Chasing Summer & OPAM Winners

Hellooooooo!!! Here I am ... back again and doing a bit of a "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" impersonation. You see ... my Beloved Geek Boy had to make a trip to Mackay at the end of last week and since it's our favourite place to spend some time ... we juggled the budget and I made the trip with him. Gotta love a quick weekend to the tropics when you're a summer gal like I am! :0) Only slight drawback was getting a wee bit sunburnt whilst enjoying that tropical summer ... OOPS! :0)

Friday was a 'work' day for GB, but I spent it sittin' and stitchin' ... forgot to include a photo of that ... but I promise I really did quite a lot of stitching! :0) Saturday saw me make a bee-line to one of two of my fave destinations when we're in Mackay ... Needleworx! :0) You had to guess it would be a fabric shop, right?! Despite my best intentions, a few fabrics followed me home ...

Some pretties from Lynette Anderson's range Secret Garden. I could have happily adopted more of this pretty range ... it's the shabby palette I like to play with for my own projects just for ME ... but the budget said NO! SIGH!!! And a couple of white tone-on-tone prints to use for stitchery backgrounds ... a bit hard to see the patterns on these, but they're there ... really! :0)

The rest of Saturday was spent catching up with GB's aunt and uncle who live on a very pretty property just south of Mackay. It's always lovely to catch up with them, but the best bit ... they have heaps of MANGO trees! :0)  Let's just say we managed to find room in our bags to bring a few home ... YUM!!

Sunday was our last day in the tropics for this visit and we decided to play tourist ... we went for a bit walk along one of the beautiful local beaches ... left the phone in the car, so no pics ... Oops! Mind you ... me with my skirt tucked up to paddle through the incoming tide is probably NOT one of my better looks for photos! Tee! Hee! Hee! We then headed back into town for lunch and a walk along the river boardwalk which was when I got a wee bit sunburnt ... note to self: remember the sunscreen next visit! :0) ...

We stopped to take in the view under one of the shaded areas along the way ... it's a great set up with tables for picnics etc, plus it runs behind one of the main shopping centres, so if you rent one of the many units along the river, shopping is just a healthy and easy walk away ... kind of glad Toowoomba doesn't have a river to build a similar walkway, cos with all our hills ... I do NOT want to walk home carrying groceries! Tee! Hee! You can see GB contemplating the Pioneer River and one of the bridges that cross it ... to the right in the background, you see examples of "old" and "new" ... one of the town's historic church towers beside a block of modern units.

We caught the last plane out of the airport at Mackay for the day, back to Brisbane, then made the car trip home ... which took longer than usual due to roadworks after roadworks after ROADWORKS!!! SHEESH!! I don't think there are many roads in south east QLD NOT being worked on at the moment!!! Late arrival home and we were expected to be grown ups and go to work yesterday ... I am SO not qualified to be a grown up! :0) 

And now ... I am playing catch up with the OPAM prize draw for November. I have to confess that I had forgotten that it was my turn to do the draw ... OOPS! :0) So I've revisited our OPAM spreadsheet ... thanks to my gorgeous Partner-In-Crime Sweet Peg for assisting beautifully with the bloghopping, as always!  Also thanks to those gals who took the time to email tallies to me or Sweet Peg ... very much appreciated! :0) And WOW!! You OPAMers have been busy little bees during November with a our biggest tally for the year so far ...

683 Finishes!!

WOO! HOO!! I think we're all busily stitching for Christmas. :0) Well done to all who had finishes ... was very relieved to be amongst that group this month cos there were LOTS of things on my "To Do" list before Christmas rolls around!!! And if you didn't get to add any finishes to your tally, but managed to make a bit of progress on a long-term project or two ... you deserve a pat on the back too. :0) After letting loose the randomness, the prize winners for November are ...

SHARON B

& 

CHRISTINE MAC

Congratulations, gals! Email me with your snail mail addresses and I'll be popping a little something in the mail for you ... as soon as I get myself organised! :0)

And that's about it from me for now. This post was supposed to go up last night, but my laptop decided to go on strike and randomly shut itself down ... GRRRRRR!!! Happy enough now, though ... I shan't say anything about computers being male and only working when they feel like it ... really I won't! :0) Hope your week is off to a fantastic start and that there's lots of stitching involved, along with time spent with family and friends ... that's the most important part of this time of year, right?! :0) Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS