What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 814

Gloomy and cold out there this morning, but in here it's all light and dancing about. Well, I'm up, and I have a plan which is by far the better way for me to face a day! Wishing you all a very happy and healthy New Year. I haven't made any resolutions and I haven't chosen a word for the year and I'm not apparently, going to be changing my modus operandi at the desk....

Whilst chatting to our LLJ on FaceTime I stamped and coloured and I tidied up. Then later in the day, I went back to it and started some more...and didn't tidy up. This is how it looks this morning and that's how I know the new year hasn't changed my mindset! 

In fact this is a slice of desk really, the other half has a birthday present on it which cannot be revealed! Isn't the little wooden tray with my new mug on it sweet..like an oasis of calm in all the mess. A lovely Christmas present from my sweet sister in law. And it's got a HOME MADE biscuit on it. My word, I'm turning into Suzi Homemaker! 

Join us for desk viewing and general craft nosiness, it costs nothing and is actually a nice way to spend some down time browsing and chatting - link up at Sarah's; if you have questions, please ask!

What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday 812

The actual Christmas Day edition! Wow, I hope that your Christmas is full of hope, peace and goodwill.

My Workdesk has actually some used stamps and offcuts sitting on it...Miss Dunnit's current squeeze made something. Have to admit it was fun to throw ideas and lots of choices at him and watch him panic! He did a good job and I don't mind bragging slightly that it was an effortless slide back into full on workshop conductor mode! We're having a day that features just the four of us and will eat the traditional roast at some point. Not soon though, I haven't turned the oven on or peeled a vegetable yet! 
Have a lovely super holiday y'all. As Sarah says on her blog this morning, next Wednesday is next year, so great good wishes to you and yours. See you next year!

What's On your Workdesk? Wednesday 811

Not my usual desk, but some craft work of a sort at last! You can tell that I've spray painted the tree that is the A. These words form part of a box full that Mr Dunnit has cut for me; different words that I'm sort of experimenting with in terms of painting, leaving naked, adding snow etc etc. The drawback to cans of spray paint is the need to be outside with a large cardboard box as a spray booth. It all gets blown about even on days when you wouldn't consider it windy. Nothing if not rankly amateur I can tell you. Still, so far so good. The box will then be retired to the garage. The intention is to add to it as time permits over the next few months and then have a stall at our town's Christmas Fayre next year. We'll see. I think the box I'm using is big enough not to be one of those that gets swallowed up by the 'special place' problem. Probably it's too big and we'll get sick of falling over it, walking around it, moving it to access other stuff, it will be put in a special place and totally forgotten until a deadline looms again! So here I am a week before Christmas, preparing stuff for next Christmas. That might lead you to the wrong assumption that I'm ready for this Christmas. I am, nearly. Just domestic chores to conquer, golly doesn't having to move furniture and wedge in a tree cause an upset! Hope you can take some time to feel the festivities in the big old run up. 

What's On Your Workdesk? wednesday 808

There's a lot of the regular GKW/stuff and a whole lot of nothing go on. Gentle desker, I haven't made a single Christmas card. I don't even know if I can legitimately add 'yet' to that sentence. Mojo is missing. At this rate I'll have forgotten how to stamp! The cute Christmas stickers are waiting; I thought they would make fun seals for envelopes so there's a demonstration of intent! You can just see at left, the strings of some Kraft tags that I stamped and decorated in January. Tags are so useful and yet are overlooked in this house, so I made a few. Glad I did, because early wrapping and despatching has occurred. You can also see a background stamp , I had an idea that it would make a nice light plaid background for some of my Christmas images. Since it arrived I haven't tried it, but it's ready and probably more willing than I! 

It will be lovely to catch up with you, I've no doubt that you will be jaw droppingly busy and inspiring. A second picture by way of wanting to share some loveliness....I know it's meant really to accent other flowers, but I love Gypsophilia and this bunch of coloured blooms makes me think of cherry blossom every time I look at it. 

I was trying out Portrait Lighting on my phone which is why the kitchen worktop looks so moody!

WOYWW 804

I had to double check the number, four weeks since I last posted. Good grief, my life is so chaotic. No Workdesk from me, it's actually looking its usual mess but there's no craft working going on. Instead, I offer you the dining table and the hall floor. 

Im clearing out my sweet, late Mother In Law's house and obviously trying really hard to re-home stuff before having to give in and dump it. It's a chore, to be honest. Yesterday I ended up refereeing a fight over an item I'd put up for sale on FB and I start today wondering if anyone of the three scheduled to collect what they wanted will actually turn up. If you've ever done similar, you'll know that it's not about making money, it's about getting rid of whatever! So that's me, in amongst the day to day I have this little voice in the back of my head talking about the things I want to make for Christmas and I'm trying to keep it quiet and low, if it's just another job, there will be no pleasure in it, and at this point, anything I don't have to do isn't being done! I think that makes me a housework rebel! I also know that trotting around your desks will fill me awe and longing so I need to get on with this clearing lark!

WOYWW 800

Buried at the bottom of a random blog post on Wednesday 3rd June 2009, I found this:

I hit on an idea last night that I thought may be fun - particularly in view of the cathartic nature of sharing. I thought we (that's you interweb, and me) could do a 'what's on my work table this wednesday' feature thingy. Yep. From me, a sort of down market and probably badly photographed version of the sort of thing that real big celeb scrappers do - but theirs involve finished items, links, articles and sponsor giveaways....none of which will happen here. I just wanna see what you're all doing that I'm not...I really like the idea of seeing your work in progress; specially as your finished stuff is always fab.

The down market and badly photographed comment was very far sighted of me! The greatest change has been that my desk is in a different position in my workroom following some building work, rather than my attitude to clearing up or learning lighting skills for photos. Ah well. 

So we formed a community via looking at our work spaces;  we've celebrated with each other and we've mourned the loss of friends. Such a strong community; when I announced that it was time for me to step back, instead of moaning and pulling away, you brought me a present and celebrated my time. That is one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me. 

And now we continue under Sarah's much more organised watch, and I love that too, that WOYWW meant enough to the collective contributors to 'move' rather than finish. 

The trawl through my old blog posts has caused me embarrassment and hilarity, but it brought to mind so many of you lovely Deskers, maybe we don't regularly see so many people any more, but the beauty and grace of this community is that it doesn't matter, once a year, or never again, you are running through my mind on this of all days. 

Gaslighting myself. Yep.

See these ridiculous pink trainers? I bought them about six weeks ago at a craft show, oddly enough. It was on a Saturday. I wore them all day the following Tuesday, and that included the evening at WI. Which was, incidentally, our branch's first birthday. We did belly dancing and celebrated with cake and jelly and ice cream. Details schmetails, huh. There's more. 

As is my slovenly manner, when I got home, I kicked off the trainers and reclined for the rest of the evening. Three weeks later, I was preparing for an evening out with my Coven. It was a post gym workout evening, so I had a shower and then made the mistake of answering my phone whilst I dressed. The caller was a chap who was responding to an enquiry I had made, so perfectly legitimate. I put him on loudspeaker and carried on dressing. He was, well, a  slow speaker and quite determined to explain in detail the procedure of the oven cleaning I was trying to book him for. I didn't need the detail, I just wanted to book him. But believe it or not, I'm polite and let him carry on. I've donned the undies, decided on the pink jeans and a matching pink and red top and started to look for the pink trainers. 

Greg The Oven finally got his diary out and suggested a couple of dates whilst I unloaded every shoe from the shoe shelf section of my wardrobe onto the floor,  Naturally this involves effort, grovelling and I'm pretty sure some heavy breathing. Poor Greg!  No sign of the pink trainers. I settled on Greg The Oven's first available date, got rid of him. Dried my hair, put some tennis shoes on and went out. Didn't give it a second thought until I got home and had to tidy up the shoes, blaming Greg The Oven for distracting me. Wondered vaguely where the trainers were, brushed my teeth and went to bed. 

I have since checked every room, under beds. Every cupboard, even in the utility room. No sign of these damn pink trainers. Asked my Mr Dunnit. Actually, I even asked him if he'd hidden them because he felt they were inappropriate, embarrassing, didn't suit me. Any or all. He laughed and said he wasn't gaslighting me. I just could not find them and when Miss Dunnit and the Squeeze came home, I accused them of absentee gaslighting and made them look everywhere I already had. Fresh eyes and all that. Nada. Joking aside, I was a bit worried about myself. And the shoes.

So, I woke up yesterday and decide that the day had arrived to change my wardrobe from summer to something resembling autumn and wet weather clothes. Literally...I didn't even get dressed, just made a start. I picked every thing off the shelves in their piles and started to separate 'layer' type tops from genuine summer tops, shorts from leggings, put the jumpers back onto shelves and remove flimsy stuff generally. It went well and apart from needing breakfast rather badly, I felt smug. In the room that I do ironing, I knew there was a pile to done, but largely it was summer stuff, so I fetched it. After all, if they're going to be squashed into vacuum bags, no point ironing them is there. Two t shirts down, I found a hand towel. I probably stuck it in the pile to feel good that there was some non-iron stuff to skim over! Moved the towel and hey presto, there were the trainers.

I must have put them on top of the pile of clothes to take them upstairs, and then like a fool, put another pile of stuff on top of that! It's all I can think  of for them being there. So today I'm wearing pink trainers because I can. And the oven at my late Mother in Law's is sparkling. And no one needs to come up with a plan to gaslight me. Turns out I can do it myself.