Half way

Half way through the work week. On the downhill slide now. Went out for lunch today with my work group and went to a fabulous cafe which had a zillion (well I do exaggerate slightly) little giftie ideas. I am going back for a serious shopping expedition ... oh and probably coffee and cake too. te he I will be a woman on a mission come pay day next week.

Okay first things first, two fabulous things to let the scrappers know about. Now I seriously doubt that any designers out there read my little blog (oh apart from our twolittlepixel ladies) but if there are any who read along or any up and coming designers, this is a great chance to get on a team with fabulous women from all over, and might I say the best darn creative team you'll get!! (cough cough)

And secondly, very exciting for the scrappers who read up here.

Not bad huh? It's twolittlepixels first birthday and you get the presents!!! The freebie collab kit is FABULOUS! I can't wait till you see who the guest designer is.


Okay another page to share with you for the family album. Simple is best.

Credits here.

I do giggle at my love of distressing and tearing papers now in my pages. Another time another place and I would think it ruined and have to start again. Now I love the texture of it all.

Time for bed. Seeya!

A bit of Idol chatter

Do you watch it? Who is going to win? Wes all the way!!!!! I will go on record, and have actually said so since day one, that it will be Wes and Mark Spano in the final two and I am happy for either of them to win. Both incredibly talented, both seemingly very nice guys. But if I had to pick one, it would be Wes. Brilliant every night.

This is Australian Idol by the way, if you are not from here and don't know these household names! te he

I have a lasagne cooking in the oven, it smells absolutely delicious. I do believe there will be garlic bread in the offering too. Anyone coming for dinner? LOL

Time to share another page for the family album, they are coming thick and fast now. Although now I'm having problems, too many photos, not enough pages left. There is a limit with Shutterfly for 50 pages (101 sides), so I'm doing a lot of shuffling on my grid that I have the thumbnails in at the moment.

Credits here.

Do you have any family Christmas traditions? I love that we all get to stir the Christmas pudding when mum is making it and make a wish. I love that we get coins under the pudding and custard (alas I'm too young for the days when the old coins were baked IN the Christmas pudding). Would love to hear about any traditions you may have. I'm going to have to work hard at making some new family traditions to take mum's mind off what we used to do with dad so that she doesn't go into a tail spin. So please do share.

I'm at the point with some of these photos that I am not even hazarding a guess, but am just working out the vintage by the hair styles! hahaha Oh, and the amount of earrings Trevor had in his ears. There was about 8 there at one stage, but they tended to get less as the years went on.

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer !!

That's me at the moment, I have a lovely red sunburnt nose. One of the ladies I know in town was having a 40th birthday BBQ down at the park and it was lovely to sit and relax and chat and eat, but every time that sun poked out from behind the clouds it was fierce. Fierce enough that our chairs kept following the shade of the trees around.

I knew it was going to be a warm one today, it was quite a warm night and I went to sleep with the fan on the timer. I love sleeping with air blowing in the room and during summer I get so used to the whir of the fan that by the time the weather cools again I find it hard to sleep in the silence. Bo the cat wanted out at about 5.30am. No use Mike hearing her meowing, he would sleep through anything. As I opened the backdoor I stood there thinking how warm it was at that time and there was no wind, not even a gentle breeze, the evening was perfectly still.

I have been doing a lot of sewing lately. See Tracey, I might do a lot of scrapbooking, but I do sew too, it's not a myth!!! I'm making my Christmas stockings again this year. I've had too many requests not to. After last year I wasn't in a position to even attempt it with dad being ill and passing away. Have a look...

MollyBo Handmade Gifts

Okay here we go for the family album, and I'm not even sure if I have shown you this first page before, so forgive me if you've already seen it. I had done the second page to appear opposite, so may as well show you the both together. Don't you just *LOVE LOVE LOVE* the hat mum is wearing in her going away outfit in the second page. It's fabulous.

And I was very sneaky and got a scan of their actual printed invitation, now preserved for all of history!!

Credits here and here.

I have since found out, after flattening this page, that I had the story wrong. A football officienado who I checked with indicated that the reason the Grand Final was in October in 1963, rather than that "one day in September" is that in round 11 there was torrential rain and it reduced the grounds to boggy messes and the VFL (as was the league in those days) called off the entire round, which pushed all games out by a week, so that's how it ended up being the Grand Final in October that year. Since finding this out, I've changed the journalling on the page that I uploaded for my shutterfly printed book.

Well that's it from me, I'm heading off to the land of nod ... with of course the fan blowing!!

An unexpected sight

Well I'm on an RDO today, what a lovely way to end the week. I've had a great week. Do you ever get to the end of it feeling really fulfilled? I do enjoy my days now that I'm back in HR, I feel useful and a help to the people I service.

So I decide today I may go over to my nearest Safeways, a good 35 minutes drive away and do a nice big grocery shop. So I set off down the street to the corner and I'm thinking ... huh? that rock there just moved. I pulled up at the corner and there it went again. It moved again in the middle of the intersection. So I got out of my car and lo and behold there was a turtle hightailing it across the road ... or at least as fast as hightailing it goes for a turtle.

So of course I call Mike because I don't know how to handle a turtle and he was still in the front yard and could see I had stopped. The turtle looked just as surprised to see both of us. Mike ended up doing a little door knock of the street and found where Tommy Turtle had escaped from so all was well.

But that made me laugh at all the strange little critters that we've encountered since I've moved to the country. Now by no means I'm on a country property, we live in the town on a 1/4 acre block. But we have had a few visitors from time to time.

Like the day I was in the kitchen and a fuzzy little yellow duckling walked right in through the back door and decided to survey what was going on. Oh and the time when someone's ferret had escaped and had me screaming all over the backyard, ick. I wasn't going anywhere near it and Molly was barking up a storm at it. And then there was the time the big big lizard showed up and decided to sun itself on the front lawn once. And now a turtle walking down the middle of the street and into the intersection. You just never know what to expect in the country.

What a segue into the layout I'm about to show you, again for the family album. You really do never know what to expect and when your luck will change. Dad was always forever the optimist and always got his lotto ticket of a Saturday night and always a couple a scratchie tickets. There used to be small Channel 7 timeslot called "Scratch 'n Spin" with Debbie Phin where they would draw out some unlucky scratch cards and that person was invited to come into Channel 7 for a second chance spin at the wheel. It was amazing but true but dad's card got pulled out.

I remember we went into Channel 7 and John Deeks showed us around and met a few of the celebrities there, then dad was on telly spinning the wheel and all of a sudden the jackpot was spun up. It was crazy. We have a video from Channel 7 of the footage that went to air, it's terrific to look back on and remember. This was the official photograph taken by the lotto organisation for their record books, and I really love this picture of our family.

Credits here.

Biker Chick

I love this page I've just made of mum. Yes, again for the family album. I'm really digging out some gems of pictures. My grandpa passed away in June of 1997 and four months later mum was facing her first birthday without her dad in her life. She had really been struggling with grief and working her way through that.

I wanted to put a smile on her face for her birthday and invited her "Wednesday morning ladies" to afternoon tea. She has a group of ladies in the street that they all meet every Wednesday morning for tea and scones, it's been a long long standing tradition and still remains today. So I invited them over to mum's for afternoon tea which I put on for all of them.

We were all in on a little secret though, ah ha!

I had arranged and we were all in on it, unbeknowns to mum, that during the afternoon a Harley biker dude would arrive to take her on an hour's joy ride around Geelong. Now I thought surely THAT would put a smile on her face and lift her spirits.

So we were enjoying our afternoon tea and nibblies and VROOOOM VROOOOOM the biker pulls into the driveway. We all mask a look of surprise and mum sits up and looks out the window in shock, still not registering, thinking that a biker had inadvertently come to our house and was revving his motor in the driveway. VROOOOM VROOOOOM he was revving really loudly and we dragged her out onto the front porch and all yelled out "SURPRISE". Mum had a look of horror and point blank refused to get on it. No way no how was she getting on that bike. In the end we grabbed her coat and with the persuading of her friends (nothing like wanting to save face in front of the girls huh?) dad bodily lifted her up and plonked her on the bike. hahahahaha She was too short to get on it herself.

Well we just all sat and talked while she went revving off down the street on her joy ride. An hour later the VROOOOM VROOOOOOMing bike pulls in and mum had a look of elation on her face. She got off that bike (well, okay got lifted up and off the bike) and she was like Rocky. Give her a stack of stairs to run up. She could take on the world.

Score 1 for my great birthday idea.

Credits here.

Sharon's new Stormy Skies paper was perfect for this page. Go check them out at twolittlepixels.

And as for my great idea about the Friday Night Knitting Club book, Bells tells me it's already been done and forwarded on to knitters everywhere to read. So much for great ideas.

Oh and an update from the V.E.T. (see, I'm still whispering it) visit yesterday. I omitted to tell you I did get another little rap over the knuckles from him about Molly's weight. I kept telling him that she was a mix, obviously lab but with something quite hefty. I saw the look he gave me, silently saying "yes but she's not mixed with a hippo is she?". Okay so he didn't say that out loud but I heard him say it subliminily.

So here I admit, she weighed in at 42 kilograms. That's 92 and a half pounds my overseas friends. Yes that's big. But she's active and happy and healthy. So is it a bad thing? I know as she is aging it is, so we're on a health kick from today. I sat down and gave her a good talking to and she's with me on it, LOL. She has to be right? Can't exactly go to the cupboard herself and grab food.

Shall let you know of our future progress in the weight loss department.

Round up for the week

Eeeek! Nearly another week has gone by. What is happening to my mid-week posts, they seem to have gone by the wayside.

So a round up for the week. Tuesday's train trip to Melbourne wasn't as bad as first thought when the workshop wound up about lunchtime. I was able to change my train ticket for the 1.20pm train. I did toss up there for a while - 1.20 train or 6.30pm train???? hmmmm what to do. Even 6 hours of shopping, lugging my coat and books was a bit too much so I changed the ticket. I still had a quick hour to wander through DFO. For non-Aussies, DFO is Direct Factory Outlets. There's one right at the train station in Melbourne. It is all the big brand shops at discounted prices. So I picked up a couple of gifts for upcoming birthdays so all was good.

And alas there was no knitting for the train, but I did read a book about knitting so all was not lost. "The Friday Night Knitting Club" by Kate Jacobs. Now I don't seem to have the patience to just sit and read lately, not full on novels. I do love my talking books in the car however. But I was in a bookshop recently and saw this book and it appealed (because of the knitting aspect). I'm enjoying it immensely.

"The Friday Night Knitting Club gathers every week to knit and chat over their
stories of love, life, and everything in between. When the unthinkable happens,
they realize theyve created not just a knitting club, but a sisterhood."

Bells, if you're reading this, I'll be sending it on to you when finished. You'll like it. Maybe it could be a knitting "pay it forward" type book. Bells could read it then pass it on to another knitting friend, and another and another. That would be quite cool I think.

So today was the annual V.E.T. visit (shhh ... we still don't say that word out loud in this house). We have the best vet. Yes there is one round the corner from where we live, but we'd prefer to drive 40 minutes to the one in the next town. They're so personal and I guess not just used to dealing with cows and sheep. Molly turns into she-devil though when the thermometer comes out. And let's face it, I think you would too if you were getting a thermometer up your hind quarters!! But she was a really good girl today, very proud.

Now onto digi scrapping. Creashens has done it again with an absolutely amazingly beautiful kit called "bye bye, birdie" which I've used to create yet another page for the family album. Another favourite photograph of mine, of my grandparents. Photographs do have a way of transporting you back to another time and place. I really miss my grandparents.

Click on the kit to take you to the shoppe. You will not be disappointed. It's jam packed with papers and elements all with a beautiful feel that Shen does so well.

Our trip and a half

Well I must admit I was going to update you with the run down on our trip to Melbourne from Saturday but Sunday was a wash out, I couldn't put two coherent words together. Well maybe I exaggerate a wee bit but heck I was tired.

We started off nice and early and it was a lovely day. We were driving to Geelong, pick up my father-in-law then I'd take over the driving and head to Melbourne, through all the traffic to way over the other side. Mike doesn't "do" Melbourne driving you see. But I must admit he was a very good navigator so I didn't mind.

So I thought I'd show you a few pictures on the way. Here's a picture about 15 minutes up the road from where we live. This is the type of land around our little town.

Oh and here's another, note that we're in the middle of nowhere with only sheep in the paddocks for company giving a baaaaaa every now and then. Although you can't see any sheep here, there were some around.

Oh! You want more I hear you say????? Perhaps I should now show you the view from where I was standing looking in the other direction. Are you ready?

Hmmm yes, a flat tyre not 15 mins up the road. Thank heavens for muscles in the car. Because I will stand by this - it's all very well to know how to change a tyre but the reason women don't do it (I generalise here I know) is because the darn nuts are on so flipping tight that even if we do know how to change a tyre, we can't get the stupid thing off anyway. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

So we ended up making it to see step-son no. 1 about 4 and a half hours after we set out. It was a big day. We were so impressed with the life he has put together for himself. A small town boy making it good in the city. He's doing a boilermaker apprenticeship and took much pride is showing us where he was working. It's a very big company. All around his neighbourhood. His new "digs". He's not the little boy he used to be, he's a man now.

So, another page here for the family album. My beloved grandfather who I absolutely adored and I know the feeling was mutual. I loved him with all my heart and was devastated 10 year ago when he passed away after a mighty battle with pancreatic cancer. We really were partners in crime, ha! And it makes me smile at how similar we are in a lot of respects. This is my very favourite photograph of the two of us, doesn't he have remarkably blue eyes, I've done nothing to this picture at all except scan it. Whenever he had bouts in hospital he would always take this framed picture with him and put it on his hospital bedside table. I was with him when he passed away and whilst it was a relief and blessing for him, it was the first time I had witnessed death and it was hard, no matter what age you are. I'm afraid I wasn't very grown up the night he passed away.

But enough about that, I want to share my grandpa with you.

Credits here.

And with that I must be off to bed, I have a huge day tomorrow having to take the early train up to Melbourne for a workshop, 5.45am eeeek, and then back on the late train getting home about 9.30pm. It will be a long day. I do believe there may be a spot of knitting in my future tomorrow!

This just will not do

The whole work week has passed and I have not done a blog post. What is the world coming to? When work has gotten in the way of my posting. Heck. It's been a big week and we have step son no. 1 here at the moment. The "boys" are in the loungeroom watching the Bourne something or other, not sure what one they're watching. I'm busy still scanning photos, need to sneak them back to mum's tomorrow so she doesn't know I've had them. ROFL. She's going to be so surprised at this album when it's finally done.

We are heading to the other side of Melbourne tomorrow, it's going to be a long trip but we want to see where SS no. 1 is living now, he wants to show us his work, the things he sees and does every day, just to share a part of his new "melbourne" life with us. So there and back in a day, it's going to be a looooooooooong day.

So I think this better be a double banger posting tonight, so I'll share two pages. The first is one for the family album, naturally! My mum's next door neighbour and best friend forever from when she was a young girl is still in her life today. Pam is just the ants pants and the bees knees all rolled into one. She's a "second mum" to me, always has been, always will be, and we loved spending lots of weekends with them. Her three boys were younger than me, but they would tease me mercilessly whenever I visited, I loved them all. Tragic circumstances took the middle son a couple of years ago, parents are not meant to outlive their children are they?

So although this page is not astounding in itself, it's a happy memory of one of those wonderful days we spent with our second family.

Credits here.

And the second page tonight is just one of the "just because" pages. Sharon has a lovely quick page album available in the store right now. So so easy, dress them up, leave them au naturel, they really show off your photos. Turn them round, upside down, back to front, for completely different looks.

A page of my two beautiful step-daughters.

Credits here.

Click on the pic below to take you to the shoppe.

Rainy day

In more ways than one. I drove home today in the rain just about the whole way home. But what a sight, you couldn't help but be cheered even with the grey skies and the rain, seeing all the bright yellow canola fields on the way home, big blankets of golden yellow stretching out in the fields as I drove. What a sight. If it weren't for the rain you were going to get a picture. Next time!

Then I got home and no sooner got in the door than the hail started. And this after a beautifully sunny day on Sunday. It truly was four seasons this weekend.

Mum's birthday and anniversary went by just as she wanted it. She said she shed a few tears in the morning, but by the time I got there my brother, his wife and her two children were there, and trust me, those boys are enough to put smiles on anyone's faces. They truly are both adorable. The littlest shares mum's birthday too. Then one of our old (I say old as in a long time ago, not old as in old) neighbours popped in. She's long since moved but mum and her have kept in contact so it was lovely for me to be able to see her too.

So then it was just the two of us, I made some dinner, we lit dad's special candle and we ate. No birthday cake as she requested, but I had made dessert, and a birthday isn't a birthday without being able to blow out the candle and make a wish so I popped a candle in her dessert, sang her happy birthday and she blew and made her wish. I know what she would have wished for and I do so wish it could come true.

It was just a night of television watching, and being together. It was nice.

So I'll share a more up to date page for the family album. No particular story, I don't even know the year, just a picture which I couldn't let slip by, my brother will not be impressed I'm sure, so it's between us (and the rest of the whole wide internet world) okay? haha

Credits here.

Lovely afternoon

Well mid-week this weekend was planned to be something totally different. Mike was going to go camping and prospecting and I was having the house to myself till I headed to Geelong on Sunday. Then my father-in-law rang and asked whether it was okay for him to come down. Of course it was! I'm just so glad he's made a move like that and instead of us asking him down he's taken it into his head to decide. Big steps forward. So because it was a big step for him, Mike cancelled the camping and we had a lovely afternoon.

Egg and bacon pie and salad for lunch followed by apple cake for dessert. Yum! FIL did tell me he only really was coming for my cooking! ha. He'll win me over every time if he comes out with statements like that. Step son no. 1 came down too so it was a boys afternoon. Spent in front of the television. Watching the motor bike racing. Okay well not my cup of tea, but it was lovely seeing the three of them enjoy the sport and each other's company.

Tomorrow ...

Tomorrow is a huge day. It's mum's birthday. Her first since dad passed away. The only thing about tomorrow is it's also her wedding anniversary. She got married on her birthday 45 years ago. I already know she's going to have a difficult day tomorrow. She's told me she doesn't want a cake. She doesn't want to go out. She doesn't want it to be all happy happy joy joy. That's okay if that's how she feels, but she's not going to be alone. I've booked an RDO on Monday and I'm staying down there with her Sunday night. I told her heck we can play cards or watch telly Sunday night, I'll just make dinner, nothing special, if that's what she wants, but she's not going to be alone. She said okay.

Was I being pushy? Probably. But it felt right to push when I did. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I worry because it will be signs of things to come. Some big days coming up. Dad's birthday in November. And then Christmas, the first anniversary of his death. It's going to be a tough couple of months.

I did another page for the family album. Lots of journalling. But there was a story to be told. Mike didn't think it should go in the album, but our family story has to be about the good things and the bad, right? And this one does have a happy ending really. I don't think I've ever mentioned it here on this blog, but mum is a cancer survivor.

Credits here.

In case you want to read it and it's not clear enough or big enough for you, the journalling is as follows:-

Hope is what we needed when in 1993 you had pains in your side which seemed to spring up overnight and got worse. What was initially thought of as kidney stones saw you referred to a specialist. With trepidation and fear in your heart you did the tests, had the dye treatment and the ultrasound and our worst fears were realised when they said the words you just never want to hear. "You have cancer of the kidney". The specialist didn't waste any time and within three days you were in hospital and your diseased kidney was removed along with a few ribs. The doctors were sure they had it all but you always had that fear in the back of your mind. Five years passed and they gave you the all clear. You were okay. You would learn to live with one kidney, you knew your limitations. Life went on. Until disaster struck again and in 2002 after suffering through what seemed to be the flu after a very stressful time trying to find a nursing home for grandma after she had fractured her hip, you went into kidney failure. We were so scared that this was it. We had never seen you look so sick. Your one remaining good kidney had shut down. You felt so sick that I remember you saying one night in hospital you didn't care if you lived or died. You were put on dialysis until your blood count went back to acceptable levels. Such a terrifying time for all of us and most especially you. Now you know to take care of yourself and you watch for even the smallest signs that things are not as they should be.

You are a fighter. You are strong. You are a survivor.

Some days you might not even realise it but you are the strongest woman I’ve ever known.

Enough to put you off chocolate

Almost.

I was sitting here last night having a bit of a scrap and a cup of tea. Mike comes in with a bag of chocolate honeycomb he'd found in the cupboard, something I'd bought a month or so ago and forgotten about it. He offers me one and went off to watch telly obviously to scoff the rest!

So because I didn't want sticky fingers (that's my excuse anyway) I put the whole bit in my mouth at once and munched down. Wow. It was the nicest honeycomb I'd tasted and it had such a texture that it all kind of crumbled as I ate it. Wonderful! Not too hard. Just perfect.

Just as I'd swallowed Mike comes racing up the passageway ... "DON'T EAT THE HONEYCOMB!!!!!!!!!"

He'd taken one bite and felt something run up his arm and the bag at the bottom had ants all through it, somehow had gotten in through a hole in the bottom of the bag. But that's not the worst of it. When he bit into a piece of honeycomb it had ants INSIDE it! Oh cack . gag . ewwww.

Talk about texture huh? Protein thrown in to boot. I rinsed my mouth out with water all the while thinking I bet I didn't just eat ants, but ant poo too! Amazing where an over-active mind will go in times of distress.

Yes, definitely enough to put me off chocolate honeycomb at least for a while.

Thought I'd share a page I did here

Credits here.

Features a family friend, nicknamed "Jungle". Gee, I wonder why he got called that! Jungle and Mrs. Jungle (my memory escapes me for the moment) were dear friends of my grandparents. He played bass drum in the Southern Command Army Band and we would always make a bee line for him if he were in town.

Now on the knitting front, check out that jumper, one of my very favourites from my childhood. See, the variegated wool was big way back when too. I was a bit of a colour co-ordinated disaster it looks there. And I can't remember if it were mum or grandma who knitted the jumper, but I'm thinking it was my grandma. Mum was a very slow knitter and unfortunately often by the time she'd finished a jumper, we'd already grown out of it. She was a frogging specialist!

I've signed up to take part in Southern Summer of Socks again. Funny how over winter my sock knitting kind of went by the wayside. Now I'm going great guns finishing this pair right now. Photos soon, I promise!

Now a pot of tea is in my very near future so off to save and boil the kettle.