Pax gets some presents!

Yes! You read that correctly - I received a marvellous parcel of early Birthday gifts in the mail, sent to me by the EMOD (Evil Mistress of the Darkness aka Vicki in Cali)

It is in fact a few weeks to go until my mumble mumble* birthday however V was kind enough to allow me to open the gift early (it was either that or she feared she would be on the cleaning crew after I imploded from impatientness)

And within that parcel there was much of the Penguinity to behold

Four!  Count them - FOUR!  Amazing Penguin t-shirts :)

One or two I may even get away wearing to work (ehh.. I'm in tech services - the geeky-look is HOT there baby :D)

So thank you Miss V - You have made my day.  And I suspect that should the 4th of May turn out to be less spectacular than hoped for - these will carry me through.

Happy Penguins to all, and to all a good.... 

Pax
 


*yes.. it is TRUE that it is going to be my mumble mumble birthday! However owing to amazing genetics I only look mumble!

Pax confused...

Wait! What!! - when did it suddenly become the end of October?!?

I am woefully behind on *everything* and just realised that I should have started working out the adoptee's Christmas stockings at least a month ago :(  [advanced planning required if you're half a world away from where things have to be shipped to]

Sadly this year I can't afford to treat every one's team with stockings (It was lots of fun last year but the postage costs alone were staggering - Team DarkSide Cookies are both having to watch our pennies a bit more carefully this year). I think we supplied about 26 or so stockings - full of both Aussie & USA treats - and loved every minute of the plotting.  [Team DSC consists of myself and the Fabulous Vicki in California who took delivery of everything, sorted it out into stockings, added lots of extra goodies and then shipped it all out. She's amazing! :)]

And I'm sure I read somewhere online that the "Guaranteed to deliver to troops for Christmas" deadline was earlier this year (sometime in November?!?) - still trying to remember where I saw that so I can go back and check.

MEEEEP!!!!!!

So... utterly unorganised... lacking in clues... the Boys sure are gonna be *surprised* this year :D.

Hmm.. maybe I can see if Amazon will ship small Christmas trees for me? that would be a starting point (often I get the whole "will not ship to that address" problem - meaning they realise it's going out of country via a military address and won't allow it due to liability clauses. May need to re-route to an assistant for resending... OOOH VICKI!!!!! :D)

Bestest Christmas gift EVER!!

Some of you may know that I have a thing for Penguins. (Platonic love I swear!)

It all began years ago when a copy of Bloom County feel into my hands (mmm Opus!) and grew even more once I saw the Penguins in the movie Madagascar (My ideal penguin isn't the sort that just waddles about - I really like the ones that make things go KABOOOM!  I <3 Rico!)

So imagine my joy yesterday as I began unpacking not one, not two but THREE parcels shipped to me from California

I am now the proud owner of 4 hand made evil penguin tshirts; a soft toy , a book on evil penguins and the US special version of Madagascar!

I am feeling the Penguin love :)  - Thank you so much Vicki!

Operation Santa Stockings - the continuing story

News just in from Izzy that the box of Santa Stockings has arrived safely to his base.  No word from Martins 2IC as yet  (I don't have the SSG's contact information - D'oh!) but I'm hopeful their batch will make it through soon.

And credit where credit is due - Vicki (the super-wonderful and massively organised) in California did all the hard work on these - she obtained the stockings and the sweets & cookies & all the extra bits; stuffed  & sent them. Pretty much all I did was supply the aussie bits & pieces and the toasty-warm things ; the name lists (since the troops are the team mates of two of my adopted soldiers) and some of the postal funds.  I think she'll be more wary next time I say "I have an idea"... :)

And now for some more pictures of a few of the things that were sent to our special troops [full contents are classified just in case this list is being monitored by those who are about to receive]

Your standard basics for troops trapped in Icy Climes - toasty toes, hothands and I think some other type of warmer too [it's been months since we started shopping for the project so brain-fuzzies on details will occur]

To the left you can see some of the multitudes of aussie toys that were sent to them. And somewhere under that pile are a batch of single serve Vegemite packs (why yes - we Aussies *do* enjoy sharing our weird national food)

The Teams are both made up of mixed troops so Vicki made sure the girls all got Pink Stockings (the boys Red or Blue ones). Final lists were thankfully sent to us in November with M or F on them averting a near pink-tragedy for one poor soul with a multi-gender-use name.

Vicki added extra sweets and cookies to fill the stockings up.

 

She also included a packet of peppermint candy canes to each box - thinking that the team could share with others on their bases or even hand out to the local children.

Gift tags were then attached to each stocking (note the glitter on them? - she hand applied the sparkles to jazz up the cards)

And finally they were all ready to ship out.

By the end of it - 23 stockings all up - containing a mix of Aussie & American items.  Sure hope the teams find them fun to open come Christmas Day.