A Little Christmas This and That

Hello sweetie!  How was your holiday?  Did you know that the BBC America channel had a 5 day Dr. Who marathon?  I watched almost every one of them.  I only took a few hours when I didn't watch, like when the family was here for Christmas dinner.  Otherwise I will admit I watched many of them.  The ones I did not watch I recorded on the DVR.  I am officially hooked! 

This is the only place in the house we decorated since we have little hands.  There are very few ornaments on the tree and the ones which are on it, the ones which were low were plastic so they were unbreakable.  Maybe next year the little hands will be better behaved and we can bring out more of the breakables. 
Anyway Christmas was nice.  DH and I do not buy gifts for each other, we just kind of buy what we want for ourselves.  He did surprise me with a new car stereo since we traded in our lease early and DH is driving my old Blazer which is 12 years old, and I started driving his GMC Jimmy vintage 1988, which is older than the youngest daughter!  It is nice not having all of the car payments and insurance payments which are outrageous!  But I had no music, and I love my music--even if I only drive 6 miles to work and home each way.  I also got a Kindle Fire because the regular Kindles no longer do a text to speech, and my Kindle which is about 7 years old was starting to have glitches. 

I also got this cool tape measure which is pink as a stocking stuffer.  My very own tape measure, no more looking for one of DH, and it being dirty, muddy and icky!

My sister sent me this very cool bird house.

I think it will go on a shelf in the sun room.  I also got some other cool gifts from our family. 

While watching the Doctor, I worked on step 1 of the Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt.  280 HST to trim up!  But also I discovered that I did not have a lot of aqua colored fabric, and I really did not want to use turquoise after getting about 50 done so of course I had to go shopping.

I also decided that I wanted to have a constant and not be quite so scrappy.  I also picked up some fun pink fat quarters to use, and of course Christmas fabric was on sale so I had to purchase some of that too. 

I cut out the yellow 2 1/2 inch squares for step 1.

I also got all of the 2 1/2 inch HST cut and sewn and am working on trimming them up to 2 1/2 inches.  Ugh!  that takes forever, but I am getting there. 

150 all trimmed up.  130 more to go.  Then to make the broken dish units.  The house is all cleaned up, the decorations taken down, and put away.  A couple errands tomorrow and I can sew to my heart's content.