Did You Miss Me??

HA! You didn't even know I'd been gone, did you?? :0) Well ... the last week has been a bit of a whirlwind in the Meares' Madhouse ... what's different to usual, I hear those who know me well ask! :0) You see, not only was I kept busy preparing for the annual inundation that accompanies the sign-up for OPAM (One Project A Month), my Beloved Geek Boy was diagnosed with a nasty case of tonsillitis ... AND ... we went on a little weekend jaunt to Mackay ... some 1200km from our hilltop home!! No, we haven't completely lost our minds ... well ... perhaps!!! Tee! Hee! Hee! But let me explain ...

You see ... GB found that he had to travel to Mackay ... where both sets of our parents' grew up and we each spent lots of time as kids for school holidays ... to install a video conferencing system and when he was booking his flights, he found we could get cheap tickets for me to go too. So we thought ... "Why not?!!" You didn't really think we'd DRIVE all that way for a weekend, did you?!?! :0)

So ... ports were rapidly packed, with fingers crossed that I'd remembered all of the essentials ... you know ... stitching, the latest issue of 'Homespun', iPad, laptop ... oh and clean knickers of course! Tee! Hee! Hee! Very, VERY early Friday morning (even earlier than Kerryanne's wake up time!! Tee! Hee!) we crawled out of bed and drove off to Brisbane to catch our flights. And it was about half way to Brisbane that I realised I'd left my camera sitting beside my computer! DOH!! What a bad blogger! But never fear, my iPhone camera came to the rescue ... sort of. :0)

Friday was a whirlwind of busy-ness with flights, car rentals, GB completing the job that had taken us north in the first place ... but Saturday morning was to be spent relaxing before meeting up with some of GB's extended family to start plans rolling for a family reunion later in the year. First stop had to be breakfast. We decided on a funky cafe on the river called 'Traffic'. And I ordered my most favourite brekkie ever ... Eggs Benedict ...

YUMMO!! Oops ... you can see I couldn't resist a bite or two before I thought to take a photo! Tee! Hee! Hee! How do you spot a blogger? They're the one taking photos of their food instead of eating it ! :0) Though eating this yummy brekkie very closely followed the conclusion of the photo shoot! :0) When we were leaving, we took time to have a closer look at the very special feature wall near the front entrance ...

Talk about a literal 'records wall'!! :0) While we were standing there, the cafe's owner came over for a chat ... she was as fun and funky as the cafe! She pointed out that she hadn't been able to bring herself to break some records ... it turns out they are all LP's released by Aussie singer John English and since she is a HUGE fan, she just couldn't bring herself to break his albums! Tee! Hee! Hee!

We then went for a little wander in the main shopping area ... where parking is not fun and one way streets appear out of nowhere!!! ... to visit a gorgeous little shop I discovered on a previous visit to Mackay ... De Ja Vous. Sorry ... no photo of this sweet French inspired shop due to the fact that I would have had to stand on the road and Mackay drivers are CRAZY so I wasn't going to risk it! :0) But I'll show you what I bought ... you just knew that SOMETHING followed me home, right?! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Don't you love that gorgeous aqua colour of the bag? But I digress ... I found the sweetest shabby/French photo frame ... not sure whether I'll pop a photo in there or a vintage postcard of some kind ... a couple of pretty notepads (I'm always on the lookout for pretty notepads for my birthday basket!), two pretty rose scented sachets that smell GORGEOUS!! and two sweet vintage giftie tags that will probably never be used as giftie tags, but were too pretty to pass up! :0) There were SOOOOO many other fabulous things that I would have loved to give a new home, but GB was very quick to point out that there is a weight limit for luggage when flying. DRAT! :0)

The rest of the time was spent catching up with GB's family at an aunt's beach cottage ... and would you believe it, I completely forgot to take photos. SIGH! Oh dear ... we'll just have to go back for another visit to get photos! Do you see the method in my madness?! Tee! Hee! Hee! And then on Sunday it was time to fly back to Brisbane and drive home to an overcast, cool evening on top of our 'hill' ... SIGH! Who keeps stealing my summer weather?! It's been cool, overcast and rainy since we got back ... about the only good part of that is it's been inspiring me to curl up with some stitching! :0)

Of course ... in the middle of all our travelling and tripping around, Sweet Peg and I opened the floodgate of emails by launching OPAM 2012. WOW!!! There are already about 130 people joining us in our quest to finish One Project A Month and I can tell it's going to be a FANTASTIC year! :0) I know there are a lot of other 'finish' challenges out there in blogland now ... though there weren't when May Britt and I first launched OPAM ... but I think what people seem to like best about OPAMWISPs (Works In Slow Progress ... sounds better than UFOs somehow! Tee! Hee! Hee!) or brand new projects, a finish is a finish and it goes on your tally. Plus ... it's very low-stress ... if you finish one, one hundred or zero projects in a month ... it's fine! Sweet Peg and I record the finishes you do make and encourage you on the projects that are taking a bit longer. So ... do you think you'd like to play along? You still have a few days left to sign up before we close the list on January 31, so if you're interested, read my previous post and drop Sweet Peg or me an email to join the fun.

And on that note, I think I shall go and make myself a cup of Rose and French Vanilla tea and spend the rest of this rainy afternoon stitching. Hope you're having a FABULOUS week so far. Til next time ...

DAMP BEAR HUGS!!

CHEERS!
KRIS