4 day week

I have Friday off work so the thought of a four day week ahead of me (particularly with one day over) is very very appealing. Amazing how one day can make a difference. I have a lot of jobs planned though, ask me on Sunday, I bet I won't have done half of them!

Nothing much to report. It's cold out. The wind is getting up. I can hear something blowing around outside but to be honest, the thought of going out and checking doesn't sound like the grandest of plans. I think it's the tree out the front scraping on the fence. I might send big bad Mike out to check it out. The dogs aren't worried about it, and the best part of having these two are the fact that we hear it if anyone is walking up the driveway, or parking out the front to come in. So I do think it must be the tree.

I can hardly believe that the year is half over, didn't we just put new calendars up? I announced to all and sundry, or well, to whoever would listen to me ha! at work the other day that it was six months till Christmas. I couldn't tell you how many groans I got. Where was I going with this? Ahhh, the sales. The stocktake sales. How come everyone is getting great bargains and I'm not? I seriously need to do more shopping, that I know. But this year I just can't seem to dig out the bargains. Very disconcerting, because this is where I begin in earnest for Christmas shopping.

Anyone have any great online shops, apart from my favourite Peters of Kensington which I frequent already? Lay them on me.

Creashens released some fabulous papers a little bit ago entitled Lifelines which took me way way out of my comfort zone. The papers were incredibly interesting, already titled and kind of led you on a bit of a journey. So I thought I would do a page, not from my perspective, but from Mike's to his youngest son. This will go in his album that I will be giving him one day. So I sat down with Mike and asked him to list all the attributes that he loved about Mr. T. Love how it turned out.

Credits here.

Well with that I'm off to bed shortly, I'm absolutely zonked. Friday can not come quick enough!

Saturday night

I am exhausted! I've been down to Jan Juc today to have a girls day with my darling friends from my old job down in Geelong. I love that 5+ years on after marrying and transferring, that they still include me in their fun times. We sat and talked and ate and beaded. Yes beaded! Now I'm not going to say I'll get completely into this craft, but I did make some stitch marker bead pretties and they were quite easy.

I also had some success. Mum sent me some Collinette Jitterbug a few weeks ago now with the request I knit some socks for her best friend. She thought she had bought blue and white variegated yarn (her friend being a Geelong Supporter) but both her and the sales lady must have been colour blind as the colourway was Zebra !! Errrr yep, it was the same black and white yarn I had made mum's mother's day socks with.

Now as much as I liked that yarn, I've seen how it turned out and I'd rather not make another pair in the same colour, so without a sales docket I went in, explained the situation and asked whether I could do a straight swap which she very kindly said I could. So now I have some lovely rich multi coloured but mainly brown beautiful yarn to knit with. How lovely.

I have a photograph here for the Through the Lens class to take a photograph from a different angle. Now I guess nothing is really appealing about a dog's butt! ha. But Lucky stands in the front yard and does a bit of perimeter duty at the fence and he almost gets a stance like a dog twice his size and all very alert. So glad how this turned out.

Credits here.

Well considering I've had quite the drive down and back today, and on the return trip struggled driving through fog, plus the big day down there it's off to bed with me. Bit of a party girl huh? Saturday night and early to bed.

Photography

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I love my camera. I loved my old camera, heck I loved the old old camera before that, but I loooooooove my new camera. But ... still ... as good as a camera can be, you still have to have someone drive it, right?

I am in love with the photographs I've been taking for the Through the Lens course. And well who knows, they might not be perfect in composition or execution, but they are bringing a smile from ear to ear on my face and that's what's important right? That feeling.

Now Molly is a willing subject at the best of times. I get the camera out, aim, she poses, the camera clicks and she moves off. She is the biggest poser you've ever known. For goodness sakes, she'll even smile at the camera on cue. Oh and wave a bit of cheese in front of her and she's anybodys!! ha. This is the photograph I presented for the "fill the frame" assignment. This is going in a frame on our wall, just as the photograph of Bo is that I posted yesterday.

How can you not look at this face and just grin? huh?

Now, let's see, where are we with Project 365. Well the photos keep progressing every day, but I'm way behind in putting them on a page. I do so wish now I just used a template, plonk the pics in, do my journalling, voila, finished. But ooooooh no! I had to do it the hard way, think up something different for the page every darn one. Next year I'll do it different.

Wait ... hold the phone! Did I say next year? I don't think Mike would survive another year of me with the camera being a permanent fixture round my neck. I saw the rolled eyes in the bathroom mirror last night, he was wanting me to give him a bit of a hair cut and I grabbed the camera. No way, no how would he let me get a photo of his bare-chested self, so I took a photo of the electric razor on the vanity instead. That's when I saw the rolled eyes.

So, for your viewing pleasure! te he

Credits here.

Weekend bliss !

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. I have houseworked up a storm today (is "houseworked" such a word?) Well past tense anyway, I don't intend to do anything else. And I'm steadfastly ignoring the basket of ironing. Well ... vacc'ing, sweeping, dusting, washing, is enough for one day I reckon.

There will be a roast lamb going in the oven shortly for dinner tonight. Is there any better end to a weekend than a yummy roast? I don't do one every Sunday night, but there is a bit of pattern happening of late.

Now who doesn't love a wedding? It was such fun planning ours, I was definitely in the category of make a decision and move on. No dilly dallying about if I couldn't get a specific shade of cream ribbon or white rose or whatever. I loved everything about our wedding except only one regret and that was that we didn't choose to get our photos digitally. We have gorgeous wedding photos but they are photographs and negatives. And whilst I would dearly love to scrap my photos, I don't somehow think scans come out as good. But we still have our photos in their proof album, never got around to putting them in a real wedding album, so maybe I will try scanning more and see how they come out.

Creashens has an amazing wedding kit out at the moment called "Yours". It's gorgeous, the colours will simply allow your photographs to shine. And although this photo is a scan, I love how the page turned out. Hmmmm, there may be some more wedding pages on the horizon. Be prepared.

Love this quote, we had it on our invitations. And these fonts were used throughout our wedding stationery also, so this whole page has become very special.

Credits here.

Even more of a surprise this morning was I found out this page had been featured on Gallery Standouts. Very humbled to be amongst the beautiful pages that were featured. Of course Mike thinks it's because of his kilt why the page turned out so lovely! ((insert rolled eyes here)) haha.

As mentioned in a previous post I've been taking the "Through the Lens" class with Katrina Kennedy. I am pretty jazzed about finding buttons I didn't know anything about on my camera and we're up to exposure and metering at the moment. Now to be honest I'm still a bit lost on the whole exposure thing, it's slowly sinking in, but one thing that's happening I've noticed is that I'm thinking before taking photographs right now, actually thinking of the story I want to tell before snapping.

And this morning I took this little beauty. I am absolutely over the moon rapt with this photograph. Bo was sitting by the back glass door sunning herself, I snuck around the side of the coffee table, got down low and aimed. As I called her she looked up a wee bit hoity toity (as is her nature) because I dared to interrupt her important sun baking and wham! What a photograph. I absolutely love this.

As for the whole exposure thing, whatever I did it worked, because honestly this was about, hmmm 9am this morning, the blinds were open, and in the background I would have thought you would have seen chair and table legs and a kitchen bench. But nothing. Just her gorgeous sunlit face and black background. I LOVE IT !!!

Honestly, no one is safe right now. I'm a woman possessed. Just call me Madam Papparazzi! te he.

Aarrrrggghhh

My one hundred dollar boots, yes that's $100 people, actually they were probably a wee bit dearer than that, have lovely little chewy bite marks along the tongue where the zipper is. All courtesy of chew boy. ARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!! He's like a kid, he really is, when he's quiet you have to go looking because he'll be up to something. So I ask why aren't Mike's stinky old workboots sitting by the fireplace up for chewing, HUH? Why my beautiful black soft leather ankle boots? ~~sob~~

I have been lucky enough to play with some pictures from my bestie of her darling children. Is there anything more contagious to see than pictures of giggling children? I dare you to tell me you're not smiling just looking at these bright faces. I can almost hear them giggling from here.

Using Sharon's new Serenity kit, I guess these photos are anything but serene, but I sure did like the colours in the kit.

Credits here.

Practice makes perfect

I'm doing the fabulous Through the Lens class with Katrina Kennedy and already I'm finding buttons on my camera that I didn't know I had. Sure, I knew about the running man at the top, but if I decided not to use the running man, I didn't know I had a continuous focus button and another one that let me take picture after picture after picture. Gosh I love that kerplunk sound of the camera clicking. It's become my favourite sound.

So this weekend I was practicing the whole continuous focussing bit. With the help of a very willing subject, a squeaky toy and Mike, we had mixed success with Lucky, after the first shot of doing it he decided to get himself distracted. Today we were in hysterics because after trying a few times, Bo decided to venture round the front to see what was going on and Lucky heard the tinkling of her bell. I don't think any amount of continuous focussing was going to capture these two!! I had to do a page of the out takes.

Credits here.

Don't worry, no critters were harmed in the making of this page! te he

Mind you, this is what you were meant to see .. I did catch a pic of him being a little champion!! And it was in focus in mid-air. Yes! This is what Katrina is teaching me. YAY, it worked!

Time for a pot of tea, a snuggle down by the fire, and then bed I do believe. Too cold to do anything much else!

And ...

And we interrupt this program to bring you ...

Nothing like not having a care in the world, fast asleep.

Now back to your regular scheduled viewing. LOL

All quiet on the western front

The menagerie are all asleep, Lucky is curled up on the foot of the bed, Molly is flat out at my feet and Bo is in her basket. I just put the rubbish bins out and it's bitter out there. I firmly believe that putting the rubbish bins out is a man's job (reverse sexism perhaps?), but with Mike at his meeting and it being so cold I know he'll have a big smile on his face when he pulls in and he sees the bins are out.

Queens Birthday has come and gone, lovely to have a day off for HRH, but I really couldn't care two hoots. An excuse for a sleep in for me. Mike had to go to a meeting tonight and take a plate. Now yes we are in 2009 but this group actually sing God Save the Queen when they have their meeting. Not even our anthem any more. (for the astute reading this, you may guess which group he is with). So he has to take a plate and being a rebel and a bit tongue in cheek he asked me to make a cake with "Happy Birthday Betty" piped on it. I talked him out of that, out of respect for the older gents who might happen to be royalists at the meeting. So we came up with "Happy Birthday QE2". Gosh I hope they see the funny side of it.

Catching up with my 365 pages, I thought the girls' weekend away deserved a double page spread all on its own.

Credits here.

I dare you

I dare you to look at this page and not get a certain song stuck in your head. Go on, have a look, you know you want to! ha

I took this photo of Molly and Lucky oh about a month after we got Lucky. Actually I should have dated it, must fix that. And every time I look at the photo I start singing, you know ... THAT song. And doing this page, it's been stuck in my head all day. Actually it rolled around in my head and sprang out my mouth because I've been singing it with gusto. The menagerie thought I was quite crazy.

Credits here.

Using the fabulous new Squeeze kit by creashens, the ribbons alone are the yummiest things ever.

That's it from me for the weekend. I pottered today, it was lovely. I scrapped. I made a pav for Mike which he has made himself quite sick over, it's his favourite but he sadly doesn't have the powers of stopping when eating pav. So I'm going to curl up on the couch, have a hot chocolate and then head off to bed. Nighty night.

I've got the washing day blues

Yeah yeah,
I've got the washing day bluuuuuuues,
Yeah yeah,
It's rainin' outside,
It's leakin' inside,
I've got the washing day blues, oh yeah.

So are you with me on this? Did some washing this morning and when I came back to pop it in the dryer I stepped in a puddle of water. Ack! Only on one side the washer though. Must admit I've had a good run, 16 years this has lasted me. What do they say now? White goods have a life span of 5 years or something like that.

Now rewind a few weeks, it leaked back then too, but it was something to do with the washers or something or other at the hose connection and Mike was able to fix that. But here it is leaking again, but not from the connections this time.

So Mike says the most inane thing he's ever said in his life this afternoon. Can you do a practice wash? WHAT? I don't like laundry at the best of times and he wants me to practice?!? Ho hum. So there's another load on and no leak this time. I don't get it.

I can still have the washing day blues, just because I'm washing.

So I did promise a photograph of the finished quilt. Get ready to put your sunglasses on. This quilt is completely tailor made for a funky-18-year-old-pink-loving-party-girl.

And how cute is this backing material I got ...

On the digi front, Joana is guesting at twolittlepixels at the moment and not having been familiar with her pretties before, I'm in seventh heaven at the moment. She's designed an exclusive for 2LP called Slightly Girly, go check it out. Here's a preview.


Off to go check dinner, we're having roast pork tonight and it smells absolutely delish! So I plan a night of a good roast dinner, a wee bit of knitting and a whole lot of kicking back and doing nothing!

Fly by posting

Where has the week gone? Okay this is quick because I ... must ... go ... to ... sleep !

Miss T's 18th has been and gone and she loved the quilt. I promise pictures will be forthcoming. I'm off tomorrow for work for an overnighter. YAY! So playing a bit of catch up here.

Credits here.

Over and out.