adventuresofanaussieragdoll

I know I haven’t been here for a while.  No, I haven’t died.  Just been doing things and had a bit of depression so wasn’t really very energetic over the Christmas period.

However, I did manage to finally get my thread stash organised.  It took me about three nights to do it over the Christmas holidays.  I made an index card for each of the DMC threads that I had as well as one for those I don’t have.  I found my missing thread stash too.  It was an accident.  I was moving my Harry Potter colletion, and there were the tubs with the thread stash that was already organised into Floss Away Bags.  I had bought some nice cloth style CD boxes.  I bought 3 of them….. I will need more!  With just the missing stash, I don’t have enough boxes.  I’ve sort of ogansied things into the three boxes, but the rest is in the tub in which they were missing.  All organised by number.  Some of the colours have been made obsolete or have changed their numbers.  What I have done for those ones, I have made the card for the original number with a cross reference to the new number and stored the thread in the new number bag.

I then had to organise the threads that I had which were just in the bag from Lindcraft where I bought them when they had a sale a number of years ago.  there were over 200 threads in this pile.  They are now organised by number on three rings…. waiting for me to have the money to go buy more boxes to integrate them into the rest of the stash.

There were still about 40 threads of the standard DMC threads which I didn’t have.  I bit the bullett and have ordered them from 1-2-3 Stitch.com  I have bought things from them in the past and they have good customer service.  I had a very disappointing experience with Herrchner’s.  I had questions about where they were sending the goods (the confirmation email had an address which didn’t look like it was being sent to Australia).  I was getting an automatic email response which promised me a personalised response within 24 hours.  I have to tell you now…. It never happened.  I sent them three emails, and all I ever got from them was the automated response.  I am very disappointed with them.  I had heared good things about this company in the past.  I will never use them again and I will not recommend them to anyone else either.

Now for a bit of a report on other things.  The diet is not happening at the moment.  Sigh.  My savings however, I have to say, is getting better.  I have started a program this year of putting into my online account $1 for each week number of this year.  So for the first week – $1, second week – $2, third week – $3 and so on.  By the last week it will only be $52 but the total saved, not counting interest earned will be almost $1,400.  That will almost completely make up for my replacing the TV and digital recorder last year.  I will probably continue to do this each year as this will increase the amount of my savings and give me a bit of a buffer in case the Australian $ value drops against the US$ and so the trip costs more than what I have originally set as my target.  I am still having an automatic $50 per week taken by my pay office and transferred into the same online account.  Not counting taking out the money to pay for the trip in bits and pieces from about August 2014, and not counting the money saved last year, I will have over $14,000 by the end of August 2016.  Allowing the amount originally quoted as the cost for the trip ($8,200) I will still have over $6,000 towards my spending money.

The weather has been dreadfull the last few days, so I haven’t been out of the house at all this weekend.  Means I haven’t been shopping either.  I will have to go straight after work on Tuesday ( I have a meeting on Monday night, so I can’t go then).  I signed up to the Woolworths Everyday Rewards program.  I hadn’t done that in the past because I wasn’t really keen on them knowing everything about my shopping habits.  However, they are able to be linked to Qantas Frequent Flyer Points for no additional cost.  Plus, with the Qantas Frequent Flyer Points I can attach my bills from Optus and earn points for paying those bills (2 points per $ paid).  The more points I can get, the better.  If I can get about 45,000 points, I would be able to upgrade by ticket on the way home from the trip to Business Class and stretch out and maybe get some sleep.  If only I had known all this last year.  Just from my Optus bills alone, I could have earnt over 3,500 points by now! Anyway, even with all my shopping at Woolworths and Big W (I don’t drink, so the alcohol outlets won’t help me), I will get points towards my trip.  I have decided that I don’t want cheaper petrol (I don’t have a car anyway), but that I want Qantas points instead.  A friend has given my card to her husband and so when he buys his petrol at Woolworths branded petrol station I will get the points.  He knows he won’t get the cheaper petrol.

Well, I had better go.  It’s a bit cool at the moment and my feet are getting cold.  I always take my shoes off when I get home and walk around the house without any shoes on.

Talk again later.