Where did the weekend go!

I had such good intentions of what I was going to do today and didn't actually get much done at all. It started off when I came downstairs for breakfast and there were a few over ripe bananas in the fruit bowl. I knew no one would eat them like that so I made some Banana Loaf. The recipe I used was from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook - I think I'm just going to slowly work my way through all the recipes in the book ;o). This banana loaf was different to the one I used to make in South Africa (which, for some reason, doesn't seem to work as well in the UK - why is that??) in that it used cinnamon and ginger in it. I'm not complaining though, it was very tasty and even Jon had a slice. I used a tin which was slightly smaller than they asked for and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the fact that it sank a little in the middle?

A slice of the loaf, ready to have with a cup of tea :o)

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While waiting for the loaf to cook I thought I would have a look at a few blogs I normally read. Well that was fatal because I hadn't been reading many blogs recently and I ended up spending a lot longer than anticipated on them. It was great to catch up with what everyone was saying and I also got to look at a lot of the Around the World blog posts posted by a group of ladies from Shimelle's Blogging for Scrapbookers class. Great work everyone, it was fun to see the view from your windows and where you scrapbook.

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This evening Emily and I went to church as Jon's Bible study home group was taking the service and Jon was playing his guitar - which he did very well. He's been putting in a lot of practice and it paid off. Well done Jon!

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We watched The X Factor results show tonight and it was the twins turn to leave. Although they could be fairly entertaining it was definitely time for them to go. Next week will be interesting ...

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I'm now ready for bed as tomorrow is another busy day.

xx

Saturday

Claire called me to see the sunset yesterday evening and this was the view from our back door. The sky was a real pinky/purple colour and very pretty, luckily my camera was close by :) Today has included some shopping, a Starbucks coffee, blog reading, taking Emily to meet friends and see New Moon (which she tells me was fantastic; far better than Twilight!?) and some sewing.

A sneak peak at the second quilt I'm working on, which I was asked to make by my SIL.

I finished the quilting tonight and tied off all the loose ends - now to square it up and complete the binding. I can hear quilt number 3 calling already ;o)

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The girls and I watched The X Factor tonight - we thought Stacey and Joe were the best tonight though also liked Olly and Danyl. Be interesting to see who ends up in the bottom two tomorrow night as the last couple of weeks have been a bit unpredictable. I then watched Private Practice, which I had taped on Sky+, while making Christmas cards. I'm feeling a bit more organised tonight! Long may it last.

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Enjoy the rest of your weekend

xx

I've started shopping

This morning Mum, Claire and I went in to Crawley where they had the Christmas decorations up in the Mall.

Claire liked Mr Fox snowboarding :o)

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It did make me stop and realise just how close Christmas is and that I do need to start doing some shopping. I did make a start this morning but need to sit down with a list to see who we're buying for this year. It's going to be a tighter year as Jon's been out of work for nearly 6 months now. My wish for the New Year - more jobs on the market! ;o) but that's a whole different subject. Time to get a move on with the quilts and list making.

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The weather is looking pretty miserable for the weekend so I think quilt and card making will be on the agenda. Emily is going to see New Moon with friends tomorrow afternoon and can't wait!

xx

Looking back

I was looking back at past posts on my blog and this time last year I was busy posting layouts from the Design Your Life class that I took. This layout is one I posted on Thursday 20/11/08. This layout is about my brother, Robin, who lives in South Africa. He's not very good at keeping in touch so whenever we see activity on his Facebook account, we know he's still ok ;o). I enjoyed looking back at the posts around that time and seeing the layouts I'd made. It feels like ages since I've done scrapbooking and I won't be doing any in the near future as I am still as unorganised as I was last year and not ready for Chirstmas to be so close! Some things don't change! Perhaps it's time I started making To Do lists - whether I would remember to look at them is another matter lol!!

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This morning I caught up with the ironing that needed doing and got a few chores done around the house. It was then time to knuckle down to some more sewing. I have a few quilt tops complete but not put together yet. I finished sewing the back for one of the quilts, before taking Emily shopping when she got home from school, and this evening I've finished sandwiching the quilt together and tacking it all in place. Tomorrow I start the actual quilting on it. I still have the binding on the first one to finish but may wait until I've finished quilting this one and do both lots of binding at the same time.

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I've also been thinking about my Christmas cards and have decided to go ahead and make them this year. Nothing like putting a little more pressure on myself ;o). I'm keeping them really simple and am hoping I'll be able to assemble them in the evenings while I watch TV.

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And on that note, I'll end for today and continue with some more preparation. Have a good evening

xx