January Scavenge

On time and complete! It must be a first for me in the photo scavenge.

Information

Company in SmallerBean's bed

Warning

Distance (King's College Chapel)

In season

Odd

Entrance

Soft. A bit of haircut for SmallerBean

Blur

Two (of the biggest and brownest eyes I have ever stared into)

My bathroom

Mess

(Yet again Blogger spacing has gone bananas. Will try to edit this so it makes a bit more sense.)

Clay

I think I know myself fairly well.

And I think I am quite realistic about the things I can and can't do. I am practical and can use what is at hand to fix or mend things. I can't sing. No. I definitely can't do that. I hate following instructions and am rubbish at any sort of paperwork. I dread it when BigBean says 'Have you seen the bill for...?' I hate being wrong but I know I am fairly often. I have a good eye for colour. I am fickle. And I am good at making fiddly little things- jewellery, papier mache, modroc owls (don't ask), in fact, crafty nasties in general.

So it has been a huge source of frustration to me that I have never got on well with silver clay. I have tried. I have tried again. And then I gave up.

But my stubborn streak got the better of me and just before Christmas I ordered some more clay and paid attention to the instructions and got busy.

I made a large disc with a tiny cookie cutter.

The teeny discs were made with a straw and I stamped out initials in them with SmallBean's printing kit.
Then I strung them onto a chain but didn't fix them to a link. I left each little disc and gem pairing so they could move freely along the chain. I'm still not sure if I will keep them like that- I might fix them so they don't swing along and then bunch up.

So. I proved to myself that it is possible to read instructions and not hate what you are doing. And I have made myself a new necklace that I haven't taken off since December 19th.

Pie

We have been so spoilt here this Christmas, not just with presents, but with the amount of time we have spent together as a family- hanging out, going for walks, eating every meal together, seeing friends and family and enjoying spending time at home with no pressure to Do Stuff.

So it was with a heavy heart that BigBean settled down to his last evening before going back to work. After we had eaten supper (Why are we eating? Surely we don't need to eat another morsel until at least January 23rd.) I had a sudden and rather generous idea to make BigBean a pasty/pie for his packed lunch with the leftover chicken stew. There were two reasons for this generous spirit. One- I couldn't refreeze the leftovers as they had only just come out of their icy hole and two- we had no bread for sarnies. (We are in an Old Mother Hubbard situation here.) So at 9.30 (pm!!!!) I rustled up some suet crust and made a pie. A pasty.

And I felt like a really good wife.

And BigBean biked off to work feeling slightly less grumpy than he could have done.

He's on his way...

Merry Merry Christmas.
Thank you for reading my ramblings.
Have happy times, Ali

Peace on earth and goodwill to all men???

So much for Christmas Spirit.

SmallerBean has just rushed downstairs in search of her Lego folk.

Me: Are you and Small having a lovely game?
Smaller: Yes. One of the baddies is just going to be electrocuted.

Ho ho ho to you too.

Toot Toot Splutter Cough Cough....

Well it just serves me right.
Blowing my own trumpet was never going to be a good idea.
SmallBean pointed out to me yesterday that there were two number 23's on the advent calendar.
I shouldn't have had that third glass of wine as I was drawing.

Toot Toot Tootoot

Can you hear that?
Toot toot.
Do you know what it is?
I'll tell you.
It is the sound of me blowing my own trumpet.
Smug?
I sure am.
I went to a certain Never Knowingly Undersold shop yesterday and looked for an advent calendar. They were all revolting. And I didn't have the time to go anywhere else. (Well actually I did have time but Wednesday is my no kids day and I had a whole day and an empty house to get on with.)
I came back home with this book and flicking through it I saw an advent calendar to colour in each day.

Later on, my mind went back to the book, (which is now squirrelled away in the loft, ready for the week before Christmas) and I thought that I could do a similar sort of calendar. I have card. I have a black pen. I can draw, sort of.

So I made one and I am veryvery pleased with it. Look.

Can you now see why my trumpet has been blowing? I did have a few probs getting twenty four symbols of Christmas that I could actually draw- a satsuma is pushing it a bit, I feel. But as Small reminded me, FC once left him a banana so it could have been worse...

I can hear the arguments already though. Small is not going to want to colour angels. They are both going to want to colour FC. The snowflake is going to be sneered at.

But I am going to block their moans out. If they complain, I will colour it in.