Chaos... and more chaos.....!

Hello all! No, I haven't emigrated without telling you, or moved out to go and live in a cave or stayed in bed under the duvet with a pillow over my head for the last 2 weeks - although to be fair, any or all of those options was a real possibility at times!  I've been busy trying to make 'Christmas' happen at our house, including putting the tree up, writing & posting cards, buying (and starting to wrap) pressies and ordering food.  To add to the general mayhem, we've been preparing for some work at home so half my hall floor had disappeared.  And then, to add a good layer of extra pressure, we had awful storms last weekend.

You may have seen news items about flooding, which was awful for those in Cumbria (not far from ours) but I live in Lancaster and we were also flooded - but, more critically for us, when the River Lune burst it banks it also flooded the sub-station so Lancaster and Morecambe were plunged into darkness!  A power cut that lasted, for us, over 42 hours, which was a bit of a challenge I have to say!  Now I know I like candles, but really.....  My son and his friends coped very well I have to say, being deprived of all electronics - no laptops, x-boxes or phones, because of the loss of power, there was no mobile signal either! So they were off school for 2 days (as no power there either!) and were out playing football, hunting round to see if any shops were open to get some milk and bread for us, etc. But at least we had a dry home and weren't flooded like so many, and I'm somewhat relieved that my freezer wasn't full of Christmas food! And it was so wonderful when the power finally came back on! It was proving a bit of trial at times to make tea and wash up by candlelight - and boiling water on the hob to have a wash. Once the shower was working again it was bliss lol!

Anyway, less of my waffling. I just wanted to share another couple of Christmas cards with you - I can't believe it's only 10 days away! The last few weeks have just vanished so quickly.  I decided to make a few cards with some of my stash of lovely papers and had a therapeutic session die cutting poinsettias with a Spellbinders die!

The papers and sentiment stamps for both of these cards are from LOTV, with hessian and gingham ribbons from stash.  I think they make quite simple but effective cards. 

And a couple of pics of the flooding in our city centre.  The first one is of the bus station (with Lancaster Castle above at the back) and the second is by the old Waring & Gillows furniture buildings.  It was definitely a bit wet in town! 

I hope that your December is going a little more smoothly than ours - although I'm hoping now that we've got all the chaos over with and that there are no more 'surprises' before Christmas Day! 

Back soon (I hope lol!)

Kim x