3 1/2 weeks until Christmas!

I´m getting things ready for Saturday´s "Christkindl Markt". Baking and packaging Christmas cookies and slices, putting the last coats of paint on Good Luck stones, quilting table runners and filling tissue holders. I´ve managed to get so much finished this year even though I´ve been working 20 hours a week teaching aswell. I am more organised, more motivated and more positive than last year - last year´s frustration is what led me to start this blog almost a year ago and I am amazed at the difference it´s made!

What´s my creed?

Jamie got me thinking about this again after I read her recent post. There are rules we all live by...rules we were brought up with or taught along the way and rules we make for ourselves. I was born into a catholic home and I learnt about the 10 commandments at an early age. My family went to church often and I listened to what the priest had to say about loving thy neighbour and Jesus being our saviour but within my family I didn´t find the unconditional love that was preached about. I tried to be a church goer again after my children were born but I didn´t feel at home and after my marraige broke up, most sermons had me feeling like a loser.
About 2 years ago I found a book called "Message from Forever" by Marla Morgan. It´s a story about finding yourself and finding your roots. At the end of this book there are 10 "you should" commandments that the Australian Aborigines live by. I do my best to remember them and live by them and although I don´t always succeed I know that they are right for me. Here they are:
1. You are to express your own creativity
2. Recognize that you carry responsibility
3. Before your birth you consented to help others
4. You are to attain emotional maturity
5. You should be entertaining
6. You should be a good manager of your energy
7. You should enjoy music
8. You should strive for wisdom
9. You are to learn self discipline
10.You are to observe without judging
There are explanations for all of these and if you want to know more, I encourage you to read this book.

5 weeks ´til Christmas!

Lots of Christmas crafting going on here.

We woke up to snow on the weekend and it had everyone jumping into action. We had the tires on the car changed from the summer to the winter ones, cleaned up the garden and put away all the summer toys, I went through all our snow and ski clothing to see what still fits and made a list of what I need to buy and I started thinking about Christmas craft markets. I will be taking part in 2 this year, the first one here in Reichenfels on the 2nd of December and the second one in Wolfsberg on the 9th of December so I´ve started making Christmas decorations and will then move onto some mini photo albums, cushions and tweed bags. Before I saw the snow I didn´t realise how close December is!

As for my list - Markus has new curtains, his room has a new layout and the ugly wardrobe is gone, the mirror is hanging in the hallway, the bathroom has a new curtain and a new plant and I´m still adding to the box of 50 things. Photos next time -the rest will have to wait until the Christmas crafting is done.

Nesting

It´s raining outside but there´s plenty of colour in here! I received a lovely gift this week from Mirre in Holland - a beautiful pocket wallhanging which has now been placed on the side of my work bench and it´s perfect for scissors, pencils, tapemeasure etc. In the next picture you can see some bags which I´ve made for a swap - more on that another time, it´s still a secret. I saw Hanna´s lovely postcards and thought I´d make some of my own...I then covered them with contact plastic and hung them on my kitchen door as inspiration. They catch my eye whenever I sit down to drink a coffee and endless ideas pop into my head so I´m usually not sitting for long. It was a big harvest week in the garden this week...we dug out over 10 kilos of wonderful potatoes and we picked the last of our tomatoes, onions and capsicums. I cooked letcho with them and the smell had me dreaming of long Italian summers.