It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring.

Had a little insomnia last night, didn't help that I sat up watching a dvd and knitting until 2.30, after trying to sleep I got up at 4, did a little more knitting in front of the tv before falling asleep until 7am. It was pouring outside and when I looked outside I was greeted by this sight.

We only purchased this cover just before Christmas, the water just pooled in the middle caving the frame in. The only way I could think to drain it was to stab the canvas. Bought it from Bunnings, it was touted as a carport but could you imagine what would happen to the car if that had collapsed on to it? Our car looks bad enough with it's paintwork problems, wouldn't want a caved in roof as well. Hope we still have the docket. It's not like we expected it to last forever but would have liked more than 2 weeks life out of it.

It's not all bad, it's only a canvas cover and not a major investment. Edit we will be getting a full refund

Christmas Crafting

Each year I swear I am going to start my next years Christmas crafting right after Christmas, this year I have actually done it. Started knitting one of the stockings, it's knitting up quite quickly for me, since taking the picture last night it's grown another 6 cms. Faster, more experienced knitters would knock it out in no time. It's larger than I expected, not at all bad for $1.

I didn't want to go shopping, really I didn't

Today started out to be a lazy day, my alarm went off at 6, turned it off and went back to sleep. Got up later, had an apple for breakfast, a glass of water and veged out on the couch. Was still in my pjs at midday -- nice. Hubby asked if I was ready to go shopping, he wanted to return two too small tops he bought me so I showered and we went to Kmart. The car park was full so we headed to another car park, was worse so went back to Kmart, he let us out but then got a spot right away. Exchanged the tops for pjs and a t shirt, then went over to check out the Christmas clearance. Was disappointed they didn't have what I was after in the hamper section, but found some great knitting kits for stockings, elf shoes and a dove in the Christmas section. They were only $1 each!! Going to enjoy knitting those up for next year. Didn't bother looking at the decorations but bought a couple of cardmaking kits for $5 each, enough supplies for 40 cards each.



Gave hubby a hammock for Christmas, already putting it to use.

All over for another year.

Christmas Day was good, tiring but good. Worked today, it actually was a pretty good day, had nothing to worry about, our store wasn't too busy. We had a 30% off sale, I was given the task of spruiking, I don't like doing it but it's getting easier to do. My main tasks today was rearranging stock, tidying and a little serving. Outside the store was bedlam, there were major queues outside a few of the stores. The lower level of the QVB was just a river of people, you looked for an opening a jumped right in. Was lucky at lunch, found a seat right away. I sat opposite a couple, just as I was finishing a friend of theirs joined them, I asked him if he wanted my seat. As he walked around the table, I stood up and another woman made a run for the seat. Wouldn't let her have it, the guy was really appreciative


Was asked if I would work tomorrow, told them I have plans. Actually I do have plans - I plan to sleep in and then potter around the house. I received a couple of Naked Farmer organic kits for Christmas and am going to plant them up tomorrow.

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and a very good New Year. And that 2011 brings everything your heart desires and more.

Merry Christmas!!!

It's now Christmas Eve and I feel like I can relax, just have a few things to wrap. Last night I decorated 7 Gingerbread houses to give as gifts. Had baked them on Monday at Mum's house as our stove wasn't working. Our new oven was delivered on the weekend but not put in yet, it was done on Tuesday so my first baking experience in it was to refresh the gingerbread last night. I have a mud cake in at the moment, for my SIL's birthday tomorrow.

Had to work today, the store was pretty quiet but we still did very well budget wise, apparently sewing machines are high on the gift giving list this year. I am not looking forward to working boxing day at our city branch, there's a 30% off sale. The centre my store is in isn't open on Boxing Day, everyone but me will be enjoying a day off. I wasn't impressed to be told today that we had to put up all the sale signs and banners, they didn't want us to start until 4 pm and we were told we weren't going home until it was completely done! ON CHRISTMAS EVE!!! They had plastic banners they wanted all the windows completely covered in, we have about 20 large plate glass windows, it would have taken us hours to do. I came up with a plan to cut the strips, roll them up so the details couldn't be seen, tape the rolls to the windows, adding other signs to a few of the other windows. In the store I put up other signs, covered them with back to front out of date signs so the details couldn't be seen by customers. My boss was amazed with my idea, we started before 3 and it still took until just after closing to complete. I drove out of there at 6pm, dropped another staff member home and was home by 7, there was no traffic, usually it takes me over an hour and a half to get home. The run in this morning was fantastic too, I always leave home 2 hours early, ended up being an hour and a quarter early for work. It often takes me the whole 2 hours to get in.

NOT ON MY DRIVEWAY!

Yesterday Mum informed me that there was going to be an extra guest at her place over Christmas, my sister's ex-husband. It doesn't bother me that he will be there at Christmas but what bothered me was a conversation I overheard.

EX-BIL is a truck driver and will be driving his prime mover complete with 2 trailers from SA, Dad asked Nephew where his father planned to park the truck as it isn't legal to park it on the roadway in our suburban street. The answer given was that he was going to park it on "Aunty Cheryl's driveway". I couldn't believe it they had made plans to park a Semi trailer complete with 2 trailers on MY DRIVEWAY, without even discussing it with me first! My immediate reply was "no he isn't". Nephew asked why not. I couldn't bring myself to say that the first point would be that I wasn't asked for permission to park on my property. Had to point out how the earth under my concrete driveway strips was so soft that the concrete slabs have moved simply from one tonne vans being parked on them. All our water and sewerage pipes run under the driveway as well.

The last time a truck was on our driveway, the driver backed out hitting our power pole on the way out. The time before that a truck that came to empty the builder's porta potty, quite literally fell off the driveway after backing up too far. He tried driving himself out and then got another truck and a tow truck to attempt to pull him out which dug him in even deeper. His back tyre had dug a deep furrow right up the middle of the drive and had to be pulled out by a crane. The concrete slabs where the crane sat was so pulvarised and pushed into the soil there was no sign of it. Years ago when BIL lived in the house next to where my driveway now is, he parked his 8 tonne truck in the yard to wash it, he had to get it towed out after it started sinking.

Feeling better

Spoke to the ladies in the school office today, they looked up Thomas's record and found that he actually had no absences this semester at all. They were so apologetic and embarrassed, not at all their fault, I know mistakes happen. They promised a new cover page will be typed up for him. He just walked in the door and realised he forgot to pick it up, tomorrow is last day so he better remember. I paid his school fees while I was there.

I feel a bit more Christmassy today, did some gift shopping, I have a small pile of wrapped gifts sitting in front of me. The tree now has tinsel on it but is about to be removed because it needs more lights.

I also bought a Birthday gift for one of my sister-in-laws, I always make sure I buy her a gift each year, even though we don't usually buy gifts for other family members. I always feel so sorry for her seeing as her birthday is on Christmas Day, it's like she's always missed out on her own special day. This year I bought a 2 tier cake/fruit stand, will fill it up with homemade goodies.

I need motivating.

So close to Christmas and I just can't seem to get in the mood, I can't even get motivated with my decorating. The trees are up, neither is decorated, one has lights on it and that's all. I've barely even done any gift shopping. I have until Saturday off and should be taking advantage of the time to get things done but my motivation is almost zero, even watching The Polar Express tonight hasn't done much.

I do have a couple of things planned to make, painting or screen printing some signs for my Mother, Father and Brother. For Mum it will be a Mum's Sewing Room, Dad a Dad's Sewing Room and for my brother something to do with photography. I going to look locally for the screen printing supplies tomorrow, if not I have to head into the city. Not sure whether to use my Print Gocco or to cut my own stencils, cutting my own would probably be best as I'd have to use around 3 screens and 6 bulbs per item on the Gocco.

We did buy a gift for my husband's parents today, a new range hood for their kitchen. His mother was complaining about hers last week, it's only a tiny one and not even ducted. We went to 2nd's World and found a double fan version for under $200, we shopped around and found the price was very good. While we were there, David mentioned we should look for a new dishwasher but I reminded him that I need a new stove before we get a dishwasher. My stove hasn't worked since just after Christmas, we got it on Ebay the year before and decided that maybe it's not a great idea to buy electrical items on Ebay. Think we should have learnt that lesson with the fridge. So we bought an oven as well, it'll be delivered later on in the week am hoping to have it put in before Christmas, I'd like to be able to bake my Gingerbread. If not I will be taking over Mum's kitchen.

I've decided that tomorrow I will be working on my motivation, first thing in the morning I will take a walk. I do have to go to my son's school to ask them to explain how my son has 21 days absences recorded on his report. He loves school so it's out of character for him not to go, I've questioned him and saw no signs of lying. I'll need the school to prove that he wasn't there for these days, they have a roll call for each class, the school is supposed to contact us when there are unexplained absences. They used to have a system where an automated phone call was made to the home phone each time there was an absence.