Merry Christmas to one and all............

Life has been busy these past couple of weeks, and will be until after Christmas.  So I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas; if you celebrate Christmas, and hope you all enjoy the holidays.

For some this is a very hard time of year, especially is you have lost someone or find it hard mentally.  The expectations to have that "perfect" Christmas is overwhelming for many people.  If this applies to you, hang in there it will all be over with soon.  For those people January can't come soon enough.  

I hope to be back blogging regularly after Boxing Day when things have slowed down a bit.  

Meanwhile here are some lovely Christmas Song's:

Knitted presents finished:

Made a couple of hats as part of Christmas gifts.

This one is "Christian's Hat" by Agnes Kutas, I got the pattern off Raverly, but you can get it here as well. I loved the pattern and it was super easy to follow.  I am now going to make the matching scarf for dh.  The hat is for someone else.  The good news both these patterns are free!!

  

 This hat pattern is called "Kool Hat," by Mei Lynne Travis from Yarngear.  I got the pattern from Raverly and Mei Lynne does have a blog, but I got an "unsafe," warning from my virus protection software when I tried to go into it.   I have sent her a message.  Regardless this is a great easy pattern and a fast knit and it too was free on Raverly, not sure if she has the same pattern on her blog though?

As I have said before, I will never be a champion knitter.  I know my limitations and when searching for patterns on Raverly I tend to tick off EASY as one option.  Saying that I will say I found these challenging enough not to make me sick of knitting them.  I like to have an interesting pattern, which is quick and easy as well.  I find Raverly as a great source for knitting and crochet patterns.

Today's Christmas song the latest from Pentatonix:

A new "toy" for us......

As the weather is getting cooler and probably more inclement we decided to buy ourselves a treadmill.  We picked it up at Canadian Tire in the Black Friday sales and have to say we are very pleased with it.  It is nothing fancy but it does the job.  We picked up this model, but only paid $500 for it, not the $1,999 it says online.

However, I will not be using it for a couple of days as I went and twisted my ankle yesterday while walking. I moved to one side to get out of the way of a large pick up truck and stood on a stone and slipped.  The guy in the pick up truck stopped and made sure I was okay, luckily he just rolled down his window and didn't get out of the truck,  I felt a right fool.

Anyway, I only suffered minor gravel rash on my knee, but I twisted my ankle, and as the day progressed it got worse.  So no walking for me for a couple of days to let my foot rest up.


This is an old song:

Cut it all out on Friday.......

Planned on spending Sunday sewing, which I did, then took another couple of days to finish it all off and here is what I made with that stash of material:

A Christmas gift of two hot pads for soup bowls, a key fob and a tissue holder.

 It's pretty neutral fabric, though the material with the writing on is in silver and gold.

 Another key fob and tissue holder for a gift.  The back of the tissue holder is the same as the key fob.

 The last two of the dolly blanket's.  Such bright fun material and perfect for little girls.

 This shows the inside with the pockets.  I posted a link to the tutorial on this blog post.

I can now return to my knitting.  I have a hat to finish knitting for a Christmas gift.  I will show you a photo when it's done.  Will say I am loving the pattern.

Have you finished all you Christmas shopping and gift making?

Another Christmas Song:

New Fitbit Friend...........

I have a new Fitbit friend.  She is actually one of dd's ex-bosses.  They are still very good friends, and I knew she did a lot of walking; and as she is on a years sabbatical from work she is doing even more walking. 

The rest of my Fitbit friends all work so don't do as much walking as I.  So dd hooked us both up and now we are Fitbit friends and have started a Workweek Hustle challenge.

You have to see how many steps you can do from 12:01 am Monday to 11:59 pm Friday.  This will motivate me to up my game I am sure.

I did have a good week this past week.  I walked 41.5 miles, and had over 97,000 steps.  It did help that the weather was pretty good all week as well.  I managed to so nearly 22,000 steps yesterday and earned another badge, my High Top one for walking 20,000 steps in one day.  So I was happy about that.

I have lost 31 lbs, so I am still slow and steady in that but at least I am not putting it back on.  I will have been walking six months on December 24th.

Oh and if I can do it, anyone can...........remember how I use to say I was allergic to exercise all the time?  Well it still applies, walking is about as much as I am willing to do but I like it so that's all that matters!!

Any other people using a Fitbit out there that would like to join in with future challenges?

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Giggle Girls Jewelry............

At the show on Saturday there was one vendor who was a 4 year old's dream...............Giggle Girls Jewelry.

My photo's don't do these necklaces any justice, they are really, really cute and are well worth the money.  

 They even had Christmas ones.

 Nora finally chose an Elsa necklace after much consideration.  She was busy eating a candy cane when I took this photo.

We headed back to the vendor later on to purchase a necklace for Nitara for her birthday and all the Elsa necklaces had gone.   They were super busy and I am guessing they had a good day with many sales.

This is an oldie from my youth..........

So very, very, very excited......

Got to see Peppa Pig in real life on Saturday!!!  We were at the Holiday Market in Whitby on Saturday.

DD said I was like a whirlwind pushing all the children aside so I could get close to Peppa..........she was exaggerating.......sort of, well a little bit...........

I did let Nora get in on the photo, but I HAD to stand next too Peppa!!

There will be more photos from the show tomorrow.

Today's Christmas Song is one of my all time favourites:

My very own Advent Calendar....

Am I a lucky girl or what?

There are so many advent calendars out there nowadays, ones with tea in them, like this one from David's Tea, which I am sure is already sold out:

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or one with smelly/beauty things in it, like this one from the Body Shop:

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I decided to go with this one:

 Lovely pictures inside of it:

 and this is what is inside door #1, gummy candies.  

I thought it would make a change from chocolate.

Do you have an advent calendar this year?

A Christmas song to start your day:

Bit of a mystery that needs solving?

Why is it when you put up the Christmas tree and decorations, you end up with bits of tree, glitter and Styrofoam from one end of the house to the other?

You then spend the rest of the day looking like this:

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It's as though the glitter takes on a life of its own and multiplies and spreads at a rate of knots?

It's a mystery that needs solving...........

Talking about glitter, you should take a look at this post from back in 2008, still as funny now as it was then!!