With each birthday come changes good and bad. Good? I would say I care less with each passing year what people think of me. Don’t get me wrong it is not like I walk around not caring about how I behave, I always try to be the best me I can be, I just put less stock in negativity.

Bad? The redistribution of my fluffiness! I mean seriously I was happier with it being spread out all over rather than it deciding to have a reunion in my mid-section! (Calling the other two resolutions…)

So yeah I just had another Birthday and truth be told I still love them. I always figured I’d get to middle age and start dreading them for all the lousy stuff that comes along for the ride but no, I still regress to that same girl who used to put a crown on her head and enjoyed being the center of attention for one day.

Not to mention eat all kinds of stuff that is bad for me with this same finesse…..

As mentioned in a previous post I had agreed to getting my super-duper new camera for a combo Xmas/Bday deal and my hubby wisely ignored that AND made the actual day special for me in a very thoughtful way.

It started off the evening before with Tom bringing me home flowers awwww..

He had been scheduled to work until midnight on the 11th but that was changed. This gave us a bonus evening together but messed up his plans to give me the flowers after midnight on my actual birthday, day (not that it mattered!)

The bonus time was spent drinking wine late into the evening (well technically into the morning of my birthday) and I tweeted about it. SouthLAnd’s ever so awesome Michael Cudlitz spotted my tweet and wished me a Happy Birthday. Isn’t he the best?! (Fangirl)

BTW .. commercial time! Do you watch SouthLAnd? If you don’t you better start. Go catch up on the past seasons! I will wait..and then we can talk all about it. (SouthLAnd season 4 begins airing Jan 17th on TNT in the States and Super Channel Jan 18th in Canada!)

/end commercial

The day OF there were a couple of requests of my own …first off, my car Freddy is now officially old enough for smog checking (boo!) and in order to renew my insurance which is due next month it needed the inspection. It is generally a really boring thing to do so Tom took my car in for me (I tagged along of course.)

I also wanted to hit “Antique Alley” in New Westminster in search of more of my turquoise glass. It is a BUGGER to find I have to say, I mean if I was collecting amber, rose or even dark green glass I’d be swimming in the stuff. I suppose that makes it more of a challenge (and boy I love those) as well as more special and I dunno, there is something about the colour turquoise that does something for me the others don’t.

I lucked out! I found three new pieces in the first couple of stores I stopped in!

Here they are with their brethren….oops ignore the envelopes there! (messy messy)

After the initial success..meh, but it was still fun checking out the rest of the stores anyway. I found a couple of AMAZING ones down there, one loaded with antiques that need some love to come back to their glory (Deco galore!) as well as one with the most pristine mid-century modern furniture I have ever seen. All I can say is I know which stores I will be hitting up if we ever win the lottery and no, the boys will never be allowed in those rooms.

All that awesome Belinda-Day stuff was followed up by Chinese food (yum)

and a new Lava Lamp. I have EIGHT of those suckers now, though one of the newer ones is actually a “sparkle” lamp but that doesn’t make it any less awesome.

I love watching them in action.

The boys are under orders not to spend money on gifts and concentrate on saving for school.. so Sean “cartooned” me for a present:

And Chris? Well I told him to clean up his damn room already, that is present enough for me! Of course I’m still waiting.

All in all an excellent birthday I must say… and I guess I’m hanging in alright for 46 (especially in sepia) ;)

Ah Christmas 2011, it was a gooder, yes it was, despite my turkey induced anxiety from my Xmas Eve dinner. Yes turkey induced. A word of advice, if you use a meat thermometer that runs on batteries and haven’t changed them since you bought it several years ago, Christmas turkey time is not a good time to discover they are dying. Trust me, a thermometer which starts to read the temps decreasing as a turkey cooks is just plain unreliable. I was worried I was going to over cook the turkey or worse give my family a case of the turkey-trots.

Tom has been trying for years to get me to stop fussing with turkey each Christmas. Nobody REALLY would miss it and personally I hate turkey unless it is from a deli counter, cold and shaved mighty thinly. Some weird sense of turkey obligation had me struggling each year and face it I am no Martha Effing Stewart. This year the turkey actually turned out good, it stayed moist and nobody got sick despite me having to wing it for “doneness” go figure?!

As a show of my non-turkey-cooking from now on commitment, the thermometer was ceremoniously tossed out with the turkey carcass. Unfortunately the rack I borrowed from our fairly new toaster oven was ALSO thrown away by mistake. Good thing it was a pretty inexpensive toaster oven cos it would be cheaper to replace it than try to find a replacement rack. Ah well.

After months of being in and out of the hospital Mum was back to her place and back to reasonably good health and no longer in severe pain. I honestly didn’t figure she’d ever get back to her home never mind be there for Christmas this year. It was looking touch and go after they thought she’d suffered a mini-stroke after she got out of hospital the last time but she got her strength back and so far hasn’t seemed to have suffered any more ill-effects. She’s going to be 80 next year and for the last few Christmases has wondered aloud if that Christmas will be her last. I joke that she’ll probably outlive me with all she’s managed to get through over the years. She had a good time and was in her words “spoiled” and sent home with lots of goodies and a stocking to open the next morning.

She started dozing off around 9:00 so we drove her back to her place and then settled back to relax and have some well-earned wine. Tom and I had decided on the drive back to open our gifts after midnight instead of waiting for Christmas morning to shake things up a little, though we’d leave the stockings for morning to keep the fun going a little longer. We didn’t share the news with the boys until it was time and when we did they just looked at us in puzzlement. We said we didn’t HAVE to if they’d rather wait (we both figured they would be ALL OVER IT.) Slowly you could see the desire to open their gifts war with the fact they didn’t want to step over their brother’s wishes they both looked at each other and admitted they’d kind of like to do it now and so it was. Ah how they’ve grown up, in years past they wouldn’t have cared what the other thought AND they would have knocked over anyone and anything in their path to the tree!

Sean’s main present was something he’d wanted for a long time; a drawing tablet. Both the boys are very “arty” and plan on taking their talents to school (hooray!) Sean has been cartooning using MS Paint and a mouse for ages…he’s got an idea for a web comic he’s been kicking around and the tablet will help things along immensely.

Chris had the same problem I had, he had no idea what he wanted. I suggested a TV (his old one had kicked the bucket and he was using a tiny old CRT for his Xbox) and he jumped at it. We had to stick with a smaller one due to the size of his room (and the MESS) but it is pretty sweet nonetheless.

When I say main present I mean main, there are always others and Sean’s were easy (accessories for his tablet etc) but Chris… well we had NO idea what else to give him so it ended up being good old cash. Never one to make things boring or easy we decided on a scavenger hunt. Not just any scavenger hunt though, we hid the cash in various DVDs and gave Chris clues (mostly consisting of lines from the movie in question.) written on a scroll.

A couple he got right away but there were some head-scratchers in there.

A couple of times we had to take pity and give him hints but he found it all.

In order to keep the expenses down for the boys I had suggested they go in together and buy me an iPod Shuffle cos the Sony mp3 player I’ve had for a few years now is starting to show its age and not having to shove it into my waist band to carry it around while cleaning sounded very appealing. They jumped at the suggestion with much relief, they claim never to know what to get me when really I’m pretty easy to please. Of course they got me a pink one :)

I mentioned in my previous post what I was getting for Christmas from Tom… here I am with it in a horribly unflattering photo with some kind of horrible evil grin on my face which doesn’t come close to expressing my happiness or love but it is there trust me!

And a nicer picture of me while using it, well a little nicer anyway (still with bad hair!)

Tom ended up opening the MOST gifts because the items on his wish list were smaller for the most part. His “main” gift was a fairly modest P&S camera (the 300 HS Elph which I have, took with us to California and he was impressed by.) I totally recommend this camera BTW if anyone is in the market for one.

My favourite presents though are these fellas….

I’m a lucky lucky girl.

Happy New Year!

I’m not sure when it will hit the market, they have to submit the various photos they’ve chosen to the place that produces their labels and then they will update the press sheet page and send me some samples which is awesome! I’ve put out the call to friends and family to save me a bottle if they happen to find one in the market. Hopefully someone will come across one, I’d love to get it! If not it is still fun to know that her cute little face will be adorning bottles somewhere out there.

She’s also been featured in “People Pets” on People.com a couple of times.. this one being seasonally appropriate ;)

There was absolutely no living with her before but with all the press she’s getting she’s becoming a complete and total Diva.

In all honesty  a couple of months ago I had no idea what I wanted. Usually by November I have a fairly healthy list of wants (they are rarely needs) but this year I was having a hard time coming up with anything, a sign that I’m either very spoiled, have an easily attainable threshold for satisfaction, or some combination thereof.  Don’t get me wrong you can NEVER go wrong with jewellery, but I’m not one to need the expensive kind. I’ve got a few diamonds kicking around for sure, but nothing huge. Most of my jewellery is costume, silver or semi-precious stones, all loved because most of them come with a memory far more precious to me than diamonds. BUT, yanno… I wouldn’t throw a diamond back or anything, just so that’s clear.

Anyway! I had finally convinced Tom that he should move into this century and get a smart phone and after a lot of careful consideration (and waiting for it to be released) he went to Best Buy to sign up for one. The whole activating a cell phone process is painfully slow so I wandered around the store and by wandering around I mean ran straight for the camera section. Yes I absolutely already have a camera, umm more than one but still, can’t hurt to look and drool right?

I’ve long been a Canon girl and in my humble opinion they make the best point and shoots but as I was playing with the DSLRs I happened to pick up a Nikon D7000 and fell instantly and hopelessly in love. Birds singing love. Audible click love. I loved the way it felt in my hands, I loved the weight and solid feel and I loved the sound the shutter made. Just Love. Then I looked at the sticker and suddenly the birds stopped singing.  I could hardly justify spending money on another DSLR (my Rebel is just fine and it was free thanks to Airmiles!) It isn’t as crazy expensive as some of the pro cameras out there but for a hobbyist it is definitely not the cheapest. I reluctantly put it back down and walked back to where Tom was finishing up on his contract.

After he was done we walked past the camera section and you know, as we HAPPENED to be there anyway I showed him my new love. He says “why don’t you get it?” I’m all “well it’s pretty expensive” and he’s all “get it for Christmas” and I’m all “too much for Christmas!” so he’s all “Christmas and Birthday?” and… SOLD! Yeah took a LOT of effort to bend that arm.

Tom asked me if I wanted it when he picked it up or if I would wait for Christmas and I picked Christmas. I mean I know there will be other little things like stockings etc but as much as I am DYING to start playing with it now I thought I should wait and open it.

So it was sitting in the closet taunting me for weeks, now it is goading me (safely wrapped mind you) under the tree.

OPEN OPEN OPEN OPEN