My Life's Winding Roads: November disappeared - Merry Christmas everyone

My Life's Winding Roads: November disappeared - Merry Christmas everyone: Hi folks, here I am albeit a week late if I'm going month by month, this Blog will cover November as well as wishes for Christmas. Shees...

November disappeared - Merry Christmas everyone

Hi folks, here I am albeit a week late if I'm going month by month, this Blog will cover November as well as wishes for Christmas.

Sheesh where are the weeks going ?  This year has literally flown by and the last couple of months even more so, since I started my mending business.  It has been wonderfully busy as well as a learning curve all at once.  I still find it hard  to believe that I can earn money by sewing and mending.  If anyone had ever asked me where sewing was on my list of 'career objectives' it would have rated right down at the very bottom if at all, my Father God has a sense of humour. 🙂  I have had some unusual sewing 'jobs' but each one has stretched me and taught me something.  This past  week, among other things, I made and inserted pockets into three skirts, mended holes (some tiny and some enormous) in seven plush, fleece blankets - one blanket had twenty holes. And my favourite was removing a polo neck  on a brand new jersey, unwinding it to about 2 cm and reattaching a part of it onto the back neck of the jersey.  That one was fun.  A friend in the Village reminded me that I also mend and fix stuffed toys. I've had loads of experience with Princess and her Flopsy. The best part of all this is that I enjoy each item as a challenge.

Weather wise, we have gone straight from winter to a scorching summer - extreme temperatures and either a gale or not a breath of air.  Definitely not my favourite weather as most of you will know.  JB and I even put the Christmas tree up early in the vain hope of cooler weather 😂😂.  We figured that seeing as it has been yet another crazy year, why not start the Christmas season early and really get into the swing of the Season.  I am happy to say that apart from one stocking filler gift I have completed all my Christmas shopping. Yaaay 🙌.  I still  have some baking to do, my christmas cake amongst other things. 

Village news is that we are still mostly restricted from getting into Somerset West and Cape Town because we still have to go around the mountain and over the Pass.  Truly it now feels like a picnic basket and a flask of coffee is required for any trip in that direction, the result of that being, when we do go in I tak a detailed list for every stop.  The one thing I keep forgetting is Christmas Mince Pies 😭, only one of my most favourite things.

This past month did not pass without incident, and by would it ? Haha.  Over the time I have had my generic FatSak,  Jasper (BIG, fat, lazy tuxedo cat), has periodically peed on it to my immense frustration.  Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was able to get it clean. Then the piddle of all piddles and I tried everything I knew, all to no effect.  I was desperate and made a snap decision to cut off the offending section of the inner bag, wash it and then restitch it back in place.  I planned to remove any soiled foam at the same time.  Well ... The deeper I reached in the more smelly foam I pulled out. 🤦🏻‍♀️. This bag was originally 25 kgs of foam.  Washing the cover and the piece of the inner bag in the machine had worked perfectly, so that let me with only one solution - wash the inner cover and  the foam.  OMW do you know how many little pieces of foam make up 25 kg.  Hubby had the idea of pouring the foam into a queen size bed and base,  thick plastic, enormous bag.  Hmmm trying to lift that heavy a bag and pour the foam out did not work so we resorted to pulling out arm fulls and smelling it.  If it was not smelly it went into the bag, if it smelt it went into the bath.  We had a three quarter of a bath full of foam, soap, vinegar and bicarbonate.  My next job was to get it from the bath and spun and dried.  I tried a duvet cover it did not work.  Pillow cases did not work. Eventually I found the zip up inner cover from one of our couch cushions.  This worked like a charm, I half filled it in the bath dragged it into the machine, rinsed and spun, then hung the bag on the line.  I wore a path to the washing line with the uncountable  trips it took. Load after load after load.  All dry foam was then put in the big plastic bag which eventually split. Therefore there were two growing piles of foam 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️.  The inner bag got washed, the missing piece stitched back into place and refilling begun.  Good grief there was foam everywhere you looked, inside, outside, all over us and the animals.  We resorted to using plastic bowls to scoop foam back into the inner, together with liberal amounts of essential peppermint oil and citronella oil.  After much sweat, frustration and exhaustion we got it all back in, minus about 5kgs of foam  which I just tossed out because of total the exhaustion.  Despite the drama and hard work I now have a fresh, clean smelling FatSak.  This week one of my clients gave me a packet of linen savers  which I taped together and liberally sprinkled with citronella oil and I now drape it over the FatSak at night. 🙏🤞🏻 Please God that is the end of the story.

We also had a wonderful two day visit with Miss Muffet who did a flying trip back home.  It was really good to spend time with her and just reconnect and catch up.  Poppet also surprised us with a visit last weekend and we picked up on an old family tradition, which had slipped through the cracks the last few years.  We made yummy salad rolls and settled down to watch Dirty Dancing for the umpteenth time.  Our annual Christmas movie - my heart was warmed and full.

The rest of the family are all well and busy ahead of the holidays.  It is going to be a very strange Christmas this year because for the first time ever Princess will not be here (we will see her a few days later), Poppet will be with friends, the Bears will be away and Big Guy just cannot get down this year.  So for the first time since 1977 all but one of the kids, JB, will not spend the day with us. We are doing a mini Christmas with the CT based family on the 22nd with a video link up to Princess and Big Guy.  I am planning on cooking a big Christmas Eve dinner and then, on Christmas day the three of us will literally veg out and watch movies etc., no cooking just plenty of left overs.

This was a lot of news about a busy month, I will put the next Blog up before the New Year.  To all of you I want to say thank you for taking the time each month to stay connected to my crazy life. Thank you for your encouragement and comments.  From my family to yours I wish you all a truly blessed Christmas and wonderful holidays.  Please stay safe on the roads and wherever you may be. Ciao Ciao.

The jersey make over, before and after.

A glimpse of foam insanity