Hot tip anyone?

For the race that stops a Nation? You know to be honest I couldn't care two hoots for the Melbourne Cup. To get a public holiday for a horse race that lasts only a few minutes, when the majority of people wouldn't even attend, is beyond me. Although we actually don't get a public holiday where I work, as our council has declared workers in the vicinity of our council borders has a day of local significance instead, so our equivalent public holiday is actually back in May.

Be that as it may I am going to a Melbourne Cup breakfast tomorrow at the local TAFE training restaurant. Well ... I didn't say anything about food, now did I? :-) So to get there in time I have to leave at 6.45am, yikes! What a rude awakening, I only go back to work from 3 weeks of glorious holidays today and already I'm leaving at all hours of the morning.

AND ... I can't find my hat. I have a black hat which I rimmed in red ostrich feathers. It's a terrific hat and I have hunted high and low. Surely I haven't leant it to someone and forgotten? Oh well, I will have to wear my pink flower in my hair that I wore to the Royal Wedding high tea!

Still scrapping for the album for the boys, I'm on the home straight, not many photos to go but I have some real keepers of photos that MUST go in the album. Like this one. The last photo of all of us before they left. A memory that must go in the album.

Credits Designer Digitals.


On a sad note, I had a shock email tonight from someone I work with, that my absolute favourite quilting/fabric store burnt down or was severely damaged over the weekend. I am horrified, all their beautiful beautiful fabrics and such an exquisite store. I've tried to find news of it on the net but can't so I can only presume that the information I received was correct.

In an effort to not to create mass hysteria amongst the quilting community of Victoria I don't want to post it here, just in case it isn't correct. So if you want to know which store in an effort to make your own enquiries, send me an email.

I don't bounce back like I used to

Oh me oh my! I'm tired and aching and sore today. My feet are throbbing still and my knees feel like they are shot to pieces. I danced up a storm last night at the wedding, it was so much fun.

Back track first. The weather was not kind. Oh dear. It was miserable and raining and blustery and gloomy. And considering we were going to an outdoor wedding we were very apprehensive so we went armed with coats and umbrellas. This was the view out the car window as we were heading there. Note: I was *NOT* driving! ha.

Oh and yes the secret present. I really hope she liked it, it's unique I can say that. I made a subway sign wall art for her on canvas. Subway art seems to be the latest craze and as it happened I made one for us with our home town on it, and Mike instantly said "that's it" ! So this is the end result.

As with all weddings lately that I've been to, I have made a heart good luck charm for her wrist for after the wedding. I got this gorgeous sparkly material, champagne was the colour, and stitched their names on it, some pretty gauzy ribbon and a crystal completed it. Here it is laying on the gift.

And here's some photographs of the happy and beautiful bride, who was oblivious to the weather, the smile showed it all.

So the reception was a cocktail reception and there was so much fingerfood, ahhh my type of food! So very yummy. And the band was terrific. We danced and danced. It was a lot of fun. But oh boy I am paying the price today. And all I had was one glass of champagne being the designated driver. Is this a sign of getting old? All the aches and pains of a night of dancing? ha!

I've had quite an easy day of it today, Mr. G however has had to go to pipe band practice this afternoon! Oh dear.

Nearly over

Well my holidays are nearly over, I guess tomorrow really is my last official day off, then the weekend and then back to work on Monday. It's been so lovely just getting up of a morning, no plans, pottering, I'm such a homebody.

I am going to a wedding on Saturday and soooo looking forward to it, one of my dear friends from work. I am looking to the heavens too, willing it not to turn nasty. I do believe "a chance of rain" has been forecast, but then again it's been forecast for the last couple of days as well and it hasn't, so fingers crossed.

I have taken a risk and actually made something for Miss Anna for a wedding gift. I can't show it on here until Sunday at the earliest because I know she has this blog address so just in case she is looking all will be revealed later. I'm going to blame Mike if she doesn't like her gift. I made one of these (cough cough) things for here and he liked it so much he immediately said "make another one for Anna's gift". To be honest I thought he would think it silly and I'd have to fight him to display it. So yes, all will be revealed on Sunday! I'm pretty jazzed about it and how good it came out.

Recall !!

Hey and I received a letter from Honda this week in the mail, my car has been recalled. After I've had it for how many ... five years now. Apparently some design fault in the electronic window switch, that if you use cleaning products containing silicone or something or other, it might make its way into the switch, creating overheating and in some cases the switch will ignite. Heck! I told Mike that there's a bright side to me hardly ever washing my car then! ha!

And on the scrapping front...

I am going gung ho to finish this book I'm making for my nephews, I want to get it done and dusted by the end of October so I can get it away for printing and sending overseas. Then I can concentrate on finishing the book I'm making for number one stepson. So many projects, so little time.

I really like how this page turned out and yes that is my photograph of the moon I have extracted on there. YAnd yes this book may end up being the sappiest thing they've ever received, but I want them to know we are always here for them, despite being on the other side of the world. And even if the next time we see them, who knows, they might be grown men, they will always have these words from me and Mike to remember.

Credits Designer Digitals.


So I've done a lot of scrapping these holidays which has suited me just fine, and to his credit, Mike hasn't given me the raised eyebrows about being on the computer so much. So good man Mike! I've alternated it with knitting time with him of an evening watching telly, so all is good ;-)

Weekend over

But still a week to go on holidays, YAY!

Saturday I headed up to Dunkeld to the Festival. Such a beautiful little town. I wasn't going to go though, the weather looked doubtful, Mike wanted to stay home and do his BAS, always leaving it till the last minute. And let's face it, a festival on your own? Probably not the funnest thing to do.

But still I went and so glad I did. The impetus for me to go was that one of the activities was to meet with a professional photographer and really get into the nuts and bolts of your camera. I hung around until 1.30pm and headed up to the Aquila Eco Lodges, about 6 km out of town. Dan Ryan was the photographer and such a lovely chap he was. As he finished with one group, I was the only one waiting to commence at 1.30 so I had him all to myself. One-on-one with a professional photographer, it was like the floodgates had opened and all the questions I ever had came spilling out.

About an hour into the session another lady arrived so he continued on with the both of us. Photographing wildflowers, shooting on manual, showing us the way to frame the photograph, shooting on manual, explaining metering, and shooting on manual. Oh, did I mention, I shot on MANUAL !!!!!

To my surprise when I got back to the car it was 4.30. I had spent 3 hours with him. What a treat. And I totally love the shots I got, so once I download them I will pop them on the blog. They are still on the camera at the moment.

On the scrapping front I have completed Lesson 2 of Jana Morton's Blending & Beyond Class at Get it Scrapped. The blended figure this time was to have almost a pencil sketch look about it. I think I like the outcome of Lesson 1 better, but still onward and upward, more to be learnt.

Credits Designer Digitals


And with that I am shutting off the computer and I do believe a cup of tea is in order and knitting the rest of the night is the plan. The rain has just started pelting down all of a sudden, Molly has gone wide eyed and I can hear the rumble of thunder in the distance.

A scrapping good day

I swear that's all I've done all day, except earlier on I went down the street to buy yet another copy of the newspaper (his nibs was in it this week!) and grab some take away cappuccino to bring home. So the rest of the day I have scrapped my little heart out. Love days like this. Mike is doing his BAS so I'm leaving well enough alone seeings I have no idea how to use the MYOB program.

Funnily enough I haven't had any food cravings today. I don't know if that's just me or something deeper from yesterday. I am however looking forward to dinner, we are meeting some friends down at the local pub for a meal, I'm already salivating over that. But I haven't snacked today at all, so that's a good thing.

I put together this page for the template challenge over at Designer Digitals. A fun template to use which I switched around a bit and was able to document some of my memories from the 60's and 70's. I was having such a fun trip down memory lane, I could have made this into a two page spread. The more I delved the more I found.

Credits Designer Digitals.



You can see the template I have used here, templates don't need to remain how you have received them, switch them around, turn them upside down, back to front, it's all good, it's all a starting jumping off point to then turn the page into your own. You just have to have fun with it.




I'm toying with the idea of heading over to Dunkeld tomorrow to the Mosaic Festival. It will depend on the weather. One of the activities is a nature photowalk with a local photographer, so that's really my impetus to wanting to go there. We'll see, I'll stick my head out the door and see what the weather holds before I decide tomorrow.

You are getting sleepy!

Well today I did get sleepy, in fact I paid $59 for a good nap this afternoon. A friend from town here and I went to a group hypnosis session for weight loss. Now I don't feel any different, not at all. I still wolfed down my dinner tonight like there was no tomorrow. Maybe that was because I hadn't eaten any lunch, who knows.

I do know that I have never felt that relaxed so quickly. How come I can lay in bed for seemingly hours without sleep arriving, but this afternoon I felt like I went so deep so fast. I could hear everything that she was apparently telling my subconscious mind, but my conscious mind I guess could hear everything in the room, the lady behind me that sniffed, a lady a few rows back who did a little snore, the hum of the air conditioner, someone in the far corner shuffling their feet. I heard every single one of those noises magnified, whilst she was talking in her very lilting sing songy voice.

And at one stage I felt like even though my hands were on my lap and my thumbs were touching my forefinger on each hand, it felt like my thumbs were lifting up, strange sensation, but then I pressed them and yep, they were still touching my forefingers. Likewise when I was laying on the floor, yes she had us having a laying on the floor session too, I lay there with my knees up if you can picture that, but with my feet flat on the floor. I felt during the session that my feet were slipping further and further away as if my legs were lowering. Except they weren't.

Did it work? Time will tell.

It's meant to make me want to make good choice, it's meant to make me want to leave food on my plate and not finish everything, it's meant to make me want to get out and about and move, it's meant to make me want to crave water. Actually every time she said water, she actually said "water water water". I don't know if that was significant.

In the meantime I'll just grab a cookie to have with my cup of tea! giggle.

On the scrapping front...

Just loving the new goodies appearing at Designer Digitals this weekend, glorious colours. And whilst I'm just flipping through the remainder of photos I have of my nephews, I've decided not to sweat it and try to create a masterpiece, I'm letting Studio Double D create it for me and I've used this fabulous new Layer Works. So easy, pop a photo in, add a few embellishments if you want, pick your coloured papers and call it a day.

Credits Designer Digitals.

And with that I'm waiting for my poo-bah to come home, he's at a meeting over in the next town. I have two very sleepy dogs beside me on the floor waiting for the lights to go out and go to sleep.

Actually that's funny, I've been thinking of Christmas cards, well it is coming up you know. Lucky was snoozing quite peacefully on the couch so I grabbed the reindeer ears and put them on him, still he slept, and I snapped some photos. I'll see what I can make out of those photos.

The weekend that was

Slowly recovering after Saturday and Mike's Installation and the subsequent entertaining of the ladies and the dinner afterwards. Such a huge build up but it all went off swimmingly. I was nervous as all get out, having to entertain 25 ladies whilst the men were all doing their secret squirrel stuff in the Lodge across the road.

I had a few fun quizzes, a lucky chair, some very yummy nibbles and a guest speaker, a local historian who has such a passion for geneology and history and he is enthusiastic about it and hugely entertaining. He was a big hit. After he spoke for about 45 minutes, you couldn't see him for ladies surrounding him asking his more questions. In fact one of the ladies there discovered during his talk that she was a distant cousin. What can we say, geneology rocks!

I said to him that us scrapbookers are getting rid of the middle man, we're getting our stories down now so people in 50 years, 100 years, 150 years time don't have to do the research. He just laughed.

The dinner afterwards was a lot of fun. It's all quite, well shall we say, formal. Because there was a Scottish theme we got piped into the hall by 3 pipers and a drummer, the tables looked very festive with my tartan table runners and candles. Mike had arranged a haggis for entree and one of the Scots there did the "Ode to the Haggis". Honestly I couldn't understand a word he said, his accent was so thick.

Mike's kids were, will I say in awe? Maybe not in awe, but strangely curious at all the ritual and speeches that went on. One thing I will say for certain they were really proud of their dad and Mike was so glad they were there to enjoy his big night with him. So special.

The kids had control of my camera so here are some random shots of after the secret squirrel behind closed doors stuff ! ha.

Yes there's even a cake to cut.


My sister-in-law waiting for her dinner!


The boys, Wes and Tristan.


I said no faces.


Miss Tabby and her boyfriend.


Miss Britt with her grandpa.


Such a special night for Mike, but we're both so glad it's over. Now for the year ahead!

On the scrapping front I had mentioned I was doing Jana Morton's Blending and Beyond class at Get it Scrapped. Absolutely wonderful class and so glad I'm doing it. I have fiddled around with blending before but not in this way and it so much fun. I was pleased as punch with this first effort, which just may become the front cover of Wes' book.

I love how the photographs have almost taken on a painted quality. I haven't doctored the photographs at all in that way, just blended them into the background paper.

Credits Designer Digitals.

Well I guess I best go make some dinner, it's been lovely and warm here today and to be honest I have a case of the "I can't be bothereds". Just looked over at Lucky, he's laying in his bed half in and half out, so funny. I know the minute I move he'll wake up, would love to give you a visual.

Oh but before I go, I had the most fastastic experience last night, I have used "Facetime" on my iPad for the first time. TERRIFIC. My beautiful best friend Sonia and I spoke "face to face". I got to see her new haircut, she got to see my three chins! Honestly there's no way to hold that darn thing without showing lots of chins, I'm sure. Oh well. It was like a big show and tell, I made Lucky get up and see Sonia and Molly too, and of course Mike had to stick his mug in a few times so Sonia got to see him too. Sooo much fun. The iPad and iPhones are worth it for Facetime alone, to be sure.

Woo hoo! Funny how things happen.

Funny indeed. For those in the know, I live in a little country town and our local supermarket is an IGA. The nearest Safeway or Coles is a good 50km away so unless I stop in on the way home from work, or make a special trek on a Saturday, I pick up the "in between" things that need stocking up on at the IGA. That's Independent Grocers of Australia if anyone wasn't aware.

Well IGA is running a birthday bonus competition at the moment. Spend over $30, enter online with a chance to win. I had saved my docket and had the flyer for the competition sitting on the bench. It had been sitting there for a few days and I just screwed up the docket and threw it in the bin this morning because I couldn't be bothered getting online to enter. A few hours later I walked back into the kitchen and the competition flyer was still on the bench. Wonder why I hadn't thrown that away too? Hmmm, was it a sign?

So I dug out the screwed up docket from the bin (yep, call me a bin scab!!) and smoothed it out and got online and entered.

BINGO!
If I had flashing lights here, I'd use it!

A screen came up when I hit submit and I had won one of the day's instant prizes a $500 gift voucher!!!! YAY me! $500 worth of free groceries. Yahooooooooooooooo!!!!!! Just had to send my docket by registered post today and all being well in 28 days I'll receive my voucher in the mail.

On the scrapping front I am taking Jana Morton's "Blending and Beyond" class at Get it Scrapped. I have been in awe of her amazing blended scrap pages since I first laid eyes on them. I'm half way through the lesson and in the middle of a page right now, who knows where it will end up.

Watch this space.

Here's another page I recently did, and before you think I'm ultra mean in posting this, Mike has said go for it. Don't you love a man who can laugh at himself, what a trooper. I took this photograph whilst he was in the throes of "Man Flu" which as we women know is waaaaay worse than Female Flu. Hmmmph.

Actually he did cop the flu badly three times this year, it's been a bad one for him, one of those times ended up with him in hospital on oxygen because his chest felt like it had swords in it. So whilst I do jest, I know just how badly he did get it this year. But we can still laugh at this photo right, particularly the hair!!!

Credits Designer Digitals.

Mike has just gotten home from his meeting and a cup of tea and we will call it a night.

Holidays

I'm on holidays and it's absolute bliss! Can I say that I do holidays very very well. I completely unwind. This is my first week of 3 weeks of leave, yay me! I have major plans of things I want to accomplish, I bet I'll be bemoaning in a few weeks time that I haven't achieved even a quarter of my list. No matter. Because ... I'M ON HOLIDAYS!

Although today I was running around Warrnambool like a mad woman, going through the huge list I had made of everything I needed to get for the weekend. There will be a function in town here where Mike becomes grand poohbah, ha! that's what I call it anyway. So he will be "installed" is the word they use and we're not just planning the regular old dinner, oh no, not us! We're planning a dinner DANCE in the big hall. We have about 80 guests who have RSVP'ed, so I've been having a quiet freak out. I have to entertain the ladies who are attending for about 3 hours while the men do their secret men's business and then join us for dinner.

It will be a huge deal for Mike and best of all his dad and sister will be coming to it, his dad playing a very important role on the night, plus the four kids are also coming. I'm so glad they were able to see the significance of the event for their dad, despite it being waaaaay daggy!

Oh and because we are big on themes in the G house, this night will have a Scottish theme. There's a haggis being cooked for the occasion also, not by me, but by an expert haggis maker in the next town. Who knew you could rise to such levels of honour! Plus a few other Scottish surprises. Not to mention I have made 15 tartan table runners this week, all different coloured tartans that I picked up for a bargain price on ebay, YAY EBAY! So I think with every table being a different tartan on the white table cloth it should look quite festive.

Onto the scrapping front, did you realise that the other day it was 9/10/11. 9th October 2011 for my American friends, I know you say the date backwards to us, so it probably didn't make sense the way I wrote it. I only realised the date about 6pm that night when I looked at the calendar, and knowing at that moment there would be a scrapbook page in the making, I said to Mike that had I realised I would have made sure we had more of an interesting day to scrap about! Ahh well, we have to scrap the "normal" too don't we?

Credits Designer Digitals.

Pretty chuffed too, the page ended up on Gallery Standouts also. Always a thrill when you spot a layout on there. :-)

More on the Secret Christmas Gift...

Thank you for the suggestions, keep them coming. I can confirm that Mike reports that the gift is NOT:
A sports car
Santa himself!
Shares that will mature in 12 months
A swimming pool that will take 12 months to build
Or a spa bath

HINT NUMBER 5: He says it will take a lot of sticky tape to wrap up.

I am wondering now though if he's winding me up with these silly hints. Only time will tell. 11 weeks to be exact. Oh boy! That's what they said on the radio today, I swear I nearly drove off the road.

That means there's only about 7 weeks till I have a very special weekend planned with my best friend Sonia. I can't wait.

I need help

Mike is being very cryptic tonight. I got home from work and he was really excited because (in his words) he had decided on the most perfect Christmas present of all time for me. And he was proud of himself because it's not a last minute decision and he's made it with a couple of month's grace. He was feeling well and truly chuffed about it.

Now just to refresh your memories, here's an old layout I did from my Christmas memories book of last time he thought he had the most perfect Christmas gift idea. So you can understand my apprehension at the moment wondering what has gotten him all hyped up.

So where to from here? He of course gave me hints, so I will detail the hints here and please try and guess what it is. Put me out of my misery.

HINT NUMBER 1: Because it's quite expensive I'll probably only get this for Christmas, rather than a number of smaller presents.

HINT NUMBER 2: It starts with the letter "S".

HINT NUMBER 3: I won't be able to use it this year. I apparently won't be able to use it until December NEXT year.

That has me seriously baffled - I quizzed him further - so I open it on Christmas Day right, but I won't be able to use it on say December 26th this year. The answer was no. Even though I will have it, I can't use it. But I will be able to use it December next year and then January, February, etc. after that. A whole 12 months away!!!! Hmmmm.

HINT NUMBER 4: After asking him if it was a personal gift he said that he could probably use it too.

HELP !!!!! Help me decipher the clues, pleeeeeeease put me out of my misery.

WHAT IT IS NOT: A trip to somewhere starting with "S" like Scotland, Spain or to see my bestie Sonia. I've at least narrowed it down that much.

There are no words

Probably because I have no voice left! te he So I will let this speak for me!!!! :-)

Credits Designer Digitals.