Around the Corner

At long last, the sun has come out and heated up Brisbane; but not for long.  It's muggy and the cicadas are ringing around the place on their ever-changing, maddening chorus on the air.  Yes, it's hot during the day, warm at night and we're all drinking more water all the time.  I feel like I'm getting nowhere fast with my Christmas shopping; as I've still got a little ways to go on it.  Christmas cards are dribbling in one by one through the mail and I'm reading more books as the time comes closer to another thing around the corner from us - besides Christmas.... New Year's Eve.

This year, I'll be spending it up here in Brisbane instead of at Brunswick Heads.  I think the early rain - and the rain yet to come - has put me off going to the coast this time around.  Last year wasn't fun seeing how wet it turned out to be; and the year before, the annex collapsed in on us, holding many litres of water before my alarm went off.  That was not an experience I wish to repeat again too soon!  And I don't think Dad wants that either (he didn't exactly handle it all that well).

So, this year, I've got plans to read, play the piano and just simply hang out around my house and tend to my garden.  I've got some potted plants to help, some shrubs to shape and some other lovely things to do around the place as the Summer rolls on; and I'll be using money from my accounts to do it, as well as some money I've saved up from shopping and my pension.  

This week is my last posting away on Bookcrossing; and it's going to be a fun one called The Christmas Bookbox Surprise.  I pick out some books, wrap them separately in paper and send them to a lucky Bookcrosser I choose off my list of ones who want to be in the draw.  I've gotten them to send me their addresses via e-mail first; so I don't have to tell them who's won, the parcel just shows up in the mail and they get the surprise for Christmas!  Sounds like fun?  It is... and then by around February next year, I'll have my house and garden looking and feeling lovely for another year because I've been looking after it in between the showers of rain; and I'll be on my Bookcrossing fun'n'games again!

Well, this is my holidays planned out ... roughly... there's not real plan; it's just something I find that if I have a rough guideline, it helps.  I've yet to:

Organise my Mt TBR for next year

Tidy up the home office

Clean up the bathroom, laundry and kitchen completely (I have a plumber coming before Christmas)

Vacuum and Dust everywhere

Put away all my laundry

Finish my Christmas Shopping

And this is just this week I have to get all this done.  The gardening stuff will be done over the school holidays and so I'll be working on it a little bit at a time; as I love my garden and how a little bit goes a long way with it.  Mainly, I need to repot my Large Leaf Jade.  It's getting low in the pot and so needs a few bags of potting mix put in underneath the tree itself.  Seeing it was a housewarming gift, I'm proud to see it has survived 8 years so far with me quite happily by the fence - even when possums have fallen on it off the compost dome and off the fence by accident.

So, there are my plans for this year.  What are yours in your part of the world?  Be it inside keeping warm or outside enjoying the warmth of the Australian sun, what are you up to at this time of year?