Stressy! Stressy!!!!

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!

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

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!!!!

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

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

"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!

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