Scattered Scrap
A rare not-so-quiet minute or two in the scattered mind of a scrapper, a mother, a wifey, a photographer wannabe, a typist, a shopper, a spender, a day-dreamer, a wisher, a lazybum, a stand up newbie, a karaoke wannabe, a flea marketer, a tea cup collector, proudly tattooed, prettily pierced and definitely a scatterbrain!
Friday 4 November 2011
Stuff2Scrap November Challenge
Tuesday 12 July 2011
In the infamous words of Van Halen....
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.
"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!
Wednesday 16 June 2010
I'm great at keeping secrets...
Wednesday 31 March 2010
WHO LOVES ANNOUNCEMENTS?!?!
Tuesday 2 March 2010
PRIMA! PRIMA! PRIMA!!!
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
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Poking my head in for a quick hello!
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!
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Hellooooo - is anybody out there?
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