I was a birthday girl this week.

It's already February 1st!Wow!
One more week (and a whole month in fact) flew by!
Somewhere between floods and disasters happening everywhere in Greece due to the bad weather and a new leftist government in discussions with the Europeans,causing unbelievable positive and negative reactions at the same time all over Greece, this little girl here (that's me) had her birthday!
As I mentioned I didn't celebrate it  but I was really happy to receive some gifts and I am showing them today.I know more are in the post somewhere so I will show those when I receive them!
First hubby bought me a new mobile phone. Not that I needed one but he insisted!

He also gave me some money and I got myself three pullovers since it is sales time here. I hadn't bought anything for ages and I didn't even know what size I was!!!!!

The two are Bershka and the bottom one is H&M.
I also received lots of phone calls, facebook messages, SMS, e-cards and a couple of cards on the mail.
This one from my dear friend Maria Jose in the Acores,

 this handmade one from my dear friend Carolyn from England,

and this one from dear Juliana in Scotland. It's a Victoria &Albert Museum card.

Juliana also sent me a birthday gift and a Pay It Forward gift (a facebook game)
Here is what there was in her parcel.

 Chocolate of course, Crafts Beautiful magazine with a quilling set,

 felting wool, sequins, buttons ribbons and beads in gorgeous hues of blue,

  a little cute Barca ornament,

 this butterfly was hiding...

 ...a gorgeous set of sea glass wired wrapped earrings and pendant made by Alienstoatdesigns on etsy and ebay.

 some lovely soap,

 a set of lovely sea glass fridge magnets Juliana made herself,

 and a very beautiful tote bag printed with a photo of her sea glass made by SusanSeamaiden.

 Juliana thank you, you have been very generous with me always.
This week I also received a lovely pair of earrings that I had won on a giveaway a long time ago on Efzincreations blog.

 The earrings I had won were a Christmas design. They never arrived so sweet Triada of
The Purple Balloon gave me a second chance to choose another pair and I chose this lovely cupcakes earrings pair which arrived in time for my birthday!Thank you Triada!

And thank you Zina for hosting the giveaway!

What the mail brought

Well that was the whole pack and I have already shown you some of these...

...like the birthday card and cross stitch magazines from Brigitte in France....

...the letter and birthday card from Maria Jose in the Acores....

What I didn't show you is the parcel with lovely card and handmade gifts I received from Joanne
aka Nini makes in return for some sea glass I sent her.
Thank you I loved everything!

Spoonful I had shown you, you can read about it  here. And you can order it here.Thanks once again Anthea!

And here is a puchase of a lovely ornament which was on sale from this shop on etsy.Isn't the detail fantastic?

Irene in Italy makes great things!

It was my birthday!

On the 28th.
I went to school in the morning.
It was fun playing a recycling game with my 5th graders.

I treated my fellow teachers with this orange pie. Every one loved it.You can find the recipe here.

Coming home I was met with a happy family. Hubby,son, Barca!
I cleaned after Barca, ate fish soup made by hubby, unfortunately not very successful one, and spent the rest of the day with school preparartion and answering e-mails, phone calls and saying thank you to facebook Happy Birthdays! Ok.I would prefer a more lively one, but hubby was under the weather, son was at after school tutoring and Barca was restless!
Anyway here are my gifts.
Hubby updated my computer so now it is much much faster!Great I can blog faster! He also got me a SonyExperia White with his mobile contract for a very good reduced price. But he had given me that weeks ago!I am not yet used to it!Smartphones, my....!What does the name mean? That you should be extra smart to use them?Those touch screen tactile features are beyond me!Anyway I will get used to it!

(photo from the Internet)
Have I told you that the day I got my new mobile I found a Samsung Galaxy in the street? Fortunately I found the owner as well and returned it!
My mum brought me lovely roses.

"She is taking photos! I can go out!"

 "Are they edible?"

Another gift was the blooming of my Christmas cactus.

Finally I received some birthday cards and gifts.
Birthday cards from Brigitte in France, Maria Jose from the Acores, Carolyn and Cathy in England.

" I won't eat those they belong to you!"

And gifts.

Cross stitch magazines from Brigitte.

 Tea cards and Cottage Gardens booklet from Cathy.

Thank you every one for the lovely wishes, gifts, cards, warm thoughts for me!

Getting ready for Christmas...

Thank you all so very much for your comments and for being here. I am still unable to answer directly on the comments so I just try to use personal e-mails for that.
I am trying to catch up with my favourite blogs too but they are too many.
Anyway last night I wrote a couple of Christmas cards and prepared a couple of packets so they are off this morning not in time for Christmas unfortunately. I still have more cards to write and letters and e-mails.....
I spent the whole of this morning baking. Here are the things I made....
Chocolate chip orange peel little muffins in Marabeth's muffin tray,

  White chocolate almond truffles,

  caramel chip, whole hazelnut dark chocolates and white chocolate, almond, cranberry cookies I found in Paula's otchipotchi blog. She always makes lovely cookies for Christmas.

And here is the dish I sent to my mother-in-law. Wrapped and ribbons added of course.

These are for relatives and friends and for us as well. As you can see I am not the one to make the usual Greek melomakarona and kourabiedes sweets that are traditional. Maybe I will make some later.
We will spend Christmas Eve at home just relaxing. I will open my presents from my friends abroad.Juliana's and Marabeth's parcels are under the tree I am so looking forward to this!
And we will probably watch a movie I think it is going to be Ice Age 4. When we first watched Ice Age 1 my son was small and we still went to the cinema together watching children's movies. I admit I miss that!
So popcorn and movies tonight, cozy with candles and the tree lights for us. Maybe a hot soup too.
I hope you enjoy a relaxing sweet atmosphere on Christmas Eve wherever you are.

with

and

from all of us here!
(Star and Joy ornaments made by me, Peace dove ornament made by my Portuguese pen friend Maria Jose)

What the mail brought

As usual I am far behind with my mail...
there is always something else as a priority...
today for instance is one year after my dear father's-in-law death so we had to attend the memorial service...
Back in the end of September I received....
a letter with a beautiful bookmark from my dear pen friend Maria Jose from the Acores, Portugal!

In the beginning of October...
a letter from my new pen friend Andrea in the exotic Trinidad and Tobago!

and a letter with a postcard from my new friend Christine from France...

Then a lovely light box I bought from ILa Boom!It is gorgeous and is in reality much bigger than it looks in the pictures.Don't you love those stamps on the package?

 I've worked in Chalkida and it is such a gorgeous place!

 I chose this design because this little boy looks like my boy when he was little and I always dream of the sea!

Tatiana from ILa Boom has recently had a baby so I am taking the chance to wish her all the best here!

In the end of October I received...
a parcel from my dear Marabeth in the States who always considers my needs...
She knows how much I love making muffins (after she introduced them to me) and she sent me this muffin tray with 24 tiny cases and little paper cups so that I can make muffins for my students. You will see photos of my accomplishments with this later in the week!Thanks so much Marabeth...
Of course she added some cross stitch kits!

 I then received some lovely buttons I had ordered from this etsy Buzzy Bee shop. This was my first time to order buttons but I really wanted to add some to this year's Christmas cards.

In the beginning of November I received this cross stitch magazine from the Netherlands as an exchange of magazines with Ilaria aka IdaInteriorLifestyle blog..

 I have chosen some of these patterns for some of my Christmas cards this year. Unfortunately so far I have only made three!LOL!

I too sent Ilaria a magazine before receiving hers.
I sent her this magazine called Etsi Apla (Simply so). It is a handicraft magazine I don't buy very often but it is reasonably priced and with lots of nice ideas.

 I turned it into a package with this instructions manual paper from something I had bought.

 I added some dried flowers, a Greek bookmark and this lovely card by Anna from LilaRubyKing , in which I coloured one part.

I am sorry I have not written to many of my pen friends yet, I hope I will for Christmas!