Christmas & New Year

Well Christmas is over & done with & now I am welcoming in the New Year with a nice cool drink after having gone for a jog. What a healthy way to start the year I hope I can keep it up.

I got very rushed in the lead up to Christmas what with handmaking 6 calendars, christmas cards, christmas shopping & getting the house straight for all our guests.

It was a wonderful christmas & I had both my parents in law & sister in law & her family to stay. We all got some lovely presents, especially the boys who got a trampoline. The trampoline has provided a lot of fun & of course the odd squobble as to who's turn it is & who's had the longest go.

So here is a photo of us in front of our real christmas tree.

We had christmas breakfast at home & opened up the santa presents & Criglington family presents.

We then all went for a walk or jog in the park to burn off energy & breakfast before going up to mum's for christmas lunch. We then had a light dinner of ham & new potatoes (from our garden) at home.

We have been at home all the rest of the time as Scott is working right through. The boys & I have been just enjoying playing with the new toys, going for the ocassional jog (or bike ride for them) & just pottering about not doing much of anything.

I just want to take the time to wish you all a Happy New Year.

Tv Programming

On the fifth day of December I watched Dr Phil then wished that it wasn't yet another repeat.

I like to watch Dr Phil while I eat my lunch. I get a bit annoyed though when it is repeats. It's not going to be on much longer anyway because when the schools go on holiday they fill the time slot with kids movies. They could at least show new shows until they take it off the air. By the way it was a boring show about Sugar Daddies & Urban Cougars. I hope today's show will be a new one.

Food Confession

On the fourth day of December it occurred to me that I shouldn't have eaten potato crisps yesterday because I had been so good exercise wise why blow it like that?

I suppose I could blame it on my jog yesterday, I went faster than ever before so I thought I deserved it, but really why did I deserve to put such salty food into my body? I had a picnic lunch with the boys at school & that included chicken drumsticks, potato salad, hard boiled eggs, bananas & tomoatoes so why did I then eat potato crisps after dinner? I should have treated myself to something healthy but I admit it I am a potato crisp fiend. I love them & if I am sitting watching TV for 3 hours, icing my knee (yes all that exercise came back to hurt my knee) what else is there to do to treat myself but eat potato crisps. I think most of the programmes I watch on a Tuesday night finish in a couple of weeks so maybe in a couple of weeks I won't be sitting watching TV for 3 hours straight eating potato crisps. HA maybe I should just enjoy it while it lasts.

Love my iPod!

Can I just shout to the world that I love my iPod Shuffle!

Scott bought me this tiny peice of equipment last week for Christmas. It is just amazing to be able to jog with music in my ears. As a lot of you know I have a dodgy knee & jogging is usually quite uncomfortable. Today I tried out my iPod for the first time & I just love it! I was jogging with a smile on my face! I don't know if I have ever jogged with a smile on my face, let's face it my body isn't the right build for jogging, there are too many bouncy bits. Not only was I enjoying jogging but I jogged faster than normal, maybe because I was running in time to all my favourite 80s music. Another benefit is that I didn't think at all during the jog, I finally just turned my brain off for a good 26 minutes & just enjoyed moving to music.

Here's to music in my ears & a smile on my face when I am jogging!

Grateful for - Life

What are you thankful for that we haven’t mentioned this month?

I guess as I haven't done all the blog prompts for the month I don't really know what has been missed.

Here's a wrap up of the things I'm grateful for.

I'm grateful that I live in a country with plenty of opportunities & natural resources. I am grateful for the seasons & being in a place where I can experience them all, even if it is all 4 seasons in one day. I am grateful for my home with running water, internal plumbing & sound roof & walls. I am grateful for the inhabitants of my home & of my heart. I am grateful for my friends, both in real life & online. I am grateful for my family. Most of all I am grateful to be alive & healthy.

Thankful for - Home

What places (in your home, or state, or country, or world) are you most thankful for?

The one place I am most thankful for is my own home. It stands on a nice 1/4 acre section so big enough to have a place for the boys to run around on, as well for me to have a vege garden & a flower garden. It is a lovely safe & secure house that gets all day sun. As I am a SAHM it is just as well that I love my home, there are things to be done on it but I still wake up each morning & think, I am glad that I get to spend the majority of the day here. I can't say that I really thought that about our previous house in Wellington.

Inside my home I am most thankful for my bathroom. This might sound bizarre but I love having the ensuite bathroom, it's the best money we ever spent on this place. That bathroom is known as "mum's bathroom." The best thing about it is that it has a door that locks! I can lock my bathroom door & hey presto at least there is privacy from little eyes. The room however is not soundproof, so I can still hear little voices whining at the door "muuuummm" but in a house full of males, a nice clean smelling, clean looking bathroom is my little peace of paradise.

Thankful for - Nature

What things in nature are you most thankful for and why?

I love plants. I love the sight of their range of colours & their scents & what could possibly be better than actually growing some of them just for food.

Of course I can't really grow anything without water. Luckily where I live we don't have water restrictions but if there was one thing that I absolutely am thankful for, it is pure clean water & rainfall. I remember we used to have to livve on rain water collected off the roof of our bach in the summer time when we lived at the bach for a good couple of months. Living like that really made you appreciate the scarcity of water & how precious each drop really is.

Is sunlight part of nature? I have decided that I need to see the sun on a regular basis. I get very down & moody if I don't see the sun at least twice a week. Now I don't mean I go out & bask in it, I don't do that anymore, but if the sun is shining I will be jogging outside, not in & I will be gardening, not cleaning up the house. I love the warmth of the sun so on a cold but sunny day nothing is better than curling up inside in the sunny spot, that's if I can lay claim to it before Mo.

That brings me to animals. They definitely are nature & I love animals. I am not vegetarian so I appreciate the animals bred for meat but the ones bred for fibre, wool, milk etc also make up a large part of my thankful list. The one animal that is highest on the thankful list must be Mo, our cat. She's a wonderful companion, we can carry on conversations with each other, she helps warm up my side of the bed, she's the grand old girl of the house & we all love her immensely.