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!