FREEDOM!

   I was supposed to write this post yesterday, but I was too busy relaxing and time got away from me...

   Anyway, freedom. I made my last post run of the year yesterday, and now I can finally enjoy Christmas. I love the week running up to the event - the Monday is always my last posting day, after which I come home, have a Christmas sandwich I bought from Tesco on the way back, then get in the bath with a hot chocolate, Lush bubble bar & bath bomb. I was going to go for a Hotel Chocolat hot chocolate, but the sandwich was hefty at 530 calories, so I chose Options instead. It was still delicious. That's what I love about Options hot chocolate - 40 calories and, often times, better than most other hot chocolate. Except HC. But the sandwich was also well worth the compromise!

   I used the Puddy Holly bubble bar, which turned the water green, then a Holey Night bath bomb which turned it teal. It smelled wonderful, and my skin was oh so soft. Threw in some Better You magnesium salts since I suffered a migraine on Saturday and had done a great lower body workout that morning.

   Today I worked on a birthday gift for Seeg since other plans fell through, tomorrow I'm doing some Christmas baking, Thursday is write write write, and on the weekend, I'm wrapping with a side of chocolates! All while waiting for the final Christmas gift to arrive. YAY.

   I've already snatched a few days off over the last few weeks - among others, we went out to Glastonbury Abbey to take a peek at the spot of King Arthur & Guinevere's supposed graves and snatch a cheeky hot chocolate from Hotel Chocolat, and headed out to Whitehall garden centre, Whitechurch, with my parents to look around at their Christmas displays, get some cake and see the reindeer. It might sound dull but garden centres were always my mum's choice so I've grown up with them as frequent weekend mornings out, and with my mum's disability, it's one of the few places you can generally guarantee to get a wheelchair through. But it's certainly one of the better ones - and with no funny smells. And some killer chocolate cake.

   Both of these pictures were snapped with my phone - I'm still adjusting to it. I'm surprised by how much use I've gotten out of it, though, and with the installation of WhatsApp, my sister and I have even gotten closer! Otherwise, I've been able to take quick snaps of WIPs without the need to set up the shot and over-edit it on the PC, which has made my twitter & instagram feel a little more personal on the business side, rather than just completed product snaps, and more like the small handmade business that it is.

   Work on the gift, which I will share after the fact, went well, but it's difficult for me to see past the nuts and bolts to the finished thing. That's always been the case with me, and while I showed a picture to my sister and by best friend and they both said it looked great - the former, who is so often sarcastic and underwhelmed, seemed to genuinely mean it - it still feels cheap to me. I'm probably looking too deep into it, but I hope he likes it either way. I've mentioned it to him, and unsettled him by saying that it will either go really well and look amazing, or be a rubbish mess. I'm slightly more concerned after just how easily the most complex part of it went, but more on that later.

   This week is set to be slow and chilled out. I can't wait. I've been so busy for a month and a half, either fretting over a sudden influx of sales and worried I won't get them out quickly enough, or worried that they'd suddenly slumped! I can't really win. Every day was a worry. Now, though, it's all put away, all orders have been shipped bar one custom order, the shipment timeframe of which was agreed upon before hand, and it is too late now to post anything else for reliable Christmas delivery.
   So. Give me my pen and some paper or a PS4 controller, and I think I'm all set!

   What do you have planned this week?