Chocolate, Cake and Yarn

My last week has been a truly great one. It took me by surprise, in a really pleasant way.

It all began with an early birthday dinner beautifully prepared by my good friend Roxanne. She slaved in the kitchen all to prepare an awesome Chinese feast. Thanks Roxy :-)

Fraser Family with the Birthday Gal

After dinner we went out to Yuk Yuk's Stand-up Comedy Club. Two hours of laughter - it was great!

Monday the 16th was my birthday. After breakfast I opened the first of my packages - four blocks of cadbury chocolate (Caramello and Turkish Delight) and a totally beautiful pair of ugg boots. Woo hoo!


Genuine Lambswool Uggs

Then I read the umpty birthday emails and birthday cards I'd received. Check out these two - my favourites for sure:

Handmade with love from Karlia and Jaycee

I had lunch with my friend Glenda at the Milestones restaurant in Masonville Mall. It's hard to beat a well made brushetta together with a goat cheese dip, mango salsa and pita bread! And then there's was the birthday dessert (chocolate rum cheesecake) complimentary and adorned with a sparkler! Awww...

Mister W decided to brave the kitchen, to my absolute surprise, and made a great lobster tail and stuffed potato dish! And dessert was a wickedly rich ice-cream cake...mmm....ice-cream cake... A really great meal! Who knew??!?

Mum and Dad phoned me in the evening for the obligatory birthday wishes and to let me know my package would be late. Thus ended my birthday - or so I thought.

Just before bed, Mister W announced that we were going to Sarnia to visit Ewe Are Special so that I could take advantage of their closing down sale! I was ecstatic....and had to ask "OK, who the hell are you, and where is my real husband?" LOL!

I had a blast at Ewe Are Special - 40% off storewide. My bittersweet shopping spree (since I really like Marg, the owner, and she was closing the store due to health and financial reasons) netted me some great bargains:

4 skeins of Noro Cash Iroho, 6 balls of Noro Kureyon, 2 skeins of Araucania Atacama, some sock-shaped point protectors, and three books (the Art of Fairisle, Knitting Ganseys and Slip Stitch Knitting)

On Wednesday a package from my brother and his family arrived. Beautiful aromatherapy body wash, hand cream, body lotion and body scrub. So lovely. Thanks Weisses :-)

Rose Aromatherapy

Another package arrived this week. Yarn I purchased through Ravelry for the Australian Bushfire Appeal. A wonderful Etsy seller donated the proceeds of this yarn to the Victorian Red Cross, and shipping was free!

Hand spun and hand dyed Bushfire skein

Since I've prattled on about my birthday, I figure I'll quickly post some pics of my knitting WIPs.

These are my Shibui Reds, the sock's I'm knitting for the Shall We Knit promotion.

This is going to be a felted backpack for my niece, Karlia.

And now it's been a week since my birthday, and my Mum and Dad's package just arrived. Whoot!! Lots of goodies!

Chocolate, tea-towels, a gorgeous crystal swan, coasters, Billy Tea (yippee), a mini calculator, and a drop spindle

What?? A Turkish Drop Spindle?? YES! My Daddy made it with his own two hands. It's perfect. Absolutely perfect. I LOVE it. He used Australian Myrtle for the whorl, and the spindle is from White Maple. He's so freakin amazing. Thanks Dad [mwah!].

Turkish Drop Spindle

Still waiting on one more package from my sister. She told me hers would be late too. Maybe I'll just do a separate post once hers arrives...

That's it! Wow, what a great birthday week [hehehe].