Soup-de-loop

Tuesday night for me is pool night.

I do water aerobics at a pool oh about 10 minutes away from home. In the middle of nowhere on a farm off the main road a farmer built a big indoor pool for use by people in the neighbouring towns. It's three lanes wide and maybe about 35 metres long I guess, I'm shocking with measurements. You actually book a spot for a term and that's your spot. It might be for aerobics or there are spots for laps, spots for kids learning, spots just for enjoyment. They do this so that the pool never gets too crowded.

The funny thing is that they have a waiting list to get on the actual real list of people who use the pool each term. Now that I'm on the real list, I'm never getting off, ROFL.

So back to pool night. We've decided that each pool night because we don't end up eating till round 9pm, it will now be soup night. Hot delicious homemade soups that merely need a quick heating up. Tonight I had made Bacon Vegie and Lentil soup and it was soup-de-loop-delicious!

And now for a bit of excitement to share !!!

I hadn't even realized until Esther left me a post on a layout I had done (thank you Esther), but check this out ...

Designer Details

What an absolute surprise, my layout was the Saturday Scraplift. I was blown away. Me and my itsy bitsy bikini, hahahahahaha.

Now over to [ksharonkdesigns], such a pretty pretty paper pack out at the moment called Crackleberry. Sounds like a material range or something. Love it! How gorgeous are these papers (click on the pic to take you to the twolittlepixels shoppe) ...


So I set to and did a layout of Mike. After the Anzac March I got him to pose for a few pics in the park up the road (Tracey, you will know exactly where this is I reckon!!) Enjoy.

Credits here. (click on the link if you have trouble viewing the picture size)

I hope you got over to Artistic Musings and grabbed yourself the Crackleberry freebie over the weekend, it has the most gorgeous shade of purple papers (which I actually keep calling to myself "Cadbury's chocolate purple" te he). Alas the links are now expired. Hope you made it in time.

Credits here.

Phew, that was a mighty long post. Now it's time for bed!

We will remember them

Anzac Day today, a day to remember the fallen. Mike and I had plans to travel to a little country town not too far from here, way smaller than even our town. They had asked Mike to pipe for them at their little parade. Only a handful of diggers. But proud as punch they were, for I reckon nearly the whole town turned out to support and cheer them on.

I know you get the big Anzac Day parades in the big cities, very showy with the army, navy or airforce taking part, perhaps the roulette planes flying overhead. And with all my years in the band I have marched in many an Anzac parade, both in my hometown and Melbourne. But this one moved me no end. I got rather misty watching the handful of diggers marching, head held high, down the street.

Food P0rn

Well errr.... thanks to Jodie (to be honest I'm pretty sure she knows I love doing memes) so she tagged me to do one on Food P0rn. Forgive me using a zero, instead of an 'o', I just don't want wierd comments from people who search those things out, eeeek. This is a nice family blog! haha

Righto. A bit of background, it apparently started at Smokey Mountain Breakdown and the rules are that you answer each of the five questions, then tag five bloggers to pass the meme to. Have them link back to you and to the original post as the source meme.


1. What food do you consider the best "date" food? In other words what meal or food item do you think is sexiest to eat in the company of someone you would like to look sexy around?

Well I'm thinking crumbed calamari. Mike adores seafood, so I can only imagine he adores me eating seafood. And the fact I'd gone 40 years without realizing how yummy crumbed calamari was, yes that's right, I first sampled it in a cooking class a few years ago, I have a look of bliss now when I eat it. So my blissful look surely is a bit of a sexy look, or it might be scary, who knows, ha.


2. What well-known person would you like to share a meal with—with or without clothing. (saying whether or not clothes are involved is optional).

Sorry to my husband but Nicholas Cage (or George Clooney would come a close second). See we have this agreement if Nicky or George ever ask me to run away with them, that's my get out clause, no questions asked. Somehow I think Mike is pretty safe with this bet, hahahhaha. But can you just imagine sharing a table looking across at both those gorgeous smokey bedroom eyes. Mmmmmmm.


3. What does your perfect breakfast-in-bed look like? (Food AND the details, please. Candles? Music? Flowers? Hot tub? Dancing girls?

I was never overly a fan of brecky in bed, too many crumbs, but that's gone by the wayside now. So a perfect brecky in bed would be pancakes with a bit of maple syrup (such a sweet tooth!!), freshly perculated coffee, and a morning newspaper (but then that would mean one of us would have to go up to the shops to get it) so maybe one of my glossy magazines.


4. What do you consider the best application of whipped cream to be?

On a banana split, with icecream as well and hot choc fudge sauce. Heavenly!


5. Oh-God-No, Biff, the yacht is sinking! You are sent to the galley to retrieve the food. What luxury food items do you snatch first? The champagne? The caviar? Smoked Salmon? Truffles? Chocolate? Or something else?

No brainer here, definitely the chocolate. Closely followed by a lifejacket. A girl's gotta have priorities yanno!


Thanks Jodie that was fun.

Now for the tagging part -
Bells from Bellsknits of course (a definite food conniseur) - gave up how to spell that!!
Tracey the OzCountryQuiltingMum - she'll think this fun
Amanda from Addicted to Digi Scrapping - she'll roll her eyes that I sent her this, LOL
Victoria who is Saving the World One File at a Time - will she be game enough????
And lucky last Lynn from Off we go like a herd of turtles - because her last post made me laugh so much I snorted!!!!!


Went back to work this week, amazing how, oh by round about 10am on Monday those last five weeks were merely a memory! Roll on to my next hols in August.

This is the only time

You will *EVER* see me in bikinis, hahahahaha. No way no how. I opt for a demure black one-piece when I go to the pool nowadays. But after a few serious layouts I thought it time to do something fun.

This looks like a total mish mash I guess, but it was the exact effect I was going for. Remember me telling you about the slides that mum found, the ones we'd never seen in pristine condition. Well this was one of them. Can you believe it, from 1966, look at the vibrancy of the colours, absolutely incredible. (although I did sharpen a wee bit and take a couple of black marks from the sky, this is fairly close to the original, and I did nothing to enhance the colour). This page will be one for mum's family album.

Click here for credits (or if you have trouble viewing this size on your screen).

Well all good things must come to an end, and tomorrow is my last day off before I go back to work. Now there's five weeks you'll never get back huh? How quickly did that go. I must say I have spent a lot of quality time with mum, licked some wounds of my own, knitted and sewed till my heart's content and generally relaxed and recharged.

With that I'll bid you a goodnight. Molly has just wandered in to see what I'm doing. I think she's a bit peeved there's not a layout of her up on the screen, she just yawned and did a bit of a bark, hahaha.

Four years

Four years today since we got married. Seven years today since our first date.

Credits (and viewing if you have trouble seeing this page) here.

I figure if I keep going like this, doing one wedding layout every anniversary, by the time we get to 40 years I'll have enough for a Shutterfly book! te he.

Not much to say

Not much to say tonight, suffice to say I had a friend in pain which made me reflect on our own pain, and through many tears this page was born.

Credits
The Beautiful Day Kit by JoFia Designs
Diamond Rain by JoFia Designs
Fonts – Carpenter and Mom’s Typewriter

Oh dear, where has the time gone?

Goodness, last Tuesday was my last entry. Heck. The days are just being sucked away at the moment. Only one more week of my holidays. Must admit I'm feeling very very rested, a lot can be said for a good break like this.

Tomorrow I'm off to "play" with a workmate who works part-time. We're going to have a lovely morning tea and get to play with her gorgeous little boy. It's nice to have some away time from the office, just to be us.

Sharon has the most beautiful new kit in the shoppe, so soft and pretty. Faded. So very olde worldish. Click on the image to take you to twolittlepixels to check it out closer.

I had fun with this because I do love soft and pretty and vintage. I'm doing a page like this for each of the kids, because I think it will be special for them to look back on. Plus by putting Mike on the spot to name five things, it's really coming spontaneously and from his heart. Well, we can't count really, a few more words than five here!

For anyone having trouble viewing this size on their screen click on the credits link and it will take you to the gallery to see it closer. Step daughter number 2, isn't she gorgeous.

Credits here.

Off to bed, nighty night all.

How fun

Had a lovely weekend down at mum's. Amongst other things, we were looking at some old slides. The projector has long since broken down, so it was holding them up to the light and sore necks in the offering.

While we were growing up dad had a period where instead of photographs, he took slides. Oh the famous slide nights we had (snore) hahaha, remember them well. What blew our minds is that mum has found slides that we have never ever seen, she doesn't even remember seeing them. From when I was a toddler, from when my brother was born. What a mind blowing trip down memory lane it's been, seeing parts of my history for the first time. Wow.

My brother has some feature on his scanner that he's able to scan them and I have the first CD of 60-odd pictures here. Scrapping here I come! Perfect for the family history book.

My other fun thing is that I met Tracey of OzCountryQuiltingMum fame, today. YAY!!! At last. We have had a lovely afternoon of chatting at my local coffee shop, I got to see her fabulous photography on cards, and she got to see my shutterfly book. Thanks Tracey, I hope we get to do it again.

That's yet another fun thing. My shutterfly book has arrived, the one for my mother-in-law. I couldn't be any more happier. I will take pics.

Off to watch Bold & the Beautiful now, yes I know, pathetic huh? But before I go, I have put together a layout with Sharon's latest quick set. Oh and I had asked whether people were having trouble viewing my larger layouts on their screens. Tracey had mentioned she was only getting half a layout, hmmmm, not sure how to fix that. So there may be other people too. The other comments were that it was viewing okay at the other end.

So I propose if you can't see it properly, that where I put "credits here" if you want to see the layout to fit your screen if you can't, then click on that link, because it will take you to the gallery and you should be able to see it to fit your screen. How's that for a solution.

Credits here.

Whoever thought this would happen?

That firstly dipping my feet into this digi scrap arena would be something I would embrace and adore doing. Gosh I remember going to a Creative Memories party once (no offence CM) but I bought over $100 worth of stuff and it's still sitting in the top of the wardrobe. I tried one page and just couldn't get into it. It took time setting up, it was messy, photos weren't the size I wanted them to be, arrrrrrgh. So just over 12 months ago I try this digi scrap thing and there was no stopping me, it was so much fun and I felt this overwhelming need to document EVERYTHING!

Then August last year Sharon of [ksharonkdesigns] chose me to be a Guest Creative Team member which later turned into a permanent gig and now I'm having all the fun in the world with the team at twolittlepixels.

Now a dear friend Anna of Paper Moons has set up Studio Anna at Scrapbookgraphics and I'm lucky enough to be on her Creative Team too.

Does it get any better than this?

Go visit Anna and check out her shop, lots of fun things and a lot more to come. I do so wish her the best of luck with this venture and know she'll be a rip-roaring success. Click on the piccy below to magically whisk you to her store, LOL.

I've used Anna's goodies and a few others items which you'll see in the credits, to put together another page for mum's family book. I do just love this pink ticking paper, it reminds me of a material I have here in my quilting stash.

Funnily enough, when I looked at the picture I immediately saw Silkie the Owl up on the bedhead. I wonder what ever happened to that stuffed toy? I remember Silkie was one of my favourites, it kind of hooted when you rocked it. Funny how all these childhood memories came flooding back the minute I saw this darn owl which I haven't given two thoughts about in since forever.

Credits here.

Mike has a busy weekend ahead painting some clubrooms in town (if the weather holds) so I'm back home for a weekend with mum. Who knows what we'll get up to. So catch you when I return on Monday!