Scattered Scrap

Stuff2Scrap November Challenge

2011-11-04T09:13:00.004+10:00

Finding the time to scrap can sometimes be really hard in my house but I'm slowly learning to make time, because existing without creating is like a life half lived and I really feel like I'm missing a piece of me when I'm not scrapping. So I'm happy to be involved with Stuff2Scrap and their creative team and this month it was my turn to set the challenge for November. I chose:

(1) Paint - but wait! No brushes, sponges, etc. Use your creative hands to get paint onto your layout.

(2) Stacked chippie! This is a great way to use up varying sizes of the same design or combine totally different chipboard patterns, pieces and styles to create something new.

(3) Song lyrics - these can either make up your title, your journalling, or just a line on the layout somewhere. Any song you like is fine, from nursery rhymes to your favourite rock anthems!

For my layout I used watered down acrylic paint, stacked Stuff2Scrap chipboard hearts in varying sizes, inked, painted and glimmer misted to give contrast, and used the title "We Are Family" for my song lyrics. I've also used red mesh from a bag of oranges, a jumbo playing card from a deck I bought from the Reject Shop, "vintage" postage stamps I bought from the fleamarket ($3 for about a hundred), and a couple of old book pages. The paper itself was from a pack I bought at Kmart for $3. There's also a cardboard tag I cut out from a box and ripped the top layer off to reveal the corrugated cardboard underneath, plus a couple of black bobby pins, two polka dot buttons (thanks again Reject Shop!), a couple of metal washer thingies I had in my stash and some cheap red flower ribbon ($2 from a discount shop). Don't ever let anyone tell you scrapping has to be expensive lol I've learned to look everywhere for scrap supplies as you can find them in the most unexpected places. Discount stores, sewing/quilting shops, fleamarkets and thrift stores can be the most awesome places to find things and I love discovering stuff that I won't see everywhere else.

I'm off again but I'll be back hopefully soon with some pictures of Miss Indi to share. I've uploaded a few on Facebook but the blog here is more than a bit neglected. I definitely need to take to it with a brush cutter, a whipper snipper and a lawnmower to get it looking nice again lol

Cheers, Lu xx

In the infamous words of Van Halen....

2011-07-12T20:53:00.002+10:00

Here I go again!!! As you can see, there is a picture of a very gorgeous baby to the left. This is our latest arrival - Miss Indiana Ayla Benson, or Indi for short. For those who are long time readers, you will know that our very challenging (being polite here) 7yo has kept us more than a bit busy for a good few years now but as she has settled a bit, matured somewhat and we have found better strategies to deal with her, we have turned our attention to expanding our family. I have always felt there was "someone waiting", a prospect that has always excited me and terrified Doug, he believing we may end up with another child just like Caeligh. We love her to pieces but OMG she is hard work and definitely high maintenance lol Anyone with an ADHD child knows that it is a 24 hour a day job so we thought long and hard before deciding to pursue the "someone waiting" theory. My Dad was very ill last year with a life limiting illness that required surgery to reverse the damage. He was in hospital for weeks, went through a gruelling 8 hour surgery and had to stay with us for weeks afterwards until he was well enough to come home. Like so many things, as soon as we stopped thinking about trying for a baby, I realised weeks after Dad went back to his own home that I had skipped an important visitor! We were petrified but thrilled, and also apprehensive about peoples' reactions to our soon to be family of five, especially when a couple of our kids already have issues. On the whole, most people have been really good. We still get lots of "oh, you must be very busy" and the like, which is fine, because we are, but the reaction from the world in general has been great. Indi is a wonderful bub and she is very casual and easy going, which I think she somehow knows she needs to be to fit in with everyone else's chaos here lol! So I'm back to having a boob with a view, and a beautiful view at that. The kids all love her to bits and I can't imagine life without her. She's almost seven weeks now.

What else has been going on? Doug's mum fell ill very unexpectedly in April. We thought she was managing at home okay by herself at nearly 75 but it turns out this has not been the case. She ended up requiring a pacemaker and staying with us for a few weeks afterwards before we moved her back to her house, which was unfortunately in a state of unhygenic disrepair and mess due to her dogs. Yup, she is one of those "crazy dog lady" types that has her dogs living in the house, doing what they like where they like and because she has no sense of smell, the place, to me anyway, was virtually inhabitable! Doug has resigned from work to be her carer as it is clear she cannot manage the home alone and the cognitive problems that became shockingly apparent when she was in hospital have just continued to snowball. It's very sad as only a year ago she was completely independent, driving, managing her finances, etc, and now she cannot remember the day of the week and she is inclined to cut her own hair and leave the gas stove on if not supervised :( It won't be an easy road from here but we'd like to help her stay at home for as long as is safe and practicable so that's our goal right now.

Is there anything actually scrap related, you ask? Lol...well no, not really! I did put most of my stash into storage a couple of months ago, when we moved to stay with Doug's mum for a few months, so I've had to start purchasing a few things so I can scrap again. What is that saying?
"I, myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions". I have never lost the desire to scrap or the inspiration to do so...it's always there I think, once you've been bitten by the scrap bug, but life gets in the way for many of us and for some of us, life just becomes overwhelming, with so much else to do that scrapping becomes a preoccupation for the mind but not for the hands...In the last three months we've moved house, put our whole life into storage, had a baby, become carers for an elderly Alzheimer's patient, I've continued to work, Doug has retired to become a carer for his mum, we've battled with his sister about what's the best thing for his mum, and we've continued to try and keep some semblance of normalcy and routine for the kids as best we have been able to. Not easy but important!

Our kids have managed better than I could have imagined with all of the unavoidable upheaval. Blayd is now 16, a strapping 6'5" almost-man who has just started learning to drive (yes, that is fear you hear in my voice!!!), Lachlann has gone through a very rough patch in the last six months, with aggression, anxiety, rebellion and misbehaviour being the order of the day for quite some time but he is now finally settling down (thank God!!!), James is enjoying living here at Gran's house and is slowly weaning off his sooky-la-la ways, and Caeligh keeps on keeping on, a huge enigma of a girl, a puzzle of sharp wit, incredible intelligence, out of control behaviour and a few other things all thrown in. Needless to say, they all love having a new sister and it has brought a positive influence to our family which is most welcome....

I saw a challenge blog looking for a new DT recently and it is one that I had participated in very occasionally in the past, so was suddenly struck with vim and vigor to try out. I have all of three days left and have not started anything yet lol. I had to purchase supplies, and would like to purchase more (lol), and need to get some photos printed tomorrow if I have any time at all. I have no idea whether I will have any luck with my application. Hell, I don't even know if I will have any luck remembering how to successfully scrap. I'm sure I can throw together dog's breakfast if I need to but to actually scrap, the way I remember being able to?, that's a different story altogether. I've been buoyed by the kindness of my FB buddies who have encouraged me to get back on the horse, and I really want to, so I will find my self a couple of hours in the next few days, a couple of hours to see if I can find myself again in amongst all of the other things I do every day. I'm also amazed at the confidence others have had in me, even though I've been on what could only be politely called an "extended break" from the scrapping world. I have had offers of guest and permanent DT positions since I expressed my desire to get back into the swing of things and I am completely humbled and grateful for the confidence others have in my ability, even though they've seen no evidence of it lately. I think it's the faith of others that will push me back into scrapping far more effectively than I could ever push myself lol I feel like I've missed the boat a bit though, as if I'm behind the eight ball so to speak, as those who were my peers when I started scrapping and getting fully immersed into the industry are now moving onward and upward, delving into the beautiful world of mixed media, canvas and all kinds of new things, whereas I feel like I'm trapped in a scrapping time warp, like I have so much more to do with paper and glue before I want to leave the art and move onto something more adventurous. Only time will tell I guess if that's true or not, but it's how I feel now. I feel like a kid repeating a grade while everyone else has gone up a level....I always was a bit remedial lol

So right now life is busier than ever, nothing new there, but with a few different challenges for us as a family. Doug is, as always, amazing...he looks after me, our family, his mother, with all of the fierce love and dogged determination he has always had, and with an optimism that swaddles me in a cozy blanket of "everything really WILL be okay". That is a feeling that can't have a price put on it, that holds me up when I feel down, that surpasses everything else going on, and that really does give me comfort that we are okay; as a family, we are always going to be okay. He's not a blog reader but if he happens to have a peek, love you babe!

I guess that's my update. There would be a lot more if I was a better record keeper throughout the last tumultuous year. ASI magazine proved to be a commitment I couldn't keep, like so many, and I feel like I really let people down there. Back to the saying about good intentions.... All I can do now is have a look at where I am, look back at where I've been, and turn to the future to see what that will bring...and take it from there.

Lu xx

I'm great at keeping secrets...

2010-06-16T05:56:00.002+10:00

...cos I forget to come back and tell them lol!!!

This is the cover of the launch edition of Australian Scrapbook Ideas and I'm really excited to say I am a resident design team member for this fab new mag. That means that every issue I will be producing some hopefully great layouts plus lots of instructions, hints and tips so you can complete entire layouts from start to finish, as well as detailed info on where you can get your supplies from.

I'm very excited to be in the company of some truly awesome scrappers in this new venture - Jolene Pienaar, Mandy Collins, Cindy Porter, Jill Gerraghty-Groves, Barbara Shepherd, and of course, my bestie and partner in crime, Cass Glass!!!

I also have to give a big shout out to Tina, Robert and the team at Practical Publishing Australia for putting the new magazine together and for giving us all the freedom to create as we each do best. It's been a wonderful experience to be involved so far and it has really fired up the mojo which I haven't felt this much for a long, long time. We're looking forward to bringing something a little different to the Australian scrappers out there who are looking for that something extra. I know there are lots of opinions floating around out there as to what readers really want in a mag and of course we'd love to hear those ideas - they are what will help us to create a magazine that you truly love each and every issue! We want to give you cover-to-cover, can't put down, must go try that now reading that will send you to your stash in a flurry of creativity and hopefully inspiration.

If you were at the Brisbane Papercrafts Convention you may have had an opportunity to get your hands on an issue already, otherwise it goes on sale in newsagents on 17th July 2010. There is also a great subscription deal at Practical Publishing Australia's website that you can take advantage of.

I didn't end up going to the convention at all this year, which I really missed as there were so many girls I wanted to catch up with! Sorry especially to Nic - thanks for the phone chat the other week! and sorry Lou cos we didn't get our yearly photograph! We'll mebbe have to photoshop it huh? lol But life, work, kids and everything else gets in the way sometimes and circumstances can just bugger up the best of plans. I hope everyone who went had a great time though...I did live vicariously through your Facebook posts! lol I'm also sad that I didn't get to visit the Zenozam man who always has the cutest little acrylic jars of bling in all shapes and sizes that I love to use, and the clever people who bring the big plastic tubs of VersaColor and Brilliance Dew Drop inks that I can never get enough of! I think I see some online shopping in my future...

I've been working on a bit of off the page stuff, trying my hand at mixed media, but because I mainly have scrap supplies, it isn't technically mixed media yet lol I've decided that I need an entirely different stash of stuff for that so there's more hunting to be done. I have however done quite a few thrift shops lately and rummaged up some old 45 records in their paper covers, a few big LPs with nice album sleeve artwork, some vintage dress patterns, lots of habby stuff, plenty of old buttons, bits and bobs for my pages which makes me a happy girl. I've also been bitten by the hat and scarf bug so I've been picking up bargains here and there as I do my thrift shop trawling. If you're on the south side of Brisbane, some of the ones I've been to lately are The Salvos and Lifeline (at Woodridge, on the corner of Kingston & Wembley Roads), the big Endos store on Wembley (opposite KFC on the service road), there is a SVDP (St Vincent De Paul) and an ADRA up on the street that runs next to the train line - I can never remember if it is Railway Parade or Station Road, there is a huge Lifeline and Salvos superstores at Acacia Ridge, in Boniface Street (behind the big Tradelink/Stratco place on the corner of Granard and Beaudesert Roads), and some of the smaller shops like Aid for the Blind, the Asthma Foundation and RSPCA also have great thrift shops around the place if you google for them. There's also two in Watling Street, Springwood (opposite side of the road from Ikea - now there's a map reference we all understand!!!). There's always the multiple good shops on Annerley Road at Annerley to choose from, including that gorgeous huge antique shop that always lures me in even if I cannot afford to buy anything, and there's also Reverse Garbage at West End which I haven't visited in a while but am desperate to go back to. There are also quite a few thrift shops close together in Browns Plains/Regents Park too if you like to get to a few in one go. I'll take some pics of my finds and put them up when I get a minute, so you can appreciate the huge amount of tat and crap that I could not pass up lol

If you're a FB buddy, you'll be pleased to hear that while I'm not completely accepting of the crap life throws, I am (as a very wise lady did say to me) learning to catch and throw it back!

I hope you are all well and be sure to say hi if you stop by. I'll try to be a more faithful blogger now that the mag is out and I'm not quite so in the scrapbooking darkness anymore lol

Cheers, Lu xx

WHO LOVES ANNOUNCEMENTS?!?!

2010-03-31T14:06:00.004+10:00

lol well I do! I have had something in the works for a little while now that will hopefully get me fully back into the scrappy swing of things and back into creating regularly. Sometimes it is easy for life to get in the way of the things we love to do and unless there is a driving force, a particular reason or deadline to be met, our hobbies can tend to slide under the mountain of family, work and life in general. I've been busily instilling rota charts, behaviour charts and schedules into my home over the last couple of weeks in preparation for wanting and needing to dedicate more time to my scrapping because now I am scrapping with a PURPOSE! I'll be able to blab over the weekend when I have a bit more time to blog but for now I just wanted to say that I'm back in the saddle and happily creating, with more organisation, more free time to create and a quieter, more orderly home!

March has been a month of change here...and a month of injuries. Lachlann broke a bone in his foot while attempting to get onto his Ripstick (yes the skateboard thingy of doom!) so it was a six hour late night hospital wait for x-rays, crutches, etc. Just as we were about to leave the emergency room he vomited - he's my kid with the delicate stomach and I think the shock and tiredness just got to him. Doug got a lovely alkaline burn while at work which hasn't healed after two weeks still. The kids and I have all been through the regular change of season cold, as well as vomits, and a couple of weeks ago the ganglion on my left wrist swelled up so badly I couldn't type much at all and had to wear a wrist splint for a week and a half. It's all gone now and you'd never know it had even been there - until next time it decides to play up! Blayd is currently away on his very first "man camp". I call it "man camp" cos the chaplain at his school is taking a group of boys all 14/15 in age out into the NSW bush for four days of camping. It's designed to help the boys build self confidence, trust and independence and he was so excited to be going. They had to take everything - AND I MEAN EVERYTHING! - they would need to survive for the four days and had to carry it all themselves. Good thing he's fit lol He comes home tomorrow and I'm sure he'll have heaps of stories to tell.

We've been implementing the charts etc that I mentioned above and it is all going really well. I got most of the charts from a website called http://www.freeprintablebehaviourcharts.com/ and they kids have really taken to them. The best part is they have charts already made up that target some of childrens' most annoying behaviours. Lachlann has a "no arguing" chart and he gets up to three points each day for not arguing with Doug and I, with teachers at school or if we are going out anywhere. He's such a chatterbox and is one of those kids who must have the last word, usually as he is flouncing off to his room to contemplate the indignity and injustice of his life hehe He's done very well and I'm really proud of him. James has a "no tantrum" chart which I really need to print up for his teacher to use at school. He's much better there but it would be good to continue the chart there and at home for consistency. James has a gran who indulges him very much and folds like a house of cards if James so much as whines in complaint so we are giving her a chart to so she can help undo the behaviour she has helped to create! Caeligh has a "no hitting" chart for early mornings and evenings when her medication has worn off and she tends to go a bit feral and get aggressive. It's also going surprisingly well. I've also printed off vouchers for things like "one hour of tv time - you pick the show", " one 50 cent ice cream at McDonalds", "a date night with mum/dad" etc and they are good for rewarding a good day or a good week. I keep them on the fridge so the kids see them all the time. There are also certificates on the website to that I give out once per week for different things but all four kids get one for something they have done in the week. It reinforces that I did notice their good behaviour even if I didn't comment directly on it at the time, and hopefully they realise that sometimes rewards can come later for good behaviour, good jobs, etc, and that they won't need immediate rewards all the time.

We also created a job rota. In our house, because I work such long days and Doug does too, it can be hard to get the basic things done each day. On a busy morning, someone will forget to empty the dishwasher so I can't reload it in the afternoon, or something that needed to be washed hasn't been, etc. So we've made a decision as a family that all six of us are on the job rota, so that way the kids can't say that we aren't helping them (but as any of us parents know, kids have no clue how much work actually does go into running a household and family, and it's a lot more than will fit onto a basic job rota!!!), and we've scheduled all the usual tasks like taking out rubbish, emptying the dishwasher, refilling the dishwasher, rebooting the laundry (emptying the dryer, putting the wet stuff in the dryer and putting dirty stuff in the washer), sweeping the tile floors, vacuuming the loungeroom and bedrooms, folding clothes and putting clothes away. It also stops kids from complaining that "I did that just yesterday - it's someone else's turn!!!" cos they can see when they did a job and that someone else is doing it today instead of them. We rotate all the jobs each day - we all have one job in the morning, one in the afternoon and one after dinner - but it's still only 3 jobs a day each for the kids and so they don't feel overburdened. They have a supplemental chore sheet that they can do if they want extra pocket money, and they've discovered that if they properly complete their three jobs per day, Doug and I don't ask them to do anything else and they have lots more free time, rather than us always asking them to help get things done so they feel like they never get a solid block of play time.

One ongoing drama is the mountain of socks - with four kids there are never-ending battles to find pairs of anything, even when we have what I'm sure is about fifty thousand pairs of white school socks!! How on earth can nobody find a pair of those?!?! So I decided to turn the sock drama into a game. I sat Caeligh down on the floor, put the sock basket between us, loaded with dozens of unmatched socks, and we took half the basket each. I then told Caeligh we were going to play "Go Fish" with the socks. She would hold up a sock and ask me if I had the other one. If I did have it, I gave it to her and she got a point. If I didn't have it, she had to put it to one side and move onto another sock. We must have found thirty or forty pairs of socks in half an hour, all because it was a game and didn't feel like a chore! I'm a little bit proud of myself for coming up with that one. It's not often a child will ask if they can sort the odd socks lol

I'm off to have a play. I bought some really cool big square (like one inch!) black, red and green bling from one of the cheap shops nearby and I also had to buy the apparently necessary barrage of easter themed crap for decorating easter hats for school tomorrow so that ought to be fun! Maybe I can get away with a supervisory role for that job lol

Cheers, Lu xx

PRIMA! PRIMA! PRIMA!!!

2010-03-02T14:44:00.001+10:00

Big Secret Promotion Winners
And the winners are....
(Click on the purple curtain to reveal the names of our two winners from the Big Secret Blog post!)
You have 7 days from today to contact us at cari@primamarketinginc.com for your prize package.

If you don't have a blog, don't worry, you still have a chance to win.
That's Right! Prima is giving away two more AMAZING prize packages in conjunction with our BIG SECRET!
We want EVERYONE to have a chance to win so we are changing the rules a bit.
Please copy this write-up and link us on your blog, Facebook, or any other site that you frequent (please follow their TOU).
Then post here with a link to your blog, Facebook or site post for your chance to win BIG with Prima!
One US and one International winner will be chosen on Thursday, March 4th, 2010.
And we are getting closer and closer to revealing our secret-it won't be long now!
Just a couple more days of suspense!

Let's all face it girls - no matter how much Prima we already have in our stashes, there is always room for more of this divine stuff!!!

Cheers, Lu

Poking my head in for a quick hello!

2010-02-17T11:37:00.006+10:00

So here are a few shots from our family Christmas. It was an early start (isn't it always?!?!). Caeligh was in charge of the camera that day so these are all of her pictures, slightly blurry but taken with much excitement and pride at being the photographer for the day.

My nan was down in Brisbane after moving from Townsville and she got to meet my children for the very first time. This is my birth mother's mother whom I only met myself for the first time a couple of years ago. It was lovely to have her in my home and getting to meet all the kids. Caeligh felt instantly comfortable with her and even climbed onto her lap for a cuddle which is almost unheard of from Caeligh!

We had lots of family, friends, food and fun. The kids all loved their Nintendo DSs that they got, along with lots of outside toys like ripsticks and scooters. It was a long day with a mad cleaning frenzy at the end of it, instead of a relax, because we left for two weeks of holidays at Golden Beach at Caloundra on Boxing Day. Had a fantastic time, great unit with a full kitche, washing machine and dryer in the unit, the beach was across the street and so was the BBQ area. The kids could swim or fish. I think fishing has become our new favourite family activity. Instead of the usual bickering and sniping at each other, they all would get really excited when someone caught something and there were lots of pats on the back and congratulations. It was a nice change to see them being so supportive and encouraging of each other and thus it has become one of our new weekend activities to do with them.

Not a lot of scrapping going on but slowly doing a bit here and there. I did have a third layout but SM accepted it for pub so I can't put it up here for ages according to their new publication rules. It was nice to create something and I'm glad I haven't forgotten how to scrap! I'm trying to make a little time here and there for it, so even if I don't get something finished in one hit (which has always been my style), I can come back to it and work on it some more when I do have time.

School has been a big change this year. Blayd is now in Senior School so he goes from 7.45am to 1pm every day. I wish I had had hours like that when I was in high school! Lachlann is in Middle Schoo, James is in Upper Junior and Caeligh is in Junior School. She has settled down a lot at school but can still be quite the handful at home, especially in the mornings when waiting for her medication to kick in, and then in the evenings after it has worn off but otherwise, home life is on the up and up. We all still have our crazy days - hell anyone with kids will tell you the best behaved kids can have off days - but overall I'm glad we're back into the routine of school. We are going away to Caloundra again for the Easter holidays and Blayd's best friend is coming with us so the kids all have something to look forward to which I think helps as well. We'll also be going back up at Christmas this year for two weeks again. I can't believe how much we all enjoyed the break and how much we all needed it! I was very strict with myself and I only worked for two hours the whole time we were gone! Easter will be different but that's okay, all part of being self employed but I'm sure I will still have plenty of time to have fun with the kids.

I'll post some holiday photos on a new post as I have to get back to work now but I wanted to come and share those couple of layouts. It's nice to be scrapping again!

Hellooooo - is anybody out there?

2009-12-02T12:25:00.002+10:00

I have to say that since I am no longer immersed in the world of scrapbooking, I've found it very hard to blog as I figure nobody is really interested in the daily goings on of my house, my job or that kind of stuff so I haven't updated. The only scrapping I have done in virtually the last year *sigh* was entries for the local Mt Gravatt Show up here in Brisbane. I was thrilled with my haul, two firsts, two seconds, a third and a couple of honorable mentions. I even won two shop vouchers that I haven't even used yet - how's that for falling of the face of the scrapping world??? But all the same, it reinforced that I hadn't forgotten how to scrap which is at least something.

The typing business has pretty much become all consuming, very early days, the occasional late night and more weekends than I would like to admit. A newfound love of online shopping has also filled a bit of the void of scrapbooking, but not buying scrapbooking things. Cass and I made a pledge that we would not buy a single scrapbooking item until the beginning of January as we both have far more crap than we could ever use and the point of the hobby is not to buy, admire, imagine what could be done with the product and then shoving it in a drawer at home, never to see daylight again.

I have however made good use of eBay for buying new clothes for the kids. They all outgrow their things so fast that it can be hard to keep up and by the time they outgrow them, they really aren't in any shape for hand-me-downs either. Blayd is now six feet tall!!! I swear he has shot up a whole foot this year alone, and with his mop of curly hair and great "def" (muscle definition from hours and hours of karate), he's turning into one good looking young man. Lachlann is still waiting for his chance to catch up and being 12 now, I think it will be over the Christmas holidays that he starts to sprout. James and Caeligh are both quite slight and a bit small for their age but they too are still managing to outgrow things at a rapid rate. I've also bought Doug lots of techy type things, a watch that is a remote control for the TV, sunglasses with a built in MP3 player and the like. He loves toys even at his age. As for myself, I have always loved jewellery and I don't even care if it's not real. Junk is fine with me! I wear mainly silver except for my wedding band and engagement ring so I've been stocking up on silver (plated I'm sure) bangles, big bling rings, turquoise earrings and that kind of stuff. Better still is that I love the chase of finding what I want at the cheapest possible price!

So the update is super quick but I wanted to share a recipe as I'm going to magically morph into some kind of kitchen goddess over the next four weeks. We have a housefull for Christmas this year, the biggest Christmas I have had to cater for, and I'm trawling the foodie mags trying to find great recipes and things I want to try. I thought I would share one that sounds particularly good and probably not so good for the waistline!

Recipe for Frangelico Cherry Cheesecake

1/3 cup Frangelico (and some for the cook!)
3/4 cup caster sugar
400g fresh pitted cherries
1 x 360g Sara Lee French Cream cheesecake, thawed

1. Place the Frangelico and sugar in a small saucepan over low head and stir until the sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high and bring to the boil. Simmer for 2-3 minutes or until the syrup thickens slightly.

2. Add the cherries to the syrup. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes or until cherries soften slightly. Set aside for 30 minutes to cool. Transfer to a bowl and place in the fridge for 30 mins to chill.

3. Place cheesecake on a serving platter. Top with the cherries and pour over some of the syrup.

This sounds divine - courtesy of Australian Good Taste magazine December 2009 issue.

I figure you could replace both the liqueur and the cherries for whatever kind you fancy. Strawberries and Cointreau would be nice too I think.

So that's my update for now. I will try to post some of my layouts for the Mt Gravatt Show when I get a chance. I'm hoping that when the kids finish school, I will have more time to maybe break out a few supplies and see if I feel the urge to create anything. I can't tell you how much I miss it.

Have a great week and I'll try to be back soon, if anyone is still reading!!! lol

Love Lu xx

Happy Birthday Mikayla

2009-07-08T11:23:00.004+10:00

Happy birthday 11th Mikki Moo - we love you and miss you every day.

L xx

Sad Smack

2009-04-30T11:40:00.004+10:00

Firstly, big congrats to the new Kaisercraft DT girls - they will all do a fab job I'm sure and wish them all every success as they start on what will be a fun, creative journey.

Thank you to the person who emailed me to let me know about this:

You know the scrapping world has come to a shitty state when I got smacked on a smackblog for not doing enough work for Kaisercraft by someone who reads my blog, knows why I haven't been doing any scrapping and thus why I wasn't reapplying for the KC DT and smacked me for it anyway, while failing to mention why in their big, bad, anonymous blog post.

I even replied to it - begging for an even more thorough smacking no doubt! - because the world is full of people who love to make assumptions and don't even need a fraction of truth or knowledge to base them on.

For the record, if the anonymous world of smack thinks I'm an average scrapper, good for you. Funny how you never see them offer up their own work for criticism, isn't it?

Get a life. You suck. (not you guys, just the anon smacker!).

L xx

Anzac Day

2009-04-25T10:29:00.001+10:00

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them.

Lest We Forget.

WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU?!?!?

2009-04-20T15:13:00.004+10:00

I guess that's been the question if you've come to have a look lately....

To be honest, I haven't been in the best of health and am finally finding out what it means when I used to think I was sick like if I had a cold or a stomach bug or something compared to what I'm going through now.

Basically, I've had a few "weird" neurological episodes over the years, nothing huge, a couple of numb patches on my body, my eyes flicking and doing weird stuff and my spatial perception (that thing in your brain that determines if you have enough room to reverse your car without hitting anything) being on holiday. During one "episode" a few years ago I scraped the entire side of my van along the driveway gate because in my not quite right mind I swear it looked like I had plenty of room. Nobody was more shocked than me to hear that noise of metal scraping on metal, maybe except for Doug who looked at me like I was an idiot when I told him what I'd done. Lucky for me the van is a heap of crap anyway lol

So these neurological symptoms came for a few weeks at a time and would go again, with a few years in between episodes so I really didn't think much of it but after the van incident I did tell my doctor who arranged for a CT scan of my head which was totally normal (but at least I had picture proof that no matter how scattered I am, I DO have a brain!). Fast forward to last year as we were preparing to move. Life was stressful, crazy, full of dramas and I was working ridiculous hours right up until the move the week before Christmas. Around November I started to notice pins and needles in the fingers on my left hand. Odd, I thought. Didn't pay much attention. The numb patches I had always had started to get a bit bigger and new ones appeared, like having a shot of novacaine at the dentist where you can feel pressure on your face but the sensation is really dulled if you know what I mean? I also intermittently got the sensation of having something cold or hot on my left leg or arm but there was nothing there. I started to get really tired and run down and naturally assumed it was because of all the stuff going on in life so pretty much tried to ignore it all and took on an "I'll deal with it after the holidays" type of thing. I even went away for a few days with the fam to the beach and things settled down again. Excellent, I thought, clearly just needed a break...

Hit the fast forward button again to the first week of February. Here in Brisbane we had a full on heat wave that first week. My office, which technically is a carpeted formal dining room, is the only room in the house with no air con and no ceiling fan. It faces west and gets the afternoon sun from at least midday until the sun goes down and the temperature in the room was like an oven. As the week progressed I got more and more exhausted even though I was sitting at my desk the whole time. I started taking naps during the day because I was just so freaking tired. My ankles swelled up (my beloved cankles have thankfully left the building and I dearly hope they never return) and my blood pressure shot up as well which is unheard of for me. I am very proud of my rock solid 110/70 bp that never shifts, even when I'm hugely pregnant. I figured it was just the heat and the ankles were from drinking three litres of water a day cos I was so hot. So whinged and bitched and made Doug eventually put in the window mounted air con unit we had the garage which he had been putting off for a while as his computer sits right in the path of the big split system in the rumpus room. Sorry, Doug is normally a wonderful and very considerate guy but I don't think he got how unwell the heat was making me feel and it wasn't like he had to sit in that room all day sweltering.

I was so grateful for the air con but the exhaustion and fatigue didn't improve and I was finding it a bit of a struggle to get up at 4am for my usual starts. I also started getting the same other symptoms back with a big increase in pins and needles to the point where it was occurring all along my left side from the top of my head to my feet. My brain basically went to mush and I forgot how to spell things, forgot conversations mid-sentence, had trouble remembering the names of things and my left hand became fumbly and incoordinated, not great for a typist!!! I started having bladder problems with urgency and my left arm and leg started to feel a bit weak. I had an episode of a tremor in my right arm and tripping because my foot wasn't lifting high enough when I was walking, had an awful case of clumsy, dropping stuff, walking into doorways, walking into furniture, etc. Within a few weeks the tremor in my left arm had become what's called an intention tremor, it's only really noticeable when I try to use my left arm/hand to do something in particular, like pick up a glass or carry something. I started to get muscle ticks and jerks which don't hurt but are hugely annoying.

By this time I'm worried and get a referral to a neurologist who sees me within a week. I failed a few of the basic neurological tests they do, like close your eyes and heel-toe walk in a straight line, my reflexes were a bit off on my left side and the lack of sensation has spread to most of my left side. I had an MRI scan done of my brain and whole spine (reassuringly I still had a brain cos I was starting to wonder...) which was a bit scary actually. I'm not claustrophobic by nature but my gp gave me valium to take beforehand anyway. Really glad I took it. Anyway, upshot of the MRI was that it was "clean" meaning nothing obvious to see that would be causing stuff. I had a sleep study done and it turns out I sleep just fine. I had basic blood workups done and I don't have diabetes, high cholestserol or anything else for that matter except for slightly low B group vitamins. My neurologist is seeing me again soon but I don't know where we'll go from here.

So my days now are made up of sleeping longer, taking a nap at lunchtime, cutting back my workload because I just can't type as fast right now, and trying to get on with things in spite of all the weird symptoms still going on. My left leg weakness is bugging me some if I have to walk for anything more than a quick dash into the shops and I end up limping and exhausted as if my leg isn't strong enough to support me. So I made the decision to get a "spazz stick" as I call it, not having a joke at anyone but myself there either. The walking stick comes out if I know I have to be at the shops or walk any kind of longer distances, or if I have to stand for a long time. It's taken some getting used to and luckily some days are better than others and I don't feel like I need it so I don't use it. Other days I get so limpy and sore from just walking around that it goes with me if I leave the house for any reason. It feels a bit strange because to look at me, there's literally nothing you can see from the outside to explain why I'd need it and because the dr isn't sure what's causing it all yet I can't say "well, it's because I have ....". I figure it's better to give in and use the damned stick than to sit at home and not go out because I'm having trouble walking, which is the point I got to when I decided to go buy it after looking at them a few times already. I hope this is something that will either fix itself or can be diagnosed and treated and I can put the stick in the garage until the kids need it for dress ups or a school play or something.

I'm not going to go so far as to say I'm messed up or scared because at least with my medical typing, I know that there are often solutions for the most minor of problems so I'm not really worried about what it might be (that being side, I was bloody relieved when the MRI didn't show anything ghastly like a brain tumour or something!), I'm just more concerned with getting it identified so I can get some treatment and get on with things. I don't have time for this crap lol

So that's where I've been, not scrapping, not blogging, not doing much of anything but trying to get by. I'm lucky that I'm good at denial and have mastered not thinking about things that upset or bother me. I'm now pretty used to the pins and needles stuff and the other symptoms. They've been going on for almost three months now and I guess I've gotten used to all the strange sensations and things that happen. I'm starting to think of this as my new "normal" but it hopefully won't stay that way but to worry constantly, to fight every symptom and focus in on it just makes things harder, not easier, and I haven't got enough room in my head for that. All in all I'm pretty optimistic, I'm not scared of what the future will throw at me and whatever happens I know I'm going to be okay. I'm stronger than I know and I think most people are. They just don't know it until something happens and they make it out the other side pretty much okay, or as okay as they can be.

So, super quick round up of life in general whilst all the above crap has been trying to get in the way....

Doug has been wonderful, doing most of the housework and being a wonderful husband and dad as usual. I know he sounds too good to be true and so many people have "sunshine and roses" blogs but he is just that great apart from being "zoned out" on his computer now and then and really I can't blame him as it's his relaxation time and he doesn't get much of it. He's a happy camper now the V8s and F1 have started up again.

Blayd went to his second National All Styles Tournament for the year yesterday and came home with a third place trophy in points sparring and a first place in continuous sparring. I'm really proud of him but he looks like crap with bruises all up and down his arms. The big boys (the black belts) don't hold back....

Lachlann is LOVING his dance classes and eagerly wants to add tap and hip hop to his weekly jazz and ballet classes. It means the world to see him come home after class with a huge smile on his face. It has done wonders for his self-confidence and I believe he's truly found his "thing". I have no idea if he's any good at dancing as he's only just started but he's a very emotive child, my deep and mysterious one, and so as long as it makes him happy then that's how long he'll be doing it I guess.

James has been busy doing lots of drawing and much watching of Avatar (a cartoon) supplemented with plenty of Sponge Bob. He's having a "difficult" stage right now where he is having trouble giving up the screeching, choking, roll around on the floor tantrums when he doesn't get his own way. He's always been fond of a bit of drama but at nearly 8 it's getting beyond a joke so we're trying a few parenting strategies to deal with that one. I think he's feeling a bit left out of things so we've been trying to do more one-on-one stuff with him.

Caeligh has adjusted to school life remarkably well and she has heaps of friends already. Her ADHD medication is the best thing we've ever done for her, giving her the opportunity to be just like any other child at school and improving her relationships with pretty much everyone around her. Her medication is a bit like Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage though - as soon as it wears off she deteriorates rapidly into her impulsive, uncontrollable behaviour so we've been keeping an eagle eye on the timing so we don't have that problem. She's now mastered cartwheels, handstands against a wall, and being able to flip over forward in a back arch type position. She's trying to learn to balance her weight to be able to bring her hands up one at a time to get full circle up to standing position again but I don't think her little muscles are strong enough just yet. Doesn't ever stop her trying though!!! She's also taken a keen interest in any kind of animal documentaries on TV so each night we sit and watch half an hour of something. Typically Caeligh though, her favourite ones are the dangerous animals, especially snakes, spiders, or anything that will kill something else. I figure at least it's educational.

As I said before, I've done virtually no scrapping at all save for the layout I've created to teach at this year's Scrapbook Expo in June. While I will no longer be on the Kaisercraft design team (I am not reapplying as I just don't know what my health will do and I'd rather they find new DT with passion, drive and plenty of time to promote the products) I will however be teaching in the Kaisercraft Classroom. The layout at the start of this epic massive post is the one I'll be teaching. The class description is on the website at www.scrapbookexpo.com.au in the Kaisercraft Classroom descriptions. Sorry the photo isn't better. I tried taking it outside, on Lola's rear bumper but it's not as great as I'd like. It's covered in bling, doodling, mesh, inking, layering etc and looks so much better in real life - I promise!!! lol The cropped photo will make it onto the expo's website this week. I'm teaching from 2.30-4.30 Saturday, Sunday and Monday and I'm looking forward to "plugging back in" to the scrapping world I feel like I've been out of for so long and catching up with people as I've really turned into a bit of a hermit, not going out and not ringing people etc. What's been going on has been hard to explain and I feel like maybe people won't understand anyway so I've kind of just withdrawn from the world in general a bit.

Anyway, this is my first venture back into the scrapping world, with the layout above and updating my blog. I don't have any real plans other than teaching for Kaisercraft at the expo and I'm going to be gentle on myself and not scrap unless I really feel the urge to, which is not often these days and let's just say that fine motor skills aren't my greatest asset right now anyway lol

I've missed you guys! I've missed documenting what's going on in my life even if nobody else reads it and I've missed feeling like a part of a community that I love so much no matter how infrequently I've been scrapping. I'll keep y'all posted on the health thing; wish me luck in finding out what's going wrong and how to fix it. I don't really feel like me anymore which is strange because I always said I didn't really know who I was but I do know now at least that this for sure isn't me and I'd like my old, don't know who I am self back please.... L xx

I have a lot of needs....apparently lol

2009-02-19T05:20:00.002+10:00

The mwahlicious Ngaire B tagged me on Facebook to play this game. You go to Google and type in your first name and the word "needs" in quotes so I typed "Lucinda needs" and got this:

Lucinda needs a husband, not a lover. (Shhhh, best not tell the husband I've already got lol)
Lucinda needs no introduction.
Lucinda needs to find a person who is as strong willed as she is.
Lucinda needs a lifestyle that allows her to be spontaneous.
Lucinda needs reading glasses.
Lucinda needs to turn 2 more or gain 48 more Werewolf points to reach the next level.
Lucinda needs her clinic (if there's one for me I'll gladly go lol I could use a holiday!)
Lucinda needs to come up with a spell to snag a guy (apparently I'm desperate but don't tell DH!!!).
Lucinda needs to talk.
Lucinda needs to toughen up.

Okay, so from what I can work out, I'm an infamous sex mad talkative yet sooky spinster who needs therapy and corrective lenses, who clearly likes to dabble in the odd game of Dungeons & Dragons....lol

Tagged by Mel K "25 random things about me" from Facebook (no I don't know how to link up all my technologies yet lol)

2009-02-17T15:39:00.003+10:00

1. I can only drive an automatic car.

2. I met my husband on the internet (lucky neither of us turned out to be an axe murderer!)

3. I am adopted but have met both of my birth parents and have an ongoing relationship with my birth mother and her family.

4. I start work at about 4.00am most days.

5. I hate ceiling fans because I don't like the feeling of wind on my skin; actually I don't like wind and really windy days make me cranky (not sure why).

6. I crave food in cycles and will want lots of one particular food for maybe three to four weeks at a time and it's rarely anything healthy.

7. I love to sing.

8. When I yawn, my saliva glands squirt so I *always* have to cover my mouth when I yawn (besides the fact that it's good manners lol).

9. In my job as a medical typist, I know the terminology for over 30 different types of medical specialties.

10. I am guilty of reading the smack blogs from time to time.

11. I barely scrapbook at all anymore :( but this week I gave up two of my transcription clients so that I can find time to scrap again because it makes me happy and keeps me sane.

12. I have never seen snow.

13. I have never left the country.

14. I knew it was a mistake to get married the first time at 19 and I did it anyway.

15. I hate exercise.

16. I have never managed to gain control of my weight (see above!) but I also have reverse body dysmorphia - I don't see how big I really am.

17. My favourite colour is red.

18. I hate public speaking and having to teach scrapbooking as I get very nervous and think people won't like me.

19. I have never dealt with the death of my mother when I was 19 - I have "ignored" it for 15 years but plan to start counselling this year as I have only just realised the magnitude of the effect it has on me as a person, even if I choose to ignore it.

20. I am trying to be a less materialistic person - yes I have a Pandora bracelet but I bought a nice bead for it from Spotlight for $5!!! I care about how things look, not how much they cost.

21. I constantly lose sunglasses and as a consequence only buy $10 cheapies as I'd kick myself for losing anything expensive - and besides, if I like them, I don't care if they only cost $10.

22. I believe that loved ones we have lost are still present in our lives, and that if you look closely, you will see the signs that they leave for us.

23. I don't consider a mobile phone a necessity.

24. I have ADHD (diagnosed when I was a kid) and am in the process of finally getting medication for it so I can function like a *normal* person. I feel sorry for my kids as I understand how hard it is to be scattered all the time but I am hopeful that, as has been the case with them, the medication will help me to be not so scattered and a lot more together.

25. My most favourite place in the world is on a beach, especially at sunset, and it feels almost physically painful to leave again to go home.

So there ya go!!! I don't normally do tags as I get so easily distracted by this stuff and my mind wanders from work and doesn't want to go back lol I figured I'd post it though because I love to read other people's random facts and maybe other people do too. No photos today but I am planning on scrapping tonight as I don't have any work scheduled for after dinner. YAY!!!! L xx

I are a BAD mama!

2009-02-11T16:13:00.000+10:00

This is a great photo of my eldest son, Blayd, who turns 14 in a few months. He's starting to get a bit of peach fuzz on the top lip, becoming a cranky "don't speak to me" teenager and is now as tall as me. He also as a wee hypochondriac streak which I know is an awful thing to say about your own kid but he does tend towards the dramatic when it comes to his health and will mention the same thing (whether it's a stubbed toe, a paper cut or a bruise) repeatedly, along with a description of how painful it is, to the point where I have to say "Yes, I can see that, you've told me already" and repeat whatever first aid directions I gave him the first time he told me what was wrong. As you can tell, there's not a whole lot of sympathy around here and I try not to let them obsess over little things. Don't get me wrong; if there's a serious injury, claret spilled, etc, then I am the protective mother bear to the rescue but I try not to let them sweat over the small things as usually once distracted, they just forget about it anyway.

So, when Blayd mentioned something last night about having a sore mouth, I admit I kind of brushed him off a bit. I said go brush your teeth then, thinking he might have something caught between his teeth, or a leftover from the sore throat he had on the weekend. It was one of those nights last night where Lachlann had dance class, I was working late, Blayd had karate and we had to fit in grocery shopping at some point. I wasn't especially focused last nght.

Blayd comes to me this morning, early and while I'm taking a phone call, and tries to tell me again that his mouth is sore and can I pleaes have a look at it for him. I say "yes, as soon as I get off the phone" but by then he's off making lunch, getting ready for school and I've started typing again.

He comes home this afternoon and casually wanders into the office while I'm working and asks if I want to have a look at his mouth now. I am full well expecting to see something caught between his teeth or maybe an ulcer at worst. What I do see is a very badly swollen and inflamed gum right up the back on the left - the poor little bugger has his first wisdom tooth erupting!!! Well now don't I feel like a shit mother?!?!?! It looks really awfully painful and I immediately thought back to when I had my wisdom teeth come through, about a year after I had Blayd actually, and I remember thinking I could understand why he cried so much when teething way back then - because it really bloody hurts!!!

So I've given him a panadol and asked him to rinse his mouth with warm salty water because it looks awful. I may go so far as to give him a Nurofen at bed time if it is hard for him to sleep. Honestly I don' t know anyone who got their wisdom teeth at this age!!! That's why I was thinking I would find something totally different. At least from what I can see it is coming through straight so that's one less worry. The one on the right is starting to push up too and I give that another week or so before it's as bad as the left. Thankfully there's no action up the top at the moment.

So there you have it - Crap Mother of the Day Award goes to me - yes, Lord, I promise to listen more carefully to my children when they bitch about things.....L xx

If you want to help...

2009-02-09T18:24:00.000+10:00

...by donating whatever you can afford to the bushfire victims I can only imagine how grateful those affected would be. I have seen firsthand someone I love lose everything but the clothes on their back in a fire and the devastation was incomprehensible but to see it happen on such a large scale, whole suburbs and towns...there don't seem words enough to convey the tragedy of it all.

If you would like to help, here's how:

To donate to the Red Cross State Government Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund:

* Visit www.redcross.org.au
* Phone 1800 811 700
* Any NAB, ANZ, Westpac or Commonwealth Bank branch
* Any Bunnings store
* By direct deposit to the Victorian Bushfire Relief Fund - BSB 082-001, Account number 860-046-797

Myer Bushfire Appeal
* All proceeds to the Salvation Army. Donate at any Victorian Myer store (if you live in Victoria).

The people of Victoria, the victims, families and emergency services staff are all in my prayers.

Kaiser Sneak Peek for February!

2009-02-08T11:25:00.000+10:00

How cute is this paper?!?! This is a sneak peak of just some of the new paper Kaisercraft has coming for February. I'll post some more pics as I get them. Can't you see this being a hit with the little fairy in your life?

Trying to keep up with photos!

2009-02-08T11:21:00.001+10:00

Only my two children would break into a near knock down, drag out fight over...a stick! A bit of a blurry action shot there.

This is "Fang" as I call him or "The Terminator" as the kids call him. He's a venus flytrap that sits on my kitchen bench. One seriously cool piece of Mother Nature's handiwork. The problem is the kids like to watch him in action so much that James will find deceased flies and try to feed them to him...ick. It's the equivalent of poking a lizard with a stick or something and I keep having to say to them "leave the poor plant alone!" lol

We get some amazing sunsets at the new place - the shot above is looking down the street and the shot below is looking up the street. Nearly all the sunsets here (on a clear day anyway) are that really beautiful golden light and all the trees and plants look hyper-green. It's great for taking photos of the kids or of just about anything really. I love, love, love the new place and it's become a little ritual to wander out the front at sunset most days and let the kids have a bit of a play in the front yard while I take a few pictures here and there. It's a small slice of happy, fun time in an otherwise hectic day.

This week I was literally sucked into the vortex that is Facebook. People have been asking me for ages and ages to get on there "because everyone's on Facebook!" but I've resisted for a long time as I know that I have the attention span of a budgie and I am really easily distracted. Working at home means having to constantly remind myself that even though I'm sitting at my computer and I may need to Google a medical term occaisonally or look up a doctor address, it is not then okay to just wander over to someone's blog for a *quick look* or check out a forum or a challenge blog, or *shamefully* catch up on the 99% meaningless gossip on the smack blogs or any of the other thousands of things I get distracted by on the huge, enormous place called the internet. I really struggle to maintain my focus and that just goes with the territory of working at home. So I figured Facebook would be another place that would sucker me in and eat up an hour or two of my day in what feels like only a few minutes - and it is!!!! So if you got one of my friend invites this week that claimed I was being sucked into the vortex, too late, I'm in....but I'm trying to do it in small, manageable bites lol I'll be one of those FB'ers that...like my blog...I get into for a couple of days and then don't get back to for a week or more only because I've found a way to drag myself out of the vortex for a while and get some work done lol But I am on there now so if you want to find me I'm listed as Lucinda Benson but my maiden name is Griffin. I haven't done anything exciting like created a nice, arty wall, haven't sent anyone an imaginary gift, drink, hug, kiss or crush, and haven't dared go near the games because that would just be the end of my working day if I did! I do however have all my friends on RSS feed so every now and then I get a little window on the bottom of my screen while I'm working that tells me the latest "what are you doing right now" thingy for whoever has posted one recently. The problem is that it would be so easy to just spend hours on there writing on everyone's walls, getting into networks and keeping up with everyone so I'm going to resign myself to doing "Facebook Lite" which is me getting on when I can and not letting it eat into working hours.

Work has been really crazy busy this week with all my clients having more work than usual to be done. Not entirely sure why it has all happened in the one week but I've been working 14 hour days to keep on top of things and I'm hoping for a quieter week this week!

The kids have had a busy week with Lachlann starting Jazz and Ballet this week which he was really excited about. Lachie is my one in the middle who tends to kind of float along and seems to just miss out sometimes so a big thanks to darling Cass who rang and reminded me that classes started this week when I otherwise might have forgotten in the midst of toothaches and masses of work. Blayd tried out for the school cricket team for the district comp and got in so he's a very happy camper as he hasn't made the cut the last couple of years he has tried. Now he wants a new cricket helmet, new bat, new gloves, yadda, yadda, yadda.... James is planning on starting Auskick again soon when it restarts at school. He's only small for his age and last year I think he and his friends spent more time chasing each other and talking in the in goal area than actually playing AFL but he seemed to enjoy it so he's going back again this year. Friday night Caeligh wanted to learn how to do a handstand after successfully teaching herself cartwheels over the Christmas holidays. Honestly within an hour of me showing her (well not literally, mama is a bloody long way from doing handstands and any attempt may well result in hospitalisation!!!) how to do them by holding her feet and then telling her how to do them up against a wall so she will have something to balance against, she had them down pat and was so proud of herself. I was proud of her too - I can't believe how fast she picks things up. So yesterday she went for her first gymnastics lesson which she absolutely loved! They did some circuit work in the gym room, having to do different exercises on all the apparatus like the parallel bars, uneven bars, springboard, balance beam, trampoline and vault. She mastered it all quickly and had the best time. Then the most fun of all was the rope climb. The gym room is two stories high as there is a viewing gallery above the main room for spectators to watch and the rope hangs from the very top. She was in a class with up to 7 year olds so she was the youngest one there. When it came her time to climb the rope, she was up it like a shot, nearly all the way to the roof and without an ounce of fear but the biggest silly grin on her face lol I sat and watched as she did all these climbing, balancing things that if she did anywhere but in side a padded floored gym they would be dangerous and thought about how funny it was that the teacher was telling her to do all the things I have spent her whole life telling her NOT to do because I was frightened she would hurt herself. Funny how she never has though, despite all the things she has gotten up to the second our backs were turned. So gymnastics appears to be her thing and she can't wait to go back next week so she can climb the rope again. I just have to keep a close on her during the week and repeat the age old sentiment "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!".

Hope you're all having a good weekend! Cheers, Lu

Trying to keep up with the pics and Kaiser winner

2009-02-01T13:38:00.000+10:00

So I'm trying to keep up with the pics for the year so I'm playing catch up from Friday - you know me, there'll be lots of catch ups lol Naturally these pics aren't in order because Picasa has decided what order they go in and not me! So the pic above and below are from yesterday. I babysat my niece and nephews (Cass's son Ronin and daughter Lily, and Kris but he doesn't need babysitting, just company) yesterday while Cass and Kelly went to a movie. Ronin found Jamie's rollerskates and wanted to use them so we strapped him in and he was off like a shot, a real natural! I asked Lily if she wanted to use Caeligh's rollerblades so both of them were cruising around the house in no time. Last night was quiet at our place as Blayd and Lachie are with their dad and James and Caeligh went to gran's for a sleepover so Doug and I had the place to ourselves. The pic below is a present Doug got me as an early Christmas present - he knows how much I love to sing, in the shower, in the car, anywhere at all really. There are some great songs on there, recent stuff too as well as older stuff. Out of consideration for hour neighbours we made sure all the doors and windows were closed lol

The cleaning bucket is looking at me today, knowing that it will get its workout tomorrow morning once the kids are off to school. Damn Cass and her cleaning bucket - it's become a real fixture and with everything in one place I know where to go when I need something and it does make getting the cleaning done a bit easier. I'm not a Domestos addict yet however...I can't stand the smell that you can't get out of your nose for hours.

Below is Friday's picture, not a great one but one that I see everytime I look out my office window. We have pebbles all up one side of the house where it's too narrow for grass but it doesn't stop the weeds that have sprung up like...um...well like WEEDS!!! lol Apparently it's our responsibilty to spray regularly so the weeds don't take over but it's been raining all week and there doesn't seem to have been one totally dry day so far lately to go out and do it so the jungle continues to flourish.

What I didn't get a chance to take a pic of was the name Caeligh randomly picked for my Kaisercraft goodies which was Robyn W!!!! Robyn if you want to email me (there's a link on the left side bar) I can get your address and post your Kaiser goodies off to you.

I'm going to go get some typing work this afternoon - ugh. I've had a slow last few days because of yet another tooth abscess driving me insane. I've been chewing through Panadeine and anti-inflammatories and eventually caved in yesterday and went to the dr to get some antibiotics but they are slow to work this time so I'm still not entirely focused as there is a constant, low grade grumbling toothache going on all the time no matter what I take. I was going to get my teeth fixed as part of my Life List for last year but I just ran out of year! I do want to do it this year though - provided I can work up the courage to go to the dentist to get a quote!

I haven't done any more scrapping though have taken over the far end of my dining room table with a couple of baskets of necessities so that I can sit down when I have the time and urge and get something done. My office still remains like a storage shed for all of my other supplies and I can't bear to think of unpacking any of it until I know where it's all going to go, otherwise it's going to end up a huge mess and I won't know where anything is. I want to get to Ikea in the next week or two just to have a look at options and I'll work something out from there.

Caeligh and James have just come home so I'm going to go get them lunch and then show Caeligh the Gabriella Cilmi song "Sweet About Me" that we recorded on the Foxtel IQ last night from one of the music channels that does a karaoke segment on Saturday nights. It's the original film clip but a strip down the bottom with the words. She'll be quite excited as she loves the song so even though she can't read the words, she knows them all by heart anyway, and I'm sure she'll enjoy prancing around the lougeroom with the microphone. Maybe that'll be another photo for later today.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday, love Lu xx

Tagged by Lis!!!!

2009-01-31T18:50:00.000+10:00

I've been tagged by the lovely Lis and my challenge was to choose the sixth photograph in the sixth folder on my computer. This photograph was taken about a week before we moved from our old house. It was one of those afternoons with that really great late afternoon golden light, you know the ones I mean, where everything just photographs fantastically no matter what it is! Well this was at the beginning of sundown, just before the yellow light hit the backyard and I wanted some pics of Caeligh. She was sitting on the front steps and our poor cat, Towser, wasn't nearly fast enough lol Honestly all the cats should now by now that when they see Caeligh reaching for them they should RUN!!!! Anyway, she got him and clutched him to her like only a four year old girl with too much enthusiasm can. I did get one reasonable shot before this but it had to be the sixth picture so this is it - Caeligh trying to talk Towser into staying with her and Towser trying to get away....

I'm not a huge tagger, mainly because I find it hard to find time to do them "properly" and therefore feel I shouldn't burden another scrapper with something I usually can't manage myself but because I have found time to do this, I figure Jilly, Sue, Lusi and Ngaire should be able to do this as well. Love and respect you girls hugely, so I hope you take it for it's true intention - a compliment and an apology all in one!!! lol

Have a groovin' Saturday night! Lu xx

First Day of School (original title huh? lol)

2009-01-27T17:32:00.000+10:00

Well today was a big day in our house. Caeligh started Prep grade after many discussions about whether she could take her headband out at first break (no), whether she could take off her shoes when she got there (another no!) and whether I could just wait outside her room for her from the time I dropped her off until it was time to go home again (absolutely NO!!!!). She was happy enough this morning to get up, get dressed in her big long schoolgirl dress, put on her shoes and let me do her hair which is almost unheard of for my darling little feral who would prefer to run around wearing as little as possible, filthy and with rat nest hair if only we would let her. She did draw the line at piggy tails however, prefering a simple stretchy navy headband which she proceeded to lose by the time I picked her up this afternoon. She has that kind of "slippery" hair that just about every hair accessory known to womankind slides or falls out of within an hour. She's buggered now though as I don't have another headband and hers didnt' turn up on a quick scan of the classroom. Quite frankly it could be anywhere! I think we'll just have to write that one off and she will have to live with piggies tomorrow if she likes it or not. As far as I know, she does plan on going back tomorrow so her first day must have been okay and she got her medication on time so I believe the teachers are happy for her to come back as well lol

The boys were all dressed nicely, new shoes which none of them have scuffed up yet after the first day and Blayd and Lachie were happy to walk because we live so close to school now. They weren't happy about the first day of school book overload that they had to carry in their backpacks but apart from that they were all fine. James went to a new pod this year to make room for the new Prep kids and he likes his teachers and has his friends with him in his class. Lachie loves middle school and the sudden extra independence that he will have, and loves having his best friend in his pod with him, especially as they can walk home together too as his friend lives a little further away from school than us. Blayd is at the top of middle school this year, his last year before senior school. He was just grateful to access full size handball courts again after a six week break of having "totally nowhere to play at all". I had no idea handball was so important for sustaining teenage life but as a mama, what do I know?!?!? lol

It was a good start to the year and for me I now have all of my kids at school. Still haven't given that much thought as I've had work to fall into straight away when I got home from school this morning but boy was the house quiet. Cass walked over for coffee and we discussed our respective first day of school stories and I've been typing ever since (except when I bravely walked up to the school this afternoon to pick up the kids - I say brave because I am overweight, unfit and haven't been feeling the greatest lately so it was a slight shock to the system to walk a kilometre in the heat and back again but I figure it's a kind of forced exercise and I so desperately need some of that!).

So many posts in one day but I'm trying to establish a regular blogging habit so if you get email updates or anything, sorry!

The pic of the bag in the doorway I took just because I noticed it sitting there and thought it looked like a nice shot so call it my photo of the day for today.

I hope everyone else had a great first day back and that you all waited until you were out of the kids' line of sight before you did the happy dance!!! lol Cheers, Lu xx

Sorry about that...

2009-01-27T10:31:00.002+10:00

....the formatting in the post below is crap but I've discovered I can't format in Blogger for peanuts!!!!

Wicked Princess Layouts

2009-01-27T10:30:00.001+10:00

I promised and swore black and blue I would get these done so here they are! These are the layouts using the Wicked Princesses December Dragon Kit. It was full of great distressed, grungy papers and funky embellies so I had more than enough inspiration by the time I sat down to get it all done. For the first layout, I liked the star pattered felt that I even used the white backing paper as well! I did the same for the peel off backing of the bracket. Sorry for the photo glare on the picture...

This one below looks really yellow, as does the one after, because I was taking photographs on my kitchen table last night - hence everything has a slight red border (this one particularly so because it seems I can't crop for crap! I also didn't photograph very straight either! The colour on the photograph is just a result of sanding it. Some photos, depending on where you get them developed and what chemicals they use, will sand a nice reddish orange whereas I've had a couple sand a funny teal green on the edges too. I quite like the effect and it's a bit unpredictable but that's okay cos I don't mind surprises.

This photo I took at the Vodafone Triple 8 Racing open day last month. There was lots of bright things to take pictures of, shiny cars, metal and machinery but I saw these stacked up on pallets in the back corner of the driveway into the engineering workshops. I figured they were something from the wheels but I wasn't entirely sure and didn't actually care but they took a great photograph en mass, all stacked up and rusty looking so I snapped a couple of shots. I printed out the pic to see how it turned out and had it sitting in my pile of recent photos and it went so well with the papers I had in the kit that I decided to use it. The title is pretty much what I said to Doug as I busily matted up the photo. Apparently - and forgive me for not knowing! - but they are the brake rotors from Jamie Whincup's V8 Falcon that won the championship this year. They are the used ones from previous races throughout the year and I guess if he could have taken one home he would have to keep as a momento as Doug is very much a Jamie Whincup fan. Apparently brake rotors are important (well they were at the time they were being used!) so he was very happy with the photo and I learned something new about the mechanics of V8 supercars!

Wicked Princess February Kits

2009-01-23T17:39:00.003+10:00

Karen and Tam are all back down to business at Wicked Princesses and the February kits are now available! There are also some new things happening too from this month so head on over and have a squiz. It's hard to pick my fave out of them but I think Enchantress: Be Mine wins by a nose! After all it will soon be Valentine's Day and as I've discovered from recent years, if money is tight Doug truly does appreciate anything I make for him as a gift. He always takes things off to work and shows them around to his workmates which is really sweet. If you have a moment swing by here and have a look at the gorgeous new offerings for Feb and if you are still completely undecided, there is a fantastic Wicked Combo which includes three of Wicked Princesses' best kits for the month plus a card kit too for all the card makers out there. It's also a great price too with value well over the kit cost so would make a nice gift for someone in need of a stash boost or for yourself if you feel like a nice delivery from the postman instead of bills and junk mail lol

The whole project 365 thing seems so popular right now and while I can't say I have devotedly been taking a picture a day - unlike some of you who have been amazing and kept up to date so far - I have taken a few here and there but my lovely friend Jilly has been taking such great pictures that she got me thinking I should be a bit more dedicated so Jill, just for you, a photo! Not even a good one but a picture nonetheless. This is my Ikea double drawers that Doug and I

have on either side of our bed. They m

See that? Up there? The cut off end of sentence? That's all Blogger managed to save after I typed for half an hour! Wow have you missed some exciting stuff about Doug's bedside table and his lava lamp "mood lighting", having to take a jar of Vaseline to the shops to buy school uniforms and books, and my unfortunate affliction with cankles.

Blogger, you are truly ticking me off with your lack of ability to keep hold of what I've typed!!!!

I'm going to go put my cankles up on a couple of pillows on my coffee table and wait for the return of some kind of recognisable bone structure while I curse at at Blogger's crappy and ineffective auto-save feature which apparently - despite it's promising name - does not auto save anything. Ugh.

Kaisercraft January sneak peeks and a layout!

2009-01-21T05:28:00.002+10:00

Yes, it's a real live layout that I've done with my own hands. Almost feels like I'm not a scrapper anymore!!! lol This is a sketch that I did for Kaisercraft, not a sketch girl at all really but it was great for getting back into the swing of things after such a long break. It was nice not to have to sit and think it through and see what came but to create with a bit of a plan so I only had to work out papers, etc. I've used Esther's Guestlist for the layout plus the coordinating brads, inked Kaisercraft Chipboard, flowers and bling of course! The beautiful gold brocade ribbon stuff I grabbed from Cass's stash. She has the coolest stuff in her scraproom that she doesn't realise is cool but when she helped me move, she found a gazillion things in my stash that she thought were cool. I think we're going to have to have a swap night! If you're a Kaiser fan, then also keep an eye out for the new silk flowers, plus the paper flowers in fab new colours like purple, pumpkin orange, yellow, olive green, red and black! We asked for those colours and boy did Kaisercraft listen!!! lol There are also new bling colours coming out with a vintage feel and I can't wait for those. I'll be teaching for Kaisercraft at the Brisbane convention in June, doing layouts so if you have any ideas on what kind of classes you'd like to see using Kaisercraft products, leave me a comment with your idea or suggestion and in a week I'll choose a random comment and send you a RAK of a mixed bag of some of the new Kaisercraft flower colours to add to your stash plus a couple of the MDF off the page projects and a packet of bling borders. Have a great week! Love Lu xx

Happy New Year!!!! (a little belated maybe lol)

2009-01-16T09:04:00.008+10:00

Okay, there once was this blogger who had been flat out so waited AGES to update and get around to it cos she's a bit slack too. Not that there was nothing to blog about, just that it went on the back burner. So she sits down one day to update, looking forward to telling the stories behind all the pictures she had put in her blog as a draft a few days earlier. Well she drank coffee and typed like the wind and eventually was happy with her massive blog post that would surely take anyone an hour to read... :-) but....when she went to save it in Blogger, the big mean Blogger machine at up her post and said it could not process her request at this time. She went back to her compose page to copy and paste her blog entry so she could update at a time more convenient to the obviously inconvenienced Blogger but nay! She could not because the entire post was gone so she was left with nothing but her original pics and no text. It was a sad day.

Due to slightly massive frustration with Blogger, my first update in just about forver will now consist of dot point pic explanations and I'll attempt a proper post once I get over my annoyance and mistrust of Blogger.

1. Lachlan's Shuffle Up Day where he went from the Upper Junior part of the school to Middle School, the equivalent of graduating primary school (well, the little ceremony thing most primary schools have anyway). He was quite chuffed with himself and so was I.

2. & 3. The Christmas tree did go up, a week before we moved, because it just didn't feel like Christmas without it and I needed a visual reminder that there was something to look forward to. It has birds, bugs, beads, crystal thingies, feather stuff and other assorted crap on it.

4. & 5. Doug wanted to take the kids to Triple 8 Racing's open day at their new workshops at Banyo. Was pack, hot, crowded, but the kids all sucked it up beautifully and all "said" they had a good time, more for Doug's sake I think.

6. (Below) Caeligh's little "graduation ceremony" from her kindy. They made them all these cute mortarboard hats with tassels. She really did like it even if it doesn't look like it here. The ceremony was combined with the Christmas party which was the Friday night of the last day of "regular" school for the boys. She's been on holidays ever since and loving it. Don't know how I'm going to convince her to go school...

7. & 8. Despite all the chaos of working and moving and end-of-year school stuff, I promised myself we would get away for a few days. The older boys were going to their dad's for a few weeks so Doug and I took the little ones to Dicky Beach at Caloundra for five days. We bummed around, spent a lot of time at the pool and the beach, taught James to duck dive for dollar coins (the most effective motivational tool ever for a child who wants to learn how to swim properly but is all wussy about gettnig his face wet!), at fish and chips virtually every night and it was fantastic. We're planning to go back this Christmas but undertaking the very brave step of purchasing camping gear throughout the year and doing the whole family camp for two weeks if we can. I don't know anything about camping but if you know how to do it comfortably (if there's such a thing, and we're getting a powered site so that will help) then I'd love for you to share your hints or tips!

9. The new mailbox at our new home. That one picture means a lot to me and represents a lot of things for our family. We absolutely love the house, love living in it and already everyone is happier. Caeligh has her own "girly" room, James has his own room, Lachlann has his "fortress of solitude" and a set of double bunks in his room and so does Blayd. They're all pretty happy campers right now. Doug and I have a "grown ups" bedroom with a nice Ikea bed, matching double deep drawer chests on each side of our beds and NO COMPUTERS IN THE ROOM!!!!! It felt like a bit of a battle to be here once we got our application approved. It was so strange that all the other houses I enquired about/looked at/went to inspections for were also being eyed off by a dozen other people. This one I had registered my interest for a couple of weeks before but they were having trouble getting the existing tenants out (the tenant had sublet the place to uni students and was thus an absolute hovel when I came to inspect it) so it took longer than I thought and by the time I was phoned about an inspection date, it was a week and a half out from Christmas and I had to check with the RE agent about how many other people were going to come look at it because I was getting tired of competing with everyone else. She said only one other person had registered interest which was bizarre to me because it's a rare four bedroom and study in Calamvale with separate formal dining (now my scraproom cos I'd never let the kids eat on the carpet!), formal lounge (for a grown-ups lounge room that isn't full of toys etc), a dining, living and rumpus rooms in front of the open plan kitchen, lots of big windows, reasonable yard, master with ensuite and walking distance to school and staggering distance from the Calamvale pub and sort-of nightclub (oh wow, anyone who's a southsider in Brisbane probably has some really good/bad/dodgy memories of their Friday and Saturday nights at the 'Vale! I know I do!!!!). Anyway, the RE lady said only one other person had registered interest so I jumped the gun and asked if I could sub an application before I even viewed the place. She said yes, but I would have to inspect it first before they could give it to the owner for approval. So I did all that over a couple of days, losing quite a few working hours while I was at it, just scanning and emailing documents, finding the right paperwork, etc. I turned up on the Friday 12th December to inspect and the other person didn't! I couldn't believe how it felt like (small God moment here) a path had been completely cleared for me to have exactly what I had been working for with absolutely no competition. I couldn't quite believe it myself. The owners accepted the application straight away as they wanted people in by Christmas and we wanted to be in by Christmas. We did the bond payments the week later (now we're up to a week before Christmas, I'm still working full time and Doug is packing up the old house and it's getting a bit crazy) and had the electricity put on Saturday as the cleaners had to come back because the tenants did a crap job of cleaning the house (not surprised, it would have taken me a week to clean the dump they had turned it into - so bad that at the inspection, I politely took off my shoes at the door - as you do - but by the time we got to the main bathroom that everyone shared, the RE lady says "Oh, you don't have shoes on, you don't want to come in here, just look from the doorway"!!!! Yep, that bad. Think a house full of guys with no cleaning ability or inclination at all who apparently are impervious to disease and plague! lol Anyway, house got recleaned over the weekend and carpets done a second time (cheap, nasty "Rental Beige" carpets I call them, to go with the nasty "Rental Beige" vertical blinda and "Rental Beige" walls!) and we got our keys late Monday morning - the fourth day before Christmas. Far out, I was stuck at the old house that afternoon, still typing while furniture was being moved around me! Cass did an amazing job. Honestly she stepped in, told everyone how and where to pack, move and shift everything, she knew the fastest, safest way to get it all done and I don't know where I would have been without her! If you ever need one of those people (you know, you can HIRE someone to coordinate your move while you go away for the week or something!) to take charge of a move and set up your new home for you then she's the girl. I told her she should do that for a business because honestly, I had trouble knowing where to start, but she took our tiny, cluttered house, showed me how to declutter and what to throw out, and has helped turn our new place into what feels like home already. She's even repainted some of my old, crappy furniture so it doens't look old and crappy anymore! CASS I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH! It's her birthday on Sunday (25th Jan) so if you're a follower of her blog, take a moment to stop in and wish her a great day. I'm still trying to think of what I can do to repay her for everything she's done for me so I'll let you know how I go with that one. Anyway, it was a race to the finish line but by Christmas Eve we were mostly in, mostly unpacked and only the garage and my scraproom were still packed up and we had a wonderful Christmas with my mum, stepdad and sister, plus Doug's mum, coming over for Brunch and then we had everyone back Boxing Day for lunch. I love waking up every day in this house and am genuinely thankful for how everything fell into place. Already the house has managed to stay 99% perfectly clean and tidy for a whole month, not because I've been really anal about it or anything but because there is a place for everything, we only brought with us what we needed/loved and I'm slowly training the children on how to do little things to help maintain the house like putting stuff away, doing a load of laundry every day, turning on the dishwasher each night, etc. I know they sound like no brainers but I'm not very organised and not a good housekeeper so I'm really proud of all of us right now for trying our best to keep our home clean, tidy and welcoming.

10. Our new and massive dining table which currently seats ten but I think could fit 12. Cass's husband, Kelly, very cleverly used a couple of huge pieces of MDF on top of each other for strength that we had at our old house, we bought legs from Ikea, the chairs from Ikea, Cass's dad came over to her garage and routered the edge for us so it looked nice and more professionally finished, and Kelly painted it for us. It took six people to move it the 50 metres from Cass's place to my place on Christmas Eve in time for our big family brunch on Christmas morning. Think of all the room we'd have for a crop night at my place!!! Let me know if you're interested!

11. I came back from holidays to find Cass (who had very kindly offered to look after the dog etc) had repainted an old pine table that was in my garage, plus she salvaged a big wall mirror and repainted it. This feature sits in my hallway and I absolutely love it.

12. Cass's husband Kelly also bought these fab red cannisters (sorry, bad lighting in this one) as a house warming gift for us. Cass and I were really impressed!

13. You guessed it, this is my office/scraproom and yep, it's the only unpacked part of the house left! lol Because I had to work full time again literally the day I got home from holidays, it has been one of those things that came down to doing only what was absolutely necessary, like setting up my computer and transcription equipment and so all my scrap goodies are sitting in boxes, baskets and tubs. I did a proper tidy up yesterday and now everything is lined up along one wall behind me and much more orderly looking. I figure I need some "thing" from Ikea, and if you're an Ikea fan you'll know what I mean. I need some kind of furniture or storage system or some "thing" to put all this scrap stuff into some kind of order and I figure that to be reasonable (so unlike me), I should just leave it all packed up until I have somewhere for it to go otherwise I will be overtaken by product and lost in the mess. Now that I am lucky enough to have my own room for scrapping, I want it to be clean, organised (sort of and as much as I ever am), and full of things I love so I'm basically waiting for the money to get back up to speed (crappy being self employed over Christmas when clients are away and money is really slow), and I want to invest in a storage/furniture system that works, not buy cheap, half arsed stuff that will "do the job for now" until I get what I really need. For the first time in my life, I'm actually willing to wait. So impulsive usually! lol

So that's it, not as long as yesterday's failed blog attempt but better than nothing. BTW Wicked Princesses are having a garage sale www.wickedprincesses.com.au before our February kits arrive. I wil have some layouts from the amazing December Dragon kit up this week as I've been scrapping a bit at Cass's place. Also, there'll be new Kaisercraft soon too which is fab.

I'm not American but hey, congrats USA on your new President!!! He rocks!!!

Have a great Wednesday everyone! Love Lu xx

Thursday night pimpin' lol

2008-11-27T17:47:00.002+10:00

How cool are these kits??!?!?!?! Now these are the reason I wanted to become a part of Wicked Princesses because they are the best kits I've seen around in ages and I think the girls have done a fab job putting them together. The Dragon Kit is definitely my favourite and I have visions of heaps of cool teenage boy layouts with it but also some funky, modern stuff too. Now y'all know I'm not much one for pimping stuff off my blog. I do it when required but I don't love it in other bloggers so try not to do too much myself. I do however like to share something good when I see it and some of you may want to get your inky mitts on some kit club action for free maybe.....? Read on!

Wicked Princesses are giving away a 3 MONTH SUBSCRIPTION to either their Warlock or Enchantress kit!! (Winner will get to choose which they prefer).

All you have to do is leave a comment on the blog - you can find it here - between NOW and Dec 15th. The winner will be drawn randomly, with the first kit being the January edition.

That’s $120 worth of scrap goods, just for posting a comment !!!! Too easy! And don't even try and tell me you've got nothing to say lol

There is also a great discount on at the moment if you love all three kits and want them NOW, NOW, NOW!!!! Have a mosey over and check them out.

PIMP COMPLETED!

As for anything else? Well, what can I say....you guessed it...work! I thought things would be slowing down this time of year but I'm just getting busier and today I got another new client so hopefully that will tide me over through the Christmas/January period which usually tends to be slow as clients go on holidays etc. I think - if I'm reeeeeeaaaaaaaly lucky - I'll get the week in between Christmas and New Year off. I desperately want a longer holiday but it depends on when my private clients are having time off.

My Christmas tree is still sitting in its box in the hallway with bags of unopened decorations stacked on top of it :( We have decided to rent in the area we'd like to eventually buy in, close to the kids' school and preferably within walking distance, and so we're in the process of finding a rental house. We have an application in on one we like and it's perfect, with enough rooms for everyone and an office for me - YAY! - but we can't inspect it on the inside yet as the current tenants are still packing and moving out, maybe end of next week we can go and have a look. I'm really hoping like hell that our application gets approved and we get the place. It hasn't been easy so far with a couple of real estate agents suggesting we could offer more than the advertised rent on places we've looked at (yep, I know all that is supposed to be illegal now but it is still going on), and I'm also finding it incredibly difficult just to get to viewings of places to rent. These days viewings are geared toward the convenience of the agents; no more are the days of driving up, leaving your drivers licence and picking up the keys to have a walk through yourself. These days agents advertise a time that suits them (and don't even think of suggesting another time that might be remotely more convenient for you- never happen!), you along with half the city turns out to have a walk through and then you basically need to get an application off the agent while you are standing in the house and have the equivalent of the first week's rent in your pocket to hand over with your application before they will even consider you! So far we aren't doing so great on the "good tenant" scale, mainly because we have four kids, a dog and we're living in a housing commission house and therfore don't have rental references (even though bank statements can prove we've paid our rent on the dot for years). Apparently we get sent to the back of the potential tenants list in favour of working couples, groups of students, people with fewer kids, people with no pets and people who have rental references. I can understand the last one. No real estate agent will ever tell you outright that it works that way but someone I know who used to manage rental houses for a real estate agent said that's pretty much exactly how it works. I don't even know how to begin convincing property managers that all I want is a nice house with enough room for everyone that I can take care of like it was my own and make it a real home for us all. Anyhow fingers crossed for the application we've got in now, I've given them business references from my clients etc and thank goodness they are fantastic so hopefully that will help.

I'm really looking forward to end of school as there are so many things on right now. Groan in unison if you all understand! lol There are concerts, afternoon teas, exhibition days, classroom displays, ceremonies and events in every direction! I said I would make something nice for my kids' teachers this year - SO NOT GONNA HAPPEN! I think I'll give them what they'll appreciate most by this time of year - a nice bottle of wine! lol Blayd will be moving into his last year of middle school next year, Lachlann will be moving into his first year of middle school (the equivalent of moving from primary to high school- he is so excited about it all!), James will be moving to the last year of lower junior school (grade 3) and Caeligh will be in Prep, and that will be all my babies at school! I don't know how I feel about that yet. It's one of those milestones that takes a while to really think about and digest. I no longer have babies or toddlers. All my kids are school age children now. Yeah, the whole "oh my crikey I'm getting old!!!" type thing.

I've changed my hair back to what could be considered a "normal" colour, a dark brown with a slight violet tint. As I stood in Woolies last week having a look at the home colour kits and thinking how boring they all were, James stood next to me and said, "They don't have your colour here Mum. Anyway, I like your hair the way it is", which is sweet if my hair wasn't a fading red with some serious roots!!! lol I said I was going to make it a normal colour for a change and he then replies, in total seriousness, "but that colour is your normal hair". I had to laugh before explaining what my real colour is. How odd for my little man that he didn't knowwhat my natural hair colour is because it's been so long since he's seen it! lol

Doug and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Tuesday with takeaway Thai and a bunch of yellow roses for me. Thank you so much to beautiful Lusi who sent us an ecard from her and her lovely fam. I will get around to ringing at some point!!!!

I haven't done a lot on the scrapping front, but the delightful Miss Jilly has inspired me to play with mixed media which I'm enjoying very much. I've done a canvas that I like but it's not quite finished yet and it's so much fun to get out the oil pastels, the inks and paints and really let fly. I'll be sure to share if I get around to doing any scrapping whatsoever!

That's my update, not very exciting and they're all starting to sound the same these days. I hope there are more creative folks out there than me at the moment!

Have a good weekend and enjoy getting into the Christmas spirit (my favourite is bourbon!).

Cheers, Lu

OOoooooohhhhh milestone moment!!!!

2008-11-01T20:11:00.002+10:00

MY FIRST BABY IS IN THE BATHROOM HAVING A SHAVING LESSON!!!!!!!!

Argh!!!! Where has 13 years gone????? I've been happily living in denial about how my oldest son and first child has been growing up (physically at least, maturity wise we still have truckload way to go!) but today I was chatting to him while we were shopping and I caught a side profile of him with some lights behind him and realised he was growing A BUM FLUFF MOUSTACHE!!!!! You know, the piss weak, feathery ones that teenage boys with attitude try to cultivate to be more like "real men"???? Yeah, that's the one. It's awful and horrible and I realised then what I had to do. I went to Woolies, bought him the safest looking razor I could find. That wasn't an easy task. Men's razors these days are big, huge V8 powered things with a thousand blades, trimmers and accessories and the head of the razor looks like it would cleave half his face off!!! I got a nice, (hopefully safe) 3 blade job without any embellishments at all, totally bog standard. I figure you need to walk before you can run (or shave before you can cut your whole head off!). So now my 13 year old is standing in the bathroom, having had an instructional shave from Doug first plus a demonstration of what not to do with aftershave (how brave is Doug!).

Right now I would normally be in the thick of things taking lots of photos but I figured this was a "man moment" and I gave them the privacy I figure they deserve. Doug and Blayd don't have a lot of "bonding rituals" as step-father and step-son so I thought it best to leave them to this one. That's why I'm here instead of in the bathroom being a nosy mama.

Blayd has just emerged from the sanctuary of the bathroom, proudly showing me his glowing (slightly pimply) and perfectly smooth skin. Doug has done a wonderful job of teaching him and he doesn't have a scratch on him, unlike Doug who has a couple of his own from the demonstration! Doug also made him put on aftershave straight away - talk about mean, but I guess it's a life lesson and he'll know from now on. I've given him a special "man moisturiser" to put on afterwards and he is walking around the house now ten feel tall and bulletproof!!!! lol

He's so excited that he's already called his dad and left him a voicemail message, strutted into his room and shown off his baby smooth face to his brother and his friend, is talking about telling his karate teacher, his school teacher, his cousins, his mates, like he plans on shouting it from the rooftops!!!! He says, "I feel like a different person!" and I'm trying to keep a straight face and an understanding demeanour....

I also bought a Christmas tree today - 6ft tall green with gold glitter tips - it is tacky as all get out and I'm thrilled to bits with it!!! lol I've gone with red deccos to match my loungeroom and have red velvet scrollwork bauble shapes, some red velvet reindeer, some red shiny and glittery baubles, dark red hibiscus flowers, red poinsettia flowers and artificial cherries!!!! Laugh all you like, I've even got a bag of red feathers that I don't know what I'll do with yet but I'll think of something. It sounds hideous and genius at the same time and I'll put up a pic whenever I get done with it. I'm very excited at my super tacky, whorehouse on acid Christmas tree and I'm definitely busting a fufu valve to put it all together!!!

Have a cool Sat night!!! Chat soon, Lu xx

Christmas is coming!

2008-11-01T09:54:00.004+10:00

These cute little bird houses are what I've been doing for Wicked Princesses this month. They are the OTP November kit which should be going on sale any old minute now. I was a bit unsure when everything came flat packed like an Ikea purchase but the instructions included in the kit were easy and I'll be doing a project sheet to go with it as well so that should make it a bit easier. The papers are Making Memories and there is the obligatory Kaisercraft bling plus some chipboard accents as well. Trust me, when I opened it I wasn't sure if it was into it but once the houses were together and up I realised I really liked it and spent a bit of time adding accents and embellies. I kept this set fairly sedate but I think I might buy another set and do something more elaborate with it. It was quick to do as well and would make a great decco for home or would be really nice to give to someone with maybe little rolled up notes stuck in the holes of the bird houses. Could also roll up little gift certificates or gift vouchers and present them that way as well - that would be cute! I think I'll get the kids to write little Christmas wish lists, roll them and tie them up with ribbon and put them in there. If you were REALLY into them you could create a whole Christmas village of bird houses and use it like an advent calendar if you know what I mean. They would look awesome en masse, esp as all the papers coordinate. If you're dreaming of a white Christmas you could even cover the birdhouses with spray on fake snow and do the same with your windows and then line them up along the window sill. Now there's an idea I like!!!

I have some scrummy new Kaisercraft papers to play with but I haven't had a chance to do any layouts yet. Another couple of busy weeks at work and a week spent with a killer tooth abscess that took five days of day and night agony to respond to antibiotics and high dose anti-inflammatories. The worst part was that it only started as a toothache which I figured a couple of Panadol would deal with and then by the time I realised it was worse than that it was too late to go to the dentist (not that I would do that without it being dire agony anyway) and that I needed antibiotics to address the abscess before a dentist would even see me. So I've been very sore and sorry for myself this week and today is the first day I've woken up and not been in pain so I'm a happy camper. And yes, I can remember the pain enough that I might just have to go to the dentist of my own free will before it happens again....

Today we're off Christmas tree shopping - YES I KNOW IT'S ONLY 1ST NOVEMBER!!!! But because I'm so chronically scatterbrained and the days are flying past so fast right now, the tree is a constant visual reminder for me that I must get onto all the Christmas stuff that needs to be done. Anyway I like Christmas, love Christmas in fact, so I don't mind starting the festive season early. I don't turn our house Chrissy lights on until 1 December so it's just inside that gets the festive treatment early. We change trees and/or decorations each year and before you say how wasteful that is, I keep all the past trees/decorations in the house so I can mix and match colours each year. This year however I'm going for a colour scheme we've never had before so it will be new decorations. I'm thinking those really nice bright green decorations and maybe silver as well but I heaps of silver stuff that I can reuse from a couple of years ago when I had a pink Christmas tree with pink and silver decorations. That's the plan but because I'm into cheap and cheerful, we're going to trawl the $2 shops and see what takes our fancy. All the kids get to choose the style of decorations they want in the chosen colour scheme so nobody feels left out - except maybe for Doug who's favourite festive saying is "Bah Humbug!!!" so he doesn't give a toss what we do but is happy for us to do it. I was thinking a black tree this year but that's a couple of hundred dollars and it's not like I'd use it every year so that seems like a bit of waste of money to me so I'm thinking a big green tree (our old green tree is missing parts) that reaches the ceiling nearly and then just cheap shop decorations. Caeligh is still far too destructive for anything pretty. What I really want one year - maybe the year that all of the kids have finally left home! - I'll go to DJ's or Myer and treat myself to the beautiful hand blown glass baubles I've always wanted. I could get them now but that's not fair on the kids because either by choice or by accident they will get broken, I will be angry and upset and they will feel bad about it and that's just stupid. Much rather get plastic so it doesn't matter if accidents happen - either they break and get fixed or thrown or they last for a few years and there's no drama. So that's the plan for the day and the kids are always excited about it and so am I. I'll post a couple of pics once the tree actualy gets up and decorated. That can take a couple of days sometimes depending on how busy we are and how much work I have on. My house is less cluttered this year and my lounge room more coordinated and tidy than it's ever been so I'm looking forward to putting up a tree to compliment the red/white/black colour scheme - maybe the green won't work? I'm so prone to changing my mind at the last minute that who knows what we'll end up with!!! lol

I've also got to get to Hardly Normal sometime today and get some pics printed out. I took the plunge and got a new camera after Caeligh smashed the lens mechanism on the last one. This time I decided to really go for quality, for something that will last and will take the kind of pictures I want so I got the Canon 40D. It's the same one Jill has that she uses for all of her amazing photography so Jilly, darling, sweetie, lovey, friend - will you give a hopeless camera user some lessons some time??? lol It almost seems a waste because I don't know what I'm doing with it but I'm slowly learning. I only got one lens with it, a nice middle of the road that will do what I need it to now, plus an extra battery, an external flash (which I got to use last night for Halloween pictures) and a few other bits and pieces. It weighs as much as a newborn and the children are all under strict instructions that nobody touches it but me or Daddy (or Aunty Cassie cos she knows more about it than I do!!!). So I'm looking forward to getting into the habit of taking regular photos again. I think that's another reason I haven't scrapped more - if I have fresh, great pics then I'm more likely to be champing at the bit to scrap them but it's hard to summon mojo with old photos that I've looked through so many times before and still not found any I felt like scrapping. Hopefully I can share some pics on the blog as I get better at using the camera.

We did do the Halloween thing last night - I know it's a divided issue, some people "do" Halloween and some people "definitely don't" and that's fine. I understand that it isn't our tradition but Doug grew up in Scotland where it is done and the children just like an opportunity to dress up and play games so I don't mind getting into it with them. The only trick or treating they do is to the lovely couple next door who always have "safe" treats for them to eat and the little toddle one door down and back seems to satisfy their Halloween urges. We had quite a few trick or treaters last night and I had a good supply of Freddos on hand to pass out. It was good to see so many parents getting out and keeping their children company and keeping them safe. A few years ago we had little kids (like under 10) that were trick or treating with no parents in sight. I didn't understand that. We don't live in a "great" area anyway but even if we lived in the safest suburb in the country I wouldn't be letting my children wander about the streets in the dark by themselves. You never know who lives behind the closed doors of any house in any suburb. So the lollies got eaten, the children bobbed for marshmallows and lolly snakes and stayed up playing air guitar and having a mini disco in the lounge room while Doug played DJ. They all fell into bed happy and sleepy. Like I said, I know some people don't do Halloween but for me it's about taking any opportunity to create some happy memories for them of their childhoods. I know that in 10 or 20 years they won't care if people didn't "do" Halloween, I hope they'll at least be happy that we did.

I'm heading out the door now to do the Christmas decoration marathon shop and I'll let you know how it all goes. Cheerio to my mum who hopefully is loving her new car and reclaimed freedom - for goodness sake, Mum, please drive carefully and don't put any more dings in it!!! lol

Have a good weekend whatever you get up to, lotta love Lu xx

A challenge blog layout and a just for fun

2008-10-19T11:55:00.002+10:00

Okay well it's been more of the same here, lots of work, not enough time to scrap but last night I stayed over at Cass's place and got a couple of things done which is better than nothing in my book. The above layout was just playing around really. The paper is from a dirt cheap $3 paper pack from K-Mart of all places (thanks to Kylie and Peta for the heads up!) and I've used the glittery pink thickers I've had for ages plus some beautiful ribbony/fibre stuff I bought from Viv Bonder's etsy shop which I've loved and used loads of since I got it. It came all bundled up in a lovely thicke skein and I was almost sad to unwind it all and use it!!! lol

The ICK layout is for Category Stories and while I did later pat the snake in the picture, it still doesn't reduce the ICK factor for me!!!

I'm also 3/4 the way through a layout for the Inspired by Amelie challenge site. I saw the title on a bumper sticker somewhere and you'll get it when you see it. Hopefully I can finish it over the next couple of days but I have work to do today sadly.

We're thinking of moving...*sigh*.....hate the very thought of moving but our house just is no longer big enough and Caeligh and James at 4 and 7 respectively are still sharing a room. Considering she starts school next year I think it's time for her to have her own room now that she is a"big" girl, just ask her!!! We've done the big toss up between buying and renting somewhere else and I just don't know what will be right for us. Douglas is terrified of the commitment of a huge mortgage which is understandable and it would suck up the newfound income we now have which we're not spending on anything particularly important at the moment. It's getting spent on wants rather than needs, although mind you a new couch is a need I guess, especially if the existing one breaks!!! lol On the other hand, the drama of the private rental market makes me cringe, the inspections, the now very regular rent rises, the uncertainty of having the house sold out from under you and having to move again. That all makes me loathe to rent privately again. We rent a housing commission place right now which, when we first got it, we really needed as I wasn't working but now that I am working I know there are people who need it more than us and if we can afford to rent privately then we should do so and let someone else doing it tougher have this place. Admittedly even though we don't get subsidised rent - we pay market rent here - it's still considerably cheaper than private rental and I think we've been a bit spoiled by that and not used to shelling out hundreds and hundreds each week for a house. We did consider buying the house we're living in, staying for a while and then selling it later and using any profit as another deposit on a next house but now that the renovations are finished the house is worth more in the open market and the housing commission no longer offers a discounted house price to its' renters. The house is market valued like any other house and that's what you pay. I cannot imagine coughing up $300,000 to live in Inala, sorry that's just my personal opinion. So the whole "what should we do, what should we do" thing is going on here and while financially we're okay right now, nobody knows what the future holds. I don't want to place my family in a position were we suddenly cannot pay the rent or cannot pay the mortgage but we can't really stay where we are either. Hmmmmm.........

Anyway, that's my little thought vent for the day. It doesn't clarify anything in my mind to put it down for the blogworld to read but I guess I'm just thinking out loud if you like. I'm sure it will all figure itself out in the end but God, I sure wouldn't mind a hint or two about what we're meant to be doing!!! I know He knows but how about letting me know!!! lol Yes, all in good time I can hear some of you saying....lol.

I've got netball this afternoon with Cass and her sisters and a couple of other people. Sadly I don't actually play netball, I just kind of run around my bit of the court trying not to knock people over or get knocked over myself!!! lol I never played netball in highschool so I had to learn the rules very fast and so far I've worked out that if I just do what comes naturally when I play wing defence - be clumsy and get in people's way - then that seems to work okay. I am going to the chemist to get sports tape today though; I've rolled my left ankle the first game and last week, second game, I rolled the right one so I've come to the conclusion that I have weak, girly ankles and need to strap them before I really do some damage to myself. I've also worked out that netball is vicious!!!! And the guys are worse than the girls - we're playing in mixed teams. How on earth do I goal defend against a 6'5" man???? I believe groin shots are not permitted so we lost that game....lol I asked Cass if she thought we'd maybe get a crap team to play against today and she smiled at me and said "Dear, we ARE the crap team" lol

I'm off to type so enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a great week. Shout out to all the mums who will be enduring student free day tomorrow - thinking of you and wishing you strength, tolerance and coffee.

Lu xx

What's for dinner?

2008-10-16T11:58:00.002+10:00

Caeligh: "What's for dinner tonight Mum?"

Me: "Roast chicken"

Caeligh: "Well I'm sure not gonna eat that!", pokes a face at me.

Me: "Why not?"

Caeligh: "Cos if something is gross you're not sposed ta eat it!!!" yells at me.

Quite obviously I need an interpreter....lol

All quiet on the Western front except for......

2008-10-11T08:41:00.003+10:00

....I'VE BEEN CHOSEN TO BE A WICKED PRINCESS!!!!! I've never applied for a kit DT before but there's always a first time for everything and I've sworn of retail design teams forever so I was looking for something else to try. I stumbled across Wicked Princess kits by accident while having a blog hop and really liked the kits. I've always been wary of buying kits because I was worried that even though you see a picture of what's in them, somehow it's not the same in real life and I'll end up with things that aren't quite the colour I thought they were or something. I guess I've always liked the safety of having my money in my hand and going to the LSS to buy exactly what I want so I know I'll use all of it. I saw Karen and Tam's call for a design team not long ago and figured why not? I looked at their kits and the pictures were very good and I liked just about everything in them so I thought I'd take te leap. I'm hoping they'll learn to love my creative yet slightly inappropriate side!!! lol So I'm very excitedly waiting for my first kit so that I can go totally crazy with it and the add ons are awesome too so I'm very keen for my AP courier to turn up hopefully this coming week. I'll let you know how I go and post some layouts when they're done. Also very importantly, because October is breast cancer month, Wicked Princess are donating $5 from every kit purchased in October and up to 15th November to this fabulous cause. What better reason could there be to grab a great kit plus support a cause all close to our boobs...ahem, I mean hearts!

I haven't been scrapping much lately, I'm still trying and failing to get that work/life balance right. I did however take on a wonderful new client which means I'll be able to cut down my transcription company work a bit and maybe have a full day of once a week now. The lack of scrapping time hasn't cut into my ability to buy scrapping products though! lol I'm still going hammer and tongs at that because I figure I'll get to scrap one day soon! I've raided Spotlight lately and been looking for interesting habby stuff and ribbon and trim, plus they've got a great selection of feathers, flowers, etc for making fascinators (you know, feather dusters ladies at the races wear on their heads that isn't quite a hair accessory and not quite a hat?). There's so much stuff that's scrapbable that isn't in the scrapbooking section. Quick question, does anyone else dislike the fact that Spotlight have their scrapbooking papers organised by colour instead of by brand or range? I find it really annoying because I know what I'm looking for. I don't know if the colour system is easier for seasoned scrappers or beginners but I don't like it and end up not buying any of it. They also have a great range of Kaiser products which is good to see. Oh wow speaking of which, keep an eye out at your LSS for the new ranges coming out this month; Distracted, Dancing Jewel and Rustic Charm. They are awesome! There's also some fantastic new rhinestone releases and chipboard - yep, I said CHIPBOARD ALPHABETS!!! These days Kaisercraft have all the bases covered and the prices are always great. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some of that too. The Distracted range is my favourite so far. I've also been to a couple of LSSs around the place and picked up new Basic Grey and I've been feeding my Thickers habit as well. So the sad bit is that while I have lots of nice stuff to use I feel like I have no time to use it all. I'm hoping to shift my scrapping into the loungeroom soon (hasn't happened yet) and that way I'll be more inclined to do stuff while I can watch TV or hang out with the kids etc. Right now I spend so many hours in front of the computer that I don't feel like staying at the same desk for more hours to get scrapping done. We did have a crop night last week at Cass's place with some friends over - hi Peta and Kylie!!!! - and we had a great night catching up and I did get a layout done - see above. It was for Aussie Scrapjack and I'm really happy with it although it is way OTT. The huge purple flower is from Spotlight and the big chipboard circle is from Magistical Memories. The photo was of my catch up with my aunty Anne and my grandparents when Cass and I were in Townsville on our way to Hughenden back in August. We only had a couple of hours so I took heaps of photos. It means so much to see myself in pictures with people whom I look like, so I can say I can see a family resemblence. Being adopted, I missed that growing up and was always envious of my friends for having family whom they looked like. So I was so glad to see them all as Granddad is not well right now and I was very lucky to have gotten the chance to see him.

THe kids are all good, glad to be back at school as it's the last term and they just want for it to be over. They're all looking forward to Christmas already and let's face it, the shops are not making it easy as they are putting stuff out already!!! We're still tossing up colour options for the tree this year. We wanted to get a black one with lights wired into it but I haven't seen Target's tree display yet (as, kindly of them, they haven't put theirs up yet). I change colour schemes every year but don't worry, I don't waste last year's stuff, some years I mix and match what I have from previous years or Cass and I have a very successful decoration exchange programme going on so we always have colours to choose from! lol

I'm off to get some typing done (the paying kind, not the playing kind) so have a good weekend and I'll try to be more regular with my posting although I'm not sure anyone reads here anymore! lol Chat soon, Lu xx

2008-09-10T08:40:00.001+10:00

Eight very long years today since you've been gone baby girl. I love my flickering lamp and the smell of strawberry lip gloss but we'd all much rather have you here with us.

Too long have you been gone from our arms but never will you be gone from our hearts.

Missing you always Miki Moo, love Aunty Lu xx

Inspiration from White With 1

2008-09-08T13:27:00.001+10:00

I did this layout at Cass's place on Saturday night for the White With 1 challenge. It was all about dads this month so I've used a photo I love of Doug holding James when he was a day old. While James was my third child he was Doug's first and I love the look of pride in his eyes as he holds his tiny son in his arms. I'm not very good at following rules so I didn't do a good job of making white the dominant colour because I found some great brown paper with white grid pattern on it and really wanted to use it. My bad...lol

Loving throwing myself back into the excitement of doing challenge blogs again, and even thinking about scraping up Everyday Garbage off the floor and seeing if we can't give it a bit of a refresher. I'll let you know how that goes, but for now I'm loving being a participant and creating for the fun of it.

Happy Father's Day

2008-09-07T23:43:00.002+10:00

...to all the dads out there, those who have children, those who want to have children, those who have lost children. It's a special day and I hope you have all been made to feel so special and valued today.

Father's Day in our house is always a bit bittersweet. My two eldest sons go to their Dad for the day, while our younger two (whom Doug and I have together) spend the day with us. It's hard because my older two came home in very different moods; my eldest (he's the autistic spectrum one) came home happy that he had seen his Dad, played a bit of catch with him and watched TV at Grandma's place, while my second eldest came home bitter, angry, resentful and tearful. He felt he didn't get to do anything special with his dad and that his dad didn't want to do anything special with him. Doug and I spent the rest of the evening trying to make it up to him with lots of attention and letting them watch a movie until late which is typically not allowed on a "school night" where they have to get up for school the next day. It's also hard for Doug, who does his best 24/7 for my older two boys to direct them, teach them, help them learn about how the world works. My eldest is eternally ungrateful (as most teenage boys are for just about everything) and still idolises his father no matter how many screw ups he makes. My second son, Lachie, was the one who felt it most today and came home so sad. It's hard because no matter how hard Doug tries, he is not a substitute for their own dad's attention which Lachie felt he did not have today, and Doug felt like no matter what he did for Lachie when he came home, it wasn't enough to eclipse the bad feelings he had of spending the afternoon with his own dad. It's a bit hard all round really but what can you do? Not a lot... you make the most of what you have and you give them all you have to give them, and then you just hope they will somehow understand that you are trying your best in what are sometimes not the best circumstances.

I rang my dad tonight and got his messagebank. I don't have a great relationship with my dad. I used to though, once when I was little. He had a very bad motorcycle accident when I was only 5 years old - he used to be a motorcyle parking cop - yeah, he was the guy who would write you a ticket if you parked too long in the wrong spot. His motorcycle got clipped by a car and he was thrown off. Even with his helmet he still sustained a head injury that led to severe personality change in him and sadly for all of us - me, my mum and him - he was never the same and became an angry, paranoid, abusive man. I prefer not to think about what I've lost and I just try to maintan a friendly relationship with him. I ring every now and then to check that he is okay. He rings occasionally to tell me of his troubles with his Filippino girlfriend who he has finally gotten rid of but not before she put him in debt for the first time in his life and almost cost him his house which he built with his own hands. It's hard because he wants a sympathetic ear but I cannot forget his treatment of me as a child and teenager. It's hard because now that I have a medical background after working in that field for so long as a typist I do understand that his behaviour/attitude/personality is not his fault. It's hard because my mum is gone and there is no go-between for us, no line of communication, so we have to rely on our own very faulty selves to connect. It's hard because he is the only link I have to the large Italian extended family which I grew up in and now have very little to do with, just because everyone seems to be fighting with or not speaking to someone else for whatever reason. It's hard because without him I would just consider myself an orphan - stupid really, I'm 34 for goodness sake - but no matter how large my family, without him I don't have any other links to them. Time and distance have estranged many of my numerous cousins, aunts and uncles. It's hard because he doesn't know my children's names; he knows my oldest son, because he was in a "good place" when Blayd was born, he had a nice Filippino girlfriend who took such good care of him, just like my mother would have, and he was happy then. He doesn't remember Lachlann, referring to him as "the other boy", and James is the "the younger fella" whereas my daughter is "the little girl". Sadly for them they won't have a grandfather, not at least what a "normal" grandfather is thought to be. He keeps to himself, does not like contact. He would rather sit alone without comfort or aid than have family around to help and take care of him. That is who he is, and always has been; a fiercely independent man, despite good sense and the best wishes of others. Anyway, I left him a message, told him how busy my week had been, what Doug was doing at work, that the kids were all fine and sent their love. I said I hoped he was okay and if he needed me to just call. I told him I loved him and that I'd ring him later in the week to check on him. The sad part is that he is old enough to have died in the house and nobody else would know....and he wouldn't have cared about it being that way. So I will have to ring tomorrow now because he would normally be home at 7.30 on a Sunday night but he didn't answer the phone. I don't know if he went to bed early because he was tired or unwell - he is getting old after all, late seventies now my dad is, and likes to insinuate that he has multiple medical problems but won't elaborate on them to his only next of kin - or if by some chance a friend came over and took him out for the evening. Either way I will now have that worry in the back of my mind that somethinghas happened to him so I will have to call again tomorrow to basically make sure he isn't dead. I know how callous that sounds but he has been alone - by choice- for so long and has so little contact with me, his only child, and his entire extended family, that really nobody would notice, not even the neighbours. This is, however, a regular occurrance. He won't answer the phone and if Doug stops by on the way home from work he might be out and then I have to go by myself and walk all around the house, looking in all the windows and then asking the neighbours when was the last time they saw him, just to make sure. It's a sad situation because I know that any attempts at an emotional connnection with him will be met with rejection and indifference, and yet I worry about him because he is my last link with the adoptive family I grew up in. I was raised an only child but had dozens of cousins, lots of aunts and uncles. I feel like when my dad finally passes it will sever a connection with that family tree, even though I love each and every one of those people and have done all my life, regardless of whatever inter-family strife, trouble or arguements they had between them. So here's to hoping he is okay for one more time and that when I ring him tomorrow he will pick up the phone and I'll say, "It's me, Cinda, just checking how you're doing," and he'll say, "I'm alright. What's wrong?" like he always says....

Some inspiration from The Art Is Found

2008-09-05T17:59:00.002+10:00

This layout was done for The Art Is Found blog - I promised I was going back to challenge blogs to find my true mojo again and this is my first one. I've been snowed under with work all week but had to stop in at Cass's place today and she was on her way home so she said "Do a layout!!!!" and suggested the music sheets inspiratin for this challenge. So I threw this together in about half an hour and I'm happy enough with it. It's a start anyway, let's call it that. I can see a light up ahead......lol

Busy week this week with lots of work, Lachie's 11th birthday today (and his best friend is sleeping over), Caeligh's prep enrolment interview this morning (which went surprisingly well, no screaming, climbing walls or throwing anything at all), running around delivering typing work to clients and getting caught in a rainstorm this afternoon while picking up the kids. Yep, got absolutely soaked and haven't even had time to change yet - I've dried out somewhat in a couple of hours!!! lol

The weekend is a blur of work, some scrapping (hopefully) and going to the fleamarket to buy new plants for the garden. I've really gotten into the gardening thing since I've managed to keep EVERYTHING I have bought within the last three weeks alive!!! Truly a miracle!!! lol

I have my eye on a couple of other challenge blogs - the new White with 1 looks okay and I'm dead keen on Category Stories as I can choose from all their previous challenges from the past year and there are some fab ones in amongst them.

I'm off to organise pizza for the ravenous hordes in my loungeroom playing Wii. Have a great weekend y'all!!!! Love, Lu

Something I am VERY grateful for!

2008-09-02T09:20:00.002+10:00

Today I am grateful (and very thankful to God) for protecting my Doug as he drove to work and a massive crash happened right in front of him only 20 minutes ago. He was just missed by an out of control car which veered across his path and then smashed into the side of a truck in the lane next to him and bounced off and slid back toward him, missing him in our car by only a couple of metres.

He rang me after doing the rescue thing and making sure eveyrone in the vehicles were all okay (which everyone was, another thing to be thankful for) to let me know because he knew if I heard it on the radio or TV Iwould have been worried. The first thing he said to me was "Do you know I love you? Really love you more than anything else in the world?". I was a bit confused, said "I love you too babe, I just don't like your mother much" See we'd had a disagreement about his mother before he left so we weren't on the best of terms, not fighting but a bit stand-off-ish with each other because we hadn't resolved the issue we'd been talking about. So I figured he was ringing to smooth things over with me! Then he said "No, forget her, forget everything else and all the bullshit. I love you more than anything. I've just seen the biggest accident of my life right in front of me". Then he filled me in on all the awful details and my heart is still pounding as I think about it. He was moments away from being taken away from us or very badly hurt. He wasn't. I am so grateful to God for watching over him and even if I can't write on my blog what I'm thankful for (because I'm a bad, inconsistent blogger) I do promise to take more moments to tell God that I am thankful for what I have.

Sorry not meant to be a big religious spiel or anything but I just thought I would share because our whole family's life could have changed forever today, just one moment, just a second, could have changed everything. I'm now sorry for having a tiff with Doug this morning over something that doesn't really matter in the perspective of what's just happened. And you know what? I didn't even hug him goodbye before he left because I was cranky - that will never happen again. Today was obviously meant to teach us both something and I think it has. I promise to be more grateful, more thankful and more appreciative because what we have in life can vanish so quickly. This is where the really warm, fuzzy bloggers tell you to go hug your kids a bit tighter. I'll just say take a moment to think about how quick life can change and then you decide what to do with that.

Have a SAFE Tuesday, Lu xx

Back in the creative swing of things

2008-09-01T13:23:00.004+10:00

I haven't had a whole lot of time to scrap lately so I've been really happy to be able to come up with anything I'm remotely happy with. The mojo has been a bit battered and bruised for quite a few gals I know, including myself, but fortunately I can say mine has recovered somewhat and best wishes to those of you who are waiting for your mojos to be given a clean bill of health!!!

Singapore Fling was done with the Kaisercraft Everblooming range. I really really loved it the moment I received it from the nice TNT man and it is probably my favourite Kaiser range ever. I scrapped the delicious lunch Cass and I had at a restaurant in Sunnybank called Little Singapore on my birthday this year. Very hot, very spicy, very scrummy!!!

Now this layout above is a weird one. Anyone who regularly visits knows this is so not my style - look at all that empty space!!!! I'm not a "clusterer" normally at all and I like balance spread across the page. I had every intention of making this a two photo layout and I thought I'd start at the top right hand corner but then suddenly changed my mind and decided to start at the bottom left and work out from there. Well that's as far as I got!!!! lol I really tried to put things elsewhere, add another photo, incoroporate more of the paper lace red heart shaped doiles Cass got me but every time I tried to add more to the page the layout would scream "Nooooooooo!!!" and so that's all that ended up being on there. I don't think it looks unfinished but I do think it looks a bit sparse to my eye anyway. I did that one while sitting at the free crop at Hughenden on the Sunday morning, chatting and just playing around.

This layout is of my lovely friend Jill's gorgeous boy Jonah. I knew as soon as I picked up the photograph that I would have to match it with the new Basic Grey papers. There's also some cool metallic red/gold mesh stuff that the v.lovely Kylie and Peta shared with me at crop on Friday night - well basically I saw it, begged and grovelled a lot and they let me have some. Thanks girls!!! The brown flourish thing behind the title is actually the brown paper backing of Cass's Prima felt border stuff. Hey, it was brown, it was good!!!! Even better, it was recycled!

So layout wise that's all I've been doing really, just the odd page here and there. This week I'm very determined to have a go at some challenge blogs and a big thanks to Kayla Renee for giving me such a great list from my request on my last post. There are some great ones there and I can't wait to get stuck in. I think I've already mentioned that I'm planning on doing all my challenge stuff in A4 size so that will be something different too, something new to hopefully add to the appeal for me.

Doug and I braved Ikea on Saturday (well it's not really that bad, we didn't have any kids with us!) and had a look at options for an entertainmet unit for our loungeroom that could accommodate some not so obvious storage for my scrapping stuff. Right now everything is still in boxes in my room after the painters finished up a couple of weeks ago and because my desk in my room seems to have been overtaken by my typing business and household paperwork etc, I decided I needed to scrap somewhere else. Now I have a small house, a REALLY small house, with an eat in kitchen and only one living area, the lounge room. It sort of doubles as part office as Doug's computer is in there too. So we decided on a couple of these cool storage units which are white and have eight compartments and no back on it, and it can be stood upright or on its side to make a low line unit. We bought two of them, lucky enough found them right at the end in the discount area, because they had a couple of scratches that won't be seen where we want to put them. So that will accommodate the TV, the games consoles etc on the sideways one and the upright one will have storage boxes and a couple of doors fitted to the compartments and my scrap stuff will get stored in there. It won't be obvious what's in the red leather look boxes but I'll keep all my stuff in them because I've decided to move my scrapping to the loungeroom. That meant finding another desk but I couldn't have anything that takes up more than a bare minimum of room. Doug's suggestion was to scrap at the coffee table - can anyone spell chronic back ache??? He obviously couldn't!!! lol So Ikea to the rescue again with a fold out desk which looks like one of those old roll top ones but has a flat fold down panel on it to make the table part and room inside to store stuff I use a lot like pens, tools, etc and a shelf at the top for more stuff. You can also buy a rectangular piano stool type padded seat that fits perfectly underneath it when the desk is closed up. The seat comes off and has more storage underneath. Gotta love Ikea!!! So that will be my new desk but not sure when that will get bought. It's Lachie's birthday this week so maybe if I'm lucky and the finances permit I can get it when we go back to Ikea this coming weekend to get Lachie's loft bed. He really wants his own bed (right now he has the bottom bunk underneath Blayd) so we figured we'd get him a single loft bed and put his desk underneath etc so they won't loose any real floor space that way. As his birthday is Friday we figure he can wait until Saturday, come down with us and help us carry the damned thing!!! lol Another Ikea job for Douglas - thank goodness he knows how to assemble anything with an allen key! Anyway, the desk won't be huge, won't be a lot of room and won't be like having a whole room dedicated to my scrapping but I figure I don't actually need that much space. I don't have time to scrap every day and when I do scrap right now I have to do it on the desk in my bedroom, away from the kids, the TV and Doug, so I think this will work out much better. I was thinking about moving my typing to the loungeroom as there is less room/storage needed for that but I can't work with all the noise of the television or radio or kids around me so the typing has to stay in my room and the scrapping has gots to go! I'll take a pic when I get it all sorted out and set up (and when I get another camera too, that would help...lol).

Home is a bit chaotic at the moment. Blayd at 13 is turning into the hormonal grump monster who doesn't want to do schoolwork/homework/exist because life is so hard and awful and everyone is so mean to him. Yeah, it's a bloody sad lament isn't it?!?!? We're going to be organising some family counselling because his behaviour is getting worse and I don't think in all honestly Doug and I know the best way to manage/help him through this stage in his life. I'd rather be honest and say I don't know what to do than just keep muddling through and have him get worse, more distant from us and get into goodness knows what kind of trouble because he's not happy with his life. I feel like a bit of a slacker mum because I keep thinking I should instictively know what to do for him but when I'm trying my best and still apparently not getting through to him or helping him it's time to call in the experts. After all, I've never had to raise a teenager before but I know there will be great counsellors who will have a lot more to offer us than what I can come up with. It causes a mass effect when Blayd hates the world as he fights more with Lachie who in turn is teary and cranky because Blayd's forever picking on him over meaningless crap, then Lachie takes it out on James who seriously overreacts because he is way babied by Doug's mother and seriously believes he is constantly persecuted by his half brothers (yeah, another massive issue that I am trying to sort through) and because Caeligh is such a strong willed brat (sorry but in the last week or two she really has been a brat - at least I didn't call her something else!!!) she sees everyone else going off and joins right in so it feels like every kid in my house is going off the rails all at once. Yes, sadly I do realise that it's a reflection on how Doug and I handle these issues that contributes to how the children all cope and right now I don't think we're handling things very well thus the kids are all exploring their own ways of coping/acting out/expressing their feelings. Iv'e had some good suggestions from the school counsellor as to where to look for help so I'll be doing that over the course of the next week or so. I hate living in what feels like a giant pressure cooker where everyone is constantly yelling, fighting, exploding over the littlest things and taking out frustrations on each other. How are Doug and I holding it all together? Well, I wouldn't say we are actually. We don't have screaming fights or anything like that. We never have. We just get snippy and snarky with each other which I hate too because we really should be backing each other up and being each other's best support right now. I think counselling will be good for all of us and hopefully it will teach us a few things about how to manage stress and how to deal with things more constructively. Fingers crossed it will make a big difference to the peace in our home (or lack of it at the moment!).

I don't think I have any other exciting news....oh, Caeligh is having her enrolment interview this week for school. I'm wondering whether I should sedate her with Phenergan before we go....hmmm....it's so very tempting. I'm terrified she'll show them what she's really like and they won't see a very intelligent girl with a fiesty nature, they'll see an undisciplined, out of control little beast that they won't want at their school. She's just not great at self control and I can hardly blame her. I was just as beastly at her age apparently so I can't say much at all... I just hope she can behave long enough for them to see that she is more than ready for Prep and in fact I'm sure she will love the place. Part of her behavioural issues I think come from boredom. She likes constant attention and something interesting to do all the time otherwise she starts getting bored and that's when the trouble starts, either that or she feels she isn't getting enough attention so she does something to draw attention to herself. She's not fazed by being in trouble though, not in the slightest, and working out a reward/punishment system has been hard with her. I'm praying that she'll have a good day and things will go well at the school.

Typing is going well, nice and busy, but as you can see from this post, I'm here blogging instead of typing which means I'm having some real concentration issues of my own at the moment. I'm so easily distracted and I'm not getting done as much as I could be. That's something I'll have to address with myself though, not sure how just yet.

Now I really will go so I can get some of that work done. I'll be sure to post up any challenges I get done and if you come across any good challenge blogs then be sure to pass the info my way!

Have a good week, love Lu

Back from the Bush!

2008-08-26T08:09:00.003+10:00

Only this time last week Cass and I were at the Townsville Airport, ready to board our flight back to Brisbane after an amazing long weekend at Hughenden for Outback Scrap. It was a long time in the planning and despite some hiccups along the way, Kerry, Lindy and Karen from Flinders Poppy Arts and Crafts Group did a fantastic job of organising the whole event. Women came from all parts of the Queensland outback including Julia Creek, Barcaldine and Cloncurry. I think there was even a lady from Mackay who travelled all that way! The ladies who came to take classes were all just amazing too, wonderful down to earth women. I loved meeting everyone! It was a great opportunity for the ladies to try new techniques and products and I really hope the classes provided some valuable new scrapping skills. Sandra and Rachelle did some great classes too and it was fab to spend time with Rachelle on the trip up and back and get to know her a bit better. It was a wonderful weekend for all. Half the fun of course was the chance to sit and chat and we had plenty of opportunities for that. The recreational hall in Hughenden is fantastic too, as good as you will see anywhere, with lots of room for sport, theatre, etc and a great industrial kitchen where the local ladies fed us the most amazing home cooked food every day in between classes. On our very first day in Hughenden we had morning tea at Karen's house and had the most amazing pikelets and rosella jam and cream. I don't even like pikelets but wow I do now!!! And I had no idea I liked rosella jam either because I've never had it before so there's two new faves to add to my list of things I shouldn't like as much as I do.

Cass and I stayed on a beautiful cattle farm outside of Hughenden which is owned by Kerry and her lovely husband Alan who cooked us up hot breakfast every single day! What a man!!! They are really lovely people and the farm was great, a real piece of true outback Australia. Cass and I stayed in cottage (see above) on the farm and it reminded me so much of my Nanna's old miner's cottage where I used to go and stay for Christmas holidays when I was a kid; all corrugated iron and glass louvre windows. The constant noise of cattle and wind was weird but relaxing at the same time, simply because it was so different to the sounds of home. On the Sunday night when the classes were finished for the weekend and we had packed up the hall we all went up to Mt Walker for drinks and fish and chips for dinner. The sunset was just amazing out there and there were so many stars at night without the city lights to draw attention away from them. I'll share more photos later; I had to rely on Cass's camera for any shots I wanted to take as Caeligh dropped my camera a few weeks ago and I didn't have the money for a new one before I left. I'm hoping to remedy that really soon though - I miss my camera!!!! The photo of Cass and I lying on the road is on the way back from the drinks that night - note the roadkill in the background? "Don't sleep on road!!!!" is the message here people!!! lol There is more to the story but for now let's say we'd had a few to drink and were being egged on by our hosts!!!

The picture down the bottom is of me and Cass - on quad bikes mustering cattle!!!! Ha ha I never thought I'd see the day!!!! lol We got up Monday morning with the anticipation that Alan said he would teach us to ride the quad bikes so we could have a look around the property but then he put us to work! Mustering cattle isn't as hard as I thought but it did take a little while to figure out how the cows respond to where you are behind them and how fast you're going etc. We got the hang of it pretty quickly and after a while Alan left us to it with 65 head of cattle including a couple of massive bulls who looked like the size of cars and would kill you if they sat on you! There were also quite a few poddy calves, still fuzzy and only a few days old. Seriously cute!!!! I think we did okay for a couple of city gals!!! It was the best fun I have had in ages and I would love nothing more than to take the kids out there one day so they can see what country life is really all about - I fear though that they wouldn't ever want to leave once they got out there! Is that such a bad thing - I'm not sure. After only a few days in Hughenden I could see me happily packing up and leaving the city behind. I wouldn't want to be too far from a regional city but let's just say it was very appealing and I'm lucky that with my typing job I can work virtually anywhere. Just a thought for now....

Up the top is a pic of Cass and I at Mt Walker with our bona fide cowgirl hats on! Mine sits proudly (upside down, Alan, just like you told me!!!!) on my desk with the faint coating of Hughenden dust still on it that I refuse to wipe away. It's my most treasured souvenir of the trip and I'll be sure to wear it every chance I get. After getting to do actual cattle mustering I figure I've earned it!!! lol

The house has been totally upside down while I've been done. We had a total internal repaint last week so I came home to every scrapbooking item I possess being packed in boxes - where it all still sits because all I've done is type since I got home. I'm really itching to do some though because I did a layout while I was away during free crop time that I really love. It isn't me but that's okay, I'm still really happy with it. I'll have to ask Cass to scan it for me.

Speaking of scrapping, you know what I'm going to start doing again? Challenge blogs. I used to love them and some of my best work came from doing challenges, comps, etc when I was just getting started and I think I need that motivation back in my scrapping. There are so many great sites now. I know that our Everyday Garbage challenge blog really fell off the wagon. Cass and I just struggled to find time to do what had to be done for it each month but if anyone is interested in us doing it once a month for inspiration purposes then let us know. I am pretty sure I can fit in once a month but rather than getting people to send their work to us, we can put up examples of what we've done and then people can post a link to their blogs for people to come and see. It would be more a place for inspiration rather than the way we tried to run it before. If you're up for that we'd love to know.

Likewise if you know of any great challenge blogs that really do it for your mojo, please drop me a comment and let me know. I hear names floating around the blogsphere but I don't have time to find them all so if you have a favourite I'd love to know what it is. There are so many out there that I imagine it's hard to choose. I'm also planning on going from 12x12 layouts to A4 size for my challenge blog stuff, just becuase I don't have an A3 scanner at home (I use the one at Cass's place for my 12x12 stuff) and because for me if I see a challenge that inspires me I want to create right away, do something immediately and scan and upload it so I have to utilise the A4 scanner I have under my desk. Maybe the change in size will be good for mojo as well. I've never tried it before and used to think it was a bit sacreligeous to scrap in anything other than 12x12 but I'm very ready to expand the horizons and grow some wings (and grow some balls too!) and try something different. How many of you have tried A4 or is it 12x12 all the way? I don't think it will become my preferred side but for challenge blogs I really want instant gratification so it's a way for me to achieve that.

I'm off to - you'll never guess! - TYPE!!! lol My work is a'calling me so I must pull out the proverbial finger and get something done. I have extra work this week and don't want to miss Friday night's crop at CyberScraps as the new Basic Grey is in plus some cool new Pink Paislee alphabet stickers (mmmmmmmmm....alphabet stickers....drool). I'm looking forward to catching up with the chickies and seeing what everyone's been up to.

Have a good week everyone and don't forget about those challenge blogs!!! Love, Lu xx

Outback Scrap - Hughenden 15,16 an 17 August 2008

2008-08-11T09:43:00.003+10:00

These are the two projects I'm doing for Outback Scrap this weekend. It's going to be a really fun weekend of scrapping and running amok in the beautiful Queensland outback!! If you are a local or you don't mind a drive (a really looooong drive!) then you can give Lindy a call on (07) 47410385 or Karen on (07) 4741 1911 to find out more info, class descriptions, sizes, costs, etc, plus the low down on things like how to get there, accommodation and all the other things to do while visiting the region. Both of these ladies have been absolutely amazing in organising this event for the Flinders Poppy Arts, Crafts and Resources Group and have overcome some massive obstacles to be able to put on what is sure to be a fantastic weekend of scrapping and fun.

Cass and I are already starting to pack as we have an early flight on Thursday morning up to Townsville, where we spend one night, before flying out to Hughenden early Friday morning. I'm really looking forward to catching up with my aunt Anne (my birth mother's sister), whom I've only met once, and my birth mother's parents whom I have never met in person. It's certainly been a long 34 years for them as the last time they saw me was in the hospital after I was born. I'm hoping to catch up with them for a couple of hours when we get to Townsville as they live there. All of our kits are already being couriered up as they are too heavy for the flight to Hughenden also so hopefully they will arrive today or tomorrow. I'll feel more relaxed once we know they've arrived.

As for home, we've all been sick here. We've all had a cold for the last couple of weeks and then Caeligh brought home a gastro bug on Wednesday afternoon from kindy. The poor thing was so sick and so I spent Thursday looking after her but then by the early hours of Friday morning I had the same thing and I have never been so sick in my life!!! I wound up in hospital trying to find an anti-nausea drug that would work and I lost 5kg in three days. That's good from a weight loss perspective but cruddy in that as soon as I start eating again it will all come back. Right now all I can stomach is water, Gatorade, diet shakes (I was sure the milk would not agree with me but seems all good) and fruit. That's literally all I can eat right now. I guess it's one way to change bad eating habits!!!! lol So Blayd and James got sick too over the weekend and Doug and Lachie seemed to be unscathed, how I'll never know. It's so weird that some people get it and some don't. But because my immune system was already down because of the cold I had, which is why I got such a bad bout of gastro to begin with, now that I'm slowly recovering from that, my cold is worse than ever so I'm also living on vitamins and Codral to get through the week. I just want to feel human again in time for Thursday!!! I've never been on a plane so I'm really excited now and it turns out that Thursday is a student free day here so all the kids will be coming to the airport to see me off as well which is cool. Doug and I have never been apart in 11 years as we will be this week, five nights, and he's already telling me he'll miss me. I'll miss them too but there's a part of me that's really looking forward to going and having that freedom and independence that comes from being away from home and family and not having to worry about anyone but yourself, even for a few days. It's a great restorative but not many mothers get the chance to do it.

I'm going to go and get started with my work for the day. I have to try to make up for what I won't be earning while I'm away. I'm also going to go make a shake and find some fruit to eat. I'm not sure if I'll get the chance to blog again before I go because I have a busy few days with stuff to finish for Kaisercraft as well as something for Scrapbooking Memories plus work plus packing etc so if I don't chat to you all again have a great week and I'll be sure to post some pics when I get back. I'm trying to convince Doug to let me take his laptop so I can check email and stuff while I'm gone but he's funny about giving me something valuable like a laptop. I'm just as likely to leave it on the plane or in the ladies room!!!! lol Chat soon, Lu xx

Scrapbook Creations Issue 57 and a massive TOOT!!!

2008-08-07T18:00:00.008+10:00

Now first of all this is the big TOOT I'm talking about - nothing to do with scrapping cos that's a bit up oneself!!! lol What we have above, courtesy of some Japanese car fan website, is a picture of this very lovely Black Mitsubishi Colt - identical to the one n ow sitting in my driveway!!!!

Her name is Lola and I'm definintely in love, or at least very appreciative, to have her. We bought her last week, finally making the decision to buy a second car after managing with only one for about seven years. Seven years is how long it's been since I have had my *own* car so that I can come and I go as I like. I've been stranded at home on the days I'm working because Doug takes our slowly expiring old van to work every day and his mother has been dropping off and picking up the kids from school for me. That hasn't been without it's problems so the children are all very happy with the arrival of Lola. I was even a good girl and did my research first on what we were going to buy, reading car reviews, specifications on all the different types of small cars available etc. I've never prepared for something quite so thoroughly!!! I also went into the showroom knowing exactly what I wanted to pay for her and the extras I wanted that I wasn't prepared to pay for so the salesman had to figure out a way to have them incorporated into the price I was happy to pay. It all worked out beautifully and while I'm probably paying a percent or so more in interest than I would have liked (because I've only been working for myself for such a short time) I figure I can wait it out a year, establish the business a bit more and refinance her next year at a better rate. So I finally have my freedom back and boy does it feel good! I went out the day after we got her and bought a pink fluffly steering wheel cover and black seatcovers with pink love hearts on them as well as matching floor mats. Even a pink air freshener. Can you tell I'm trying to discourage Doug from wanting to drive it all the time instead of me???? lol It now definitely looks like he has borrowed his wife's car when he drives it. It hasn't deterred him that much though because Doug has never owned a brand new car before in his life and I let him drive her home from the showroom on the day we picked her up. He's really enjoying driving something that doesn't make strange, unidentifiable noises and that will actually promise to get him where he is going! And very unlike me, Lola is being kept spotlessly clean!!! lol No rubbish left in the car, no eating in the car, nothing gets left in the car and she's been washed once already. Black does show all the dirt sadly so every morning I use a special cloth to give her a quick wipe over before I drive her. I plan on keeping her a long time so I want to take good care of her. I figure cos she gives about 600km per tank of fuel I should really treat her nicely!!! lol So there is my exciting news. I'll take an actual picture of my Lola when I get a new camera as Caeligh dropped my good camera and busted the lens so it is stuck halfway and won't close or open fully anymore, completely crapped...not very happy about that......

In other exciting news....(not that a pic of my ever-widening arse is exciting, trust me....lol)

My first ever article for SC has come out in the latest issue - 57. I have to say I'm really excited about it. I'm glad that after doing the whole pubbing thing for a while I'm not sick of it or unappreciative of it. I'm still feeling very thankful to have my article picked up and I think Kim and the team at SC have done a fab job with this issue. I'm missing one layout - No Mama - because it's actually my Masters single layout entry from last year *my bad* but I figure somebody may as well use it if they like it. I just can't find where I've put the photographs of my Masters stuff which is why it isnt' there.

The typing is going great guns to the point where work just keeps coming from the most unexpected places and with people coming to me instead of me having to go and find them. One of those things that makes me thankful that God is working in my life even though I know I don't give Him nearly as much time or thought as I should. But having the makings of what hopefully continues to be a successful business has brought so much change into our lives that I am grateful, really grateful, and it makes the long hours and lack of sleep far more bearable, knowing that hard work is paying off and that we can use that money to do things for our family that we couldn't afford to before AKA Lola. Without the business there's no way we could have gotten another car, not even a second hand one let alone a new one. How sad when I'm excited that we went lounge shopping last weekend while all the kids were off with their gran and we found a lounge we like. We've also never owned a new lounge before, always hand-me-downs and cast-offs from other people or second hand from op shops (not that I haven't loved some of our old lounges!) and the one we have now is totally wrecked and another lounge is getting to be a priority. So we've found the one we like and we're going to save up to go and buy it. I even got excited about buying new towels!!! I've never bought a set of towels before in my life, I've gotten one or two when I've had money or they've been really cheap so every towel in my house is mismatched, a beach towel or full of holes. I went to KMart a couple of weeks ago when their manchester was on special and bought extra blankets for the kids' beds and I bought 10 matching big towels. It's those kind of things that we've never spent money on before that I'm really grateful for too. I'm sure for some people it's totally normal to regularly buy a new set of towels or linen etc on a regular basis but with four kids I know there's lots of you out there too who know that those kind of things are waaaay down the list of priorites and are just frivolous wants instead of actual needs. It's also about knowing that when the bills come in we can pay them. That in itself has been a huge stress relief for Doug as I know he worries about that kind of stuff alot and now I'm glad that I can do my part to help so he doesn't have to worry so much.

I've been getting ready for my first ever plane trip next week to Hughenden for Outback Scrap. I'll put up a post about that shortly so you can see the layout and album I'll be doing. It's been a lot of work in the lead up but I can't wait to get up there and meet everyone who has been involved and so helpful. Karen and Lindy from Flinders Poppy - the craft group who has organised the event - have been absolutely amazing and performed some not so small miracles in the face of adversity. I will definitely be buying those girls a drink!!!

I'm also excited to hopefully be catching up with my Aunty Anne (my birth mother's sister) and my grandparents whom I've never met. They live in Townsville and we have a stop-over there before flying out to Hughenden so I'm really looking forward to meeting them and getting some photos.

Well I'm going back to my typing. I've got a whole pile of Kaisercraft goodies to do up for the coming months of releases along with the other v.talented Kaiser girls so I want to do some of that tonight as well once the typing is finished plus finish off the rest at Jilly's place tomorrow.

Take care y'all!!! Love Lu xx

Unexciting me....

2008-07-28T08:53:00.002+10:00

Only unexciting because I haven't really been up to much to share with anyone! lol It's been a lot of work, work, work and more work, and if someone had told me six months ago (when I was still thinking about how to get my own business off the ground and wondering how on earth I was going to find any clients) that now I'd have people coming to me with offers of work and that I'd have to start turning work down because I have too much, I would never, ever have believed it. On one hand I'm extremely grateful because being self-employed can be real feast or famine stuff - you either have heaps of work or sometimes not nearly enough to pay the bills - but on the other hand it has left me with so little time for scrapping that I feel like I've forgotten how to scrap properly!!! I haven't sat and had a whole day to scrap in a long time. I've been going to Cyberscraps for our fortnightly crop nights which is good but then it's such a fun social thing to catch up with the girls that sometimes I don't even feel like scrapping then. It can be more fun just chatting and catching up instead. I did "Unleaded or Regular" at our last crop night. Glad to have it finished as I started it the fortnight before and it just sat in my bag until the next crop night. Nothing brilliant but I had wanted to do this layout for a while. I took the photo of the Coke cans at my birthday lunch this year when Cass and I went out for Singaporean for lunch. She's always been the full strength "regular" Coke and I've always been the "unleaded" Diet Coke and that's how we both refer to it if we're getting each other a drink "Do you want regular or unleaded?" even though we both know the answer already. The layout looks black on the right hand side because I cut a one inch strip off the paper so the photo mount corner would stick out and the scanner just sees black if there's nothing there.

The layout below is a "play" layout that I did over at Jill's place a couple of weeks ago. Jamie went for a sleep over and it was his first "proper" sleep over at a friend's house. He's used to having sleep overs at Gran's place but staying with friends was a first for him. It was also Levi and Jonah's first time having a friend sleep over at their place. Luckily they were all beautifully behaved. Doesn't it make you wonder why they don't ever do that for their own parents but will be perfect angels for other people?!?!? I'm referring to James there but I'm glad to hear he didn't have Jill and Tim pulling their hair out with his usual drama queen antics - he saves that for us! lol So while the boys were settling in and Doug and Tim were off being geeks together Jill and I took the opportunity to have an hour or two to scrap. Jill's working on gorgeous ATCs which I love to watch her create. ATCs sort of scare me because they're so little and I worry that I won't have nearly enough room. The idea of "inchies" makes me cringe even more - I can't wrap my head around working on a 1 inch square space but en masse I'm sure they would look fabulous. So I had a rummage through Jill's stash and boy does she have some stuff! lol It's always funny how I look at my own stash and think "Oh I've got nothing good" and go through other people's stashes and find the best, funkiest things but it turns out the owner of that stash thinks they've got nothing good either. It's all in the perspective isn't it? I didn't even have my own photos so I've used a pic of Levi. It was totally just playing and I had fun doing this one. Sometimes they're the best ones, the ones we do for the complete creativity of it, with no goal in mind, no purpose and no plan.

Anyway I was talking about work before I side-tracked myself. I haven't counted the hours but I think it's at least a full time job right now and I'm also over the hurdle of having people who pay on different cycles. Some clients pay weekly, some pay fortnightly, some pay end and middle of the month and another pays monthly so that's been something else to juggle until we've gotten into a pattern and I've gotten used to when money comes in. It's finally starting to make an appreciable difference to how we get by too, and I've been able to buy a few things for the house that we've needed but haven't had the money for previously. I think I can even see something that resembles a savings account at some point soon and I haven't had one of those in a very long time. I know a lot of people are the same; savings? what savings? That's the stuff that gets gobbled up by the ever increasing cost of living and the government and the banks all have a tisk-tisk at us terrible people for choosing to eat and have a roof over our heads instead of save our money. Sorry for the cynicism but I'm sure you get what I mean.

On a brighter note, it's only a couple of weeks now until Outback Scrap happens up in Hughenden, Queensland. I've got my classes all set and organised and I'll post something in the next couple of days with more details. If you feel the urge to get away from it all for a few days you should make the trip and come play with us! You can email me for further info if needed.

Okay well I'm off to type now - nothing new there - but have a great week! Love Lu xx

SALE! SALE! SALE! Now I have your attention...lol

2008-07-14T09:21:00.002+10:00

Cyberscraps Mid-Year Sale Now On!

30% off everything (except for already reduced items and Bazzill which is 70c everyday anyway) store wide - even the brand new stuff!!!

Jump online to score a bargain too!

www.cyberscraps.com.au

or visit the shop at 36A Ainsworth Street, Salisbury.

Ph 3274 55 22 if you need info or directions.

Sale runs from today, Monday 14th July until Saturday 19th July 2008.

Happy shopping!

Shiny Happy Friday!

2008-06-27T11:09:00.007+10:00

Okay well it's a bit of a hodge podge mess this post but let's just try and make the best of it! lol What's with all the pics you ask? Blogger has finally changed their upload page to allow for five pics at a time so I figured I should make good use of it because I hardly ever post pics (bad me) and thought I would take the opportunity to photo share what's been going on lately at my place. I posted a pic of Lachlann cos he's my deep and meaningful one. He loves contemporary ballet, has a crystal collection which he uses for various purposes and wears a necklace with certain crystal pendants on it for calming and focus. He's the ADHD kid. He's kind of floating in the middle right now and I have been trying to find the spare money for him to go to dance classes. I'm hoping that because he's so emotive and very much a "feeling" creature, that he will be able to use dance as an outlet for his thoughts and emotions. Logistically it's hard but we'll figure something out. I think it involves a second car but we need one anyway.

Mr James is in the school choir and he really loves it. This was their first performance outside of school, at the local shopping centre on a Saturday morning. I think he spent more time waving at me, watching the crowd and picking his nose than singing but he never misses a performance or a rehersal and as long as he's enjoying himself then that's all that really matters.

I promised James I would share this picture of his favourite whoopee cushion. He has three of them. I guess it's the age.....

Now this is more just for my records than anything else. Caeligh turned 4 waaaaaay back on 4 March and she's like a little adult wandering around in a child's body. That rampant naughty streak of hers hasn't gone by a long shot but we have a naughty chair in the hallway now which is the "most boringest place in the whole big house" so now at least we have an effective negotiating tool! She gave me an earful the other day about why she shouldn't have to sit on the naughty chair because she's the princess. I asked how come she thought she was a princess. Apparently it's because I call her that all the time, me and Daddy both, so that makes her a princess and princesses get to decide what they want to do. Apparently I, Mummy, am NOT a princess so I can't tell her what to do but because she is a princess, she can decide not to sit on the naughty chair if she doesn't want to. I grabbed at a really thin straw and said, "Well, if you're the princess then I'm the Queen so I overrule you kiddo!!!". She didn't get it until I got out a pack of cards and showed her how the king and queen are in charge! lol

Mr James again, and you can't see it in the photograph but he's lost both of his top front teeth so he's a bit weird about smiling for me. He turned 7 on 19 May and he's as much a drama queen as ever and everything is a total disaster. His favourite saying is that he's DOOMED!!!! What 7 year old thinks he's doomed for goodness sake? It's always at the height of a screaming hissy fit and it's right up there with, "Can't a boy just have some fun?" when he gets asked to come inside, "Can't a boy just have some toys?" when he wants to take half his room in the car when we go somewhere, "Can't a boy just have a bite to eat?" when he has left it too late to snack before bed, as we're trying to get out the door etc. He is fully of lots of funny little sayings and mannerisms that I really love in him, including seeing his dad make fun of the Nu Wave Oven on the shopping channel the other day. We were being sarcastic about how much we'd love a Nu Wave and it's only $299 with a FREE knife set!!! James sat down and dutifully wrote down the toll free number of the home shopping channel and then brought me the piece of paper and asked if we could get the Nu Wave Oven for daddy for his birthday cos he really seemed to want it a lot.

Blayd has also had a birthday and now I'm officially the mother of a teenager. ARGH!!!! It's come way too soon, as these things always do, and it really is as if overnight they turn from *sort of* normal kids into grunting, cranky, bad-tempered beasts!!! He always seems to be in a bad mood and I don't like boy hormones already. It's been a very eventful month for him actually. He turned 13 on 28 May and then a week later proceeded to break his right pinky finger just below the first knuckle, snapped it clean through while playing dodgeball at school. That's the first time any of my kids - touch wood - have broken anything and I consider myself to be lucky for one and blessed secondly that God watches them when I can't and has spared them from worse injury over the years. He's also had his first girlfriend. Well, it's kind of a girlfriend...I think...sort of...maybe....lol I say that because the young lady in question was also quite partial to his cousin Scott and I think she just wants to hang out with both of them when it suits her so I'm keeping my nose right out of that one! I did give him the (and I know this sounds dreadful but you'll understand where I'm coming from here) "Bros Before Hos" speech - not in those words of course. I said something like how his friendship with Scott, who is also his cousin, will be there long after the girl in question has grown up, moved away, found a new boyfriend, etc and that the friendship is worth far more so if it came down to the situation where the girl was causing friction between Blayd and Scott I told Blayd to pick Scott. Girls will come and go but I hope that their very special lifelong friendship will stay exactly that - lifelong. Wish me luck on that one!!!! lol

This is the desk where I've spent what feels like every waking hour lately. My desk where I do my typing work and also where I scrap. Typing to the right - where you can see my trusty keyboard - and scrapping to the left where you can see my scrap stuff and my purple basket full of inky dinks. The stuff under the desk is just stash and I'm not even sure I remember what I own anymore. It will all have to be moved soon as there is a huge built in wardrobe going in our room - exactly where my desk and all that crap - sits right now. I dread having to move it all.

These is my mobile stash - the bags I take with me whenever I go to Cyberscraps for a crop or to Cass's place to get some scrapping done. It's all a bit of a mess right now and seriously needs some sorting out. Would you be surprised if I told you I can't find anything I need when I need it?!?!?!

Cass and I escaped this morning and went to a local LSS for a paper sale. I was totally restrained and only bought $13.50 worth of paper!!! Don't even ask me about the fish paper - I have looked at it every single time I've been in that shop for the past couple of months and I figured that there must be a reason I need it for it to keep jumping out at me each time I go in there so I bloody well bought it! Look out for it on a ghastly layout some time soon! lol.....

I barely took any photos at all over the June Scrapbook Convention weekend. I did have my camera but it remained in my bag 99% of the time because I was having way too much find talking and demonstrating for Scrapping Outback and helping in Cass's class and chatting to remember to get it out! The one above is Cass and Melissa at dinner on Friday night at an amazing Indian restaurant in West End called Sitar. The food was just fantastic, the best Indian I've ever EVER had and it was such a great fun night getting know Melissa and Fi from Kaisercraft.

This is a pic of moi and the wonderful, wonderful Louise Nelson who came a bloody long way just for a scrap show!!! lol I've loved Louise's work for just about forever and think she's a mega clever chicky. We've done the blog stalk back and forth but never met up IRL until that weekend. I snuck away for half an hour on the last day of the show to have a yak and a hot chocolate with her. She's really lovely and I'm so glad to have had a chance to catch up with her. Now I just need to find a reason to go to South Australia for a visit..... lol

This was Friday night dinner again with Mel, Cass, Me and Fi.

This was Sunday night dinner with the girls from SM, Melissa, Cass, Me and Leanne Stamatellos. We went to aThai restaurant this time and again, great food, great wine, great company. Poor ol' Cass got herself a wee bit tiddled!!!!! You'd never guess it from the pictures though. Earlier in the evening we found ourselves at the Printblocks for drinks and got to catch up with some of the wonderful industry, retail and magazine chickies from around the place.

This is a (bad) photograph of the layout I did for Scrapbook Creations' Colour Competition. It was a struggle, let's be honest, but I'm happy with it. It was on display along with a layout Cass did as well. We both had 20 sheets of paper each to use, plus different embellies etc and I was working at Cyberscraps that day so did mine there and she was at home. She emailed me her layout once it was done and it turns out we had used exactly the same two sheets of patterned paper and our layouts look freakishly similar, right down to the same Fancy Pants journalling card as well! When Kim (SC Ed.) got them in the mail she apparently thought we'd done it on purpose as a joke!!! lol Nup, all very Twilight Zone...do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do...I'm lousy at theme songs, sorry....

Cass and I had a fab day at Jill's place last week, getting our Kaisercraft DT work done. Yes, even with all that yakking and chatting we even got stuff done. Her new kitten Fergus is just adorable even though by the time the boys were finished doing some painting, poor Fergus was a bit pink and orange as well as brown! Jill and fam have been having a well deserved break so hope the travels are all going okay! See you when you get back!

I'm doing some stuff for Kaisercraft at the moment which is keeping me more than busy, plus I've got a couple of product challenges for SM on the go and an article for SC to finish by next week. I'm trying to settle into some kind of routine with the new transcription company I'm doing work for and I'm making slow but steady progress there. It takes up way too many hours but any job does. I'm spending my days working, occasionally scrapping, thinking a lot about where I want to go with my life in general. I worry too much, don't enjoy my family enough and I think I'm too inner focussed and feel like I should be doing more for others in the universe. All very deep but it's a real sense of obligation that I feel at the moment, that I am lucky to have what I have and should be doing more to help those who don't have the life I do. There's a lady locally who makes up care packs for children who have to go into foster care and most of them arrive at a foster home with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and even those aren't enough most times, so she makes up a drawstring duffle bag that is age appropriate and contains a couple of sets of clothes, new underwear, a new toothbrush, a couple of toys and books so that at least they have something to call their own in the middle of the upheaval of having to leave their family and their home. I think that's a great cause so I was thinking about trying to get involved in that somehow. I'm not sure exactly what I can do apart from donating the things that go into these bags but that's a start. I'll let you know how that goes.

Not long now until Outback Scrap at Hughenden. I've got my OTP and my layout all done and ready to go and I think we leave Brisbane on 14 August. This trip will be another tick off the Life List for this year as I'll be going on a commercial plane for the very first time so I'm looking forward to that.

I was also really sad to hear about Jane McGrath this week. Rest in peace.

I'm off to grab some lunch and then it's back to my keyboard for an afternoon of copy typing. Have a good weekend and keep in touch yeah? Love, Lu xx

Quick update

2008-06-15T09:31:00.002+10:00

WOW WOW WOW!!!! What a fantastic weekend we had last weekend at the Brisbane Scrapbook Convention! I met up with soooooo many amazing scrappers and friends whom I'd only ever spoken to on the phone or online before. Cass and I went in Friday to help my friend Alana set up her gorgeous display for Scrapping Outback. It was so much fun to unpack all the beautiful products she had like her cool albums and beautiful wedding words (the most delicate things you'll ever see!). She even had a fabulous pink windmill. Cass put up all of her layouts for the tutor display and we caught up with the gorgeous girls from Scrapbooking Memories when they eventually made it - minus their luggage!!! We got a sneak peak at all the fab products everyone else had and Cass and I made a beeline for the guy who was selling the Dew Drop ink pads 4 for only $10!!! Talk about eager- we spent $60 on ink between us and the show wasn't even technically open yet!!! lol But hey, ink is an essential like food, water, air and sleep right?

So first day was CRAZY BUSY with people everywhere so you couldn't even move. It was pretty much what I expected but it's a bit harder being behind the counter instead of walking around. I helped Cass to teacher mini brag book classes each day which went really well so at least I'm a little better prepared to teach at Outback Scrap in August as that will be the first BIG classes I've ever had to teach.

The best part of the whole weekend was catching up each evening after the show finished. That was when you actually got to properly chat to people who were too busy rushing around during the day. On the Friday night Cass and I had a fantastic dinner with Melissa and Fi from Kaisercraft at a great Indian restaurant at West End. We had the best time just yakking and catching up. I think all of us could have talked all night but sleep called. Saturday night we ended up at Satay Hut at Southbank with a great bunch of girls including Chris, Michelle, Raqual, Melissa, Fi and more and I'm really sorry if I havent' remembered your names. I think I met so many peopel that after a while I started forgetting who was who! Everyone was fantastic, funny and wonderful. It was a great night and I'm going to put up some pics when I have a bit more time. Sunday night we had drinks at the Printblocks 20th birthday party at the Plough Inn where I met even more great girls and caught up with Kim and Lorraine from Scrapbook Creations. We then had dinner at a Thai place with the SM girls and Leanne. It was such a fun night. Tthe only problem with this business is that we're all scattered across a very big country so those kind of catch ups are so few and far between. On the Monday afternoon I FINALLY got a chance to sit down with a scrapper whose work I've loved for just about forever. Louise Nelson came for the show and was there the whole weekend but it took until Monday afternoon for us to match schedules long enough fo a hot chocolate and a long awaited chat. She's just the coolest chick!!! You rock babe! We've promised to keep in touch via email cos the last time I checked SA is a bit of a drive! lol

I didn't get nearly as many pics as I wanted because I usually ended up having such a good time I forgot to get the camera out so if anyone was there and has pics please pass them on to me! I know just about everyone had a camera which was great so I'm sure I'll see more photos as everyone starts updating their blogs.

I'm off now. A BBQ at my little sister's place for her birthday today and the a BBQ at Cass's place with Jilly and her husband as well. Can't wait to see all our feral kids get together - the neighbours will think we've opened a wild animal shelter in the backyard. James is v.excited - he hasn't seen Levi or Jonah in months - an eternity apparently in 7 yo terms! Hopefully there'll be lots of good photo ops. I haven't been taking as many photos as I should be and I hate not having anything new to work with.

I've got a busy few weeks with a new transcription company offering me 20 hours of work per week on top of what I'm already doing which is great for the bank account and not so good for the scrapping time. I've got layouts to prepare for CHA for Kaisercraft as well as some wood products to scrap that need repackaging so I'll be busy with that. I've also got an upcoming article for Scrapbook Creations to finish off and a product challenge for SM. Apart from that nothing much!!! lol I love that I'm so busy even if I don't have a lot of spare time. I know lots of girls are in the same boat so good on all of you for juggling it all.

Have a great week and I'll try to find some photos for the next update.

Love Lu xx

Stressy! Stressy!!!!

2008-05-21T20:47:00.002+10:00

Sorry I haven't posted sooner! My house is a government funded "housing commission" house and they have decided to do routine maintenance on the property which means that they are going to put in a built in wardrobe in mine and Doug's room, paint every room inside and the whole outside of the house, replace cyclone wire fences with timber fences on three sides of the property, build a carport, replace a concrete slab and give us a big garden shed, replace guttering and roofing, put in concrete paths from the letterbox to the patio and from the back of the house to the clothes line, build privacy screens in front of our front windows, replace the metal patio railings with nice timber ones and a few other things. I can't tell you how grateful I am that the house is being upgraded and we aren't paying for it. I know it would cost thousands and thousands to have those things done if we were owners and paying for it ourselves. I will readily admit I'm one of those public housing tenants who is EXTREMELY GRATEFUL for being in our house, and even though it isn't big enough for our needs it is affordable and we are blessed to be here instead of trying to fight it out in the private rental market. Thank God for our home!

So we've had to do a big declutter of the house so that when the painters arrive we can just push all the furniture into the middle of the room. I've told the children to treat it like we're moving and so they have had to pull out every toy and item of clothing they possess and choose between things they love (which they can keep), things that are broken or missing parts (that go to the tip) and things that they no longer love which can bless someone else (charity donations). Having to really pull the house apart actually stresses me a lot and messes with my head so I'm feeling especially scattered right now!!!

I am going to go and watch the State of Origin though because I do love a bit of footy!!! lol

Anyway, I just wanted to update so you know what I'm up to. I've got layouts to do for Kaisercraft for their CHA exhibit in the States in July, I've got a heap of exciting nice stuff to do for Scrapping Outback for our stand at the Scrpabook and Papercraft Convention at the Brisbane Convention Centre on the Queen's Birthday long weekend in June and I have a house full of renovations to work around!!! As usual, it's chaos here!!! lol OH for a quiet life....!

I've also got typing and trying to get a couple of new clients so that's a bit more to think about but huge hellos to loolabelle!!!!!! And also to the SM girls - can't wait to catch up in Brissie for dinner one night. Miss Sue the Too Cool = thinking of you! Lusi - totally owe you a phone call babe!!!

Wish me luck in staying sane!!!! Love, Lu

Some days I love interruptions!

2008-05-15T18:09:00.003+10:00

Look at this beautiful card I received in the mail today!!!! It's from the very lovely Brigitte who has been an online buddy of mine for a long time. Brigitte I can't thank you enough for the gorgeous card and for the lovely words inside. You are one of those rare special people who always seem to know when to comment, post or pop up and say hi and I'm so thankful for web friends like you. I *promise* I haven't forgotten your journal!!!!

It was destined to be a day of interruptions because Caeligh was at home with me while I worked today and apart from the occasional break to watch a show with her or play cardboard box cars, she really kept herself amused pretty much all day so as a reward for being such a good girl she and daddy have gone out to the shops to get her a present for being so well behaved during the day. If you know Caeligh you'll know how much of a minor miracle it is for her to have a peaceful, settled and quiet day where she has stayed out of trouble and kept herself amused. I hate that I have to work while she's at home but I can't bear the thought of her being at kindy just about every day so I keep her home with me and we have little "rest breaks" during my working day where we have morning tea together, we have a dance, we watch a bit of a show she likes, we have lunch, cuddles on the bed for 10 minutes, have a warm Milo together or I read her a story. It's a nice way to break up my day as well so I spend 10 minutes of every hour doing something with her and the time seems to fly so fast that she doesn't seem to notice that I'm busy typing until I come back for the next 10 minute break an hour later.

I got a couple of other deliveries today as well. The nice courier man arrived mid-morning with a delivery from the fantastic people at Kaisercraft, containing products for some layouts I've been asked to do. Thank you so much to Melissa for organising all that - you are a champion to find time to sort all the DT stuff out while doing everything else as well!

I also got a delivery of a case of wine that I ordered via a wine club. It's the first time I've done that but I do like a glass of wine (oh, really, I'd never have guessed I can hear you say!!!!! - those who know me are so NOT surprised!!!! lol) and I don't know anything about wine at all really. I have no idea what to buy if I walk through the bottle shop. Usually it's something cheap or that I've tried somewhere before. I don't tend to take risks and spend much on wine because I don't know what I'm looking for or whether I'll end up with a $20 bottle of liquid dreadful. I'm also pretty unpretentious about it all - I've tried $30 merlot and $4 merlot and I like the $4 merlot better!!!! lol That's me - ALL CLASS!!!! lol I know it doesn't really come down to price but I don't know what else to look for so I figured Doug and I could try something different and learn a bit in the process. Right up there with my penchant for $4 merlot is my firm belief that if you ever get to taste a wine somewhere DO NOT SPIT IT OUT!!!! Wine is supposed to be enjoyed and spitting it out is a waste of perfectly good wine! Like I said, all class here.... So I am sitting at my desk, about to start dinner, and working out if I'm enjoying a glass of 2002 Mt Pleasant Shiraz. Not a big red wine drinker (ahem...unless it's a bit of Chateau de Cardboard Lambrusco that is) so I had to refer to the tasting notes to work out what I was tasting. It's pretty good so far and those who know me will be so proud when I say that I haven't refrigerated one single bottle of the red wine yet! I don't even know really why I want to acquire a better knowledge of wines (apart from the fact that I like drinking it) but it seems like something handy to know and something Doug and I can do together, cuddled up on the couch - alone - after the children have gone to bed and the nice "grown up" food comes out like pate, brie and dark chocolate!!!! YUM!!!

BUT...and isn't there always one!...I have some more typing to do first, dinner to put on, children to bathe and get into bed and probably homework to help with.

Thanks again to Brigitte for the gorgeous card. Even though I don't "do" cards, I certainly appreciate the effort that others put into them so I'm thrilled to have received something hand made.

Have a nice evening and I'll let you know tomorrow whether the Shiraz and I liked each other or not! lol Love, Lu

Time for change

2008-05-14T18:27:00.005+10:00

Well I've had some time to think about where I am in life with work, family, scrapping and the whole 9 yards as the saying goes, and I've made the decision to make some changes for myself, hopefully for the better.

The first of those changes was to sadly relinquish my position on the CyberScraps design team. A lot of my decision came from the fact that I don't really have the time that's needed to be a fully involved design team member for a retail store with an online component as well. It takes far more hours than it looks from the outside to keep up with all the work needed each month in terms of the gallery, forum, cybercrops, challenges, planning, etc, and with only a couple of people it's been hard to keep up. I've definitely not been able to support Cath as much as I would have liked to and it isn't fair for me to continue when I know I can't do that. I'm going to be cutting back now to things which don't require a lot of online involvement which for me really takes away from my scrapping time which should be the whole point of the exercise. I've been with Cath since she began the online store almost two years ago now and I've loved every minute of being immersed in the whole design team lifestyle and playing such a hands on role in the direction of the shop. I've especially loved the amazing women I've met through my time there as well - people I probably never would have met otherwise - and I hope that anyone who wants to keep in touch will do so through my blog or email me or carrier pigeon or anything at all and naturally I'll do the same. I'm also very thankful to Cath for all the opportunities that being a part of her design team has given me and I know she'll continue to do well.

So what now? The typing is here as always so that's keeping me busy but in the spare moments (what are those?!?!?!) my lovely friend Alana who runs Scrapping Outback has asked me to help her out to showcase some of her products so I'll be doing that in bits and pieces for her. I'll also be helping out at the Scrapping Outback stand at the Scrapbook and Papercraft Convention next month (Queen's birthday long weekend at the Brisbane Convention Centre, Southbank) doing product demonstrations etc so I'd love to see you if you are going. That reminds me...

.... that Scrapping Outback is holding a big competition - Sounds like fun......here is the info!
Brisbane Scrapbooking ConventionJune 8 & 9thWould you like to see your work on display at our stand, alongside works by Lu Benson (li'l ol' me), Rachelle Minett, Sandra Gerdes, Petrina McDonald and Jill Geraghty Groves...well you could. If you have purchased products from Scrapping Outback you are eligiable to enter. We want you to help us show off our best products. So if you do not already have our designs in your stash, you need to do some shopping.To enter you just need to submit your layout or off the page project. You can enter as many submissions as you like...the only requirments is that you MUST contain products from Scrapping Outback. Entries are to be uploaded in the Brisbane Scrapbooking Convention Competition in the gallery. So register your details in the gallery, grab some products and show us what you can do with our designs.Entries close 27th May. Winning layout will receive a huge prize pack valued at $100, presented in one of our Convention reusable shopping bags which will be personally autographed by all the above designers as well as your layout on display at the Brisbane Papercraft Convention. Sounds cool hey?

In an update from my work for Kaisercraft at the Stitches and Craft Show a couple of weeks ago, I'm also really excited to announce that I've been asked to be a Design Team member for Kaisercraft!!!! I only found out yesterday so that's mega exciting. As far as design teams go it's a great opportunity to work with all of their latest and greatest products to create samples for their catalogues, trade shows like CHA and the monthly workshop booklet that you can find at your local scrap shop and it's something I can fit in around the typing business as well which I'm really thankful for. There are some other fantastically talented Aussie scrappers joining me on this very exciting design team but I'll let them tell you in their own time - I dont' want to spoil anyone's surprise but I'll link as soon as they've made their own announcements. Huge thanks go to Melissa Kennedy who asked me to come on board - I'm really honoured to be involved and can't wait to show you all the exciting things that Kaisercraft has planned! They just keep getting better and better as I'm sure you all know. Stay posted for updates.

So have I been scrapping? Not much really but I did a couple of layouts today that I'm really happy with.

I'm off to do some typing tonight because there's always that waiting for me and tomorrow Caeligh wants me to help her make a mini album for her to keep in her room. She always loves to see the layouts I've done but wants to keep them for herself in her room instead of in any of my albums so we'll make her something that's just her own.

I hope everyone's travelling okay and keeping well. Hopefully now I'll have a bit more blog surfing time to catch up with you all. I miss reading what everyone's doing and I definitely need to have a big catch up!

Have a fab week, love Lu

MY FEET ARE KILLING ME!!!!

2008-04-30T21:43:00.002+10:00

WOW!!!! What a massively busy day!!!! Cass and I picked up Jill and gave her a lift in to the Convention Centre with us - no point all of us wasting petrol and parking money! Creative Living have set up an amazing indoor garden for us to work in - complete with timber garden sheds too! There is astro turf on the ground and lovely white tables and chairs for our make and take classes (we KaiserCraft chickies are doing bag tags complete with your choice of papers, flowers, bling and ribbons, and the luverly Fiskars gals are doing make and take cards and showing off all of their fab tools - don't forget to look for their new Fingertip Craft Knife - it looks weird, works like a dream and I need to get me one of those babies!!!!). There's also a real grassed garden behind a white picket fence and there are cute little ducklings wandering around in there. We have Garden Parties which is our on stage demos where Cass and I get to wear little microphones around our heads like space cadets and we do quick layout demos, altered monograms and I do a wooden canvas demo and while that's going on the (hopefully) captive audience is served the most amazing little white iced cupcakes with pink flowers. There is beautiful music playing all the time and it's like scrap heaven in that corner of the show!!! It's quiet, it's creative and it's really reall fun!!! From a work point of view we don't get to sit down at all but the loo is right near our garden shed and the coffee shop is about three metres away! I've had a wonderful, fast and busy day and now that I've done my first "on stage" demo I'm not nearly as nervous as I was this morning. I guess it's just the fear of the unknown as it's my first time working one of the craft shows. I hope I'll be well and truly over the nerves by June as I'm helping Cass teach her classes and doing some product demos as well.

I'm going to go and have a quick crash on the couch for a while before I get back to my typing. I've got a couple of fairly new clients and I didn't want to tell them I was unavailable only a couple of weeks after they started with me so I'm fitting in my typing around the days at the show. Thank goodness it's a relatively quiet week on that front otherwise I don't know how I would be managing it all. Doug has been a total legend at home. I walked in the door after Cass dropped me off at about 6:45 tonight and the loungeroom and kitchen were clean and Doug was just serving dinner. There isn't a price you can put on a capable man who happily does what needs to be done and one who also rang me right before he knew I had to get ready for my demo today just to wish me good luck and to tell me he loves me.

I haven't taken any pics today because I forgot my camera in the mad rush this morning but I will take some tomorrow and post them so you can see what we've been up to. If you do manage to get to the show please do come and say hi and sit and do a make and take with us. They're quick, easy and lots of fun - and best of all they're FREE!!! Then hang around to watch a demo, admire the ducklings and enjoy a scrummy cupcake!

Have a fab Thursday! Love, Lu

Brisbane Stitches and Craft show

2008-04-30T06:15:00.002+10:00

I'm just getting ready to get moving for the day. Cass and I have been asked to teach for KaiserCraft at the Brisbane Stitches and Craft Show this week (today until Sunday, 10am - 4pm every day) so we've spent the last week doing a bit of headless chooka action getting demos ready and organising ourselves for what will hopefully be five days of fun and meeting people! We always make a point of going to the craft shows anyway (best place around if you're an ink junky like us!!!) and you always manage to run into people you know which is a great way to catch up so now we'll have five days to have a look around although I think most of that will be trying to duck around the place in the hour before it opens each day because after that we're pretty well scheduled. We'll be doing make and takes and "garden party" demos during the day so if you're going to the show be sure to pop in and say hi! I believe we'll be spending our days in the Creative Living "garden" which will be an interesting experience to say the least!!! lol I'm absolutely going to take my camera because I'm sure I'll want to get pics, and especially if I run into friends which reminds me I probably should go and top up that camera battery first or nobody is getting pictures of anything!!!

I'm off to pack my toolbox with a few basics we'll need to do our demos and then go get gussied up ready to rush out the door when Cass turns up to pick me up. I think there'll be some herding of children and husband in amongst that as well so I'll post more when I get a chance.

Hope you're all having a great week and dont' forget to say hi if you're at the show!!!

Love, Lu

Lest We Forget

2008-04-25T11:07:00.000+10:00

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them".

Lest We Forget

Seriously missing scrapping type contact!

2008-04-17T06:55:00.011+10:00

So I got some more scrapping done, bugger all really in the scheme of things but something is better than nothing in my book! lol I've been doing really well with the typing but it's a lot of work, more than I had planned on, and so I'm back to working ridiculous hours but at least I'm working ridiculous hours for myself and not anyone else so I can't bitch too much.

I'm not sure why Blogger is making me put all my layouts up the top all of a sudden but people have emailed me to say that they can't leave me comments either so wassup Blogger?

Anyway the top two layouts are using a cool new range at CyberScraps from a company called
Little Yellow Bicycle and the range is called Zach's Life. All very funky and great for the boys in your life. Some of the papers even have coloured ledger paper on the reverse -have me a serious thing for ledger paper at the moment and I've been collecting it even though I don't want to use it in case I need it for something special, whatever that is! lol There are cloth stickers, die cut cardstock stickers, cool round brads that look like meta washers, some nice alphabets that I have left au naturel apart from white pen around the outline of them and the great range of double sided papers.

The layout of Lily is the one I did last crop with the new KaiserCraft Bohemia paper range which I think is gorgeous. I left all my photos at home that day (Bridget Jones here: DISASTER!!!) so I had to borrow Cass's photos and chose this gorgeous pic of Lily.

The next two - Baby Ballerinas and Kristofer - I did at Cass's place yesterday while experiencing her shiny new scrapping bench for the first time. I was just playing around - gotta love permission to play - so I just used whatever came to
mind and whatever felt right. I love being able stand up but it fits a bar stool underneath cos the old grey mare ain't what she used to be so I got jack of standing after about two hours!!! Beautiful scrap room though and everything is in arm's reach. Cass has her side of the bench and she's set up the other side complete with cutting mat for me so I'll always have a place to scrap no matter how cluttered my desk at home is. I've got three transcription machines on my scrap desk and now have no room left to scrap - even after all the trouble with the air conditioner and completely decluttering, reorganising and setting up my scrap desk how I wanted it.

So that's been me lately, working mostly, scrapping rarely, but glad that the mail out for the typing business worked. Now for the headache making issue of sorting out tax, GST, BAS statements and all that stuff. See that's the thing that I really loathe as I failed bookkeeping miserably at TAFE because numbers just make my brain shut down and I get so easily confused! How stupid does that sound....but I do, I've never been good at math and trying to remember where all the different numbers go is a struggle. So I seriously lack confidence with that but I know if I take my time and persevere at it I will get a better understanding. Cass said MYOB would be a huge help too so I'll get that and take it from there. ARGH headache making.......

There's lots going on scrapwise behind the scenes with a couple of articles coming up, my "I Thee Wed" cube in this months' SM and my first ever publication in SC with "Friends From The First", a layout I was really happy with and it has a cute photo of James with Levi and Jonah, my friend Jilly's two boys. I'm also really excited to be working for KaiserCraft at the Stitches and Craft show at the end of the money for five days. I have a secret fear that I will spend more than I earn by having to stay in that place for 10 hours a day!!!! lol Cass and I are both working there so if you're going to the Stitches and Craft show in Brisbane from April 30 - May 4 we'd love to see you!!!! Come by and say hello and see what fabulous new things KaiserCraft are coming up with. Man, have they come such a long way as a scrap company and I find myself using lots of their stuff these days. All those cool OTP things and being surrounded by bling and pearls and flowers all day - heaven!

While I think of it I did a super quick blog cruise the other day so hello to Miss Sue the Too Cool (one day we might get that chat!), Ali (congrats), Jilly (thinking of you dearie!) and Lusi (prayers for you honey and hope it's all going okay) and Brigitte (thank you for always keeping in touch and I haven't forgotten your journal). Blogging and blog surfing is one of those things that drops off the end of the priority list pretty fast in my house when life gets busy but I often think about all the cool chicks I know through scrapping and have only talked to through blogging and wish I had more time to keep in touch. I know there are lots of us in the same boat though.

I'm off to type now. I have about 15 hours of audio transcription to get through today (4 hours of actual digital file but the ratio for transcription typing is about 1:3 so three hours of typing for every 1 hour of recording but I'm doing something new so I'll be a little slower today). It's a good opportunity though and good money so I'm just going to bite the bullet and get it done and over with. There are people who have crappier jobs than me to ensure there is money in the bank each week, I'm just lucky I'm sitting at home doing it and that I can choose my own hours.

I hope everyone is having a productive week so far - is it Thursday? Yep it is which makes tomorrow Friday!!! I have sadly had to give up my Fridays at the shop because I have one (now) regular client and their busiest day is today which means I need to do all their typing from two big clinic lists tomorrow so no time for the shop but I will still definitely be coming to the crop nights - no way I'd miss my crop nights with the fab group of chicks we have at CyberScraps!!! I'll be coming in on Mondays now with Cass because by Monday I've done all of my work from the following week and nobody has any new work until Tuesdays from the look of things and then it's full on from Tuesday to Friday. I've got Caeligh at home today as she normally doesn't go to kindy on Thursdays anyway but suddenly I'm busy on Thursdays with typing so she will spend the day watching her favourite tv shows, reading books and colouring in on my bed so I can still see her and chat while I work. We'll probably have a picnic lunch on my doona! lol I'm torn between feeling like she would get more attention and have more fun at kindy but I feel like I never see her if she doesn't have her Thursdays at home with me. Friday she goes to gran for the day which she loves so I don't worry about that and she's at kindy Monday through to Wednesday. I feel like I never get the balance right no matter what I do so I usually just do what I think is best at the time and hope that it's enough.

Have a good week chickies - what's everyone else been up to?

Take care everyone, much love Lu

New For Old Sale at Cyberscraps!

2008-03-31T11:08:00.001+10:00

NEW FOR OLD SALE

SUNDAY 13 APRIL 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Do you have half-used packets of chipboard in your stash that contain only the wrong letters?

• Do you have paper that you loved once upon a time and now can't stand?

• Did you buy a magic gadget and you've used it twice?

Bring it to the CyberScraps' New for Old Sale – get rid of the stuff you don't need and stock up on new goodies for just the registration fee!

How it works:

• Register with us by Saturday 5 April and pay a $5.00 registration fee.

• Make a list of your items – keep a copy for yourself and give a copy to us (see the required format below – we will be using this list to charge customers for your items and to issue your credit at the end of the sale, so you must follow this format). You can download a .pdf version of the inventory form here so that you can print it out, or as a Word document here. If you complete the inventory form by hand, please use a dark-coloured pen (not pencil) and write very legibly.

• Mark your items with your initials followed by a number for each item – for example, if you're Jane Smith the first item you're selling would be marked JS1, the second item JS2, etc.

• If you have multiples of the same item (for example, three sheets of the same paper which you're selling separately) each one must have a separate number and must be listed separately.

• Mark your items with the price .

• Deliver your items to us between 4.30pm Saturday 12 April and 8.00am Sunday 13 April.

• At the end of the day we will total the amount your items brought, and issue you with a store credit for that amount – depending on the popularity of the sale, we may not be able to finish totalling sales until Monday.

Tips:

• Use pencil to mark your initials, the number and price on the cut-off strip of double-sided paper – mark single-sided papers on the back.

• Stickers are great for pre-packaged items (chipboard, tools, etc) and can be bought from OfficeWorks or larger newsagents.

• You can package together multiple items (for example, several sheets of paper) but people are more likely to buy individual items.

Not in Brisbane?

If you can send us your stash, marked as above, with the completed inventory by Thursday, 10 April we'll happily sell it on your behalf and you'll receive an online credit voucher. However, you MUST think about what you'll do with unsold items – if we post them back to you, the cost of postage will be deducted from your sales credit. Download the inventory form as a .pdf file here, or as a Word document by clicking here – fill it in, keep a copy for yourself and send us a copy with your stash.

Coming to buy some goodies?

We'll accept payment for items by cash, VisaCard, MasterCard or EFTPOS - the transaction minimum for cards is $10.00.

Questions?

Call us on 07 3274 5522 during business hours or email Cath if you'd like more information.

Bonus for non-scrappers:

The Cystic Fibrosis bookshop (supported by the Lord Mayor's Community Trust) nextdoor is having a 50% off sale that weekend - someplace to send your non-scrapping companions!

Example of list format for Jane Smith:
Item name
Description
Price

JS1  Chatterbox paper  $0.20

JS2  Chatterbox paper  $0.20

JS3  Sizzix machine  $50.00

JS4  Sizzix die  $70.00

Now that I've finally finished sorting through my desk and my entire stash it sounds like a good idea to me!!!

I haven't really been up to much else...... okay well that's a fib.....I've been having a few new things going on in the background that I can't really say too much about just yet...I've spent a small fortune that I didn't really have to spend on a mail-out for my typing business (but you know what they say - you've gotta spend money to make money) and countless hours doing up letters, resumes, envelopes, yadda yadda. I've had to take a four day temp job this week because the mail out stretched an already thin budget but I have to say it has paid off already with my first new client starting with me next week and wanting to refer a colleague as well so it's a good start. The kids only have three days of school left until a week of holidays which is also really handy because Doug will be at home too and I need the car on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to do pick up and drop off for this new client.

Poor James is standing next to me asking why I type so fast!!! lol I told him it was my job and he asked "why can't you just type slower?". Lol I don't make any money that way!

I had to sit a typing test yesterday with the recruitment company who were offering the temp job. I haven't sat a formal typing speed test in years and a small part of me got snarky and wondered why I had to prove myself because I've been doing this for so long now but I know that lots of people aren't quite so genuine about their experience and figure they'll make up something good and then learn as they go. So I sat the copy test - which is really different to dictaphone typing which I do - and I had to look at a sheet of typed material next to me and type as much as I could of that within five minutes. The focus was on accuracy but mine suffered a bit because I'm used to just looking at the screen and typing what I hear which means I can fix mistakes as I see myself making them, not trying to switch between looking at the screen and looking at a piece of paper. I could feel myself making the odd mistake but it was too time consuming to go back and fix them because then it impacted on your speed result. In the end I scored a shocking 91% accuracy ( for most typing jobs you need to have preferably 98%) but a lightning quick (for me anyway) 97 words per minute!!! I was blown away by the speed because I thought I was slower than normal because I was trying to look at the screen and at the paper as well. If I had known how fast I was going I would have slowed down a bit to focus more on the accuracy which normally is much better for me in my usual typing environment. It doesn't matter, I was offered the job and now I can say I have a documented speed test as well but I might put the brakes on a bit and say that I'm 90 words per minute and better accuracy which is more like my real speed. See? I went from a quick little post to a big one just typing as fast as I think - yep I talk that fast too....lol.

I did a HUGE clean up on the weekend. I woke up Saturday full of beans and motivation ( so hard to find most days) and set about just tidying up the kitchen and then went the whole hog and cleaned the oven, emptied the pantry, wiped down all the shelves and reorganised all the stuff in there. I just went from room to room and I can't tell you how much stuff I ended up purging. I have been trying to teach my kids that they don't need to hang onto every single toy they ever owned. I put the spin on it that there are kids who don't have many toys and that if they don't love or play with a toy then they should do something really nice for other kids and give it to a charity so that someone else can love that toy. It seemed to click with them so FIVE GARBAGE BAGS later....!!!! The same thing happened on Sunday and I fell into bed on Sunday night completely exhausted but feeling very satisfied!

Scrapwise I haven't done much at all. I did a REV IT UP album for Doug a couple of weeks ago using the KaiserCraft tabbed albums which was all about our day at the V8's Queensland round at Queensland Raceway at Willowbank last year. He was so chuffed with it he took it to work and showed it off and took it to his racing mates to show them too. It was so nice to see how much he liked it as normally I don't make things for him iykwim? So that's in the shop right now if anyone is planning on going in - it's sitting on the pile of KaiserCraft albums on the left. I did do a layout of Lily on Friday night at crop but I'll put that up another time. Apart from that I haven't done much at all even though I know I have much to do. My scrapping has really lacked motivation lately and I just look at my stash and feel like it's another chore to do. Maybe I should be the one reminding myself to play?!?!?! I'm sure the mojo won't be gone long.....

Hope everyone is having a good week. Hopefully I'll check back in later in the week!

Chat soon, love Lu

Quick layout share

2008-03-16T13:56:00.002+10:00

I did this layout a couple of weeks ago for my two lovely friends Peta and Kylie. I had one of those "play" urges so I just did whatever I felt like doing on the page and I'm loving how it turned out. I really need to remind myself to play sometimes because scrapping shouldn't be hard work, or a chore, or something I have to do because I have a deadline to work to.

Quiet weekend here really. Not much going on. Remember to play!

Love, Lu

I've been OUTED!!!! lol

2008-03-10T19:36:00.008+10:00

I guess I can let the cat out of the bag (a little bit anyway) and announce that I'm the DT leader for a new Aussie based chipboard manufacturer! YAY!!! This is something that has been in the works for a little while now and there's still work to be done but the biggest excitement for me is that I'll be designing my own line of products - things like MDF and acrylic albums and chipboard shapes etc. The chance to design my own products is something I never thought I'd have and I'm very grateful to Alana for giving me such a HUGE opportunity! Because things are still in the works I'm not going to be mentioning names just yet but keep an eye on the blog because it's coming very soon now.

I've been getting some layouts done which is always nice. My fave is the last one "Secret Smile". And yep, I realised I spelled pajamas wrong in Jamie's layout. That cool one (and the one of Caeligh called Adore) was done using the Prima Paintables papers - CyberScraps has them for a tiny $1.22!!!!! I forgot how relaxing it can be to just sit and colour in pretty pictures.

Well I had a scrapbooking DISASTER this morning. Our air conditioner in our room leaked and my scrap trolley with papers, cardstock and some layouts in a ziploc bag where right underneath. I was gutted to find that 10 layouts (all sealed in ziploc bags mind you) had somehow gotten wet and were now ruined. I could have cried! So I had to move my trolley away from the air conditioner and started taking things out to see if there were any more casualities. Then I started to tidy up a bit and before I knew it I had taken apart my whole room, boxes of scrap supplies, rearranged all the furniture and had a serious purge of rubbish, old stuff I didn't need (watch out kindy!) and stuff that just didn't need to be in the bedroom. I'm now totally knackered!!! lol But in a good way, you know, how you feel after you've done a hard day of work that you wanted to do. So I'm guessing I'll have an early bed tonight!

Doug got his video camera today. It was a freebie when he rented his TV. He's all excited...child. I think I'm too tired to be excited for him but I'll have a play with it tomorrow when he goes to work! lol The kids are all excited too - Jamie is a total show pony so all the footage he has shot so far is Jamie's big fat grinning head in front of the camera and nobody else has had much of a look in so far! lol He also fancies himself a film-maker as well as junior photographer but Doug isn't (quite reasonably too) prepared to hand over the video camera to the 7 year old just yet. Maybe under very close supervision on the weekend when there are two adults present and watching like a hawk!

The typing is starting to pick up after I did a mass email to some transcription companies a couple of weeks ago. I've cut my hours down at CyberScraps to accommodate working from home again as the cost of living is just going up and up and up, and sadly we can't afford to survive without me working as well so there was nothing else for it. I'm really very lucky that I have a specialised job and that I think I'm very good at what I do. Other people have thought so too luckily and so I have a few new jobs on the go. I haven't approached specialists yet to see if I can recruit some of my own personal clients as well as the money is better working directly for the doctors but right now I need any kind of income so that can all come later after I let things even out and I can see just how much work I will have regularly and how much extra I can handle on top of that. I did think I'd have more time to scrap but so far it hasn't eventuated!!! All I've done so far is clean the house! I guess when I'm gone all day I'm tired and don't notice the mess so much cos we're trying to get dinner organised, kids bathed, in bed etc, but being here all day I have no choice but to notice the mess and it is really bugging me!!!! lol I'm not good at being tidy and it's very hard for me to get back into the routine of doing my quick tidy up each day that makes the house look mostly presentable but I will get used to it again because I like being able to sit down in a clean loungeroom and don't feel like I can relax unless I've done that tidy up. I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. Right now I'm exhausted from moving furniture but I can almost hear the kitchen calling me!!!! lol

What else is going on? Oh yep the Papter Arts Festival is on at the Brisbane EKKA grounds this weekend and Cass and I are going to do our level best to find a couple of hours to go. It's the best place to stock up on things like inks and pens. I have a serious aqualip pen obsession and not many shops stock them that I can find so I'm hoping the stamping shops have it covered and I'll be able to indulge the pen fetish!!! lol And Cass and I are both definites for Outback Scrap at Hughenden in North Queensland in August this year. It will be so cool for me as I haven't been to north Queensland ever, only as far as Hervey Bay and that's it. And even better, it looks like we'll be going by plane which is one of my big goals for this year cos I've never been on a plane before - yep I know, I seriously need to get out more!!! lol There's some magazine work in the pipeline, articles, projects for features, etc but I'm still in the process of trying to sort it all out because being at home for the last week has really brought home to me just how much I have to do and I'm going to have to sit and start writing things on a calendar so I don't get confused. Far out I wish I wasn't so scatterbrained sometimes!!!!

Well now I'm going to mosey off to bed after I get the kids settled. Early night definitely required. Hopefully I will have typing to do tomorrow so that's always good for the budget. Thanks for stopping by for a read. Love, Lu

Just a super quick one before crop tonight

2008-02-29T14:09:00.000+10:00

Love me a quiet weekend!

2008-02-24T20:23:00.005+10:00

This layout was for the cybercrop at CyberScraps this weekend. My challenge to the girls was to incorporate humour onto a layout and I've used one of Caeligh's favourite jokes as the title for the layout. I'm sick of hearing that joke now (because she tells it about ten times a day, every day, to anyone who will listen) but I know in a few years' time she'll be older, with less time for jokes and less time to tell them to me so I wanted to make sure I remember how much she loves telling me jokes at the moment.

Well this weekend I did practically nothing! I had a relaxing Friday night in front of the TV with Dougie and then yesterday we spent the day around the house, doing some housework, playing with the kids and then we settled down to watch the Saturday round of the Clipsal 500 V8 supercar racing. One of the Fujitsu ute drivers was critically injured in a really bad crash. Collisions like that don't happen very often but just bad luck I think. I'm praying for him and his family. Last night Dougie went racing at High Octane with the racing sim guys. He was only gone an hour when I had to ring him because Caeligh was playing in the backyard right before dinner and when she came inside she had an ugly blotchy red rash over her tummy which itched like crazy. I got her into a cool bath with bicarb in it as quickly as I could but by then it had spread to her arms, back, face and down her legs. She looked awful and was crying from the itch. Do you think I could convince her to take some Phenergan though? Nope!!! She said she'd rather itch than have medicine and I tried to sneak some into her lemonade but she picked it straight away and spat that out too. I ended up taking her up to the doctors for a quick look over and a referral to an immunologist so that we can find out exactly what caused it. I think it is a grass of some kind but it would be helpful to know which in case it happens again or we can at least try to avoid it. Doug cut the grass today so I hope that helps but it didn't get done before Lachlann went outside to play and he got it too although not nearly as widespread as Caeligh but definitely as itchy!! She can't have felt too bad by the time she got to the doctors office because she jumped up and down in front of the receptionist yelling "I got itchies all over me!!!" and laughing! She's fine today thank goodness and you can barely see where the rash was at all.

Today we did pretty much the same as yesterday. Blayd went to a karate tournament down the Gold Coast with his friend Jordie who stayed over last night. Can you imagine my surprise when Blayd asked to sleep in the same room as her? It took me a minute to hold back the slight shock but then calmly explained that if they slept in the same room they would just stay up and talk and not sleep, and how they both needed rest for the tournament today. Jordie is 13 already and Blayd is only a few months away and it has only just really occurred to me that there might be something more than just a childhood friendship between them. Not that I mind that because Blayd is definitely old enough to be noticing girls but at the same time I think they totally need boundaries at their age and I tried to soften it a bit for Blayd by explaining that girls need their privacy and he seemed okay with it when I put it that way.

I have wanted to scrap all weekend but every time I sit down I think of something else that needs to be done, the never ending housework thing and so I get up and do that and then after lunch Doug watched the last race of the Clipsal 500 (go Jamie Whincup!!!!) and I did a mercy dash to the shops for some lunchbox stuff for the week. I've spent tonight just pottering around on the net really, hanging out at CyberScraps for the last night of our cybercrop and here, updating my blog. I've tidied my desk so I feel like I did get something scrap related done, even if it wasn't a layout. I can always focus on that tomorrow at the shop. Friday night crop this week which I absolultely love!!!! We're totally booked out and Cass and I will be scrapping out on the footpath at the rate we're going!!!! lol It's busy and it's loud and it's always fun. There are a couple of places at the next one on Friday 14th March if you want to come along. It's always best to book before the crop night before the one you want to go to because people tend to rebook as they are leaving so it means there are often no spots available for a month or more. In my best Bridget Jones voice here " So need a bigger shop. Not enough space is a total disaster!". We do have space but it's mostly take up by delicious product!!!! lol

Oh hey new Kaisercraft coming very soon, the pearls in all colours, the bling words, new shades of bling, packets of flowers, the new tabbed albums, new papers and more! Also restocking the PrintBlocks D ring binder albums this week (hopefully) in the very popular hot pink and light pink. We've got a bit mental and ordered heaps from CHA over in the States but what can you do when companies bring out so many fabulous products?!?!?! I totally agree - we really had no choice but to buy more beautiful things for the shop!!!

Well I'm going to go spend some time with my darling Dougie before we head off to bed to recharge for the week ahead. I don't know where blog surfing fits in anymore as I'm not at home on the computer very often but I am trying to get my own home typing business up and running so hopefully things will pick up there and I'll have time to do more on the computer, not just work! But I do want to say thanks to you for coming to read my little snippets of life even though I don't get around to many other people's blogs anymore.

Have a fantastic week and keep safe chickies!!! Love, Lu

Under control again.....mostly!!! lol

2008-02-21T16:14:00.008+10:00

Well life has finally settled down if you can ever call it settled! So some nutshell updates:

Dad: I haven't even spoken to him in the last week as the little gold-digging houseguest has been calling him and harassing him and asking him to move back in. Although it doesn't look it, he really isn't going soft in the head but he's very emotionally manipulated and I'm sadly convinced he probably will let her move back in and she will make sure she gets what she wants from him, i.e. more money, her name on the will, the house etc. And do you know what I think? I JUST DON'T CARE ANYMORE. I love Dad but I've offered my help, my support and my advice and he doesn't want any of it so I've decided to stop wasting that mental and emotional energy on him when he obviously doesn't want it or listen to it. I have to accept that I cannot change what is going on and that Dad will do whatever he wants to do in the end so I haven't really spoken to him because I don't want to hear all the drama. I'll be sure to sure if anything else exciting happens.

Mum: When she went back into hospital the doctors discovered she had had ANOTHER heart attack so she basically stayed this time and last week she had a triple bypass surgery that took 7 hours. She's home again now but is going up to Townsville to stay with her sister which is fabulous for her because she really needs time to recover. The surgery has knocked her around a lot especially as she has other health problems as well so the time away will be good for her. The day she had her surgery I spent the day at the hospital with my sister and got to meet my mother's older sister for the first time. So weird to sit and chat to someone who remembers you as being a tiny (well 10lb 2oz isn't exactly tiny!) 2 day old baby. I loved chatting to her and had heaps in common which is nice to discover.

Kids: Well Blayd's hair is slowly growing back out a bit and I've shown him how to fix it with hair gel so it doesn't look so Julius Caesar (snicker, snicker!!!! after all it was his own fault!!! lol). Lachie is doing beautifully at school and it's so nice not to have to brace yourself before you chat to a teacher for once!!! James is getting on everyone's nerves a little bit as he's very spoilt by the MIL and it just makes for resentment from his brothers and sister, especially when she encourages the idea that he needs to be protected from his bullying "half-brothers". Can't believe anyone would make a point of that to a 6 year old but she has and it's causing quite a bit of tension between the kids that really shouldn't be there. We do however need the MIL as she is a huge help in picking up the kids for us from school so it's a rock and a hard place on that ongoing matter. Caeligh is slowly getting better, being less destructive and learning to listen more. I honestly never thought it would happen but I'm also doing my best to find more time to spend with her as I think I tend to avoid a lot of alone time with her as normally she is easily bored which leads to mucking up and bad behaviour and thus lessens my want to spend any time with her, which I think then makes her worse as she feels like she is being ignored so she plays up even more. Vicious circle and all that but I'm really trying hard to improve things.

Baby: Well thankfully there isn't one and the hormones have quietened somewhat. Maybe because I was stressed it was a way for me to be able to 'opt out' of all the drama if I was pregnant and had an excuse to have to rest more, work less and take better care of myself. But I do realise that's not the way I have to do it. I think destressing will come in the form of things like staying out of my Dad's stressful mess because I realise I can't fix anything for him, learning to say no and limit my involvement in the dramas around me when all it is doing is driving me nuts and not fixing anything for anyone else, and of course not underestimating the value of some kind of doctor prescribed anti-anxiety medication because I shouldn't have to feel like I'm drowning in worries and problems every minute of the day, especially when the dramas are mostly not even mine!

So I'm taking a deep breath, stepping back a bit and giving myself some space to be an observer instead of being so entrenched in everyone's problems. I have to learn that it isn't up to me to fix things for other people. I guess because I'm a bit of a control freak that I do tend to want to rush in and make it all better if I can. I think I really need to step away and let people start being responsible for their own crap and their own solutions for said crap. That's the plan right now and I like the sound of it so far.

Because I've had a better week this week I've even had some great mojo and that makes me feel even better about life in general. The ones up above are the few I've done this week plus a couple more that I haven't scanned yet. I'm enjoying my scrapping which is a definite mood enhancer!!! lol

I've been so wrapped up in crap for three weeks now that I've completely missed a deadline for a Scrapbooking Creations article and I'm going to have to finish that tonight and get all that sorted for sending tomorrow, along with a HUGE apology for being late with it. One of the few times in my life I can honestly say I've had waaaaay too much on my plate!!! I've just finished one article for SM and have another in the works to do shortly too. There are a few other things on the boil because FOR SURE I'm not busy enough!!! lol I do like having all these different things to do though, I just really wish I knew how to time manage better and not be so scatter-brained. Deadlines are really hard!!!!

Thank you to everyone who has emailed or called to see that I'm not going completely crackers - only a bit!!!! ;) I did promise to put the new Everyday Garbage challenge up properly and so I'm going to try to do that too tonight, as well as do the SC article and catch up on my forum chat at CyberScraps. See - I've been a good scrapper and updated my blog to begin with so I'm in the mood now and hopefully I'll get the other stuff done.

Thanks again for having a read through yet another whopper of a post. I'll really try to do this more often (update that is, not create whopping posts!) so that I can do quickies instead, much easier on the brain!!!

Chat soon, love Lu

Oh it just gets better.....

2008-02-04T19:38:00.000+10:00

I've finished on the computer and gone into the bathroom to see short tufts of brown hair all over the floor. Naturally I've assumed that the smallest, least able to make a good judgement about hair and scissors has cut her own hair but nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

It turns out that my mental giant of an ex husband (and a teacher to boot!!!) gave Blayd a mini breakfast snack wrap from McDonalds this morning because it was obviously convenient for him. It was most inconvenient for Blayd (who, don't you worry, is in a word of trouble for knowing he can't have it and eating it anyway) who has then reacted like a total NER-NER to all the colours and preservatives in the tortilla wrap, the artificial nasty cheese, the bacon and the sauce. He probably had a crap day at school and acted like he is a special needs founding member (no offence because I know there are heaps of kids who are special needs and it certainly isn't by choice - Blayd has a choice and doesn't have to be as bad as he is when he eats the wrong foods) and he has come home tonight after has aforemented mental giant of a father suggested he cut his hair (which isn't long at all) because long fringes aren't allowed in the lab at school and what do ya think he did? Took to himself with an enormous pair of kitchen scissors!!! Better yet he let me yell at Caeligh for five minutes for cutting her own hair which she didn't actually do!!! I've been trying to let her fringe grow out so I just assumed she had chopped bits here and there as it's all different lengths at the moment so I've had to cut her a proper fringe and tell her off for playing with scissors. The poor baby didn't even know why I was getting mad at her and Blayd even offered to hold her still while I cut her fringe!!! Little ***hole!!!!

So I'm so busy being mad at the innocent 3 year old that I don't even notice Blayd's hack job on his own head until he asks if I could trim his fringe because I've done such a good job of Caeligh's hair and how I should have been a hairdresser.........

I then had to ring his father and lecture him over the phone like he's some kind of tree stump and he doesn't even have the balls to answer me while I'm yelling at him!!!! Stupid, incosiderate man to allow his son to eat something he knows will impair his judgement, ruin his behaviour and have him acting like a child with a mental retardation problem far worse than what he has!!!!

I've tried to fix Blayd's hair but I'm no hairdresser.........I JUST GIVE UP!!!!!!!!

Oh for F**KS SAKE!!!!! (excuse the language)

2008-02-04T18:13:00.001+10:00

I just wish to God I could find a big bucket of vodka and a huge bottle of valium and a nice quiet dark corner to occupy for a week or so!!!! The drama, the drama......

Spent this morning ferrying my dad to a doctors' appointment and then to the local courthouse to take out a peace and good behaviour order against the gold-digging hoochie-mama. He decides it's all too difficult, doesn't want any more trouble and he's not going to do anything!!!! He wants me to go to a Seniors Legal Advice appointment with him on Friday where I dare say we'll waste an hour while he goes over all the bullshit that he refuses to substantiate by having her charged with wilful damage, break and enter, etc, all the things she's done, they'll give him all kinds of very good, free advice and he'll chuck a big feeb episode and say how he doesn't want any trouble and can you beleive he doesn't want her to get into any trouble that might make her lose her job?!?!?!? OMFG!!!!!! I'm seriously starting to wonder whether or not he needs an Adult Guardian cos he seems incapable of dealing with this like a reasonable thinking person!

Then my sister rings to say my mum is back in hospital AGAIN with more health problems because she went home Saturday, had some arm pains etc, and ignored those....then last night had chest pains, etc and ignored those so today her doctor has had her admitted and who knows how long she will be in hospital this time. I swear to God I don't understand why some people can't take care of themselves and ignore very obvious signs that something is wrong!!!!!!!

I feel like the only life preserver left on the Titanic and every bloody person is grabbing onto me to save them cos they won't save themselves!!!!!! Maybe that's why I want to be pregnant again, so that I can just check out and not have to deal with everyone else's issues. I would LOVE to have a brain snap but unfortunately I'm not that self indulgent, I'm sadly quite lucid and just really really angry instead.....not that everyone who has a brain snap is self indulgent, I just think I've got a good tolerance level for general crap so no matter how frustrated, emotional, tired and flat I feel I still don't consider giving up is an option. I have to say that losing my adoptive mother at 19 taught me that as I had no other close family and there was nobody to pick up the slack if I decided I couldn't cope so I just coped and have done so (apart from the occasional blog meltdown) ever since. So yeah, I bitch, I moan, I yell, I get mad at people, I worry and stress and say a lot of nasty things but that's how I deal and luckily Doug just knows to smile and crack jokes and say equally nasty things and we cheer each other up. Weird but it works and I'm too damned nice to say those things to the people who need to hear them because I genuinely would hate to hurt anyone's feelings!!!! Ridiculous isn't it????

Anyway I'm not working this week, part blessing (cos my brain and my week seems to have no room left for work) and part curse cos I didn't budget for not working but things will sort themselves out like they always do. Hey baked beans are nutritious right?!?!? lol It's not that bad but I have an overwhelming warped sense of humour and I have to poke massive fun at depressing things or they really will depress me and who has time for that?

So I didn't do anything in the shop for the half day I was in except for unpack LOADS of new nice KaiserCraft stuff. We are rapidly becoming the KaiserCraft headquarters over at CyberScraps and we've got so much gorgeous stuff including the square bling and the flower bling and event planner thingies and OMG the gorgeous new rub-0ns to rival any big name company plus restocks of cute things like the pearls, the handbags, tabbed albums and new styles of clocks and some wood canvasses that can hang on the wall. I LOOOOOVE unpacking new stuff so be sure to keep an eye on the website and in store if you're local. Come have a squizzy at the new pretties!!! The pretties keep me sane......... lol

Okay I'm going, this was my quick 10 minute destress before venturing into the foray of dinner making, kid wrangling, bathing and homework and housework. Thank you for the much love I've received from everyone who sounds like they really think I'm going to have a small mental breakdown sometime soon. Don't worry, I'm not going crazy and as Cass says "my cheese is just slipping off my cracker a little bit!!!!".

Chat soon, love Lu

Layout share and a reflection on baby ranting

2008-02-03T22:14:00.001+10:00

Oh well what can I say???? It's been a day of drama to follow the drama of the night before! lol

I got a phone call from my dad this morning, asking me to come over with Doug and be a presence while he had an unwanted house guest removed by police. I'm not even going to get into the whole story but it was something along the lines of a certain individual thought the old man had money because he owns his house so she thought she'd make nice with him, promise to look after him and keep the house clean in exchance for staying in the house and then once she moved in she treated him abominably, stole from him, borrowed copious amounts of money that he didn't really have to giver her and took over his house with her kids, friends, strangers, drop ins at all hours of the day and night and basically this morning my poor old dad decided to grow some balls and told her to leave. When she wouldn't go he called the cops to have her removed. The sad bottom line is that he let her do it all because he's lonely. My adoptive monther died fifteen years ago and he's just never been the same since.......So Doug and I spent all day at his house, helping him with his police statement, supervising while the "guests" got some of their crap and left and waited with him because they wanted to come back for their car as none of them has a drivers' license so they had to find a friend to do that (yep I wondered why they had a car when none of them had a license too - apparently dear old Dad was good for chauffering duties as well.....) and we eventually got to go home but I have to go back and pick Dad up in the morning, take him to a doctors' appointment and then take him to the local courthouse to get a protective order against the no longer wanted house guest so she doesn't try to phone or harass the crap out of him until he lets her in the house again. The sad part is he still says he feels sorry for her because now she's homeless!!!! ARGHH!!!!!! So apparently (because the police officer thought Dad was possibly a bit soft in the head for still feeling sorry for the stupid cow) I can make the protective order on his behalf if he won't do it and I have to wonder about the soft in the head part myself......*sigh* Long story short he got done over by a gold digger but there wasn't really much gold except his house and she figured if she stayed long enough she'd legally be entitled to half of it. So that was today's drama!

The layouts are just some I did in the shop on Friday. The "Princess" one I really liked because the Rusty Pickle paper is gorgeous, the Dynamic Duo one was just for fun because Krys Yealland (who used to be the technical ed. at Scrapbooking Memories) called us that every time she spoke to one of us after we helped her out at really short notice with something she needed, and the last one is one I've been meaning to do for ages. We have a hibiscus near the front patio and every six months it gets overrun with teeny tiny green grasshoppers that Caeligh finds fascinating. She doesn't even mind touching them - yuk!!! She couldn't get her mouth around the proper name so she called them "glass popas" instead of grasshoppers. The round black plastic frame thingy on the grasshopper layout turned out to be the insert for the printer tray of Doug's printer - I found it in a drawer and thought it would make a cool frame....ooops!!!! And yep, I used Pritt so it ain't EVER coming off!!!! lol Lucky for me Doug is an understanding man!

It will be another jam packed week this week with dealing with Dad tomorrow, a meet and greet on Tuesday afternoon/evening (it ends up being back to back with three kids in three different grades) for the boys' teachers, some online stuff to do Wednesday night, Blayd has karate on Thursday night and I'm sure there was something else I had to do Thursday but my mind has become a vacuum, and Friday I'm in the shop - ALLELUJAH!!!!! I think there are a few ScrapTraining bookings this week but I can't for pity's sake remember when they are. If you are one of them I promise I'm going to check the diary very carefully in morning!!!! Having another "please, Miss, my brain is full" moments again.

Upon reflection from yesterday's little out of mind experience, I think I'm just going to cruise along like I am, try not to think too hard about the whole baby thing, and see what life hands me. I think I'm too tired right now to go out looking for life's big opportunities. Oh crap I forgot to ring my mum and see how she's feeling today cos she went home from hospital yesterday. MUM I'M REALLY SORRY I FORGOT TO RING - THE WHOLE DAD THING AND ALL - I WILL DEFINITELY GIVE YOU A CALL TOMORROW!!!! So between my birth mother's cruddy health, my adoptive Dad's serious "houseguest from hell" issues and my screeching ovaries I think I have to hit the cruise control button for a while and just try to give the whole thing a mental miss for a few weeks at least. I just want to survive through all the bullshit flying around me right now. I feel like I'm trying to cut a new path through virgin jungle here and I don't have a frickin machete!!!! Some days professional therapy sounds like a really good way to work out all the stuff that happens, even if they can't fix it, offer any advice or whatever, just to be able to thrash it out with someone who isn't involved and hopefully make me feel like I'm dealing the best way I can and that I'm still okay in here!!!!! Will definitely give that some thought....

Thanks so much to those of you who commented and to those who took the time to email me privately and share their stories. I have had such lovely words and such openness from people on the other side of the planet and I'm once again amazed by the serious coolness of this internet thingy and the scrapbooking thingy that brought us all here, me to type, you to read.

I'm pretty sure the week is only going to get more interesting so I will definitely keep you posted. Would you be at all surprised to hear that my heart palpitations have started up again this week?!?? No, me either. Now I know that it's a stress thing so I'm trying to just be cool about everything and get through.

Have a fab week no matter what it holds for you - hey, if it's anywhere as interesting and colourful as mine at least you won't get five minutes to feel sorry for yourself!!! lol Just go get another cup of coffee and B R E A T H E!!!!

Love you guys for reading and sticking with me, Lu

ps sorry for the lack of paragraphs, I've tried editing this bloody thing four times and it still doesn't want to do paragraphs for you!!!! I officially GIVE UP!!!!

Oh How Completely AWFUL and I can't Believe I'm bloggging this

2008-02-02T23:01:00.001+10:00

Despite the fact that I have four children already, one with an autism spectrum disorder and a couple that are a real handful, despite the fact that I'm 34 almost and my husband is 46, despite the fact that my scrapbooking career has finally gone "professional" in as much as I'm writing articles for magazines and being asked to teach at scrapbook conventions (thank you Alana!!!), despite the fact that I have too little time, not enough money and not nearly the strength to go through another pregnancy MY BODY IS SCREAMING AT ME WITH EVERY ATOM OF ITS BEING TO BE PREGNANT AGAIN!!!!!!

I'm an emotional wreck right now....I don't know what to do..... I had a miscarriage about six months ago (not a planned pregnancy but a wanted one if I had only known I was pregnant) and ever since then it feels like my body has hit the RESET which and I feel like I want to be pregnant all over again!!!! I have ambitions, goals and dreams that have nothing to do with expanding my already demanding family but it feels like my body is railroading me in a different direction to the one I want to go in.

A year ago I wanted a busy design team career wth CyberScraps (which I now have thanks to Cath, good advertising and our up and coming Scrap-Training program), a steady stream of magazine acceptances (which I also now have so the pressure is gone there, I just submit everything and I'm totally over the stress of it all - the mags take what they like and the rest I keep for me), and I wanted a manufacturer design position (which is in the works with a fab chick and some great new product which I can't even say a peep about yet). My kids are almost off my hands in terms of school - Caeligh starts Prep next year and she's my baby. My life is starting to take the shape like I thought it should have for the last few years now, at least how I THOUGHT it should be anyway.....

I feel like I should be moving forward into the great unkown that is "life after babies" and focusing on what Doug and I want for ourselves and our mutual kidlets (four are all mine, only two are his). We don't even own our house for Pete's sake and our car is a clapped out Mitsubishi Starwagon.... Doug makes bugger all and quite frankly I could earn more than him working full time as a medical typist but I don't want to work full time. I want to raise babies and scrap.....

I'll readily admit that even six months ago I knew what I wanted, was ready to let go of babies, and prams, and being pregnant, and I WAS DONE with all that but now.....I feel like my body is pulling me in a totally different direction. I've always been a very intuative person, I go with my gut cos it's rarely wrong and I follow my instincts but my scrapping goals and my bank balance and my husband all tell me that I don't want another baby, I'm over all that, I'm done and finished.....

I'm sitting here crying because I want another baby so badly, but I don't know if it's for the right reasons or not anymore.....

As soon as Caeligh was born, I'm talking an hour after she was born, I looked at Doug and I told him we weren't done yet, that there was another little soul waiting for us.....but I've tried to ignore it, get over it, get past it, forget about it........but that nagging has come back so strongly in the last few months and it's like a voice in my heart getting louder and louder.

I guess I don't trust myself any more....I get awful pre-natal depression, the hormones make me go crazy, get cabin fever being at home waiting, counting down the days although I have a job I love at CyberScraps so it wouldn't be like that anymore. I've reconnected with Cass who is my best friend in the world besides Doug so I wouldn't be alone or lonely like when I was pregnant last time.....I'm scared of being pregnant again because I've worked so hard at getting some semblance of control over my life, my career, my hobbies, my relationships, everything......I just don't want a hormonal whim to jeopardise all that I've worked for in the last few years.

There is my end point, constant reader (as Stephen King would say, my favourite horror writer), I don't want my hormones to trick me into something that would bring my carefully balanced life undone, to distract me from what I want to achieve, to unbalance my already hard to juggle family life and children and amazingly patient and understanding husband.....

Right now I ache, I crave, I need, I want, I yearn for another baby and I can no longer tell whether it's my hormones trying to have a last Harrah before we call it quits or if it is the deep seated feeling I have had since the moment my only baby girl was born (after three boys) that there is still a little soul waiting for me to give him or her life, to bring them into the world....... I really thought once I had my daughter that she would give me the completeness I wanted. I had three boys and eventually got my girl (darling monster that she is!!!! lol for those who know about her you know why I laugh about my darling monster!!!!!), (go and read this paragraph again without the darling monster part!) but she's nearly four now and I can't tell anymore if it's just the human urge to procreate or a real spiritual need that I have to fulfil or some other purpose that makes me feel this way....

Now Doug is on our bed behind me, asking me if one of the 10,000 people who have apparently read my blog would have the answer to whether I should have another baby or not. I'm quietly wondering whether he really thinks the blogsphere has the answer, or whether he even has a clue that I do this for venting and feedback purposes only. He doesn't even read my blog for goodness sake!!!! lol I don't even know why he gives a toss because I know he's stressed enough, doesn't earn enough (DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO NEEDS A GOOD, HONEST, RELIABLE COMPUTER TECH?????), and sadly doesn't really care as much as my hormones do right now so having him sit behind me while I type is just really irritating as I know FOR SURE his testicles aren't screaming at him right now like my ovaries are hollering at me!!!!!

I'm sorry, constant reader, that this post is a bit devoid of anything actually interesting and really comprises of me just getting out some crap that's clogging my brain right now and stopping me from functioning properly......We took James and Caeligh to the Brisbane Internationa Motor Show today (and looked at cars that would accomodate us all plus one more....) and my Mum came home from hospital today after a massive heart attack that should have killed most ordinary folk (YES MUM, I MEAN YOU, AND FOR GOD'S SAKE YOU BETTER HAVE A GOOD DINNER AND A NICE SLOW WALK TOMORROW!!!!) so I've had a bit of other stuff on my my mind and maybe it's stress.....har har har, hee, hee, hee, and maybe I'm having a small mental breakdown from the stress of everything but somehow I doubt it cos sadly I'M MADE FROM TOUGHER STUFF THAN THAT!!!!! God knows I wish I could have a quiet mental breakdown for a week but that's not in my diary the last time I looked........

On a saner, less mental and emotionally shitty note, Emstar came in to CyberScraps today to do a Scrap Training class for two hours and it was the most relaxing, rewarding two hours of my whole day!!!! Em, you are bright, quick, funny, interesting and entertaining!!!! It would be a pleasure to spend an hour with you any day and trust me, it wasn't work at all! My scrapping, and sharing what I know about scrapping, isn't work at all, not for a second..it's my therapy! I can't wait to see your finished album and I really am so happy that you found today helpful and fulfilling and that you learned some things you didn't know when you walked in. That's my goal - I don't care about the money so much as I loved chatting to you, getting to know you and your lovely man and your beautiful little boy, and helping you to create something you love. Remember to email me or post on CyberScraps if you get stuck or need any more help with the PBA!!! It was lots of fun!!!!

The two bigger boys are at their dad's tonight and the little two are at their gran's so it's just Doug, me and the Lifestyle Channel and their lovely show about IVF babies. Far out I really need to find something else to watch......and about three glasses of wine so far. And the sad part is that most often you could blame it on tiredness and the alcohol but it just magnifies what I feel constantly anyway.....

Surely somebody out there, some scrappin' chick has been through this and come out the other side. I really want to know if you are sorry you had that one more pregnancy or if you are blessed for that one more pregnancy, or if you really regret not taking that big leap and having another baby....I don't know if you can help me or not but I'd really REALLY appreciate anybody's advice right now!!!! I feel like I don't have control over my own destiny anymore and I'm trying to wrestle control of the steering wheel from my very eager uterus!!!! lol I'm crying as I type this and I know how bizarre it might sound if you've never had a baby before but trust me, once your hormones get a hold of you, you really don't have total control anymore!!!! I've lost control of the compass and no matter how attractive a professional scrapbooking career sounds right now (and it's all laid out right before me), I still don't seem to want it as much as I want another baby....and that would wipe me off the scrapbooking map for another two years if I was to get pregant now......I'd suddenly be tired, sick , exhuasted, un motivated, unable to travel to Outback Scrap (which I'm itching to get to!!!) plus some teaching stuff in Sydney......Why on earth do our bodies do this to us!?!?!?!?!?

I'm confused, tired, sad, spent, exhausted, confused again, a bit angry, a bit off track........

I really thought I had gotten to a point where I knew what I wanted for the first time in my whole life but it seems lately that I don't know anything at all........

I'm right back at square one, with four kids I struggle to love enough (in my own opinion anyway), I don't own anything of real value, I don't even own my care (shitbox that it is).

Here is the great question for you beautiful souls out in the blogsphere - do I follow my spiritual urges or my intellectual ones???? I know you probably don't think you have the answer either but I'd love to hear your thoughts anyhooooooo. I'm so confused and I hate that, I like that I'm usually the one with the good advice, the easy solution, the quick fix, and now I've got nothing to offer myself......maybe it's time to lean on the universe for advice and direction....I'm not sure but If you're in the mood for sharing then I'd love to hear from you. Anybody's advice is better than my own right now because I don't think I can trust my inner voice just at the moment......

Apologies for a really crap Saturday night post - I'm sure this wasn't what you tuned in to hear! lol Anyway thanks for reading if you've made it this far. I do have some great MotorShow pics that I've taken, and some that Jamie has taken too! At almost 7 he has quite the photographic eye so I don't bat an eyelid when he wants to use my new camera. He's taken some great shots that I'll post later. He's so proud of his photographic skills and so am I. Maybe for his birthday we'll get him a digital camera as he seems to have a good "eye" for shots and design and I'd like to encourage that in him.

Okay I am really honestly going to bed now. It's late and I don't think Doug wants to hear my emotinal ramblings anymore so I'm off to my pillow but I would definitely love to hear from anyone with thoughts, advice, suggestions, etc. My brain is full Miss!!!!! lol

Oh Completely AWFUL and I can

2008-02-02T23:00:00.000+10:00

Cross one off the Life List 2008!!!

2008-01-26T20:08:00.000+10:00

As part of the CyberScraps cybercrop this weekend we put up a challenge for people to scrap their hopes, dreams and goals for this year. I've done my Life List for the year but looking at the layout now I have no idea why I used 2005 instead of 2008!!!!! See how truly scattered I am? Here's the list anyway:

Have a mouthgasm - go to a restaurant where the food is sooo good you feel like you'r having an orgasm in your mouth!!! I heard that term on the Lifestyle Food channel on Foxtel and I'm sorry but I want one of those mouthgasm thingies!!!!

Handle a snake - I have a not rabid fear of snakes but I am scared of them and no I don't have any particular reason why.

3. Travel on a plane - ANYWHERE!!!!!! because I've never been on one before, never really had the need to but I'd really like to!

4.Get a new smile - I have huge dental problems and I'm always painfully self conscious in photographs and only half-smile because I don't like people to see my awful teeth. So this year I am going to bite the bullet - hardy har har pardon the pun - and spend the thousands of dollars it will cost me to get cosmetic dentistry done so I can have a smile I'm proud to show off.

Now my darling Dougie knows how much snakes freak me out. I think I've just watched too many Animal Planet documentaries where all you ever see snakes doing is eating things or biting things so I think my subconscious is convinced that all snakes do that ALL THE TIME!!! I think the phrase "tame snake" is an oxymoron, those two words contradict each other in my book!!! But Doug mentioned earlier in the week that the kids might like to see a native reptile display that was visiting our local Bunnings hardware for Australia Day so this morning we all went down to see what would crawl, hop and slither in. The kids had a ball and the company that runs the displays is called Geckoes Wildlife Presentations (http://www.geckoeswildlife.com.au/). They do birthday parties too and Blayd wants that for his 13th birthday this year, to have people turn up with scaly, slithery things to play with! The two girls who came out were just fabulous and so good with making all the kids (and grown ups!) feel comfortable and at ease around the animals. The children were allowed to touch lizards, a baby crocodile, a big turtle and a diamond python (GULP!!!!) All my kids were gung-ho straight in to touch everything they could. No fear among any of them which I'm so amazed by. Their curiosity swept away any worries or fears and they loved every second of it. The first snake I saw was a carpet python in it's box and that was enough to send me backing away from the table!!! Then the handler brought out a 3.5 metre long diamond python and it took me about 10 minutes before I would get within touching distance. The handler had the snake around her neck and at first all I could do was touch its tail. She was soo nice while I quietly tried not to freak out. She even turned side on so I wouldn't have to see the snake's head, just it's tail to begin with. Then she turned around again when the snake moved it's head around behind her so I touched its body - still not screaming yet so that' good for all concerned! Then the snake moved it's head back around in front of the handler and I put out my hand. Apparently snakes can detect radiant heat which is how they find all the little furry warm blooded things they like to eat so it could feel the warmth from my hand. It moved towards me and far out did it take all my strength not to snatch my hand back when it rested it's head on my hand!!!! Oh change of undies time I was sure!!!! lol But it didn't do anything scary, or move quickly or bite me which is what I was thinking snakes do to people. It absolutely loved Blayd and wanted to get up close and personal with him!!! He thought it was fantastic!!! I'm not sure I'm ready to be eye to eye with a snake yet but it went a long way to helping me overcome my fear. Some time later in the year I'll try to go some place where you can hold one and have a photo to really break the fear once and for all but I'm pretty sure I won't be nearly as scared as I was today! You can see from the first picture that I'm not quite sure I'm ready to get up close and personal with the snake just yet. Caeligh keeps looking at me and in a very concerned voice she is saying "Mama the snakie won't hurt you!". Mama is not so sure!!!

So YAY ME!!!! I've crossed off one of my four goals for this year and January's not even over yet! I'm still not sure how I did it but I'm very glad I did.

I'm back off to CyberScraps to rejoin the cybercrop and see if I can't get any scrapping done as well as chatting!!! lol

How cool is this storage?!?!?!?

2008-01-25T22:22:00.001+10:00

Doug found this storage container at Crazy Clark's for a tiny $5!!! It even came with 600 pieces of hardware, stuff like nails, screws, wall plugs, nuts, bolts, washers, etc. I've already cleaned him out of the bits and pieces from that that I thought I could use for scrapping and then tipped it all out and handed the bits back to him in a cup and kept the storage container!!! lol I've got all my little flowers in it as well as some other knick knacks and bits and pieces that I use. It's made up of five 1" high donut shaped containers and the lid lifts up. Each "donut" is divided into five sections and the dividers are built into the lid as well so stuff doesn't get mixed up. The five "donuts" all slide onto a cylinder with a little carry handle at the top. The cylinder is hollow and the handle comes off so you could store things like pens etc inside that as well. How cool is that for a ridiculous $5???? I'm going to look for a few more to keep at home on my scrap desk.

We've been busy tonight at CyberScraps first cybercrop of the year. The challenges are up if you want to come over and have a look-see at www.cyberscraps.com.au

We'll be playing all weekend if you're in need of some inspiration and I've also just put up the February Get Real Challenge as well. Jodi is doing some thumpin good work with her Celebrate 2008 challenge which is new for this year as Jodi is our very latest Design Team member for CyberScraps. Welcome aboard, we love your work girl!!!

Hope you're all enjoying your long weekend (sympathies to those who have to work). In a very patriotic move Doug is planning to have a barbeque at some time over the weekend and invite some friends round. Being Scottish I haven't seen him do anything patriotic unless it involved Scotland but he's decided to go with it this year and who am I to argue? So we'll be hosting a barbie at our place either Sunday or Monday and the kids are all geared up for a game of cricket. I may even go so far as to let them get Australian flag temporary tattoos etc so they can really get into the spirit of the occasion! Caeligh is always just happy for someone to let her have pictures all over her arms - it's just nicer if she doesn't draw them herself with permanent ink Sharpies!!!

I'm off to bed but have a fantastic weekend and remember to celebrate Australia Day anyway you can, no matter how big or small. We're a very lucky bunch us Aussies!!!

Chat soon, love Lu

More warm up layouts - not great but hey, it's a start! lol

2008-01-21T23:13:00.000+10:00

Yep,they're all very different and none of them is what I'd call particularly good but you sometimes need to just get the mediocre out of your system so you can focus a bit better. I'm hoping to get back into challenge blogs soon - my own included!!! So there will be more layouts soon plus I'm doing one for CyberScraps very first cybercrop of the year which kicks off on Friday night. Make sure you've got some Chrissy photos on hand if you want to join in but dont' forget that some of us CyberScraps girls like a bit of a twist! Shhhh can't say anything else!

Back to work tomorrow after a day in the shop today with Blayd and Lachlann who were mostly bored off their tits, except that Lachlann likes to scrap and can waste a considerable amount of producing while amusing himself whereas all Blayd wanted to do was go across the street to the park which turned out to be no fun because Lachlann spent the whole park visit moaning about how he'd rather be scrapping!!! lol It's like those stickers on cars that say "I'd rather be fishing". Poor Blayd the jock by nature has no tolerance for Lachie and his scrapping ways. They spend hours facing off, calling each other jock or geek, sport nut or dork. Thank goodness school goes back next week!!!!

Apart from the usual, near constant bitching at each other the kids are all good. Doug and I, on the other hand, can't wait to see the arse-end of these holidays. They've been waaaaaaaaay too long for everyone, especially as we haven't gotten to go away for a break at all. Maybe by Easter school hols we'll afford a couple of days somewhere but that's a ways off yet. I'm back to my three days of proper work this week and funny how I dread it. I don't mind the work itself - I'm sad - I like to type- but I don't like having to dress up in "business" wear every day and hike my butt half an hour into the inner city. Give me a well paid, type in my jammies job any day!!! lol Another goal for this year - secure that great, well paid, type in my jammies job!

I'm off to bed but thank you for having a visit and a look-see. It's nice to be back in the habit.

Much love to you for taking the time to have a read. Love, Lu

Hooray for mojo and opportunity! (long post!!!)

2008-01-19T12:15:00.000+10:00

Well I'm happy to say I'm back in the saddle and feeling a whole lot better! I've been getting some scrapping done which makes a world of difference to how I feel and how I deal with things. I hate not having any time, or when I've got the time I've got no mojo, to get any scrapping done and in the last week it seems like I've gotten back into the rhythm of things and I'm trying hard to make time to scrap to get back into the habit. Above is an album I did for the just closed Maya Road Rage call. They were asking for OTP stuff using their products but all I had was their arrow album and some older white acrylic flowers. I used some of their nice ribbon from the shop though - the pretty lace flower pattern velvet stuff. It had to be about love and of course I had to scrap the wedding! lol We've also just gotten in the whole glorious range of Basic Grey Two Scoops so I ended up using lots of that as well - papers, rub-ons, buttons, brads and chipboard. I also used some gorgeous Scrapware frilled hearts which I love the look of. I'm really happy with how it turned out. It took about 15 hours of work in total, about 7 hours for the covering and sanding and doing the cover, and then another 8 hours yesterday to choose the photos, crop and sand them, choose and add all the embellishments and then go over it with a souffle pen and do some pen doodling on it as well. I don't even think I spent that long on any of my Masters entries!!! But it was a labour of love by the time I was halfway through and so it didn't seem like hard work. I've subbed it via email and apparently Maya Road will contact the 15 winners by Wednesday to arrange postage to them so they can be displayed at CHA in the States. I'd love to squeeze myself into the box and go with it!!!! lol So fingers crossed for that but I'm very happy with it either way. I'll probably sub it to a mag or to Basic Grey if Maya Road don't want it.

This layout I did with the Rusty Pickle "Lucky" range, very Celtic and Irish inspired! I also used the very sexy, very fabulous Grungeboard elements for the hinges, lock and key. It smells very weird but very comforting, like my dad's old leather recliner. It takes ink beautifully, dries so fast and looks just divine. It doesn't mind a bit of rough treatment either so no need to tippy-toe around this stuff. Just get down and dirty with it!!! I did another layout - three photos that were about 5 years old - just unheard of for me but it was a warm up to get back into things and SM have taken it so I can't put it here but I was a bit surprised. I like the Lachlann one better. Hey, I'll be happy with whatever they take! No complaining here....

I've organised my Life List for this year but I haven't scrapped it yet. There's lots of "work"
scrapping to do at the moment for Cyberscraps (our first cybercrop of the year is this coming weekend for those who want to come play), an article for SM and an article for SC plus a little project I'm working on for a friend but I can't say anything else other than it will be totally fabulous when the reveal happens next month. But back to the Life List! I didn't make the deadline for my tattoo - it fell way down the priority list behind bills and groceries but I'm sure I'll fine some time after the kids go back to school and that expense is out of the way. The list for this year is:

Have a mouthgasm - i.e. Eat food that is soooo good it feels like an orgasm in your mouth. Don't laught!!!! I saw that on Lifestyle Food one night and I figured if there is food that good then I want some!!! So Doug and I are researching some good restaurants in Brisbane to see where's the best place to go for a mouthgasm. If you've got any recommendations then please share with the rest of us!!!
Handle a snake. Now get your mind out of the gutter or out of the wardrobe if you're off and running at the thought of snakes!!! I don't have a rabid fear of them but I don't like them either. They make me really uncomfortable and the gross feel as they move is URGH!!!! So I'm going to go to a wildlife park where you can handle a snake and let them put it around my shoulders or let me hold one because I like the freaked out feeling even less than the snake itself so I want to try and get over it.
Get my ass on a plane!!! I don't even care where I go!!! lol I've never been on a commercial airline in my whole life (yes I know that seems hard to believe but I did the whole "married young, popped out lots of kids and never went anywhere" thing) and it's something I've always wanted to do. I'm not in the least bit scared, just an experience that I'd like to have. So maybe we'll go on a mystery flight if they still do those. I know that Cass and I were going to have to fly up north later in the year so that may be the only chance I get but we'll see.

So there you have it, my Life List for this year. It's all about doing things for myself, having those experiences and hopefully being a better person for overcoming fears. Wish me luck with that list. Oh something funny!!! Because I didn't get my ink done last year, I was feeling a bit down on New Year's Eve cos I really take those Life List things seriously and they are big things for me as personal achievements. Doug was doing his best to cheer me up and said "hey, it's okay, I'll draw on you if you want". He was kidding but a glass of wine later and I gave him my scrapping pens and said go for it.

He drew a Marah Johnson flowerly skull and crossbones for me - and the naughty boy used one of my Sharpies!!!! That thing stayed on for a week despite regular scrubbing!!! So he did that at about 11pm so he said technically I have had "ink" done, it just won't last forever! lol I love that man to bits!!!

On the health front, I had my echocardiogram on Thursday and there's nothing structurally wrong with my heart at all and my doctor says it's probably a combination of everyday stress and just trying to do too much, poor sleep and possibly a side effect from a virus I've had at some point in the last year or so. Either way, my very kind GP gave me some sleeping tablets for three weeks and they are not only helping me get the first solid night's sleep I've had in YEARS but the palpitations have finally settled down as well. I'm so thankful it's nothing more serious and probably the worry played a part in it too and things can settle down now that I know there's nothing to be concerned about.

The kids finally got to use the trampoline they got from my mum and her husband and my sister for Christmas. It has been raining here almost constantly so we have been waiting for a dry day to put it up and last weekend - two weeks after Christmas!!! - they finally got their present. The rule of "only one on at a time" lasted about as long as the couple of hours Doug and I spent watching and supervising downstairs and then as soon as we went upstairs it was every kid for themselves. I keep waiting for the inevitable broken limb but it hasn't happened yet. It's a round trampoline with the high side nets all the way around which is good because I had visions of them flying off sideways at a great rate of knots if we had one of the normal trampolines without the nets!

It turns out that it keeps them occupied for hours and burns off all that energy meaning they are all sleeping better at night too and going to bed earlier!!! BONUS!!!!! lol

I've got some layouts that I did last night at the crop - which by the way was fabulous with GIZMO from the SM forum stopping by and EMSTAR dropped into the shop yesterday afternoon too. It's v.cool to put faces to forum names so if you're ever in the area and feel like a cuppa and a chat and a browse then be sure to stop in. We love visitors, even if you don't plan on shopping the company is always welcome! I'll put the layouts from last night up later on after they're scanned. Nothing fabulous, just a few fun ones.

I'm off now to do some shopping, a few groceries plus I need to track down a must-have scrapping supply that I saw at a cheap shop a few weeks ago and didn't buy at the time even though I thought I should have. Isn't it funny how often you end up going back for that thing that you were sure you didn't really need?!?!?!

Have a great week. I will try to catch up with some blogs this week and Garbage is still on the backburner but we are trying to get the next challenge up ASAP. Everyone is spread pretty thin at the moment which I guess is the cost of submitting and getting more mag work (which it itself is pretty cool) but it means that things you do for love tend to take a backseat. I don't want to get too far in over my head with "work" scrapping though because there's not much joy at the end of that road I don't think. I think this year is the year to get that balance right.

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!!!! Love, Lu

Quick late night update

2008-01-10T22:55:00.001+10:00

Well I guess I should be in bed by now and I guess most of you already are (the sensible ones anyway!!!).

No photos to share, no layouts to share, not much to share really except that I'm working full time AGAIN to help the finances (like the good WIFEY I now officially am! lol). I'm working in the cardiology department of a children's hospital here in Brisbane and every day is teaching me to be amazingly grateful for my challenging but healthy children. It's awful and sad to hear beautiful babies and little kids coming in and having to have painful, uncomfortable things done to them so that the very dedicated doctors can check on their progress and find out what they have to about their young patients. The nurses are amazing and so wonderfully caring. Hearing them cry after an injection or sedation makes me want to run in and pick them all up and cuddle them but it has to be done and the doctors and nurses are amazing people. What I didn't expect is that it makes me want to hurry home and see my own babies and hug them. I'm thankful to God that my kids are all okay with no major health issues. Jamie has a heart murmur that plays up when he's got a bad cold or a fever but apart from that they're all perfect.

I, on the other hand, am not quite so perfect in that respect. For the curious, I've had a heart arrhythmia for about eight months now which didn't bother me too much when it first began and didn't bother me at all when I started going to the gym every day in the couple of months before the wedding. I got slack after the wedding, missed a couple of weeks at the gym and got some palpitations one day and figured I should probably go back to the gym cos I didn't have them at all while I was doing that. Wrong move on my behalf as I went to the gym that night, ready to go hard like I had been doing for two months, and only lasted 10 minutes on the cross-trainer before the palpitations and fatigue got me. I went and sat on a recumbent bike for a few minutes but it didn't ease up at all so I went to my local medical centre and the very lovely doctor suggested an electrocardiogram which tracks what your heart rhythm is doing. Turns out I had lots of early or skipped beats, called ventricular ectopic beats for those with a medical background. It was awful, felt like my heart was banging sideways against my wind pipe and I couldn't get a full breath in. I wasn't scared, just felt weird and uncomfortable and I did a lot of occasional loud deep breaths because I felt short of air a lot. My very thorough doctor sent me immediately to a cardiologist to have things checked out and I had a Holter monitor put on before Christmas. You get sticky pads stuck to your boobs for 24 hours while the little clip on monitor (like an Ipod except no cool music!!!) sits on your waist and you press a button every time you feel something weird with your heart. Well from the day I went back to the gym until the day after the monitor was taken off I had palpitations almost constantly. Drove me freaking nuts it did. I was constantly exhausted, short of breath, had that awful feeling of a banging in my chest from the moment I got up until I went to sleep at night and even woke up in the night with really hard palpitations. At least the monitor caught all of that and it turns out I have these early or missed beats quite a lot. On my doctor's advice I haven't even set foot in my gym since and I can't tell you how much I miss it. I never EVER thought I'd say that. But now, weeks later, it's playing up again and I'm having trouble barely functioning each day due to tiredness. I have a stress echocardiogram next week which is where they strap you to a treadmill and basically pump up the intensity until you say "uncle" so they can get a picture of what your heart is doing while you're busting your ass on the treadmill and putting your heart under stress. It turns out I have a nasty family history of something called atrial fibrillation where your heart beats constantly at an uncontrolled weird rhythm and almost everyone on my mother's side of the family has it but I had yet another electrocardiogram yesterday for chest pain and breathlessness and it turns out my pattern doesn't indicate that. The lovely doctor I saw said she thought it was because of stress and my lifestyle. I KNOW I'm not alone here when I say I don't know what else I can cut back on!!! Yes I work - occasionally full time if the budget requires but mostly no more than the odd few days here and there - but this week I've been full time and doing a second typing job at home as well, plus working at Cyberscraps because I love being there, not because I have to be there, and suddenly I have more magazine work than I've ever had. On the scrapping front that's fantastic and very much what I wanted. I wanted it to pay enough so I didn't have to work if I could help it. So I have articles, layouts and product challenges to complete soon too which are all stressful even though the process of creating is fun for me. The deadlines are stressful iykwim? I rarely work to deadlines and Cath at Cyberscraps is just fantastic at letting Cass and I do what we do in our own time and our own space. You couldn't ask for a better shop owner to work for and I feel like I haven't had the energy to support her business like I should as a design team member either lately. It makes my heart sick for other reasons when I feel like I'm letting peopel down....

So...my very kind doctor has prescribed sleeping tablets for a month because I don't sleep very well and haven't for years now. I took one last night but it didn't help at all so we'll see about tonight. I've accepted a three day a week temp assignment at the same section where I'm working now for the next six weeks because we want to refinance and get a new car and that requires some kind of double income action I think so I'm doing my best to help out there.

Now I'm tired and I think i'm typing gobbledegook so I'll go to bed but I'm just venting for me more than anyone else. I'm tired yet trying to be movitated, I'm sorry but I want to do what i have to for everyone else, I'm happy but I'm struggling, I'm flat as a tack but usually do my best not to show it. I just want to be normal and find a way to make it all work. Shit, I guess I'm just like everyone else!!!! lol

Sorry there's no great update here. I did do a layout tonight for the first time in about a month or so. I'll formally apologise to my lovely Cath at Cyberscraps because I know I owe her some work but I sat and did something totally for me to get back into the swing of things. I have a couple of layouts that I half-finished tonight that I want to do over the weekend which are just for the shop. Did you know we got some of that AMAZING grungeboard in??? We didn't get nearly enough but let's face it- it's expensive and a bit commitment for a shop to make if we're not sure it will sell but Cass was looking at it yesterday and she says it's totally fabulous so I'm taking her word for it because if anyone is a good judge of chipboard it's our Cass. If you love grundgeboard or want some then feel free to have a look at what we've ordered in at Cyberscraps and if we're sold out already then send us an email or give us a ring and we'll see what we can do. Popularity is an amazing thing so if you want it I'm sure we can get more and I'm also really sure we're cheaper than most online stores too!

Alright, now my pillow is calling but that's where I am right now. Tired. Spent. Working anyway. Trying to fit in whatever little scrapping I can. I do have some pics to share and by next week hopefully there'll be some layouts too.

Take care of all of you. okay? Love, Lu

Masters pics finally!

2007-12-27T10:23:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd share my Masters stuff so you can see what didn't cut it!!! lol I know there are a lot of us sharing that sentiment right now but maybe next year as the saying goes. I've seen the mag already (thanks to Lex and the fab girls at her crop last weekend!) and had a quick look at my mini album I got a HM for along with everyone else's work. The stand outs for me were definitely Maxine's work and Julie Heard's stuff. Honestly if anyone had told us from the beginning that Maxine was entering we'd have known there were really only 9 Masters places left!!! lol I'm sure she thinks people are joking when they say that but really we're not. It's a well deserved title for her and I absolutely love her work.

This is my double and I'm pretty sure I disqualified myself on the basis that it went a helluvalot further than a straight double layout - to give you an idea of size, the middle two panels are two 12x12 pages - the rest is all add on stuff so it's a huge circle when put together. If I fold it up I can get it down to the size of a double!!! lol So even though Cass warned me that I was probably outside the boundaries of a double, once I started I had to keep going as I wasn't sure I could pull it off and then enjoyed making it so much I just kept going. Eventually I'm going to get a professional framer to make a huge circular frame for it and maybe it will hang in my hallway or something. It's pretty big and I had to use an upturned outdoor table to get the rough shape and size right. The whole thing is made of plain chipboard sheets covered in Basic Grey paper. The story is about my adoption with lots of info included like how many people are in my extended, all over the place family, details of the actual adoption itself including ephemera like the original letter my parents received from the adoption agency, etc, and journalling about my personal thoughts on the whole being adopted thing. I really really love it, probably my fave piece out of all four entries.

This is my single layout and the thing I liked the least. I just couldn't come up with the wow factor when I was doing it so I had to just push on and finish the thing. It was getting to the stage where I just wanted it finished and just did what I could rather than what I would have done if I'd left myself more time. The big flowers are Heidi Swapp and the wings are Hambly rub ons over transparency and then cut out. I printed the photos on canvas paper for texture. Looking at it now I can see that I've got no eye contact photos on the layout and it probably would have been more appealing if I'd included one but I didn't have any good ones so had to just use what I did have.

My storage solution is exactly the same as Mel Moor's box she got a HM for - great minds think alike!!! lol I was originally going to do something pretty and arty with it but I buggered up the pain job and things all went to hell in a handbasket from there so I had to devote the rest of my time to making something shiny and brand new look old and grungy instead! lol I really really love this box and was sad to have to send it away for three month - wow was I glad to have it back! I use it for all my tools, adhesives, pens, files and misc bits and pieces that I want to keep for garbage layouts. I still love this one as much as when I did it.

This is the mini album that got an HM and I'll let you in on not something that hasn't been much of a secret so far - I threw that thing together the NIGHT BEFORE I had to send it. I just had the painted framework sitting there, took a bunch of pictures the day before and then sat down that evening and put a pile of embellies on the table that I thought would go and started chucking it all together. It was the one project I put the least effort or time into and it feels weird to me that it's the one that got the HM but there you go - who's to know what the mag is looking for? Sorry the picture's a bit blurry - I tried to enlarge the shot from the SM home page but didn't work. I can't find where on earth I've saved the pics of the mini album so I'll have to take another one when I get a chance. There's better pics in the mag if you've already got it.

So overall Masters was a lot of waiting for not a lot of excitement in the end and anyone who entered - and especially those who got shortlisted - will know it was a lot of waiting and anticipation and wondering why on earth I'm making such a big deal out of it?!?!? It was almost more emotional investment than it was worth in the end and I'll definitely plan better next year if I do it again. Yep I've already started wondering about what the challenges will be for next year and we'll cross that one when we come to it.

Christmas was nice and quiet here, we went to Pandanus Beach at Wynnum with my birth mother, her husband and my half sister plus Doug and I and all the kids and his mum. The kids had a great time, playing in their fab playground and then playing in the shallows at the beach behind the playground. It was a nice way to spend the day and next year we've all decided to hire a house near the beach somewhere for a week so we don't have to travel on Christmas Day - that's sounds awesome to me! The kids got a Wii and a Tony Hawks game and the Ben 10 game for the Wii that James desperately wanted. Mum and her husband got the kids a trampoline and we're still waiting for the rain to stop so we can put it up. I got a new camera from Doug - 10 megapixels and 6 x optical zoom so I'm a very happy camper. I'm still learning to use it though but I'm loving it so far.

We're off to the shops today so I can go to Diva and get my fix of junk jewellery in the post-xmas sale. I've got a week off and then it's back to work for a week and a half of cardiology typing at a hospital to cover Doug's week without pay as he didn't have enough holidays for the whole five weeks he has to be at home. I don't mind - straight typing is an easy job in my books so it doesn't feel like too much hard work.

I hope you had a great Chrissy and hope you have a fab New Year. I don't think we'll be doing much which is fine with me! I feel like I need the rest anyway! lol I should be doing lots of scrapping - product challenges, layouts and articles all waiting to be done and the motivation is there but by the time I get my stuff out and the kids are all running around I just don't end up bothering because I'll spend the whole time telling them not to touch stuff, to get off my lap, to leave me alone so I can work - all the stuff that makes me not enjoy my kids or my scrapping so I haven't even tried at home yet. Cass and I are going to go to the shop tomorrow and get some work done. The shop is closed for two weeks so it will just be us and the paper for a whole day which sounds fantastic.

Quick hellos to Miss Lusi Goosi and big kisses to your gorgeous fam, a happy healing hello to Jilly and hope you're feeling better - let me know when you want that company girl!!! Hi to Alana - love what you emailed down and yes we'll definitely get Garbage up and going again soon with a Christmas theme, a big thanks to Lexie from Cyberscraps forum for welcoming us into your home - we had the best time!

I'll catch up again soon. Much love, Lu

Where oh where have I been?

2007-12-05T06:26:00.000+10:00

So I've been away a loooooooong while!!! lol But in the true spirit of blogging without obligation I'm not going to apologise for neglecting the blog for a while - life has been nothing short of crazy in our house for weeks now and I know you'll get it when I say that finding an hour or so to sit down and type about all the chaos instead of attending to the chaos just didn't seem important. I'm still not out of the chaotic woods yet and I don't know if I'll get to blogging much in the next week or two either. I'll nutshell it for ya so the friends and rellies get a catch up on the last few week and I can save a bit of time cos I've squeezed this in before getting ready for work.

Cyberscraps had our first retreat the second-last weekend in November - some of our amazing, funny forum members came from near and far to spend a weekend with good food, good wine, good scrapping and a particuarly good stripper as it turned into a covert hen's night for me as organised by Cass and Cath - much appreciated girls - can you guess what I want for my birthday next year??? lol
My fabulous Doug and I finally got married - ten years together, seven weeks to organise and one perfect day! Cass has some great pics on her blog, as does our lovely friend Kylie (Kat Browne). My dear friend Tash and her husband took the "professional" pics for us with their ridiculously expensive camera which weighs more than a six month old baby!! Can't wait to see those - seriously good scrapping fodder but no promises of a whole album or anything.
Blayd went to Sydney last weekend to attend the Australian All Styles Championships with his karate club - a weekend of firsts for my eldest who went on a plane for the first time, went away without parents for the first time, was totally responsible for his diet and behaviour for the first time. He had a great time although we all missed him and he was well and truly mobbed at the airport when he got back by his little brothers and sister!
I've got a commission album to do before Christmas - a full 20 page album which will be a Christmas present. I've done an album for this lady before for her mother for her birthday and she loved it and now I'm doing one for her grandmother for Christmas. It's very scary because she wants to include ORIGINAL photographs from the 30's and 40's - beautiful "porcelain doll" pictures I call them with some even hand tinted. They are beautiful but far out it makes me nervous to use originals so I'll have to be extra careful. So that's something I need to get stuck into but have bugger all time to do it in.
I'm working full time - long hours like 9 and 10 hour days - doing temping for a doctor in a private hospital for two weeks. It was a quick way to get some extra cash for Christmas when the bank balance looked a bit moth eaten after the wedding! So I've had to go and buy "corporate attire" for the first time in about seven years! The only things I've called work clothes for a long time are jammies and gym gear!!! lol It's a front office job too, not straight typing so I've had to learn a million things in only a half day of training and I've been left to fend for myself but I figure if I can manage four kids and their daily disasters then I can handle this. I haven't buggered anything up majorly yet so that's a relief but I'll be glad when it's over!!! lol It's been a huge job in itself to get out of the house each morning by 7.15am, all dressed, full makeup so I'm at the hospital by 7.45am to open the rooms. And the joy of not getting home until 6pm at night with no time to spend with the kids, get dinner ready, relax or scrap reminds me why I stopped working in an office all those years ago!!! But you know my mantra - think of the money, think of the money! lol
CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!!! Like a freaking freight train!!!!! lol I have no idea if I'm organised or not. I have lay-by's to pick up, have done no food preparation, shopping, etc, I may get cards done or not and it's a job for the week before Christmas when I've been paid from my job and have nothing else to do but Christmas stuff - mind you the kids go on school hols that same week and Doug starts his holidays so who knows how much (or little!!!) I'll get done!!! lol
All the end of year school/kindy stuff coming up which I'm either going to remember or have to let slide because I can't get there because of work
Friday night crop this week at Cyberscraps and our Christmas party day on Saturday 8th December where we're having drinks and nibblies at a couple of scheduled times during the day (ring and book on 3274 5522 if you want to come join us for a drink or a cuppa) as well as 20% off everything in the store except Bazzill (always ridiculously cheap at 70 cents everday anyway!). It's our present from Cyberscraps to you so pop in and say hi as Cath, Cass and I will be in the shop all day from 10am to 4pm and we'd love to see everyone before the silly season well and truly takes hold!

Okay I can't think of anything else right now but that's probably cos my brain is full!!! lol I just wanted to do a quick update that's already taken me half an hour (really need to get ready for work now!!!) cos I miss chatting to the blogsphere in general. It's a diary, a place to vent, to share, to keep a record for me as well as my friends and fam who read this. I miss you my blog!!!! lol

Back when I can and thanks for sticking around if you're reading this!!! Love, Lu

It's the final countdown!

2007-11-19T08:47:00.000+10:00

See!! I actually have gotten some scrapping done but apart from wedding stuff I've done not much else! lol It's been two crazy weeks of living at the gym, writing and re-writing lists of things to do and forgetting half of what I should be writing on those lists, and wrangling kids, resigning from my typing job cos I've just had enough of being routinely jerked around for not nearly enough money and helping with a retreat at Cath's house for the totally fabulous Cyberscraps gals which turned into a hen's night ambush (details to follow later in the week but the photographs may never see the light of the blogsphere EVER!!!! lol).

Just wanted to check in for anyone who still bothers to read!!! lol I've put Everyday Garbage on hold for two weeks and given up on all my regular challenge blogs I love to participate in just because I feel like my brain is over-full and I still can't find room to remember the important stuff. Only six days until the wedding now so the stress levels are pretty high no matter what I tell myself and I'll be glad when it's all over (isn't that awful?!?!) but then Christmas is ready to step up and take its place so I don't know how long it will be until life calms down again - maybe January?!?!?!

Anyway I'll update when I can but wanted to share what I've been up to. OH forgot to say- I got an article accepted for Scrapbook Creations!!!! YAY!!!! They are the one mag that have never accepted anything from me EVER so it's exciting to finally break the SC curse and in such big style too!!! lol

Okay I'm off to the shop today for the last time until after the wedding so wish me a productive day and all of you guys have a great week and thank you for everyone who has emailed or commented with encouragement and tips on how to retain my sanity- it's all very much appreciated!!! lol

Chat soon, love Lu

Small observation among the chaos.....

2007-11-05T13:58:00.000+10:00

My oldest is twelve and a half so a teenager next birthday. He's got a few "issues" but basically he's a good kid who hates school work/homework/housework like most twelve year old boys. He does the same sometimes stupid things that twelve year old boys do too. I can deal with that. What I didn't deal well with was his little brother grassing him up last Thursday for throwing rocks at school. THROWING ROCKS FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!! Over the course of that kid's life I cannot honestly remember how many times I've told him not to throw rocks around and I'm pretty sure it wasn't all that long ago that I had to tell him that yet AGAIN. But he's got a typical twelve year old boy's memory so was mucking around at school with a mate and they were chucking rocks around and he hit a light cover and cracked it. Well when his brother told me what he'd done - including the offer of a pay off to keep quiet about the incident which obviously wasn't a big enough payoff cos Lachie dobbed - I was the one who cracked it! I went through the usual "that's a stupid thing to do/dangerous/damaged property/ irresponsible behaviour" yadda yadda yadda. Then I made him do the last thing he thought I'd make him do - I told him to walk up to the very first teacher he had class with the next day and confess to breaking a light cover and take whatever punishment the teacher dealt him. I even emailed his teacher to be sure he wouldn't suddenly come down with amnesia about the incident.

The funny thing is that I know one of the teachers and the general consensus in the staff room was "wow can't believe she made him do that" in a congratulations kind of way. Well what on earth else would I make him do???? He broke something that didn't belong to him and the last time I checked if you do that as an adult you generally have consequences for doing stupid things. I'm glad the teachers think I did the right thing cos I'm sure I did do the right thing but the funny observation was that apparently the majority of parents don't seem to make their kids be responsible for what they do. Apparently I'm in the minority of parents while the rest make excuses for their kids, deny their child was involved despite eye witnesses or act plain ol' shocked and say "oh how awful". Come on now, people like that have to be the minority surely?

I'm a bit guerilla when it comes to my kids getting life lessons. I'm sure they're going to grow up thinking their mother is a hard-ass bitch about some stuff but in the real world there are consequences and punishments far worse than a detention for doing something stupid. I don't want my kids to think it's okay to do stupid/dangerous stuff because someone will "take care of it" for them and they won't be held accountable. They're not professional footballers yet...lol

So just having a wee vent about that to the blogsphere in general. The older I get the more I realise I don't suck at this mother thing nearly as bad as I think some days. I'm nowhere near as good a mother as people I know or even as good as I want to be but at least I realise I'm on the right track and hopefully it will keep my kids (mostly) out of trouble as they head for teenage years. Far out I hope at some point that kid of mine stops throwing bloody rocks............