CHRISTMAS CARD TIME!

The giving and receiving of Christmas cards has been traditional in my family ever since I could remember. I grew up with it, and each year as those cards received were hung on the slats of the Venetian blinds in the ‘sitting room’ they were also counted to see if there were more than last year.

Sending of Christmas cards through the mail has, of more recent years, been restricted to mainly those who don’t have access to the internet and email and the bulk on my ‘list’ have been sent electronically. I’ve kind of liked the sparkly animated graphics which are possible to send this way.

This year I decided to be a bit more creative and make instead of purchasing those I want to post. I got enthused when visiting a scrapbooking supplies shop recently. I’ve always enjoyed receiving the ‘home made variety’ of Christmas cards and thought about the effort of the creator of them.

With stamps, ink, card, decorative paper, glue and glitter in hand I’ve been doing my own bit of creating. I’m sure it’s not been cheaper in the long run to do it this way, but the satisfaction and pleasure I’ve had has been well worth the effort.

JESUS IS WHO HE SAYS HE IS

J E S U S had no servants, yet they called Him M a s t e r
Had no degree, yet they called Him T e a c h e r
Had no medicines, yet they called Him H e a l e r
He had no army, yet Kings Feared Him
He won no military battles, yet He Conquered the World
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him
He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today
I feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us!
AND HE IS COMING AGAIN!!!!

This year I’m quite late getting my act together. Usually I like to have this done by at least the end of October, however that month this year in Sydney was supposedly the hottest on record for a long time so I kind of reneged heating the house up even more with the oven turned on for 3 hours.

Each year I’ve kept up a kind of tradition to make up several big sized Christmas cakes and spread them around family members. Last year I decided I’d done it for long enough and would cut down to a smaller size instead of the giant, double recipe size. When I made mention of this to DIL she looked at me a little oddly. I wondered why but realized there was a good reason behind her facial expression when questioned a little about it. She told me she had for a number of years, been sharing her cake with her parents – she was wondering how she could tell them there may not be any that year. I felt so bad about it, that I made extra so they could enjoy their Christmas treat.

So again this year, since the weather has been much cooler for the past week, I’ve found myself getting to it and making up two of the giant sized cakes. I’m sure we’ll all enjoy our ‘once a year Christmas cake’ again come December 25, and probably for a few weeks after!

BLUE TONGUED LIZARD

I looked out of the kitchen window and gave a bit of a jump. What was that out on the grass – I have a fear of snakes and even though I’ve only seen one on this property in the 15 years we have lived here, I don’t really want to see another! I ventured as far as the door and peered out. The ‘thing’ hadn’t moved – was simply sunning itself in the bright 9am sunshine.

It suddenly occurred to me! Our ‘blue tongue!’ We had known these lovely creatures had lived around the rocks and concrete which surrounded our pool area ever since we moved into this hous, even producing babies on one occasion, but over the past 3 years haven’t seen sight nor sign of them. Presumed they had gone elsewhere when the drought in Sydney hit and they needed to check out a more ‘lizard friendly’ home.

I managed to get a pic of him/her/it before scurrying away to the coolness of the rocks. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a shot of the beautiful lavender blue tongue which darts in and out of a pink mouth. Their mouth is large and the tongue is very prominent being such a gorgeous blue, and they feed predominantly on snails, slugs and any vegetable matter which takes their fancy. This one had better keep his cotton-picking paws off my baby spinach! Regardless, I sure hope he stays around for a bit now.

STITCHING A SAMPLER

Some time ago I purchased from overseas, a stitching kit which I had seen a picture of. I loved it immediately and had always promised myself I would someday stitch a sampler – this was the one I wanted to do. When the purchase arrived I opened it and loved the watercolours thread but was really disappointed to find the cream linen the original had been stitched on had been substituted in the kit for Rustico Aida. Part of the appeal for me was the cream linen however I put the kit in the cupboard deciding that sometime in the future I’d ‘have a go’ at it.

Recently I had to have surgery on my knee so during the few days of recuperation I got out the kit and began to work up some enthusiasm for stitching it. I separated the threads after I had worked out which colours corresponded with their numbers and made a start. Wow! I could hardly pull the thread through the aida holes. Was I doing something wrong? No, I checked it all again – right number of threads on the cloth, only one strand of thread - I wasn’t sure how this was really going to work out. It seemed so thick for the 18 count cloth.

I’m plugging away at it slowly but I guess the initial disappointment is still with me and I’m not sure if the end result would have been any different if this pattern had been stitched on linen.

I’m not too far into the design yet, but here’s a photo of what I’ve done so far. The thread just seems far too thick for the fabric. Maybe one of you stitchers out there in cyberspace land has used the watercolour thread and could help me with this. I’d appreciate any comments.

BREAST CANCER SITE AND OTHER THINGS

Well if you remember correctly when I began this last spell of blogging I did say I wondered how long I could keep it up. I’ve been ‘shown up’ horribly haven’t I? First of all I had surgery to my knee – and you all know how that stops one typing on a computer! Then I got another flu bug which laid me low for 3 days, hardly getting myself out of bed – and that also had an effect on my typing abilities. So you see I do have great excuses – if only they were the true reason. I’d say I’ve just been hugely lazy with this supposedly regular journaling. I’ll try to do better in future. But I do have to reiterate - I’m still wondering how long I can keep it up. Maybe those of you who know me could give me a gentle prod now and again to keep me going!

Recently a relative sent me a link to a breast cancer website where all one has to do is click a pink button and hey presto, a paid mammogram has been given for somebody who is unable to afford one. I thought this was a great idea and immediately went to the site and clicked away. I sent this link to my contacts by email and really expected that some of them would probably also ‘give by clicking.’ I had one unexpected reply however which simply pooh-poohed the whole thing. It set me back a bit I’ve got to say and I had to question whether the website was legit and really did what it claimed to do. How do you find out about these things? Do you just keep ‘clicking away on a daily basis’ to keep the mammograms rolling out? Well, I’ve got to say I’ve been doing that – despite the tiny niggle in the back of my mind which says it may be a futile exercise. But then my positive thoughts begin to crowd out the negative ones and I reckon a click on a pink button is probably worth doing – there’s always a chance that it actually does provide for some women who otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity to check for a life threatening condition.

The same thing I guess applies to ‘giving a pink ribbon’ on some other popular websites. This particular application hopes to reach the 3 million ribbons being given, attached to messages or emails. If nothing else, at least these are reminders of what a threat breast cancer can be to many thousands of women each year and helps us to remember and promote this fact through our blogging, messaging, or emailing.

Does anybody out there in cyberspace land know if there’s a similar thing going for men’s prostate cancer?