I'm Finally Getting Yule-ified.

Can you believe it's December 1 already? The first day of summer.  The day you get to open the first box of your Advent calendar.  I am feeling the joy and love of this time of year, inspite of myself.  There is something infectious about seeing Christmas decorations and trees around the place as well as hearing the carols on the radio in the car.

Once I lost the sour puss face, the colours of Christmas turned out to be everywhere around me.

I don't know if you have these green and red overhead lights at your local shopping centre but they weren't up at Rhodes just for Christmas.  The lights flash green when a parking space is empty and then turn to red when you've parked.  I know this for a fact because I drove slowly into my space with my eyes fixed on the light watching for the colour change.

Dinner tonight was a stir fry and it was yule-ified with a red capsicum and some zucchini.

Then I got the Christmas issues of some of my favourite magazines and knew for sure that I would be part of Christmas this year.

Donna Hay is feeling the cookie swap this issue.

I think Sarah Murdoch had a lipstick malfunction on the cover of the AWW.  Hot pink lipstick with a red dress?  Not feeling it, personally.  Perhaps I should colour over the pink myself with that red Artline in the kitchen drawer.

T - Bonds, necklace - Audrey by Red Phoenix Emporium, red ribbon from our hospital's HIV unit.

It was also World AIDS Day today.  We had a presentation at work over lunch today and while there is no cure for HIV, it was inpsiring to hear how far treatment has come in the last 25 years.  Whilst once the hospital wards were full of patients suffering illnesses as a complication of severe immune suppression brought on by AIDS, women with HIV are now having healthy babies and many HIV patients are leading full and healthy lives many years after their initial diagnosis.  It was incredibly inspiring to see how the prognosis of HIV has changed from a death sentence to one of hope and real quality of life.

I wore my red for the day on my wrist and also on my feet.

In exciting hair news, my hair has now grown long enough to be scraped back into a scraggly pig tail.  It's still a long way off a luxuriant pony but it's a start.  The time has come to commit to growing it out to Princess length.  Starting with Mary with the ultimate goal being a Kate length.

My packing for Friday is well and truly under way.  I'm actually ahead of schedule.  I've selected which of my RPE jewels to take to Dubai.

Coco White, Faux Fuchsia Leo and Limoncello necklaces - Red Phoenix Emporium.

Just in case the airport news agent isn't open at 4.30 in the morning, I've taken the liberty of getting my inflight reading material sorted today.

Don't worry, I'm definitely not calling you fat, Lara.  Far from it.

It's only just sinking in now that I have only 1 more working day to go before the trip.  The Emirates car people rang this afternoon to confirm my pick up time.

I'd better get going.  I need a good night's sleep because I have a work dinner tomorrow and then need to pull an all nighter so I don't miss my 3am pick up.

Take care everyone and I hope your December got off to a great start.