It's the morning of the last day of the year and I'm sipping vanilla coffee in my container garden with my rescue kitty and thinking of the past year. It's been unusuallt cool and moist this summer so less plants have died with extreme heat, which is nice. The pineapple tops rooted and for the first time since I was a kid, I have pineapples growing! The elderflower trees are doing incredibly well for pots and provide dappled shade for the herbs. The giant salvias are still growing head hight or above which is crazy but awesome. Bee numbers are up again with 3 types of bees regularly about. 

Book wise, the first one is still selling, the little quote one suffers from me not having a distributor and the third one is set for release March 2025, which is 12 weeks away, so I'm  prepping for that. I've had a bunch of sterling silver squirrels to tie onto bookmarks for special events which worked out to be a few cents each rather than much more in the craft shops. 

Website upgrades are continuing for another week or two as I get time. The online galleries for sewing and tutorials still need finishing, as do the experimental archaeology pages. Two are finished, but there's a couple more to go. 

Work has slacked of a bit as it usually does between Xmas and new year and training the new assistants is going well. Lots of deer in the headlights eyes but they're going to get there. Covid numbers presenting in ED have spiked again, which is annoying. The hilarious yransition of this year's  4th year assistants that I trained are finished uni and are now first year radiographers and are in charge of me, which is a dynamic shift some of them struggle with. 

History wise, I've recruited another member to Ex Libris Living History, who is studying religion and hopes to do some great tallks and displays about Holy relics, so that will be fun!  I'm hoping ro make some jewelled circlets to sell early next year at a medieval market, so I need to get on with that. I've got a ton of hand sewing to do, so I really should have been doing that while I was off work with my knee recovery but I felt I just needed to switch my brain off for a bit and do nothing in front of movies with my kitty. The reproduction brooch and buttons from my friends at Keystone Forge are amazing and I'm using them already.

Fingers crossed for a good last shift of the year. Our X-Ray department is a wonderful place to work and I love my job as a CT Assistant, and the posse I'm working with is all girls, so it should be a nice one. 

No real New Year Resolutions other than post more regularly to keep myself motivated about projects. Craft and read more. Spend a little more time with my cat. 

Whilst I've been home post-surgery, I've needed to spend a lot of time resting on the couch, which has led to a lot of phone time. Looking at craft supplies and things I wanted to get people for Christmas led me to install the Temu app, something I'd managed to not do so far.

Well.

I have now bout a tremendous amount of things from there, but as long as one is careful and reads the descriptions carefully instead of relying on the images which are not always honest representations of the things, it's saved me ab absolute packet! A lot of the fun T-shirts are good, especially the kids ones, and I've been able to get my sister's teens some fun ones for Xmas and birthdays.

The real amazing win was on craft items. Obviously shops get their stuff in bulk for very cheap to be able to make enough money to keep their doors open, and I found some things I wanted which were being sold on Etsy for 5 times the price, I've been able to get some great bits and pieces for crafting which I couldn't afford otherwise, and I'm really delighted with the quality. As long as I read the descriptions and quantities very, very carefully, it's been great.

I mean, there's a lot of rubbish on there too, but I have saved a ton. Xmas is very affordable this year.

I found this sweet antique chine in an old second hand shop whilst road tripping to Newcastle Medieval Festival and hadn't thought to share it as it isn't a full set and really, I only bought them to use as photography props for book ads for Mother's Day and that kind of thing, but I was very very excited to see that a new DW friend actually loves collecting old china, and I thought they might like to see these! There's no maker's mark at all, only the numbers 53 on each piece, which I first thought was a lot number, but it's under the glaze. No idea where it's from but it looks old-ish.

I have an antique book collection and also a few vintage kitchen things just because they're cool, but due to limited space, I don't have that much. I do pick up fun things in op shops sometimes, but they're usually to be repurposed into medieval things.

These would have been part of a much bigger set, and all that remains are three cups (only one has flowers still on the inside, but you won't see inside if I have tea in them), two saucers, a round butter plate and the square cake plate. They really are pretty sweet and perfect for pink, girly props with berries in a cup, or celebration cake or something!

Spring cleaning to fix a number is household issues. Storage is the biggest. The fact that I have way too much household stuff that I don't use or haven't used for years is another. My niece living with me now and not having her entire room to use as storage is the third and biggest issue.

Tbh, I've been spring cleaning for 2 weeks now. I'm really hoping to really get it finished today!