Well now the holiday is over, I thought I'd like to keep the blog going with other bits and pieces of things happening around me...
This weeked was a busy one - One of my favourite people in the whole world, my friend Sue from Adelaide was coming to visit to join in the X Block Reunion. When I first left high school, off I went to Wagga to go to Uni and I had signed up to live on campus, but in a 'self catering' style residence where you cooked your own food, but shared a communal kitchen and bathrooms - there were quite a few of these 'blocks' on the south campus & I'd been allocated to X Block. Sue and Sandra Kelly were the first people I met as I arrived as a nervous kid embarking on their first day of the rest of their life - and we been friends ever since.
I've kept in contact with Sue and Sandra, but not any of the others, but last year somtime I got a Facebook message from one of the others there and over the past few months we've tracked down quite a few other X Blockers. We met at Kathy's in February and promised to keep in touch and meet again - hopefully with a few more.
I picked Sue up from the airport on Friday night and of course we stayed up late catching up, then on Saturday morning, off we went to the shops to stock up on all the party essentials, plus a few other bargains we spotted along the way (like boxes of xmas baubles for $3 each which I plan to make a xmas wreath with, and some cute little ballet flats - 2nd pair half price so we go a pair each), then home to cook and get the house into party mode.
What a great night we had - our first party in our half renovated house in Marrickville. Sue came over from Adelaide, John flew in from Beechworth, Yvonne & Brian from Taree, Linda from Coffs Harbour, Sanda drove up from Wollongong (& decided she wanted to stay longer, so we found a bed for her), and Sydney siders Cathy and Jude, Margaret, Barbara, Margaret & Olu.
Here some of us are in 1984?
and now in 2011
So on Sunday after everyone had left and I had tidied up and had a rest, it was time to make my xmas wreath. Of course I'm always in a hurry and didn't take the advice of others to glue the little tops of the ornaments onto the ball, and yes they do pop off (annoyingly).
I untwisted your standard wire hanger from the drycleaner and bent it into an approximate circle (possibly could have been a bit fussier with this as well), then threaded my KMart baubles on. I'd bought two tubes of red and 2 of green and each one had shiny, matt and glitter balls in them ($3 per tube and the balls are about 3cm), and I threaded 1 shiny of each colour, 1 matt of each colour and 1 glitter of each. I'd got half way through and realised there were more matt than anything else, so if might be worth sorting your baubles first so that you get an even distribution of colour and texture.
Then all you do is thread them on and adjust slightly so that they sit neatly together and hide as much wire as you can. Then you twist the hook back together - I got Joe to help me with this and he cut a bit of wire off to make it neater, then I tied some ribbon around it and Voila! here it is... a little tweaking of the shape is needed, but not bad for first effort - might go back and get some more and make another to give away...
