A bit more Christmas preparation....

I have been busy continuing on with Xmas preparations etc over the last few days. I have organised Toni's present and it is being delivered over the next few days sometime.  I will be picking up Michael's present tomorrow.  I should be finishing the last of the present shopping tomorrow hopefully.  I spent some time on Saturday setting up my sewing machine in the spare room so I can get some serious sewing done.  I have finished the Xmas stockings, so they are ready for filling up.  I also finished the Xmas tree skirt yesterday, and I was up until midnight last night finishing off another Xmas gift.  I was a bit tired this morning, so I will have to try and get to bed a little earlier from now on! At the moment I have 6 mini xmas cakes cooking away in the oven, I am trying a new recipe this year, as the ones from last year seemed a bit dry. This one seems to be a nice rich cake, so I am hoping it will be nice and moist.  I will keep topping them up with brandy in the leadup to xmas day. We have had so much rain here lately, the vegie garden has been taken over by weeds....I spent an hour up there this afternoon pulling weeds, I ended up covered in dirt and mud but it looks a lot better, still a lot of the smaller weeds to pull, and then will have to do the other side. I need to get in some mulch to cover it over, and then do some replanting.  So, lots of things to do....Kasey finishes school this week, and has her end of year dance concert as well, so I need to get all of the shopping and wrapping out of the way before school finishes....but I am definitely feeling more organised than I was a couple of weeks ago.....

Bugger......forgot again...

arrghhh...I have forgotten Kasey's full dress rehearsal this afternoon for their Christmas ballet concert next week....I have rushed her down there an hour late :(  but they are still running through another time yet....I felt pretty silly running Kasey in there, and the teacher was very gracious, but what she was thinking I don't know, I forgot her normal weekly class last week as well, as I am still getting used to her having classes on a Monday....  I thought I was so organised today, I was busy making lots of phone calls and organising things I have put off for months, I made some soap, and went and organised the quote to get the car fixed from where it was damaged when it went in for a service recently, I just forgot to write today's rehearsal in my diary..... where is my organisation???  Whoever stole it....I want it back.......

Kasey's first stage performance

Kasey had her first ballet eisteddfod a few weeks back, and I now have the photos back.  All the girls looked very sweet in their baby doll costumes, and did a wonderful job.

A busy, but productive week....

Saturday night already??  This week has flown by again...Wed and Thurs I was just running around really, tidying up a few bits and pieces.  Thursday morning/afternoon I cleaned the house and then went to the shops and picked up another christmas present for Kasey...KMart had the lava lamps on special for $10, so I picked up a pink glitter one for her room as a little extra gift for her to open on Christmas day.  Friday was wedding prep for a wedding today, gorgeous cream roses, white lisianthus and white freesias.  They ended up looking divine, and the bride was extremely happy with them:

Tammy came over tonight for a visit, so we had a chat and watched a movie.  I finished a bottle of wine...ooops...a nice girly night in.  Kasey had her first ever ballet performance today, they were soooo cute in these gorgeous little baby doll outfits, I have ordered some photos which will come in a couple of weeks, so will post some then.  As they were the only group in their age group, they got first place, so that was great for all of them. Damian leaves Moranbah tomorrow and heads home, hooray, I really miss him...so he should be home on Monday some time.  Off to the craft show tomorrow, Toni is babysitting Kasey in the morning until she goes to work, and Michael is coming over in the afternoon to babysit his little sister...aww...how nice.... I wonder how many goodies I will come home with from the craft show.....hmmm...have to control myself I think.  I am also meeting a couple of brides throughout the day, 1 wants to give me 2 of her grandmothers rings to incorporate into her bouquets in a fortnights time, 1 is from up north and wants to touch base with me while down in Brisbane, and another wants to bring her bouquet to me so I can preserve it....so a busy day coming up, however, it will be really nice to be "free" for the day with no kids or house to worry about, just some lovely time at the show.  Mum is also coming over tomorrow night to spend the night and have some Mother/Daughter time...anyway, it's late, so I'm off to bed :)  Night night....

The last few days updated, and routine still out of reach....

What a beautiful few days weather wise we have had, beautiful warm days, cool nights...lovely. Friday I went to an overlocker session at the sewing centre as they were doing a demo on the babylock overlockers. These are definitely fabulous machines, they thread themselves and tension themselves automatically, and threading my overlocker is the most frustrating part of using the overlocker. They are very expensive though, $3500 for the model I would look at, which is insane for an overlocker...so I will be sticking to my trusty Janome for now...I don't use it enough to justify that sort of money, if I was sewing in a commercial environment then I would definitely look at it. 

Had a scrapbooking crop on Friday night, haven't been to one for a couple of months because Damian had been away, but it took me a while to get back in the groove, and I forgot the bag with my ribbons and inks etc in it, so couldn't finish the pages I made, but I had a good start on them. Kasey starts ballet lessons this afternoon, she has been begging for months to go, but after doing the insane running around for years with Toni at ballet I just was not wanting to go down that path. But Kasey spends almost all of her time dancing like a ballerina around the house that I felt bad not letting her go. I found a ballet school close by.....in fact it is only 2 doors up in the same street!  I didn't even know they were there, but it is a fully operational studio, and they are going to put her in the end of year production etc..and we can walk to class, which is absolutely fantastic. So I need to go this afternoon before class and purchase her leotard and shoes, all of the shoes I have kept from Toni are from her later years and are too big for her unfortunately.

Damian did a bit more work in the spare room yesterday, we have had to pull almost all of 1 wall out now as we found damage further up the wall, and the door frames are next. We are going to pull the carpet up in there as well and replace it, as the carpet is 18 years old and is starting to look a bit tired like many other things here including the owners! I have been to the dentist this morning and had the tooth that broke off repaired, so that feels much better now, and I only need 2 other very small holes fixed before they start to become a problem, other than that my teeth are all good...nice to know. I think that is everything that I have been up to the last few days updated now....

I am still desperately trying to get some sort of routine happening....I am trying really hard to get up at 6am in the mornings, but it's not happening, I heard the alarm going off this morning on my phone, but ignored it...6 times!......before finally getting up at 7.....I was asleep by 9.30 last night so I should have been able to achieve it.....I haven't been able to implement my daily routine that I put in place a few weeks ago, I have been writing a list each day though and have been getting through that, which is a good start.  I might have to put some more thought in to how I can get past this issue though....perhaps 1 thing a day at the same time each day and expand on that....