Happy New Year to all...

Random stuff!!

Christmas goodies we gave to our chiropracters office.

Cat in a bag!!

A First Birthday card.

A few Christmas pics to bore you with!!

My Step daughter had to crawl under the tree to get to the last of the presents!!

For some it was too much!!

Somethingmade my Hubby laff!!!

Christmas cat, he crawled under here when everyone arrived and we could hear him chewing the ribbons, i kept shooing him out and he kept going in for more!!!!!!!
Hope you all had a great Christmas.

Real tree or Artificial? I have had real ones, but when Beanie was younger (cat) he would climb in it and one year i lost all my lovely glass ornaments cos he and Sam pulled it over with their fat butts!!! SO now i go artificial.
Do you like eggnog? Nah not really. ..too many calories for one thing....its kind of fattening you know!!
Do you have a nativity scene? yes i have two one that belonged to my hubby's mum and one i have got him for his Christmas village ( its so cute)
Worst Christmas gift you ever received? the first year i was married to my ex, he got me plant pots and shelves, a rubbish bin for the kitchen........no imagination that man.
Favorite Christmas Movie? Has to be "It's a wonderful life" its just so sweet.My fav line is "every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings" love it
Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Hmmm nope don't think i have.......i have recycled bags and bows does that count??!!
Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Turkey, Sausage rolls, mince pies, sweets............oh i could go on i love food!!!!!!
Favorite Christmas song?"Sleigh bells ring are you listening, in the lane snow is glistening."...... By Johnny Mathis of course!!
Travel at Christmas or stay home? I like to stay home, i love my tree, my decorations,i like to cook Christmas dinner, i love this holiday its my fav and i like to be the hostess!! Although we do go elsewhere on occasion.
Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Hmmm OK lets see now, theres Dasher and dancer and Donder and Blitzen, comet and cupid, and of course Rudolph, is that them all?? oh and prancer and vixen............i was thinking there was only 6 but i sang the song and i remembered!!!!
What do you want for Christmas this year? Oh i don't know...........perfume, scrapping stuff,happy smiles
Does Santa wrap presents or just put them under the tree? Oh my gosh he wraps them, i thought everyone knew that????? Putting them under the tree unwrapped who does that????????
Colored lights on house/tree or white? Coloured, white are nice abut i love the colours.
Favorite holiday memory as a child? Us all being together when we were kids, mum baking up a storm in the kitchen, mum making the Christmas cake in October with the money in it!!Just a lot of happy memories!!
When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I think i was 12...well that's when mum told me but i knew before then!!!!!!!! too many kids at school with big mouths!!
Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Oh of course!!!!!!!!! i can;t wait I'm a big kid!!!!!!!!
How do you decorate your tree? Lights first then all the glass balls and tinsel and everything else!!!!!!! My fav thing at Christmas is decorating the tree!!
Snow. Love it or dread it? LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!
Can you ice skate? Nope never tried, but I'd like to!!!!!!!
Do you remember your favorite gift? Gosh been so many of them, i love anything my Hubby gets me.
What is the most important thing about the holidays to you? Everyone being happy and safe if they travel and being with my hubby.
Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Oh giving, i get embarrassed when people give me things..... i blush and i hate that!!!!!!!!!
Candy canes. Yum or yuck? YUMMY!!!!!!
Do you dress up for Christmas Eve or wear PJs? Well i think i might dress up for a change i think my hubby gets sick of seeing me slob around!!!!!!!!!!
Do you own a Santa hat? Yup and you wont see me in it as it shows my big ears off!!!!!!!!!
Who do you usually spend Christmas with? My best friend, my darling Hubby.


Thanks to dust bunny for me stealing this !!!!!!!!!!

I am being driven insane...

Slowly and surely i am being driven insane by my animal's and my house.... My dishwasher is on the fritz again, and i have 9 people to dinner on Thursday............ugh, i could just throw that piece of junk out the door, never EVER buying Maytag again.......EVER. Hubby has looked at it, cleaned the filter on it checked the valve and it's still not working, he's going to have another look this afternoon, what is the point in having an unreliable machine???? i could kick it. I told hubby we are eating off paper plates and using plastic on Thursday, and I'm deadly serious cos I'm NOT standing washing dishes on Christmas day whilst everyone else is having fun...NO WAY. You know what its like when you have the family over, everyone seems to disappear when the words washing and dishes rears its ugly head!!!!! I got some heavy duty paper plates and plastic forks, if anyone is affronted by that then they are more than welcome to eat of the china as long as THEY wash it!!!!!!!!!!! Heck I'm supplying the food the least they could do is wash their own plate they are all old enuff!!!!!!!!!

As you can gather one is not in the best of moods today, the dogs are in the house as its really cold outside and i think they have gone loopy,they have to be crated as i have cats and one of my cats was murdered by my Step daughters pit bull and my two joined in with the murdering so they get crated, also the dachshund is not house trained and he will pee and poop where ever he wants too and i got brand new carpet so guess what, you get crated little dog!! ( he was a foundling dog, got rescued from heavens knows where and was a bag of bones when we go him, he is now known as dumpling dog cos hes a little chunky!!!!) i swear though when i feed them you would think they had never been fed in their lives and if there's no tidbits in their food i get "the look".......... now the look consists of a pathetic look directed your way that says in dog speak, "um excuse me lady, there nothing but dog food in here, where's the good stuff huh?? you seriously cannot expect me to eat this???" then there is the sigh and the begrudging consumption of the meagre rations for that day.
Boomer ( the Dal) when it is time to go out to pee, will leisurely stretch when he is let out of his crate, walks slowly to the door and then i have to push him out with my foot, its cold out there you know!!!!!!! every morning its the same then as soon as hes done its whining time to come back in even though poor scooter has just about trotted to his fav spot!! Boomer is not a lover of the cold, he has a comfy crate with a pillow and a blanket and its right in front of a blowing heater..................bliss to him, Scooter has a pillow and a blanket also and he buries himself under it, many a morning i have to wait whilst he extracts himself from the tangle his has made himself!! Oh and whilst they are out doing what they need to, guess who has moved into the crates?? The cats......all snuggled up on the blankets, i swear those cats can hear the dogs go out over a mile away. They can be nowhere to be seen then as soon as the dogs get back in i have to extricate 3 cats from poor old Boomers crate. I get the "other look" then, the one from Boomer that says..." oh the indignities, now i have to smell like a cat" The cats are another story, they rule this house, i have to walk carefully as you never know when Hagar or Cy will come zooming past you at about 100 miles and hour, they fly over furniture and do not leave anything shiny on a coffee table or Cy will have it off there and he will be admiring his new shiny toy on the floor and then....it's gone. I swear he is either a pack rat or a magpie..........he loves shiny things.........i had a nice bracelet once.............. he ran off with it.

Take a look...

At lou's blog, she does great work...

http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com/2008/12/20/christmas-mini-album-pages-6-7-plus-150-give-a-way/

a few of my fav's...

A picture blog today, some of my fav deccy's on the tree... i brought this one over from Britain with me, it's a fat British Robin, i have 3 of them!!!

These globes you plug into your strand of lights, they change colour and there is a switch at the bottom that you can turn on and off and it will rotate whats inside of it, needs batteries of course so i only put them on at weekends but they are so pretty. I have the nativity, church,Santa, snowman and a tree one. Had lots of compliments on them so i bought some for family as gifts this year.

A couple of things i made..

I have been busy this week!!! I made a card yesterday for my hubby's mum's birthday, i thought this picture was so pretty. It's just some lace on the back of it and a couple of buttons and ribbon but it turned out really nicely.

The second things is just a twig sprayed silver with some glitter spray on it and some shop bought ornamental pine cones, it turned out so pretty also. I was worried the cats would dig in the pot as it has dirt in it, but so far they have left it alone!!! I can't have a single real plant in the house, they chew on leaves and dig in the pots so all i have are artificial ones!! I even bought an artificial spiky plant for the bathroom and thought it would be safe, oh no Hagar ( the evil one and naughtiest cat int he world) starts chewing on the ends of it, every day i would go in there and see little bits of chewed plant on the vanity unit, so we had to move it up to a shelf, i mean it was PLASTIC, but he chewed it anyway. I have a lucky bamboo plant in my bedroom, i have to keep it in there cos he chews on it!!!!!!!! If he sneaks in there whilst my back is turned or my arms are full of laundry i have to chase him out of the room as he Will get out from his hiding spot and go chew the plant. I am telling you the naughtiest cat in the world, this morning for instance I'm on the treadmill, now there is a wall right by it with a place he can sit on, so there i am working away on the treadmill and he decides he's going to jump on my back, SCARED THE PEA WADING CRAP OUT OF ME!!!!!!!! i screamed, i know i did cos i heard it over the ipod!!!!!!!!!!scared him too cos he jumped off and ran off!!!!!!! i thought for a moment it was my hubby playing a joke on me til i felt claws......... what on earth he thought he was going to do sitting on my shoulder whilst i ran i do not know, later on he tried it again only this time i saw him out of the corner of my eye....turkey!!!! i said to my hubby later that i could have been screaming for help and he wouldn't have heard a thing!!!!!!! Of course he stuck up for the "baby" ( hes 2 by the way, the cat not my hubby!!) he was trying to encourage me by riding on my shoulder was the excuse he came up with, lets just establish right here that Hagar can do NO wrong in my hubby's eyes!!!!!!!!!

Had a hawk in my garden today as well, he had what looked like a rat in his claws, sitting in one of my trees scoffing it, might have been a kestrel but i think he was too big for that, not sure if you have sparrowhawks over here, i will need to look that up unless someone can tell me? I just hope he wasn't after the birds in my yard, i don't want to have to chase him off as hawks need to eat too, but i don't want him picking my garden to use as his menu!!!!!!!!!!!!

That;s it I'm out of here for the weekends, got a busy busy time set up for this weekend.!!!!!

New ornaments

When i was on vacation in September with my sis i found some nice ornaments of states, i got Oklahoma, Montana,Arizona and New Mexico, i tool some pics of these the other day. I couldn't find the New Mexico one on the tree, i know its there as my hubby put in on there, its on there somewhere, i was just too lazy to look too hard!!


I worked out this morning and kicked it up a notch well 5 Min's anyway, i put my treadmill to 60 Min's, i thought i was meant to get a 90 sec break but noooooo i ran for 30 secs and then i get a 60 sec break............oh my,i thought i was dying!!!!!!!!!! i had to slow it down a couple of times so i could get my breath!!! not sure if it was my asthma but man i couldn't breathe!!!! 5 Min's might not seem a lot in the grand scheme of things but when your overweight and your running you are running with that fat and its hard work!!! i thought i moved pretty good for a fat girl but boy...........i weighed the other day and had put on a pound i was so mad, but i am getting more toned and i have lost a couple of dress sizes, so its working, i just have to leave the m&m's alone!!!!!!!!! i now weigh 205lbs now and a lot more to go!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhc1r2b5h2A


I love this video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please feed the birds..

With the weather being so cold and frigid please don't forget our feathered brethren, they need food and water at this time of year, especially when its icy. I feed mine a mix of sunflower seeds, millet and a host of other things in a bag!! I love to watch them, i fed them this morning and about 2 hours later it was gone!! So i had to refill it, i get a lot of sparrows but yesterday i had a blue jay and then today i had a cardinal ( my absolute favs!!) i get mockingbirds and assorted finches, also please DO NOT PUT ANTI FREEZE in the water you will kill them as it is a poison ( yes people do put anti freeze in the water) they are so cute to watch. You will be rewarded with watching them squabble for a good position on the bird table or hanging feeders!! So please feed and water them, they need it this time of year!!!!!!!!

Christmas shopping...

Yuck.......we went to target and wal-mart yesterday, all i can say is never again at Christmas. i was looking for gifts for the Grand kids in Nebraska, left it a little late i know but we've been snowed under with other stuff.So here we were at target, i had looked at the Sunday ad and they had some good games on offer, well i tried to get down the toy aisle, in fact i tried twice before i just put my head down and shoved my way through (I'm too nice i say sorry for things other people have done!!) i got to the games and got the last connect 4 they had out and managed to find sorry (how apt!!) then it was the turn of the baby dolls...............oh my there are some ugly baby dolls out there!!!!!!!!i didn't like the ones they had so i knew wal.mart had a nice one so i would go there and get it. People do not like getting out of the way or moving over at all, there were people blocking aisle's, pulling stuff of shelves, i mean it looked like a bomb had gone off in some aisles!! toys not put back on shelves, kids playing with toys, kids wandering around on their own, no parents to be seen!!! The rest of the store was busy but manageable!! Wal-mart wasn't much better, i guess we picked the wrong day to go shopping!! I never really looked at the toys out there today, my two boys are teenager and early twenties so they are long out of the toy stage!! but there seems to be more electronic toys, i liked a talking my little pony, it was cute!! and they had some cute talking soft toys, but man the prices!! it;s nice to have girls to buy for i can indulge my girlie side, never having had one its nice to buy toys that are pretty and not boyish!! there seems to be more variety for girls or is it me??

Someone sent me this in an email, i laffed till i cried!!!!!!! so funny!!!!!


http://adoniscabaret.co.uk/saucy-santa-hen-night/index.htm

Busy weekend coming up, got some holiday goodies to bake, shopping to do and its the Christmas jingle bell ticket draw in town, got my tickets in my hot little hand!!!!!!!!!!!! We might be 10,000 bucks richer on Monday!! wouldn't that be a nice Christmas prezzie!!!!!!!!!!!

Been a busy week, got all the British contingency's prezzies sent and cards sent, just a few more prezzies to buy and I'm done!!!!!!! got to buy the turkey though, i don't know who is coming for Christmas but we are having turkey no matter what!!! Christmas just isn't Christmas without turkey. Got my crackers last saturday, got one more decoration to make, and i'm good!!!!!!!! Have a good weekend all.

Cute

I thought these little chaps looked cute, i got an email from better homes and gardens and this was one of the homemade items, i may give them a try!!

My Christmas cards for this year, a lot of work, mainly typing and assembly but once i had done one or two it got easier.If you want to use these please do but you may want to e.mail me for the whole poem, i could only find part of it so i had to make up the rest.

Update on Boomer and some Chrissy pics!!

A pic of Boomer before the ear trouble, see a BIG baby!!!!!!!!!!

Well our poor Dalmatian boomer has a hemotoma in his ear, its puffed up like a bladder, poor thing, my Darling hubby took him to the V.E.T and they took some fluid out and gave him some antibiotics and some pain killers cos its got to be hurting him poor thing. Looks like we may have to get him some surgery on it, it just keeps filling with fluid, thing is its going to cost in the region of 350 to 390 dollars, right at christmas and right when we don;t have that kind of money. But its got to be done, we may ask if they will let us pay in installments we could maybe afford that. Why does this kind of stuff ALWAYS happen at Christmas, i know in the grand scheme of things its really no biggie, but right now when things are tight and we still have grandkids pressies to buy its a big deal.But it's the price you pay for having pets, they cannot help themselves and when you take in an animal its all or nothing and he needs to have his ear done.He is trying to be brave and he seems to be alot better today although its filled with fluid again, we can take that off ourselves, but it will eventually have to be operated on, he was a big baby at the V.E.T.'s though, i knew he would be!!!!!!!!he is 82 pounds of big blubbering canine baby!!!!! but we love him!!!

We put our outdoor Christmas lights up on sunday, i took some pics, took the flash off but it blurred but i actually like them!! they may be blurred here and there but it looks nice an dfestive anyway so im putting a couple on here for you to look at!!Oh and we got a new tree topper too, we have the box fro our old one but no topper, we have looked and lokked and looked and its nowhere to be found, so we went and got this one, that was before we knew Boomer needed his ear fixed!!!!!!! we got this for 50% off!!!!!!!! Oh well.... we had money for a while there!!!!!!!

It's Monday...

It's Monday and don't i know it! i worked out this morning and it was like wading through mud, my poor knee and hip where hurting, its the cold, i have arthritis in my left knee and it just takes a little longer to get going of a morning!! But i still did my 50 mins on the treadmill, going to up it to 55 on Wednesday, keep the same program but just add 5 more mins, i think i can cope with that. Weigh-in tomorrow, see if i have lost anything, i may not have but i know my clothes are fitting a whole lot better, which spurs me onward.

Our poor Dalmatian Boomer has a swollen ear, looks like he and scooter his best pal have been rough housing a little too hard and nicked his ear a little, it looks to us like its infected, i suspect the vet will lance it and give him antibiotics, so hes going to be a little sorry for himself when he gets back.I think a treat will be in order when he comes home. Poor thing.

My bro sent me some puzzle books from home, i love Kriss Kross books and he always sends me some, every few months or so, well this time the package arrived torn, i think there would have been more then the two that got here, it was torn completely open at one end and half way down the side, i hate to think what the post office have been doing with it to get it in such a state. I am grateful i even got the two that did come in it. So thanks bro.

So that is Monday...........yuck!!!

You Are Rudolph

Sweet and shy, you tend to be happiest when you're making someone else happy. Why You're Naughty: You sometimes stick that nose where it doesn't belong Why You're Nice: Christmas would be a sad affair without you!

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

I love these..

These old fashioned Christmas postcards are just so nice, there's a market in town that sells all sorts of old things, people have booths and when they find stuff they have it for sale ,i was with my darling today in the market and they had some postcards from days gone by. The writing on them is always so neat and always done of course in old fashioned ink pen. It just makes me smile when i see them, i wonder who these people were, where they lived what kind of lives they had. Some of the artwork on them is so pretty, so it prompted me to look up when the first one was sent, this is what i found..........

The sending of greeting cards at Christmas began in the Victorian era. Although wood engravers produced prints with religious themes in the European Middle Ages, the first commercial Christmas and New Year's card is believed to have been designed and printed in London, England in 1843.
John Callcott Horsley (born 1817-- died 1903), a British narrative painter and a Royal Academician, designed the very first Christmas and New Year's card at the request of his friend Sir Henry Cole (the first director of the Victoria and Albert Museum). Cole suggested the idea of a specially designed form of greeting to send to friends at Christmas. In 1843 an edition of 1,000 of these Christmas cards were printed and placed on sale in London. They were printed in lithography by Jobbins of Warwick Court, Holborn, London, and hand-colored by a professional "colourer" named Mason. The cards were published under Sir Henry Cole's nom de guerre, "Felix Summerly"—by his friend Joseph Cundall, of New Bond Street...

So i thought that was jolly interesting. Did not surprise me one bit it was invented in jolly old London!! So i have learnt something today. I may go back tomorrow and get me a couple of the ones i was looking at.

Tinsel cat!!

Hagar playing in the tinsel.

The naughtiest cat in the world!!!!

here he is looking extremely cute and like butter would not melt!!!! But trust me when i say he is the worst cat in the world, i mean into EVERYTHING!!! He's 2 i expected him to grow out of this phase, but so far he has shown no intentions of doing so!!!! My Christmas tree is surviving but only just!!!

More cards that i have made..

I jogged!!!

I have a great Treadmill with some great programs on it, i have been doing my new workout routine and my hubby said i needed to "up" my treadmill workout. So i tried a diff program that had me jogging!!!!!!! Yes me!!!! i only did the prog for 30 mins and you had 90 secs of resting just a walking pace then for 30 secs it had me at a jogging pace, it kept this up for 30 mins!!!!! and i did it!!!!!!!!!!! YAHOOOOOOOOOEEEYYYYY!!!! I was knackered at the end of it though and boy did i ever sweat, then i did crunches and sat in an exhausted heap on the floor, but i did it baby!!!!!!!!!!!

Maytag suck...

.......or maybe its me, we bought this dishwasher back in 06, we had to take out a cupboard to put it in and plumb it in and all that good stuff. Well i was over the moon, no more having to wash dishes by hand, having people over and me stuck in the kitchen washing hoards of dishes because i can;t just relax knowing they are in there.........waiting..................drying food on them. I have to get in there and wash them, i cannot stand it and i cannot relax. So for our wedding anniversary that year we decided to get a dishwasher, or was it my birthday.... hmmmm. ANYWAY!!! we got it, went to the store to pick that baby out, money was fairly tight but we had a decent budget, we decided on the Maytag one. Black and pretty!!! ( i love new appliances!!!) so we took the little thing home and were all excited!!!

Yeah well that was until we had to take out the cupboard, which we knew we were going to have to anyway, but did not realise it was a job and a half.Two days later and we had the hole, it took two days as my hubby was on shifts so he would fit it in when he had time. He put the plumbing in,wired it up,slid it in and away we went.... GREAT. Til a few months later it started making a grinding noise, that lasted a few weeks but we couldn't see anything wrong with it, we had peeps out to look at it and nothing. then as soon as it started grinding it stopped it. All was good until 2 weeks after the warranty ran out.................................it stopped working all together. Oh i was so mad at it, i wasn't about to pay for the man to come out again as it would cost us a fortune, so we turned off the water, unplugged it and took it to a little man that can.... fix things!!!!!!!!! told him if it was going to cost more than 150 bucks to fix it not to bother we would go buy an second hand one,but it only cost about 80 bucks. Hoorah, fixed and back in the house.....all is right in the world again.......until about 7 months later and it stops working again, but this time my Hubby got it working.......until last week when it once again packed up on us. This time hubby could not get it going, he had to go get a part for it as the little man that could doesn't fix em anymore, more money to be made in A/C's apparently!!!

So i am once again washerless and hubby is on nights, so no washer, all by hand again, that's why i'm putting off going in there to wash them, i keep looking at the washer and sighing.......and of course calling it all the names i can think of, don't think i will be buying a Maytag again.....i had a Hotpoint washer dryer once that blew up on me so i have never even looked at another Hotpoint.............but thats a whole other story of flashing lights and sirens and smoke....................and bright red luminous fire engines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Would love one of these.....

IF MY SISTER HADN'T SCOFFED THEM ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For weeks since she went back to Scotland she has been saying she will send me some..........well i'm still waiting sis of mine, the min she gets any they are scoffed by her......or her daughters!!!!!!!! She says they just call to her......hmmmmmmmmm well stop listening!!!!!!!! Love you really sis!!!!!!!!!!! hmmm i hear a three musketeers bar calling my name......................must go................