All is well that ends well!

Dear readers, friends,followers,accidental passers-by,
this will be my last 2011 blogpost!
As this is my first year blogging I feel so happy that I managed to keep to my 2011 New Year's Resolution to keep a blog.
I loved blogging and it was somekind of a diary for me.
Thank you for reading my blogposts and commenting on them.
I hope to keep it up in the New Year!
2011 was a good year inspite all the great mainly financial problems in my country.
I am thankful that we are all in the family still together and still healthy inspite minor temporary problems.
I am thankful that I still have a job and that I got a transfer to my neighbourhood school and that I am having a great time there although I am sorry I get a smaller salary now.
I am thankful that hubby got his pension and yesterday on the last working day of the year he started getting paid! He was without salary or pension since August!
I am thankful that I have lots of friends in real life and in blogland, in sea glass sites and in the penfriend world.
I am thankful that I managed to complete with an A the Major Teacher's Training Programme and my lesson plan was chosen to be posted in the Educational Institute Lesson Plan site.
I am thankful that I was able to collect more sea glass on my beach and the bank has not taken my home(yet)!
I am thankful that I continued with my hobbies mainly cross stitch!
I am thankful for lots and lots of things.........
Enjoy your New Year's Eve!

Sea glass from Seaham England sent to me by John and Juliana and card sent to me by Susan Seamaiden!Thank you!
Thank you every one for your cards, parcels and presents I will blog about everything in the new year!

My Xmas cards

I sent various types of Xmas cards this year.
I try to use up all the cards I have already before start making or buying new ones.
Some of my cards were handmade, others cross stitched and some had added sea glass on them for my sea glass friends.
Here are some of the cards already received.
To Marabeth a trashstories postcard where I added sand, sea glass, shells and sea pottery!

 To some of my sea glass friends this IKEA card with added sea glass gifts.

 To other sea glass friends this card from the anti-rheumatism children's charity. My mum assisted that charity years ago and she had bought hundreds of their cards to help them out. I have been sending them for years, giving them to students and I still have a lot!!!!!!!

 To blog friends and pen pals I added beads on their cards. One of them had an added bonus. The way I added the beads ended up with another design on the back. It wasn't intentional but I loved the end result. That one went to Margie of Resurrection Fern.

Believe it or not I forgot to photograph most of the cards I sent!!!!!!!


Blogpost edited: Unfortunately all the photos on this blogpost were deleted due to Picasa problems.

A day trip to Drama.

December the 26th was a very looooong happy tiring day!
As I have said before hubby and I belong to the Teachers' Association Drama Club. We had been rehearsing heavily the last months on "Koutornithia" a play written by two colleagues Afroditi Ioannou and Ioanna Katsarou, teachers.
The premier of the play took place yesterday at the Music Hall of the city of Drama where we were invited by Oneiroupoli,(the dream village) the Christmas village of Drama.
We left Thessaloniki very early in the morning in a bus, arrived there at 10 and rehearsed till three.

Then we did a short walk at the Christmas village...

 There were Christmas decorations everywhere. There was even a Shadow puppet little house with figures of the Greek shadow puppet theatre.

 Little houses filled with workshops for children.

 Popular heroes walking around taking photos with children.

 Lots of little rivers and lakes decorated.....

 Santa's post office of course.

 There was no time for us to go into the houses unfortunately.

 There are huge tall trees in the park.

 And Santa is flying...

 And a small market with handmade products....

 And lots of games for children....

 On the way back to the Music Hall I spotted this lovely wall painting on a building....Drama is far away from the sea though!

Then we got dressed up and put on our make up and did our performance which went really great.
The play is about a bunch of chickens that live on an egg producing farm but really don't know why their eggs vanish every day till they find out the truth and decide to change their lives.
Here are some of our photos. I am the red hen and hubby is the pig.
We do the happy dance because a new rooster has come to the farm

 The pig appears in the farm.

 The red hen is sad because her eggs keep disappearing.

 The animals end up in jail because they are revolting.

 We read the news and find out the truth.

 In the end we dance along with our little spectators.

After the performance we did a night walk at Oneiroupoli and I must say it was more impressive by night.

I am still trying to get some rest after that experience.


Blogpost edited: Unfortunately some of the photos on this blogpost were deleted due to Picasa problems.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!
I hope you had, or you are still having a great time!
Thank you all for reading, following and commenting on my blog! I really enjoy writing it!
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day news!
Christmas Eve was very very quiet.
 I had to do the last minute supermarket shopping all by myself as hubby is in bed with his backache. I didn't really enjoy that but I had to.
Then I prepared some things for the next day!
In the evening I turned on all the Christmas lights on the tree and around the living room and cried my heart out watching the most amazing Christmas movie which is based on a First World War real story. You shouldn't miss it if you haven't seen it already! It is called "Joyeux Noel" ("Merry Christmas") and here is a bit about what happens in it.

"On Christmas Eve during world War I, the Germans, French, and Scottish fraternize and get to know the men who live on the opposite side of a brutal war, in what became a true lesson of humanity. "

You can watch the most amazing scene here to get an idea!

A most wonderful anti-war real story movie to spend a lonely Christmas Eve!

I then opened my friend Angela's from Canada gift but gifts will be shown later in another blogpost.

 On Christmas morning I went to church with my mum and son. I am not a real church goer but a parent has to set an example.As my teenage son tried to avoid it I went along and it was nice this Christmas morning to listen to the church choir with hymns and great voices all united in harmony to celebrate the birth of Christ!

Then I did certain preparations for going to my brother's.

Here is what I prepared.

 Cheese and anise muffins.

 Upside down pineapple cake.

I found the recipe in this great book They draw and cook. I replaced raisins with cranberries.

I had some hard time taking it out and as my son said "The cake was afraid of me!"

And I also made coleslaw my way with only cabbage,carrot,red pepper and celery with a sauce of lemon, olive oil, vinegar, salt, red pepper and a bit of brown sugar.

Here is the page from the book.

We had a great Christmas dinner at my brother's. They prepared a fantastic turkey with a delicious minced meat, rice and chestnut stuffing and lots of appetisers.

 We had Christmas crackers all the way from England, my friend Cathy sent them last year after the holidays and I kept them for the fun of it!

The turkey stuffing, the coleslaw and my mum's stuffed vine leaves.

We skyped with relatives,

 listened to Christmas carols from all around Greece and ate lots of sweets.

 My brother's baklava...

 my niece's little chocolate balls....

and my pineapple upside down cake.

We ate so much!!!!!!

We don't exchange gifts but here is something small I gave them for their new flat.

Pomegranate for prosperity something Greek families really miss this Christmas.

This is from the Thessaloniki Folk Museum bazaar.

And here are some extra photos from their lovely glass Christmas tree collection.

I hope you didn't get tired of this long post!

En(JOY) my seventh ornament.

Christmas Eve and I have lots to do.
Some last minute supermarket shopping.
Preparing food and sweets for tomorrow when we spend the day at my brother's.
Get prepared for Monday's day trip with the Drama Club.
And at the same time hubby is down with a very bad backache so I have to look after him, too, and get preparing all by myself.
So there is not much time for anything else or to linger on the computer.
Here I will show you some things I had made a blog about and didn't publish.
It is for the Christmas ornament challenge and it is the seventh and I suppose it will be the last one as I have no time to stitch any more.
Anyway I made it from Sam Hawkins' 50 cross stitch Christmas booklet using whatever leftover fabric and threads I had and some beads and some beautiful pink lace trimming from Melissa of Tiny Happy.
It ended up quite beautiful although I should have used lighter green and I decided to keep this one as I love keeping one handmade ornament each year for my tree.

And here are pics of my blooming bulbs. They smell wonderful!

Post and postage

I love letter writing, pen pals, letters and parcels, sending and receiving. I used to have 100 pen pals as a teenager and I still have some of them who can still stand my delays in answering. The last couple of years I have lots of new type pen pals, people I exchange e-mails with, or counteract on facebook (not that often), or the sea glass sites or on blogs. And with these people we have started exchanging parcels with sea glass and small gifts and things have evolved from there in great beautiful friendships.
I decided this year to send fewer parcels for Christmas and try to save on postage as postage has gone high again and the whole financial situation is troubling me.
Still I managed to post in December 16 parcels and 17 letters/cards!!!!!!!Some of them were already received and aknowledged and I am happy about that. Unfortunately I still have a dozen more to write and send!!!!!!And I don't think I will manage that before Christmas so maybe I will have to do it at my relaxing time during the holidays.
I am glad I have started receiving my Christmas mail too, yesterday for example I received 6 Christmas cards together, and today four parcels, wow!
I am sorry some people will not receive this year anything from me, or they will receive something very little. I had to cut down on my list!
Here are some photos of outgoing mail.

 And here are a couple of photos of etsy purchases which will be gifts.
I found this etsy shop Lila Ruby King by chance when reading Star of the East blog and realised it is someone in Greece. I love her art and here is what I got. A card made from little pieces of fabric. I gave that for framing.I also bought a pdf file from her with beautiful patterns that I am going to use at school!
I loved her map inside envelope and the extra cards she sent me too.

 This is a pencil case by Jill Wignall of Today I saw. It is handprinted and sewn. And comes in a lovely handmade envelope,too.

The inside fabric of the pencil case is lovely too.