Ahhh... 5 o'clock.....!!!

Yup, 5 o'clock came, and look what happened:

I was devastated... NOT!!! Ah, it's SO good to have my husband back! I was beginning to worry that the neighbours would think he'd gone on some sort of mid-life crisis bender or something. Seriously.

And this, people, is what two boxes of scorched almonds, two bags of Pebbles, one bag of Jaybees and half a dozen Caramello favourites looks like:

Yup, it's locked and loaded, ready to go! I have one last piece of the box to finish tonight, and it will make it's debut in the morning.... J gets to go first, then we'll take turn about each morning. It's surprising how much you can fit in those little boxes actually. To be honest, I'm tempted to make another, you know, as a gift... Not even sure if Rach has any left, but might be a good plan for MIL for next year maybe? Or nieces and nephews?

Righto - dishes to rinse, washing to fold, and a scrap table to sort out. No mean feat, I tell you. It's had one of it's exploding attacks again, and is threatening to take over the whole house if I'm not careful. It really is a nasty beastie at the moment.

More later... or maybe in the morning!

Toodles, B x

Weather, Cards and Christmas...

Stupid, STUPID weather... Can you believe how changeable it has been around here lately? If you're from out of town, don't take MY word for it, take a look here and see for yourself. Click on Temp, then use the drop box to change the results to Temperature Last 31 Days. See what I mean? It has fluctuated between a cool low of 5.3 degrees, and a scorching high of 30.1 degrees. Seriously? That's just CRAZY!

So, what have you lot all been up to over the last week? We dropped in to visit D's cousin and his wife with a pressie for their new baby girl (and dinner for them as well). I made a quick card for them that afternoon:

It was a really simple acetate card decorated using my Labels 8 nesties (love that shape!), some Martha Stewart punched butterflies, and some BLING (of course!).

The other thing I have been working on this week is of course my Advent Calendar. Here's a wee sneak peek:

I will be finishing it tonight, as it needs to be put to work tomorrow. I will have to go out today and buy something to put in all the wee boxes!

Can't quite believe that it'll be December already. And that J will only have 2 weeks left at school. Wow. This year has just flown by. Seriously fast. And, now that I notice the time, so has this morning... I'd better get dressed and drop J to school. Sitting here in my dressing gown talking to y'all is not going to make that happen any time soon is it?!

Right... I'm off goff. Toodles, B x

Seriously???

The following questions were set in last year's GCSE examination in Swindon, Wiltshire (U.K.). These are genuine answers (from 16 year olds)

Q. Name the four seasons

A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar

Q. Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink

A. Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists

Q. How is dew formed

A. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire

Q. What causes the tides in the oceans

A. The tides are a fight between the earth and the moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins the fight

Q. What guarantees may a mortgage company insist on

A. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed

Q. In a democratic society, how important are elections

A. Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election

Q. What are steroids

A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs

Q. What happens to your body as you age

A. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental

Q. What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty

A. He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery (Mmmm)

Q Name a major disease associated with cigarettes

A. Premature death

Q. What is artificial insemination

A. When the farmer does it to the cow instead of the bull

Q. How can you delay milk turning sour

A. Keep it in the cow (Simple, but brilliant)

Q. How are the main 20 parts of the body categorised (e.g.The abdomen)

A. The body is consisted into 3 parts - the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels: A, E, I, O and U (What the *!!*???)

Q. What is the fibula?

A. A small lie

Q. What does 'varicose' mean?

A. Nearby

Q. What is the most common form of birth control

A. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium (Yup, that would work!)

Q. Give the meaning of the term 'Caesarean section'

A. The caesarean section is a district in Rome

Q. What is a seizure?

A. A Roman Emperor.(Julius Seizure, I came, I saw, I had a fit??!!)

Q. What is a terminal illness

A. When you are sick at the airport.(Well...erm, yes, I suppose)

Q. Give an example of a fungus. What is a characteristic feature?

A. Mushrooms. They always grow in damp places and they look like umbrellas

Q. Use the word 'judicious' in a sentence to show you understand its meaning

A. Hands that judicious can be soft as your face. (OMG)

Q. What does the word 'benign' mean?

A. Benign is what you will be after you be eight (Seriously?)

Q. What is a turbine?

A. Something an Arab or Shreik wears on his head

OH DEAR, OH DEAR!

Funny, Funny, Funny... (to the tune of 'Money, Money, Money')

Oh my goodness... last night was SO funny! Nic thought she was coming round for a few quiet wines and some scrapbooking, but I had turned it into a Hen Night, seeing as her wedding is only two weeks away. So Nic, Kath, Rach, Jo and I all had a few drinks and played silly Hen Night games, like 'Pin the Willie on the Groom', a Bob the Builder drinking game, and the vegetable game. We followed that up with several hours of Singstar (thanks Shaun for dropping that off), and then a sing-a-long to Mamma Mia on DVD, toddling off to bed at about 2.30am. Having never played Singstar before I was a bit apprehensive, but it was a blast! Here's a few shots of how the evening panned out...

Preparing the 'appendages' for Hugh Jackman (our fill-in groom for the evening)

Erm.... no comment.

Someone's aim was a little 'off'....

...and along came Singstar...

No, Nic, that part doesn't sing...!

Check out the concentration on Rach's face! Must've been a tricky part...

'Don't go Breaking My Heart' !!!

Kath, are you dancing or directing traffic?!!!

Jo doing a bit of 'crooning'

Awwww :)

Oh, who needs a microphone anyway?

Kath, an ace singer, dealing it to another tune...

Nic, gettin down!

Oops, busted dancing!

So that was about the size of it... a fair few laughs, and a LOT of fun. Best surprise ever.

I think I need a nap....!

Toodles, B x

Check it out...

Isn't he the cutest little man...?

Ha ha ha - butter wouldn't melt in his mouth huh?! It's lies, I tell you, LIES!

Well, D is away (he left last night), and we have the place to ourselves. I'm about to go out to do some messages, then it'll be time to tackle the house. Time for a spring clean. Scrub from head to toe, etc etc. Anyone who wants to help out is welcome to pop in!

Catch ya later....

Toodles, B x

Surfing...

I've been doing a bit of surfing (of the blog variety, not the wetsuit and ocean variety!), and seen a few cool things I had to tell you about...

Check out this post about Carole Janson's scrap room. I am SO jealous! It looks like she has a whole store full of stuff at her disposal, and it all looks SO pretty, doesn't it? Maybe one day... when we win lotto... and have a much bigger house! Ha ha ha!

And then there's this post with a quick tutorial to make your own flowers... basically a different twist on the dahlia fold technique. Very fast, very simple, very effective. Might have to give that one a try soon.

And then I found this on YouTube:

I have recently put this on my phone as the alert when I receive text messages. When it goes off, J sits there and happily sings along... it's HILARIOUS! Teeheehee.

And then there's this wreath... I think it looks FAB, and might even try my hand at one for us. Just need to track down a foam wreath as the base, which I suppose I'd find at a florist?

And this I spotted on the Kaiser website - also another thing I might have a go at. Mmm, am thinking I might be running out of time in the day to get these things done!!! Oh well, not much different to normal then, is it?!

I had one of those days today, and just want to say thanks again to all my lovely friends. You guys rock. It's nice to know you're out there :)

Time to go and tuck in my wee man (apparently Daddy just doesn't do it RIGHT, ha ha ha!), then continue on with the spring cleaning I started this afternoon. In order to tidy up, you've gotta make a giant mess first, right? Well I do anyway!

Catch you maybe tomorrow, toodles, B x

Fa-la-la-la-laaaaa, la-la-la-laaaa

That's right folks, not long till that big fat man squeezes down your chimney now... only 35 sleeps to go! Yup, only 5 weeks :)

So, are YOU organised?

Like I've said earlier, we have most of our Christmas shopping done already, the only sticking point being J... being almost 6, he's now old enough to make a wish list, but the problem is that it is about 3 A4 pages long, and a lot of it is nonsense. The trouble is, what do you buy a child that, to be honest, has most things already? He doesn't NEED anything. He doesn't NEED more toys, or NEED more books, although those are the sorts of things he's likely to get. We were going to buy him a little CD player for his bedroom, but he's adopted D's old iPod and speakers, and seems happy enough with them, so there's that idea out the window! Bugger.

And if Christmas isn't bad enough, it's his birthday 2 weeks later... Mmmm. There's some serious thinking to be done here, me thinks. Any ideas? Suggestions welcome!

Movember is nearing it's completion (thank goodness), so it won't be long until I get my husband back. In the meantime he has been replaced by THIS. Yeah, no further comment required, really! Bring on November 30th!!!

He's away this weekend to the SuperX in Hamilton with the boys:

It was booked back in February, so it seems to have taken AGES to get here. They should have a blast. Definitely a boy's weekend, not for me really. The only thing that I'd enjoy would be playing with my camera - there'll be some great shots to be taken, I'm sure. D's going to take his camera. I offered him mine, but he decided it was too big to lug around. Fair enough.

I'll be spending the weekend at home with J, just chillin. We will probably head down to the Rose Festival Market Day on Sunday if the weather's nice. That's always a good market. And there's always HEAPS to look at.

Right, that's about it for now people. Time to get off to work for the day.

Toodles, B x

Movember... grrrrrr!

Yup, I had mentioned last week I think it was, the D was doing the 'Movember' thing... Well this year, I told him that if he was going to go out in public looking like a cross between Paul Snr from American Chopper and some sort of nasty paedophile, he had to do it official-like. So, to find the link to his Movember fundraising page, click here... Humour me and help him to raise funds, to make the god-awful Mo somewhat useful, please! I will post a pic of the Mo at halfway point, on the 15th.

Right, off to watch Packed to the Rafters...

Toodles, B x

A quickie...

This is a quickie post, as there is hot demand for the laptop tonight... D is itching to play on PokerStars! No wonder though, he has had a good poker week - he had the boys over while I was at the movies with Heath on Thursday night, and he won! It's been a while between drinks (so to speak), so he was stoked.

The movie on Friday night was great. As a big MJ fan myself, I really enjoyed it. They had done an awful lot of pre-production for the big screens on the stage - they filmed new versions of a Thriller sequence, some military shots in front of a green screen, etc. And although I know that MJ was not a 'normal' human being (well who wouldn't be a little bit strange with the life he's had), the movie showed that HE STILL HAD IT. You know, IT. He still had a presence, he still had the moves, he still had the voice, and he sure didn't look like he was on death's door. Kinds of sad really. He was very softly spoken, and talked a lot about love, and peace, and looking after our planet. The show would have been absolutely mind-blowing if it had gone ahead IRL. Just amazing.

Then, thanks to Transformers 2, I got to sleep in until 10am on Saturday! Fab-u-lous! After we'd had breakfast, J and I checked out the St Paul's church fair (where he bought himself a tomato shaped tomato sauce bottle for 10 cents, and tried candy floss for the first time), then headed to the Red Shed to get him some sandals for summer. It's fun taking a 5 year old shoe shopping, it really is. NOT! Everything is either the wrong colour, the wrong size, or scratchy underfoot. Grrrrr. We DID get a pair of sandals in the end. Eventually. Much, much later.

The rest of our weekend disappeared in a blur of washing, cleaning, eating, sleeping and, oh, painting! I got two coats of paint on my advent calendar, but another still needs to be done, which I am off to do now.

Righto, time to pass the torch...

Toodles, B x

Phew!

Wow, that movie last night was good, but what a tear-jerker. I literally have a tension headache this morning from all the blubbing! Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it though. And I knew what I was in for, as I'd already read the book. The ending was different, but I think it was better... Highly recommended for chicks, definitely not a bloke's movie.

For those of you who have no idea what it's about, basically a little girls parents decide to genetically engineer another pregnancy as a perfect match so that they can prolong/save her life as she has a rare form of Leukaemia. Basically create a spare parts child. Then, later down the track, the 'parts' child sues her parents for the rights to her own body, and the choice to refuse invasive medical treatments if she wishes.

Obviously, with a child cancer involved, it's a bit tough to watch at times. They did a bloody good job of making the girl with Leukaemia look like crap as her condition deteriorated. It poses a lot of moral questions, and makes you think... If you were in that position, would you engineer another child to help save the life of another? Well, probably. You just would, wouldn't you?

It also shows the inner family tension that comes with a terminally sick child - stress between the parents as they differ in opinions, a mother giving up her life to strive for the survival of her child at the cost of her other children being left out and ignored/forgotten, each of them struggling in their own way. You want to disagree with their choices, but you can totally understand them, and in fact, would probably go down that track yourself if put in that position.

I think the reason that it's so upsetting to watch, is because it's so REAL.

Here's hoping none of us have to go down that track. Ever.

B x

Christmas and Movies...

Yup, y'all know that I've already made a good start on Christmas this year (for once!). Well, yesterday I popped over to see Rach and bought one of the Kaiser advent calendar kits to make. I have to say though that there appeared to be a bit more in the 'make' department than I thought. Bummer. Having said that though, last night I got all the wooden pieces sanded down and glued together, and as of this morning I have got about a third of the little boxes glued together too. Here's a pic of what the plain one will look like once assembled, but before decorating:

And considering it all came flat-packed and joined together with little tab-thingys that needed sanding off everywhere, I don't think I did too bad to get it put together last night!

Tonight D is having poker at our place, and I am off to see this with Heather:

I think I'll be taking a box of tissues... I've read the book (which was excellent), so have some idea of what to expect.... Although I hear that the movie has a different ending, so I'll reserve judgment on whether or not that's a good idea until after I've watched it tonight.

Then tomorrow, D and I are off to see this...




...which I am REALLY looking forward to. I am a big MJ fan, and I've heard that it's just fab. We have a babysitter coming round and we might even manage to have dinner together somewhere first. Wow, like a real date! Exciting!!!!!

Not a lot planned for this weekend, hoping to get a bit of tidying up done in the garden, christen my bike, and catch up on housework (fun, fun, fun!). What you lot up to for the weekend? Let me know, yeah?

Right, things to do, people to see, bills to dictate...

Toodles, B x

Grrrrr...

Now that it's November, that can mean only one thing.... MOVEMBER. Yuck.

Very soon I shall have a husband that resembles a ginga version of Paul Snr off American Chopper. Looking forward to that. NOT.

Anyone else have this problem?

Ok, here we go...

It's been a couple weeks since I posted. SO SOME PEOPLE KEEP TELLING ME. So shoot me. You can all shut up now! Sometimes I find I just can't get out of my own way, ya know? I seem to have been awfully busy doing a whole lot of... well, nothing. Working, Cooking, Eating, Sleeping, Washing, Rinse, Repeat. Like the little hamster that runs flat out in his wheel and gets nowhere! I'd like to say that the last few weeks have been full of memorable experiences, and life-changing incidences, but...no. Same sh*t, different day. Although I must say that I HAVE managed to be a little creative in my absence...

It was my little sister's boyfriend's birthday last month, so I threw together this card for him:

He's into surfing in a big way, and lately, this little monster keeps surfacing when I have to make boy cards. He's a handy little fella, and darn cute too!

On the sewing front, I made myself a reversible tote bag... I was quite proud of myself for having pulled it off, as generally most of my sewing is done on scrapbook pages and cards. I have managed a few simple things (like the lunch-bags I made for J to take to school), but to follow a REAL pattern and make a REAL item was pretty cool. Here's what it looks like:

It's a pretty good size, as it's just over 12" across the bottom, so I can cart scrapbook stuff around in it if I want. The original pattern only made a bag 10" wide, so I amended it slightly. Go me! I think I'll tackle some Christmas sewing crafts next. I managed to score a pattern book from a former workmate, so I'll give that a lash I reckon. You can always unpick things, right?! Ha ha ha.

Last Saturday was an Embellishit crop day, and I was pleased with what I managed to get done, given that I had J with me until lunchtime (D was working). He and I showed a couple of girls how to make the paper-pieced Santa cards we've been doing, and he sat and decorated some Kaiser Gingerbread men and drew a few pictures. He seemed to enjoy himself, which is the main thing.

I got two cards made in the morning, to add to my stash as 'just in case' cards.... They're good generic cards that you can add 'With Sympathy', 'Happy Birthday', or 'Thinking of You' to... Always good to have one or two of those up your sleeve!

The flowers on the front of the card are made with the Stampin Up scallop punch. There are 5 layers of punched scallops in each flower, and they were all scrunched into a ball and then unfolded before layering on top of each other. They are held together with a brad before being stuck on the card. The punch itself is pretty handy, and my mate Deb can hook you up if you are after one. Check out her blog here, or flick her an email at paperstylist@gmail.com

Then, after J went home with D, I got a two page layout done:

and I got the make and take flowers made:

Then I stuffed my face with Indian takeout (yum-o Butter Chicken, but my boys don't like it)... and got to work on a Caithness family reunion layout:

I didn't get it finished in time for Page of the Day, which was a bummer, as I think it's the best work I have done in AGES.... I got home and just HAD to finish it, there and then! And my mother-in-law loved it so much, that I have to reproduce another one for her. She wants to frame it and put it on the wall!

All in all a most successful day. Only disappointment was that the Kaiser Christmas papers and off-the-page projects didn't arrive in time (poor Rach). I bet they arrived today, after all that! I think I might make us an advent calendar, although it's hard to see what it's really like from the small pic on the net, so I can't wait to check it out 'in person'...

And on THAT note... did you know that as of today, November 2nd, there are only 53 sleeps until Christmas?! Yeah! Ha ha ha!

And once Christmas is out of the way, there are even MORE things to look forward to in 2010:

* the fabulous Nic Howard is coming to Timmers at the end of February to take a couple of classes

* Embellishit's Summer Camp at Raincliff is in March

* the Autumn Escape in Taupo being organised by Nic Howard and Lucy van der Loos is in April

* then SENZ is in Christchurch in July

Fan-tas-tic!!! Bring. It. On.

Right... is that enough for you? I can't think of ANYTHING else to tell you about for now, so that will just have to do! Ok? OK!

I'm off. Toodles, B x