CAMERA CRAZY CHICK...

A quickie...

2012-01-30T22:29:00.000+13:00

Never fear folks, part two is still being drafted... In the meantime, here's a news bulletin hot off the press...

"Ladies and Gentlemen, there has been a slight interruption to our regular programming due to a nasty little beastie called Coverseal. Coverseal can often be found lurking in dusty corners awaiting the start of the school year. It's latest victim was attacked this evening, in suburban Timaru, which is not entirely unexpected as Bluestone School re-opens tomorrow. The 37 year old female victim who preferred not to be named was quoted as saying that no exercise books were harmed in the process, and this time at least, no paper-cuts occurred"

Yup, that was me they were talking about, ba ha ha ha ha! When I have recovered from said attack (most likely tomorrow), I shall be back!

Toodles,

Time to get back to bloggin! (Part One)

2012-01-28T23:20:00.001+13:00

Wow - what happened to the last few months? We've had SO much going on (I know, who doesn't, right?) Well, I have some photos to upload from the camera cards which I will start on tomorrow, but here's the abbreviated blow-by-blow, minus the pictures of course... they can come later!

October

I finished off the month with a quick day trip to Oamaru with Ma. Rosie and I went down for one of Tania's Embellish It crop days. Got a few Chrissy cards made (although I never got a single one sent out this year, but that's another story), and we had a scrummy lunch at the Victorian Tea Rooms. VERY cool. Beautifully redecorated tea rooms, with lots of victorian era trinkets and paintings all around the place. All of the staff were dressed in period costume, and they even had the eftpos machine hidden under the counter below a victorian style till! There's a recent article about it from The Oamaru Mail here. Then Ma took me for a cruise past all of her old childhood haunts - where she used to live, where she went to school etc. Man we had a blast hanging out for the day.... talk about laugh!

November

Started the month off with my car getting covered in paint overspray, caused by painters painting a building on a windy day just down the road from where I park while I am at work. (Wow, did all that make sense? Talk about a long and complicated sentence!). I now have a red car with white spots. Fantastic. We're still waiting for the painter's insurers to sort it out. STILL.

Then our gorgeous nephew turned ONE. Unfortunately we couldn't make the trip up to Aucks to spend his birthday with him, but Ma and Pa went up.... armed with lots of pressies from those of us down here, and the birthday cake that I had made him :) Photos of that to follow.

Then I had a totally fab time teaching my first ever class for Tania at Embellish It, down in Waimate. Tbh I spent a bit of time leading up to the class stressing about whether it was going to go ok, but I think it went really well. (Although if I were to do it again I'd design simpler layouts! Sorry ladies - hope I didn't stress you guys out too much... better to be busy than bored in class, huh?). I'll post a more detailed post on that later.

Then I had an epiphany, and decided to have a serious talk with my good friend Dom about whether or not she'd be prepared to part time personal train me... and she said yes! She is very motivating, very energetic and such a lovely person. But by hell she has had me working hard. I have to confess to being more committed to the cause before Christmas, but I am getting back on the wagon now though... nose to the grindstone and all that. Daz and I are working our way through the Couch to 5K program. At the moment, we are into week 5 of the 9 week program. And I am by no means a natural runner. At the moment I am more of a huffing puffing plodder than a graceful striding runner. But I am doing it. Three times a week. I can now (just) run for 5 minutes without stopping. The theory of the Couch to 5K seems easy. Start out running for 1 minute, then walk for 1 minute, then repeat until you have been run/walking for 25 minutes. This week we ran for 5 minutes, walked for 3 minutes, ran for 5, walked for 3 then ran for 5 and staggered home again. Each session is started with a 5 minute warm-up walk. Sounds easy right? Yeah, um, maybe not EASY, but so far it's achievable. SO FAR. I don't plan to eat my words on that either. Onwards and upwards...

At the end of the month DH and I worked on Election Day, which was a busy day but went really well, and the counts etc at the end went very smoothly. I was Polling Place Manager, and counting Daz and myself, there were 8 of us at our site. Good bunch of staff, no difficult voters, home by 10pm. Not bad! (and we got paid quite nicely for it too, woohoo!)

December

Now December was a bit of an up and down month... In my new job (funny I still call it a new job, I've been there 6 months now!), I have some of the most amazing co-workers. They are an awesome bunch of people. Sadly one of those co-workers had to deal with the sudden and unexpected loss of her son at the beginning of December. Man it was tough. I mean, there is nothing you can say, and nothing you can do, but you really want to make things better, you know? I never even met the guy, but I was so upset for my her. A mother is not supposed to outlive her kids. Life deals some pretty shitty blows sometimes. I know you're only supposed to be dealt as much as you can handle, but really? You have to wonder... it's just not fair. Most of us at work attended the funeral, for moral support. That was a big day for me - work in the morning, root canal at lunchtime, funeral mid afternoon. Nice to finally get my mouth fixed up after the issues I had back in October, but not the best timing.

A lot of time in December was spent devoted to trying to stick to Dom's timetable for me... Zumba twice a week, at-home half hour workouts three times a week, Couch to 5K three times a week, and a family outdoor outing once a week (like a bush walk, or tennis, or teeball, etc). I have had a LOT of support from my boys, which is fantastic. D and J have been with me each and every time I have done a Couch to 5K run, and they have worked alongside me (when they have been at home) to do my at-home workouts. I tell you what, I have NEVER been so tired. Really REALLY tired. I even went to the Doc for a WOF, and other than my usual blood pressure issues, there was nothing else wrong. It was just my body telling me I was working damn hard.

We also had three work Christmas Do's to go to in December, my work social club do, D's work do, then the full Council work do. Haven't had a social calendar that full for years, ha ha ha! I also organised our annual Street Christmas Party for the Saturday night before Christmas, which was a BLAST. Street Party started at 4.30pm at the bottom of our street. All the houses in our cul-de-sac were invited. We rolled our barbecue down the street, and we all brought along our own meat for the BBQ, and chairs/drinks etc. Each house had to bring along either breads, salad or dessert, and it all worked fabulously! It was unfortunately a pretty cold evening, so we carted our gas patio heater down there too, and another neighbour brought out a brazier. The kids got some tree branches and toasted marshmallows over the brazier, old school style. Awesome! And the drift trikes made an appearance too... quite a few of the neighbours had a turn on them :) By about midnight it was too cold to stay out any longer, so some went home, and the rest came to our place to attempt a bit of a Delta Dawn/Midnight Special sing-a-long. Man we were awesome (as you can well imagine!). I got to bed at 3.45am, and that was only because I turned off the stereo and kicked the last of the stragglers out. D went to the loo at around 3am and sneakily snuck off to bed, leaving me to it. Nice one D. I'll remember that trick next time.

And some of the bestest news... my lil sis Gem and her partner DJ arrived back in NZ from Sydney just over a week before Christmas, to stay for a fortnight... and my other sis Sarah and her fiance Kelvin, and their wee manny (my gorgeous nephew) Tyler arrived on Christmas Eve for 4 nights.

And that brings us to Christmas Day... which I shall have to fill you in on tomorrow, cos I am done for tonight peeps. If you haven't fallen asleep yourself yet, I'll see you for part two (and hopefully some photos) tomorrow.

Toodles,

What a week!

2011-10-13T20:17:00.000+13:00

Man, it's sure been one of those weeks in our household....

Remember my visit to the dentist? Well, I've been back to see him twice more since then... Monday I went back because I could no longer eat or sleep, so he prescribed me oral antibiotics to kick the infection, but by Tuesday morning I was starting to be physically sick, and hadn't had any sleep for a couple nights by then. I was a MESS. My lovely boss took one look at me on Tuesday morning, and said 'you don't look great, are you ok?' and I promptly burst into tears... oh dear! So I was back to see the dentist AGAIN... third time in 5 days. Long story short, my mouth is still a little tender, but I am happily eating (on the other side of my mouth!) and sleeping once more. Awesome!!! Back for a visit in December for a root canal... not so awesome. However, needs must, ya know?

THEN, yesterday darling hubby had a fiddle with my car fuses, in the hopes of getting my rear de-mister and keyless entry to work again. Today I got up (on my own cos everyone else was still dozin), and left for work at 7.30am, to find that I no longer had functioning windscreen wipers, or indicators. Oh crap! Luckily he visited while I was at work, had another fiddle, and fixed THAT problem... but nope, still no rear de-mister, and still no keyless entry. Bugger.

AND THEN (or should I say nek minnit!) I get a call at work just after lunch from our lovely GP to tell me that he had sent D to A&E with chest pains, and that perhaps I should get up there. Yike, panic, panic!!! He'd had a sore chest for a couple of days, which we were blaming on the infamous collarbone incident from February, but it was getting worse, so he went in for a check-up. By then the pains were getting much worse, and seemed localised around his heart and/or lungs. Dr Rob was worried it might be pericarditis (inflammation of the sac around the heart), which is seriously nasty stuff. Luckily, after many tests, x-rays, a referral to a cardiologist, some IV pain relief, and more poking and prodding from the A&E doc, it was diagnosed as costochondritis... which, to quote wikipedia is an inflammation of the cartilage that connects a rib to the breastbone (sternum). This inflammation causes sharp pain in the costosternal joint, where your ribs and breastbone are joined by rubbery cartilage. Pain caused by costochondritis may mimic that of a heart attack or other heart conditions. So, not a heart attack, nor pericarditis, but still reasonably serious shit. The only form of treatment is anti-inflammatory meds and analgesics. Poor D. Not much fun while you're on your annual leave, is it? Nope, not ideal.

So, it's been QUITE a week! Tomorrow is the Pink Ribbon Street Appeal. I help out each year as a volunteer. I'll be outside The Warehouse between 3pm and 5pm tomorrow, might see you then?

Toodles,

Toothache, a Crop Day, Bathurst and Drifting (again)

2011-10-09T22:15:00.001+13:00

So, on Thursday I managed to get an emergency appointment at the dentist, as I have been putting up with toothache for a few months now. It was finally getting the better of me, so it had to be done. We all love going to the dentist, right? NOT! Turns out I wasn't imagining the toothache after all... I had an abscess at the base of a nerve which was causing all the trouble. So after a fair bit of drilling and scraping (nuf said), I was back at work with that lovely my-mouth-is-so-numb-I-may-just-dribble-by-accident feeling... yummy. Gotta go back in December for a root canal. SO excited about that... Needless to say, I have had a bit of a sore mouth ever since it was messed around with. Apparently it may take a week to settle down. Great.

Now, to a much nicer subject.... yesterday (Saturday) was an Embellish It crop day, round at the Highfield School Hall.... very conveniently just around the corner from home! I got a cute layout done, and also made a cool card (but I can't show you that cos the recipient is sometimes a blog reader!). Here's the layout...

We were in Christchurch for the day last Saturday, and I dropped in to Scrappin Patch and bought these super cute My Mind's Eye papers, and yummy velvet ribbon to match. I'm really pleased with the final layout... used my Cheery Lynn Doily Die, my Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch, and my Bo Bunny chandelier stamp, as well as some My Mind's Eye buttons that I bought at Scrappin Patch back in February when we did the Trina class.

Taz was one of our first fur-babies. When we got married we adopted two kitties from the SPCA and Taz was one of them. She was part of our family for 12 years. She was one COOL cat. Way cool. Here's a few close-ups...

And of course, today was BATHURST DAY! It's always a big day in our house... lots of food, visitors and race footage. While I went out and stocked up on munchies at the supermarket, the boys hung the flags so that we were all ready. When I got back, J and I decorated the car cookies that I had made especially for today... I did the outlining and the flood icing, while J did the sprinkles and M&M's...

Cute huh? Taste pretty good too!

So here's some of the munchies we had on hand for today... mmm, mmmmmm!

Sadly Ford didn't come through for us today, but tbh we weren't really expecting them to. They are very outnumbered by the Holdens in the field. Our time will come, one of these days! If a Holden has to win, I tend to back Craig Lowndes, or Greg Murphy. Craig is one of racing's real nice guys, and Murph is a Kiwi, so it's always nice to see them at the front of the field. The end of the race was a real nail biter... Lowndes was SO CLOSE to getting in front of Garth Tander (who I don't happen to like very much)... we were willing him on, but it didn't help in the end. At least Lowndes got second and Murph was third. Best Ford was 4th... bummer. Like I said, our time will come... one of these days. The sign of a true fan is one who supports their team, even when they aren't winning. That's us. Maybe next year? :)

And finally, J has been spending A LOT of time on his trike since I last showed you.... he's got the whole drift thing sorted now, see?....

And of course, there's no drifting without Daddy having a go...!

Right, that's it from me I guess... Oh, did you know that the class I am teaching for Embellish It next month is a sell-out already, and she hasn't even advertised the sneak peeks yet... how cool is that?! FAB-U-LOUS!

Ok, off to watch the rest of the movie I have been watching... The Lincoln Lawyer starring Matthew McConaughey. Quite good (so far!)

Toodles,

Here we go... Scrapping catch-up:

2011-09-22T22:44:00.003+12:00

Ok, so now that we are 'back up and running' with technology, here's a long overdue post with some of my recent layouts. You don't realise how reliant you are on fast internet, and how impatient you become in your old age, until your patience is put to the test! Oops!

Here's a quick layout that I did the other weekend. Nic came round and we spent some time scrapping (well, mostly talking, if I'm being honest!). This was J quite a few years ago. Back in 2005 in fact. What a cutie! I LOVE the photo of him on the climbing frame (third from the left) that looks like he's thinking 'Um...oh crap!' Ha ha ha :)

And a couple of close-ups... (sorry, terrible photos, taken at night, in my haste to post them. Note the impatience theme here?!)

Then there are the layouts that I got done at Raincliff Camp...

The firs one is once again using older photos (cos I have SO many of them to use!). Mr Mischief, hence the title 'Who Me?' ...

Then there was the layout challenge, using some of the YUMMY Kaisercraft Miss Nelly range, provided by Embellish It. This time I used a pic of me with my Great Grandparents, the old photo had a vintagey feel to it, like the papers. Love love LOVE that Miss Nelly collection - VERY me!

I made a few flowers using my Cuttlebug Quilled Flower dies (which, to be honest, I bought ages ago, and have hardly used), and even used some seam binding in amongst the flowers and bling to just finish things off.

And I also love these Maya Road leaf pins. I tend to use them a lot!

Layout number 3 was a double layout with a handmade background. Again, sorry for the rubbish photos, but you know me, patient as a saint! I used the Tim Holtz Sprocket die for the Cuttlebug and cut out what seemed like a gazillion sprockets, in three different sizes. Then I placed them all over the background, interlocking the cogs, painstakingly glued them all down, then covered the whole thing in a layer of gesso, to make a whole new, crisp, white (although slightly bumpy) background.

Once the gesso dried, I watered down some funky green paint and headed outside to splatter on the background. Don't try this at home! Well, not indoors anyway. To be honest, I think you should try it, it was lots of fun :) The actual layout is about J and his motorbike. He was really keen to have a go at a local club day, so we took him along and got him all kitted up and ready to go. BUT, when the other kids took off from the start line with a hiss and a roar, he wasn't so keen anymore. Kids huh?!

Another Raincliff layout... one of the three of us taken by the lovely Cathie from Phunkey Photography. A pretty simple layout. Loving my whitespace layouts at the moment! Did a bit of fussy cutting, made a cutesy fence with some chipboard, florist wire and paint, and added a couple of transparency pieces. Too easy!

Now, going back even further to a pre-Camp crop day with Embellish It, here are two more layouts - one of my cute little nephew Tyler, and the other using another of Cathie's photos - just me and DH this time.

And FINALLY, here's a SENZ layout :) This was a class taught by the gorgeous Rachel Tucker (and her lovely assistant Tana!). The photo is one of my Ma and Pa. They ARE cute! They're away on holiday this week, and it's strange not having them just around the corner like they usually are. Gem, you'll get a kick out of this... I've been feeding Rags, and Rags caught a Bunny Rabbit the other day. I found it, lying stiff on the dining room floor, when I went round to feed him. Eeeewwww!!!!! I had to make D go round there to get rid of it!

I can't show you the other class (the Nic Howard one) cos I sent that back to Auckland with Squirt for her to keep. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you that it was SUPER cute :)

So, other than the lack of broadband, what else have I been up to lately that has prevented me from blogging? Thinking back, quite a bit!

Straight after Raincliff weekend (which was FAB by the way, thanks Tania), the following Monday was SPCA Cupcake Day. I came home from camp, frosted all the cupcakes that I had baked earlier and frozen, then spent Monday's morning tea break selling them. In the end, I sold 132 cupcakes and made $383.40 for the SPCA. Wahoo!!! Most popular flavours were Orange with Kahlua frosting, and Raspberry Chocolate Fish.

The following week I made another 'sale' baking wise.... one of my bosses bought a batch of Ninjabread Men. She just had to have some for her boys after she heard that was what I was baking that weekend.

The week after that was my turn to run a session at Keas again, and this one took some planning in advance. And a lot of phone calls :) We had a Wheels Day to coincide with Father's Day week. The Keas brought their Dads along, and some lovely Timaru peeps brought along their cars to share with the Keas and their Dads. We had 14 cars in all... a GTO, three Chev Impalas, a Dodge Charger, a Cougar, a Ford GT40, another late model Dodge, a vintage truck, a rally car, a race car, an HSV Holden, an Aston Martin, AND a Cobra. Oh and Mrs Whippy! The kids ate ice-creams, had a shared afternoon tea with their Dads, completed a couple of car quizzes. We also had time for a wheels-themed version of the classic Port, Bow, Starboard, Stern...we played Driver, Passenger, Bonnet, Boot! Ha ha ha. There are a few photos on the HMV Keas facebook page - the kids were SO excited by all the cars... and it was AWESOME that the people I spoke to were willing to help out and bring their cars along, just to 'share the passion'. All very much appreciated by me. Each car owner got presented with a card (made by me, but signed by all the Keas), and a wee bag of chocolate fish and pineapple lump treats.

Last week was my turn again at Keas... Head Office's session plan suggested we focus on photography and ask a local photographer along to talk... um....pick me, anyone? Teehee! I took along my backdrop, external flash equipment, and all my kiddy props, as well as some wedding photo samples and my portfolio for the kids to look at. I talked to them about how a camera works, let them look at the inner workings of it, and talked about taking photos from different and interesting angles, and WHY I like to take photos etc. Then I let them play with the props and took their photos. I have over 100 photos to check through! Man they had fun though :)

In between all of the above, there is of course the usual cooking, cleaning, washing and tidying... assisted by my boys. No wonder the weeks fly by....

Not to mention the EXCITING news... Tania from Embellish It has asked me to design a layout class, using the gorgeous Teresa Collins Christmas Home papers!!! The class will be in Waimate on Saturday November 12th. Time/cost still tba. Get in touch with Tania if you are interested, as I hear she has had a lot of interest already, and there are a limited number of class kits available.

For now, it's time for bed. I have more photos to upload, but this lot'll do for now. It's getting late!

At last....

2011-09-20T07:41:00.000+12:00

...back to Broadband speed! LOTS more posts to follow, now that I can upload photos again :) Woop woop!

See ya soon!

Mmm, somethin' smells good....

2011-08-22T22:23:00.000+12:00

Yup, I've been baking... three batches of cupcakes tonight, to go with the other batch already in the freezer, and the ones yet to be baked later this week....

All in aid of SPCA Cupcake Day, next Monday. I'm baking in advance and freezing them til Sunday night, cos I've got Raincliff Camp this weekend, woop woop! So you know what I'll be doing on Sunday night/Monday morning... Yep, frosting approximately 14 dozen cupcakes! And yes, I know, that's a lot of cupcakes (do the math!)

So while our kitchen smells wonderful (and is incredibly clean and tidy), our lounge is a bombsite... I've been spreading out my photos and papers so that I can match up possible layouts to be done at Camp. Just imagine the mess. Then double it. Maybe twice over. I kid you not! Hopefully tomorrow I'll finish that job. Just in time for more baking on Wednesday night!

Thursday afternoon at Keas I am running the 'Make a Father's Day Card' session... getting in a week early so that the Dads don't see their cards being made when they visit next week for a wheels afternoon. That should be fun...

For now, it's almost time for bed. I had a wee slip down the stairs at work today and jarred my back. Perfectly comfortable standing (hence the loads of cuppycakes baked tonight), but not too comfy sitting. Bed is calling.... I need to lie down :) Night!

Toodles,

Check out this fabulousness...

2011-08-16T20:55:00.000+12:00

You just HAVE to go take a look at this blog... seriously, click here NOW to take a peek. Sweetopia is having the most amazing giveaway. Leave a comment telling her that I sent you, and we might both win one of these beautiful Raspberry Ice KitchenAid Mixers....

I know that it'd look mighty fine sitting on my kitchen bench... how bout yours?!

Seriously - go take a look.... NOW!

Toodles,

Must be about time for a catch-up...

2011-08-15T23:08:00.000+12:00

I know, I know, it's been quite a while... but there's been a bit goin' on.

Going back a bit, first of all, DESSERT! Yup, I had a lovely time at Benny's Again with some awesome friends, eating some yummy desserts on the night of my birthday. A special thank you has to go to Heidi, Glen, Ashlee and Mitchell for coming down from Christchurch to attend. Just awesome! It's been a long time since I made a fuss on my birthday... I generally treat it as 'just another day', but I have to say that I really enjoyed my dessert-night-out. I was spoilt rotten with all things pink and cupcakey (surprise, surprise huh?), and had a respectable turnout of 17 peeps (including myself). Wahoo! Who'd have thought so many would come celebrate with me? There were some SCRUMMY desserts, so I had to take the obligatory photos...

Sticky Date Pud with Toffee Sauce

Caramello Cheesecake

Caramello Cheesecake-eating Monster (aka Jake!), and yes, he DID eat it all!

Boysenberry Parfait

The Dessert Crew - Dom, Nic, Heather, Me, Glen, Ange, Daz, Ashlee, Mitchell, Heidi, Jacob, Carol, Mum and Kath

And for some strange unexplainable reason, I let them peer pressure me into 'planking'... Hmmm, not one of my best moves, I must say. What the *;^% was I thinking?!!!

And, not to be outdone, J wanted the obligatory photo with Marilyn. There has been many a photo taken of our menfolk with Marilyn over the years.... Kelv was the last inductee, hence J's need to 'be one of the guys' :)

So that was my birthday in a nutshell. I had a lovely day, although no sleep-in, as there was a doozy of an aftershock at 5.39am (Magnitude 5.1), which woke us all up, and there was NO SLEEPING after that :(

The following Monday was my first day in my new job. The last 'first day' I had was 15 years before. Talk about nervous! But now, just over 3 weeks into it, and there's no looking back. Best thing I could have done, and something that I should have done long ago, to be honest. Sure, I'm still learning new stuff all the time, and sure, there's times when I have NO IDEA what I'm doing, but you know what? It's great! Jen B, you were SO right.

And now the countdown is on for two more big events... Tania's Embellish It Raincliff Winter Camp is only two weeks away (wahoo!), and the week after (actually the day after) I have signed up as a volunteer baker for SPCA Cupcake Day. Click the link here for more info. I baked up a storm a couple weeks ago and took some 'samples' in to work. You see, how could I expect them to buy cupcakes from me when they have no idea if I can bake or not? So I made 4 different kinds... Vanilla and Passionfruit with Lemon Buttercream, Orange with Kahlua Frosting, Chocolate with Ganache Frosting and Banana with Cream Cheese Frosting. Let's just say that they went down a treat! Of course! Not a bad way to make myself known in a new workplace either! Teeheehee. So, the weekend of camp will be finished off putting frosting on the gazillion-and-one cupcakes that I plan to bake and freeze between now and then. I am aiming at the 10 dozen mark, maybe more. So this time, I don't think I'll be pulling a 3am-er on Saturday night. I don't have the time! Any of you local gals that want to get in on the cupcake action, email/text me and let me know. I'm going to make all except the banana ones again, and am selling them for $3 each. All sale proceeds go direct to the local SPCA. Pretty awesome cause. Hey, Nic and Lucy, maybe I could courier some up to you?! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Righto, that's enough for tonight, I have sleepin to be doin. Here's hoping we get enough snow tonight so that I am forced to stay at home in front of the fire tomorrow... (Except for Christchurch, you've had enough crap up your way lately. Someone needs to give you guys a break, seriously). So here I go, off to bed, doing a little 'snow dance' on the way, wishing for a lie in :)

Toodles,

Woop Woop!

2011-07-22T11:37:00.002+12:00

I'm a very lucky girl. Not only am I on leave, but it is my birthday today, and look at what DH Daz made for me over the past couple nights...

...a GIANT cupcake birthday cake! I usually make my own cake, if I have one at all. But because baking is kinda 'what I do', he really wanted to make me a cake, all on his own. I just had to make sure we had all the right ingredients and point him in the direction of the recipe. He even piped the icing on the cake all by himself. What a clever husband!!!

And to put it in perspective, here's what it looks like next to a regular cupcake... it's a whopper!

So, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me-eeeeee, Happy Birthday to me! Ha ha ha. I shall be seeing some of you tonight, at Benny's Again, for dessert. YUMMO!

Tyler James...

2011-07-11T23:27:00.000+12:00

SUCH a handsome wee manny :) Look at those baby blues...

Baking for a BIRTHDAY!

2011-07-11T23:21:00.001+12:00

It was DH's birthday today. I asked him a while back, at around the time I had made a make-up case cake, a surfboard cake and a caravan cake, what kind of cake he would want for his birthday... 'a Kit cake of course' was the answer.... (as in Kit from Knight Rider - if you're too young to remember this, google it!).

So... I didn't really want to make an all black cake, as that amount of gel colouring has a nasty effect on your insides, if ya know what I mean, so I decided on a chocolate version. It does have the red Kit lights on the front though, see?

As the day has gone on, Kit has shrunk, bit by bit, like some sort of cruel torture. Oh well... like Marie Antoinette once famously said 'LET THEM EAT CAKE'!!!!! (and they did, teehee!)

So this post is for D - Happy Birthday honey... only two more years till the Big 4-0! Woop woop! xxx

So there's been a bit goin on here lately...

2011-07-05T15:29:00.022+12:00

SO much to tell you, so little time... Job changes (I KNOW!), SENZ de-brief, and lots of other things too...

I have had a bit of a rough trot at work lately. Some of you know what I'm talking about. So after 15 years working for the same firm, I handed in my resignation last week. I start a brand new job on Monday 25th July. I had been considering making a move for a wee while, but only got the courage up to actually send in an application for a job last month. Out of 120-something applicants, I was one of three interviewed for the position. Then I got the 'Dear John' letter in the mail :( Bummer. Oh well, I thought, there's still SENZ to look forward to. Then I got a phone call from their HR guy on the Friday night that I was in Auckland at SENZ asking me if I wanted to come back in and see them, as there was another opening they thought more my cup of tea. Sweet! When do you get home? Sunday night. Can you come in Monday lunchtime? Um, OK! Turns out that due to a shuffle-round of staff, there was this new job available, and I was the only one being considered for it. Was I interested? Let me think about it... um, YES PLEASE! So I now have 7 more working days left at RSM, and that's it. End of an era. Well, end of a lot of things I hope.

And SENZ? Well, that was FANTASTIC. Loved the shopping. Loved the trip away with my Ma. Loved staying with my sister, her partner and bubs. LOVED working for Trina. She's the best. Loved the yummy class kits that I am still yet to play with at home. Didn't love the ash cloud that nearly prevented us from getting there (thank GOODNESS we were booked on Air NZ). Also didn't love the self-deflating air bed and Ma and I were sleeping on. Tee hee. Someone made a naughty comment about the bed going down, but I had no idea what they were talking about. Honest. *wink* Oh and loved the dinner out I had on Saturday night at The Lone Star with Trina, Nic, Lucy, Rachel, Tana, Ange and Skye. Thanks Ladies! Interesting conversations about a 'bad pork experience' and scratch and sniff clothing!!! Lucy, you are a MACHINE when it comes to dessert. You're awesome. *grin*

Now, I haven't even had time to photograph any of my SENZ purchases or layouts, or even to 'pretty-up' the photos I do have to show you in Photoshop, but here they go, straight from the camera, unedited...

This little man is just the CUTEST! Although this was the look that Ma and I got initially... kind of a 'Who are you freaks, and where has my Mummy gone?' look, don't ya think?

And he was cutting his first teeth while we were there. Can you tell?

But Auntie Beck did manage to get a few smiles in the end :)

So that was nearly two weeks ago already. All going well (and ash clouds staying away), Sarah, Kelv and Tyler will be arriving in Timmers on Saturday for a few days. They don't go home until next Wednesday.

The weekend just been saw me catching up with some old friends. My oldest friend Ange (as in I have known her the longest of all my friends, not that she IS the oldest of all my friends!), is back from Kuwait with hubby Andy and baby Jessica. They are here for 6 weeks before they start their new teaching jobs in Thailand. There was a baby shower for her on Saturday afternoon (even though Jessica is now 3 months old), as us NZ friends hadn't met her yet, or had the chance to have a baby shower for her before she arrived! I took a cake to share for part of the afternoon tea, and made a present for Jessica on Saturday morning. So here's a quick kitchen bench shot of the cake, the card and the pressies...

Mmm, caaake! Oh and SOMEONE had TWO pieces of cake... how they managed it, I am not sure - it's hell sweet with all that icing all over it!

And a close-up of the card... the two flowers are satin lollipop flowers with pins on the back, so that they can pin them to a headband, bag or dress for Jessica. Handy!

And the fabric dice/ball... with lots of little ribbon loops for Jessica to grab on to, and a small (and very quiet) bell on the inside, so that it makes some noise. I appliqued her name on the outside of it too.

One last note to all my Auckland friends who were complaining of the cold during SENZ. Yes it was wet, but you peeps wouldn't know cold if it jumped up and bit you on the arse! Here's a photo I took at 8am this morning. That's our lawn. With frost on it. It was -1 degree. At 8am. Seriously.

See, this is wash COLD looks like.... brrrrrrrrrrrr

Oh, and last minute open invitation to those of you who may be interested... I have booked a table at Benny's Again on Friday 22nd July (which just happens to be my birthday) from 8pm for DESSERT. They have the best desserts. If you want to come join me and my family for a scrummy pud, feel free. Just let me know if you're coming so I can make sure there's enough seats booked!

Right, that's my break nearly over, so I gotta dash. Seven and a quarter working days to go, and counting... Wahoo!

A new toy, SENZ and cake!

2011-06-21T21:39:00.001+12:00

I recently got a new battery operated glue gun from Tania at Embellish It, a snazzy pink one called the i-Bond, made by Imaginisce. It's CUTE. See?...

And I have to say, it ROCKS! Go and see Tania - she'll hook you up! I had a decent play with it this week while making my SENZ swap pins… check these out:

I haven’t taken part in the whole ‘swaps’ thing before, and had no idea how many to make, but I have a couple dozen to take with me, so that’s a start. Thanks Tania for teaching us how to make these lollipop flowers at the last camp - these ones are scrummy layers of satin, cotton and tulle with a bit of felt on the side and a button on top! Who knows, I might swap one with some of YOU out there in bloggy land?!

And speaking of SENZ, and my trip to Aucks with Ma, only TWO MORE SLEEPS to go! Yay! Not long till Ma and I get to hang out with Sarah, Kelv and Tyler for a few days. And I get to immerse myself in the SENZ culture this time – I am a TA for Trina for 4 of her classes. Totally looking forward to it. Totally. To be honest, don’t even care if the weather is completely shite the whole time I’m up there – I’ll be indoors anyhoo! Just as long as that darn ash cloud stays away until I get up there and back.

D and J tried to tell me that seeing as I am away for 4 lots of dinner, they were planning on covering all the major food groups (in takeaways) – KFC, McDonalds, Pizza and BK, while I was gone. Luckily they were kidding!!! Who knows what state the house will be in when I get home about 8pm on Sunday night, or even if the grocery shopping will have been done, but I know one thing… by then, they’ll be pleased to have me home ;) Ah, lovely.

It was Ma's birthday last week, and as promised, I defrosted the 'other' vertical layer cake that was in my freezer and dressed it up for her birthday dessert. The thing is, she doesn't really like buttercream frosting all that much. I know, right? Weird, ha ha ha! So I did the rose swirls on her cake with chantilly cream instead. They're not quite as good as they could be. I had loaned out the proper icing tip, so I substituted it with an ordinary star tip, but they still look pretty effective.

And FINALLY, a shot of the inside of a Vertical Layer Cake...

How SERIOUSLY COOL does that look?! Wahoo!!!

Save the Date...

2011-06-19T22:59:00.000+12:00

27 October 2012 - Crop for a Cause 2012 - you heard it here first...!

A Quick Scrap...

2011-06-14T22:50:00.000+12:00

Hiya. Got a bit of scrapping done a couple weeks ago at a Pink Ribbon fundraising crop held by Tania from Embellish It. I got the double layout of Raincliff Camp finished that I started at Scrappin Patch before Trina's class, then I very quickly chucked this one together...

A total scraplift of Trina's class, just all in shades of PINK, using the new Teresa Collins Posh papers. In part because of the Pink Ribbon theme, partly cos I loved these new papers that Tania had in, and mostly cos I found two photos of me in a pink bikini (the only time anyone is going to see me in a pink bikini too, I might add!).

So thanks Trina for the layout design, I don't generally give them another go, but it sure makes throwing together another page easy!

Toodles,

A Special Cake for a Special Lady...

2011-06-13T23:25:00.001+12:00

Those of you that know me, know that I like to muck around in the kitchen doing a bit of baking from time to time. In fact, a lot of you that know me, have taste-tested that baking!

I have wanted to try a Vertical Layer Cake for absolutely AGES, but it seemed like too fancy a cake to just roll out for school lunches, you know? The I am Baker blog has the best tutorial, which I followed easily. And, seeing as my Nanny was turning 80, I decided to give it a crack. It turned out to be a 3 day process...

The theory goes like this.... bake two 8 inch round cakes of the same flavour (I baked Dark Pink Velvet Cake), placing them in the oven at the same time. Immediately you remove them from the oven, slice the 'hump' off the top of each cake to make it level, and invert one cake on top of the other so that the two freshly cut cake tops are touching. Place in freezer immediately. Phew! Now once you have done this, repeat again with a different flavoured (and coloured) cake. My second cake was just a basic white cake. I did all this on the first night. Then I did the dishes, had a cup of tea and went to bed ;)

Once frozen, take out of freezer temporarily and cut concentric circles into both cakes, making sure the circles are the same size on each cake. Did I mention you were cutting into FROZEN cake?! Hmmm, not terribly easy, but do-able all the same. I made a template from the side of a cereal box, drew 3 circles on it, and used that. So I cut the biggest circle in each cake, then trimmed off the outer circle of my template, then cut the next smallest circle in both cakes, etc etc - you get the picture? Here's what the cakes looked like once sliced:

Different cakes but identical dimensions and identical cuts, you see? Then, slice through the outer rings until you reach the centre circle, on both cakes. Then swap the inner circle, and every other circle, until you have a cake with alternating layers VERTICALLY. Cool huh? Wrap a piece of baking paper firmly around the outside, brush the top of the cake with a simple sugar syrup (1c sugar, 1c water, bring to boil then cool completely), then put back in the freezer again. That was the second night. Less dishes this time, but a very sore hand!

When you want to frost the cake (or cakes, depending on how hungry you are!), take it out of the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge for a bit. Otherwise peeps, your frosting sets way too quickly on the frozen cake, and may well sweat as the cake thaws. I did exactly what Amanda from I am Baker did, and piped roses all over using my 1M tip. Looks complicated, but was so SO simple. Icing tip was only about $3 or $4 at Ballantynes. If you don't have a piping bag, use a plastic zip lock bag and snip the corner out of it. Does pretty much the same job. Once iced, I used the Wilton Color Mist Spray that I have had in my cupboard for several months waiting for a moment like this. It's basically an aerated food colouring spray in a bottle. Way cool. So here's the finished product:

And don't forget the close-up:

So here's what Amanda from I am Baker's one looked like, that had me champing at the bit to try one...

And yes, ours did look a lot like that once sliced open, but not chocolate and white, dark pink and white instead. We had the cake at a nice little family morning tea for Nanny at her place a couple of weeks ago. We had been out for tea the night before, but weren't allowed to make a fuss, so no cake. No Cake? Well, I wasn't having that, thank you very much, I have been wanting to make this cake for ages! Nanny said it was great - her birthday was on the Wednesday and she had visitors, flowers and drinks that day, then we had a meal out on the Saturday night, and a family morning tea on the Sunday. 'My birthday has just about lasted all week' she said... At 80, why not?!

I'll leave you with a cute shot that my cousin took at the dinner of Nanny and Grangran together. 80 and 87 and they still look cute together. They still hold hands too :)

Oh and PS - the cake tasted as good as it looked! The 'other' cake (which is still in my freezer) is going to be for Mum's birthday this week.... I mentioned I had another one stashed there and she put dibs on that. Only two more sleeps Mama!!!!

Right, off to bed for moi... Toodles,

Oh and PPS - I hope that those of you in Chch get a good night's sleep tonight. The aftershocks today were strong enough that we even felt them here. In fact the bigger of the two had me under my desk at work, preparing to kiss my butt goodbye... Don't know how you guys do it day after day. Thinking of you all. x

So, how was YOUR weekend?...

2011-05-23T22:42:00.001+12:00

Ours was great! I went to Rolleston on a 'roady' with Tania and Mum to go do a Trina class, helping to fundraise for Christchurch all at the same time... apart from the 2 hour trip each way (even more for Tania), it was a fantastic way to spend the day! J got to hang out with Grandad Jim for the morning while D was at work. It was good to catch up with Heidi, and to see Trina again too. She has already done a de-brief on her blog, which you can catch up on here. We did a bit of scrapping and talking crap (as you do!) until the class started. What a great layout - so simple but so effective. Love it! Here's my finished page...

And a few gratuitous close-ups...

And don't forget the compulsory 'photo-with-the-famous-person' !

PS - Hey Squirt, look who Ma scrapbooked on her page (surprise, surprise!) Tee hee.

So like I said, we did a bit of scrapping and a bit of yacking from mid-morning until the class started at half two. And being the good scrapper that I am, I took my camera and got Tania to click off some shots of me and Ma together, as I haven't got ANY of us two 'scrapgeeks' together yet (that's what my two sisters call us). So here's the 'normal' one (if we could ever be called 'normal', ha ha ha!)...

Then Tania said 'be silly' - not too hard to manage tbh!

And I call this the 'recovery from being silly' shot...

Oh well, we had a blast, and I think that you can tell that from the photos :) I actually DID manage to get a page part-done, but never got to the gluing down part. Here's a shot of the work in progress...

Yep, Nic and I are always double trouble when we get together, but I think this time that it was me and Mum :)

So we pretty much headed home straight after the class, getting back to Timmers about 7.15pm. Not too bad really. Tania still had to drive on to Waimate, poor thing. Ma and I had some of Daddy-Jim's leftover Chili Con Carne reheated for tea at her place, then it was 'home james' for me and J. D was out at a friend's 50th. I spent a quiet evening having a Criminal Minds Fest, catching up on 3 weeks of overdue MySky viewing. Lovely!

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day... I was really tired, and have to confess to having a nana nap, although it was so long I probably should have called it a nana-and-grandad-nap! Pretty much all I managed for the day was a visit to my Nanny's, doing the grocery shopping and cooking up a jam-pan of pumpkin soup. Impressive huh? Yeah.....

Tonight, however, I lit the fire, cooked a stir fry for tea, divvied up the soup into freezable portions, cooked a couple of bacon and egg pies and two chocolate cakes and dealt to a MOUNTAIN of dishes. Phew! Amazing how much you can get done when you have to! Right, I can hear the oven beeper going off, so my cakes might be ready...

Catch ya later peeps...

A wee sneak peek...

2011-05-16T12:43:00.000+12:00

Here's a sneak peek of a little somethin somethin that I have put together for Tania from Embellish It...

I'll let her tell you about it after it arrives at her place....!

Am SO excited to be heading up to Rolly with her and Ma this Saturday to do a Trina class... get to scrap with Heidi finally too, wahoo! Trina's sneak peek of what we are going to be doing looks fab - click here to take a look. Right, time to go back to work...

Toodles,

Ba ha ha ha ha...

2011-05-11T22:56:00.000+12:00

*sigh* ... SO true!

This one's for Squirt...!

2011-05-10T10:39:00.000+12:00

Ah, takes me back to our younger drinking days, and a certain someone 'seat-dancing' on our couch in a very sober state (NOT!!!) Ba ha ha ha ha!!! Tell me you're not singing that Karl Douglas classic in your head right now...

Well, I'm at home today as J isn't well - taking him to the Dr soon. Poor wee man.

So, did everyone else get woken at 3am too? We didn't get much sleep after that aftershock. Poor J woke up crying. I can't imagine what it must be like for you peeps in Chch. I was frazzled and we are miles away. I see this time it was centred near Rolleston. Great - I'm going up for the Trina class on Saturday week. No more shakes in that area please, ok?! Good.

Right, wood to get in for the fire and brekkie dishes to finish sorting...

Toodles,

Mother's Day Cards...

2011-05-09T08:05:00.001+12:00

Yesterday we spent part of the morning with all of us making Mother's Day cards. Yep, here's my boys making theirs... D made one for his Mum, and J was making mine.

Unfortunately I didnt get a pic of the one D made before he gave it to MIL, but it was very cool. She was super impressed too :) Here's the one I got from J...

...and a gratuitous close-up (of course)

Cute huh? The only thing I did was help cut out the doily with my Cuttlebug. He did all the rest. I think he's got his mother's skills ;)

Sounds like me, Grey's and THAT collarbone injury...

2011-05-08T22:18:00.000+12:00

Seriously, I can just about SEE myself doing this. Oh, and her hubby sounds like mine... D would so take a photo before helping too :) Ba ha ha ha ha.

And did you see that Grey's is coming back? There's a complete re-run of last season's 2 hour finale next Tuesday night. Woop woop!!! I love love LOVE Grey's Anatomy. Do NOT phone our place when that is on. Although anyone that wants to come round and hang out while watching it is most welcome :)

I have had a few people ask me how D's collarbone/shoulder is doing post-accident. Well, we are a few days away from the 3 month anniversary of the accident, and it is still a huge pain in the butt (well, upper torso actually). And I'm not speaking out of turn here, he would totally agree with me. He is having regular physio each week, which gains him some more movement for the hour or two afterward, then it seizes back up again, and the pain resumes. It also gives him spasms or nerve twinges running up and down his arm, without warning, so that he is stuck, in agony, until the twinge passes. Sometimes these are in the middle of the night. He is tired. Tbh, we are both tired. And we are hoping that it improves REAL soon. The surgeon said he can't operate until he regains movement in the shoulder first. Man we hope that happens soon. Thanks for those who have been asking about his recovery. He does appreciate it. Still a wee way to go though me thinks.

Right, I'm off to carry on watching Offspring. It's nearly the end of the season for that. Slightly weird but quite addictive programme, that one.

Toodles,

Mother's Day Lunch...

2011-05-08T10:47:00.000+12:00

We are going to have lunch today at sister-in-law Bron's, with her doing the main, and me the desserts, as Mother's Day present for MIL. Here's my contribution:

The Ultimate Chocolate Dessert Cake (also gluten free, added bonus)

White Chocolate Passionfruit Cheesecake

(oh and a side of gently whipped Chantilly Cream, for good measure!)

Yum-o! I haven't made anything like this for AGES as I have been concentrating on eating a lot better, so it was nice to crack open the recipe books and drool over a few pages before deciding on those two recipes. I also love to bake and 'fluff around' in the kitchen, so I was in my element yesterday afternoon. All I had to do today was whip the cream and assemble the cake/meringue toppings. Lovely Jubbly!

I was spoilt today with a sleep in, brekkie in bed (toast buttered by J and a cuppa made by D), and I got a new charm for my pandora bracelet - a little boy. Very cute. About to make mother's day cards now, then off for lunch, and a bit of time chilling out with my Ma after that. By the time that is all done, the day will be over... Looking forward to it though :)

Catch you laters peeps... Seacrest out.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T09:34:00.000+12:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mums out there... especially mine, of course!

Mums are a special breed aren't they? They love you no matter what. Mine TOTALLY rocks. She recently came and stuck up for me when I had a tough situation to deal with. And we have gotten together a fair bit to scrapbook together too, which is awesome. We are off to SENZ together next month, which should be a blast. Perfect excuse to visit Sarah, Kelv and Tyler too, tee hee!

We are a close family anyway, and we often say 'love you' to each other, but it's always nice to have another reason to say it, isn't it?! Love you mama!!!! :) xxx

IMPORTANT MESSAGE!!!

2011-03-27T22:33:00.002+13:00

Happy Birthday today

ANGELA

JAYNE

MORRISON

(or is it BUCK these days?)

Mwah! xxx

AND congratulations from us three on the early arrival
of your gorgeous wee bubba, Jessica.

I know, I know...

2011-03-27T22:30:00.004+13:00

...it's been more than a MONTH since my last post. Like the rest of you, I've been busy, but I won't bore you with the details! I will however update you on some of the comings and goings when I get a chance...

For now, this is a super quick post to tell you what's happening this week. I signed up as a volunteer baker for the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind Guide Dog Appeal, 'Red Puppy Bikkie Day'.

So, I have spent a fair bit of time this weekend baking puppy shaped cookies (for human consumption!), so that I can sell them on Friday 1st April for a gold coin donation (or more) each. Special shout out to Dowells Office Products, who sold me some cellophane bags at cost, to put them in. On Saturday night while D was at poker I baked a double batch of chocolate chip ones - approx 70 cookies. This afternoon I made a double batch of vanilla sugar cookies - about another 70 or 80 cookies. I have a double batch of chocolate sugar cookies to go, then I am going to ice little red coats on them, and bag them up to sale. I'm hoping to have over 200 cookies to sell, to raise some good money for the guide doggies.

Did you know that it takes two years to train a guide dog? And that they have to pass about 55 different tests to qualify? And that only 18% of the puppy intake actually make it to fully fledged guide dog status? And that they get no government funding? You get the picture, right?!!! There are 1200 people in Christchurch alone who need assistance from RNZFB.

With that in mind, if anyone wants me to put aside any cookies for them, let me know. I will happily bring some out to Raincliff Camp this weekend, if there's any takers?

Right... time for bed. Toodles,

Recipe for Disaster (apparently)

2011-02-17T10:20:00.000+13:00

Take one of these...

Ride it around a bit on Inverary Station until you fall off...

Spend a bit of time with these people...

Who will take you to this place...

And you will end up looking like this...

Yep, that's D's left shoulder you're looking at. Nice huh? And yep, it's definitely as sore as it looks, if not more so.

Verdict: Broken collarbone. But not in the centre of the bone, where people usually break it... It's broken right at the end where it meets the shoulder. Where it takes longer to heal apparently. Lovely. Anyone want a motorbike? I hear that there's one for sale.....

FINALLY....

2011-02-06T18:02:00.000+13:00

The wind is here! Woop Woop!!!

WAY too hot!!!

2011-02-06T16:04:00.000+13:00

What's with this stoopid weather? 39.7 degrees...I just can't handle it, grrrrrr. Am currently hiding out in our basement garage on a sunlounger as it's the only place at our house below 30 degrees. This BLOWS. Totally. Bring on a nice southerly change, and a good ol' downpour of rain, I say. Who's with me?

Christmas Day!

2011-01-27T12:58:00.000+13:00

Christmas Day was exciting in our household for one not-quite-seven-year-old boy. You see, J was not all that excited about Christmas in the lead up to it, as he thought that Santa might not be able to afford to get him the present he was really after... a PSP. Lucky for him, Santa knows how to shop for good qwuality second hand items on TradeMe, teeehee!!!! I didn't take many pics, as I was still half asleep. It WAS 6.30am after all. The face says it all really....

He was suitably pleased. He also got some games and a couple of movies to watch in it too. My present hadn't arrived in time, but I knew it was coming in the post (Dancing on Ice highlights on DVD). We got D got some bar risers for his motorbike, a stainless men's bracelet, and Ten Guitars Vol 2 on CD.

Then it was off to Nanny and Grandad's for breakfast and more present exchanging. Paper everywhere, I tell you...my family doesn't muck around with careful tape removal or anything! Ha ha ha.

It was a shame that Sarah and Kelv couldn't come down with Tyler, but we did get to see this video of Tyler opening the presents that we sent him, here. How cute is that! Poor wee dude doesn't know what the hell is going on! Another year or two and they'll have a very excited little man on their hands!

Lunch was at Ma and Pa's, with Nanny and Grandad, Gem and DJ, and us. Nice relaxed barbecue. Complete with barbecue fire. And I'm talking REAL fire here people. Talk about a bit of drama for the day! Here's J with my Mum. He just LOVES his Granny...

And here's me and my Dad. You see, I did this canvas for his office last year for his birthday, and in doing so I realised that it had been YEARS since I had a photo taken of just me and him. There are plenty of ALL the family, just none of just the two of us. SO it had to be remedied!

The thing is, girls are always doing stuff with their Mums, like shopping, yapping, drinking, and in my case, crafting! But they don't always do a lot with their Dads, you know? So that's why I wanted this photo. Love you Daddy-Jim xxx

Street Christmas Party

2011-01-27T12:57:00.001+13:00

I decided that this year I wanted to try and get our street organised to have a Street Christmas Party. I've heard of other streets doing it, so why not us?! Besides, on 23 Feb 2011 we will have been in this house for 10 years, and I still don't know all the names of our neighbours.

We live in the cul-de-sac end of a three block street, so J and I put invites in the mailboxes of all the households in our cul-de-sac, suggesting that we meet (with deck chairs and food in hand) at the bottom of the street on the Saturday night before Christmas.

In the end, only four houses weren't represented, three of those had alternative plans, and only one refused to RSVP. Not a bad effort. We ended up with 22 of us at the bottom of the street, eating and drinking, and introducing each other. I got everyone to wear a sticker with their name on, and we all mingled and chatted, finally getting to know who was who and which house they belonged to. We started at 6pm, and even had Christmas music playing from one of the houses near the bottom of the street. We got home at 1.30am. It was a GOOD night!

I was so busy chatting etc that I never even got my camera out, but Derek took three shots which I have (very roughly) put into a panorama for you to look at....

Everyone in attendance kept saying that it was high time we organised this, and thanked me for doing so. And they all seemed to enjoy themselves too. Most of them stayed until 11pm, with only a few of us venturing into Darren's and breaking out the Karaoke - wahoo!!! Even I had a lash at Delta Dawn ;) Bring on the Christmas Party at the end of 2011, I say!

Christmas Cards

2011-01-27T12:55:00.000+13:00

I was a bit slack with the Christmas Cards this year. I started off with great gusto at the beginning of December, and got a bunch of these ones made...

...using a folded half circle that I learned from Deb McRobie. Very simple but quite effective. Yummy green velvet ribbon, and of course, a wee bit of bling!

Then I had another idea. A more ME idea. But it took a bit of faffing around to get it sorted. And a lot of trawling through my scrap paper bin. Here's the final result:

Not so traditional, but very quirky, and VERY pink! These ones even mentioned a comment on Rachel Tucker's blog, here. How cool is it that I inspired HER for a change?!

Backtracking now...

2011-01-27T12:46:00.001+13:00

Righto - time to back track a bit and update you on some of the happenings of Nov/Dec/Jan that I havent' mentioned yet...

At the end of November we did a roadie up to Christmas in the Park. It's the first time we've been since J arrived on the scene. We cruised up late Saturday afternoon, found a possie amongst the 20,000-odd people already there, and settled in for some drinks, snacks and boogieing! J really enjoyed it, although was a little scared of the fireworks - they are the first ones he has ever seen.

Here's the boys with their glow sticks under their shirts so that they can see them lighting up! Idiots!

D and J:

Me and J:

Our view of the stage. Luckily the sound was fab, and they have those big screens so you can see what the heck is going on....

Not a bad night really... got home about 1am, ready for a much needed sleep!

Ok - more coming soon (I have several draft posts loaded ready for editing)

Toodles,

Auckland De-Brief...

2011-01-25T12:58:00.005+13:00

Our trip up north was certainly over all too soon... we flew up from Christchurch, landing in Aucks at 9pm last Thursday. By the time we got to my sister's place, wee man was already down for the night :(

I got to have cuddles on Friday morning though! Here's Tyler first thing in the morning, all smiles for his mama:

He is SO cute, isn't he?!

And here's me, sneeking in a bit of Auntie Beck time...

Amazing how 'normal' it feels after so long, to hold a little bubba again. And yes, he's adorable, but no more babies for this family. That ship has sailed!

Anyhoo, to change the subject completely, the other reason for going to Aucks was to see this man on Friday night:

Now those of you that know us well, know that D has quite the talent when it comes to singing 'The Gambler'... especially if any alcohol is involved! D has always been a big fan, and had never managed to see him in concert... until now, that is! So you can imagine how awesome the whole experience was for him.

We had seats only 9 rows from the front, so we had a pretty good view. Talk about lucky, as we weren't allowed to leave our seats and stand near the stage, the grumpy security guys put paid to that :(

We took our little video camera, and I got some fairly ordinary footage, but at least it's a record of us actually being there... Feel free to follow the links below to see the clips via YouTube. I won't be offended if you don't - I know that he's not every one's cup of tea ;)

Kenny's opening performance - "Love or Something Like it"

"The Gambler" - a true classic!

He also sang a very nice song about his twin 6 year old boys (yes, you read that right!), which featured a slideshow on the big screen showing some fairly personal family photos... I thought that was quite special. "To Me"

And here's a link to his final song... "Islands in the Stream"

So it was a great night out, which went way too fast. Kenny might look a bit 'odd' thanks to all the plastic surgery and/or botox that he has had, but he still sounds the same, thank goodness. And he was very quick-witted with his banter in-between sets. Not sure why, but I wasn't expecting him to be funny tbh. His very talented backing band consisted of about 8 people (including two short fat hairy men named Chuck and Randy - how American is that?!), but he was also backed by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra, so the sound was just amazing. There is just nothing like LIVE music, huh? Long story short, the concert was fab, and we have the CD and the T-Shirt to prove it! Me thinks that D's 'Gambler' tee might be his poker night attire from here on in!

On Saturday we shot over to Ponsonby so that I could go to Milly's. Definitely a very ME kinda store... loved it! I bought a few more cake-decoraty type of items, and drooled over a lot more that I had to leave on the shelf :( Then we did a little bit of mall shopping, and by then it was time to head back to the airport again for the trip home. Bummer. Thanks so much for having us, S and K. xxx That said, I shall have to count the sleeps until my next trip up in June for SENZ with Mum. More Auntie time, yay!

And finally, a post about Aucks wouldn't be complete without photos of the Auckland fur-babies. So here are Rumbles...

Duke...

and Brutus.

And with that, I'm done (for now)...

Toodles,

We're Heeeere!

2011-01-21T00:04:00.000+13:00

Yup, we arrived to a warm and extremely humid Auckland. As I type, the temp is still in the twenties. It was 22 degrees when we arrived. And as nice as that is, I am struggling to sleep, cos me and hot just don't go together. So here I am, blogging!

I had a peek at T while he was sleepin earlier. Looking forward to havin a cuddle in the morning tbh :)

So, what's in store for tomorrow? Kenny concert tomorrow evening, but not sure about tomorrow day yet. Obviously some nephew cuddles will be in order, but not sure what else. I am hopeful that I might get to Milly's (in swanky Ponsonby) for a look this trip, although we also have Saturday to do that.

In the meantime, I'll carry on updating, as there is still a heap to catch you up on...

Toodles,

Guess where we're going tomorrow...?!

2011-01-19T12:52:00.000+13:00

We're going to meet this handsome fella....

...which is a lovely added bonus to the trip we planned specifically to see this guy:

(Not too sure about all the plastic surgery though, Kenny)

Woop woop! I'm getting EXCITED!!!

Nanny's Christmas Present

2011-01-19T12:48:00.000+13:00

Ok, so again, I couldn't share this with you BEFORE Christmas (and I apologise for the crappy cellphone photos), but this is what I made for my Nanny and Grandad for Christmas:

It's a cute little topiary. The ball on the top is made with folded kusudama flowers (which I learnt from LELIA, shock, horror!!!!) The end result is fab. I matched the shades of pink and green in the papers with a paint chart from Mitre 10 Mega, and got two large testpots for $9. What a fantasticly cheap way to buy paint... I'll definitely be doing that again!

Ok, even MORE to follow, real soon ;)

Toodles,

Tyler's Christmas Presents

2011-01-19T12:38:00.000+13:00

Ok, so I couldn't show you these before Christmas, cos I knew that Tyler's Mummy would see them. And then, in my rush to courier them to Auckland, I forgot to take pictures myself! Luckily S took them for me so that I could show y'all...

For Christmas, I made Tyler a fabric rattle-ball-ribbon-thing. Not sure of the proper name for it really! I used motorbike fabric (seeing as his Dad is motorbike mad!), and put a small bell inside it, so that it makes a little noise. I also appliqued the letters of his name round the sides. The spare side I had left I appliqued on some sprockets, sticking with the whole motorbike thing ;) The ribbons are meant to make it easy for wee man to pick up and play with. Time will tell I guess!

And I also sent up a little album that I had made, so that S can fill it with photos of T, like a personalised brag book kinda thing. I knew that S would like the cute teddy stamp that I had, so I made sure that each page had a ted or two on it (I had to cut and colour each one first!)...

I was pretty pleased with how it all turned out in the end, and S likes it, so that's the main thing!

More soon...

Toodles,

My heart goes out...

2011-01-13T22:57:00.000+13:00

...to those poor people in Queensland. The news footage is awful. I suspect that the death toll will rise once the waters recede. Some of those small townships will never recover. Families have been ripped apart and destroyed. Just awful.

My Aunt and Uncle live in Bli Bli (on the Sunshine Coast). They are away from the troubled areas, but one of their daughters lives near Toowoomba. She and her hubby were away camping in Gympie when the floods hit, so they can't get home just yet, but think that their house should be ok. I guess they'll find out when the waters recede enough for them to get home.

Makes you appreciate what you have, huh?

Time for an Update...

2011-01-13T22:31:00.000+13:00

Well Happy New Year peeps! Must be time for an update I reckon. I have had a few internet and computer issues lately, but I think I have them all resolved now. And we were away for a few days too. Busy time of year this, isn't it?!

So, when I last left y'all, it was December 15th, the night before J's op on Thursday 16th. I have to say that it is SO nice to have that behind us now, thank goodness. It was a loooong day. We had to be at Bidwill by 7am. Then he went through all the usual admittance and pre-op procedures...

Having topical anaesthetic put on the top of his hands, preparing for the luer, by his nurse, Trish Farr.

Buttercrunch got bandaged up too!

Going through the pre-op check with the anaesthetist, Allan Robert

Even at nearly 7 years of age, he's still CUTE!

Although, not being allowed to eat since the night before made for a grumpy little boy when he didn't go through to theatre until 11.45am.

About to walk down to theatre

He was being very brave until he and I had to say goodbye to Daddy at the entrance to the theatre corridor. Then we had tears. Lots of them. And a lot of apprehension, naturally. I went with him into theatre and helped him get up on the gurney. Then I had to try and help distract him while the anaesthetist put the luer into his hand. He wasn't having a bar of that, I can tell you! Not that I blame him. D was several metres (and closed doorways) away from us, and he could hear him getting upset from where HE was.

In theatre, just after being knocked out. Theatre Nurse Philippa McKeown also nursed him the first time he was admitted for grommets, at the age of 17 months.

For the first time ever, I walked out of the theatre in tears. And it's not like we haven't done this before - this was his third set of grommets, and he's also had tonsils out, and his adenoids for that matter. This would be his fourth surgical procedure since the first one when he was only 17 months old. And this time, I cried like a baby. It was awful seeing him so scared. And then I started to get concerned when the procedure that normally takes 20 minutes from start to finish took over an hour. Turns out that he had a lot of 'gunk' in his ears that needed clearing out. Had me worried though. When he came out of recovery at nearly 1pm, boy was he cranky. He started hitting his ears and complaining that they hurt. He settled down after a dose of codiene.

FINALLY back from theatre, just over an hour later. Look at that cheery face!

Within 30 minutes, he was wanting some food. That's my boy! I said he didn't need to eat the sandwiches, that he could skip straight to the jelly, but he insisted on having one of his club sammies (and making D and I have one each too), before he hit the jelly and ice-cream. Swiftly followed by the piece of marshmallow slice on his tray.

About to tackle the jelly and ice-cream...

Mid-tackle...

Post-tackle - ahh, satisfaction!

Before we left he had polished off another pottle of ice-cream, and more marshmallow slice. Talk about having the nurses wrapped round his little finger! We got home about 3.30pm that afternoon, and spent the next day or so just chilling in front of the telly (Well, J and I did, D had to go back to work on the Friday!)

A photo with Trish, just before we left mid-afternoon.

I am pleased to report that by late afternoon Friday, J was complaining that we were yelling at him, and that the TV was too loud! Problem solved, I reckon... fantastic!

Well, I have SO much more to tell you, so I will get busy sorting the photos, and get back to you again real soon.

Toodles for now,

Nerves, a Bit of a Giggle, and a Teacher Gift...

2010-12-15T12:16:00.002+13:00

Ola!

Wednesday already? Where has this week gone to? Only 10 more sleeps until Christmas!

J goes to Bidwill tomorrow for his grommet insertion. Poor wee dude is terribly nervous about the whole thing. It's not like he hasn't 'been there, done that' before - this is his third set of grommets, and he has also had trips to hospital for removal of adenoids, and tonsils, before now. It's just that THIS time, he is old enough to remember that it's coming up. So THIS time, he's not sleeping very well in the lead up to it. And THIS time, we have had pre-op tears. Once tomorrow morning is over and done with, he'll be a box of fluffies (I hope). Fingers crossed.

Now ladies, you just HAVE to check this link out... click here for a handy dandy blog post that doubles as a gift guide for the man in your life. It's HILARIOUS!!!! Not to mention reasonably accurate ;)

This morning J and I knocked together a gift for his teacher, Miss Fuehrer. She has been just lovely. He has had her since the start of Term 3 (so for the last half of this year). She is quite young, and knows how to make school fun and interesting for the kids, which they just love. Big improvement on the first half of the year. Nuff said. So here's what we made... a personalised notebook:

Cute huh?! That's a picture of him with his teacher on the front. He requested something 'pink with bling on' for her, as her cellphone is pink, and has little silver blings on the front of it. How observant is he?! I dealt with major assembly, he did the decorative finishing touches. Not bad for a quick half hour project between breakfast and school!

Right, time to head off and do some lunchtime messages....

Oh, before I go, check out this little cutie...

I so wish we could go visit any time we liked :( He looks ADORABLE! Big hugs to S, K and baby T from us xxx.

Toodles,

Ahhhhh......

2010-12-14T07:26:00.000+13:00

....I have my name back (on the Prima Blog!). Thanks to all my fans/stalkers/friends who thought I suited my 'new' name. Not gonna happen, people!

Psst...only 11 sleeps until Christmas!

Toodles,

FNSI

2010-12-13T17:53:00.001+13:00

I think I'll give this a go this week... anyone wanna join me?

I have a couple of wee things on the back-burner to get finished (well, some to even get started, for that matter!) Check here for more info.

Toodles,

Cardmaking...

2010-12-13T12:47:00.000+13:00

Oops, here's a post I thought I had posted already (if that makes sense?) It was sitting in Blogger as a DRAFT! Oh dear!

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that Leanne (who cuts the boys hair) sometimes flicks me a text (with about 24 hrs notice, if I'm lucky) to ask for a card to be made. This time she wanted one for clients getting married, with a black and white theme. I'm not too big on the whole 'Bride and Groom' type of card, so I made this simple little number:

So easy, it was like cheating! Tee hee.

Toodles,

Love, Prima, and Life in general...

2010-12-13T12:45:00.055+13:00

Honest, it's true, it really is! I (like a lot of other bloggers, I might add) need a smack on the hand at the moment for non-blogging. Meh, so shoot me. Like I care (wink, wink). At the moment, REAL life (i.e. my family) comes first!

Anyhoo, like everyone else at this time of year, our household seems to have gone CRAZY. J's school finishes up for Christmas officially this Thursday, but his last day will actually be Wednesday, because he is getting grommets put in on Thursday at Bidwill. It will be nice to get those ears fixed, I can tell you!

As for me, I still have Chrissy cards yet to finish, a wee teacher gift to make, as well as finishing off the advent calendar for our niece and nephews for Christmas, and a paper-covered Kaiser Tree for another gift. Phew! Fortunately by now, all but two of the Christmas 'do' parties are over. Just our Street Party this weekend, and my scrappin pals to catch up with on Monday next week. Ahhh, I love Christmas! I have even been listening to Christmas music in my office on a little set of ipod speakers. I reckon it makes me work better, tapping my feet along all day. Probably stops me feeling sleepy I spose! Ha ha ha ha!

I can now FINALLY show you this layout I did based on Prima's November BAP (build-a-page) sketch. First, here's the sketch we had to base our layout on:

And this is my take on it:

I finished it 3 weeks ago, but wasn't sure if I was allowed to show it on my blog until the results were announced. Mine got a mention (click here to see it) - YAY! The only bummer is that they called me 'Beth'. What the...???!!! Dammit. Finally get published on a notable blog, and my name is incorrect? Grrrr. Oh well, life goes on. Here are a few close-ups of the page. I tried to absolutely PACK it with detail.

I like the December sketch too, so might give that a burl. Check it:

See? It's cute, yeah? And REALLY simple. Hey, I can DO that!!!!

What have you all been doing?

A non-craft-related rant... feel free to skip if you prefer.

2010-11-25T12:15:00.001+13:00

What is wrong with the world at the moment? Seriously.

I really feel for the families of the Pike River Coal Miners. Who wouldn’t? Those poor bastards didn’t know what hit them (well at least that’s what we hope). And their families certainly weren’t expecting anything untoward. But you wouldn’t, would you? Just another day at the office, you know?

And this doesn’t just effect the immediate families of those 29 men, but also those supporting them too. The parents, grandparents, children, siblings, cousins, aunties and uncles, friends, co-workers etc. Not to mention the Pike River staff, their advisers, and the rescue crews that never got a chance to help. An endless list of broken people. Just devastating. I admit to shedding a tear or two last night for all of them.

It’s been a bad few months for those I work with… Last week a co-worker suddenly lost his wife in a tragic car accident. Only 59, she was simply too young to die. She was a loving and attentive wife, mother and grandmother. She had already made her Christmas Cake, and was part way through sewing Christmas Stockings for her grandsons. And now, she’s not here anymore. Just like that. How do you cope with the sudden loss of a soul mate? I guess you just do. You’d have to. Because unfortunately life goes on, doesn’t it?

And only a few months before that, another co-worker had to cut an overseas trip short because his niece was also killed in a car accident. She was only 11. She never got the chance to grow up. All those things she and her family have missed out on together. So, I want to know, what IS wrong with the world? Really?

Sometimes, when things like this happen, people find strength in their faith. I’m not one of those people. Yes, I was christened as a child, and our family attended church on Sundays when I was younger. And yes, I own a bible, although it’s packed away in a box in my wardrobe. You see, when things like this happen, I struggle to believe in that higher being. If there is a God, how could He intend this to happen? What possible lesson can be learned from breaking the hearts of so many? How is this ‘right’? I don’t begrudge those who can find solace in prayer. I guess in a way I am envious that they have that never-ending belief and trust in Him. Their prayers can bring them comfort. If I’m being totally honest, I just don’t understand.

So, for now, my thoughts are with those whose hearts are aching. I hope they get their boys back.

Buzz - our fur baby

2010-11-25T12:05:00.001+13:00

When I go outside to hang the washing, I invariably get greeted by a little 'prrrrr'. I swear, he hears those pegs rattle, and within seconds Buzz shows up to keep me company. When I'm done, he climbs onto the bench seat, looking cute, waiting for me to sit with him and shower him with attention. Which works, most of the time! Yep, I'm a soft touch. But look at him... who wouldn't be?

This is the 'I'm cute, look at me' pose....

Then there's the 'I'm trying to be coy' pose...

Closely followed by the 'Stop taking photos and pay me some attention please' pose...

After a few cuddles, there's the 'Ahhh, I love you' pose...

And this is the 'So where do you think YOU'RE going? Come back and cuddle me' pose....

And finally, I have to show you this shot of his 'bling'. Yup, our BOY cat is wearing a black leather collar with four cute rhinestones on each side! C'mon, even the boys are allowed a bit of bling, right girls?

I reckon!

Weigh-in, Weather, and the Wee Manny!

2010-11-11T08:21:00.004+13:00

Wednesday's weekly weigh-in went MUCH better this week (although after last week's gain, so it should).... I lost 1.2kg this week! Fantastic! Although this week rather than just doing Zumba, I went and did drills on the Soundshell steps AND had a walk across the Bay, on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. The weather has been ace (as our friend Mary would say), with lots of lovely sunshine and blue skies. Yesterday when J and I got home it was 24 degrees. Beautiful!

Last but not least, here are a couple of new pics of Tyler... he looks SO tiny! I am definitely jealous that Ma and Pa have been up there since Tuesday, hanging out and helping out with him. Dad comes home today, although I bet he'd rather stay there than come home and go back to work!

Seriously, my Ma and Pa ROCK. Just look at the way they are looking at him.... cute! They are both SO great with babies. Reminds me of how they were with J when he was born, nearly 7 years ago. Cripes, where did THAT time go? (mind wandering at this point)

Righto, time to head off to work myself. Have a good day peeps!

Toodles,

Here he is!

2010-11-08T08:08:00.004+13:00

Hot off the press (via text!)...our wee nephew. Look at that cute little scrunched up face! Ma and Pa go to Aucks tomorrow to meet him. I am SO jealous :(

Waimate Road Trip and Weekly Wednesday Weigh-In...

2010-11-06T22:44:00.001+13:00

Phew! I think we are now (finally) up to the present week!

On Wednesday Nic, Kath and I headed down to see Tania, as we all had things that had arrived in for us. So it was a flying road trip to Waimate and back, after I had picked up J from school.

'Flying' cos I needed to get back for my weekly Wednesday weigh-in. Not sure I mentioned last week's result. Incredibly (actually unbelievably), I still managed to lose 100gms over the fortnight when we travelled to Auckland, and attended the wedding. Having said that, those two weeks probably (well, definitely) explain the 700gm gain I had this week. My past is catching up with me. Had to happen some time.

Unfortunately I haven't felt very well this week... I've had that sore throat that's going round, and splitting headaches to go with it. Lovely. Ah well, life goes on, doesn't it. D had the second day of his welding course at the Polytech today, so this morning J and I went to the library. I showed him how to use the OPAC computers to look up a subject or title, then how to use the result to locate the book on the shelf. He chose some books on domestic cats so that he can complete the work required for his Caring Kea Badge, then looked up Cheetahs and Tigers, after our recent visit to the Auckland Zoo. So we have lots of new reading material now :) We met up with D during his lunch break, then this afternoon J and I headed out to Get to the Point for a look. I had free passes for the train, so after a browse around the stalls, we had a ride on the steam train (where I got the text from Ma about my new nephew!), then headed back home.

Bron came over for tea tonight, and that was our lot for today. Done and dusted. You are now officially all caught up. Hooray!

Right, I'm going to watch the rest of the movie on telly (Ransom, with Mel Gibson in it, quite an old one). Toodles!

Kaiser Desktop Organiser, finally completed!

2010-11-06T22:06:00.001+13:00

I bought the Kaiser Desktop Organiser at the last Raincliff Camp back in August, but just hadn't gotten around to completing it yet. Over the past month I managed to get it done, SLOWLY but surely. First of all the painting, then the papering, and finally on October 30, the assembling/decorating!

I also got a couple of baby boy cards made that day too, but I won't show you those until I know that they have made it to Auckland. Fairs fair, Sarah should get to see them first :)

The Rocket!

2010-11-06T21:57:00.001+13:00

Our nephew Alex (one of Bron's kids) turned 5 on the 1st of November. He's a school boy now! Anyway, we went out for a family tea the same day that J started teeball - October 29 - before Brent, Chris and Connor headed back to Perth. Seeing as Bron had not been well, I offered to make the birthday cake. When I asked what he would like, Bron reckoned a rocket was in order, so that's what I did :) Alex is so cute. When he saw the cake for the first time, he literally jumped up and down on the spot and said 'Wow, a wocket cake? Fanks Aunty Beck!'

Alex with his Rocket Cake

Cutting the Cake!

And I just HAD to show you this.... here's Alex's little brother Cameron (who will be 3 years old in February) devouring his first ever Traffic Light!

Ah, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth huh? As if! Just look at that mischievous twinkle in his eyes!!!

More soon...

First day of Friday afternoon Teeball...

2010-11-06T21:40:00.000+13:00

Another catch-up post.... J signed up to play teeball this season, so as a good scrapbooking mother I had to go and capture the action, first hand, at his first game EVER on Friday October 29th (and yes, the other children have been blurred out on purpose)...

Sitting with his team, before the game begins

Waiting on First Base, after his first hit. Unfortunately didn't get a shot of him batting,
as I had to duck to avoid getting clobbered by the bat he dropped as he ran!

Waiting at Second Base...

Hoofing it from Second to Third!

Holding Third...

Heading for Home Base...

Crossing Home Plate!

So he was pretty nervous his first time up. In fact, he had two huge swings that didn't connect with anything at all before he hit the ball, poor wee dude. After that first innings though, he was on fire (if I do say so myself!). Second Innings he made it to Second Base off his hit, and Third Innings he made it to Third Base. Ah, I was SO proud! His whole team was pretty damn good actually. They won 25-18. Way to go Bluestone Lions!

Toodles,

I'm an Auntie again!!!

2010-11-06T21:14:00.000+13:00

Yup, as of 1.40pm this afternoon, I'm an Auntie again... Sarah has had a wee boy - 6lb 3oz Tyler James Scott Norrie. So we are sending HUGE virtual hugs up to Aucks to Sarah, Kelvin and wee Tyler. Can't wait to see photos!!!!

Toodles,

J gets his first Badge!

2010-11-05T23:30:00.001+13:00

Yup, our wee man has been working towards some of the award badges that he can earn at Keas. Although I tend to think that the 'Helpful Kea' badge was designed by mothers of little Keas... he had to make his bed and keep his room tidy for a week, show an adult that he knows how to set the table, and take out the rubbish or recycling for two weeks, among other things. What a GREAT idea!!!

Anyhoo, he did all that he needed to, to complete the award (and cheerfully I might add, shock horror!). Here he is getting his new badge from the Leaders at closing horseshoe on October 28th:

(The other people are shown in soft focus on purpose, just being 'PC')

Toodles,

The Week of the Wedding...

2010-11-05T23:21:00.019+13:00

Yes, I said there was more, didn't I?

We flew back from Auckland on October 18th, landing in Christchurch at 6pm. By the time we collected our car from storage and drove home, we hit Timmers about 8.30pm. And as soon as I was in the door, I was getting changed and flying straight back out it again to go to the Girls Dinner at Monteiths. All the gals going to the wedding were invited to a girls-only dinner, pre-wedding, which I helped co-ordinate from the Caithness side of the family. Kind of in lieu of a kitchen evening or hens night, you know?

So.... the plan was for me to arrive in time to join the ladies for dessert.... After rushing to get there, I arrived at Monteiths at 8.45pm to find the ladies sitting around an empty table. 'Oh no' I thought, 'They're waiting on me to arrive to order their desserts...' but no, they hadn't had their main course yet! Phew! So I sat and talked to them while they ate their mains, then joined them in ordering dessert. Mmm, cheeeesecake!

I had a little surprise for new SIL Chris, which I had prepared before we left for Aucks. I handmade cardstock cake slices, complete with cardstock roses and containing Cadbury chocolates, for each of the ladies at the dinner. I sat them all together on a cake stand, complete with doily, and they looked SO cute! However, in my rush to get there, I never even had time to photograph it, but luckily Chris did when I arrived (thanks Chris!):

So a lovely evening was had by all (or so it seemed, anyway). Nice food at Monteiths, that's for sure! Tuesday morning meant back to work/school for us all (bummer), then Wednesday was Wedding Day. Now I never got any shots during the wedding, but I have pinched a couple off Chris's facebook page to show you (taken by their photographer Stu Jackson). The immaculate garden setting is due to hours of hard work from my in-laws. It looked just gorgeous.

Photo: Stu Jackson

And as for how flash WE looked?.... well, super flash of course! Not the best photo, but it was a quickie taken for us by D's Dad before we left for the reception at Stonebridge.

The reception was lovely. Stonebridge do a good job... The kids had a BALL once the music started and the lights dimmed, of course. Most outstanding memory? J doing his version of 'The Robot' on the dancefloor until we left at about 11-ish! So SO funny!!!! We took Bron and the boys home to her place, not heading home to ours until the boys were in bed and she was about to do the same. Her Dad came in to stay at her place once the reception finished, so that he could help sort the boys in the morning, and get everybody back out to Kerrytown the next day.

Thursday meant back to work/school again (bummer, AGAIN), and Friday couldn't come soon enough, tbh. Talk about a busy few weeks. We were stuffed.

More soon peeps.....

It's been a while....

2010-11-04T16:34:00.000+13:00

..anyone else humming the song of the same name by Staind? No? Oh well, carrying on....

We've had a bit going on, of late. And it's probably time that I filled you in on it, to be honest. It all started about four weeks ago, when my sister in law suffered a couple of turns that saw her ambulanced off to the hospital late one Wednesday night. Her 10 year old daughter (our niece) found her on the garage floor at 10pm after hearing noises, and phoned us for help. D rushed there straight away, and called for an ambulance. She had fallen heavily, her head taking a lot of the impact, and suffered a broken nose and multiple lacerations/abrasions to her head and shoulders. To be honest, she was a bit of a mess. She stayed in hospital overnight, but was discharged the following day, with instructions to rest up. Kind of a hard ask for a single mum with three kids aged 10, 4 and 2.... The other issue, of course, was that she couldn't be left on her own, in case of a repeat occurrence. Not to mention that after a turn, her brain gets 'muddled' and usually takes a couple of days to sort itself out. Long story short, seeing as MIL was preparing for a full house for BIL's wedding, we helped look after SIL for a few days, and her kids were shipped off to see their Dad for a bit. The thing is, the usual couple of days of feeling muddled kept continuing, and SIL wasn't able to do much except sleep. Even eating was an issue, as she was dealing with bouts of nausea from the concussion. Several visits to the GP and Hospital ensued, incorporating blood tests and CAT scans. Final disgnosis? Traumatic Brain Injury, which can only be healed by resting her brain, and may take several months to come right. As if the poor girl hadn't been through enough already. So in the interim, the two younger kids stayed with their Dad, and we had our niece move in with us for a bit, so that SIL could rest at her mother's place.

Unfortunately, in the midst of this, we had a trip planned to go to Auckland to see my sister Sarah and her partner. Niece B went out to her grandparents while we were away. When we got back from that trip, it was time for BIL's wedding, then B came back to stay with us again. See? There's been a bit happening!

So.... here's our Auckland trip, in photos:

Day 1 (Thursday) - leave Timmers at lunchtime, and drive to Christchurch to catch our 3pm flight.

At Christchurch Airport, waiting to board the plane

J handing over his boarding pass

Walking across the tarmac to our plane

Day 2 (Friday) - Hanging out at Sarah's flat, playing with the dogs, then off to The Lone Star for tea, yummo!

Duke - Sarah's partner Kelvin's dog

He wasn't keen on posing for photos, he just wanted to show me that his possum had a squeaker in it!

Brutus - Sarah's baby (he really does think that he's a BIG dog, I am sure!)

Dinner at The Lone Star... trying to get a decent photo of Sarah and Kelv together

NOT an easy task!

J colouring-in while waiting for tea to arrive

Family photo time!

Ahhh, got one of them! Check out that baby bump, teehee

Day 3 (Saturday) - Auckland Zoo

Here we go.....

Mother and baby giraffe

Rhino

Male Lion

Ahh the life of a Lioness!

Burma

J posing....

...and again!

The one and only Serval, hiding (as cats do best)

Fudge the Hippo (yup that's about all we saw of her)

Look at those cute little ears!

Osirus and Anubis, the Zoo's two cheetahs, now about 5 years old. Not sure which one is which.

Not a bad life they lead, huh?

The Lemurs were cool - they did lots of tree-hopping

D and I in the Japanese Garden (taken by J)

Two of the Galapagos Tortoises - there are three in total. Smiley, Snapper and Chippy. We listened to keeper Lana talk about them, it was very interesting. They are attracted to orange and red foods, they have a brilliant sense of smell, and they like to have their shells massaged!

Mmm...carrots....

About to get said massage from Lana. Lana was also kind enough to take J's Zoo 3 DVD and get it signed by some of the keepers.

Spider Monkey

Cute little Otters... they talked back to you when you talked to them.

Very observant and inquisitive, they don't miss a thing.

Baby Spider Monkey resting on Mummy Spider Monkey as the other monkeys groom her (ick!)

OUR monkey!

Malek - happily sleeping in the shade (it was a nice warm day)

Oz - pacing around his enclosure and 'talking' to us...

Oz 'talking'

J on the giant Chinese Dragon in the playground

'Can I be an egg, Mum?' 'Yup, you can!' followed by 'Come on you eggs, smile!' Ha ha ha!

J in the Meerkat enclosure - there are tunnels underneath with these pop up domes you can peek through... way cool!

Mummy and Daddy Meerkat huddling under the heat lamp together

After finishing at the Zoo, we drove down to the Viaduct to check out some of the boats. This one is on special, Grandad Ian! (marked down from $2.5 million - bargain!)

Driving over the Harbour Bridge, on the way to Wairau Park where NZ Scrapbook is!

A shot of the Sky Tower on our way back through the City

Action Shot!

Day 4 (Sunday) - went for a cruise over to North Head. North Head was one of a number of defence forts that were rapidly set up in the late 1800s to defend Auckland from a feared Russian attack. The fort was later expanded as part of Auckland's coastal defence system during World Wars I and II. There are all these cool tunnels and huge gun fortresses that you can wander through. Unfortunately it was both windy AND rainy, so no photos of any of that, sorry. Check out the link above for more info.

Day 5 (Monday) - Went to check out the Sky Tower, grabbed a bakery lunch, walked the dogs in the Botanical Gardens (literally only a couple of blocks from Sarah's flat), then back to the airport for the trip home.

The mighty Sky Tower (I like this shot!)

Auntie Sarah with J. Won't be long before he's as tall as she is!

View from the top, looking at the Harbour Bridge

Looking over toward North Head (the 'dome' shaped edge of coast near the RHS of the photo)

In the Botanical Gardens with Duke and Brutus

J was chuffed to walk Duke himself (although he was only allowed to after Duke had run around a bit and puffed himself out!)

Hmmm, who's the boss here?!!!

'Um, Muuuum.....HELP!' Ha ha ha ha!

The incredibly nice captain and co-captain on our Jetstar flight. Will have to photoshop J's eyes open before I print this one for scrapbooking!

And that, my friends, was our Auckland trip. Oh, and I missed my Wednesday Weigh-In on Oct 13th as I was sitting with foils in my hair waiting for the colour to take hold. Had to get rid of the regrowth before the wedding! Anyhoo, more blog posts to follow...

Toodles,

WWW, a Question, Spring, V8's and another Question!

2010-10-10T21:41:00.001+13:00

Well, quite a bit to catch up on tonight peeps... How are we? Good I hope.

Wednesday was Weigh-In day again. I only lost 100gms this week, so not a lot, but at least it was on the right side of the scales. Like Mum said, a loss is a loss!

Now, I have a question for you... Why is it, that when you only have one tissue left in your handbag and you have a runny nose, that it is never big enough.... but when you let just ONE little tissue sneak into your washing machine, the bloody thing expands into a million and one pieces that cover EVERYTHING? Grrrrrr. I hate that.

Another thing, I can definitely tell that it is Spring. I have been Spring Cleaning! Our place is one of those houses that always has one of THOSE rooms... you know, the room where you put 'stuff' until you can find somewhere else for it.... or the room with the never-ending pile of washing in the corner waiting to be folded and put away... (well, to be honest, sometimes both). Well, I can honestly say, that at this moment, our WHOLE HOUSE is tidy! It is SO nice! I made the decision this week to move my scrap table from the corner of the dining room into the spare bedroom so that it wasn't so 'in-yer-face' when we had visitors. I mean, it's impossible to keep it tidy all the time, right? And even a tidy mess is still a mess, right? You girls all know what I mean! So now, we have our dining room returned in all it's spacious glory, and our spare bedroom has been tidied to within an inch of it's life, and filled with all my scrappy goodies. See...

See, we have space on the floor around our table!

When I went to photograph my tidy spare room, I found J in there watching the car-racing!

Our bookcase has been turned into a bookcase-come-storage space for a lot of my scrappy crap

My desk, in it's present TIDY state! (well the left side of it), and some of my recent work on the walls for inspiration.

...and here's the right side, along with my drawers and paper storage stand. The PC is an old one with only kids educational games like Reader Rabbit loaded on them, for J to use (when we let him!)

And today, of course, was the day of The Great Race - the Bathurst 1000. D and I have always made a day of it, parked in front of the telly with all manner of snacks and treats to eat, as well as the odd alcoholic beverage or two. Well I only had ONE Monteiths Cider today, but I did join the boys in having some savouries for lunch, and sausage rolls for dinner. Not exactly the best Weight Watchers approved fare. Oops. Oh well, you've got to do what you want sometimes, right? I didn't have all the usual chippies, chocolates and Shapes crackers that I would normally have had in the past, so although I ate more points than I should have, I definitely ate LESS points than I used to have (if that makes sense). In honour of The Great Race, I made some car cookies today. I had promised J quite some time ago that we would have them for the day, so it had to be done! They're much the same as the last car cookies, just iced with blue icing, seeing as we're FORD supporters :)

Unfortunately Ford didn't come through for us today. The best we managed was 5th. BUGGER. I still say that it's because Holden had to BUY the best drivers out there, our Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup! All the same, I am pleased that Craig won, and Jamie got second. They are good guys. Those two are among the few professional drivers out there who are prepared to give their fans the time of day, without complaint. Very admirable :)

Now I said I had another question, and I do. It's for all you scrappy ladies out there. How many of you, like me, have a fair bit of stuff in their stash that they no longer use? That you bought thinking 'this will be great' and just never used it at all? That you bought, used once, and never touched again? That someone bought you with the best of intentions, but it just wasn't 'you'? I could go on... but I have an idea to run past you. How about the idea of a scrapbookers swap meet? I suggest that we sort through our stuff and each put together, say, three or four bins/boxes of stuff each, marked as $1, $2, $5 and $10 items. They needn't be brand new necessarily, but fairly and reasonably priced for their use/condition. Then we get together on a designated day, and sell/swap our items. One girls trash may be another girls treasure? And not limited to just scrapbooking necessarily, but including any kind of papercraft - cardmaking, stamping etc. What do you think - anybody keen? If there's enough of us willing, I will sort a time and place, and we'll do it. I just thought it may be quicker/easier than listing all my stuff individually on TradeMe. Maybe?! I'd appreciate your feedback, either way.

Right, school's back tomorrow, so that will be a shock to the system for the smallest person in our household... no lying around in his jammies until lunchtime watching telly! And now there's only four more sleeps until we go to Aucks to stay with Sarah and Kelvin. We are all really looking forward to the break, seeing as these holidays weren't really holidays for us, just a juggling act in childcare really. J is really looking forward to the flight, as he can't remember any of his previous flights (he was only 10 months old, then 3 and a half, each of the two times we went to Aussie with him). If I don't get the chance to update you before we go, I'll fill you in when we get back. We're only going for 4 nights, so we won't be gone long :)

Have a good week people. Don't work too hard!

Toodles,

WWW, Cookies and Lego...

2010-09-29T21:33:00.001+13:00

Yes, I know, what a combination huh?! All will soon be revealed...

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in

Well, it went really well this week (how's that for a whole lot of w's!!!!) - another 800gm loss, even after eating some of the birthday cake that I made my MIL at the weekend. Today I reached (well passed actually) a milestone... to date, I have lost just over 5% of my original weight. Wahoo! Next week I am going to try and get past that 1kg barrier, maybe amp the exercise up to 3 or 4 times a week, rather than the usual twice a week of late. Stay tuned...

Cookies

I have had a real 'thing' about cookies lately - there are some fabulous blogs out there showcasing the talents of some very clever ladies. Take a look at Bakerella here, and Bake at 350 here, and Mel's Sweet Treats here. They got me all inspired, and I had to have a go... After sifting through the millions of possible recipes available for your average rolled sugar cookie, I decided to give a recipe a go that Mel from Mel's Sweet Treats recommended....

The first batch I made were for a Keas afternoon tea, with an orange theme (fundraising for Arthritis New Zealand). Bear in mind that this is my first proper attempt at piping my own handmade royal icing. Not the best, but I did get better as the day wore on!

Some of them were packaged up for each of the Kea leaders as an end of term present, and also for J's teacher, Miss F.

The second batch I made (the next day) were turned into cupcakes and butterflies. Very pretty. Although I need to remember to go a bit easier on the gel colouring, as the colour intensifies as the icing sets. Oh well, we all wanted coloured teeth anyway, right?! Ha ha ha.

I tried out a new technique called 'spotted icing' where you drop dots of an alternate coloured icing into your freshly poured icing, and it settles as a flat coloured 'spot' as it dries. It worked really well.... until someone decided to poke it before it was set. Hmmmm..... (not me, I might add)

'Oops' said he... closely followed by 'I didn't meeeean to'...!!! Grrrr. Oh well, at least I know that the theory works, I'll just have to try it again another time. Without a helper, maybe. Perhaps some FORD cookies are in order for Bathurst next weekend? Yeah!

Lego

J is still hugely into his Lego at the moment, making all sorts of weird and wonderful machines and monsters, that seem to make all sorts of weird and wonderful noises too, I might add! Anyhoo, I was surfing blogs the other night (as you do) and came across this:

Sometimes Rich would stop by 6th Street on the way home to bust a move.

and these:

There’s a what behind me?

Sir Irwin marched off to battle while Roger stayed behind to charm the ladies.

The kitchen field trip was going splendidly when suddenly tragedy struck at the cheese grater.

These are CLASSIC! Sadly I have to say that they really appeal to my sick sense of humour... Although I can't take any of the credit. Click here to see more. Funny guy - some truly hilarious shots :)

And on that note, I'm done. Have a good rest of your week, peeps. Might catch some of you at the Embellish It crop on Saturday...

Toodles!

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in...

2010-09-23T08:13:00.001+12:00

Well, Wednesday has been and gone again, already. I swear that the weeks are just flying by, faster and faster as the year draws to a close. This week was another good result - lost 600gms. Slow and steady wins the race, I reckon :)

By now, those of you that are local and know Rach, know that she has sold her business. It is with a tinge of sadness that Embellish It changes hands, as that was what brought us together as friends in the first place. You see, back in February 2007 I rocked on up to the first ever Raincliff Retreat, on my own, and had a BALL of a time. I was seated at a table with Nic and Brenda, two other lovely ladies I now call friends. I have been to every other camp since, bar one (we were in Australia at the time). Scrap Camp is now an institution all of it's own that I, for one, look forward to immensely every 6 months. Here's hoping that they continue, and that Rach can be one of the gals that sits up until 4am, scrapping and talking crap with the rest of us!

I spent last night baking cookies and icing them for the Keas end-of-term shared afternoon tea this afternoon. They also doubled as the end of term gift for his teacher and Kea leaders. I'll be back with another post about them (and photos to share) later. For now, it's time to get my butt out the door...

Toodles,

Weekly Weigh-in, Art & Craft Festival, and Scouts Job Week...

2010-09-16T12:50:00.001+12:00

Well, hi-de-hi campers! I never did get back to you after the LAST weigh-in, did I? Well, it's cos it wasn't fantastic... At weigh-in on 8th September, I put on 100gms, which isn't a lot, but it's in the wrong direction, you know? However, in the week since (ie at last night's weigh-in on 15th September) I lost 800gms. Awesome! Gotta love that! Onwards and downwards next week please....

So, what are YOU up to for the weekend? I will be busy Friday/Saturday...

I have been invited to participate in the Bluestone School Art & Craft Festival, displaying some scrapbooking/papercraft work, and being an 'artist in residence' so that the students can see how scrapbooking works/what I do, etc. The Festival is being held in their school hall, and is open to the public from 2.45pm to 4pm Friday, and 10am to 3pm Saturday. There should be lots of other arts and crafts on display too - photography, costume making, and much much more. Come along and take a look. Better yet, come along and say 'Hi!'

Otherwise, not much planned for the weekend... I think we will have another 'Movie Night' on Saturday... we hire DVDs and start watching them straight after tea, with the lights down low, the fire roaring, and us huddled on the furniture with blankets and pillows and yummy things to munch on (when I say 'us' in relation to the yummy food, I mean 'them', ie NOT ME.... I'm being good, remember!) J just LOVES movie night :) Possibly because he gets to stay up late, and eat crap. I'd like to say that it's just because he loves our company so much, but I totally doubt that!

AND... speaking of J... next week marks the start of Scouts Job Week 2010. It runs from 20 September to 2 October, and his Kea pack is taking part (Highfield-Mountainview).

We sent away for his Scouts Job Week pack a while back, and he is now the proud owner of a Scouts pen, drink bottle, hacky sack, T-Shirt (which is HUGE by the way!), bag, job record card, and Job Week Badge. The general idea is that he does little jobs to help out others, which he writes down on his record card, and he receives a (small) donation for his HMV pack. All money raised by local kids stays with the local pack, which is awesome. (You don't want to bust a gut fundraising to find that all the money goes to South Auckland or something, huh?). SO.... anyone that has any little jobs that J might be able to help out with (bearing in mind that he is only 6 years old), let me know, ok? Thanks!

Well, that's about it from me, time to go back to work, then home later to pack up my gear for the Festival. As always, it will be a case of 'decisions decisions, what will I take with me?!' Ha ha ha!

Might catch you over the weekend peeps... Toodles,

Our place? Definite NFZ!

2010-09-03T17:21:00.000+12:00

I am seriously considering getting some of these signs made, and hanging them up at home...

What does NFZ stand for? No Farting Zone!!!!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Sometimes, I just crack myself up!

Mufti Day, and Sports Confusion for J...

2010-09-03T16:47:00.001+12:00

Yesterday was Mufti Day at school. The kids were asked (if they could) to dress up as a sports-person. I suggested that J wear his Craig Lowndes shirt, racing cap and lanyard. Sadly, he thought that a 'sports-person' had to be either a rugby player or a soccer player. We then had an in-depth conversation about what the term 'sports' meant. And the fact that there were literally hundreds of different sports out there, a lot of them way more obscure than car racing. What is it about our Kiwi culture that says we have to breed the next great All Black? Not everyone is a diehard rugby fan, you know? Give me boys in V8s anyday ;) Yee-haaaa! Oops, mind wandering again...

ANYWAY, this is how he looked as we left the house yesterday...

And I think he looks AWESOME!

Toodles,

'Thanks' Card...

2010-09-03T12:57:00.004+12:00

Rach was good enough to take photos of the 'Thanks' card that I made on the Friday night at Camp and email them to me, and also of the flowers that we campers all chipped in for, seeing as this was her last Camp as Charles in Charge... mmm, anyone else imagining Scott Baio right about now?! Teehee. I really must stop my mind from wandering like that!

Anyhoo, here's the pics:

I paper pieced the quilted effect on some plain canvas with assorted Prima papers, and stictched them on. (It should be noted that all the while I had Rachel asking 'What are you doing? What are you making? Are you making an album? etc etc etc...' Grrrr!) Once I'd sewn the front and back together and turned it back in the right way, I popped some batting inbetween, and also some chipboard for reinforcing. Then I glued the seam shut! Ah the beauty of scrapbook sewing - it doesn't hae to be perfect, and if all else fails, glue it! Then I decorated the front with Prima flowers, some lace, mini roses and leaves. Ta-daaaa:

Sooo pretty. And here's a shot of some of the siggys inside. (There are a heap more on the back cover too)

...and last but not least, the flowers.... Very funky. I highly recommend using Bloomers Florist on Sarah Street if you are a local.

Cute huh? Gotta love that pink ;) Right, lunch break is over, I'd best get my nose back to the grindstone...

Toodles,

Evil Knievel, Mark I and Mark II ??

2010-09-03T10:32:00.002+12:00

Evil Knievel Mark I...

...D, at a recent TT event held near Pleasant Point. Lots of mud-splattering fun.

(D is the one on the right)

(even got a leetle bit of air-time!)

Evil Knievel Mark II...

...J, having a play on the peewee track in the next-door paddock, a week later.

Awww, how cute is it when he puts his foot out, like the grown-ups do?!

(he even got into a bit of mud-slinging of his own!)

So there are my boys.... in all their dirt-flicking, mud-splattering, helmet-wearing glory. To see the smiles on their faces when those helmets come off, I wouldn't have it any other way! Besides, a girl's gotta have somethin else to take photos of other than just layouts and cards, yeah?

Righto, break's over... back to work for me... Toodles,

Wednesday Weigh-in... on Friday!

2010-09-03T10:31:00.001+12:00

Well, not so bad this week, considering.... Esp. after scrap camp and the 2 bowls of punch that I and those-who-shall-remain-nameless worked our way through over the two night stay...

I lost 200gms!

Next week, onwards and DOWNWARDS on those scales.

I went to Zumba this week, and ended up staying for BOTH classes. Yup, two whole hours of shakin my groove thang. To be honest, I think that I'm still in recovery mode today! Yesterday I had trouble getting up and down the stairs at work. I must've looked like I was 86 rather than 36 :) The things we do, huh? Oh well, whatever doesn't kill us...!

And of all the people to see me when I was trudging along the country roads in the middle of nowhere last weekend.... Dom, the Zumba instructor (and my former personal trainer at the Gym). She came up to me before class and said 'What were you doing WAY OUT THERE woman?' I secretly patted myself on the back when she said that I was fair striding it out, working hard, 'in the zone'. It's always nice when someone else notices.

Wednesday Weigh-in, and Scrap Camp!

2010-08-30T21:23:00.000+12:00

Ok, so here's the delayed report on last Wednesday's weigh-in... I guess that the 10 days or so of enforced rest is finally catching up with me. I put on 600gms. Not a great deal I guess, but disappointing all the same.

I had been forced to rest by some very nasty abdominal pains, which my GP suspected may have been caused by an ovarian cyst or something similar. I am pleased to report (following a most glamorous scan) that this was not the case, and it appears that a nerve was trapped between the walls of a torn abdominal muscle, causing some particularly uncomfortable spasms when I happened to move the wrong way. For now (touch wood) that seems to have sorted itself out, as I went for my first run/walk on Saturday morning. First bit of exercise in 10 days, and boy did I feel it later on!

Exercise of any sort was an achievement in itself, as I was away at Scrap Camp. Yes, we have just had the last ever (organised by Rachel, at least) Embellish It Raincliff Retreat. As usual, it was a complete blast, and I am completely knackered! The Raincliff Youth Camp is one of those kitschy 70's throwbacks that is ideal for school camps, and of course, scrapbooking weekends!

It has 12 bunk rooms, that each sleep 6 people, (6 bunk rooms on either side of the main hall) as well as a room just off the main hall for another 2 people (right next door to two wheelchair friendly toilet/shower rooms). There are basic (but adequate) shower/toilet facilities, as well as a large, catering friendly kitchen with walk in fridge etc. And the bonus of all this? It's only about 40 minutes from town. Nice! So, for the incredibly reasonable cost of $110 each, we had Saturday breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and tea, as well as Sunday breakfast, morning tea and lunch, all cooked/served to us (and cleaned up) without us having to lift so much as a finger ourselves. I should mention that the kitchen staff were in fact Rachel's Mum and Dad, her Auntie Cicely, and a nice young man by the name of Michael (a cousin?). They did a FAB job, as always.

I headed out there straight from work at 3pm on Friday afternoon to help set up, then it was all go, go go! Amid all the talking (and a little bit of drinking), I managed to get 5 things made over the course of the weekend. I made a Thank you Card for Rachel on behalf of all us campers (although not your ordinary card, it was a really large canvas one with Prima papers quilted onto the front, then covered with scrummy prima flowers. I will have to get Rach to send me a photo of it so that you can see what I mean.

Then I did 3 layouts (photos below), and got a Father's Day card 99% finished, all before we had to pack up and head home straight after lunch on Sunday. So I achieved a LOT. This might have had something to do with the fact that I slept VERY LITTLE! Bedtime on Friday night was 2am Saturday, and I was back up again at 7.30am. Bedtime on Saturday was 4.20am Sunday, and I was up again at 8am. When I got home at 2pm on Sunday afternoon, I gave my boys a hug and a kiss, then went to bed for 2 hours!

You see, I have a wonderful husband who knows to expect this after camp, and doesn't seem to mind too much. (Thanks honey, xxx) And I should mention that the grocery shopping was done and put away, and that the house was tidier than when I left it. Fab. What a treat! My boys ROCK!

So, I can hear you saying "Come on, show us your layouts..." Well here they are:

Layout 1 - My Great Grandparents (from my mother's side of the family). These are the only two photos that I have of these grandparents. The baby in the photo on the left is me, circa 1975! I used a pink ribbon charm because Jessie Kearns (my Nanny's mother) died from Breast Cancer.

Paper: Prima, Flowers: Prima and small roses from Embellish It, Alphas: both Prima, Charms: Dragonfly charms from Embellish It, Pink Ribbon Charm, Other: German Scrap (around photo edges), Dimensional Magic (on cardstock alphas)

Layout 2 - Pitcrew in Training. J decided he had to have a go at the tyre changing competition that The Front Store ran as part of the entertainment during the summer race meeting out at Levels. He had to stand on two drill boxes in order to be tall enough to reach!

Paper: Teresa Collins Junkitz, Large Chipboard Cogs: Dusty Attic, Small metal cogs/screws: Tim Holtz, Title Lettering: Cuttlebug Alpha 'Red Tag Sale' (shadowing cut by hand), Other: Dimensional Magic (on chipboard cogs)

Layout 3 - Make and Take Prima Paintables Layout, Me, age 4. For the Make and Take we were given one sheet of Prima Paintables, one sheet of Bazzill of our choice, and some Dusty Attic and other embellishments. The only condition in order to go in the draw for $80 worth of Dusty Attic product was that we had to use the Prima Paintables, in combination with any other papers/embellishments of our choosing. Jo showed us how to make cardstock flowers using a retro flower punch, a brad and some water. Seriously VERY COOL technique. I made ALL of the flowers on this layout myself! Awesome!!! I coloured the paintables paper with Distress Inks using a water pen.

Paper: Prima Paintables, Cardstock: Bazzill, Flowers: Made by moi, Journalling Block: Prima Stamp, Journalling: Hero Arts Alpha Stamps, Chipboard fence: Dusty Attic, Bling Bird: made by me using Bazzill Bling Template, Other: Vines and leaves from Embellish It, Shipping Tag from Dowells Office Products, Chandelier Charm by Heidi Swapp.

And of course there are the obligatory Camp photos of us gals....

Me, Nic and Kath, drinking our 'Mocktails' on Saturday night

Back, L-R: Brenda, Nic, Jo, Shirelle
Front, L-R: Me, Kath

L-R: Kath, Me, Shirelle, Brenda, Nic

So, that is that, you're all up to date! I'm hoping to get to Zumba tomorrow night, and before I know it, it'll be Wednesday Weigh-in again. Rolls round pretty fast from week to week! For now though, I am going to watch the end of The Mentalist, and head off to bed.

Toodles!

Weekly Wednesday Weigh-in...

2010-08-19T07:44:00.002+12:00

Well, this week was another good'un... Loss for the week 1.3kg, running total now 3.5kg. FANTASTIC!

A nice surprise, given that I was on enforced rest, and unable to exercise since last Friday. Must have helped that I was off my food and missed a couple of meals. Just don't tell my leader that, ok?!

And speaking of last Friday, Dancing on Ice has now finished :( What am I going to do THIS Friday night? I will be at a loss without my weekly dose of glamour and excitement. And no, I'm not kidding! Although I was super pleased that Hayley and Dan won - they were my favourites right from week one....and their Bolero? AWESOME. No other word for it. Hayley and Dan put Gary and Maria to shame. No contest. So now, I am lusting after this at Amazon.co.uk....

Even with shipping to NZ, it will only cost about $32. Not bad. Especially for a 3-DVD boxed set. Seasons 1, 2 and 3. (We have just had season 5 here).

I have been working on a little sewing project this week, which I hope to finish tonight and reveal once complete. for now, it's a secret!

Anyhoo, must dash, lunches to pack, school drop-offs to be done, work to get to. Ho hum. Toodles,

Here's the other one...

2010-08-16T08:01:00.000+12:00

Here's what Mum's finished canvas looks like...

We have quite different takes on the same basic project huh?!

She painted her canvas base with a testpot that matched a living area in her house, and it looks just FAB on the wall. She used some of her recently-learned techniques from SENZ too - altering the colour of the papers (and ribbon) with distress ink, and using her Tim Holtz distresser on the edges of the paper to 'rough them up' a bit. Then she added some Prima Say It In Pearls Bling, some wings, flowers, buttons and a cross to finish it off. VERY, VERY COOL!

Creative canvas, weekly weigh-in and a new reading packet!

2010-08-13T12:55:00.005+12:00

Finally I get a chance to catch you up on what we've been doing! Mum and I finished our canvases last week (although I still have to get her to email me pics of hers). Here's how mine turned out...

I coloured it with Ranger Faded Jeans Distress Ink, then got busy covering it up with gorgeous Prima flowers and bling, and Dusty Attic chipboard. The two stamped pieces (background of wire dress form, and quote) were coloured with Faded Jeans, Shabby Shutters and Chipped Sapphire Distress Inks. The mini flowers were too pink (can't believe that I just said that - ME, the pink queen!), so I coloured them up with a bit of Spiced Marmalade so that they matched the larger flowers better. Here's a couple close-ups...

I was really pleased with how it turned out. Huge thanks to Nic who loaned us the stamps to have a play with. SO much fun! They will be winging their way back to you real soon Nic, promise.

Weigh-in was on Wednesday. Not a great result, but a result all the same - lost 400gms. I was a bit disappointed, but who wouldn't be after having lost nearly 2kg the week before. You can't keep producing losses of that size every week, huh? Oh well... a loss is still a loss. Running total? 2.2kg thus far.

I have been trying to get out for an evening walk twice a week, doing drills on the Soundshell stairs twice a week, and also going to Zumba with Mum. It's all gotta be helping, right? Right! And when I say the Soundshell stairs, for those of you who aren't locals, these are what I mean...

Not exactly an INSIGNIFICANT set of stairs! ROFLMAO!

And what else have I been up to this week? Well, last night after Zumba (and this morning before work), I made J a new reading packet for school. His one fell apart last week. I've had this motorbike fabric sitting around for a few months wondering what to make it into for him, and then it struck me! All I needed to buy was some PVC and some velcro, as I already had black lining left over from another project, and enough other fabric to make a binding for the edges. So here it goes...

He just LOVES it. He didn't want to put it in his bag to take it to school this morning, he had to carry it (with great pride, I might add!)

And once in his classroom, he had to show it to absolutely EVERYONE. I even heard one little boy remark on how cool it was, and J replied 'I know, my Mum could make you one too' !!! I think not. One is enough for now.

And that, my dears, is that. This week in a (rather large) nutshell. This weekend? Well, we're having tea at Mum's tonight cos my sister is down from Auckland for a few days (with a really cute baby bump on board!), and we haven't planned much else for the weekend. I think the boys are going for a ride on their motorbikes tomorrow afternoon, and I spose I'd better prune my roses (if the weather holds out) as they are long overdue some attention.

Oh, and THE FINAL of Dancing on Ice is on tonight... my FAVOURITE program on telly at the moment. Excited to see the final, but disappointed that it is coming to an end :( .

What are YOU up to?

Much better this time...

2010-08-04T22:43:00.001+12:00

...thank goodness :)

I went to weigh-in tonight with a touch of trepidation. I've been on Prednisone for the last week to try and shake a really nasty cough, and the doctor warned me that it may not do me any favours on the scales. So I dragged myself along to WW, expecting nothing brilliant, but hoping like crazy for a good result. I have been eating SO much better, and even getting off my butt and exercising a little. Luckily all my hard work this week has paid off though... Loss of 1.9kg!

I have decided that the key (for me, anyway) is preparation. If I have to grab something in a hurry, I never grab the right things. That's just me. BUT if I make the time in the morning to make myself a tortilla wrap for lunch (with hommus, shaved chicken, celery, red onion and baby rocket leaves - yummo), and prepack myself something for morning and afternoon tea, then I eat well all day. If I get tempted to slip, then the gateway is open for all kinds of disaster!

So I decided to get myself a treat on the way home from the meeting. But not in the way that you might think. Oddly enough, this chocoholic chick didn't stop off at the dairy for a chocolate bar. I went to New World and bought myself a WW frozen meal, and a WW dessert! Satay Beef Wrap (Beef, Rice and Green Beans in a Tortilla) for tea, then a pottle of Butterscotch ice-cream for dessert. $8.44 for both, and each has two serves in it, so I still have yummy treats in the freezer for another night. Bonus!

On the crafting front, Mum and I spent some time tonight doing the tissue/gesso thing on a couple of 12x12" canvases which we are going to colour-up and decorate tomorrow, so more on that then.

For now, it's bedtime. I am tired. Although it's a good, healthy tired. If that makes sense?!

Nighty-night!