Shiny Happy Friday!

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