seeing spots before my eyes

I have a bit of an obsession with spots, well polka dots, especially white ones on a red background, so my family generally can't go wrong with pressies if it's spotty! I had some great things this year for Christmas to add to my ever expanding collection and have now got my eye on a cute crocheted mushroom money box, firstly though, I need to find a good excuse as to,

a) why I need a kiddies money box when my kiddies are grunting, gangly boy teenagers and

b) why I need a money box when I have no money to save in it..(money does a magic thing in my hands.. it magically disappears incredibly quickly)

I'm planning a big revamp of our house which involves removing walls and blocking up doors and putting American shutters up at our huge windows. The house is in a constant state of renovation and desperately needs extending...its a typical English late 1920s house with a tiny kitchen and a boxroom that can just about fit a bed in it. Some of the rooms are very English country house and although they are OK, I really want to get back to basics...the kitchen although its tiny..and I mean tiny has the elements of what I like best..white walls with lots of colour in all the bits and pieces,polka dots,gingham,and Cath Kidston fabrics,the upstairs rooms are similar, but in the boys' rooms the tin tin posters have been covered over with mountain biking posters and kitsch cowboys have been dismissed in favour of a more grown up look.

Unfortunately after the dire events of 2007 (crikey this last year's been a bad one!) the revamp will more likely stay in my head or doodled on bits of paper around the house until the pennies have been saved up ..hopefully in my crocheted toadstool moneybox!

Rodneys new Christmas hat

Our pets all have other names, it's a pet thing that people without pets don't really get...you spend hours deliberating on the name, then six months down the line you end up calling them something totally ridiculous,your tatooed husband stands at the back door calling "Boo-Boo-beansprouts" and "Noodles" instead of Basil and Maud and the dog now only comes to Rodney (hes a bit of a plonker you see) instead of Red which does get some funny looks on the park.I know I'm not alone..and I'm sure cats choose their own names by telepathy so that you have to say them in a high girly voice to make them feel all warm and fuzzy and make you look silly.
Rodney had a lovely christmas..a flashing dog santa hat which you can see from the photo he really enjoyed wearing (I think not!), a new squeaky toy in the shape of a cornetto ice cream(how random is that?!) and plenty of treats that have given the house a 'certain aroma'...but the less said about that the better.
We had enless tins of Quality Street this year, so I now need to run five thousand miles to burn off the large amounts of pretty coloured,shiny wrapped sweeties I have been forced into eating just because they are there ( I think I will have to develop some kind of cookery book using them ..maybe turkey pie topped with the blue ones nobody likes??)
I hope everyone in blogworld had a fun time anyway!