Summer of Yesteryear

Well I know it's a stretch for us here in the southern hemisphere at the moment, it's flipping cold, wet, foggy, hail, rainy, any other descriptive words I've missed?

BUT ... right now in the northern hemisphere they are well into their beautiful warm summer and at Designer Digitals we're celebrating it.  It's keeping me warm just thinking of it, truly!

So I have the great honour of hosting the current challenge over there.  The Summer of Yesteryear.  For the next three days digital scrappers will be posting their pages celebrating the summer of yesteryear.  I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

Check it out here, and there's a fun freebie to be had too, to start you on your way, courtesy of the terrific designers at Designer Digitals.  I do hope my scrapping friends who check out this blog play along.  I'd love to see what you come up with.

I put together this page for the challenge (using some of the freebies!! so there's a hint) showing my grandma in the 1930's.  If only she knew all these years later and she'd be gracing the screens on the world wide web!

Credits Designer Digitals.


A koala with nine lives

Nearly had a disaster this morning.  Just south of where I live there's a lot of koalas, and I often see them on the side of the road, having been hit overnight by the trucks, it makes me so sad.  Anyway this morning on my way to work I saw on the grass verge what looked like a rabbit hopping along.  Only when I came up closer I realised it was a koala doing his little lumbering scramble, it wasn't hopping after all.

There was no one behind me so I was able to stop on the road as without a care in the world he just lumbered on out onto the road to cross.  I looked up and there was a big semi-trailer truck coming the other way.  I had enough time and I flashed my headlights a number of times so he realised there was something on the road, and he was able to slow down.  So here we were, both stopped giving way to the pedestrian koala.

Oh at times like this I wish I had my camera handy.

But it did make me smile, disaster averted, and the koala used one of the cat's nine lives today.

Pssst...

Oh, and just a quick little report on the weight loss front ... As of this morning's weigh in, I've now lost 13.6 kg.  That's just on 30 pounds now for my imperial measurement friends.  30 pounds sounds so much better  :-)

Getting old real quick

Oh dear, here we are what? a week and a bit later and we're still knee deep in upheaval.  I have a washing machine and dryer in my living room, there's an obstacle course of carpentry tools and stacks of tiles and bits and pieces down the passageway, there's a big hole in the laundry wall which is still to be replastered, the contents of the bathroom are in the spare room.  And dare I say we were without a loo for a few days, thankfully I was away on a girls weekend for the majority of it so I only had to put up with it for a day, which saw me ducking down to the local park, ahhh the perils of having a one bathroomed house.

Did I say this was fun? 

Gaaaaah!!!  I just want my house to be back to normal again.

Not long now I know and I know all good things take time.  This is a one man operation that is doing this and there's drying time between processes, but I'm so ready for order again.

I did escape last weekend, I went away for the weekend to Port Fairy.   Lots of fun to be had.  The girls from town that I go away with once a year.  We rented a house, it was dismal weather, and we only saw the beach as we drove past it!  But it was a great get away, we enjoyed each other's company, we laughed, oh how we laughed, we ate out, we lounged around, we watched movies, it was a great break.   

While I'm posting, I need to alert all digi scrappers to run, don't walk, to Designer Digitals.

So much fun to join in the challenges too, we're knee deep into the Get in the Game Challenge.  Hmmm and there may be a challenge soon hosted by moi.  So hop on over to Designer Digitals and have some digi fun! 

I had some fun recently scrapping some more photos from the weekend I spent with Esther in Melbourne.  Who knew that graffiti could be so much fun.

Credits Designer Digitals.

Well I can hear the rain on the roof and it's time to go to bed, so that's it from me.

I'm in love with my bathroom

Still not finished but almost there.  The tiles look magic!  Cream with a little mottled white, almost like a little cloud on the edges.  But they are cooooold first thing in the morning, yikes!  He's tiled all round the too, took off the crappy 70's pine walling, it looks so good.  The new vanity looks a treat, same size wide and long, but it's taller, I love it.   Last lot of siliconing to be done on Monday, and then it's left to us to paint.

I'm not going to worry about retiling around the bath and vanity wall, although really dated with a grey geometric pattern, I'm going to give that White Knight tile paint product a go.  Anyone had any luck with it?  Or am I entering into a world of pain?

And then ... he's starting on the toilet and laundry next week.  Yahoooooooooo!   I'm doing my last lot of washing today, I think I've washed everything in sight, because tonight the washing machine is unhooked.   I can't wait until our three wet areas are looking spic and span.   Photos will be forthcoming!

Credit Card Woes

I had a call from the lovely people at Visa yesterday morning to tell me my credit card had been "compromised" because Western Union had tried to take out $2018 but they stopped the payment before talking to me.  And because it wasn't a legitimate transaction they've cancelled my card and I need to get another one reissued, which means a new pin number to memorise.  Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!

This could not have come at a worse time as next weekend I'm going away with the girls, a weekend in Port Fairy, so not too far away, but it was to be a weekend of relaxing, enjoying each others company, dining out, shopping!  I still have access to internet banking so I'll just transfer some money over to Mike and he can get the cash out.   But now he knows how much I intend on spending.  Urrrgh.

This is the second time that Visa have rung me with suspect transactions.  I have this vision now of people just watching transactions go through on a computer screen until they see one not quite right.  Or maybe they have buzz words that alert them.  Who knows, but I must admit I'm very impressed with their diligence in keeping my money safe.

On the scrapping front

Thought I'd post this.  Great for when I'm on a diet huh?   I made these for a CWA cake stall, oh did I mention, I'm a member of the CWA now!  I told them on my first meeting "I make scones, okay?" ha.  Well I make them but they don't turn out regulation size!  So yes, I made these chocolate chip cookies for a cake stall recently, and may I add I did not have even a one!  Mike did the taste testing for me.

I was so pleased how they turned out.   I started with a couple of Pattie Knox text bytes and went from there.   It was a great jumping off point.

Product Credits Designer Digitals.


And with that I have a bit of baking to do this afternoon, Mike has asked for a couple of plates of nibblies for tomorrow night's meeting.   I hope I'm not tempted.

Twice in two days, it's a miracle!

Sad neglected blog, be neglected no more.  I'm back again!  :-)

The king of bathroom renovations, that's what I'm going to call him now, was here again today and the bathroom floor has now been waterproofed and is doing it's 6 hours drying or whatever it needs and then tomorrow the tiles go in.   Yahooooooooooooooo!!!!!

I'm aching today, I am having so much trouble going from standing to sitting, and sitting to standing.   Probably way too much information, but I was sitting on the toilet seat earlier and I honestly could not stand, I had to grab hold of the toilet roll holder and near on yanked it off the wall.

Yesterday I did a group workout with some new friends from 12wbt, and the trainer that we had did warn us it would be hard and we would hurt the next day.  She wasn't wrong.   The backs of my legs are aching, the tops of my arms, and right across my chest.  Must have been the sit ups, the pull ups, the squats, the lunges, and all sorts of other contortions that has done this to me.  Last night I honestly had no energy to even pick up a knitting needle, that's how much my arms hurt.

I have lost 10.4 kg now since the start of May and I'm over the moon happy.  Have even gone down a size in jeans.  So I know all this hurting is for the bigger good.  Just need to keep telling myself that.

On the scrapping front, one of my dear friends on the CT at Designer Digitals Linda, did a scrapbook layout recently on her fantasy dinner party.  I thought that it would be a fun documentation of where our mindsets are at this point in time and at this point in our lives.  So I asked Mike who would be his ideal 7 dinner guests, along with himself.  Errr yep, he has an eclectic mix.   I wasn't quite prepared for his response.

Hopefully you can read the journalling, but just in case you can't here it is:

I asked Mike to name 7 people he would like to join him at a dinner party. He thought long and hard and finally named the lucky 7, which included me. “Awww honey, that’s so sweet, you didn’t have to invite me to the dinner party too” I said, and without missing a beat he countered “okay, I’ll have Jamie Oliver instead.”

Product Credits Designer Digitals

And with that I can still hear the rain pelting down, I don't think it's stopped all day, so I'm off to bed to listen to the rain on the roof, which is one of my favourite sounds, whilst tucked up in a warm bed.