Chocalisciousness!

OMG! I blinked and the end of November came steaming round the corner and hit me full in the face... Yikes, it's frightening how quickly the days are passing and there's so much to do that I really don't want to do, like cleaning and decorating the house so that it's all fresh for the Christmas decorations to go up.

There are also so many things that I do want to do but haven't got time to, like crafting. Isn't it funny how you get so many ideas running wild around your head when you just don't have any time to play? I've had a note pad and pen surgically attached to me so that I can make quick notes of all my ideas which tend to pop into my head when I'm at the top of a ladder with a paint brush in my hand or elbow deep in sudsy water washing walls and windows.

And yes, my poor blog has suffered badly in the last few weeks. What with all the extra work at home, together with 'work' work and running backwards and forwards to the Doctors, the hospital and the Musculoskeletal Clinic while decisions are made about my knees that it's left me severely devoid of blogging inspiration.

However, the time taken going to all the different appointments has not been time wasted I'm happy to say. Once referred to the specialist clinic for assessment, it wasn't too long before they told me what I already knew.... I am way past any interim help or treatment. I have now been referred for knee joint replacement surgery and have already had my pre-op assessment meeting and completed all the necessary form filling and health checks to make sure I'm 'fit' for surgery.

Last week I trekked off to the hospital for all my blood tests.... honestly, they took so much of it that I thought they'd made a mistake, thinking I was there as a blood donor (I have quite a rare blood group and they are always trying to get their hands on it)!

So now I'm just waiting for my appointment with the surgeon and then I should have a better idea of when they will operate. I'm not looking forward to it but I am looking forward to eventually being able to get around without being doped up to the eye-balls with pain killers.

I have found some time (just a little) to do what I love best.... playing with stamps, inks and wonderful papers, yey! And of course, I taught several workshops in November, all of which have been great fun with fab people and an opportunity to paint canvasses, make accordion journals and concertina keepsakes with origami boxes.


With only four weeks 'till Christmas, almost everything is now geared towards the festive season. I've been working on a 31 day tag book. I'm about half way through covering plain white tags on both sides with lovely Christmassy papers, to which I will add smaller tags with embellishments, stamping and the date. The 'plan' is to take photos every day throughout December regardless of what I may be doing...... housework, shopping, gift wrapping, putting up the decorations, baking..... well you get the idea. I will then add the photos and journalling to the tags as a pictorial record of December 2008. I will let you see how it's coming along when there's something more to see.

Talking of photographs and putting up the deco's, several people have asked me if I'm going to do what I did last year and include our Christmas preparations on my blog? Well, as I'm planning on taking photo's every day for the December Album it should be easy enough to combine the two. So if you don't like Christmas I'd look away now and pop back in January when I'm all Christmassed out! I'll apologise now...... as anyone who knows me, knows that I love the festive season and totally enjoy every aspect of Christmas, even all the extra work. It's well worth it. So from here on in be warned, I'm in festive mode and loving it!!!

If Christmas had a flavour for me it would be epitomised by Starbucks Gingerbread Latte, in their words - 'a sweet and spiced latte with the aroma of freshly baked gingerbread'. Yummm it's delish! A couple of weeks ago while out shopping with DH, we popped into our local Starbucks and tried out the Christmas menu. I couldn't resist buying these lovely festive mugs so that we could make our own scrummy hot chocolate at home:

and this is what it looks like......


So now that I'm on a chocolate high, it's back to the painting (walls.... not canvas) oh poooo!