Another week come and gone

Can you believe how quickly the days are going? I've always said that November is the quickest month of the year. You think you've got a bit of time up your sleeve before Christmas and bam! December is upon you.

I am so far behind with my Christmas shopping, completely all over the place. Me and my spreadsheet of what I've bought during the year and who I've still go to buy for, went out the window with my computer crashing. So now I've had to resurrect it and find where I've hidden everything, which was quite a nice surprise as a few things I'd forgotten about. But it was a bit of panic stations when I realised I wasn't as far along as I would usually be.

But ah ha! How fortuitous it is that I am being sent on a training course during the week in Melbourne and they've booked me for the early morning course when starts before the first train from our end of Victoria gets to Melbourne. So they're putting me up overnight!!! Then I found out that Myer doesn't close until 9pm in the city on a Monday night. So look out Melbourne, I have a list and I'm not afraid to use it!

I also scrapped like a mad fool today to take advantage of Snapfish's 2 for 1 calendar offer. So I've made two more calendars using different layouts I'd done during the year and popping a few new ones on besides. One for my father-in-law and one for my other sister-in-law for Christmas. Here's one of the pages I threw together today (I say "threw together" lightly, thank heavens for templates!!).

Credits here.

Now, here we are, almost December and there's a bit of excitement happening at Roadside Designs which I must share. The amazingly extremely generous Suzanne has a surprise happening and you won't want to miss out. A complete album giveaway, a download a day and I can tell you now, it's fabulous, perfect for scrapping the days of December. So make sure you visit Roadside Designs every day in December and nab yourself a template, and don't forget to say "hi" while you're there.

And with that, I'll catch you when I get back!

A day at the fair

Sunny, blue skies, what more could we want for a day at the Noorat Show. I haven't been to a Show since I was a teen from memory. As soon as we got there, the sights, the colour, the smells, it never leaves you, does it?

I had a thing about signs, these were only a couple of quite a number I took :-)





Who remembers the Cha Cha? Some rides just keep on keeping on.



I'm more for sedate entertainment, the Laughing Clowns! But heck $10 for 3 games??? Were they that expensive when we were young? Surely not. I found one who played one game for $4.



And walked away with the jackpot ... well not the jackpot, but a prize nonetheless.



Skeeery rides that went up and down and round and round. I wasn't getting anywhere near those, only to take photos.





Show bags of every shape and description. Not sure if Tristan is wondering "is that all?" here in this pic.



Big rigs, the bigger the better. How would you like to change this baby? (the tyre, not Mike!!)



Ahhh and the animal nursery, everyone ready ... say ahhhhh.



Oh and a claim to fame today, I patted a pig. A huge gazillion kilogram pig. And it felt like straw. I didn't even get a photo of the pig it was too big for my lens, but I did get a photo of it's babies. :-) I got given a piece of bread from the pigs owner and asked to feed it. Yep, I counted the fingers afterwards, still all in tact, and it snarfed the bread right out of my hand.



Winners are grinners! One of the winning sheep.



And how cute are these alpacas. That's one of my wants for the future, a bit of land and a few alpacas.



Mike had "axe envy" when we watched the wood chop. Boy, could these fellows chop a log of wood.



Tubby the Robot was wandering around, he wished us a nice day.



And smiles all round. Yay Tristan, took a great photo of the two of us.

And with that I will take my sore feet and sunburn to bed.

What a week

It really has been a week and a half, that's for sure.

My sister-in-law had her 40th birthday and on Saturday the weekend just gone she was having a birthday BBQ. The day started off torrential rain, and it rained, and it rained. On the way to Geelong we found out she had been in a car accident, another car had come out from a side street and turned right, right in front of her. The car was a write off. Thank heavens she was okay, just the shock and her chest hurt from the seat belt.

I'm quite sure she didn't want to go ahead with the BBQ, but she continued on. I think she was quietly glad when the last person left. But still it rained.

Mike and I stopped in for a coffee at a little cafe in Geelong and while we were sitting there I felt water hit my head. The roof was leaking. I quietly told the fellow behind the counter and he said "oh yeah, that happens when it rains". What the heck? I know it was an old place, but we're talking like a puddle was forming on the table. So we moved, but by the time I had moved seats a flipping big moth decided to dive bomb my coffee and was swimming in the froth of my cappuccino. Urrgh. We got up and left.

And still it rained. The whole way home. What a miserable Saturday.

Forgive me if I have posted this page before, my list of what I've posted and what I've not got swallowed up in the great computer disaster. A fun page I'm including in a calendar I'm making for sister-in-law number 2 for Christmas. My nephew, thank goodness I still have these pages uploaded to photobucket, because I don't have this photograph any more :-(

Credits here.

I love these type of pages, it will be interesting how he changes over the years.

Just me

You may be mistaken for thinking I have clearly dropped off the end of the earth. Well I kind of did, computer wise anyway.

Disaster struck recently. I was happily doing whatever I was doing on the computer and everything froze. So what's a girl to do I ask? But turn the thing off. Problem solved. Except it wouldn't turn back on again. I was getting a file corrupt message, Mike tried everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Our computer guru in town tried everything to get past the initial error screen. Couldn't boot, couldn't boot from the CD, couldn't get into DOS, all these things I've got no idea what they mean.

But we have a back up drive right? Right!
Except we hadn't done a full back up since (look away now, this is painful to admit) but February 2010.

To be honest the emails, the documents, whatever I don't care about, but my photographs I've taken since February, my scrapbook pages I've done, all gone.

Let this be a lesson to anyone reading this ... BACK UP NOW! I've certainly learnt my lesson.

Although one of the ladies at Designer Digitals, her husband is looking upon this as a bit of a challenge and has very kindly offered to do what he can to get my info off the drive. Apparently even when you think a drive is dead, it may still be resuscitated enough to get things off the drive. Hopefully all is not lost, and me, being the proverbial cup is half full girl, thinks my cup may have sprung a leak. Lets cross fingers my doom and gloom is proved wrong.

So a few projects I have on the go I have had to start again. Not to mention a number of calendars I'm making for Christmas. Snapfish rocks, do you know that? I have had one calendar made and I'm over the moon happy. Photographs will be forthcoming.

So my father-in-law will be getting a calendar this year so I need to put some pages together of the family. I loved these photos. Mike has this habit of calling himself "Mr. Wonderful" and how lucky I am to be married to him. Yes, see what I have to put up with. More embarrassing is when he rings up the pizza place in town and orders a pizza for "Mr. Wonderful". Urrrgh, then I go and pick it up. Thank goodness the lady who owns the pizza place in town is a good friend of mine and knows what a goof Mike is. So one year the devil in me got a t-shirt made up for him. Although it backfired and he proudly wore it this day with his sister.

Credits here.