Its that time of year to take down the Christmas decorations, if you're the kind of person to go to the trouble. My efforts in this department are a mere token gesture, for me its to acknowledge the significance of this event on our culture. Celebrating seasons and the passage of time is important. We mark our lives with significant occasions, rejoicing in the fact that somehow we are here, alive and on this planet (by miracle or coincidence, or a combination of both). If we did not celebrate significant occasions, our lives would be merely a string of days strung together with no memorable markers to divide the time. To look backwards and remember significant occasions is important to give your life meaning. That's what I think, anyway!
I like our little Christmas tree. We picked it up from the local newsagent. It's a very practical tree for us. Its small, and packs down flat into a handy box. As renters, we need to be practical about the trivial things in life! My Christmas decorations are minimal and easy to manage. You won't catch me stringing up garlands of tinsel and rows of dangly balls and stars! I certainly wouldn't bother with Christmas lights, those things simply BEG to break. And there you are with all this broken crap, what then to do with it? Best not to bother, imho. I think the Santa I blue tac to
my kitchen buffet might have been recycled from a Christmas cake several years ago. I stick him up if the thought occurs to me. The festive dangling penguin was the gift tag from the bottle of wine my sister gave us, and I thought he looked particularly cheery, so hung him up to give Santa company.
Now is also the time to think about goals for the future year. Taking that moment to contemplate things you would like to accomplish and making resolutions to address them, is important. Otherwise, our lives would simply be a string of days strung together. Oh, I already said that? It's worth repeating. If you don't pause to make a goal you can aim to achieve, when you look back you may think you have accomplished nothing. And the feeling of having accomplished nothing is something to avoid. Even if you have very simple, achievable goals, it's worth having them.
My New Years Resolutions
1. Use up all the wool/cloth etc.
2. Get all my poems onto the website.
3. Level all classes in WoW to 80.
4. Organise the house better so it's easier to move by December.
My major goals for 2010
1. Enjoy activities away from the computer, eg. homemaking, gardening, etc
2. Enjoy activities away from World of Warcraft, eg. blogging, Sims3
3. Enjoy a different role within WoW, eg. leveller, raider
4. Of course, the obilgatory "get fit" goal /sigh (I need to loose 7cm from my waist!)
5. And most importantly, enjoy continuing to maintain current relationships :)
Homecraft
I'd like to use up as much wool, cloth, ribbons, buttons, etc, that I already have here before I buy any new materials from the craft store.
I'd like to make practical things that I can use in the home and that I might have otherwise bought if I didn't make it myself.
Before buying something, I'd like to try and ask myself first, could I make this myself?
I'd like to try the glass fusing kit.
I'd like to start work on making gifts to give next Christmas.
Gardening
I'd like to continue exploring things we can successfully grow in pots here, and how we can use them in the kitchen.
Blogging
I'd like to try and make a blog entry at least once a day.
I'd like to add a little more at the poetry site at least once a day.
Sims3
I'd like to only play Sims3 a limited amount, exploring higher levels of free will in characters.
World of Warcraft
Until expansion, I want my contribution to the running of the guild to continue to be limited, to encourage others to do it as much as possible.
After expansion, I might want to start helping run the guild more again, I might not!
I want to level at least my druid to 80, currently 76, before the Chinese New Year Festival in February.
I want to continue raiding end-game, preferrably on my hunter.
Before expansion, I would like to try and level to 80 my warrior (74), rogue (70), death knight (62) and shaman (45).
It might seem like I have a lot of goals for 2010, but I don't think its too much for me because these are also instead of goals I might have achieved in the workplace
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Here is an upgrade of my first attempt at a baby block. This one is for a gift, as we are part of a Kris Kringle this year. This cube has numbers and letters on it, as well as a bell inside to make it jingle!
I find our culture of gift giving at times very challenging. I'd rather give gifts as a matter of course, when things arise that someone needs or wants, then you give it to them if you can. I don't like having to wait for a special occasion, then there is this culture of having to give a gift, giving gifts the receiver does not need or want. This, in turn, increases the consumerism and rubbish that piles up on our planet. But unfortunately, I am a social creature, being a mammal and all, so I'm compelled to participate in this ritual and not cause offence to my friends and family. But sometimes I just wish we would get more practical with this gift giving thing! I think even gift vouchers are better than an unwanted gift, but for some people this is not in the spirit of it, and they don't like it. I just loathe to see people on modest incomes waste their money on expensive gifts that are not needed.
A month or so ago we had a hail storm here in Brisbane, which caused some damage to the roof of my friend's house. She lost her potted basil plants, so a perfect gift for her (I think, anyway), is a new basil plant! I took a cutting from my youngest plant, and put it in a vase on my kitchen sill. Now it has lots of nice new roots and is ready to plant in a nice pot. I just have to get some more potting mix and it will be ready for its new home.
I know Freya likes purple so I went to Lincraft to get some of their 'plum' coloured cotton so I could whip up another set of drink coasters!
Washing instructions are on the Frangipani post.
In case anyone is wondering where I have been, I have been recovering from an emergency caesarean to deliver our baby boy, whom we have named Thomas!
The steroid injections they gave me to help his lungs develop worked very well, as he didn't need any assistance breathing, despite being born at 31 weeks gestation. He is being fed formula, and just in case anyone is out there thinking I should have breast fed, believe me please I wanted to and tried very hard, but it wasn't to be. He has started putting on weight every day and the nurses in the special care unit are very happy with him, telling us he is a sprightly little one with lots of spirit.
Here are two pictures of the lovely card they made for us, it's so very special. An imprint of his feet in the card makes this a very thoughtful gift for us. The hospital also gave us a stocking of cute little toys and baby clothes, they are so kind.
This is the last coaster set I'll do for now. I guess if anyone else wants one, I'll just get some more cotton and make more! But next time I buy cotton, I'll get some red, pink and purple so I can get different colour combinations. Below is a photo of the colours I used for this gift giving season.
Then as the wet season approaches, the trees would become full of flowers and the smell was gorgeous. Most of them were the yellow and white variety, some had a light blush of pink. And very rarely, there was a deep red variety which didn't seem to grow as thick but had the rich fragrance of a rose and was very special. The blue in this set represents the clear blue skies of the Darwin dry season.
These are the first two sets of my Seasonal Drinks coasters!
Autumn also had to have some orange, with a little bit of golden and green. Again, I found inspiration on google images, this time for Autumn colours. As often found in collections of Autumn colours, these represent the turning of the leaves from green to golden, to then dull and fall upon the ground, loosing the bright colour as winter approaches ...
Here are the second and third sets I've made for this Summer Drinks coaster collection, I call these colour combos "Sandy Beach" & "River Boat".
Navy and white are common sailor stripe colours and is the theme of the upholstery on our "River Boat", and of course it has timber decking!
Here is the first set of six coasters I am making to give as Christmas gifts. I hope the recipients don't think they are too silly!
Its that time of year to take down the Christmas decorations, if you're the kind of person to go to the trouble. My efforts in this department are a mere token gesture, for me its to acknowledge the significance of this event on our culture. Celebrating seasons and the passage of time is important. We mark our lives with significant occasions, rejoicing in the fact that somehow we are here, alive and on this planet (by miracle or coincidence, or a combination of both). If we did not celebrate significant occasions, our lives would be merely a string of days strung together with no memorable markers to divide the time. To look backwards and remember significant occasions is important to give your life meaning. That's what I think, anyway!
I like our little Christmas tree. We picked it up from the local newsagent. It's a very practical tree for us. Its small, and packs down flat into a handy box. As renters, we need to be practical about the trivial things in life! My Christmas decorations are minimal and easy to manage. You won't catch me stringing up garlands of tinsel and rows of dangly balls and stars! I certainly wouldn't bother with Christmas lights, those things simply BEG to break. And there you are with all this broken crap, what then to do with it? Best not to bother, imho. I think the Santa I blue tac to
my kitchen buffet might have been recycled from a Christmas cake several years ago. I stick him up if the thought occurs to me. The festive dangling penguin was the gift tag from the bottle of wine my sister gave us, and I thought he looked particularly cheery, so hung him up to give Santa company.
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The chilli pictured was grown from seed we bought from BigW last year so I think this plant must be a year old. We have already harvested it once or twice, this might be the 3rd batch.
All of our chilli seeds have germinated very easily, a lot easier than any other types of plants we've tried to grow from seeds. A couple of batches of chilli fruit have yielded more seeds which we collected and planted, not thinking so many would take. Now we have many chilli plants after only about 12 months!
On a recent trip to check out a new nursery for us called Turner's Nursery we saw an excellent Thai Chilli plant which looked very happy and was full of bright fruit, so we bought our own to bring home in a pretty ceramic pot! I put the dragonfly charm we bought there in the pot for goodluck!
The best thing we were given this year was a very thoughtful and practical book called 'the organic container gardener's bible' as we have a modest container garden which is finally starting to look as if it might thrive in our small courtyard. We think this book caught our eye in the bookstore when we were hanging out there a few months ago and it has some very helpful pages in there for us.
