Giveaway

Ok, it's time for a giveaway.
I have a copy of Joan Elliott's Ultimate Cross Stitch Collection magazine.

Just leave a comment on this post for a chance to win.
Make sure I am able to contact you through a blog or email link.


Follower bonus
You don't have to be a follower, but I have a bonus if the winner is a follower of my blog.

If I draw your name as the winner of the magazine and you are also a follower, I will include 2 x fat eights of linen fabric from Stitches and Spice.
The first is Antique Rose 32ct, the second is Butter Creme 28ct.


Closing date is Sunday, December 11.  I'll do the drawing a few days later when everything is back on track after our holiday.  Depending on where you live and your postal service you may get it by Christmas.

Good luck.

Photos

No stitching photos, but I thought I'd share these.

This is my cat, Lexi, pretending to be asleep on a hot afternoon and ignoring the camera.

'I wish you'd stop bothering me'

Here is where DH and I went for our weekend away - Novotel Twin Waters Resort. I walked around the lagoon and found a nice spot for a photo.  The weather was beautiful.


Looking across the lagoon to the main resort area.

We walked to the beach from the resort and strolled in the water.  When I'm walking on the beach I have to get my feet wet.  This is looking south. 

Sunshine Coast beach

We are heading off to the beach again on Saturday for our holiday. We are staying about 10 minutes south of where the photo above was taken, but in the centre of Mooloolaba.  DH left for North America yesterday and will be back the morning we leave.

I have found 15 starts for my Crazy January Challenge. They are listed on the page and I'll add photos soon.

I'll post about my giveaway tomorrow.








Weekend Away, planning

No stitching done, it has been too hot and I've had some late nights recently with DS finishing assignments - 2am on Thursday morning!  He finishes for the year on Friday next week but he is going to the Gold Coast on Thursday at 7am for a 2 day maths extension program so he finishes his exams on Wednesday.  I pick him up from school at 6pm Friday.  He went to this program last year and this year there are only 5 of the top students going in each of grades 8, 9 and 10.

DH and I are going away for the weekend - after DD's cricket game and dancing practice, then taking kids to grandparents.  We are members of a car club and this is our Christmas party weekend.  We're going up to the Sunshine Coast about an hour north of here.  There are about 50-60 members going so we should have a great time. I'll take some stitching but will be lucky to do any, think I'll be napping or socializing tomorrow afternoon. 

 I've been thinking about my stitching next year.  I've decided to join Daffycat's TUSAL - it's where you save your orts and take a picture on the new moon.
I've also joined Measi's WIPocalypse to hopefully get some progress done on my wips and blog more often.
Obviously I've had too much time thinking, not enought time stitching because I've joined the Crazy January Challenge 2012 so now I have to select 15 items to start in January.
I'm hoping all the above will motivate me to do more stitching next year.

Lastly, this has made my day.  My photo of Fa-La-La has made it to the welcome page of I Love Cross Stitch yahoo group  Woohoo!

Right, I'm off to bed to get some beauty sleep before tomorrow.  The end of school stress and concerts, etc are nearly over so I'll be able to get back to stitching.  I'll have a giveaway coming up soon.
Thank you for your comments.

It's November!

It's November and I've done very little stitching since my last post.  I'm still working on my Autumn piece for ILCS yahoo group so I can't show it to you.  I ran out of thread and had to stop for a while so I'm not sure if I will get if finished in time.
October is not a good month for me and I think this year was particularly difficult - more on that below.

Here are some of the things that have been happening lately.

AIRPLANES
DH is in Vancouver again.  He left on Sunday morning and will be back next Monday.  Yes, he was caught in the Qantas drama. In case you don't know, Qantas announced on Saturday afternoon at 5pm that they were grounding their entire fleet in response to industrial action by unions.  Within 2 hours DH managed to get return flights to LA on another airline.  Of course Qantas is back flying again now.

CRAFT SHOW
A few weeks ago we had the Craft and Quilt show here in Brisbane.  I was lucky enought to get a free ticket offered by Stitches and Spice in their newsletter.  Here's a photo of part of their stall. The bins at the front are full of fabric.  Some of that fabric made it's way home with me.


Stitches and Spice stall

 I also found something else I had been looking for. I found this in one of the bead stalls.


Bead storage containers


 WEATHER
Look at this.

The closest we get to snow in Brisbane.  A hailstorm a few weeks ago.  It was only marble sized and no damage for us, but friends had cars out that got dented and it was a lot worse in other areas.  We have another wet summer forecast again - please not as bad as the floods early this year.

EXCHANGES
I was in the ILCS 10th Anniversary Birthday Exchange.
This is what I received from Renae

And this is what I sent Jo

A few months ago I decided I needed a new mobile phone as mine was not working properly. I waited and got the new iphone 4s on the first day it came out.  It's my first smartphone and I love it, and I can take photos with my phone (such technology!)  I already had an ipad so I wanted to stay with Apple.

SCHOOL

Kids finish school for the year in 4/5 weeks so it's getting busy for both of them now.  DS is getting another academic award at his schools yearly awards ceremony next week - he got one last year as well.  He has nearly finished year 9.  He is getting very tired again so I think he is about to have another growth spurt.  He will be 15 in January.

We are horribly busy and the next day when I have nothing on my calender is November 27, so we are looking forward to ...

HOLIDAYS

We've decided not to go overseas this summer, we'll go back to the snow and skiing in January 2013.  This year instead we're going up the coast to Mooloolaba for a week in early December.  It's only an hour drive away and should be a relaxing week in the sun on the beach. 

It would have been my mother's 70th birthday in late September.  She passed away in October 1982 when she was 41 and I was 13.  She took her own life after a 9 year battle with schizophrenia, caused by a severe brain injury from a horse riding accident as a child.  I spent very little time with her because I went to boarding school when I was 6, then my parents started living apart, so I have no good memories of our time together.  October is sometimes hard for me and I think this year was worse because now I'm older than my mother was when she died.  I guess as I get older I'm more aware of what she missed out on.   

If you are still with me, thanks for reading so much.  I'm almost sure I'm going to start 15 charts in January, just have to decide on which ones to do.