Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Friday fragments, all the bits and bobs from the week gone by that are rattling around inside my head. Far too noisy! Better get them out via the keyboard and plonk them down here instead.

When I met up with the lovely Penny in Auckland she had a beautiful gift for me. It was a book of photography, New Zealand: Eye on the Landscape, which includes 6 of her husband Rod's photos (Rod on Flickr). I'm enjoying it so much, and it's doing an excellent job of reminding me that I managed to leave my present for Penny back in our hotel room the day we met up and it has therefore come all the way back to Sydney with me. D'oh! Note to self: go to the post office next week.

Speaking of going to the post office, I will also be sending off handmade gifts to fulfill my Pay it Forward commitment in the next week or so - I still have 2 spots up for grabs there so click through and leave a comment if you'd like to participate. The last time I did one of these I took something like 8 months to get around to sending them! Won't be leaving it that long this time.

Need a good laugh? Go read the comments on this article about Language faux pas.

On Thursday morning I got up a little earlier than I really needed to, leaving Adam in bed. I checked my emails and then went to have a shower. When I came out of the bathroom Adam was sitting in the lounge room looking slightly put out. He'd dragged himself out of bed having woken from a deep sleep utterly convinced that he'd heard me yelling down the stairwell that breakfast was on the table. He was so disappointed to come upstairs and realise that he'd only dreamed it. Apparently his subconscious had been hoping for bacon and eggs!

We almost hit the 1K mark with the camera while we were on holidays, there are 944 photos and 29 videos in my New Zealand album in iPhoto - unsurprisingly I didn't upload them all to Flickr, just a modest selection of 170 photos Here they are in a slideshow if you feel inclined to look at them all.

And if you want to read the travel blogs from the trip they're here: Auckland to Wellington, Wellington to Rotorua, Rotorua, Whangarei Heads, Whangarei Heads and Auckland.

This morning my mum rang to tell me that Sylvia had died. Sylvia and Tony lived a few doors down from us when I was very young, they had 2 boys the same ages as my sister and I, David and Michael, we were best mates for years. We were in and out of each other's houses all the time and I remember being very sad when they moved several suburbs away. Mum and Sylvia had become good friends too and our families stayed in touch with fairly regular visits. I went to David's year 12 formal with him, we, and our parents and siblings, were at each other's weddings. Sylvia and Tony moved to Tasmania some years ago so it's been some time since I last saw her and I won't be able to go to the funeral, though my Mum and Dad are both going and my sister might too. When I think of Sylvia I think of warmth and hugs and love and good food and her smile. I'm glad I knew her and I'm sad she's gone.

Don't forget to pop on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time and check out the other Friday Fragmenters' offerings! 

We have a winner!

Tom did the honours, reached into my hat full of names

and pulled out...SIMMY! It seems being first to enter wasn't so bad after all :-) I'll be in touch to arrange delivery!

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

I'm doing a blog giveaway over this weekend, one lucky reader will be getting a parcel with lots of goodies in it: 2 pairs of Christmas earrings, a copy of one of my favourite picture books, a travel version of Connect Four, some yummy chocolate and a scrumptious scented candle. Click through for details and to enter.

On Monday Adam did canteen duty at the primary school, it was Dads Do Lunch Day and Christmas was the theme. So he got dressed up. It was a big hit and a whole bunch of kids even asked for his autograph - he signed the inside of their hats "Santa" with a smiley face wearing a Santa hat. When the kids asked where his elves were he pointed at our Canteen supervisor and said "There she is." So then she had to sign their hats too, as "The Elf."

If you look closely you can see that Adam was an expendable Santa.

This morning I went into Caitlin's room to see how she was going getting ready for school. We had to leave early as there was a dress rehearsal for the school dance group on at 7:45am. She'd just finished getting dressed and was shrugging on her denim jacket when movement caught my eye and I looked down to see a large-ish (about 1.5cm) black house spider running up her jeans leg past her knee and heading further north. I was rather surprised to find myself not hesitating at all to reach out and brush it off with my bare hand.

They're poisonous but not deadly, if you want to see what one looks like there's a very good shot here on Flickr. We have them all over the outside of the house, I think this one probably got in through the damaged flyscreen on the sliding door leading from Caitlin's bedroom to the back deck. Fixing of flyscreens is going on the to do list for the weekend.

Need something to read while you sit in front of the air-conditioner/fan/fire (depending on your location and climate!)? This looks like it's worth checking out:

December Lights Project

We love short stories.
We love writing them, and we love reading them. But most of all, we love sharing them.
At this time of year - as the sky goes dark by 4.30 pm in Wales, where we live, and the cold wraps around us, chilling to the bone - what we really want more than anything else are stories that make us laugh and feel good about the world.
So we thought we'd gather some, and share them with with you, as our December Lights Project.
You can read the stories here.

Don't forget to head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time for more Friday Fragments!

Blog giveaway: From me to you - a gift.

Update: Entries are now closed, the winner will be announced soon!

**************
Well, one of you anyway!

Here's the rundown on what will be going in the package that I hope to be sending off to one of my lovely readers on Monday:

1 pair of Christmas tree earrings in either green or clear crystal (your choice) - as per my first post about this giveaway.

Swarovski crystal on sterling silver ear hooks

1 pair of Snowman earrings - this is the first pair of these that I've made, I'll be doing some more tonight and they'll be going into my shop over the weekend.

Swarovski crystal and rhinestone with gold plate

on gold plated surgical steel earhooks.

1 copy of the board book edition of Diary of a Wombat - about which I raved yesterday.

1 travel friendly Connect Four game - outer packaging slightly battered but game never used, I bought it for a nephew one year and then found out he'd already been given the same game by his parents. Great minds think alike?

1 bag of Cadbury Magical Elves - milk chocolate with popping candy, just because they're awesome.

1 Cinnamon and Bayberry scented candle in a tin - my freebie for hosting a Partylite demonstration last month, I won't use it 'cause candles in tins aren't my thing but I LOVE the scent, I've got pillar candles to enjoy it by.

Now the important bit, what do you have to do to enter?

It's easy, leave a comment on this post telling me what you'd do with this slightly random collection of goodies! I'll be doing a random draw using the time honoured "names in a hat and enlist a child's help" technique but I figure it's more fun if I make you write something interesting :-)

That's it, one entry per person but feel free to comment more often if the conversation demands it, and make sure I can contact you either by having an email in your blogger profile or a link back to your blog for me to follow. No extra entries for following or linking because that's not what this is about, though you're very welcome to pop a link up on your own blog, Facebook or Twitter and let others know what's on offer.

Entries close on Monday 6th Dec at 12 noon my time (want to know when that is in your part of the world? Go here.)

What are you waiting for? Get commenting!

Diary of a Wombat

When I first came across this picture book I was wandering around a bookshop in 2002 with David aged 5 1/2, Caitlin aged 4 and Tom 1 year old, I picked it up, leafed through, and fell in love instantly. The simple text and gorgeous illustrations were so evocative, I could see Mothball (the wombat), full of personality, coming to life on the pages. It very quickly became a family favourite and we've since accumulated a few more books by the same fabulous team of writer Jackie French and illustrator Bruce Whatley.

A few years ago I bought a board book copy of Diary of a Wombat on sale to pop in the present stash, it's getting lonely in there so I'm pulling it out to add to my Christmas give-away. 

If you haven't yet met Mothball and her carrot obsession then you really, really must! Fortunately you don't even have to wait till you can get your hands on the book because there's an absolutely lovely piece for you to read over on Jackie French's website about the first time she met Mothball and how she came to write the book: The Story Behind Diary of a Wombat.

Oh, and your kids will probably like it too :-)

'Tis the season to be giving!

Giving people things makes me happy. I could do with a happiness and Christmas* spirit boost around about now so I'm going to indulge myself by giving some stuff away. I'm hoping that you my readers, yes both of you, will aid me in this act of self-indulgence by either entering my little give-away or passing the links on to others who might be tempted, or possibly both! I'm not fussy!

Over the next few days I will be adding things to the pile of goodies and on Friday I will open entries to the give-away. Entries will close Monday afternoon and with any luck I'll get the parcel/s in the post in time to make its way to where ever the lucky winner/s is/are before Christmas. (I have decision making issues. One big hamper or should I break it up into stuff for little kids and stuff for grown up kids? 'Cause we're all kids at Christmas, yes?)

First in the collection is a pair of my Christmas tree earrings, mostly because I already have a photo of them. I'll even let you pick which colour.

Now I'm off to play with my box of new beads that was delivered this morning, I'm hoping the stuff I've ordered can be turned into snowman earrings. Watch this space for the results!

* I almost put "xmasolstichanukkwanzaa" in here instead (filched from tigtog), or possibly "Giftmas" as a Facebook friend of mine likes to call it. I feel like I ought to do that because of the whole being inclusive and not being religious myself thing. But it really is Christmas that's being celebrated in my house, complete with all the childhood memories and family rituals that are associated with that word, so Christmas it stays. Because, you see, I really like Christmas.

Wanna take bets on how often I can justify linking to that this month? I promise not to embed it every time :-)