1111 Days to a New Life

1043 days to go, and today is starting very slowly. I deliberately didnt set the alarm clock as its been a busy few weeks and it is the first day of our Yule break. But I woke up with a nosebleed so ended up staying in bed much longer than I anticipated to give everything a chance to settle down.

Currently still sitting in bed with the laptop and the cat, but I really will get up in a second.

Anyway, today is housework and last orders day so I can get all the business type things finished up tomorrow morning and concentrate on the festive season. I'm hoping for time to get on with knitting mums scarf as well.

As far as the Grand Plan goes, the tidying down for Yule is our way of starting to declutter again, once we are back from visting relatives at Xmas I'm going to start doing Flylady again, because I know that annoying though some of the reminders can be, it does help me to get the necessary jobs done and I really do want next year to be the major decluttering year.

Whew, just did my last day at work before Yule! Absolutely shattered, and still got orders to fill and stuff to knit before the various festivities. Have also got a new laptop (xmas present!) so I need to transfer all sorts of stuff over including my count down software cos I have no idea what day I'm on right now.
More soon!

1052 days to go, and I have the most stinking cold. I had to miss a day at work yeasterday, which I always feel really guilty for doing, and I'm trying to be constructive today but its all taking sooo long!
Trying to do housework for an hour now, then will make some soap then settle down to put stuff on ebay as its a 5p listing day today. Have done really well with some items this year, but need to step up the selling if I want to start showing a small profit to go towards the Grand Plan.

Spent the afternoon ordering pretty much all of the midwinter presents. As well as the knitted socks and scarves, I've got in a wholesale batch of bathbombs (yes, I know you're meant to make your own, but I'm running out of time), some unscented incense sticks, some pretty little cloth bags to fill with lavender and I'm going to do little goodie assortments to accompany the knitted stuff. Hopefully that should do the trick quite nicely. Have also ordered himself some wood turning chisels and some Yew logs, he particularly likes turning yew, and it is such a beautiful wood. Also ordered a few supplies towards the next re-enactors fair in February. So, the credit card is looking sick this month, but all in all Yule/Xmas/Midwinter (spot the multifaith household here!) is looking moderately economical.
We're starting the major pre-Yule house blitz tomorrow,and also making the winter Salami(the mixture is making the fridge small amazing as we speak) and I'm halfway down a gin and tonic. So all is well with my world, and I must get on with knitting the current pair of socks!

The banquet was fantastic! Serious food, paddling in the sea at midnight, mead, party games and more curtain fabric (the costumes) than should decently be seen in public. Roads were very snowy getting there, but we had borrowed a 4wd from my MiL so that was all ok.
1063 days to go, and the xmas orders are still coming in fairly steadily. We seem to be creeping towards being a bit more financially settled!

So far have knitted 3 pairs of socks and half a scarf towards xmas prezzies, only half a scarf and 3 more pairs of socks to go!

The dress is nearly done- starting to look a bit better, though I need to wear nice slimming undies underneath. What d'ya think? Will the fattest elf in history pass muster??

1072 days to go. Have had a busy weekend, went home to my parents for Das birthday yesterday, had a nice morning dragging him round the bookshelves in the charity shops then a steak lunch, gave mum a lesson in how to use Ebay in the evening. Had to be up at 6am this morning to get back to work by 10, and the fog on the M4 was hideous. Got to the toll booths on the Severn bridge and nearly drove right into a bollard, couldnt even see the kiosk coming up. Anyway, got back safely, did my day at work, got home, ate dinner and have cut out a cloak that I'll hopefully sew tomorrow (banquet stuff again)
Its nice to be home, the cat says he's been horribly neglected in the 2 days I've been away (don't believe a word of it myself!)

Just been to get a whole new set of tyres for the car. Went to Kwikfit, and to be fair they were very nice to me and did the car in less that half an hour. Just settling down with a well earned gin and tonic now after a long day at work, must knit at least one sock tonight as well.

Heres the really rough first image of the dress, got loads of embroidery to do on it, plus obviously I look like a hag at the moment (will need industrial make-up to pull this one off I suspect), but I think it has potential

1078 days to go, and things are looking good this morning. Had a lovely nights sleep, and yesterday I started working on my Galadrial costume for a banquet in a couple of weeks. Will post a pic later, its modelled on the film version, but with a 'winter' twist, as this banquet is in a hall in West Wales in November! So, all cream wool with an ice white voile overlay with a snowflake detail done in beads. So far I'm very pleased with it.

On the financial front, we had a fantastic run of auctions on ebay, items going for far more than we anticipated, so that helps, and we have just checked our oldest loan and it has only two months left to run. Will be a relief when that is out of the way as we'll then put the money that was going on it straight into reducing the mortgage, and we should see things really start to improve.

Off to the post office with parcels in a moment, will try to get that picture loaded this afternoon