It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

While Girl Child and i were yesterday at home with her tummy bug, we decided to do Christmas things. We made some shortbread stars and snowmen.  This year we made some chocolate as well as the normal ones. The ones on the left aren't burnt, they are just chocolate!

I also cheated a bit and added some water instead of the entire amount of butter so they are less short than normal but still very yummy.

Once they were made, Girl Child set about decorating our tree whilst listening to Wiggles and Hi-5 Christmas CDs.  I’m thinking we should get a new tree as we had this one for Boy Child’s first Christmas and it’s just a bit over a meter tall from the floor to the top of the star.  I’m also thinking we should get new Christmas music as the CD’s have the original Hi-5 crew and Greg as the Yellow Wiggle. Lots of nostalgia for me, there.

 

Yes, the star is crooked!

I have also put up the garbage bag wreath we attempted from Kate Says Stuff – Easy Pease Rubbish Bag Wreaths. Ours doesn't look terrific but the thought was there.  Of course Boy Child says it can’t be a Christmas wreath because it’s the wrong colours.  We only had Yellow and Purple bags so that’s what we did.  And yesterday we found the little cross stitch that my grandmother had given me  quite a few years ago so that is the Christmassy enough for me.

Now with those things all the in the house plus the two and half hours shopping I did today it’s really beginning to feel like Christmas for me.

What things make it seem Christmassy to you?

I'm grateful for pushing my boundaries

This week I did two things that were outside my comfort zone. I'm grateful that I did these things. While not big in the scheme of things, they were things that I normally wouldn't have tried.

Firstly, I went to a Nutrimetics party. Now that isn't so scary in itself. It was a party held by a friend, and I knew all bar one person there. Thankfully it was a Christmas catalogue party so nobody was going to be touching me. However, I was worried as I had attended the makeup lesson with some of these people and thought that they have have wanted to do maintenance in what someone had once called 'those caterpillars on your face' aka my eyebrows.

I can't think of anything that would have been more horrifying disconcerting than arriving to find that my eyebrows were going to be sacrificed to the goddess of beauty. I had actually made a point of asking on the day whether I was going to be used as a guinea pig before actually confirming I would make it.

It was fine, fun even. A chance to catch up at night without our children. It has even started discussion of a night out before Christmas, without husbands and children.

Now the second thing was with most of the same people. But it scared me almost as much as the fear of recreational eyebrow massacre. It was ... Knitting! Yes my friends, a bunch of people got together to learn to knit. Apparently, according to my grandmother, knitting is a dying skill because many of my peers and younger generations do not know how it do it.
 
So in an effort to stop the skill from dying a peaceful death, someone requested a knitting lessons from one of the crafty people we know. From there it snowballed into a morning tea with a side of knitting and a brief foray into paper craft. For once, I was not a newbie having been taught to knit by my grandmother. Of course while I mostly knew what I was doing I still needed to be taught how to increase, decrease and cast off. But as I actually knew way more than some of the others it was nice to not be the gumbiest person in the room.

By the time the paper crafting came around I was more interested in the yummy food. Somehow I have ended up with some embossed cards and letters. Plus some GF chocolate cake. Now I just need Mr E. to stop laughing about the idea of me knitting.

So my boundaries have been pushed and inhale survived. How cool is that? While I'm on the topic of boundaries being pushed I will NOT be putting a photo of my body (even dressed in my good bra and undies) on the Internet even for a great cause. Oh wait, perhaps in part that's because I don't have a good set of underwear.

However, there are many people braver than me. Today they are sharing why they love their bodies just the way they are. Go check out I Heart My Body 2011 over at We Heart Life.

Have you pushed your boundaries, lately? Do you heart your body?

I'm linking up with Maxabella's I'm grateful for....