How to schedule scrap time

It's funny because I've worked so many hours typing this week and I was just about aching for Saturday night to roll 'round so I could sit and scrap - in peace - in quiet - alone!!!! At 6pm last night when I did my round of packing sleepover bags, packing safe snacks and goodbye kisses I was sure I was going to get some scrapping done. I haven't picked up my DT stuff yet so I didn't have the BG I wanted but nonetheless I was pretty sure I had more than enough to keep me occupied and inspired even without it. I stood in the lounge room for a minute and my eyes darted from the crumbs on the floor, to the rice on the table, the spill of Coke on the coffee table, the clean washing someone had left on an armchair, a very decorative arrangement of kiddies plastic cups and bowls left in a line in front of the television and the "rustic" (meaning old, crappy and full of gaps) timber floor with crevices full of oat bran (the really finely processed stuff and if I say "Caeligh" that will explain why it is spread throughout my entire house!). Suddenly what I wanted more tha anything was to clean up!!! What the hell is wrong with me? The mess would still be there tomorrow and I could scrap tonight but something in me just wouldn't let me leave it so I ended up spending an hour doing a tidy up and a vacuum (and I'm sure I can still see oat bran in the cracks in the floorboards even though I got down on my hands and knees in some places with the vacuum nozzle to get it all out! grrrrrrr!!!!). Then I was all hot and sweaty and I figured I'll just go have a shower which turned into the whole washing, conditioning hair, shaving legs, exfoliating etc because how often during the week do we girls get time to do the whole routine? Not often enough is all I can say!!!! So there was another half or or so gone on prettying and maintenance (not that you'd know it lol). I grabbed a glass of red, still thoroughly believing I'd get to my desk at some point, grabbed a jam-filled lamington (yep it could well be my latest food phase) and crashed on the couch. I spied the paper and thought I'd have a browse - as you do - just quickly. So by the time I read the paper, browsed the job section (no idea why but I always look every week), choked and moaned about the prices in the real estate section (the way things are going we can't afford to rent privately or buy - what on earth are families meant to do???? - oh that's right - thanks to Sue for the reminder about a shoebox in t'middle of the road!!!!), read the Q-weekend section and my horoscope. I never usually read my horoscope in the morning, only at the end of the day but it's freaky how often I can find something to relate it to most of the time (or is that just my gullible streak?). By now it was about 8.30pm and I got to watching something on CI about the american justice (or lack thereof) system and eventually realised it was 10pm and Blayd wasn't home yet. He has a karate tournament this morning and his dad will be here to pick him up at 7am to drive down to the Gold Coast for it.

So I came and sat down at my desk, surveyed the mess which would not allow me to have scrapped until I had tidied it up from the Dares layout I finished off Friday, had a look at my blog but couldn't bring myself to type anything and decided to head off to bed. I had been up since 2.30am Saturday morning gettting work finished and I figured I may as well give my poor screwed up sleeping routine a fighting chance. I figured I could sit up and eventually get some scrapping done but did I really want to be feeling like crap when the alarm went off at 6am this morning and I had to do the organised mummy show and get Blayd ready to go??? No I did not so off to bed I went and I had no problem with the alarm this morning. Doug on the other hand has been up and back to bed. I believe he and my middle son Lachie crawled in at about 2.30am this morning from their LAN and he mentioned something about going to the Rocklea fleamarket this morning but somehow I'm not thinkin' so!!!!! I'm awake now and I've caught up on sleep so I don't mind. I worked out this morning that the little ones are staying at Gran's all day today because Doug has to go do some jobs around the house for her so I'll have the house to myself again all afternoon as well and I can scrap then.

I got some amazing photos of the kids yesterday at cricket. We had a match over at Chapel Hill which is a lovely green leafy suburb in Brisbane's west. I mean great shots as in you could see it on the cover of SM with the right layout - do you know what I mean? Does anybody else take photos and know straight away if you've got a cracker there or not? I can usually see it on the LCD screen and know right away if it's going to be great. I am not a pure photographer in that I don't use the viewfinder for my shots because I can't really "see" how it's going to turn out so I hold the camera in front of me and shoot what I see on the screen. The little ones were being sooooooo lovey with the camera and were happy to pose which is fabulous when you're in the mood to take pics and who doesn't appreciate good pics when looking for a hit of scrapping inspiration. A great photo will get me to my special place every time!

I'm off to help Blayd sort his bag and make sure he doesn't forget anything for his tournament. He's an old hand at this now, having done the tournament circuit for a couple of years but this is his first tournament as a black belt and he'll be one of the few in his age group so he'll be up against mainly lower ranked belts. I hope he doesn't get cocky about it and think he wont' have to work as hard!

Have a beautiful Sunday and like me, try to fit in something you love amongst everything else!