I went the 6 person tent. It’s quite large.

We’re going camping for New Year’s Eve and I’m sure we will be able to use it other times also.

Come inside and see the tent.

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