Where does the time go?

Wow okay I know I've had a lot on my plate, but seriously where does the time go these days, it's only 3 weeks until Christmas and I have been busy teaching Christmas card classes, but haven't made any myself yet to send to family and friends - might be my e-newsletter again this year! Which people commented that they enjoyed reading and it had lots of photos etc in it and of course didn't consume paper or fuel miles to deliver it to everyone, but it is still nice to receive "snail" mail sometimes so we'll see how I go over the next week or so time wise!

The bubble blog candy went to Julie who guessed closest to the actual weight of 179g that 5 of the guest soaps came in at - since it's been a long time since I posted and I'm feeling bad about the delay, so you can swap the guest soaps for a festive squirter duck on a pond (see above) or a body scrub tub as a prize instead. I ended up making over 260 of the Breast Cancer fundraising soaps, about 200 more than I ever envisaged and have expressions of interest for over 350 already for the same time next year! Fortunately for my sanity I've moved onto puzzle soaps, the squirter ducks on a pond (above), soapsicles, soap cupcakes and sugar body scrubs (currently for the later I've made peppermint = great for foot scrubs, chcoolate and pearberry, both of which are divine to use) so am getting some variety - for pictures of all go to my MadeIt store. I had my very first market stall this weekend at a belly dancing end of term exhibition and it was a lot of fun, a nice learning experience which will no doubt help in the new year for me doing more markets. The reindeer poop and Rudolph's spares went down well with the children, but then again who doesn't love chocolate?? For the poems & photos of these and snowman soup & reindeer food they are listed on my Stampin' Up! website under the projects/ideas section. The reindeer food we also did at my son's toddler group and the children loved it and he can't wait for Christmas Eve to feed the reindeers!

Our garden is starting to be quite productive, we're pickign raspberries, green beans, cherry tomatoes, carrots, strawberries and a few other things as well. The sand remedy (aka bentonite clay) which we bought from a local supplier http://www.vitalorganics.net.au/ Vital Organics (who did free delivery to your door and have brilliant customer service) when combined with the compost seems to be helping with water retention in the soil, even with the hot days we've been having of late. Although no doubt the few extra buckets of grey water from the laundry and our son's bath don't go astray, it's one of those little bit of effort activities for bigger results in the garden and a small reduction in our global footprint. We were of course also very fortunate recently to receive 5 large bags of sheep poo from a friend who lives on a farm, sadly not everyone gets as excited about sheep poo as we do, but it's wonderful fertiliser for the garden and unlike the chemical versions a lot less impactive on our waterways and is of course recycling a waste product!

We recently discovered our local landfill facility has a recycle shop that is open on weekends and is a treasure trove of really cool items at super chepa prices. We went to get paving bricks to do more garden paths (and a few extra for DS to play with), but we also found amidst other items a terrific stainless steel sink that DH has installed outside near the garden tap for washing the leaf and root vegetables prior to bringing them into the house and the water from that is also easily recycled back onto the garden. They are all small things that in the grand scheme don't seem to have much effect, but multiplied over thousands and possibly millions of households globally they have a massive impact!

Anyway it's late, so I am calling it a night, hopefully it won't be as long between posts this time!