Chinese dinner tonight.

 Last visit to Cosco I bought a pack of frozen Chinese sausages.  They looked just lje we used to have in restaurant's in China. Funny thing was they were made in Canada.

But I digress,  our last trip to Cosco was six months ago so it was definitely time to use them.

Instructions suggested steaming them for at least twenty minutes. I put them in the steamer and went tidying in my sewing room, remembering the steamer an hour later. They were fine and the steamer hadn't run out of water so all good.

It was an easy meal, I like them. Some frozen chopped veggies and a cup of rice in the microwave,  sausages sliced on the slant and dinner was ready.

Not a meal that I would usually have these days, due to my diabetes but the sausage was only 16gms of carbs and 1.8 gms of sat fats. Brown rice was 17gms of carbs and 1 gm if sat fats. My upper limit is 45 grams of carbs per meal and no more than 15 grams of sat fats per day so well within my quota.  

Crochet bag

 Warren got on a roll and unravelled several balls off the massive ball.

I started crocheting and made a bagI lined it with fabric and added a purchased strap.

 This is two strands from the massive ball plus a multi coloured pink ball.  Putting the straps on was a little tricky and it may not be as secure as it could be but I took it to class and ended up with sone free wool or yarn to bring home. One of the girls has bought along fout large balls of pink to give away. I said I would like one as I am making some toys and pink is not a colour that I have in my stash. She insisted in giving me all of it so I have made a small lap blanket and have half a ball of the pink left over which is all that I needed.

This bag will be used for next year's Share the Dignity bags, I usually donate three, one in each category,  so women's, mum and bub and teenage girl. Actually did four this year as I had enough stuff to fill four bags.

When I need  toothpaste for home, I buy four tubes, one for home and then others got into the bags. I buy stuff during the year so it's ready for packing in early December without too much drama or hassle.

A massive ball of wool

 Last week at crochet, one of our older ladies who had been without power fir a couple of days, used the time to sort out her craft room. Which meant she brought wool and fabric that she realised she was never going to use, to give away to anyone who wanted it.

One was a 4 kilo ball of wool.

She had bought it at an op shop a few years ago as she thought it was too good to leave there. 

She said it was not going home with her so I thanked her and thought that maybe I could do something with it. No one else wanted it. I saw it as a challenge. 

This is the mass of wool and an ordinary ball in front which is 100 grams.

Warren thinks it may have been the end of a carpet manufacture. It's quite thin as a single strand. We have cut off a sizable chuck and trying to unravel it so I can crochet it.

I have started a shopping bag using two strands mixed with another ball. After using it, it feels a bit dirty, it may be dust.

Main beach parkrun.

 This was the first parkrun in Australia and today was the 709th run for that area.

The mayor cane along and the sponsors Medicare had tshirts to give away. It was also a celebration for our family,  Warren's 200th parkrun and Sheridan's 100 locations.  Elder son joined as well. 

The alarms were set for 4am with a view to leave at 4.40am. Gps said ninety minutes to get there but we knew we needed to drive through Brisbane and out the other side so was giving ourselves a good fudge factor. We were parked up in 95 minutes so did make good time and got a decent park.

A fellow park runner does screen printing so they got special tshirts made.  Jason is wearing the sponsors shirt that were on offer. The parkrun shirts come in red for 50, black for 100, green for 250 and blue for 500, don't know if there is any more after that.

 

Postcrossing

 When we were on our tour of USA and Canada, I heard about Postcrossing from another traveller. She was quite involved in it and it sounded interesting so I looked it up and when we came home I joined.

Basically one sends post cards to other members. When ready to send some, a request is put in to the Web site and then they send an address with a profile to send to.

Once you receive a post card, take a photo and enter it on your account and senders know that you have received it.

I havent had that many yet about eight I think and sent about the same, I did four this week and all to Germany.

One of the first post cards I received its a quilt that her niece made for her and she had the photo made into postcards and sent it to me as I am into crafts.

I have been able to buy stamped postcards with Aussie scenes and animals on the, the stamps can go anywhere in the world so I don't have to get certain stamps for particular countries. 

My buy

 I went to Office works a couple of weeks ago to buy a calendar. I got side tracked looking at office chairs.  I had to go there and buy one about eight years ago as my then current one had snapped in two when I bent over backwards and found myself continuing on to the floor. It was my sewing chair and I had been sewing.

Anyhow I was interested to see the styles and cost that they currently had in stock.

Of course, we did buy one. My old chair had arms and were constantly getting caught when I changed positions from sewing table to sewing machine. Also the "leather" had been peeling off it. Very disconcerting at first to discover black pieces of something on the carpet. An investigation showed that the leather or leather was dropping from under the chair. It vacumned up quite easily but any excuse was good enough reason to buy a new chair.

This one has no arms to catch, a breathable back and a wide seat. It has had a good workout since buying it.

The week after purchase, while doing the groceries, Aldi had car seats for sale, I bought one for the old chair which solved the problem and it has been installed in the computer room.

A Christmas tree

 Out walking Lucy this morning at a neighbouring suburb when she stopped in her tracks and wanted to go into the shopping centre that we were passing.

I do have some interesting conversations, mostly I win as I have the lead.

I looked up at one of the trees to see that if has been decorated for Christmas, it was the only one that was in amongst others.

Further along was a flame tree in full blossom