Yippeeeeeee

I had a lovely surprise when I went to the post office today. A parcel addressed to me, all the way from the Czech Republic. I don't see that everyday, I was even excited looking at the stamps.

Inside was my win from the giveaway that Dianne at Quiltova hosted a few weeks ago. Lucky lucky me. Look at that cute card and the pretty blue tape.

How cool is this, Dianne even sent me some chocolate named after me...... almost, ha ha.


Some lovely scraps too.


The best thing of all............



a fabulous pot holder, it's far too nice to use, but it goes beautifully with the decor in my kitchen, so will be on permanent display.




Dianne's quilting is awesome too.

Thank you so much Dianne for a lovely gift/prize.

What a fabulous day.......

My day started with this, what an excellent way to start the day.

A fabulous present for an extraordinary friend, inside I found this

yummmmmmmm, I love chocolate, especially Haigh's chocolate.

and this beautiful wool,

and this. How lucky am I. Now I can use up some of my jelly roll stash.

I am very lucky to have Mrs P for a friend. Isn't she just fabulous! Thank you so much Shay, it was such a great start to the day.

Then my mum and dad gave me these, another beautiful orchid.

 A scarf

 A very nice and very handy clutch/handbag

 And best of all a voucher for a spa treatment, woo hoo, lucky me.

This was from my sis.

Now I can get into some serious Thai cooking. She also gave me some kitchen gadgets.

Then off to lunch at the Noosa Yacht Club, a lovely relaxing lunch, looking over the river, watching the yachts, with two of my friends, and a glass of wine. The weather was beautiful, sunny and a pleasant temperature, although it clouded over in the afternoon.

Sallie and moi.

Unfortunately the photo of Renata looks like she has been having too many martinis again working too hard, so I haven't posted it.  Poor Renata, she is going to get a reputation, of course I have nothing to do with that, he he.

Some more lovely presents. An absolutely stunning vase from Renata. It's actually a rich red, it looks a bit more orange in this photo.

A gorgeous bunch of flowers from Sallie.

I also had lots of phone calls, and birthday wishes on Facebook from all my gorgeous friends.

The day continues into the evening, dinner with my parents and my angel at a very nice restaurant in Hastings St, Noosa.  I am not sure how I am going to eat much tonight, but I am certainly going to enjoy the evening.

I am soooo lucky, what a fabulous day.

Almost like a birthday

It has been really exciting this week here in paradise.  Firstly the weather has been glorious.  Beautiful one day perfect the next, is an old Queensland tourism slogan, and it has been so true this week.  It has turned cooler again but we have had lots of sunshine, and the days have been beautiful.  You can pick out the locals from the tourists though, we are usually wearing jeans or tracksuit pants, and long sleeved shirts or jackets, the tourists are in T shirts and shorts, and summer clothes. Brrrrrrrrrrr.   We went for a walk along Noosa Main Beach this morning, the sun was shining, but the wind was quite cool and breezy. I took these photos with my phone, once we went out towards First Point.

The last couple of days I have received some lovely things in the mail. 

Firstly,

A lovely card and letter from Sue, in the UK who has organised SIBOL, crocheting blankets for the elderly.  A fabulous idea and she has already made 17 blankets using lovely crochet squares that people have sent her. How wonderful is that!

Next, some more  purchases, I really have to stop as my stash is starting to get rather large and I am never going to keep up.

These are to go with some fabric I purchased awhile back and they will be in my next quilting project. Don't you just love that owl.

Also some black and white.

I'm not sure what I am going to do with it, but I wanted to grab the Eiffel Tower print before it ran out, and thought I might as well  buy some other black and white prints too, so I have lots of nice black and white prints in my stash.

Some very bright Pretty Bird fat quarters, have no idea what I'm going to do with this either, but I wanted some bright cheerful prints as I have been using lots of muted colours lately and thought these would be a good change.

And last but definitely not least, a big surprise parcel, I was very surprised when I picked it up from the post office,  sorry, I am going to keep it a surprise for now.  I think Mrs P has sent me her old modem, ha ha, or maybe a surprise slack tea. I wonder what it is.

How lucky am I?
I live in a beautiful part of the world, I have lovely friends, and all these gorgeous things arriving in the mail, woo hoo!!!!!!!

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend.

Grrrr blogger

I was just playing around with templates in blogger, as they have some new ones. I changed it to have a look at it thinking it was ok and now I am stuck with all the new templates I can't go back to the old one. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Mail (the "love fest" continues)

This week had been very uneventful until I received my mail on Thursday.  Then woo hoo, three parcels arrive in my letter box, how lucky am I.

The first was a very unexpected but much appreciated one. Mrs P took pity on me, as apparently I live at the a*#! end of the universe, where many culinary delights from South Australia are hard to come by non existent here.  I had never heard of these items before reading about them recently.

I apologise for the photo, it is not the best, it was taken late at night and in a hurry (before I ate all the chocolate!!)

Nostimini is a secret Mediterranean blend of herbs and spices, sounds like a European KFC, doesn't it. It is made by a company in South Australia. It sounds fabulous and I was looking forward to cooking with it on Friday night, but it didn't eventuate thanks to my social outing for Friday lunch, and the glasses of wine. The Nostimini website says it arouses the senses, I'm looking forward to that, just hope it doesn't happen in public. 

Mrs P also sent some Fruchocs, yummm,  they have almost disappeared already.

These fabulous gifts were lovingly wrapped in metres of bubble wrap, see picture below.  It  took me two days a very long time to unwrap and I wasn't sure I would ever find what was in the parcel.

The bubble wrap was indeed another gift from Mrs P, for use in a top secret project.  I can't go into detail right now, but I will definitely reveal it in the not too distant future.

The other two parcels were from the Fat Quarter Shop.

Some Bar Harbor charm packs and yardage. These are for a table runner which is number 3496 on my list of things to make.

Some Leanika for another project I haven't started, and at this rate never will.

A couple of charm packs of white Bella solids. I haven't decided what I am going to do with these, but I love 5" squares as it means less cutting.

I'm not too sure about the next one, as it is supposed to be Batik Vanilla Latte, it doesn't look remotely vanilla or latte to me, what do you think?

I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with it, there are some nice colours in the mix....but it's not what I thought it was going to be. This is the one small downside of ordering from overseas, if you haven't seen it "in the flesh", touched it and fondled it, it can be a not very nice surprise when it arrives. I'll add it to my fabric stash and look at it occasionally, until inspiration strikes.

Please please keep on reminding me to stop ordering jelly rolls or strips. I don't know why I keep on doing it, but I have to stop. I have **** jelly rolls and I have only cut into one so far, and used the total of one strip.  I am going to take an oath now. 

" I promise to not buy a jelly roll or equivalent from other companies for the next 12 months." 

My fingers are not crossed behind my back while I say that.

P.S. I know I have now referred to Mrs P in three posts in a row. Mrs P is wonderful, a real gem, and we have a great friendship that started through blogging.  I promise though that this blog won't turn into a Mrs P fan club, sorry Mrs P.