feels like Autumn

We had our first foggy morning today, with a very light frosting on the grass. The nights have been getting quite cool, but the days are still very warm. Today got quite warm, the boys spent ages outside on the trampoline and in the sandpit - came inside smelling like hot sweaty kids.

One of the cows we were waiting on, the terribly fat one with rolls of fat on her rump, the one we were afraid was barren, calved today - another little black bull calf. Only one more to calve for now.

Another yummy dinner tonight with some of Ena's bottles of sauce and one of Kerry's spaghetti squash - I've never cooked one before, but they really are like vegetable spaghetti. I made meatballs (the kids love them!), and they dipped them in Ena's homemade salsa sauce and bbq sauce. Ray, Kate and I had the spaghetti squash with dolmio sauce mixed with some salsa, and meatballs on top. Pretty good, eh? Kerry sent some more nectarines, some spuds, sweet corn and tomatoes home with Ray too. The kitchen smells delicious.

I actually got to scrap this afternoon - Sandra has released a new paper pack, so I got to play straight away (grin - I love being on a such good CTs). Funny that I had never scrapped this photo of Grace, I had previously scrapped another photo of her looking more directly at the camera, but today I decided that this one needed to be scrapped too (birthday pic from 2 years ago LOL).



papers from Sandra Boddington's Baby pack (monogram cut from these papers), stitching from Sandra's Stroll in the Park, font is SP-Purkage

great day

I'm still very tired, with the toothache issues (almost past) and the computer worries causing sleeplessness, so I was fully expecting Sunday to be a not-so-great day. I just hate dragging myself through the day. I didn't really feel like going to church, but I did. Tom was preaching, and he is just such an up person, you can't help but feel better when you're finished there.

After lunch, I caught the Designer's Studio chat with Ash, then the kids and I sat together to watch National Treasure (again LOL). Caleb and Josiah were pretty tired, as they had camped out in the backyard with Michael Saturday night (at Michael's house, not here, thank goodness!) We hadn't got far into the movie, when Ena phoned to see if she and Peter could come for a cuppa, and bring the girls (their grand-daughters) to play with our girls. They came with several bags of produce from their garden, and some jars of jam and sauce and salsa that Ena had made. Yummy!

So, how is this for a fantastic dinner? Zucchini slice (made with Ena's zucchinis and our own eggs), fresh beans and silverbeet from their garden, mashed spuds and carrots (sadly from the supermarket). Pretty good living.

Looking forward to some scrapbooking with all my new goodies - so many sales at the weekend!

catching my breath

The week has just whizzed past. Didn't get much scrapping done in the past few days, although I did get an entry done for an online contest at a digi-designer's site.

Friday was the dentist, I didn't sleep well being so wound up about it (I really really don't like going to the dentist - bad experiences with dental butchers as a child). Ray hadn't really organised a delivery of concrete pipes (for the drain crossing he is working on), so I had to wait to see if he would be able to drive me up - I wasn't keen to be driving in case I had to have the tooth pulled. Fortunately, the company swapped their delivery schedule about a bit, and Ray drove us up. He dropped me at the dentist, and took the kids to the shopping centre - Caleb had some birthday money to spend, and Ray took my glasses to OPSM - on Monday one of the rubber bridge thingies broke, and it had been rubbing and irritating the bridge of my nose all week (just unpleasant and annoying, no blood LOL).

The dentist took xrays, and is concerned that there is a problem under another tooth, so that will be another visit at the end of March, and perhaps an extraction then (I will not even consider spending $2000+ on a bloody tooth! I'd rather have a laptop computer!) Friday afternoon I spent dozing on the couch dosed up with Panadeine, with an aching jaw. It wasn't so bad this morning, but still aching through the day, with the occasional serious shooting pain through the tooth, and I succumbed to panadeine late this afternoon. The weird thing is the pain in the tooth directly above the filling - I didn't know teeth could go out in sympathy. The dentist warned that I could still lose this tooth, as the problem went rather deep and close to the nerve (it was an older filling that had failed).

I got me some new walking shoes! I have to confess to not having walked since before Christmas, as my shoes gave out, and I was getting too much pain in my feet (I have totally flat feet). I have never spent so much on a pair of shoes before, but figured this was an investment in my health (at least, that's what I told Ray). Ray took me to the Athlete's Foot after the dentist, and I even walked on their fancy computer foot thingy, and saw the walking motion on the screen, which was fun (but pretty meaningless). The attendant fitted me with some asics with really pronounced arch support, and firm inside walls (my left foot rolls in a bit, which combined with the flatness, would be giving me the pain). And the shoes were on sale! They were normally $170, but I got them for $120. How good is that.

It was dreadfully hot and humid yesterday, really not a good day to be travelling across to the valley, but there were storms in the afternoon - we had a ripped thunderstorm. I didn't have the computer on, I was feeling too bad (see, I must have been feeling crook), and didn't turn it on until about an hour after the storm had passed, thinking it was safe by then. I checked my emails, then got dinner. After dinner I went back to the computer, and freaked! It wasn't quite the blue screen of death, but it looked mighty bad - Windows couldn't start up properly, and it was running in a loop of failure. I phoned our trusty local computer guy (he is so good about service at all hours), and he told me that there appeared to have been a huge power surge and/or lightening strike - I was the fourth call he'd taken so far. So he talked me through a couple of things to try, none of which worked, and Ray took the PC box around to him. When Ray came home without it, he said that Ross thought he would have to wipe the main drive and re-install XP - eeeek!

I spent a restless night, between pain in my jaw and worrying about having to set everything up again. All my files were safe - most had been transferred to the new hard drive. But I was concerned for my downloaded music (I am so not buying any more from Bigpond - back to cds for me, the license system really sucks). And I really didn't want to deal with the company that does the accounting software that I use. I originally registered mine when I got it, and you have to get an activation key to run it. Well, twice I have had to reinstall the software (once when we got a new computer, and the second time when I had to upgrade the hard-drive) and was totally given the third-degree about why I was reinstalling the bloody software. I wanted to shout at them, who would want to pirate their bloody accounting software!??!!! I don't appreciate being made to feel I had done something wrong when I had paid up the $200 for the software, and needed it to do the job for which I purchased it.

So how glad was I when I phoned Ross this morning and he had played around and got it going again without a format and re-install. He said it took him longer than the format would have, but he just wanted to see if he could do it! Computer geeks! Gotta love 'em! Now, the bigpond music licenses are all kaput, and I phoned them, and got a nice guy on the phone who reset them for me to download again, but now they won't play on Windows Media Player 10 (I think Ross maybe upgraded me). I haven't tried the accounting software yet, I'll leave that pain for another day.

We're just about Winter Olympiced out, although we enjoyed the ice skating exhibition tonight. And Amazing Race is starting back next week - yay! Still really peeved that we aren't getting Survivor Panama in Australia. Very underwhelmed about the coming Commonwealth Games - don't get me started on the obscene amount of money spent on total nonsense, when our elderly are mistreated, and the mentally ill don't receive adequate care.

making stuff

I was looking for some date stamps the other day (actually on the charity day), I know there are probably lots of different ones out there, but I couldn't find any! (I only found one set, and they didn't suit). So this is my take on them, seasons and years are separate to customize them as needed, because the seasons are different Downunder, and we don't have Fall (grin). See, this is what I do when I can't scrap, I make stuff. Download link is on my creating blog (link in sidebar).

snippets

• couldn't get into a scrapping mood yesterday, came to a screaming halt on the creativity track. went shopping at SBB to console myself - got Michelle Underwood's new kit and a couple of Melissa Baxter's fonts
• Ray brought home a box of nectarine's off Kerry's tree, and they are sooooo good. the kitchen smelt delicious this morning when I came out
• the kids decided they wanted to 'camp out', they put the 2 beach cabanas together, draped with quilts (we really must buy them a small tent LOL). 3 slept out last night, the other 3 will sleep out tonight. it was cold overnight, I was fretting over them.
• summer is waning, weather is decidedly chillier, days are almost feeling autumnish. tomatoes were a disaster again in the vegie patch, and there is something wrong with the capsicums, I've never seen anything like what is going on with these
• Numb3rs is back, but the cast changes threw me a bit. great show, and I love Dr Larry and his canned philosophy, love the nerdy maths-geek-speak.
• bad dream got me outa bed at 5.30am, I hate this - where does this horrible stuff come from?
• grieving for the community at Mildura, all those dead children. the driver will probably be run outa town, and he ran away from the scene leaving two of his own children in the car! I can't fathom how this has happened.
• loving the Biggest Loser, although I so don't like the blue team (bad attitudes people) - so inspiring, and such a feel-good. they are all winners at the end for the changes in their health alone.
• couldn't find some of my photos last night when I decided to scrap - must hunt some more today, or re-scan (uuggghhh) some of Nanna's pics

something on my mind

Actually, something has been bugging me a bit these past few weeks. As I sat down at my desk to paper scrap (I have finished off one layout and started another, but they are hardly worth scanning to put here), I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the issue of physically storing and housing all these 12x12 layouts that I do. My aim when I started scrapbooking was to chronicle our lives, and I justified commencing this hobby to Ray by saying that we would have a chronological and archivally safe record of all our photos and memories. However, since getting the digital camera, I take so many more photos, that the number of albums that will be required in the long-run is looking a bit daunting. Not that they are uber-expensive to purchase (I use fairly cheap and sturdy $20 carven post-bound expandable albums). The issue is this - am I going to have to build another room onto the house to make shelf-space for all the damn albums? I am currently at twelve 12x12 albums, plus a couple of themed 8x8 albums, and these are just the family chronological albums. I kinda intended to do albums for each of the kids too (although they would take them with them when they marry/move out). The size of this project is scaring me. Just thinking out loud, but I am liking the 8x8 size more and more, and I'm tempted to start doing them for the family albums, and being more ruthless in what I actually scrap. There is also a growing desire to abandon the paper scrapping and just go totally digital, print everything at 8x8 and be done with it. But I have my desk, my equipment, supplies, and the continuing desire to get messy with it all, even though the digital is so much more creative and satisfying (I just cannot afford to buy all the cool bits in paper scrapping that I can buy for a fraction of the cost in the digital sphere, or even make myself). Just wondering out loud.

GST + BAS = meltdown

I totally stress myself over this every quarter - I am so not into accounting (accountants must be the most anal people on the planet). So much of what I have to do seems totally pointless, but I have got to the point where I have learned what is required, and just do it, like one of Pavlov's good little poodles. But I still get incredibly stressed about it, knowing that the Tax Office could come breathing down my neck, and take a dim view of accounting dummies like me. We just can't send this to the accountant though, it would totally eat up any tiny profit we might make - the end-of-year reconciliation and balancing that I just could not manage cost $145!!

So, I cruised through the first month's entries, and hit the second, and had a total brain fart over one of the entries. I couldn't find the paperwork that I thought should correspond, and spent a desperate half-hour turning over every pile of miscellaneous papers I could lay my hand on. I'm pretty good about 'filing' stuff into the inbox in the study, and even have the monkey part-way trained (Ray, that is). I finally called him inside to help me, in tears explaining that I couldn't find what I thought was missing. He took one look at the statement I was working on, patted me on the head, and suggested something totally different! Of course, he was right. Then he made me a cup of coffee, brought me some chocolate, and left me to get on with it again. --->idiot<---

I finished, filled in the form, and it's ready to go off to the tax office on Monday with a cheque for what we owe (darn it!). Then I went shopping. Picked up a few bits at Jen Wilson's sale (it's her Dad's birthday and he's 52, so she marked everything down by 52%!!) - the store at SBB was moving sooooo slowly, I haven't bothered trying to download them, I can leave it for a day or so until the traffic settles a bit. Then I popped into the Shabby Shoppe and bought a few things I've had my eye on since her re-opening on Valentine's Day - for once I didn't impulse buy all the new stuff! But today I made up for that, and have qualified for an entry into the awesome prize draw (I'm sure she'd love to send a package of goodies to Australia LOL).

To alleviate the awful dull I-hate-accounting headache I had achieved, I scrapped! I managed a couple of DT layouts, reworking some of the photos I scrapped when I first started digi-scrapping (which I am so glad I didn't print out, as they are pretty awful).

Love this photo of Hope, she had the chubbiest squidgiest kissiest cheeks when she was little. This photo was taken at about 7 months - she's almost three now {{sigh}}. I used Sandra's new kit June Day.



everything from Sandra Boddington's June Day kit, font is FB Sprinkles by Melissa Baxter

Then I played with the ad inspiration from the DSD charity day, I really liked it, and will probably use it again. Kate took these photos of Isaiah one night, he dragged the flour bin around so that he could reach, and got into washing up when I was called away mid-job. I just hope he will be such a willing helper in a few years time! Another layout with Ash and Dawn's Express Yourself cd.



papers and elements from Ash and Dawn's Express Yourself cd, this is the calm kit, font is FB Sprinkles

And I so have my eye on this new kit from Michelle Underwood, to be cool, I am really liking her new designs, same fun design and vibrant colours, but a slightly more developed style (I have so much of her older stuff too LOL). I'm being good though, waiting until I have used one or two of my new purchases before I buy anything else.

getting back

The charity day was a success, and I didn't stuff anything up! I ended up stressing myself over it, so I'm glad it's over. I bought both the charity kits:

Priceless, at Digiscrap Divas Store (available until March 25th, all proceeds to the Kids With Cancer Society)



And Karma Chameleon, at Sweet Shoppe Design (the girls there donated all sales for Feb 15th to the same charity)



But I only managed just one layout; after my marathon last week, I must be a bit scrapped out. There is so much great stuff in the kit, but this one came out pretty clean and simple (grin).



all elements from the Priceless charity kit, Digiscrap Divas

Not much else to tell.

I haven't done the BAS yet, so that is my must-do for this weekend.

The guys came on Monday and put a roof on the tank, now we just need some rain to fill it, and we can turn off the blech-y town water.

My DT position at DigiscrapDivas has been 'renewed' and revamped, so look out for me there! I came onboard there just as everything changed there, so it has been a bit up in the air, but the participating designers there are working so hard, and the site is really growing. I even have a new blinkie! and you know how much I love those.

We did Meals on Wheels again today, and got around much faster than the first time.

Ray and Kate and Josiah went back to the dentist for x-rays, cleans, and a couple of fillings ($590!!) - my appointment is next week.

I've been spending too much on digiscrapping stuff, and not using it - my bad!

I've been spending too much on paper scrapping stuff, and not using it - my bad!

And while I have more stuff to use than I know what to do with from my design team commitments, my must-haves at the moment are just about everything that TracyAnn Robinson creates! Isn't this just the cutest! But I really must use it . . .

awesome online charity event

I've managed to get involved (grin) with this amazing charity day for digital scrapbookers - I'm hosting a crop and running some games on the day. So I'm busy. Check out the details and have some fun - there is an exciting list of prizes from fabulous designers! And buy the charity kit, it's super!


check out the details here and here

tagged #1

In the past week or so I've been tagged a few times. I haven't forgotten, not ignoring you, etc. Just flat out like a lizard drinking!

here's my tag from Jheri

What is the hardest thing you've ever had to scrap? I guess it would be photos of my Mum and Grandma, it always brings me back to how much I miss them both. But it's good too, ya know?

What technique do you use more than any other? um, colour blocking is my kick at the moment, combined with stitching and inked edges. But it changes over time, so who knows what my 'trend' will be in a few months' time.

Ever been published? yes, in Aussie mags. a couple of times with paper layouts, and a couple of digitals too (really early in my digiscrapping too). Not lately, but I haven't been submitting much cos it's so discouraging not to get called.

What's the smallest scrap of paper you save? nothing less than a few inches across, and even then, the kids probably use more of the scraps than I do, for punchies or card-making

Ever have any scrapbooking-related injuries? back ache and flattened butt count as injuries.

Finish the sentence "If I wasn't a scrapbooker, I would spend my money on....." . . . books! that's what I used to collect before I started collecting scrapbooking supplies.

Give us your best storage or organizational idea. boxes from the $2 shop - I have all different ones (I'm eclectic in all areas LOL) - pretty boxes for photos, ribbons, stamps, tins for pens, stamps, buttons, I like my scrapbook desk to look colourful and interesting, and I know what each differently patterned box or tin has inside it.

You just won a week-long scrapbooking cruise for 5. Who's going with you? Trish, Joan, Pri, JenniH, KateF (if we can drag her away from TC) - what a riot we'd be!

After you've answered the questions, tag 6 of your scrapbook buddies! gosh no, if they haven't already been tagged (and most everyone whose blog I read has been) they'd slap me! If you haven't already done this tag, and you read this, the blog fairies will get you if you don't take the tag from me (leave me a note so I can let the blog fairies know not to noodle you)

Rach and Pri, I promise I'll get to them!

more new layouts on my scrapbook blog - not putting them here too (too tired and cranky)

mega catch up

How quickly I get out of the habit of scribbling away here at night! maybe busy-ness and tiredness have something to do with it. . .

Ray's foot was so swollen on Friday morning that he couldn't even move his ankle - the swelling had gone almost up to his calf muscle (totally gross). Off to the doctor Friday afternoon (that is a whole nother rant - the doctor we were seeing last year has moved on again!) - and Ray ended up with a whole bag of medications! Dr Wong (he's British LOL) suggested Ray carry two different types of over-the-counter anti-histamines with him, and if he is bitten, to swallow one of each straight away to try to reduce his reaction to the ant-bite. He also had a course of antibiotics, and some steroids (there goes his Commonwealth Games chances LOL).

I ended up making three trips to town and back on Friday. First trip at 9.15am to do the shopping (got the kids started on schoolwork, Ray on the couch in the schoolroom to supervise), the second trip for Meals on Wheels at lunchtime - Kate came with me, we took a bit long cos we don't know our way around town so well yet, and the third trip to the doctor with Ray. I didn't really seem to get anything much done around all that, and running after Ray (at least there was cricket on TV for him to watch).

Saturday was exhausting. We sprang out of bed at 7am to round up the 'mums and calves' herd - the agent was coming at 8.30am to mark some bull calves and check a couple of cows for us. Ray had to drive the ute around the paddock to keep off his foot as much as he could, so I got to do the running. And I forgot to grab the stick out of the back of the ute, and had nothing to go at the bull with - I really don't like this bull, and will be glad when we send him off (should be done with him by next month). So we managed to get all the cows and calves into the pen - and one of the internal gates had come off its mounting. Every single time we go to work in the yards, we say "we must fix these up". One time we actually will, but the whole thing needs rebuilding, not just a little renovation. So we sorted them, got ear tags into the new babies (I'm a calf wrestler too on my resume LOL), and penned the older bull calves for Greg, let the others go, and headed back to the house for a quick cuppa. It was almost 9am, so we called Greg, who hadn't made it, as some of his own cattle had escaped onto the road and he was trying to round them up. So we had breakfast while we waited. I had a shower and washed the stinky cow smell off me while Ray went down to help Greg. I was pooped!

I was ready to start on the household chores by about 10am, then lunch, and a few hours to myself on the pute. We were invited to Ena and Peter's for a BBQ on Saturday night, and Dutchie and Kerry bought their girls too. They live further up the Tarra Valley, and the river trickles right past their front door. We ate on the patio, with the sound of the river, and the kids running around the shady yard - totally wonderful! We had a lovely evening, Isaiah went to sleep on the couch while the others romped through the house (why do kids love to play on stairs?).

Rather tired kids on Sunday, but Caleb and Josiah went off with Michael's family after church, and Ena and Peter were taking their grand-daughters to the beach, and invited Grace along too (they didn't have room in their car to take Kate too). So we had a quiet afternoon with just 3 kids in the house! I got some more school stuff organised, and even fitted in a little powernap.

Monday was back into school, we are getting more settled into routine now, although still a tiny bit of grumbling - what kids would choose bookwork above playing anyway?

Kate's eyes have pretty much cleared up, but Caleb and Noah have both got conjunctivitis now, although not as severely as Kate had it. Ray's foot is back to normal

More rain, and no more horribly hot weather, although the kids would still like to go to the pool, and are a bit disappointed. The paddocks are responding to the rain already, with the grasses springing through, and even some clover re-appearing. Maybe we will finally get a good autumn break - everyone tells us about them, but we haven't seen one since we arrived here.

I've been scrapping like a crazy woman these past few days. I've had lots of DT goodies to play with - even a whole cd! Ash has created a cd with Dawn, and it's fabulous (of course). So I've been trying to get a few layouts done before the launch crop. (Don't miss it!)

There are a couple more layouts on my scrapping blog (link at top of left sidebar), but this is probably my favourite from the cd layouts so far - I did this for the It's a Chicks Life challenge at the DigiChick this week. Another landscape A4 layout, it was lots of fun pulling together all these photos and cutting up bits of paper - most of this is from the free kit on the cd, with a couple of alpha bits from the elated kit.

It's so good to be scrapping again!

back to school

Well, we are stumbling through our first week back into homeschooling, lots of grumbling and foot-dragging - and the kids aren't that happy about it either! (joking) I feel dreadfully unorganised, but I'm trying really hard to quickly re-establish a schedule to get us through the mornings, then we can be more relaxed about out 'extra' activities in the afternoon. Slowly getting together the books and texts they need, introducing some new things for Kate - she's in high school now. Lots of people seem to assume that she would be going off to high school, but I always hoped that we would homeschool right through - depending on what the kids want to do, of course.

We now have six newborn calves - 2 heifers and 4 bulls - and are waiting on perhaps two more cows to calve. The hereford cows are so skittish, but their little white-faced babies are so sweet. It's amazing that they are up and skipping around the paddock within a day of being born.

The three youngest walked down the paddock with me after lunch to let the herd of steers through into the bush paddock, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much grass is coming up after the good rains we've had this past week - so long as the weather doesn't get too hot and we get some more rains, we might go into a good Autumn (here's hoping). The cattle came straight through the gate and into the bottom of the drain where there was long green grass, and the boys saw first-hand the damage they do and how they contribute to the erosion of the gully.

And I made it to a chat at Digiscrap Divas this afternoon, Julie Howard's Design Principles chat. I've posted the layouts on my scrapping blog, don't want to type it all here too!

Ray came home hobbling with a swollen foot - he's been bitten by a bull-ant again. I made him take some anti-histamine to help his system cope with the poison, he seems to be getting a worse reaction each time he is bitten. At least there is cricket on TV tomorrow if he can't get about to his farmwork, although he'll bellyache about it!

I'm off to my first stint as a Meals on Wheels volunteer, delivering meals at lunchtime tomorrow. I plan to take one or two of the kids with me each time, to give them a go at helping others like this. I just hope I don't mess anything up!