Colouring Book

I bought one of the very first colouring books available in South Africa.  There are now tons of colouring books to choose from.  I like the small size of this book, and the paper holds watercolour crayons beautifully (I prefer the soft fuzzy effect of watercolours over normal crayons).  I've been playing a bit and added scriptures and words that I love to some of the pages...

 

Christmas

My nieces aren't visiting me in December so I haven't put up the big Christmas tree, just a few decorations for Ruby and I to enjoy.  Every evening, I switch on the Christmas lights and light candles in my bedroom.

 

  

Princess Ruby's Christmas stocking

  

I'm still working until 23 December so I'm not really feeling the Christmas spirit.  I'm focusing on remembering the real reason for the holiday season - the birth of Christ.  Jesus came that we may have life in abundance, and whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  May you feel the love of Christ this Christmas.

** Merry Christmas **

 

Garden love

It's been scorching hot in Johannesburg during the past 2 months, with daytime temperatures between 30 and 36 degrees most days.  That's not hot for Africa, but it is unusual for Johannesburg - we have a reasonably mild climate with average mid-Summer temperatures around 28-30 degrees. 

 

My garden is battling in the heat and many plants have died, even with extra watering from the rainwater tanks.  I've had to replace several plants, so it's great that most of the nurseries are having sales.

 

Of course the new plants had to pass the kitty inspection and approval test

 

 

This is the view of my garden from my bedroom window

 

 

Scrapbooking retreat

This past weekend was the Scrap Addicts' annual Christmas scrapbooking retreat at Good Shepherd in Magaliesburg.  As always, it was an awesome, amazing and incredible weekend together, despite the scorching temperatures which hovered around 38 degrees all weekend.  When we left on Monday afternoon, the temperature gauge in my car said that it was 41 degrees outside in the shade!

 

We arrived on Friday afternoon, unpacked and started scrapping after catching up over coffee.

 

The calm before the storm...this room in the convent looks out over Hartbeespoort Dam - a million dollar view.  We bought Christmas tablecloths and lights for everyone, which was a take home gift after the weekend  

We sat outside in the early evening and opened prezzies - we got thoroughly spoilt with gifts from each other - thanks ladies!!  

We did some shopping at Jasmyn on Saturday morning, a lovely farmers market near the convent.  And we ate delicious icecream...

 

When we got back to the convent, we shared our quarterly scrap kits / challenge pages which we each design for the group

this is Linda's page 

this is Lynn's page  

this is Leonie's page  

and my page... 

we love the old convent, even if it is a bit run down and needs a lot of work 

In the late afternoon after dinner, we strolled down to the youth centre to walk the beautiful labyrinth

On Monday morning, we each wrote a Dear Santa list...

Exhausted after a beautiful weekend of scrapbooking and special friendship, we headed home on Monday after lunch; we'll be back next year