Just Me and Them

I'm Backkkkk!!

Firstly I have to share my October scrappit pack with you -

Being in Melbourne meant that I missed out on my normal sharing day and I loved this page so much that I really didnt want that to happen so here it is.  The photo actually opens up as well to reveal a photo of Sarah's face painting but with her eyes open and of course my journalling!! Here -

Such a beautiful face painting!! 

Yesterday I got back from my shopping trip to Melbourne.  I bought quite a bit but more for everyone else than myself.  Yet again I ventured into the Prada store with the intent of buying myself a purse.  BUT dang, there is no way I am going to spend that much money on a purse - for the same amount I was able to buy myself 2 pairs of embroidered jeans, 2 tops and 2 pairs of leather shoes!!  I think my love of all things Prada will just have to be from afar :)

Anyway, here are some quick glimpses of my trip -

We left early that morning and got to watch the sun come up over the airport!!

The view from our window!

 

I finally caught a train in Melbourne - I was amazed at how much the station looked like those on the Australian TV shows!!

 

The whitehouse institute where one of my favourite TV shows is filmed  -Project Runway!!

 Amazing street art all throught the streets of Fitzroy!!

 

 The departures board - my favourite sight by last night.  I love Melbourne but I do so love being back home with my family.

Finally, here is a quick page I created this afternoon -

Well that's it for me for tonight!!  Hopefully I can scan the work I finished creating just before I left so I can share it all tomorrow!!

Sneakies, shares and some special news!!

My closest friend had her very first grandchild born this week.  Her name is Giselle Mia and I have already made a page for them using one of the photo's taken while in the hospital.  In this photo she would have only been about 3 or 4 hours old!!

 

In the next week or so, August club is to be released and I have some sneakies to share -

 

 

 

Also, during the week this week my scrap room was completely emptied and new flooring was fitted.  I hated the carpet I had because it stank of animal and was an absolute nightmare to vacuum because of all the paper scraps lol!!  Matt went out and organised a deluxe lino to be delivered and laid down.  This morning we were still finishing putting everything back but it was worth it since it looks so wonderful now!!

 

 

On top of everything, a parcel arrived for me Friday afternoon.  As you probably already know, I am mad for pandora jewellery and my order from Dreambell arrived for me to make into my second bracelet.  So pretty -

 

Here's a closeup of my favourite bead of them all - my little fairy -

 

Lastly, I found this new aussie site - Chains of love" where I found these fantastic jewellery accessories to use with the beads.  Here is the pair of earrings I bought with a set of Siam balls I bought from Dreambell -

 

And here is my absolute fav - the bar necklace which as you can see, I have already filled!!

 

So, pandora mad or what??  lol!!  Alright time to get on with some more work!

Awards

Me again - twice in one day hmmm!!  I really did get the fiddle bug and have been fiddling around with my blog rather than getting down to what I need to get done but I have to admit I love the result!!  I changed over the navigation parts - to linking buttons on the right and have included them on all my pages to make things easier.  The buttons themselves were a part of the kit I was talking about that I bought so I figured why not use them!!

Anyway, I also changed my little ole blog awards over to a photo gallery of their own since there seem to be quite a few now and I added this little pretty -

Shirley left it over at her blog for me so thank you Shirley!!  Alright back to work!

 

P.s. for those interested - I should have a couple of February sneaky peakies up by the end of the week.  (before valentines day anyhow).

Today and a bit of a catch-up

Well I have certainly had a very full couple of days since the weekend!! Over the weekend I managed to sprain my left bicep muscle which has left me in quite a bit of pain as its also the more dominant side of my body.  I tell you what, its really hard to avoid using a part of your body that you have learnt to rely on constantly!!  Of course I've kind of flunked out on the total use avoidance thing and Tuesday night/wednesday morning ended up in the hospital for the night.  I went in with my dear friend Deb after crying and carrying on about pains across my chest - yeah I know probably extra muscle pulls as I overcompensate for the fact that I can't use the arm BUT it is pretty scary when you begin getting pains and cramping feeling going right across where you know your heart is.

SOOO, we went off to the hospital and after 6 hours of very dull tests was told I could go home because I was fine.  The cramping and pain were all associated with my bicep injury. So why the overreaction?  Well tomorrow is a very special day for me and kind of why I freaky-ed myself out so much - its the birthday of my long time school friend.  A person who I loved dearly and spent a great deal of my formative years with.  I say loved because 6 years ago she passed away after a massive heart attack.  The attack was without warning signs and trully devastating to both me and her family and friends.

You may also wonder why I would want to share all this private stuff?  Well its easy to answer that one?  I want to get that message out that if you ever feel anything wrong to get to a hospital.  Don't feel silly or worry that you'll make a laugh of yourself because you won't.  I kinda thought that at the time but I went anyway and the biggest thing for me was last night when I talked to my Dad on the phone.  I thought he was going to tease but instead he told me he was proud of me for going to the hospital and for not taking any chances and that was a pretty big deal to me to hear.

So what are those signs to look out for?  Well the biggest of course is chest pain that apparently feels like a band of steel has been wrapped around your chest and in addition to providing pain also makes it difficult to breath, from my friends death I learnt that pain radiating down your arm can be a warning sign - particularly the left side, a general feeling of not being ok is another, a neck pain that moves across your shoulders or a tingling or numbness in your thumb!but there are so many more signs that many people arent aware of.  Google it sometime and check it out because the info might just save you or someone elses life.  

So yesterday I rested and took meds the doctor prescribed to keep the pain at bay and of course stopped using my arm!!  Today we went to Moonta with Deb and her family though in a kind of effort to stop me from sneaking into my scrap room.  It was a pretty good day, with heaps of photos of the kids taken -

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

 

Cute aren't they?  I can't wait till they are all printed to scrap them!

 

PS.  I think I mentioned earlier in the month that Matt was building me a chicken house?  Well, its finished and we bought the chickens yesterday afternoon.  We have 6 chickens altogether and they are all around the 22 weeks of age so that they are close to laying!!  So close in fact that we have already had 3 eggs since they arrived already!!

Awards, Stamps and More!!

This morning I woke up to a comment left for me by Shirley, I went over to her blog and found this little pretty there waiting for me -

Now this little pretty came with its own set of rules -

Rules of this award:

1. Add the logo to your blog.

2. Link to the person from whom you received this award.

3. Nominate 7 or more blogs.

4. Leave a message on their blog, letting them know they are “One Lovely Blog”

So here are my linky links in no particular order -

1. Cathy
2. Jo
3. Em
4. G
5. Deb
6. Alisa
7. Julie

What do you think of this little cutie?  From the moment I saw him I was in love lol!!  He comes from a company called House Mouse and I foudn them completely by accident on boxing day.  Needless to say I orgdered him and a few other stamps from their very cute collection.  They have a tonne of stamps that feature this cute little mouse with or without his pals but always doing something super cute and I personally can't wait for him to arrive hopefully this week so I can colour him!! These are the other stamps that I bought at the same time -

If you like these stamps you can find them over at their online shop here.

For me the purchase was an international one but I really loved that the postage costs were really fair and of course affordable!!

   

A car update

See this...

                                                

...well, its officially back!!  Matt, Deb and my parents went up to Nhill to pick it up yesterday morning.  It cost us a grand whopping $1045 but at least its fixed and its back!!  Would you like to see what $1045 actually paid for?

                                                

Not much is it?  Apparently the water pump started the whole thing by breaking and taking the timeing belt with it - I don't know if you can see but its pretty chewed up!!  The belt of course took out this crank angle sensor thing - no idea what that is or what it does but I now know its an expensive bit - then of course the thermostat went out in sympathy and also blew!!  Talk about chain of events!!  Never mind, at least its back and we are all safe and thank god Matt doesnt have to ride his bike everywhere anymore!!

Sarah's Special News

During this term at school, a competition has been run that was sponsored by a local real estate group.  The competition entailed writing a short story and it was open to everyone from reception to year seven.  The prize was a huge box full of stationery to the value of $100.

Anyway, the winner was announced this week and - both my girls entered - Sarah Won!!  They felt her story was very original and creative and even urged that her story should get published - not bad for an eight year old eh!!

                                                         

Another Award

I discovered a wonderful award given to me by an awesome friend - Shirley!!

Here's the award  -

                                                 

AND here is a link to  Shirley's blog!!  Thanks Shirley!!

Life Update

Wow!!  It feels like ages since I had any real me time.  Time to just write for myself at my blog and not share work, time to scrap for me and not for someone else, time to um... I don't know sit and smell the roses?!?  Wll maybe not roses but some nice Gardenia's would be nice!!

Things have been sooo busy and I can't really put my finger on any one reason why!!  Its seems like its a combination of work, scrap work, kids, family and well everything!!  Taken on their own they don't seem like much but man they've all kept me on my toes!!

So where do I start?  The bad???

• My kids are wearing me out - Sarah especially with her constant whining atm about how life is so unfair. 
• Then of course work - Man I so badly want a day off!! No more courses or extra curricular stuff or well a day off really!!

The good?

• Sarah has been trying really hard to remember to go to the toilet before bed so finally a week of no accidents.
• Jack has finally found a better plaything than chewing up my shoes - Plastic soft drink containers - he loves tossing them around and chasing them - mind you, Matts not so keen cos it means he might not get his refund back on them!!
• My cardmaking has really been booming - I've nearly made all my Xmas cards for this year.
• I made it on to the Inspirational Team- Yeah!!

The ugly?

• I hate hate hate Centrelink!!!!  I only have to deal with them once a year for my lump sum tax payment but once is certainly more than enough!!  They are slow, rude and extremely negligent in how they deal with people and the impact they make on peoples lives.  Take me for example - I put in my application forms nearly a month ago and when I lodged a copy of my childrens birth certificates for the hundredth time the next day I was told it would all take 21 days.  29 days later I am now not only being told I didnt lodge those birth certificates but that it will now take 6 weeks!!  Amazing huh?!?  I wouldn't bother if it wasn't for the fact that my lump sum is substantial!!
• Poppy Ink - Hmm what can I say???  I've tried so hard to ignore the rumours and the other customers complaining but its really hard when faced with whats been happening to me.  I'm still waiting for my July kits - all of them - they never arrived and after numerous emails I finally ended up filing a paypal dispute.  Boy did I get a reaction then - only prob was I get told they have been sent - July with the August kits??? - and get rid of the dispute!!  Not a chance.  The emails began on the 14th of this month and were sent to assure me that they had fixed their customs issues and had posted.  My problem is I don't believe them and the fact that its now the 27th and they still havent turned up isnt reassuring me.  I sent them an email last night but once again no comment as yet!!

On a lighter note, we've been having some entertaining times on the home front.  A couple of weeks ago Matt and I bought an outdoor brassier and set it up to roast some marshmallows with the kids and Deb!! What do you reckon?

                                           

                                          

And, Last week Deb and I and a group of others went off to the city on this huge night club bus.  Here's a photo Matt took of Deb and I just before we left.  I wanted a before and an after photo but I um drank way too much and wasn't in any condition for the last photo plus Matt was in no mood to take it at 3.30 am lol!!

                                          

The photo has been enhanced - I hate photo's of me - so I ran it through an acid bath filter to enhance it!!  I love how it brings out the blue in my eyes!!

Tagged!!

I've been tagged by Shirley to be a part of a 'ME' Trivia . . .

Ten Years Ago:
July 1998  I was spendinig a lot of time at a specialist trying to get pregnant and around this month would have just begun fertility treatments that eventually helped to create Sarah.

Five Things on Today's To-Do List:

1. Get this house clean - again!!
2. Take some photo's of Jacks mud puddles.
3. Break into the May Bad girls kit!!
4. Make a chicken stew for dinner.
5. Get both my girls to clean their room!!

Snacks I Enjoy:
Chocolate, banana's, sushi, chocolate donuts, oranges, heaps!!

Things I Would Do If I Was a Millionaire:
My biggest thing would be to travel to Egypt to explore but have you ever seen that movie Jumper?  I want to do that - stand on top of the Sphynx and watch the world go by!!

Places (or areas) I Have Lived:
So sad!!  As a child I lived for awhile in Malaysia while my Dad was based there, otherwise in Adelaide the rest of my life!!

2 people I am Tagging: (to stuffed to find some more)

Deb

Alisa