Not Quite as Happy as All That Mail

Earlier in the week I got my 4th quarter Book and Yarn Box from Beth at Beehive Yarns. I ordered it way back in ?November,  partly to appease the completist side  of me and partly because the book was Hans Christian Andersens' Fairy Tales and it is decades since I read any of them. Plus the yarn was going to be based on The Snow Queen which always floats my boat. There's something about wintry sparkle and beautiful women that I can't resist. 

Here's the photo

I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Not with the yarn which is beautiful and a lot lovelier than it looks in my photograph, and not with the book, but the rest of it didn't seem to amount to much. There was the usual book bag, which is too small  to be of much use and we already have three, and the themed bookmark. There were some oat-y biscuits, which I don't like. I'm sick of getting little plastic needle stoppers which have also made a fairly regular appearance, and the suncatcher ( the snowflake shaped thing) was a bit tacky. I would have liked the soap, peppermint and eucalyptus, very nice- more, had I not already been up to my eyes in hand made soap, which is totally nothing to do with Beth; she can hardly send out a questionnaire to everyone beforehand saying 'do you want some lovely handmade soap in this quarters box?'  And the final thing was a block of chocolate on a spoon with some marshmallows that you melt in hot milk to make hot chocolate and I'm sure I'll enjoy that. I don't know if Beth is intending to carry on with these book and yarn boxes this year but I won't be buying any more. Apart from trying to limit yarn purchases again this year they are too hit and miss for me to feel that they are value for money. I haven't felt this way before so I'm not sure what tipped me over this time; maybe the needle stoppers. Or the biscuits. Or the suncatcher. Whatever, that was the last one. 

New blog posts are going to be patchy for a while. We are currently Going Through Stuff and Getting Rid of Things, two occupations which I'm sure will be only too familiar to anyone who has moved during the last few years. I am also constantly questioning why we have so much stuff? but you know, the ship has sort of sailed on that one! The OH has been going great guns with emptying the shed, the vast majority of the shed's contents are being ferried straight to the dump so the question does arise why we kept it in the first place .... We've been doing kitchen cupboards and book shelves a little at a time for a while now, so they're almost done and almost painlessly and I'm currently doing a massive cull of my paper crafting supplies. Hoping there will be some local groups who will take some of it off my hands. 

I am expecting some Happier Mail shortly though, and I'm still reading so there will be book posts. It's Saturday Slaughters tomorrow again already, and that may well be my last one! Eek. Here 's a surprise, I didn't enjoy the book. But more on that story later, as they used to say on some Radio 4 comedy program.