I came down to earth with a thud tonight

I have been on an imposed savings plan this past week and a bit. I had a phone call from my bank that one of the overseas vendors I have dealt with over the past 12 months, but she wasn't able to tell me which one, well they had had their system "compromised" and they couldn't assure me that my credit card details were safe. So my bank cancelled my card and I've been patiently awaiting my new one.

Luckily I already had some cash out, but what a pain. I actually had to ask Mike for some money for petrol on the weekend, I hated that! I've always been so self-sufficient, even after we married.

So today my shiny new credit card arrived, I took it out of the envelope, it was so sleek and shiny and I was dancing around with it - yay it had arrived. Until I stopped and looked. Have you noticed the extended end date on credit cards now. I quickly did the calculations. OMG, I am going to be ... 50! by the time this credit card expires, which strangely doesn't feel so far in the future now. Eeeeeek.

Roadside Designs are making these amazing templates to play with, full of lots of goodies you can then take and use on other pages, such value for money. And play I did. A recent visit by my brother and family had me packing up a picnic and we took them to the local lake for lunch. I did have an ulterior motive, wanting to take a nice photo of the four of them together. Method in my madness, ply them with food and then click!

Along with the template, also using this fabulous Flip Flop kit by creashens.

Such a rainy rainy night, it hasn't stopped tonight. But it will be nice going to bed and hearing the rain hit on the roof while we're snug under the doona.

The Great Cooking Debacle

Why is it when Masterchef is on, I feel like I can jump mountains myself, or at least jump a highly placed stack of cooking utensils in a single leap?

A group of friends and I set ourselves a task from the great Stephanie Alexander cook book every so often, one of us picks a recipe from the book and the majority of us try it out and compare. It was my turn. I picked some mumbo-jumbo-sweet-potato-coconut-flavoured-raisin-added-brown-sugared-laidened-pudding. And it was a disaster. It was sweet, OMG it was soooooo sweet that it made our teeth hurt. Mike made a valiant effort and got through 3/4 of his dish, I only got through half and the rest ended up in a soggy mess in the bin.

I followed the recipe to a tee, but I'm so hit or miss with my cooking it's possible I stuffed up. But I'm still not sure how it can purport to be a pudding when there was no flour in it. In any case Mike says this rivals the great sago pudding disaster of '03, where you could probably have tiled a kitchen or render a house with the consistency of that pudding. So this one didn't quite overtake it to first spot, but it rivalled it none the less.

On the scrapping front, [ksharonkdesigns] has some fabulous new simple sets for the photo a day people, and besides which they work well when displaying photographs for pages, whether doing photo a day or not. I had mentioned previously about planting my first garden, so my first efforts fit perfectly with this template.

Credits here.

Weekend is nearly over :-(

I don't like Sunday evenings, it means my lovely weekend is nearly over. Although there is the up side and Masterchef will be on tonight. But still, nearly time to get the work clothes set out again ready for Monday. :-(

The weekend has flown by. Mike went down to Ocean Grove on Saturday to help his sister and family move house. They will soon be building a new home but for the meantime their house has been sold and they were moving temporarily. He came home last night tired with his car limping home, he's been having trouble with the fuel pump? something like that. Oh dear. More money to spend on cars.

I stayed home here, keeping a close eye on the girl. She's letting me touch her paw now, very very gently, so hopefully she's not feeling so poorly with it. Although she's still licking it. So I watched a whole Season back to back of Sex and the City on DVD, while sewing at the kitchen table, and scrapping between episodes. What a lovely Saturday.

And right now I have the most delicious smell throughout the house. A casserole is cooking, chicken, leek, bacon, mushroom and thyme. How wonderful a combination of food. A new recipe, I get so inspired by Masterchef, I'm actually making some of the recipes I tear out of magazines, which is a really bad habit I have.

I just loved this green in cherpea's new In Behind paper pack at twolittlepixels. I think it shows off Lucky who was showing off to the camera when I put his new collar on him. Ha! He's a clever dog, he knows the right moves when the camera comes out.

Credits here.

Okay off to set the table for dinner and get ready for a feast. YUM.

I'm back

I ran away and never came back there for a while. I have been blogless, what can I say. Nothing much to report on. 21 squares of Miss B's quilt have been sewn and I'm really chuffed about the colour combo, I think I went well picking the apple green, it's hip and happening and now but it will last the distance, but not so waaaaay out bright that in a few years time you'll be sick of it and fold it up in the back on the wardrobe not used again.

Very exciting news for [ksharonkdesigns] of twolittlepixels fame. She has appeared at The Daily Digi this month. She has designed especially the beautiful butterfly [breeze] mini kit, and I can finally show a page I had done using it.

I really wanted to ensure I had a photograph of each of the family members with Nelli when she was small, and there's nothing that will bring a lump to my throat more than seeing a big fellow like my brother holding a tiny teeny puppy.

Paper curls by Anna Aspnes of Designer Digitals.


Speaking of dogs, my big girl Molly is feeling poorly at the moment, she's torn one of her nails, actually someone has told me it is her dew claw, I think that's how you spell it. I know nothing about this, but I've been told a lot of dogs have them removed when they are young. She's walking fine, playing, and sprinting to the kitchen when she thinks there's a treat on offer, but she's licking her left paw like there's no tomorrow. We're not sure what to do, obviously a visit to the vet if she doesn't feel better soon. It's obviously tender as when Mike touched her paw yesterday to check why she was licking she snapped at him, then instantly remorseful and licking him to apologise.

Poor darling. I spent a good half of Masterchef tonight sitting on the ground with her laying beside me doing reiki on her tonight, she loves that and soaks it up.

Cup of tea time and then to bed. Mike is off early tomorrow to his sister's to help them move house. I've pleaded off the trip, I am utterly exhausted and looking forward to a weekend of resting and doing nothing much. This week just past has been a huge week at work.

Rain and c-c-cold

It's raining up a storm out there and quite windy right now and this morning was so cold. It made me laugh when on the way to work I was listening to the radio and they were saying in Melbourne it got down to 4 degrees! Oh the horror of it all. I went out this morning and it was -2 outside. Although I'd like to experience snow, I do feel lucky that we don't get the very cold temperatures that our northern hemisphere friends do. I can't imagine having to plan my day around shovelling out the driveway. No ducking down the street to grab some milk. That kind of thing.

Started sewing Miss B's quilt yesterday and quite pleased with it. I'm doing it very plain. Just 8 inch blocks but on both sides. I saw a quilt in the Ezybuy catalogue which was done like this (mass produced, I know) but it looked really nice. I'll get a lovely quilted stitch on top and job's done. Apple green, LOL.

I had mentioned I was playing along at Designer Digitals with the All About Me challenge so here's another page. This was about where we came from, what our childhood was like. It was fun going through some of the old photos, which I'd recently gone through anyway when I did our family album some time back. I've deleted some of the more identifying mentions in this page, like my home address, family surname, etc. so that is where the gaps were.

Time for bed, another huge day at work tomorrow, the end still is not in sight.

Sunday blues

Gosh we've all got the Sunday blues here today.

Mike has nodded off on the couch, he was up early and off to the nursing home here in town, same as he did yesterday. They've put the call out for volunteers to help them, they've had a gastro epidemic in the nursing home with many of their usual volunteers out sick too, so they needed people to be disinfecting the hand rails and surfaces so that the gastro doesn't spread further than it does. We have a top notch nursing home here in town so Mike was happy to help. Funny yesterday, as he was cleaning some railings he accidentally knocked the emergency button. He said that people ran from every which way (thinking he was a resident in distress).

Molly and Lucky are snoozing by the fireplace, it's so cold and damp here today, it hasn't rained, but everything is just soggy.

I did pop down to the plant shop down the street though and have bought a Chinese Lantern. I've wanted one of these for ages, so cross fingers it will take off, a lovely peach coloured one. Anyone have one? Any tips for me?

So okay yet another puppy page, I've made sure I've taken photos of each member of the family holding their sweet little girl. Puppies grow up way too quick, and even though this is going to be a small dog, it won't look so babyish for long. My nephew Matthew has never had a dog before, and to be honest I don't know if he quite knew how to hold one. Nelli is looking a wee bit nervous too!!

Credits here.

To be honest, if I never get to take another photo in my whole life, this would be the one I would be most happy with. I think I've caught the moment and the photo just had to stay big like that.

So plans for the afternoon, a bit of scrapping, a bit of sewing, and making shepherds pie for dinner. Hope your long weekend is enjoyable.

A long - long weekend

Loving that it's a long weekend, plus I have Tuesday off too, four days to try to get over this chesty thing, it will be worth it. I had such high hopes for this weekend too, I was going to pull some weeks from the garden (not going to happen, it's been raining today), I was going to scrap, haven't really done much of that either. I did however put a pot of soup on which is nearly done, pea and ham, yum!

I came home from work yesterday to smell a bakery in the house, Mike had pulled out the bread maker which we haven't used in probably about 5 years, and had made an amazingly good loaf of bread, I'd forgotten just how good home made bread tasted. We were given the breadmaker by his parents for our wedding and the first year we used it all the time. Then gradually less and less until it went back in the cupboard never to see the light of day until yesterday.

YUM! So the remainder of that loaf will be soaking up our soup tonight.

I got an email the other day from the young daughter of one of my friends here in town. The family who has Lucy dog who had the puppies. Of course it's hard not to have favourites and young Keely did have a favourite and apparently cried all night when her favourite went to her "forever home".

So anyway the email went something like this: "Dear Carol. Could you please do a pitcher of Tubby for me. From Keely".

So of course I obliged (once I found out which one Tubby was from the photos I had taken) and this is the pitcher!! helped of course by another fabulous template from Roadside Designs.

Credits here.


Plans for tonight: stay in lovely warm loungeroom with fireplace pumping, cut out material for step-daughter no.2's quilt I'm planning on making for her 18th birthday. Her favourite colour is lime green. Mmmmm, as much as I tried I couldn't find lime green material that I could stomach sewing. So I've chosen a lovely apple green material, mixed with blues and browns. That's close enough surely? The green will be the dominant colour.

Please tell me apple green is close enough to lime green. They're both fruits after all! LOL

Cough cough

Still coughing here, aren't you just thrilled with my coughing updates. I just can't shake it. But after tomorrow a 4 day weekend for me, so I'm hoping to throw it one way or another. Queens Birthday public hol on Monday, all hail Queen Lizzie, I just may make a cake in her honour, and an RDO on Tuesday. After all the late nights at work I really need this mini-break.

Mike is feeling a lot better, he felt quite sore in the chest for a few days, but his appetite is definitely back, in fact he is eating Pringles right now, ha.

Miss Nelli is fitting in nicely at my brother's home, although he is at his wits end with house training. I sent him some good links from the Dog Whisperer earlier, they've obviously been doing it all wrong. I have no idea mind you, I've never had a dog at the puppy stage. They gave up the first night with the crying fairly well straight away. My brother is a bit of a throw the towel in kind of guy I must admit. So Miss Nelli is sleeping on David's bed. I told them to start as they mean to go on. But the minute she's on his bed she snuggles up and goes straight to sleep.

I can't talk mind you, Lucky starts off in his bed but some time during the night, I think he keeps one eye open waiting for us to fall asleep, he jumps up and snuggles down. Never under the blankets though, I couldn't do that. He just loves to curl up in the outline our bodies make under the doona. He's such a people dog.

I recently had the good fortune to play with Sharon's new Vintage papers available at twolittlepixels. What a treat to go through some old photos until I found this one of my grandma when she was a young girl. I can see from the face this is definitely my grandma, but I find it hard to equate this young woman with the petticoat wearing very proper woman that I grew up knowing. But I love that she had this side of her, game enough to get photographed in her bathers on the beach, love the bathing cap too!

Roll on tomorrow, I'm ready to be done with you and then enjoying my 4 day break!

Well ...

I mentioned last post that Mike went camping on the weekend and thought the most he would catch would probably be a worse cold than he already had. I was wrong. He caught a mammoth case of food poisoning, which involved his best mate from here and I hightailing it in the afternoon up to Ararat to go and find him and bring him home, he was so bad he couldn't drive.

Just trying to work out where he was was no mean feat, I had to google map him as he was out bush. But he was able to make his way down to the highway, but when we pulled up he was doubled over, weak, shaking, sweating and could hardly walk.

Seems possibly a bad burger from the night before from a chicken establishment was the offending item. He was okay when he went to bed that night, but on rising and going to put the billy on for a cuppa it hit him, and hit him hard.

Now my husband doesn't often ask for help. He's his own man and whilst he'll be available to anyone and first in line for them should they need him, he doesn't often ask for himself. So for him to get us to drive nearly 3 hour round trip to come and get him was a very big deal for him to ask. And how wonderful that we have friends that when I put the call out to help, his mate would drop everything and drive me to Ararat so that I could drive Mike's car home. Friends like that are pure gold.

He's still not quite right, says he feels like a truck hit him, but has eaten some dinner tonight so that's at least good.

Okay so I'm still on the puppy bandwagon. I spent a lovely morning a few weeks ago just out in the yard with them running all over the place, tripping over their feet, playing and letting my camera fly. And what a shot I got with this little man, one of Nelli's brothers, the biggest of all the puppies, but the biggest sook too. You couldn't pose him any better than this, sheer fluke. There is really something quite magical when you get the perfect puppy shot.

Credits here.

Now come on Lynne, this does melt your heart doesn't it??? LOL You want one, don't you? By the way, thanks for the well wishes but I'm still coughing, yesterday didn't help much!

Excuse my absence

I keep going missing don't I? I have had the week from hell, combined with this chesty thing. The runny nose and sneezing turned into a tickling throaty chesty cough. Oh so attractive. Monday afternoon saw me travel to Bendigo for (what I like to call) a work "love in". LOL A team building workshop with other offices in our Region. It's good to network and I do enjoy these things, but not when I'm not feeling 100 percent. It was a two nighter and I came back Wednesday afternoon. Thursday at work without my cohort in the office and it was a nightmare. I got to the end of the day realising I hadn't had lunch, heck, I hadn't even turned on the radio. Then Friday I had to go to training in Melbourne, so left the house at 5.30am and didn't step back in the back door until 10pm. Urrrgh. I hate that early morning train to Melbourne and the last one back.

So this weekend I'm taking it waaaaay easy. Trevor, Kim and the boys came down and well, Nelli is now theirs. They have taken their little girl home. Oh she is adorable. I must admit though when we brought her back here before they headed home, she cried a lot, most interested in Lucky and Molly looking through the glass door and then promptly took herself off to the crate they had and went to sleep. Trevor said she slept all the way home. She's explored her new home, the boys are absolutely besotted with her, their cat Bowie isn't fussed which is a good thing because Bowie can be a mean old thing, and when Trevor rang before he said she's quite enjoying herself curled up on the couch with them.

Hopefully it will be an uneventful night for them all.

I also wonder what it must be like for the mother dog losing her puppies like this when they go to new homes? Our friends said when the first puppy left, Lucy dog walked half way up the drive and watched the car pull away. Oh talk about pull at your heart strings. There's only one puppy of the five left now and he looked to be going that afternoon. Four went to locals and Nelli to my brother and family, so Nelli is further afield than her siblings.

Lets hope there are years and years of happiness for them. As much joy as I get with Molly and Lucky.

I did take some photos today, but I'm still showing you the photos of when they first met. Here's David meeting her for the first time. Oh and David, what a special boy he is. He came up to me in the kitchen after lunch and threw his arms around me and said "Oh thank you Aunty Carol for thinking of us when your friend's dog had puppies, I love Nelli so much". WOW! I was touched.

Using the fabulous new Nostalgia kit, a collaboration between creashens and paislee press with stitches there by Anna Aspnes.

Mike has gone camping this weekend, he said earlier it's been damp but hopefully not as wet as it has been here today. Hopefully he'll find some gold so it will make his camping trip more fun. More than likely he'll catch a cold.

Number one step-son called in before on his way through back home. It's so nice that just he and I can sit and chat and have a coffee and talk about all sorts of things. I remember when I first met Mike, Mr. W was just a young boy, and now here he is a man of 20. Where have the years gone.

Now off to do a bit of couch luging! LOL and a hot drink, and then bed.