Birthdays and Celebrations!

It is a day of balloons and banners in the Dot Scribbles household today! Mr S has turned 25, a quarter of a century, bless him!! We had to get up bright and early to open presents as he still has to go to work today unfortunately. I got him a DAB radio which he has wanted for a while as the reception on normal radio in our house is dire and the Star Trek film box set because, well, he is a complete Trekkie geek! I will no doubt regret buying the last present as I am sure I will be subjected to watching at least one of them! Alfie bought Mr S some presents, some jelly sweets as they are Alfie's favourite too and some new slippers as Alfie left us a present in the kitchen earlier in the week which Mr S stepped in, hence needing new slippers! So he has gone off to work a happy man and we have his family coming over later for a nice meal and possibly more presents!
I also had a little mini celebration yesterday as I finally completed writing the first chapter of the book that I am working on, 2,833 words so far! My lovely sister read it and said she enjoyed it (although however much she protests, she is going to be a little biased!) so now I just need to crack on and write the rest.
One last thing for today, Kim, over at Still Reading has read and reviewed Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. This, as I am sure I have mentioned many times is my favourite book, so go and take a peek at Kim's excellent review, especially if you haven't read it yet!

I love Books!!!

I hope that you all had a brilliant Christmas! Apart from coming down with a cold and sore throat, mine has been lovely! I had lots of lovely new books! Mr S bought me The Gate of Air by James Buchan; I have never read any of his books before and it is a ghost story so I am looking forward to getting stuck into that. My lovely sister bought me The Favoured Child by Phillipa Gregory who I love and The Secret Shopper's Revenge by Kate Harrison. She also bought me the Postsecret book by Frank Warren which is fascinating and I will be blogging more about that and I also had The Shopaholic's Guide to Buying Online 2008 which I am sure will come in useful. It does not end there though- I also received A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson just before Christmas and I also ordered the final two books in the Twilight saga so I shall be very busy reading at the moment!

Booking Through Thursday: Generosity

It's Booking Through Thursday time again!

Do you give books as gifts?

The answer to this would be yes! Mr S and I argue though whether you should only give hardbacks as presents but I myself prefer paperbacks anyway so we disagree about this!

To everyone? Or only to select people?

I've never really thought about this until today but I would probably only buy books as gifts for 4 people and they would be myself; my fiance Mr S; my lovely sister and one of my best friends. I think that I have a good idea of what they like to read so I usually feel quite confident that I would be able to choose a book for them that they enjoy. Also other than you kind people on here, they are the main people who I discuss books with and we often ask each other what we are reading and if it's any good!

How do you feel about receiving books as gifts?

It is definitely my favourite type of present! Partly because I love books so to be bought new ones is always a good thing but also because it is nice to think that someone has taken the time to think about what you would enjoy reading as it is a very personal gift.

Happy BTT everyone, I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and receive the odd book or two under the tree!

The Tower of Treats!!

Well I had a lovely evening last night- my two best friends came over and we had a little Christmas meal! I made a chicken, mushroom and leek pie in filo pastry that I had never made before but it turned out well and everyone cleared their plates! I felt really bad though as the idea of the Christmas meal was that we wouldn't buy presents but my one friend bought us a really lovely bottle of wine and my other friend got us The Tower of Treats! It is one of the nicest presents that I have ever been bought. It is 5 gift boxes which I am sure I will find uses for afterwards; the first one is filled with strawberry bonbons; the second with clotted cream fudge; the third with toffees; the fourth with oat and cranberry cookies and the fifth with an Italian lemon panettone! So many boxes of delights to enjoy over Christmas!!
Tonight is my works Christmas meal which I am really looking forward to; there are 5 of us going for a Chinese and I have been told that there is a chocolate fountain with an endless supply of marshmallows so I will be very, very happy!!!

Presents

Time for Booking Through Thursday again:

What, if any, memorable or special book have you ever gotten as a present? Birthday or otherwise. What made it so notable? The person who gave it? The book itself? The “gift aura?”

I am very lucky in that people know how much I like reading so I often get books for presents. I love it when you can tell that people have really thought about whether a book is suitable for you rather than just picking something from the bestseller list!

The most special book that I have been given recently was from my beautiful sister and her husband- I think it is probably the most special non-fiction book that I have ever been given. I have a bit of a thing for the chef Marco Pierre-White, I personally think that the man is a genius and I find him quite easy on the eye as well. I think he is a bit like Marmite, you either love him or hate him. Anway I digress a bit, my sister bless her, found out that he was signing copies of his new recipe book in Selfridges! So she dutifully queued up and had lots of pictures taken (very,very jealous) and she told him that I was a bit down at the moment and he wrote a really lovely message in there. So really a lot of effort went into making it a really lovely present and a present that I will get alot of use out of too!

26 wasn't too bad after all!!

Well I had a lovely Birthday! Mr S bought me lots of lovely presents and cooked me a delicious dinner last night! My beautiful sister and her husband sent me some gorgeous cupcakes and came over for dinner last night too! They also bought me lots of lovely presents, I was very much spoilt yesterday! We had lots of cake and apart from one little glitch I had a really special Birthday!

Alfie arrived on Sunday and is settling in well! He is tiny- when he sits down he just looks like a fat owl! Yet for something so tiny he can make a lot of noise!! We want him to sleep in the kitchen at night rather then upstairs with us and this is when he kicks off. It is such a strange noise, kind of a cross between a flock of seagulls and an excited chimpanzee! He just needs to get used to it though I think! Mr S and I look as though we have not slept for about a week, we are purchasing some ear-plugs this afternoon and will hopefully get a full night's sleep this evening!

Well that is all for today, thank you to all the people who made my Birthday very special, means a lot!

The suitcase is packed

Yip, only going away for the weekend but managed to pack a whole suitcase; I am so indecisive at the moment so have taken 3 pairs of jeans and 4 pairs of shoes for a 2 night stay, as you can imagine Mr S is not impressed. Quite looking forward to the weekend now, tonight we are meeting Mr S' best mate and his new girlfriend for dinner so that should be good. Tomorrow we are meeting Mr S' nieces and nephews in town for cup of coffee (and maybe a slice of cake); then meeting my best friend for some lunch, it was her birthday last week so this will be a belated celebration. The weekend does not end there though; Saturday afternoon we are visiting the new pooch again and giving him a name so that he is used to it before he comes to us and then Saturday night we are having dinner at my sister's house and she mentioned Strawberry Shortcake for pudding so all good there! The weekend will be topped off with Roast Beef and yorkshire pudding at Mr S' parents on Sunday- I really shouldn't moan about it being a busy one should I!

I had to go birthday present shopping for my best friend last night and I don't know about you but I nearly always crack under the pressure of what to get. I was on my mobile in the shop shouting to my sister that there was absolutely nothing to buy. My sister is used to these phone calls and always manages to calm me down. I think that I worry too much that whatever you buy looks like you have not put much effort into it and it's so silly really. I hate buying people gift vouchers as I think it looks like i've not bothered but then I LOVE getting vouchers for my birthday as it means you get to go shopping for free!! Anyway I managed to calm myself down and picked out 4 little presents which are all wrapped up and ready to go to the Birthday Girl.