A photo every day for a year! 14th - 20th December! Week 51 of #Project365

Are we all ready for Christmas? I feel ready. All the presents are bought and wrapped, we've visited family, the big food shop is coming tomorrow and now we just need a good tidy up which I am going to get the family to help with.

We are having a nice quiet weekend. Ellie and I have dyed our hair and done our nails. She was very excited to have long nails back on, they're not practical for college so she's making the most of them during the Christmas break!

I have decided that next weekend the 28th when my Project 365 will usually be posted I am going to hang on and post it on the 31st, finishing the year of in one post and starting from day one the following weekend. I hope that makes sense.

Now for a photo every day!

348/365 - 14th December

The WWE wrestler John Cena. He had his last match in the early hours of Sunday morning and I stayed up to watch. He didn't win but he went out the right way. It was worth staying up just to see everyone come from back stage to show their respect and give him a big cheer.

349/365 - 15th December

I never buy a paper TV guide apart from at this time of year! I like to go through and mark off what I am planning on watching on TV and what I need to record. Are paper TV guides still a thing or do they just get created at Christmas for people like me who have this tradition?

350/365 - 16th December

I caught up with Neighbours, my last ever catch up because the show has ended again. Hmmf! I am sure at some point it will be brought back. I really don't understand why it was finished, every time I went on Amazon it was in the top 10 most watched things on there!

351/365 - 17th December

Becky was off to her works Christmas party. She had a lovely time with great food and fantastic company. She brought her Deadpool Christmas jumper out for the occasion.

352/365 - 18th December

It wouldn't be Christmas without getting a new Christmas mug. I got this from Morrisons for a couple of pound! I think it's so pretty!

353/365 - 19th December

Christmas nails, I bought them months ago and put them somewhere safe. Isn't it funny how that somewhere safe place is somewhere that you would never think of putting things like this, it took me a while to find them. They were in the kitchen junk drawer. 

354/365 - 20th December

Hair dye day for Ellie and I. I'm going bright red, probably pink, my hair doesn't seem to like the red anymore and dark red for Ellie.

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This week my Word of the Week is: Ready!! #WotW

This week my Word of the Week is: 

We're ready for Christmas and ready for the fun to start. I feel like all the hard jobs are out of the way now and the next week is all about enjoying the good things.

Well, I say we're ready but we're waiting for the online food shop to be delivered in a couple of days. I have been on a few times and tweaked the list, at the moment it feels like a daily obsession. I go on once a day and keep adding and removing things. The list is full of things that we only get at Christmas like smoked salmon, salted peanuts, fancy flavoured cheese, Baileys thick pouring cream, fancy pork pies and snacky food. I took all the veg off the list as I am getting it all from the farm shop, their veg is way better than supermarket veg. It might cost more but it's Christmas and it's good to support small businesses! 

All the wrapping is done, even the girls got theirs done early on in the week. That was funny to watch. We discovered Ellie is like me when it comes to wrapping, it  is a chore and is there to be complained about the whole time you are doing it. hehehe The last present I sent was received and we dropped the presents off with family yesterday, well most of them. My dad and his partner still have a bag of presents here but I am planning on seeing him on his birthday in a couple of days to give him them then. There was just too much to carry everything yesterday. I may have got a bit carried away buying things for my brother and his family.

Poor Becky is not ready for Christmas because she won't get to celebrate like the rest of us as she is working Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing day too. She works in care and someone has to do it so we're going to make the most of the time she has at home. We will have to be out of bed ready to open presents on Christmas day when she gets in from work so she can rush off to sleep so she can get up a bit earlier on the evening to spend some time with us.

Ellie has finished college for the year and she is ready for the break. She has been struggling to get up each morning, the dark and all of the rain hasn't helped. She slept in on Monday but made it for the bus but it was a bit of a rush, I slept in on Tuesday, when I woke up at 8am I thought it was still night time as it was so dark. I hate this time of year, especially for my family. When Becky is at work she never see's daylight with sleeping during the day as she works night shifts and poor Stu leaves the house when it's still dark, is in an office with no windows all day so doesn't see daylight and comes home in the dark too. It's the shortest day tomorrow so at least from now on it will start to get a little lighter each day. 

How has your week been? I hope you have had a good week and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!! I am of course linking up with Anne who blogs at Raisie Bay to join in with her Word of the Week linky!

What I have loved this week! Week 51. #FridayFavourites

Here we are the weekend before Christmas! Eek! I hope everything is going to plan for everyone and you are getting all those little jobs done. I think we are just about ready for the big day. Today I am linking up with Erika and Andrea to share what I have been loving over the past week.

Fixed internet!

We had no internet all day Friday and half of Saturday! Eek! It is crazy how much we relay on it for simple things like online shopping, tracking parcels, transferring money through the bank, chatting online to friends and of course blogging. Our internet provider said out router was the issue but then found a fault local to us and lots of other people were affected too. So we ended up being sent a new router, when the internet was back working we set it up and have discovered there must have been a small fault with out box as the speeds we're getting now online a lot faster.

Watching the girls wrap presents!

On Sunday the girls were at either end of the living room doing their gift wrapping. My eldest, Becky loves wrapping, my youngest, Ellie doesn't. It was so funny to watch. Becky with her lovely, square, easy to wrap boxes and Ellie with everything that wasn't square and easy to wrap. There were encouraging words coming from Becky which just seemed to rile Ellie up, she says next year everyone is getting a gift card then there will be no wrapping to do. I think she has the right idea.

Cat presents!

I have decided to cause chaos at Christmas. hehehe My dad always says not to waste our money on him, he doesn't want Christmas presents but I've got him a few bits regardless but I have also bought his cat a present. He adopted a cat earlier in the year, it turned up at his place and never left. The nearest house to his is a 10 minute walk away and the next one another 5 minutes so we say the cat chose him. He found the owners and they said just keep the cat and he has. It's a sweet little thing and as he lives in the middle of fields it does a good job of keeping the mice and rats away. Anyway it deserves a treat so I've bought it a little stocking filled with cat treats. Puss will love it, my dad not so much. He doesn't think pets need presents.

John Cena!

He retired from the WWE in his final match in the early hours of Sunday morning. Becky and I stayed up to watch it. I remember when Cena first appeared on WWE shows over 20 years ago and he's had quite the career. I was happy with the ending of the match, he tapped out and most likely gave a huge boost to the career of Gunther who made him tap out. I cried, not when he lost but when he took his boots and wrist bands off and left them in the ring, it was the end of an era.

Chocolate Limes!

These remind me of my childhood, going to the corner shop and getting a quarter of them in a little white paper bag. I saw these in a shop in town and had to get them to see if they were as good as I remember, they are! Hooray! Sometimes I have got things I remember from my childhood and they are just not the same, it was so nice to get something that tasted just how I remembered.

The end of Neighbours (Again)!

Neighbours the Australian TV show ended in 2022 and then Amazon took over and it ran for a few more years and last week it ended again. Hmmf. I caught up with the last episodes and it made me sad all over again. It has been on the TV for over 40 years so most of my life. They left the end open so it could start again, just maybe not on Ramsay Street.

Spotify playlists!

I know that over the next week I will be listening to more music than watching TV so I went and sorted out my Spotify playlists. Adding more songs to certain lists like musicals and rock and making a couple of new lists. I also deleted a few lists that I haven't listened to in years, now I just have to get the rest of my family to organise their lists to make it look a bit more sorted.

What have you loved over the last week?

What I’m buying for myself while Christmas shopping!

Christmas shopping, the magical time of year when you leave the house determined to be a generous, thoughtful human being and return home with bags of treats for yourself. It’s basically tradition at this point. If Santa can reward good behaviour so can I! So let’s talk about the things I definitely didn’t plan to buy for myself this December. hehehe.

December shopping does something to my brain. One minute I’m hunting for stocking fillers and the next I’m holding a fluffy cardigan thinking this will help me survive winter. It’s always pretty, it’s always soft and it always comes home with me. I try to imagine gifting it to someone else but then I picture myself wearing it and it's too precious to let go.

Nothing tests self control like a shiny skincare gift set. I go in for wrapping paper and come out convinced I need a three step routine that involves serums, massaging and misting. I buy them for myself every year and I always feel like I’m doing something responsible. Never mind that I’ll forget step two by mid January and end up using the fancy night cream as hand lotion. The thought was there.

I fully intended to grab a candle as a gift, something classy like Frosted Woodland something but then I spotted one that smelled like gingerbread and happiness and next thing I knew I was buying two. One for them and one for me because what am I supposed to do live in a house that doesn’t smell like Christmas! 

Socks are always marketed as a gift but who are we kidding, no one appreciates them the way we do. The second December hits my feet are suddenly freezing and if my feet are cold the rest of me is so when I see fluffy socks in festive colours my brain goes these are needed to live just like food and water. I try to justify it by thinking I’ll give them to someone but once they’re home I become attached to them, they’re mine now. Oops!

Every December I become a new person. I see a fresh notebook and think this will change my life. I will become organised, write plans. I will journal daily but jump to February and three pages filled, one of them containing a shopping list and the phrase remember bins but I still buy it because who doesn't like new stationery.

Every year I buy a fancy box of chocolates to either gift to someone or have out when guests come over, then two days later I’m eating them alone while watching TV and pretending the box ripped itself open but December calories don’t count in case you didn't know!

There is no marketing stronger than the words worth £80 but now £20. I don’t even care what’s in it. It could be eyebrow glitter or make up I don't know how to use, I’m still tempted. I tell myself it’s smart shopping, I’m saving money. Never mind that I wasn’t planning to spend the money in the first place.

There’s always something in the supermarket that jumps into the trolley. Mini mince pies, fancy crisps, hot chocolate with marshmallows shaped like snowmen. I tell myself it’s for Christmas week. Then it disappears during a random December afternoon when I need a break from real life.

December is stressful enough without pretending we don’t treat ourselves while we’re out shopping. We’re juggling lists, crowds, budgets, wrapping disasters and that one person who keeps saying they don’t need anything. (my dad). So if something brings a little happiness or warmth I say go for it!

Do you buy yourself treats while doing the Christmas shopping?