just another morning here

I have had my knuckles rapped for the sponsored post below – cars aren’t quite as cute as dolls, and I don’t notice Steve Clarke doing a giveaway on his website – but he does have a rather nifty £1000 minimum part exchange scheme running at Steve Clarke Cars in Exeter, and some other nice shiny cars available at BMWestcountry, so I suppose he grudgingly deserves a mention And if you would like to share his links on facebook it’s probably useless unless you live in Devon … but feel free anyway!

(There, Steve, was that good enough? )

I don’t normally write ‘sponsored’ posts because this blog isn’t here to make money, however, these dolls are so gorgeous that I am joining in. Abbie had one for Christmas a couple of years ago and she loves it still (though I will be in trouble for saying that), and would have had loads of new clothes for it if I’d let her; the clothing range is beautiful too.

My friend Merry is taking on UK distribution for Rubens Barn and is giving away a doll from her blog, so go and have a look, leave a comment – and visit Play Merrily to see the full range

(There, Merry, was that good enough?!)

Here are the Christmas activities from this week, I am exceedingly worn out and really can’t wait until the end of the 20th December when all this chaos will stop!

Monday: practice for school play at my school, Josiah’s first performance (daytime), [swimming lessons as usual], my work meal out.

Tuesday: school play at my school, [piano lessons as usual - no TKD today though as it clashed with play start time] Josiah’s second performance (evening; Steve went to see it as Abbie & Joe ended up doing the same show, so neither of us fancied watching the same thing twice!).

Wednesday: Christmas party at the Donkey Sanctuary for me, including Christmas dinner. Donkey days are a highlight of my school life!

Thursday: Abbie’s performances, one in the daytime [insert choir practice and cello lesson in here] and one in the evening (my turn to be the audience).

Friday: Abbie and Joe’s Christmas school dinner [violin lesson, youth clubs (2) as usual, during which I will have to shop for Abbie's party, argh party bags].

We will have a brief interval in the Christmas activities over the weekend in order to fit Abbie’s birthday in, but even then we’ve got a couple of Christmas things to go to! Also have to manage some work at the garage as I think it’s probably the first Saturday since September that I’ve been able to get into the office.

In other news we have challenges of the business variety as our wonderful mechanic was taken ill at the weekend. He will almost certainly be off work until the New Year at least, and probably not be back to full fitness for a very long time after that. The workshop was the one part of the business that hadn’t suffered due to recession, but hey ho. Steve seems fairly calm about everything but I am worrying.

And this is why Animal Crossing is so nice to play, there is no recession and you can easily make a few million bells just by selling turnips – escapism rules ok.

Just upgraded to WP 2.7 here, I quite like the new format. Tired and should be asleep though so must sign off for the night.

I know it’s a week early but the Autumn concert finished last week so the orchestra got its Christmas music out today (Abbie very happy to be given a tiny little solo at the end of one of the pieces!). Joe had a Suzuki Group concert this afternoon and they played a couple of Christmas songs as well – so although it really is too early, I can’t help feeling as though Christmas is just around the corner. Schools (theirs and mine) are already preparing for Christmassy things so there’s no ignoring it! I will shortly be putting the Christmas CDs in the car too

Er. That’s all I have to say. The rest of my life just seems to pass in a blur of school and after school activities, not to mention homework, plus of course latterly the essential Animal Crossing fix every day. There’s no way I can play it as much as I played Wild World on the DS when I was at home rather than working, but it’s still so nice to escape into that other world, I can’t help it – it feels like watching your favourite old film all over again. OK so I’m weird, but I don’t care (you all knew that a long time ago).

Bit worried about the garage at the moment … wondering how long the recession might go on for as it does seem to be filtering down. I try to ignore it while Steve tries to fix it – both pretty useless reactions really, somewhere in the middle might be a good plan.

Anyway back to tonight: dinner, wine, X Factor, Animal Crossing, Casualty, and at this rate the children currently fighting over pieces of electronics kits will be going to bed early so it should be a peaceful evening!