surprises

I've surprised myself by getting back into painting after a two month hiatus, and have done three paintings this week! The two little ones are actually a diptych, but I'll count them as two!  It feels great to be back painting again.  I've started making my backgrounds bolder and brighter and I'm exploring the eucalyptus leaf motif.

It's our 14th wedding anniversary today. I've only seen hubby very briefly at 5.30 when he got up to catch the early flight to Auckland. I'm not holding my breath for a surprise. He's going to take me and the kids to the local pub for dinner when he gets back tonight. I'm definitely not expecting any ivory which is the traditional gift for 14th anniversaries!

The hubby isn't one to surprise me, I think I'm too difficult to surprise actually. The best surprise he ever gave me was when he proposed.  It was 15 years ago in November. I had come home late from work and was expecting to walk into the house to the smells of a cooked dinner. I was about to chew him out for not getting dinner ready when I noticed the cat sitting in the middle of our bed with a collar on. She never wore a collar, and hanging off the collar was a blue tag, and engraved on the tag was "Sally will you marry me?" As they say the rest is history! That night we went out for dinner to Little India in Merivale, funny how he's now travelling to India for work.

Our cat (she's a different model from the proposing cat!) did leave me an unpleasant surprise this morning, a dead rat on the door step with part of it's intestinal tract in the middle of the floor. She always seems to do this sort of thing when hubby is away so I have to deal with the body and the blood! Yucky yuck!

I have left a surprise for the hubby, although the kids and I aren't too sure if he'll notice it for a few days. I doily bombed the tree in the middle of our front lawn! The doily was hanging around in the craft room and I've been meaning to do something like this for a while.

When hubby came back from Australia last week he asked what magazine I'd like from the airport, not wanting to surprise me! I quickly replied Inside Out. It's a great magazine and I'd really enjoyed the last issue I'd brought when we came back from Brisbane at the beginning of October. Imagine my disappointment when he pulled out the same issue! Yep, seems it's a bi-monthly magazine.

So that means I've got a spare copy to giveaway to someone who hasn't got the Nov/Dec issue. Just leave me a comment if you'd like it.

Linking up with Ta-dah! for the first time.

Footnote: He did surprise me, with a lovely bunch of flowers he brought on the way home from the airport!!