Just Because

This whole Christmas business is doing my head in! Ten minutes ago my last present arrived in the mail - yay, so the shopping is all finished and I can breathe again. Well, the present shopping is all finished, I still have some food shopping to go, but that will be dispensed with this afternoon, and because I am not hosting any Christmas functions this year I am pretty well only having to do a normal weekly shop.

Also this afternoon the present wrapping will begin, at which point I will probably realise that I have forgotton something really important, and then feel obliged to hit the shops again eek!

I have fallen a bit behind on my December Daily, but have kept notes so should be able to catch up pretty quickly. Using a set of templates and papers for the entire project certainly makes it easier to make decisions about what goes into the layouts. Maybe I should think more about that idea, limiting my options cuts down on the amount of procrastinating time between making decisions hmm.

I will leave you with a sweet little layout about a sweet little girl that I did this morning when I should have been doing something else... who can argue with the muse, if it is time to scrap, then it is time to scrap, housework can wait ;-)

Credits: Papers and elements Indefinitely Kit by Taylormade at Oscraps. Fonts: Gills Sans, CK_Ali's Hand.

Hi Santa

A little whinge

Why is it that the school sends home a letter telling me my daughter is to receive a special award on presentation day, and that due to lack of space in the school hall could parents consider that Years K to 2 will receive their awards in the first half of the assembly which starts at 9.30am, and years 3-6 will receive awards in the second half of the assembly due to finish at 11.00am (try 11.45am), that they then present in this order K, 5, 6 ... ???

Irritated? who me? Absolutely.

After six years at this school this is her first "big" award and she has worked so hard for it - and I MISSED IT when I arrived at 10.05am, then I got to watch all of years 2,3, and 4 receive their awards in the second half of the assembly - who cares!

So cranky about this!

Think I will go pour a G&T

New digi shop

Any of you digiscrappers out there might want to take a look at a new digi shop just opened on the net.

It is called The Digital Designer Shop, and there are lots of lovely goodies there to take a look at.

December 8 and 9

Getting late and I have to get to bed, credits etc the same as for all other layouts in this project.

December 6 and December 7

Whew, got caught up in a bit of crazy this week, one minute you think the calendar is clear, the next minute you don't have time to scratch yourself. So finally I have December 6 and 7 ready to upload, and I am working on 8,9,10 and 11 today. All the stories and photos are there, just need to put them together on a layout.

December 6

December 7

Credits: December Daily 2008 Templates by Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals,  Classic Cardstock Christmas by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals, VT Portable Remington.

December 5

Well its actually December 5 and 6, part 1. Part 2 will come later, its all journaling to tell all about what was going on in part 1 ;-)

 Credits: December Daily 2008 Template by Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals. Papers - La Cremerie by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals. Brushes - Joyeux Noel by Nancie Rowe Janitz (will have to find a link to her) my own white cardstock :-D

December 4

The ice cream was good!

Credits: December Daily 2008 template by Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals. Papers - La Cremerie and Classic Cardstock Christmas by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals. Negative Sleeves by Katie Pertiet Fonts - CK_Ali’s Hand, VT Portable Remington.

December 3

OK so I am a little behind, what's new, but I did have a super busy weekend. So December 4, 5 and 6 will be coming soon!

Here is December 3

Credits: Daily December 2008 templates by Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals. Brushes Joyeaux Noel by Nancie Rowe Janitz, Papers by me courtesy of a quick tutorial by Celenia Curtis of Mommy and Me Storybooks.

December 2

Credits: Daily December Template 2008 by Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals, Papers -  Classic Cardstock Christmas by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals, Brushes Joyeux Noel by Nancy Rowe Janitz, Fonts - VT Portable Remington, CK_Ali's Hand

December 1

Credits: Daily December Templates 2008 by Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals. Font - Gill Sans and CK_Ali's Hand. Quote and idea shamelessly scraplifted from Amy at Over at our Place.

Currently working on December 2nd, hope to have something up here before I have to pick up the kids from school.

Wish

Getting nothing done again

Must walk away from the computer... must cook dinner, good heavens this place is so addictive ;-)

Foto Friday

My boy... where has the time gone?

In ten months time I will be

Sailboarding off Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays.
Photo: QLD Tourism

HERE

That gives me ten months to complete the process of turning this 42 year old slightly worn and bulging body into a sleek and smooth object of admiration, or at least time to lose a couple of kilos.

To say I am excited is kind of an understatement, because I am beside myself with excitement. We have made plans to do this trip before, but the planets have never aligned to allow it to happen. We are going with friends, there will be four families all together, and amazingly we can all make it at the same time!!

Some of the others are flying directly to Proserpine, but we have decided to make the most of the chance, and take the kids out of school for six weeks and road trip our way there. We are going to the Whitsundays via Central Australia and Uluru (that's Ayer's Rock to those who haven't caught up yet!).

Wow six weeks on the open road and the open seas (ok so the Whitsundays are hardly the open seas lol), it will be really hard to come back to reality after that.

So today I state my intentions for getting in shape before we go. I have already started, but its time to really speed up the action. Before we leave I will be comfortable again in my size 12's, that includes no muffin top bulging. I will be fit enough to participate fully in all of the walking, swimming, snorkelling etc that will be happening without feeling totally wrecked, and without having to slow anyone else down.

To do it - clean eating, daily exercise. Sounds simple... but we all know how deceiving it can be. I will post updates at the end of each month.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

OK the good news... its only a month till Christmas!

The bad news... its only a month till Christmas :-(


I love Christmas, I love seeing the excitement build in my kids, I love the ripping of paper, and the sounds of enjoyment on Christmas Eve. I love the slow and lazy time on Christmas morning, late breakfast, hanging out with the kids, going for a walk around the neighborhood. I love seeing our extended family for tea. The kids play with their cousins, and the adults lounge around in the garden. Food is alway cold because the temperature is hot, conversation is laid back and amusing and the wine goes down easily. The boys do the dishes ;-)

But,

leading up to Christmas there is this evergrowing sense that there is too much to do. There are gifts to be purchased and no car parking available at the shops. There is food to be prepared and the temperatures are soaring here already. There is wrapping of presents to do, and it always seems to be done the day before it needs to be done (I think that is called bad organisation on my part lol). There is the pressure from all around to spend spend spend, to create the perfect picture book Christmas, and there is complete disregard for the things that really matter.

So although I love Christmas, I also dont love Christmas in some ways, and whichever way you look at it - its only one month away now!!

Mouth watering

I have a question...

Do you like food?

Does your mouth water when you look at photos of food?

Ok so that's two questions, if you answered yes to either question you should go and visit

Citrus and Candy

This blogger has a way of talking about, and photographing food that speaks to me.

MMMM off to find something to eat now ;-)

xx

The Story - Cousins

Credits: Papers: Eternal Love Kit - Scrapgirls.Whitie Tighties Katie Pertiet - Designer Digitals .
Fonts: CK Alis Hand, Century gothic.

Another old photo scrapped, circa 1975, me and two of my cousins.

Hot

Its mid spring and we are experiencing high summer temperatures and everything that goes with that. Flies, fires, sticky skin, muggy sleepless nights and fraying temperatures.

All of this could be easily aleviated if only Mr Accountant had seen fit to allow for the cost of an air conditioner when we built our home. But, he didn't, so we swelter.

Its too hot to even sit here and use the computer :-(

Plans are in place to obtain relief in the form of sweet cool air directed through out the house via fancy little ducts in the ceiling, but the timeframe is still hazy.

Hope you are keeping cool (or warm as the hemisphere dictates). More blogging will follow if I manage to drag myself from bed before the sun rises and heats us up, otherwise things may be slow as my fingers can't even find purchase on the keyboard through the film of sweat coating them.

xx

10 things I love RIGHT now

1. Pink and fluffy slippers
2. Cool mornings for walking before the day gets too hot
3. Photoshop Elements (so cool that program)
4. Vegemite toast for breakfast
5. My kitchen - after ten years I still would not change a thing
6. True Blood Season 2
7. My glasses, no more headaches after hours at the computer
8. My Y&T Yahoo group - these girls have so much to share and are so entertaining at the same time
9. Long warm evenings
10. Taylor Savignon Blanc (to drink on those long warm evenings on the back patio)

This weeks Spraground challenge is to scrap a page about what I am loving right now, so here's the list, and later the page.

xxx

Leaving on a jet plane

No, not me unfortunately :-(

Learning to deal with loss is one of those life lessons, we all have to do it, its never fun.

The area we live in has a very high transient population, there are people who work for the Defence forces in our country, which generally means they are posted to an area for a couple of years, then they pack up and are posted to another area. We are not a defence family, I imagine I will live in this area until I am carried out kicking and screaming to a lovely nursing home, that I will complain about until I breathe my final breath, but that's another story all together.

Getting back to the point in hand, my children have had to learm from an early age that people will enter their lives and then they will leave. Of course there will be some who are always there, but there are likely to be many that will only be here for a short period of time. My middle child met her friend in the last few weeks of term last year, and they instantly clicked. In the last few weeks of term this year my daughter's friend and her family will be packing their bags and moving back to England.

We are all sad to see them go, mostly my middle child, and we wish them all the best with their next posting. On the weekend I snapped a couple of shots of them together, and put together this page. I will add another page when middle child has had a chance to think a bit, and she can add her own journaling about her friendship.

Who knows, in this day and age of technology they may keep in touch via email and Skype, and when they are old enough to travel overseas they may even meet up again and continue on with their friendship. Here's hoping :-)

Credits: Sayge Paper Pack by Michelle Martin at Designer Digitals

Faces have been blurred to protect the innocent ;-)

I laughed

I especially like the bit at the end where she swipes at the camera, think I have done this myself.

Enjoy!

I Twi

Hi my name is Jocelyn and I am a Twihard.

Yes that's right I am a huge Twilight fan, I have read all four books in the series more then once, have watched the first movie Twilight many, many times (too many to acually admit to here) and I am eagerly awaiting the release of the movie version of New Moon next week.

So in celebration of my addiction I have temporarily redecorated around here. We will return to our original programming soon (probably).

In all liklihood I will not even see the movie for ages yet as we just don't do movies here much anymore. The cost of five of us going to the movies is ridiculous, especially when one in particular of us isn't even remotely interested in watching teen/vampire/werewolf  romance, heck, I can't even convince him to watch human adult romance lol.

All of the elements used to create the new look are from the digi kit Into the Twighlight, by the very talented Flergs.

Moving right along now...

Ok so I needed to post something, anything to make sure the the photos of my messy house were no longer the first thing anyone sees when they come to visit my blog lol.

I promise it doesn't look like that around here anymore, it is actually tidy momentarily ;-), no doubt it will be back to that state again before long and I will have to start all over again. That's the thing about housework, it really is the most thankless task, and it is never done. Well it might stay done if no one was living in the house, but because we have five people continually in and out of the house, plus extras on a regular basis I have learned to accept that my house will never look tidy all of the time.

Having said that, most days it doesn't take me long to get things in order. I have a system that works, ever heard of Flylady? that is where my system started. I have customised things for myself now, and I dont get the Flylady emails etc anymore, but when I was a full time stay at home mum with three kids underfoot that system was my life saver.

Most days around here I still feel like I am playing house, then every so often I will look around and be surprised to realise that this is MY house, I am the grownup, and all of that mess is MY responsibility.

Then I go and turn on the computer and ignore the mess for a bit longer.

Round here...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guess I should turn the computer off for a while.

Sigh...

Vegemite kid

Many years ago I used to have vegemite toast for breakfast everyday. Two slices of toast with vegemite... every day.

Then I started reading stuff, and listening to other people, and I changed my habits and started eating cereal and milk for breakfast. For a long time I did this, but I was never really satisfied. There is just something about that salty, yeasty, vegemitey taste that cereal cant live up to.

You see I was under the impression that having vegemite toast for breakfast was unhealthy and was contributing to my waist gain :-D

So I ploughed through bowl after bowl of cereal, never feeling satisfied, always left wanting something else. Because I was feeling unfulfilled by the cereal I looked in the cupboard for other things, eating my way through until I felt satisfied.

Not to mention the other side effects... which I wont because well... yuck who wants to mention those things?

So last week I said to my husband I think this cereal is bad for me. He in his loving attentive way continued to spoon cereal into his mouth, raised his eyes from the newspaper for a millisecond and said "well dont eat it then"

And just like that 14 years of self imposed vegemite toast denial was over.

Photo courtesy of Limes and Lycopene

This morning my son came out to breakfast commenting that my toast smelled so much better than his cereal - I just smiled and pointed to the toaster - that's my boy!

Please look at this

My last post of links was entirely frivolous, but this is something completely different. I have been following this blog for quite a while now, and was heartbroken when I read about the tragedy this family has lived through. I would like to do my very small part in trying to stop this from happening again.

So in memory of Ava I ask you to go to this blog and read this post.

Lets see how many links I can get in one post

Some of the things I am into right now...

When I was a lot younger than I am now I used to live in Sydney, beautiful Sydney, and I spent a lot of time at the beaches and in the bush around Sydney. One man who seems to have a real appreciation for what it is about Sydney that I love is Matt Lauder. Go and check out his website, he takes gorgeous photos, and he runs workshops. One day I am going to do one of his workshops.

I have always been a fan of fantasy worlds, either on television, at the movies or in books, as a little girl I firmly believed in magic. Right now my fantasy world revolves around the undead. If you have the time to and meet my friends Edward, Eric and Bill, and Jean Claude. That's right I am loving the vampire scene right now.

I used to be a paper scrapper, but now I have been completely seduced by the dark side, that's right, I am one of those... a digiscrapper. The only paper scrapping I do now is my kids school albums because I paid a truckload of money for a Becky Higgins School Kit for each of them, and I can't bear to see it go to waste. Everything else, digi baby! If you are new to digi or you want to know a bit about it you should visit Jessica Sprague. And if you like that and want to get some digi stash happening try Flergs, Paislee Press and Taylor Made for some truly gorgeous digi goodness. I've linked you to their blogs, and from there you can get to their respective shops.

Last of all one of my very favourite things to do is to go camping. We like to explore the state we live in so I spend a bit of time studying here. And of course the best thing about camping, is sitting around a campfire with your favourite people.



Anyway enough about me, I am off to read about some more of you

xx

A funny thing happened on the way to this blog

This is not my first blog, in fact its not even my second, but more about that later. This is actually my fourth blog.

The first blog was called When I Grow Up, it started life as a weight loss journal/experiment with this whole blogging stuff blog, and it was pretty anonymous. At first I had no photos (mostly because I didn't know how to put them in lol), no real names, no identifying data, but, over time it became less anonymous.

I had a lovely little following of other like minded bloggers, nothing huge, but a few regular commenters who always said just the right thing. I became more and more comfortable on my home on the web, and began sharing more personal information. As anyone of you out there who have attempted to lose more than 10kgs could attest to there are times when things are going well, and times when things are not. There are also little things that come up on a weight loss journey that are fairly personal in nature, and I was sharing these kinds of things with my blogging friends.

Then one day I was talking to someone in my life outside the computer and he referred to one of my more personal posts on my blog, saying something along the lines of "when I was reading your blog the other day I had to laugh when you said..." well I wont go into what it was that I said now, but suffice to say it was not something that I would ever EVER ever talk about with him in real life!

The result of this was that I stifled my blogging, in fact I probably went too far. I was just not willing to risk blogging anything that HE would read and comment on, either to me, or to other people we knew.

So eventually I had to move. I was just so uncomfortable knowing that he might be reading. Moving was a pain, I didn't want to leave a big announcement on the old blog, because he would see it (at least if he was still reading he would), so I had to leave comments all over the web to try and contact my other blogging friends.

Then he was speaking to me and asked where my blog had gone... I lied and told him I wasn't blogging anymore.

After that it took me ages to feel comfortable on the web again. My new home just didn't feel right, so I moved again, and again... and finally here I am. I lost a few of my followers to Facebook (the blog killer) and a few more I am sure through irritation at my random blogging attempts and change of addresses.

This blog started out as my scrapping gallery type thing but I've been living here permanently for most of this year now and it feels like home to me again. I will forever be careful about over sharing on my blog again, if I cant say everything I write here, to the people I know in real life, I don't write it here either. You never know who is reading...

Redesign

All those years I put off changing the way my blog looked because I thought it would be too hard. What a dunce.

So I have made a few changes, and I am quite happy with it. Its in my favourite colour, and I finally worked out how to get rid of that stupid little box that used to sit around the header yay!

If this is not displaying properly for anyone please leave me a comment so I can see if I can sort it out.

:-)

Do it now

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am really good at putting things off. I can find a million reasons not to do something right here, right now, I am the Queen of Procrastination.

Unfortunately it almost always comes back to bite me on the bum.

Case in point, I purchased the Becky Higgins School Kits KOTM a while back. I am sure others of you did too, so you know how long ago that was. Last weekend I finally opened the box, dug out the kids school photos and started trying to piece together their school albums.

I remember thinking when they started school that the events were so huge in our lives, that I would never forget the details of what happened. I was wrong.

Putting together my sons (14 yrs) kindergarten page I was at a loss as to what to include. I couldn't remember enough. Of course after sitting and thinking for ages, and talking to my husband and my son, I managed to come up with some info, but I know there was more, and what should have been a fairly easy layout to pull together ended up taking hours, and became a very frustrating experience.

That brings me to today.

I have started the Blogging for Scrapbookers course on line at Shimelle.com and the first day she talks about using your blog as a tool to write your stories for scrapping in the future. Write them while the memory is fresh. There was a time when I did a bit of this, but as can be seen, my blog has been suffering from neglect for a while now, so over the next three weeks I want to establish a habit of recording the things that happen from day to day, even the boring things that no one else is likely to want to read, in the hopes that future memories can be captured and relived without the stress and frustration of relying on my sieve like brain lol. My mantra - DO IT NOW!

Feel like joining in? Go to Shimelle's site and take a look.

Fabulous FREE course at JessicaSprague.com

As she did last year Jessica is offering a free course, with unlimited participant numbers, come along and have a go!

Got colour

OK so I have some colour back on the blog, and it will do for now, because in November I am starting a course at Shimelle.com where I will learn all about making my blog look different.

Random things about me

I found this meme on Jenny's blog and thought I would give it a whirl.

1. First thing you wash in the shower?
My face.

2. What colour is your favourite hoodie?
Pink.

3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?
Yes, in fact I would kiss him multiple times a day, good thing I married him.

4. Do you plan outfits every day?
No.

5. How are you feeling RIGHT now?
Relaxed and happy.

6. What's the closest thing to you that's red?
An hysterical romance book on my book shelf by Kathleen Woodiwiss.

7. The last dream you remember having?
Driving a fourwheel drive through a rough track with Hamish and Andy of Australian Radio fame and having a tree fall on us..... I know, weird!

8. Did you meet anybody new today?
Only left the house to drop the girls at school and pick them up again.

9. What are you craving right now?
Water.

10. Do you floss?
Sometimes.

11. What comes to mind when I say cabbage?
Ummm no thanks.

12. Are you emotional?
Yes

13. Have you ever counted to 1,000?
Yes

14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it?
You gotta bite it.

15. Do you like your hair?
Its so so right now, in the middle of growing it out again after having it cut short three months ago.

16. Do you like yourself?
Yes.

17. Would you go out to eat with George Bush?
No.

18. What are you listening to right now?
Dex Hamilton that my kids are watching on TV - no idea what that is but there is some roaring and high pitched American accents in it.

19. Are your parents strict?
They were with me growing up, but with my kids not a bit.

20. Would you go sky diving?
NO!

21. Do you like cottage cheese?
Well I dont dislike it but really....

22. Have you ever met a celebrity?
I sat next to Tony Bonner (Australian Actor who was in 1970's TV show Skippy) on a plane once.

23. Do you rent movies often?
Not anymore, there never seems to be anything worth watching at our video store.

24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you're in?
A sunstone on my windowsill.

25. How many countries have you visited?
7.

26. Have you made a prank phone call?
Yes, as a young teenager.....

27. Ever been on a train?
Every week day of my life from age 12 to about age 25 when i moved to Canberra where there are no trains.

28. Brown or white eggs?
How about green, with ham of course.

29. Do you have a cell-phone?
I call it a mobile phone.

30. Do you use chap stick?
Yes.

31. Do you own a gun?
No.

32. Can you use chop sticks?
Badly.

33. Who are you going to be with tonight?
My family.

34. Are you too forgiving?
Too forgiving sometimes.

35. Ever been in love?
Many times.

36. What is your best friend(s) doing tomorrow?
Hanging out with her family.

37. Ever have cream puffs?
Profiteroles? Yes, dont like them much.

38. Last time you cried?
Cant remember.

39. What was the last question you asked?
Kids what is the name of that show you are watching at the moment?

40. Favorite time of the year?
Autumn and spring, when it's beautiful and warm without being revoltingly hot.

41. Do you have any tattoos?
No.

42. Are you sarcastic?
A bit.

43. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect?
No.

44. Ever walked into a wall?
Unfortunately yes.

45. Favorite color?
green.

46. Have you ever slapped someone?
Yes.

47. Is your hair curly?
In between, sometimes it curls, sometimes it doesn't.

48. What was the last CD you bought?
Pink Funhouse.

49. Do looks matter?
More than they should.

50. Could you ever forgive a cheater?
Yes.

51. Is your phone bill sky high?
Never.

52. Do you like your life right now?
Yes.

53. Do you sleep with the TV on?
No.

54. Can you handle the truth?
Always prefer the truth.

55. Do you have good vision?
Just started wearing glasses for reading, but otherwise good.

56. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people?
I don't hate anyone.

57. How often do you talk on the phone?
Every day, I anser the phones at work.

58. The last person you held hands with?
My youngest daughter this afternoon.

59. What are you wearing?
Blue three quarter pants and white t shirt.

60.What is your favorite animal?
Horses.

61. Where was your default picture taken at?
In my kitchen.

62. Can you hula hoop?
Never got the hang of it.

63. Do you have a job?
Bookkeeper.

64. What was the most recent thing you bought?
A bag of lettuce, condensed milk, chocolate biscuits and a Who Magazine.

65. Have you ever crawled through a window?
Yes.

So that's what that email was about

I recently recieved an email from Photobucket telling me my account needed attention. I just dismissed it as spam having fogotten why I had a Photobucket account. Turns out that is the account where my blog templates etc live. So I look at my blog and think hmmm something is different. It only took me three days to work out what it was lol!

So back to blogger templates until I have time to sort out something new.

Make it fun

This one tickled my funnybone

This day in history

This idea shamelessly stolen from Cathy Zielske.

Four years ago this girl became the proud owner of this bike. Today she finally got the hang of riding it.

Wet Wombeyan

Hello my sad, neglected, little blog! I know you thought I had forgotten you, its not true I promise. I just got a little busy, a little sidetracked, with that... you know... facethingy place. You are still my first love, and I know I said I was never going to go to that facethingy place, but it was kind of hard to resist. So sorry for neglecting you, I promise to do better in future.

So, lately, well I have been camping in the school holidays. We have had more rain this Spring than I can remember having for quite a while, so of course it was the perfect time to go camping, not. I give you Exhibit A:



Exactly what you want to see outside your tent in the morning :-)

Sneak Peek for Jennie and Wayne

The gorgeous Miss Aliy



The beautiful Miss Molly

The internet is an amazing place

Testing a blog post from Scribe Fire

Wedding Shoot

Back from a weekend in the Hunter Valley where I was honoured to be asked to photograph a wedding.

Took 947 photos, and am madly editing them, of that lot probably on 200 will be keepers lol, but I am really excitied to see how they turn out.

I had such a good time doing this, and am so thankful to Jennie and Wayne for trusting me to record such a special day.

Will post some previews as they become available.

Everything's slipping

Sometimes it just seems that life gets out of hand, forever rushing about, papers piling up on the desk, payments on bills being missed, taxiing children left right and centre, friends in need. The first thing to go is the personal time out, then the blogging, the photography and scrapping, long phone calls, laundry, vacuuming, clean bathrooms, internet browsing (notice I can still browse the internet even when I dont have time to clean the bathrooms lol). Personal relationships are still hanging in there (by a thread) and my sanity is slowly slipping away...

Thankfully this weekend is the last weekend of the winter sports season for us. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Self portrait

I am inspired today by Tara Whitney and her post on self portraits. Here is one of me, taken a few days ago. I plan to try a first thing in the morning shot like Tara's too, I love that idea.

Role Reversal

For the third Wednesday in a row I am at work whilst my husband is at home looking after the kids. Its quite strange to be driving out in the morning and leaving them all behind, but, it is fantastic to come home at night and find dinner cooking, and household chores sort of done :-)

Next Wednesday will feel strange, as the kids are back at school and I will have to cook dinner myself.

Eleven

Its the worst kind of unfair, to be so excited about your approaching birthday, to be so looking forward to it, then on the day to just feel so lousy you cant really enjoy it.

Poor little sweet pea just couldn't muster up much enthusiasm for anything today. Happy birthday sweet girl. I hope you feel better in the morning, and we will have all of your birthday specialties again when you are up to it xxx

Its love

Friday saw me skipping down the steps to Teds Camera Store in the city, and skipping out with a new Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens, and a Lowepro Terraclime camera bag. The lens is so fast, and so clear, its love I tell ya, love!

Snowball

You know what it is like, its your FIL's 70th birthday, he wants a small family dinner, and you offer to host it in the knowledge that there will be 6 kids and 8 adults and that you can quite happily (ie in a mostly stress free manner) deal with it. You can cater for that much food in your kitchen, you can supply that amount of plates, cutlery and glassware, hell you can even stretch a bit to do something a little special.

And then, you know what it is like when you get a phone call from someone suggesting that maybe we should also invite X, and then Y, and then ... what the heck invite the whole alphabet, Joc won't mind!

And before you know it the small family dinner you are hosting is a full on surprise party.

Mmmm

So as of last night that is where I am at. All of FIL's siblings and their partners will also be attending, which adds another 10 people, so a sit down dinner is out, we just dont have enough chairs, and we will take it buffet style. Also need to get some more wine glasses.

So the more the merrier... just have to remember to breathe, and let go of my perfectionism, who cares if the cutlery doesn't match? ;-)

Right now ...

you are changing from day to day.
you like to make us both a hot drink after the girls go to bed.
you are spending a lot of time reading car magazines, and playing car racing games on the wii and computer.
you like to tell your sisters what to do.
you will eat anything that catches your eye... make that everything that catches your eye.
you are taller than me.
you are taller than Aunty Nessa (she is so peeved).
you play your electric guitar more than your acoustic.
your voice is almost broken.
you use too much of my expensive hair paste.
you dont want to have your hair cut too short.
you are not enjoying football as much as you used to.
you need to wear your glasses more often.
you love to tease me.
you get "grown up" jokes more often.
you ride your bike to and from school (when you dont have a flat tyre).
you are not very good at completing your homework.
you are very very good at maths.
you think English lessons are a waste of time.
you like reading the same books as me.
you like listening to Fallout Boy and Nickleback.
your best friend is Tom.
you will be 14 in three months.
you wear size 10 shoes.

Love you kid xxx

School Holidays

Today felt like the first day of the school holidays for me YAY, even though the kids have been off school since Thursday (and Pumpkin had been home most of last week sick). It was great to be able to cruise around in my pj's most of the day and not rush to do anything.

The kids have been watching episodes of Charmed while I have been messing around on the computer and cooking. We had cinnamon scrolls for morning tea - YUM, and we have a Chocolate Cake to work our way through later courtesy of The Pioneer Woman.

Also on a positive note I had my hair cut short two weeks ago, and today I finally got the hang of styling it the way I want it!! I was so frustrated with it, and was thinking of going longer again, but now I think I will stay with it a bit longer. It is so much easier to look after than it was long, and it looks much healthier too. Maybe I will post a photo if I can get one I like, or maybe I will be too shy and you will just have to imagine.

xxx

Visitors

I had a lovely weekend with my visitors, my gorgeous sister and her family. Its so fun to see her with her kids. Its sort of strange to me to see my baby sister with babies of her own, she still doesn't seem old enough in my mind to be a mama!

Her oldest boy is four and suffering a serious case of hero worship - he followed my almost 14 year old son around the entire weekend, he slept in his room, kicked the footy with him, played on the wii with him, and generally did whatever my son was doing. Apparantly all of the kids in his preschool class know all about "my cousin" and what he does, and we are guessing that news this week will involve a long detailed explanation of the time he spent with us on the weekend, although the only person likely to be mentioned will be my eldest :-)

Her middle child, and only daughter is a sweet, funny headstrong little one, whose affection for our dollhouse was immeditate and strong. The funniest thing she kept doing was throwing the dollhouse resident pooch out the window to the porch, because "dogs not allowed in the house", that really made me laugh!

And then there was baby pudge, whose smile is to die for. He wasn't the happiest little chap as he is getting a mouthful of teeth right now, but we caught glimpses of his good humour, and that was enough. He is all together too cute!

From the peanut gallery

Last night while sweating and huffing my way through a workout video I heard this gem from my 13 year old

"looks like you didn't get the six pack gene mum"

Wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, but in the end what can you do but laugh!

Olive Harvest

Right now my fingers are stained purple, and I have 4kg of kalamata olives soaking in my kitchen (thats about 1000 olives people).

Today we finally harvested our olives, and over the next couple of weeks we will soak them, place them in brine, preserve them and store them for future eating. Last years harvest was almost as big, but the quality of the olives this year is much better, and I am hoping that the final product will be better. Last years crop were a little hard and very bitter, this years crop are much plumper and juicier.

So hopefully in a few months time I can eat olives grown in my backyard. YUM.

Photo Editing Course

Have you ever wanted to be able to edit your photos in Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) but had no idea where to start?

The talented Jessica Sprague is here to save the day. Coming up in July she is offering a photo editing course on her site Jessica Sprague.com and it is FREE!

Head on over and have a look, register and sign yourself up, you will not regret it.

I miss Karate

Credits: Papers and Elements Photogenic by Paislee Press and ANeal at Oscraps. Photomask by LivE Designs. Fonts Impact, Century Gothic

Still here

Thought I should do a quick post, I have been participating in an scrapping challenge at Jessicasprague.com to do 7 layouts in 7 days. I only managed 6, but plan to finish the 7th as soon as I have some good light to get the photo I need. Here is the final one for your viewing, and chuckling pleasure.



I mean good heavens Mum, how short is my school dress???

Can anyone say mad crazy busy?

Because that is what I have been the last three weeks. The football season is up and running again, and this year we have netball added to the mix too. So three afternoons a week, and all day Saturday are devoted to the gods of sport! Then there are a couple of karate sessions thrown in there, three separate lots of music lessons, school work, homework, my work, his work, groceries, cooking, Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, photography, scrapping, reading and sleeping.

And to think I know people who do much much more than I do... How on earth to they manage?

Hope you are all well
xxx

this little girl of mine

it was so much easier to deal with your dramas back then, now everything is magnified, the bad things are "badder" and the good things are "better", I just wish right now you were having a better phase not a "badder" one :-(

Family dinner

This weekend it is Mother's Day, and as usual we are having a get together with the family (my husbands family as my family live 300kms away). On Saturday there will be eight adults and six children at my house expecting to be fed and entertained. So far it has taken about seven phone calls, a trip to the grocery store, a few hours cooking, and numerous in-house conversations.

That said I still have to clean the bathrooms, vaccuum the house and prepare a little more food.

It seems like a lot of work to go to, but then I think back to when I was a child. My mother is one of seven, my father one of six, I have three siblings, and 43 first cousins. Yes 43.

My brain goes into shut down just trying to imagine the amount of organisation that would be required to get that many people together for any kind of event. It wasn't that often that all of us were in the same house at the same time, but I do recall one or two ocassions.

A couple of Christmas days come to mind, lunch was all about Mum's family, they would arrive mid morning and leave mid afternoon, then tea was about Dad's family who would arrive late afternoon and leave when all the food was gone lol! At any given time there were babies to hold, feed, mind, rock etc, toddlers to chase around, older kids to play cricket with and anyone who wasn't quick enough found themselves stuck in the kitchen wielding a tea towel (the days before dishwashers were standard kitchen appliances and child labour was expected).

Given that, I shouldn't complain about having to organise one dinner for 14 people really :-)

(I am not really complaining, I am in fact quite looking forward to it, I am just not looking forward to the last two hours before everyone arrives.)

Away for the weekend

Tonight we are off to Sydney for the weekend. Cant wait to catch up with my sisters, my parents and to cuddle my nieces and nephews!

Back on Monday

xxx

Long weekend layout

Here is a layout featuring a few photos from our Easter Weekend camp. The template is one I created for a course at JessicaSprage.com for the Digi in Deep Class. I never finished the album track at the time, so it feels good to be able to add a page to that album as its started me thinking about it again, which means there is a chance I might catch up on some of the pages that are still needed.



Credits: Papers LivE Designs For Jessica Sprague, Circle brush - J Crowley Beautiful Evidence, Stitched journalling strip - K Pertiet, Grunge Edge Frame - Jessica Sprague, Fonts - CK Ali’s Hand, Century Gothic.

Today was a good day

Still editing long weekend photos, but hopefully will post some later tonight or tomorrow.

Had lunch with a friend today - its so nice to be able to sit back and relax and laugh with someone over coffee :-)

Great weekend away

The Easter weekend this year was the best we have had in ages. We stayed at Aragunnu in Mimosa Rocks NP on the south coast of NSW. We had perfect weather, the best campsite, great food, swimming, snorkelling, boogie boarding, ticks and mosquitos (they were the only bad part) and just a really really great time.

The only downside...

The number of loads of washing that needs to be done when we get home, seven and counting. Blah!

Pictures and more stories to come soon.

FreeWrite 1

My latest great adventure.

I have just started another course with the fabulous Jessica Sprague, this one is called Type+Writer, all about getting to the heart of your story with journalling, and putting it together with your pictures in an effective and attractive way. Goes with the theme of my blog Words and Pictures ;-) Our first assignment is a free write focusing on my latest adventure. The idea is to get everything that comes into my head out onto the page regardless of grammar, spelling and sentence construction. I plan to do this here on my blog, as it makes it easy to find it later when it is time to put it into a layout, so the posts labelled free write may ramble, and make little sense and you have my blessing to ignore them and wait for something that is more fluent and readable.

I suppose my last great adventure of note was my trip in January to the Eyre Peninsular with my family. We are a camping family, all of us. During the long winter months we don't camp, and the kids can be heard to wonder when the next camping trip is towards the beginning of Spring. Once the leaves start to burst forth on the trees, they become more vocal about our next expedition. My husband has also been known to mutter about getting a job in a climate more hospitable to year round camping. So yes we are a camping family.

In January we decided to up sticks for three weeks and head to South Australia. My husband has family living in Adelaide, most importantly his 93 year old Grandmother, and also aunts uncles and cousins etc. We were also keen to go somewhere new as we have spent the last three years on our summer break camping in the same place.

The something new turned out to be Coffin Bay in South Australia, so named because of a person whose surname was Coffin, nothing to do with dead people or the undead for that matter either. We estimated this trip would involve about 3000 kilometres give or take and three weeks to make it more relaxed. The early days we spent in Adelaide with cousins. We had a fabulous time, and I feel so grateful to have got to know the cousins better, they are good people, and I feel we will have a lifelong friendship (albeit a long distance one, although these days with the Internet and such it is so much easier to keep long distance relationships going). The cousins made us so welcome, and we had such a wonderful time with them all.

It took us two days of driving to reach Adelaide, and the temperature hit 43 degrees the first day - to say I was a little cranky when we arrived in Balranald to set up was probably being a little kind. I was snapping at my husband and the kids, i was so dehydrated I felt sick.

Dinner that night was a beautiful relief. We supped at the Ex Service Men's Club, where the food was great, inexpensive, the service with a smile, and... most importantly of all the air conditioning was cool. This was not the first time that the interns of a building saved my sanity on this trip.

After the all important visit with family we headed north of Adelaide to hot dry dusty and disturbing Port Augusta... I was uncomfortable there. The caravan park itself was surrounded by very high fences, and we were warned that there was no exiting or entering the park on foot after 9pm, and that we needed a special pass key to get in or out if we went in the car. Not the best way to make us feel at ease. We had planned to stay two nights, but changed our minds very quickly.

The highlight of PA was when we settled into the camper to sleep. Due the the fact that we were heading out early the following morning we all headed for bed at the same time, and as we were only staying one night we all slept in the camper rather than setting up the kids tents. Our kids are very entertaining. we spent a lot of time laughing, and joking together, and the kids were keen to entertain.

The next day we drove to Coffin Bay, stopping a few times along the way to check out the scenery and familiarise ourselves with this land that was so very different from where we live.

Coffin Bay itself was much smaller in reality than it Had been in my mind, but it was certainly adequate for what we wanted. We realised very quickly that we were completely out of the loop, as we were one of the few campsites that did not have a boat resting outside our camper. It seems that a lot of people go to Coffin Bay to launch their boats and go fishing, whereas we have always been a fish off the rocks or beach type of family having never owned a boat. None the less we were not made to feel like idiots about fishing from the land, although our fish count was disapbointnigly low...

The best parts of the time spent stationed at Coffin Bay were the times we were together, sitting in the shade after lunch talking, yakking in bed after lights out, driving into the National Parks looking for the best spots to swim, snorkel and fish, and hanging out on the beach together playing in the sand, looking for shells and swimming.

One memorable beach experience was at Donnington Beach in the Port Lincoln NP, we had been paddling about in the shallows whilst my husband was snorkeling, then he convinced me to go further into the water. We were hanging out in water about waist/chest deep when I saw something dark surface about fifty metres away from me. I swear I almost walked on water towards the shore. My husband nearly split his sides laughing, it turns out it was a seal! But me, I have a little phobia (just a small one) about sharks, and as we had been reading about shark attacks in the paper fairly recently it was the first thing I thought of. Thankfully it wasn't a shark!

The seal seemed rather bemused by us, he popped up a few times to check us out before shooting off through the water in search of more fish. A few days later we returned to the same beach, and this time the kids were in the water when we heard an almighty racket. The seal was back, and this time the kids had seen it, and the excitement was uncontainable. The seal must have wondered if the end of the world was coming given the racket my children were making, they were so excited and delighted to see a real live seal I think our family back home must have heard them. The seal popped his head up and looked right at them, then disappeared under the water, only to pop back up again closer to them. If I were to describe the look on its face, I would say it was bemused by these ungainly noisy creatures in his backyard. Bemused, but unafraid, simply curious and vaguely interested. After a few more looks he slid off again, and that was the last we saw of him.

I hope the kids remember that. there may come a time in their lives where people no longer see wild creatures in their own habitat. Its something moving and special.

Once our time was up in coffin Bay we headed north, and then east targeting the BArossa Valley as our next stop. Next time I go to the Barossa I would like to do it sans kids, as they find wine tasting a tad boring, but it was an enjoyable sample of the valley, and has given us the motivation to go back some day as a couple to really enjoy all it has to offer.

12 hours after leaving the Barossa we were back home. It was a long day in the saddle, but I am pleased we did it. There is something special about coming back home after being on the road for any period of time. We were all very happy to be be back, and grateful to have enjoyed three weeks together exploring the country. It only took about two days before we wanted to head out again, but alas travelling takes money, so it was back to work to earn the money to soon head out again as a family and explore.

Some of the main things that stand out for me on this trip are: family, music, seals, no fish, heat (45 degrees in a tent!), distance, geographic difference.

Housekeeping

Things around here might be a bit messy for a few days as I am in the process of making some changes. The main change is that I am moving my posts from my old blogs "When I Grow UP" and "40 Fit and Fab", and combining them all here.

For a while I tried keeping several blogs but I found they all suffered that way, so I am amalgamating. While I am at it I am tidying up some old posts, and deleting just a couple that could potentially cause some hurt to some people should they find them.

So if all of a sudden your blog reader says I have posted 193 times just ignore it ;-)

Just a few pictures

I have been scrapping a little this week, so here are a few of my finished layouts.