When worlds collide

You will never guess what Mike is doing right now? Learning Photoshop!!! Eeeek. He is redesigning his webpage for his business through it. I've created a monster, but it's fun that he's actually asking me things. He's going great I must admit.

Here's a quickie page of that lovely Sunday spent when my brother and new family came down to visit. The youngest of my new American nephews pictured here. I see many scrap pages in the future with Mr. Matt the cutiepie here. He's so funny, loves his picture being taken (wonder how long that will last) but every time I snap he has to see the play back in the display window on the camera.

Credits here.

Life after MC

Yes I am bemoaning Life After Master Chef to be precise. Television just lacks a certain something now. No more rushing home from work and the supermarket to fix dinner in time for 7pm. No more being on tenterhooks to see if they will plate up in time. And no more Mike giving me a Matt Preston impersonation and critiquing my cooking, although he knows what is good for him and never gives me a bad critique, otherwise it will be to the kitchen with him, ha.

My finger is almost healed. It's unbelievably still tender though and the skin is growing back, but it's not hard and horrible any more.

So another weekend has been and gone. I framed some photos tonight and am about to make up a family photo wall. I want to get all similar frames and now that I have this idea in my head I bought up all the frames in the store locally here and now have to wait for their next stock to be supplied. Trust me to get an idea and want to do it here now full stop.

A number of new designers have joined the ranks of twolittlepixels, go check them out. Lots of amazing talent. One such designer is Ashley Kennedy and I was fortunate to use her Breakthrough kit. To be honest I find yellow a hard colour to scrap with but something really drew me to this beautiful grey/yellow colour combination which I found so pretty.

Love this pic I took of Miss B nearing the end of her deb ball. All the lovely young girls are so poised and elegant during the night whilst being presented, but roll on the dance afterwards. I think Miss B reminds me of Cyndi Lauper in this shot. Or am I seeing things that just aren't there? Probably the fake eyelashes do it !

Credits here.

Back to work tomorrow so bed for me tonight.

I have been absent

For more than a few days but I do have a good reason. I have a very very sore finger. Apparently (I say apparently because I can't remember doing it for sure) I burnt the top of my finger, I think it started as a steam burn after I lifted the lid on the microwave container when steaming the veggies. Tip and pad of my middle finger on my right hand.

Fabulous place, NOT. Do you know how many things you use this finger for. Okay, apart from flipping the bird which I do not do. But my goodness typing is horrible. I touch type so I can't get around using that finger. How many times does the letter i or a comma need to be in a passage of text. Urrrgh. Not to mention the scroll button on my mouse. That's that finger too. Then there's the calculator. I use it a lot at work and lo and behold I found out I use that finger on the calculator too. Try it. Just grab the calc and start making an addition, what finger do you tend to use? I bet it's the middle finger of the right hand, if you're right handed that is. So now I need to use Mr. Pointer and I keep pressing the wrong darn keys on the calc.

So the burning question is when is this finger going to heal? I fear my life as a hand model are well and truly over!

Enough about my finger. How about Masterchef. Fabulous finish. I actually didn't do myself too many favours when I ventured onto the Masterchef site on Saturday, just for a look see, and read some of the forum. OMG, people were out for blood that Julie got into the finals. I was absolutely horrified by the venom in some of the people's posts. I so wish I didn't read any of it. But it didn't cloud my enjoyment on Sunday night. I was in Masterchef heaven. Heck, I even made a celebratory pav for us to enjoy whilst watching it. And this week tv seems just so lame. Roll on series 2 and Julie's cook book. I'll be in line wanting to buy it for sure.

Now I popped back a few weeks and seems I've skipped a fortnight in the project pages to show off, so I'll pop it here then the latest one I've done. I'm still playing catch up, but I'll get there. I can't believe the year is more than half over and I'm still doing the project. It will be a real gift to us to be able to look back on the year, good bad and otherwise.

And now for the latest pages:

Being completely obsessive I have to finish the month on a double page, can't possibly start July on the same page as June, ha.

Credits here.

Now having done all that, me and my finger are going back to the loungeroom and having a nice cup of tea. Night night!

Nooooooooooooooo!!!

That was the anguished text message I sent to my friend Lyn last night when Justine was eliminated from Masterchef. A firm favourite for us here. Both the show and Justine. I won't lie, I shed a few tears last night when even the judges were tearing up. Gosh I love Matt Preston. I love to see what he's going to be wearing next. Mike sheepishly told me he wore a cravat in his younger days when he would go clubbing. HUH? Errr right Mike, how times have changed.

Anyway back to Masterchef, what a great verdict tonight. Apart from Justine, Julie was my favourite. I love the way she cooks like how I want to be able to cook. Homestyle but with a flair that only she can. She totally rocks. Although she was so lucky tonight to scrape through to the finals. Roll on Sunday.

GO JULIE, GO JULIE, GO JULIE !!!

Oh and out of the three tonight I would totally buy Julie's book, but not the black squid stuff of Poh or the pigs trotters of Chris (eeek!), not my kind of cooking, let alone eating, urrgh.

Last week Sharon of [ksharonkdesigns] put out these fabulous abc cards. What could be more easy and absolutely perfect as a gift for friends with toddlers. I am totally going to make a set. Print them, laminate them for good measure, even better if you can put pictures of the child on the cards - little johnny with a B for ball, pretty sally in her p for party dress, that kind of thing, let the kids be the star of the cards.

Well my furbabies were the stars of my trial cards, dress them up with a ribbon, perhaps stitching a button or two, they are there for the picking!

Project 365 is humming along, still taking pics, just the getting them put on pages, why oh why did I not go with a template. Oh well, I'll get there. Mike thinks I went a wee bit far today with the photo taking. I had a hair appointment after work, cut and colour. And ladies, you know how you look when you have the dye gunk in your hair, right? Well I got the hairdresser to take my pic of me looking my most (in)elegant. hahahahahaha Mike just rolled his eyes.

Tomorrow he is getting his eyes tested, first time in about 20 years. Yes you read right, he hasn't changed his glasses in 20 years, and I am meeting him there to help him pick new frames, I'm that certain he'll need new glasses. He has warned me ... NO ! Do you even need to ask me what the question was, which incidentally I hadn't even asked. Hmmmph.

Busy weekend

Had such a busy weekend, haven't had time to scratch myself !

Friday night Mike and I went to an art show, we go to the opening night every year and it's fabulous. Nibbles and wine included. I had asked Mike whether he was planning to take me out to dinner beforehand. He said we didn't need to. Why so? I asked. He said "but we're getting nibbles at the show". I countered that nibbles does not a meal make. He countered back with "yeah, but if you eat enough of them, it does".

How do you argue with that kind of logic?

It was wonderful, we caught up with our old artist friend who exhibits every year and marvelled at his paintings. People are so darn talented.

Saturday saw my brother and new family head down to see us. Now, my brother's visits are very few and far between to my neck of the woods, because it's sooooooooo far away. Piffle. I will drive to Geelong and back in a day. But oh no, for him it's the other end of the earth to come here. This is the third time in 8 years he's been here. Yes, we're only 2 hours away at most, you can be as outraged as I.

Saturday was also probably the wettest, windiest, most horrid day of the year. Oh great for driving in, NOT. Kids were housebound, but were in their element playing with the menagerie. Brother looked like his throat had been cut. But my sister-in-law immensely enjoyed it, seeing another part of the state. And when cuddles abound with my new nephews, it's wonderful.

Oh and Mike ended up with a little shadow following him round all day. By the way, it's not just plain old Uncle Mike to Matt. It's "Uncle-Mike-My-Buddy" the full title, all or nothing.

And when you're tired out from a long drive, a big lunch and then all that playing together, this is the result. How angelic.

Then a late invitation had us heading out Saturday night for a curry night with friends in town. Which was an unexpected and totally wonderful night. Good friends (the ladies I went to Tassie with) and their husbands and kids, great conversation, lots of laughs.

Sunday we're exhausted. Didn't open my eyes until 9am, now that's unusual for me. Even the menagerie slept until then, even more unusual. They must have been worn out from the boys, ha!

Just showing a page I did recently here with cherpea designs goodies. Many many moons ago I travelled to New Zealand and together with a girlfriend who lives over there, travelled around the North Island. One of these days I'll scrap the photos. But the NZ postcard that Cheryl has in her Traveller kit had me digging out a small photo from those times.

Credits here.

So another week over and a new one about to start. Enjoy the week all.

The Duke

Mike is busy watching John Wayne on telly right now, the Searchers I think it is. He certainly had "something" didn't he? Let's face it, he's not a great looking man, but rugged. His real name was Marion, but Duke sounds so much better. He walked with a swagger, spoke with a drawl. Yep there was certainly something there. How long ago did he die? Kids nowadays may not have even seen a John Wayne movie, that's pretty sad isn't it?

I remember many many MANY years ago on my first visit to America, I sat in a cowboy bar in Jackson Hole Wyoming and decided to do a John Wayne impersonation. Probably not my most shining moment, but I certainly got a laugh from some old timers there.

Anyway I reminisce. It's fun to think back on holiday moments. I sooooo want to go overseas again, somewhere, anywhere. I want to photograph a nice big holiday from start to finish. One day we keep promising we'll get to Scotland. I want to see where Mike grew up, his heritage. One day.

Speaking of one day, one day I will catch up with my 365 project pages. We can only hope. Here's the latest instalment.

Credits here.

Now I'm gonna mosy on into the bedroom and wah ha, I'm gonna put on my jim jams and head on into the bunk. Wah ha. Later cowboys.

When the internet meets real life

It's fun with the internet that you get to "meet" like minded people from all round the world, even better when they are a hop skip and although a wee bit of a jump, but pretty close to you also. People you would never have been likely to meet if not for the world wide web.

I actually have met up with Esther this year for the first time back on New Years Day when her family were holidaying close by. But this day was just for us. We both decided to head to Ballarat kind of mid-way between where we live, which incidentally lived up to its name as being cold and wet, and have lunch and go on a bit of a photowalk. We had a lovely time taking photos of old buildings and visiting the Botanic Gardens and risking life and limb to walk on the dry Lake Wendouree which my husband later told me the spongy texture like walking on a trampoline was all to do with the crust over sludge underneath, eeek, thank heavens we didn't break through the crust, oh dear. Oh and there was a bout of getting lost in Ballarat also as I was following Esther's car and quite frankly after a while thought "heck, I hope I didn't lose her and I'm not following some random car that looks like hers" because I had no idea where we were going. As I found out, neither did Esther, hahahahahha.

Plus learning a bit from Esther was good too, she knows what a lot of the buttons and knobs on the camera do, although yes, we are still both quite fond of the green square! (look on your camera people, you'll know what I'm talking about). It was a fabulous day and we must do it again.


Smile for the camera!


A splash of red on an otherwise dull and dreary wet day.


Wouldn't it have been cool if the lights went on?


The waiters must have wondered what was wrong with the food, as soon as he put our food on the table we both grabbed for our cameras and started shooting! hahaha


Yum! And you know I've never really been game to take photographs of my food in public, so much easier with a partner in crime.


I did say it had been wet didn't I.


Walking out onto the Lake and looking back at the boat houses. Now this wasn't my idea, I was just following. Truly.


It's very sad seeing the lake look like this. I have such memories of it, picnics at the lake, feeding the bread to big black swans.


An amazing statute, Flight from Pompeii, at the Botanic Gardens


Got to love a love bug, especially when they are painted like this, ha.


And flowers, just because they are pretty.

So much fun, thanks Esther, hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did.