A Week With Some Free Time - W/E 7th December 2024 - Part One

I started opening my home made advent calendar this week. I keep all the little envelopes in this glass jar on the kitchen table. It's a bit more varied this year, so more of a surprise what I get each day. I'm such a child.

I still had one envelope to fill. I needed to find something small enough that wasn't edible. I had a couple of weeks to do this though, as the envelope was for later in the month. 

On Sunday, my working week began with another 11 till 3pm shift. I was quite tired after being out the night before, but luckily it was a short shift and I was soon home again and able to chill for the rest of the day. 

I got some good news from my Manager today. I put in a cheeky last minute request for leave over Xmas and she's granted it, which is amazing considering I work in retail. I finish on 23rd December for a week, which is a treat. I'm looking forward to a relaxing Xmas at home this year. I will probably be working New Year, but you can't have it all.

Whilst I was at work, OH tidied the inside of the garden room/shed. We'd dumped a lot of stuff in there after tidying the garden and it needed to be put away properly. He created lots more space by doing so and also installed a new bracket to hold LB's bike in a space saving way. Here's a couple of pictures of the storage side of the shed now:

The boxes are mostly archived paperwork for OH's business.

We spent the evening watching our favourite TV series of the moment i.e. Wolf Hall. We've only got one more episode to watch now. We've really enjoyed this series.

On Monday, I was due at work for 2pm. It was my last shift for a few days. I was looking forward to having some free days this week, to make progress on my extensive Xmas to do list. As I was due in earlier than usual, I didn't go out of town to do the weekly shop and instead stayed close to home for a change. I didn't really need a lot this week, but I had a 10% off voucher to use, so I decided to buy some food for the food bank, as I haven't done this in a while. I decided to do what a YouTuber I follow is doing this year and that is to donate one item for every day in December, so I bought 7 items for the first week and I'll do the same each week in the lead up to Xmas.

On my way home, I decided to stop off to get some cheap frames for some Xmas prints I have and when returning to my car I dropped into the charity shop and found the perfect item for my last advent envelope. Here's a picture:

It fits perfectly and can be hung on the tree or stood on a surface. I'm going to find and print a picture of our lovely dog to put in it so that we can remember her at Xmas. The frames I bought were for these vintage style prints of Xmas trees, which are now hung in the shed.

Work was super busy on Monday, probably because there were fewer staff working. I was glad to finish at 6pm and I then spent a while choosing a few bits to buy with my staff xmas gift voucher. I ended up buying a top, some nail varnish in a festive shade and a nail growth serum. The latter was something I've needed for a while.

After not sleeping well on Monday night for some reason, I got up on Tuesday and headed off to my usual class at the gym, which helped to wake me up.  On the way home, I dropped into a local charity shop, one of my favourites, that I haven't visited for over a month, for a little mooch. I was so happy to buy a few vintage tree decorations for 50p for 5. Here's a picture:

I love the colour of the glass baubles.  One needs a top, but I'm hoping I can swap one out with some I already have. The little clip on tree candles are battery operated, but only two of them work. I will still use the one that doesn't as it is so cute. As I'd spent so little, I needed to buy more to use my card, which was the only payment method I had on me, so I bought this Beryl Bainbridge book for £1 and a very pretty British Library Pencil box, which I intend to use as a gift box for £1.50. Only £3 spent in total.

A bit of a burgundy theme going on here.  I then went home and spent the afternoon cleaning and changing around the reception rooms for the winter. Now that has been completed, I can start to put up the tree and some of the decorations.

The car went in for it's MOT on Tuesday and needed £500 worth of work. We've been lucky and had very little done to it in the last 12 years, so it was inevitable that at some point it would need some work. In this instance it was new brake pads and discs.

On Wednesday, I was looking forward to having a full free day to spend at home. The first job on my list was to put up the Xmas tree and some decorations continuing to clean as I did so. I was happy with how the tree turned out. I've reverted to using some old fairy lights that we've had for 20 years, but quite a few bulbs have now died and I'm struggling to find replacements. I also went back to mostly vintage decorations, as we only have a small tree. I indulged recently and bought 7 beautiful vintage frosted pine cone baubles in various colours on eBay. I love them, but they were very expensive. I have a few more vintage decorations yet to arrive in the post, which will be added later.

I then went on to put up various other lights, wreaths, decorations and I decorated a very small tree, which usually goes in LB's room and have put it in the shed. (LB's room is currently out of action whilst OH is working on the floors). Here's a picture;

It's starting to look very festive in the shed now, which is all good, as I'll be spending some time in it, when I get around to finishing the sofa cover. I'll have to wrap up though as it's quite cold in there.

It took me more or less the whole of Wednesday, to get almost all of the decorations done. It felt good to tick it off the list when I'd finished. There's still more cleaning to do, but I'll get around to that as and when.  We're now Xmas ready, decoration wise at least, although I am making super slow progress with my list.

After a busy day, I was tired and couldn't do another thing, so I retired to an armchair, watched some TV and worked on my hexi quilt. Bliss.