So close I can smell the sloth!!!

I'm not a huge countdown type of person, meaning I don't count the days until events and struggle when my kids ask me "how many sleeps until .....?" but I'm very excited about three sleeps until Christmas. For me it means that all of the chaos, panic, disorder, frazzled nerves, trolley and car park rage will be over and I can just sit on my couch and choose to do NOTHING. That's all I want this Christmas is to do absolutely nothing. My dad is coming for lunch and so is the MIL but that's okay I guess. A champagne breakfast will mean I won't even care if the Queen herself stops in for a bite to eat Christmas Day! lol

We've gotten all but the little stocking filler things for the kids and naturally I'll have to battle the supermarket at least once more before Monday. I'm staying well clear of the big shopping centres though. Those places are crazy at this time of year and I could well do without it!

I'm working tonight, doing the fruit and veg markets in the morning, then doing the seafood markets and then we have a party to go to. I'll have to have quite a bit of self restraint because no matter how much I feel like tying one on, I can't imagine the horror of having a hangover on Christmas eve with still so much to do!!! The last time I had a big night I was so sick the next day I felt like I'd contracted a bout of gastro. Trust me, it's still fresh enough in my memory that I won't be repeating that one!!! lol I also have sleep to catch up on from this week because we do want everyone to be sunny and bright at sparrow fart on Christmas Day. I'm sure we'll be lucky if they stay in bed until daylight.

I have a few OTP things to do for Cyberscraps that have a really tight deadline so I'll have to fit them in somewhere this weekend too but apart from that I'm going to go hammer and tongs tonight, get my typing all finished for the break and start winding down.

If I don't get around to blogging again until this whole messy business is over, I hope you all have a lovely, lazy, don't-do-more-than-you-want-to Christmas and get lots of scrapping done. I wish you health, happiness and lots of scrapping mojo for the New Year too!

Christmas is coming (even if it's a bit too soon!)

I'm so glad Christmas is coming and that there will be a break in sight. I'm having two weeks off which will be lovely and I hope to get heaps of scrapping done during that time as well as do some stuff with the kids and lately there hasn't been much time for that.

For once we had an empty weekend this one just gone so it was mainly taking the kids xmas shopping for the presents they were buying for others. I got a whole new beautiful supply of things from Cyberscraps including Foof-A-La's Red, Black and Cream range, the new Imaginisce Go For Baroque range and the new My Mind's Eye Magnolia sets and Bohemia Christmas. I've taken the chance yesterday at Cath's to scrap this year's Santa photo (and even had to bribe Lachie $5 to smile for it, the mercenary little bugger) with the Bohemia Christmas and completed the very first layout for our Get Real Challenge (see bottom of blog for info on how to get involved). Very happy with both but not happy about how long a layout seems to take me these days. Gone are the times of getting four or five layouts a day done as was normal when I started scrapping. Nowadays I'm doing lots of cutting out and craft knife work, lots of detail and all the fiddly stuff that draws it out to three and four hours a layout at least. I know for some that is still bugger all but it's becoming a new record for me and also becoming the norm.

This week is about finishing the typing workload and hoping that not many doctors are behind and wanting to get stuff dictated so they can go on leave with a clear conscience that they're caught up (even if it takes me days and days to convert it all to actual typed letters), finishing off any presents that I'm scrapping for people (still a few OTP things to be done) and checking my list again that I have gotten all my xmas stuff done. I have to go grocery shopping (urgh) which normally I absolutely love but this year it is just so busy that even stepping foot into the shopping centre makes me cringe. There is trolley range and everyone just seems miserable and frazzled this year. Normally that would happen tonight but Blayd has his black belt presentation tonight so it will have to wait until tomorrow probably (yes I know another day closer to Christmas so the shops will be that much busier in 24 hours from now but can't be helped).

I'd like to think I'll be here again before Christmas but who knows how busy life will get for anyone at this point in the year so if I'm not back, I hope anyone having a read has a lovely Christmas, a relaxing break and a fun New Year if you have anything planned. I think it will be a quiet one for us (as it has been for so many in the past few years) and to be honest, I don't even mind! After the rush of Christmas I don't think I'll have the motiviation to do anything special anyway so it will just be me and my Dougie on the couch with a glass of red I think, but don't they say you should see in the New Year how you want the year to be all the way through?

Must keep going.....crawl, stagger, pant, huff!

I just cannot believe how busy work is atm! When I thought we might get a little busy with doctors wanting to catch up, I didn't expect the avalanche of work that has hit since last week. I worry that I'm not going to get it all done fast enough and the weekend is again coming at me at a great rate of knots!!! I can only do what I can do and let God sort the rest out - that's my theory for now!

We had a busy weekend with the littlies' Christmas Party at kindy. Caeligh had good fun and knew almost all of the Macarena dance but James had to sing carols and he really looked like he was in physical pain having to stand in front of everyone with a reindeer hat and a red nose. I think he felt stupid! lol He later said he just didn't want to sing with everyone watching.

Went to Cath's place on Saturday and Babe joined later when she could. Of course I had waaaaaaaaaay to much to drink, and sampled just about every poison on offer from red, white and champagne to cocktails and some fijoa infused vodka which really should be on the banned toxic substance list! Yep I paid on Sunday but still had to get in the car with Doug and the kids to drive down to Capalaba and pick up some special failsafe lollies for Blayd that one of the mothers in the FINB group makes. Very worthwhile if he can have candy canes like everyone else, even if the colours arent' as bright because she uses plant derived colours instead of insanely bad for you artificial ones.

Shuffle Up Day was today, Blayd moved to middle school which is now technically high school for him next year (where the hell did that time go???) and Jamie went to Possum Pod for the morning as a big grade one boy. He had a great time and when Doug came back to collect him he asked if Jamie had been okay and not too shy. The teacher informed him that James was indeed a social butterfly and would get on just fine come the first day of school next year. Somewhat reassuring!

Tomorrow is break up parties for the boys so I had to shoot off to Woolies tonight to buy things Blayd could actually eat. I gave him a little leeway with a few suspect "flavours" here and there but nothing dreadful for his diet so he may come home a little hyped but should be okay. I would rather risk the flavours than have him rebel compeltely and just eat everything in sight. I know so many parents will send their kids with junk food loaded with colours, flavours, preservatives, flavour enhancers, all kinds of nasty chemicals that will write his behaviour off for a week so I'm learning to be a bit more flexible with him. Besides, I think his tolerance is improving a little for flavours so tomorrow we'll definitely know.

James has Preschool Graduation tomorrow (yep it's all soooo serious these days!) so Doug and I are going as the boys won't be home from karate in time and Caeligh will just not sit still for anything so she can stay at home with Gran. Camera is absolutely coming along for the ride!

Back to bashing the keys now (maybe I should try a written blog so my fingers get some different exercise!!!) and I'll update when I can. Really looking forward to the weekend and super looking forward to Christmas so all the rushing can be over with and we can just enjoy the time.

Love yous alll!!!!!! Lu

Where oh where has my week gone?

Haven't posted since Monday, whoa what a fly by week!!! Thanks to Lusi for stopping by - nice to touch base again!!!

Tuesday was groceries and honestly the prices of things just go up each and every time we go shopping!!! It's even harder to know that the farmers and graziers get so little of what the supermarket makes so the continual rises seem a little baseless to me.

Yesterday babe and I tackled the DFO at the airport. The place is enormous with factory outlets in every direction! I didn't think a lot of things were good value - and it helped if you know what you are after first otherwise you would find the money flying from your wallet for all kinds of things that are cheap but maybe not necessary. We did find an amazing bargain on Fila sneakers for the kids for Christmas and hopefully they will last awhile. We got Cath an amazing birthday present at a homewares store and babe got lots of her xmas shopping done. It's amazing how much pressure gets taken off after you get a good whack of that shopping list ticked off.

Today I've been catching up on typing and maybe tonight I'll get a layout done. I'm still trying to fit in writing Christmas cards, doing off the page stuff for gifts and keep up with my typing work because it has a tendency to blow out by Friday as doctors try to get stuff done before the weekend.

Cath's "ladies lunch" is on Saturday and I really want to find a dress to wear. Funnily enough I don't actually even own a dress (certified tomboy here!), a couple of summer gypsy skirts are as close as I get and then they are usually worn with a singlet and thongs!!! I saw some nice strapless dresses at Millers last weekend and should have bought one then but we had the kids with us and I didn't want to saddle Doug with all four of them in a brightly lit shopping centre while I tried on dresses. I don't normally try on anything I buy, I just hope I get it right, but a dress is something I think I will absolutely need to try on first, and not one either but probably five or six to see which looks better on me. Not exactly catwalk model material here gals and even though I can happily admit that, I still want to take the time to get it right when it comes to a dress.

Oh bum I forgot that I agreed to buy Sporting Wheelies art union tickets for their Christmas fundraiser and the guy has just delivered them! There goes my dress shopping money....... maybe I'll have to settle for a nice top to go with one of my skirts.....maybe a singlet....and I have a cool pair of hot pink thongs.........!!!

Craving scrap and ridiculous wastes of money

Well I've had one of those weekends where there was the burning desire to get something done but not the alertness or mental clarity to facilitate that! I had heaps of work so ended up getting about 8 hours sleep over two and a half days (yeah the money was worth it!)and even got an amazing amount of new and beautiful products from our Embellishment Fairy (thanks Cath!) for design team work. It didn't stop me buying more for myself however! So here I was, Saturday afternoon after a really rushing about day (cricket for Blayd in the a.m., birthday party to take HRH to just before lunchtime, some shopping in the afternoon with Dougie, ear piercing for HRH (I'll get to it in a second) and a visit to the babe's place (yes Cass you, I realised I often use that name for you so may as well formalise it!). By the time I eventually got home all I wanted to do was flop on the couch with a glass of red wine and it was the equivalent of "hitting the wall" for me. I still wanted to scrap but exhaustion got the better of me and I ended up falling asleep on the couch the crawling off to bed early so no scrapping magic Saturday night.

Sunday dawned with the knowledge that Dougie was going to drive to Noosa to get his birthday present (a ridiculously expensive thing that we really can't afford but he never asks for much, does more than any other husband I know and deserves it really) so Babe and I schemed (no, wait, maybe planned with consideration is better!) for me to spend the day at her place to scrap, which I actually did, despite the fact that we had six kids in the house at the time. I got stuck right into the new BG Blush papers and funnily I didn't love them as much as I thought I would. Sure, just about everything BG do is amazing and wonderful but there are some ranges I love and some I LOVE!!!!! Romani I love, Urban Couture I love, Fruitcake and Dasher I love but on some level Blush doesn't inspire me as much but I'm still very happy with the layout which I've put up on the blog. I had a photo of Dougie that I took while he was sleeping and he was a little embarrassed to see that I'd scrapped it - I don't know why, he doesn't look ghastly, awful or ugly when he sleeps (lordy and we women worry about having pics taken of us!!! lol the boys are worse!)

Ah yes, the ear piercing thingy. HRH wanted her ears pierced at the start of last week. she had decided that her bestest friend in the whole wide world Miss Lily had earrings and so she wanted them too. She also wanted them because Aunty Cass and Mumma have earrings too. I thought she'd just forget about it after a day or two but no she was very persistent and kept bringing it up all week. If she had not been so keen I would never have bothered but I figured she was obviously fixed on the idea. I did explain to her that it was painful and all that but she was still sure so on Saturday afternoon we took her to the chemist and had it done. Honestly I was sure she would scream the place down but really she yells more when she doesn't get her own way! It was over in a moment and she was happy 30 seconds later so she's a tough nut that girl! She asked for lipgloss as a treat for being brave and has spent all weekend showing off her earrings. I did say though that if she was a big girl now that she had earrings then she would have to give up dummies because big girls with earrings don't have dummies. We have tried a couple of times to get rid of them but she has hidden them around the house and always manages to find one. This time she seems to "get it" so Saturday night (I'm sure it's partly because she was dead on her feet tired) she went to sleep with no dummy. Yesterday at Babe's place I asked her if she wanted one to have a nap after lunch but she said no because she was a big girl with earrings and only babies have dummies. So last night (again, I think exhaustion helped here) she went to sleep with no dummy so that's almost three days without it. This is nothing short of amazing for a girl who normally sleeps with three dummies, one in her mouth and one in each hand - use uses the rubber bulbs to rub her closed eyelids with (look don't even ask, I have no idea why she does it!!). All I can say is that I am hopeful because she hasn't even asked for a dummy since she got her earrings so I hope this is the charm that works. She has started having some dry nights too and I can finally see the end of the baby road for us. The finality will be complete when she is dry at night and we don't need to buy Pull-Ups any more. I think I will be a bit sad that day because for the last 11 years I have always had a baby in my house or know that I would have another one but this is it for us. The money just doesn't stretch and I'm pretty sure the patience and the sanity wouldn't either!

So today Babe very kindly offered to host a morning tea for our food intolerance group at her house and we had a nice relaxing morning chatting to other mums about their kids and the various food issues they have. The house was full of little kids but surprising everyone was well behaved and played nicely. Then I had a chance to get another page done and used the My Mind's Eye Magnolia range. I've been lusting after these papers for weeks now and they were so much fun to use, quick too. I put together a layout with the Girly Girl (see above)range in about an hour, even with lots of cutting out with a craft knife. Cyberscraps is getting this range in the next week or so and I can't wait to get more of the sets. All very beautiful and so many cute little bits and pieces to go with the papers too. If you liked Bohemia then you will go crazy for Magnolia!!

I'm off to get some more typing done tonight and maybe catch up on a bit more sleep! I hope you've had a great start to your week.

Her Royal Highness wants piercing already!

This week for some unknown reason HRH has latched onto the idea of having her ears pierced like her bestest friend in the whole wide world, Miss Lil. Now Miss Lil had hers done when she was a baby so there wasn't a huge trauma issue involved there but with HRH I'm not so sure. We've tried to explain that it hurts to have your ears pierced and how the lady at the chemist has to make a hole in her ear that isn't there right now and that it might be ouchy. She says its okay to be ouchy so she can have her pretty earrings like Miss Lil, like Aunty Cassie and like Mumma. She she appears quite convinced. I did think it was something that would pass after a day or two but she has talked about it every day this week and even had one of her kindy teachers draw earrings on her earlobes with a felt pen yesterday! She was so proud of herself and strutted around the loungeroom holding up her long hair, flashing her earlobes for everyone to look at.

While I don't particularly care if she gets her ears pierced, m,y only real concern is that the chemist lady will do the first one and then all bloody hell will break loose. HRH is a feisty one even in her quietest moments and has a violent temper and a will of iron. If she decides after the first ear gets done that it is too ouchy then I can't imagine an army could force her to sit down and get the other one done. So luckily on Cass's advice I have found a chemist that does "double piercing" which means basically there will be a chemist lady on each side of her and they will pierce both ears at the same time so she will only have to go through the shock and horror once. I can imagine the outrage when she realises how much it actually hurts but like most things, she gets over all kinds of disasters pretty quickly and doesn't usually let a little thing like pain stop her. So maybe after her friend's party tomorrow we'll go and get it done. Fingers crossed the chemist shop is still standing when we're done though......

Sooooo tired but no time to sleep

It has been a really busy couple of days workwise and I sat up until almost midnight last night trying to get the number of letters down so I wouldn't have as much to do today. I even held out some vain hope that I might be finished by dinner time tonight. A 4am start did help the cause a bit but I'm sure a lack of sleep actually makes me work less efficiently when I am awake even though I have a few more hours to work in. I had to go out today and pick up a birthday present for HRH's friend's party tomorrow and I got her a summer dress that doesn't require ironing and will actually be clean when she puts it on. That will only last as long as her first meal though - maybe I need to invest in ridiculously expensive washing powder because most of her clothes now seem to have stains of some description on them.

So here I am and back at my desk. I was hopeful until I came home to see that there are now close to 80 letters again as some doctors were busy dictating while I was out. So I decided to take half an hour for some Dr Phil that didn't motivate me enough not to eat the pie I had bought, and a much needed but not nearly long enough nap. There is also a dog across the back fence that has barked so long and so persistently this afternoon that I think I'm going to throw over a packet of biscuits if it will just shut up. Of course the more it barks the more it ticks off the neighbourhood dogs who I'm also sure are just saying "shut the f@#!k up would you!!!".

Oh I forgot, I should probably mention scrapping at some point considering it's my main passion in life but when I don't have time to sleep because I'm working, my scrapping is taking a very sad backseat at the moment. Mondays' at Cass's place seem to be the only time I can designate for getting layouts done which is just criminal and makes me feel that as a design team member I'm not working as hard as I should be during the week. I've tried harder this week to be in the CS forum and post and reply as much as I can but the forum, like the blog I'm doing now, as you can see, distract me from actually getting my work done so I will bid you adieu fair reader and post over the weekend when hopefully I will have had more sleep, less work and maybe even a layout or two under the belt! Have a good one!

Family Circle could have chosen a better verb

I'm sitting here trying to type while Doug admires the cover of the xmas edition of Family Circle (bought only because I don't have a "proper" wifey bone in my body and don't know how to do things like xmas dinners, stuff a turkey or artfully arrange the table with plastic baubles and bullshit my kids will only throw around the room like ammunition later anyway). So he likes the Mini Oozing Chocolate Puddings. Maybe it's just my background of working in administration in the hospital/medical field but from where I'm sitting, anything that oozes is never, ever good. So they like oozing as a verb for their puddings but all I can think of are the ghastly descriptive adjectives that usually accompany that word - things like festering, purulent, gangrenous, infected, eroded, eaten away, rotting.....I'm sure you get the picture (sorry about the bucket moment but it has to be said). To clarify a little more, I work for a group of gastroenterologists and when you spend all day hearing about what goes on down people's throats and up their bums, well quite frankly, oozing has never turned out to be a bonus in anybody's diagnosis yet.

So thanks Family Circle for completely putting me off your mini puddings with a poor choice of verb. I could have handled gooey, sauce-filled, surprise or even molten chocolate centre but NOOOOOOO you have to go and use that other word.

Maybe I can use a liquid paper pen to make that word disappear so I can focus on the "mini", "chocolate" and "puddings" that I was interested in to begin with!

Yellow Wiggle hands over the skivvy

Doug just rang to tell me that Greg Page, the yellow Wiggle, has just announced his retirement from the group due to what I found out a little later in the conversation was a chronic heart problem which is not life threatening but means that he will have to cut back on strenuous activity to manage the symptoms of.

The pants-wettingly funny explanation Doug gave me was "he's had to stop being a Wiggle because when he dances and sings he passes out". PMSL!!!!! I laughed so hard for a minute I couldn't even answer him. There was this ridiculous soundtrack running through my mind of "Wake Up Greg" as he lies pole-axed on the stage and small children look on in horror while the other Wiggles just laugh and smile and call for the Big Red Ambulance!!!!

It is one of those horrible moments where your brain just laughs at the absurdity of something, not that having a chronic heart condition is by any means amusing, I think it was just the context Doug delivered it in.

I've discovered that there are some things in this life that you have to have a good cackle about because they are so depressing, awful, ghastly or gross and if you couldn't find a funny side to life these days then you'd probably be needing medication for some kind of depressive disorder.

Depressing - I want to go on a holiday but we really can't even afford to stay in a caravan park for a week and I bet if I asked if we could just bring our own cardboard box then we wouldn't be able to afford the site fee!

Awful - the fact that the lougeroom is a tip again after only cleaning it yesterday. Someone said that trying to keep a clean house while you have kids is like trying to shovel snow while it's still snowing (so true!)

Ghastly - Her Royal Highness having the biggest screaming, dribbling, snotting, crawling around on the floor, head-banging, coughing, vomiting tantrum of her entire life because her Dad had to take her to the Men's toilet (Yes Redbank Shopping Centre 2nd floor - shame on you for only having a "mothers room" in the Ladies toilets) and - wait for it - he would not let her stand at the trough and wee standing up!!! Tantrum lasted for an hour overall and she still WOULD NOT WEE in protest so at least I've learnt she has better bladder control than she is letting on!

Gross - Mr James using the bathroom for number two's and after hearing much grunting I come in to ask if he is okay only to be told in a completely calm and rational five year old's voice "Yeah I'm fine Mum, this is just what I do to make the poo come out. You should try it some time. You squeeze your tummy. It hurts a little bit but it works for me" After a moment I quietly leave the bathroom and vow never again to ask how he's going whilst using the facilities.......

See, you have to laugh......you know, that same laugh people have as they're carried away to the NUT HOUSE!!!!! lol

Still behind the 8 ball and weird light outside

Didn't get much at all done yesterday afternoon as storms moved through and disrupted power to the remote server I get my work from. That wasn't fixed until 10pm last night so suffice to day I didn't feel like typing then!

I optimistically thought I'd get up at 4.00am and start work but there are some very weird meteorological things going on outside - the light outside is very yellow and I'm finding it a little disturbing! Apparently the moon is still up if you can see it behind the clouds and it is red. Now THAT'S even more disturbing. Cass has taken some pics so I will try to borrow and upload one later.

So all in all a weird day where I still have to get more typing done in the day than I actually have hours to complete it so I'll off.

Have a great day whatever you are doing!

Uninspired page calls

There have been some really great page calls lately from SM, FK and SC but the new ones are doing nothing for me. I've never been very big on punches and I guess I don't really love the traditional categories like Mother's Day although SM have accepted one I did about my mother which I don't really love. The one I did love about my experience of motherhood didn't make the grade - too much journalling I'm guessing and the pic is a tiny bit out of focus but I wanted it that way - but it's still my favourite anyway out of the two. I can't post the one that got accepted but suffice to say it will be in SM in April (?) maybe, in time for Mother's Day. I'll happily post the loser here though. Maybe I love it because it's such a striking picture of Her Royal Highness and it brings out all the warm fuzzy mama love feelings when I look at it. Lord knows I need as much of that as I can muster to love her through each new destructive day!!!

FK want multiple pics and I haven't really gotten the hang of that either. I'm most definitely the "hero picture" scrapper, and that's what virtually all of my layouts are about. I very rarely use more than one picture unless I'm really forcing myself for a particular reason (see "The Beach Is Calling" layout above) and then I think it doesn't leave me enough room to embellish the way I want to so I'm never entirely pleased with the result. This one's also a no-go from the big three so off to an album it goes....

I took some very good advice from Lusi Austin (amazing and very talented and most importantly totally original scrapper) to get into the habit of submitting everything and so that's what I've done. Admittedly it has brought more success than just focusing on the page calls alone and pages have been picked up for categories that I haven't even seen advertised as page calls yet, or they have made it into sections like Final Encore, Quick Grabs, etc that don't require a particular theme. There is a cute blinkie somewhere that says "Just Keep Submitting!" and it's absolutely true. You have to perservere and just keep plugging away at it. Be prepared for the mags to take some layouts you don't really love as much as others, and brace yourself for them to reject pages you truly love and think are amazing. Funny business this getting published, you never know what to expect! I'll mutter something here about nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!!

And keeps getting better.....

And then she pulled a crossbar from my mother's antique rocking chair which is now in pieces, AND THEN, she threw a cup of cordial all over her brother, AND THEN she tipped a vase of flowers all over my side of the bed, soaking it all the way through to the mattress and throwing the flowers all over the floor, AND THEN she tipped a socket set all over the hallway floor that she had gotten out of Daddy's toolbox (which is never locked but should be) and then she decided her baby dolls were all naughty so put them in time out all around the house for me to have to gather up and return to her bedroom and she threw a footstool at her other brother, and threw water all over the bathroom floor during her bath, and over Daddy too by the way!

AND THEN GOD FINALLY DECIDED WE'D HAD ENOUGH PUNISHMENT FOR ONE DAY AND SHE FELL ASLEEP!

See I told you the night was young!

Just to add to the joy of the evening Her Royal Highness has thrown the world's biggest box of cotton buds all over the hallway floor because playing with her dolls wasn't nearly as exciting!

Here's the damn tree finally!

Took a few weeks but we're finally done, and by 1 December too I might add!

Get Real Challenge (unknowingly providing myself with a topic!!)

Well I vowed to get a topic up today and inspiration hit at 4pm after what has not been much of a good day here.

I've had Her Royal Highness throwing wobblies all morning over a stray can of lemonade chockers with preservative she found in the fridge and wanted to drink (it may have been quieter and less wobbly if I'd just given it to her and let kindy deal with the fall out!), my 9 yo left his bag at home and thus had to ring his Dad at school to organise him some lunch, I sat down to work today to the equivalent of an entire week's worth of work already and it's only Tuesday morning, the dictation system wasn't working AGAIN today so was late with all my procedures up until about 10.30am, discovered that Her Royal Highness had pulled the toilet seat off before she left for kindy, revealing some kind of germ theme park going on underneath so that was a pleasure to deal with, phone call from school because the 11yo is sick and needs to be picked up so DH has to leave work early (which will end up being unpaid) to collect him, the MIL has her hand out for petrol money cos she pissed her last $20 up against the wall at bingo, she's now coming over for dinner, I haven't had a chance to do any house cleaning at all today, I did claim a precious 15 minutes to finish decorating my christmas tree (finally and pics will be up shortly) and now I'm going to drag something from the frosty depths of my chest freezer for dinner that DH can whack in the oven, I'm going to pour myself a Jack Daniels and Coke Zero and I'm going to get stuck into all that bloody typing!!!!

I'll get to actually doing the layout for the challenge when I get just a little bit of breathing space, probably at mightnight! lol Besides, don't want to jump in too soon because after all, it's only 4 o'clock and so much could go to shit by the time I get time enough to get the scrappin stash out!!! Trust me, I am laughing as I relay all of this because what else is there to do? Don't get me wrong, I didn't design the Get Real challenge to depress people because while my life is continuously busy, stressful and lurching from one disaster to another, I actualy really love my life. After all, I haven't seen a comedy/tragedy as good on TV yet!!!!

Well it's a start I guess!

I've been watching some blogs every now and then for a while and thought about how much fun they looked. It only occurred to me in the last week or so that I could make my own blog. I usually have a million things going on in my head and I figure that if I have somewhere to "download" all the junk flying around in there I might actually be LESS scatterbrained for it! So consider it empiric therapy - for the brain, for the soul, for me as a whole. I'm going to assume I send you a link, dear reader, dear friend, if you're having a look at this welcome note, but if you stumbled across me by accident, I promise it will get better!!! It, like me I guess, is a work in progress and considering that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, so I guess I don't know what my wee blog will grow up to be!

Thanks for dropping by, I'm glad you've come for a looksee!