The best things

Earlier this month, things seemed a little dreary for my group of friends in the office, so I suggested gearing up for a secret santa swap.  We enjoyed a half day of work today and when I got back to my desk after giggling with my students, I found a present from my secret santa waiting on my table and was giddy with delight.

Thank you Lynette, I absolutely love it!  We drink lots of Starbucks coffee between us, so we call ourselves the Bucks Buddies and she knows Starbies is my Holy Land.  On top of that, when the Christmas merchandise came out this year, we pored over the catalogue and Lynette must have remembered me cooing over this sweet mug.  I think the tail-as-handle is such a cool idea and I can't wait to brew a hot cup of tea in it. 

Last night, as we were clearing up the room that my brothers share, we also found this huge plastic lens-looking thing that didn't seem to have the weight of an actual camera attachment.  When I found out it was a mug, I went into paroxysms of joy.  HS (practically a professional photographer) probably forgot to pack this awesome present from his friend, so I'm claiming it as mine, along with the discounted Christmas blend I bought from my second home the other day.

I don't know who you are, friend, but thank you for finding my brother such a thoughtful gift!

Before I go, I just wanted to do a little free advertising for Diptic (which I used to make the circular image above).  I first paid for the Diptic app a few months ago so that I could collage some pictures.  It served my purposes but wasn't really anything to write home about.  

Over the most recent free upgrade, however, something wonderful happened and there were suddenly literally hundreds of frame shapes, configurations and customisations to choose from!  You can now use all kinds of crazy collage shapes (including some hideous heart ones that I have a feeling some girls will love) and beyond that, you can actually move each individual line within the frame to curve it and make single windows bigger, smaller, or more triangular shaped.

It is actually pretty incredible.  Here's an example of some new frame shapes below, some of which are downright bizarre.  I can't really see myself using the one with the illuminatiesque circle and triangle or the shocked face, but hey, it's never a bad thing to be spoilt for choice.  

The borders are also now completely customisable - you can round the corners, change the joints, make the lines thicker, change colours and now, incredibly, add texture on top of the colour you've chosen so your frame gets cute polka dots or hipster chevron stripes.

I wanted to share this because I've never been so pleasantly surprised by an update before and Diptic has gone from being an average app that I reluctantly shelled out a couple dollars for to being completely worth the money.  I forsee hours of collaging madness on trains and buses!

FYI - I had a minor heart attack when I saw how grainy the programme was making my photos, but don't worry, that's just how it looks before the collage is saved. 

All right, enough rambling.  I'm off to spend Christmas Eve in my PJs watching Japanese anime with my mother and drinking from my new cup(s)!

Happy Holidays and tonight, I hope your troubles are few.