Just another day in paradise....

I thought I would begin by showing some pictures Emily took of our family pets.
the first is of Socks the cat rescued 2 years ago.She has had her world shaken a bit by the arrival of Beauty but has stamped her authority and is now top dog.She just has to move rapidly at times as Beauty tries to pin her down!!!

This is of Beauty who is 1 year old and was rescued 8 (long) months ago.Her story is for another time and although she has caused us a lot of problems we love her and believe that in the long run we will have a wonderful companion.......

This final one is of Lizzy the rabbit, rescued 3 years ago. She poses few problems but Rabbits do need company and I am not sure she is getting enough. Emily has promised today that she is going to spend at least 10 minutes a day with her. I believe she means it but we will see over the next few days,after all it is so much easier to spend time with your rabbit when the sun is shining....
Now the obvious part of this exercise was to gain more experience in putting on photo's and I have learnt a few more thing's tonight so will try more tomorrow.

Today has been another day at home.
I woke at 4 o'clock this morning with a thumper of a headache but couldn't be bothered to get up for some pills needless to say it got worse and by the time I got up a 8ish it was really bad. I do try to treat most things homeopathically but my headaches don't seem to respond, My homeopath has given me some Sepia to take each day as these are definitely linked to hormonal changes going on.So I am hoping they settle down again soon.
I took some Ibuprofen and by the time Emily got up at 9ish I was feeling more human.

After breakfast Emily went upstairs to play.
I got on with lots of jobs and then the plan was to make some salt dough and make Xmas ornaments and then make a chilli for Friday night when Emily's friend comes to tea.
As it turned out the whole day got away from us she got really into the game she was playing and made a great setup with play mobile and my little pony's with a wonderful story to go with it.
I would normally of gone up and played with her but as my head was so bad I took the opportunity to sit quietly and do some planning for boxing day puddings and thanks to Nigella Lawsons express cook book I have two possible candidates, a spicy sponge pudding with eggnog sauce and a chocolate mousse which have the most important requirement for anything I cook, few ingredients and easy prep.There will be an xmas pudd bought as well.

Over the last few years my Parents and my two sisters and their husbands and my nephew have all got together on Xmas day and taken turns in hosting , with us all preparing and taking parts of the meal. It has worked quite well and we have had a lovely time but whoever is hosting still has a massive job to do. I did it one year and I swore I would never do it again I felt so much pressure to live up to every ones expectations and was terrified of spoiling Christmas for everyone.
I realise now I put too much emphasis on doing things how everyone else did them with choices of starters and pudd's when in reality I would of had nibbles and one pudd to keep things a simple as possible. I have learnt a bit about myself since then and think that if I ever invited everyone round again I would feel much more able to do what I feel comfortable with instead of putting so much pressure on myself.
This year we are all staying at home and getting together on Boxing day at my mum's.

Our Xmas day is going to be extra relaxed as we intend to stay in PJ's all day and Emily and I have purchased new ones especially!!!Emily will get a chance to play with her toy's instead of rushing off mid morning and we may even get a snooze if there has been a particularly early start.I am really looking forward to it.

After lunch we spent some time in the garden , we cleaned lizzy out and then came in to set about the salt dough , I can't remember how we got sidetracked but we ended up on you tube looking at music videos(oh Ive just remembered we were reading The Green House by the sea blog and then linked to leo's blog and he mentioned two songs he had performed in a music class so we looked them up as I said I liked them) and Wheatus teenage dirtbag was a hit with her and she saved it to her favourites,Emily is a bit of a rock chick she has been asking to take guitar lessons recently and seems really keen, she got a guitar for her birthday last feb. so I will see if the enthusiasum continues and see about getting lessons for her.

She then spotted the video camera and decided to film for a while, I was the star of the show in all my glory with no make up and a thumping head!!!!
We had good fun and she mentioned about editing bit's out so we may progress from just filming to editing what we do, but it will be when she is ready and at her suggestion(that's going to be another learning curve for me!!!)

After filming finished for the day she went upstairs to listen to her story tape and she invented some presents for us by wrapping wool around tubes of paper, she enjoyed doing it and as it was something that required manual dexterity the fact that she stuck to it far outweighs the end article ,lovely though they were.

Then before we knew it Alan was home and it was time for hot chocolate with whipped cream and xmas cake before tea prep and then after tea Dr who and a bit of tv......