Christmas Preparations

Essentially, there are two weeks left for me to prepare the house and bake and finish up my last minute little gifts. On the22nd of December after sour daughter flies in from South Korea, we will be picking  her up in Fredericton.  We haven't seen in over two years, so we  are of course very excited. As a little Christmas present to ourselves and really to distract us the day before hile she is in flight, we bought tickets for the ice show with Kurt Browning and Elvis Stoyko among others.
I am not a high energy person, so on each of my days at home in the next two weeks, I will be doing:

1. one small bit of house cleaning
2. a bit of decorating
3. completing some final little Christmas gifts, ( my favorite part!)
4. maybe some baking

Today after doing my kitchen floor, I hung a few antique ornaments in my kitchen window which can be seen when you enter through the front door. I also spend much time here at the sink doing kitchen tasks and watching the birds at the feeders and in our apple tree.

We really enjoy watching the birds drinking at the heated birdbath that our son gave us several years ago. It is also just outside my kitchen window mounted on the deck rail.

This morning, I finished the medium sized pouch from this pattern. It was a bit of a challenge at first working with the vinyl, but all in all quite an easy pouch to put together. After a suggestion from a friend, I laid paper over the vinyl while sewing  to keep it from sticking. Next time, I will follow my friend Sue's advice to use tissue paper. Definitely easier to remove. It's hard to tell in the photo but the front of the pouch is clear vinyl. The monkey fabric is actually on the inside. One more little gift done. Yes!

I used this pattern.

After lunch, I mixed  up a recipe for chocolate meringues that are baking as I type this. These will be our Christmas dessert this year served with chocolate whipped cream and berries.
 I've finished everything I planned for today; when the meringues are done, I  have to go out for milk and I'll put the garbage out when I do. My husband is away for the week again. This is something new for us in the last month or so. The sun sets early here at this time of year and it can be a little lonely at night but generally I keep busy and don't mind it too much.
He will be off for two weeks when my daughter is here so we are l;looking forward to that.