Morning all tis Friday time to clock the silver linings, positive moments over the last 7 days.
First up me and hubby have started putting my Fitbit through its paces, in essence I'm trying to achieve all the elements on the front page by the end of the day to get a totally green day, this in turn has meant some early evening walks, which in the UK means very dark walks.
But this has led to lots of chatting and planning, which is brilliant and occasionally we wander across other things. At the beginning of the week, the nativity seen outside our local church was still on view, so I grabbed this snap one evening.
Next up this little Christmas gift from hubby makes me smile every morning. Anyone who is a Fantastic Beasts fan will note that this wee fellow is a Niffler, known in the film for being attracted to all things shiny and pretty. He is a trinket stand, so at the end of the day I put my jewellery from the day on him. In the film he often stands stock still with the jewels over him, so as to disguise what he is up to, so this pose is rather humorous I'm sure you will agree.
We had a wander around the local shopping centre and came across this commemorative statue which notes down the lives lost in the Manchester arena bombing, I'd seen the statue on a couple of my instagram feeds, but this was the first time I'd seen it in person, a very poignant piece of sculpture which made me rather reflective.
Next up we have been treated (up to now, the weekend, not looking quite so calm), to a relatively calm period of weather, which has meant lots of local walks.
On Sunday we took the bridlepath walk up to the next village again, grabbed a coffee (pint for hubby) in the beer garden and then walked back, catching the gorgeous golden hour light.
As you can see it was a real treat.
We even managed a golden hour selfie
The view was breathtaking if I'm honest and was just what I needed to reset myself ready for a rather busy work week.
The pretty farmhouses on the way up were beautiful
More sunset and sky photos
The weekend also threw a curve ball in that both our main TV service and broadband went down, so we planned a board game/card game night. However, it came back up before the planned evening, but we went ahead as planned anyway.
The game in question is cards against humanity and is definitely not for the easily offended, for us we take it relatively light hearted but there are times when the cards don't make sense and the dilemma is to google or not to google. Sometimes you wish you didn't know the answer after you've googled. As said 18 year old got a new set of additional cards at Christmas this led to an evening of googling again and don't just think it was that side of the table that were googling!
Now I thought I'd share a few photos of things I made at Christmas, I couldn't share them on here or online for fear of the recipients seeing them.
First up, this year's jars were not cookies (that I've made year on year) but brownies.
I've yet to get feedback as to whether they were any good.
I save my coffee jars all year and then wash them in hot water and pop them in the oven to sterilise, I put the plastic element of the jar into boiling water, air dry them and then put them back together before filling with the layered contents.
I covered the jars in festive papers and put instructions on the jar of how to cook, they always go down well with the recipients and it is a quick and easy homemade gift.
Next up were token Christmas gifts for my work colleagues, this year inspired by Pinterest, I made sweetie Santa sleighs and once completed wrapped them in cellophane and tied with a ribbon. Everyone was very happy to receive them, I had a few spare which made up as stocking fillers at Christmas.
Finally a gift I made my brother. We've had this clock case in the house forever, it came from a charity shop years ago with an overwound clock, the case was mahogany in colour.
It did actually make it as far as the 'tip' pile in the porch (minus its clock parts that said 18 year old had commandeered) when I considered that it really was too good to not use.
So with the help of hubby who sanded the item for me (I have a sandpaper phobia) and some acrylic paints I managed to make it look like this. I would never profess to be an artist, but I really enjoyed making it, he is an avid fan and has lots of items that can sit inside the case.
This week saw me completing my tenth Christmas journal. I finished off the entries, added a few more photos, popped in the Christmas cards I'm saving and added some embellishments to the pages. Very happy with the finished item.
In fact that day was brilliant as I was feeling very festive, I finished my journal, made a start on Christmas cards and had Kirstie's homemade Christmas playing in the background!
Back to work has meant that my photo a day has proved more difficult than expected, mainly because when I'm at work I rarely move from my desk, so there are no decent photo opportunities, as you can see from the next picture, which was my photo on Tuesday!
So I had the same problem on Wednesday, so decided to share a collage of my green fitbit days as a bit of additional motivation for me.
Then last night's photo after a rather fraught week overall at work was yet another evening walk photo, I'm hoping for something with a little more daylight in it today!
So there you go, a busy week overall, first one back at work and well into January already. I hope you've had a fabulous week, if you fancy joining in, pop back and link up and we can come and visit.
