I like this kind of weekend

Yesterday I had my winter Out Day. Father Bear was unimpressed that I should wake about 6 and he informed me there was nowhere I could go in the rain before the sun was up! So I snuggled in bed for a bit longer. I even managed not to remind him of the time he told me it was half past six when it was only half past five. It was on the tip of my tongue. But then I remembered that a) *that* day turned out wonderfully b) it seemed to go on and on and on (that's what happens when you leave the house at 5.45am) c) it wasn't raining on that occasion and d) the sun was virtually up despite the early hour. It must have been summer. All in all I concluded I would not win if I were to pursue this unnecessary argument and decided to take some Biblical advice - "even a fool is thought wise if he keeps his mouth shut"
But in the end I just couldn't lie still any longer and I got up.
I scrambled around in the dark (not too difficult as I had laid everything out the night before - pays to be prepared for the big day out) and tiptoed out of the house, embracing the possibilities of the day. I had packed the car with a couple of knitting projects, an art book, some trip stuff, my current read and most of my scrapbooking paraphernalia, as well as my pile of scrapbooking magazines for inspiration. I wasn't sure what I'd end up doing, and I sure didn't want to limit myself!

I didn't have far to drive and then spent a couple of hours sitting in a carpark waiting for The Warehouse to open (as a matter of principle I am trying to avoid this place - I think this was the fourth or fifth visit for this year and I put aside all principles as I went in and purchased plastic scrapbooky stuff which came inside more plastic wrapping and had pieces of unnecessary cardboard aswell.......I encouraged myself to learn the art of calligraphy, but, knowing my previous attempts at this art, which clearly requires some discipline to acquire, I bought stickers for this particular project - and precoloured papers as well seeing as I am not yet an accomplished watercolour master either) Wow that was a long sidetrack, wasn't it? (Maybe I should have just left out this whole paragraph and you wouldn't need to know about my lack of resolve.....but this is meant to be REAL!) Back to the story.

That done, I was ready to Make The Scrapbook.
So I went home!
Well, not quite. I ended up spending the rest of the day Next Door To My House at Father-in-law's place. He kindly let me spread all over both his dining room tables (two tables, that is, one dining room).
Occasionally a child appeared at the door - I tried hard not to shoo them away too quickly.
Once or twice I needed to return to My House for the one or two scrapbooking bits-n-bobs I had thought I wouldn't need. The kids actually looked pleased to see me - that was nice!
I built up their excitement by leaving immediately.
And not coming home for dinner.

Best of all, I got finished. One complete album in one day. Well, let me qualify that. I got all the backgrounds done, all the page headings and even a few other extra bits. I just haven't done the photos. In fact, some of the photos haven't even been taken yet. But at least now I have a list of what I need to do.
So one more morning to *take* photos, another hour to send pics for developing, the rest of another afternoon to stick photos in and one evening to embellish and it'll be totally done. One album, two days.
"a Kiwi Life", a nice little record of our life in NZ to take with us wherever we end up going. We had been going to buy a book to take, but none of the many we flicked through in Borders reflected *our* life. So we've ended up making our own.

That was all done by the time the last kids headed off to bed.
I realised I was hungry and heard the local Turkish kebab man calling, so I left the guys watching rugby (yawn) and enjoyed the solitude of being the only person in Mr Turk's restaurant for half an hour. There happened to be a real estate paper sitting on one of the large slabs of treetrunk that double as tables and I happened to pick it up.

Armed with that piece of information you don't need to know about the knitting I completed Saturday night......fast forward to just before noon Sunday. There we were wandering around ten acres looking at a three bedroom house and a two beddy cottage. I told you it was a nice weekend!

We raced home to have lunch with friends. We just hung out together all afternoon, enjoying each other's company. The children played, the adults chatted.
We'd done similarly on Friday night - different food, different friends, same enjoyment. Plus we saw *Amazing Grace* together too. Not often you get a movie with good theology, great costumes and sets, accurate history and a jolly good yarn to boot.

It really was my kind of weekend.