This last day of the year....a profound story...

a completely unrelated photo - but these Easter treats found on a shelf in Sainsbury's this morning....am in no doubt you can easily find them in a store near you too! No wonder the years pass so quickly!

For a couple years now, the grey in my hair has bothered me a bit, and I've been colouring it.  My darling says that it's nothing and I shouldn't fret about it; so for about the last 8 months, I haven't spent money or minutes on hair dye products.  I decided to embrace the grey...and to be honest, apart from my beloved father, most people were silent on the matter.  Either from pity or embarrassment, who knows.  
I keep my hair fairly short, so any colour has long grown and been cut out and I'm back to my natural brown.  Turns out, it's not the grey that bothers me so much as the dull brown of this natural colour.  'Spect if we ever met, Tim Holtz would have a name for it.  
So for the New Year, I decided to 'enliven' my hair colour and improve my complexion with a 'warm and rich' brown hair colouring.  I actually bounced out of bed having made time to do it before I went downstairs.  I remembered to put on the loose neck stained t shirt that we keep for this.  I even turned on the iron, knowing that I would have 20 minutes to spend ironing whilst my head got very cold, but oh so rich and warmly coloured.  Put on the gloves...for the 100th time, think aloud about writing to the manufacturer to remind them that people with fat hands also colour their hair.  Snap off the top of the 'chemical' squirty nozzle bottle.  Unscrew cap. Open the colourant.  Empty the entire tube into the chemical squirty nozzle bottle.  Take care to empty tube, rolling it down and being uber careful not to spill.  And then, replace the squirty nozzle cap.  Place finger expertly over the broken off tip and shake.  No colour change, no magic, frightening dark coloured chemical reaction. Check box and basin which looks a bit like a lab.  Bottle of COLOUR still intact, in the basin. TUBE of high powered, ultra soft conditioner, empty.  Put the wrong thing in the wrong thing.  Feel very cross for about 10 seconds.  Then very foolish.  And now, well, in a mood to share; even at this late stage in the year, it's not too late for me to make a fool of myself!  
Me, my grey temples, and my Dunnit lovelies wish you everything you need for 2012.  May it be happy and filled with the love of your family and friends.  You deserve it.

Motivation to do: Anything!

It may finally be coming to me...the motivation to get on and tidy up in my work area, clear my desk and sort things ready for a lovely clean and tidy, uncluttered start to next year.  Next week.  Well, as long as it lasts!  This desire comes hot on the heels of my needing to do a great deal of office and other work.  Naturally, if I'm busy with one, I'm full of ideas for the other!  
Another reason for a sudden need to get to my desk is this lovely package; it arrived before Christmas from Emily at Make The Day Special.  Mr Dunnit put it under the tree; it's Emily's way of celebrating 500 posts on the blog, and I was the lucky recipient.  Check out the blog, Kim, a WOYWWer is on her design team and the ideas are just wonderful.

The very best thing about the whole goody box is the whole sheet of mounted stamps..honestly, if I'd chosen them myself they couldn't be better!  

And talking of gifts under my tree, and motivation, and my way of erm 'coping'.....my dear friend Lunch Lady Jan and her husband important G, think it's terribly amusing that I'm a list maker.  Really they do.  We can be talking about absolutely nothing related to it and G will just suddenly suggest I make a list.  Well, now I can, look at this book!  

No doubt Jan and important G think it's very funny, and I have to say I did laugh (a lot) when I opened it.  But secretly, it's perfect and I'm very pleased to have a book of pages to make my iists on!  
So now I must get to the bookwork, make sure we still have a roof over our heads for the coming year, so that I can then get to my desk without guilt. Oh, ha ha, that makes me laugh too, guilt free craft time!

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 134

I have nothing to show you that you didn't see last Wednesday.  I'm also sorry that I didn't make it around to all the desks last week, I just couldn't give up the time;  see, my Sissy lives in California, so we don't get Christmas together too often, and that's why.

So instead of a desk, here's a picture that has touched my heart.  I was sitting on the sofa behind my father who was sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa (by choice!).  He was playing with his new Kindle and not having a lot of luck with button comprehension.  So my darling Miss Dunnit sat beside him and explained, many times, the 'home' button function and where to go from there.  He's still giddy at the fact that she loaded 1500 books onto it in about 5 minutes flat, so I'm not sure how much info he's taking in at this stage......
So how was your holiday?  I see a few of you actually made it to your desks....show us do, or a snippet of your holiday memories...we'd love to see...upload a pic to your blog, put WOYWW in the title and link here.  I thank you!  See you next year!

Happy Christmas!

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, may your day be filled with the joy of the season. And no washing up. And definitely don't do any housework. Again, probably won't be taking my advice; can't see that I'll be getting out of the washing up! Enjoy, friends.

The Manifesto revisited

Thanks to Kerry for the polystyrene ring, I decided to continue the Pay It Forward and gave this to Shopkeeper Gal as a 'card' for this Christmas.  Idea (not mine of course), from Laura, my friend and Stamping Up! demo.

Remember back in October and November I preached at you about staying calm and getting stuff done and setting a sensible deadline to preculde you from stress at midnight on 24th December?  My Manifesto for Christmas preparations?  Well, as you most associate a manifesto with politicians, and as we mostly don't get the full reality from our politicians, you'll be unsurprised that I haven't stuck to it.  Here's a precis:

1. Make, whilst in the mood, whilst the going is good.  
2. Make and finish one thing at a time..midnight on the 24th December is not a time reserved for frantic finishing and crappy wrapping.  No, it ISN'T.
3.  Set a reasonable, seasonal deadline to finish the makes.  Mine is December 15. Then, I shall gracefully (!) accept if I've failed to finish and trot out to buy gifts where needed, and still have time to wrap them.  
4.  Do not get silly about this.  Do not make loads of stuff and then lose your nerve and decide against giving any of it away.  To this end, I recommend wrapping as soon as possible after finishing!

Well, home made gifts are now under several trees and I am a bit nervous about them to be honest.  So that's a moderate fail.  The worst fail is the December 15th deadline.   I still l have the shadow box gift on my desk.  Tradition dictates that the lovely recipients will be here tomorrow evening for supper and late church....so I kinda have to finish it.  Very soon.  Epic manifesto fail then! Argh.    But it's OK,it's the only one.  My eye is no longer particularly on the Christmas ball.....Stephanie Dunnit and neice Bizz are home from California for a quick Christmas.  I'm concentrating on quality time.  Whatever else I preach at you, this is the one you should take notice of.  Spend some time with people you love.  For once, I'm going to take my own advice!

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 133

Well here it is..not even cleared off for use as a bar this year.  Yet. That may or may not come to pass, we'll see. After a visit from Morti and Mr B, my tree is a hand beaded bauble better decorated and my desk - described by Morti as part of an 'efficient' space, is back in use.  Mr Dunnit heads out to a couple of customers to spread Christmas thanks and cheer today, so I'm making the bottle label things that look kinda like door hangers - you can just see them above the black punch at right. Nothing like last minute, huh!  There's the beginnings too of what looks like a scrapbook page.  It will in fact be a shadow box containing a lovely candid photo of a young couple at their wedding and some of the bits that I collected on the day - you know, confetti, favour wrapper etc.  I'll try to remember to show it at some stage...which means photographing it before it gets wrapped up.  Which implies my intention to finish it.  Great stuff, intent! It's all a bit over exposed I think, but there's a half finished bag of silver curling ribbon and the rest of the wrapping up stuff, just dumped.  Not a single stamp has been put away.  Again, I hate storing clear stamps.  I'm still trying to 'do a Neil' - yes you, Neil! Sign of some progress is standing on top of the button jar.  Of course!
I know lots of you don't or wont pass this way between WOYWW days, so please accept my best wishes and warm fuzzies for a peaceful and Happy Christmas. 


Join us by linking here - show us your 4-days-to-go state; post a picture to your blog and link up here.  Please put WOYWW in the title and don't link if it's not a post about your desk/surface/blah...it should at least be a link for today, not a non WOYWW post earlier this week.  Thank you.  Please don't make me set real rules, this is meant to be fun.  Off to Heathrow today, Sissy Dunnit's coming, Hurrah!!!

Motivation to do: mmmm, baking

Well, I don't do much baking per se, because I'm not great at it. I do a lot of cooking, but the cakes and breads aren't my forte. Turns out Miss Dunnit is the baker in our family; I can't get the oven to behave in the same way that she can. However,Miss Dunnit has more of a life than me of course, and so there are times when I'm happy to bake. And no better a time than when there's a new Mason Cash mixing bowl to be christened (my secret Santa gift from our Kelly of The Coven) and a recipe from The Pioneer Woman cookbook (my Birthday bunny gift from our Laura of The Coven). So I made the chocolate sheet cake. It wasn't difficult, and the motivation to start my festive baking and cooking was simple; an invitation with the request to bring a chocolatey pud. Similar then, to my motivation for getting the wrapping done.


So now I'm in the groove a bit, today I even planned a couple of menus and checked stock for shopping purposes - gracious my beloved Mother's efficiency and role modelling may well be paying off! There has been a horrible lack of mince pies in this house considering the season, so I really need to correct that too, they're almost the way to Mr Dunnit's heart, so I never mind making them. I need a couple of puddings and some nibbles for a couple of occasions...Nigella will help me with those. And that will be me done with cooking. Just to make you less jealous of the sudden smugness that you may feel is appearing, there's a pile of laundry waiting to be ironed that frankly looks as if I haven't done any for about six months, and I still, STILL have a present to make. all in good time. Ahem!