Cranky

I'm hot.
I'm tired.
I'm cranky.
and I'm worried.

If we're getting heat like this now, and it's not even summer, I can't imagine what it will be like come January/February.

What did they say on the radio today? It was the hottest November night in forever. FOREVER???

We're busily researching air conditioners at the moment. Yes yes, I have succumbed. We have one, one of those old boxy types that hang on the wall, but if you have it on you basically need to sit right underneath it and wear earmuffs because it will deafen you. No chance of conversation or listening to the tv while it's on. But the fans ain't cutting it any more, no siree.

Well still on the catch up trail of the project 365 pages, here are some more for your viewing pleasure! te he

Credits here.

Now I might just go outside and sit in the middle of the back yard, porch light off and with a cool drink in hand go gaze up at the stars. That's one thing living in the country, it's a regular planetarium right outside your back door.

Bliss

I'm loving this whole not being at work caper. I even got breakfast in bed this morning. Again with the knitting and wrapping and scrapping. Plus I baked an orange cake. Delish. We went for a big walk after dinner the two of us with Molly and Lucky, that's why I love daylight saving. A walk after dinner is a lovely habit to get into.

I had a play with the new Maree paper by [ksharonkdesigns]. This page did not end up how it started on my screen, and I reverted to an old (but retired) favourite of Coconut paper. It just fitted with Miss T's outfit. Every now and then I'll do a page of one of the kids and just pop it away in their folder on my computer. Probably on their 21st birthdays they'll get an album of themselves.

So this verse that I've included on this page is on an email doing the rounds at the moment. It's just lovely isn't it? As soon as I saw it, I thought ah ha! I must put that on a scrap page. Inspiration strikes at any time I guess.

Credits here.

Well, I think a cup of tea and a wee piece of orange cake for supper may be the order of the evening and then to bed. Funny how it was a bit cooler last night, but I still needed the fan on.

We switched off

We took a stand last night and switched off Idol. How on earth those final two could be still standing I don't know. Sure, they are okay singers, but the thing that gets me, and I might be an old fuddy duddy saying this, but they don't pronounciate their words properly, they don't finish the end of a word, the diction is all over the place and at times, unless we are hearing it completely wrong over the television airwaves, they are out of tune. James on the other hand, may not be everyone's cup of tea, but he sings perfectly in tune ALL the time, he pronounciates his words and actually finishes the whole word, none of this cutting words off. Plus I can understand everything he sings.

I have always loved watching Idol, but this year I've been disappointed with how the judges have really tried to influence and sway the voting public with their opinions. You could see a mile off that they want Stan to win, no ifs buts or maybes. It just hasn't been a fair competition right from the start.

So we switched off and watched 60 minutes instead. It might be just our small little stand, but we have made a stand in protest. So there Channel 10 and Idol. Take that!

I have started my holidays from work now and what a lovely day I've had. I had a sleep in, bliss, all the way to 8.30!! Probably not a real sleep in for some but it was for me. Pottered this morning and did some much needed housework. Haircut this afternoon, I feel like a new woman. Still slowly wrapping Christmas presents. A bit of knitting of the silk shawl. A great day. I love to potter, if you haven't gotten that yet! te he

A few more on the catch up trail.

Mike's cousin Eleanor from Scotland came to stay for a long weekend, it deserved it's own page.

Credits here.

Hot Sunday

It's a hottie alright, Mike is sweating away in the shed tinkering with something or other, gotta love a man and his shed right? Kind of like a man and his golf. Rain hail or shine, they'll be doing what they love.

After that last post, my relief was tangible on Thursday when our local newspaper came out. Firstly our photo ended up on the front page, but thank goodness the picture was shown from the waist up. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Must tell you about a terrific night out we went to last night. We were told it was a surprise night, no clues in advance, and to leave our inhibitions at the door.

It was a cryptic dinner, held by one of the service clubs in town as a fundraiser. You got a list of 20 cryptic clues and had to order then 1 to 20 as to how you would like your dinner served, which would be served as whatever you'd ordered 1-4 as first course, 5-8 as second course, etc. etc. And we had 10 minutes to do it in.

Now some of the clues were easy enough to work out "bakers tumble" was obviously a bread roll; "coloured wobbly" was jelly, but that was as far as my correct workings out went, so apart from putting my bakers tumble at number 1 and my coloured wobbly at number 20, I just mixed up all the other numbers.

We knew we were in for a ride when they then brought out wet ones to hand out so we could wash our hands. Oh my! In amongst that 20 were obviously going to be our eating utensils too. Eeeeek! My first course I ended up having : a serviette, a bread roll, a little bowl of cream and an after dinner mint. I was waaaaay off course, I thought "beaten dairy" may have been butter, but not to be.

It was hilarious watching people drink their soup out of bowls, eat their sweet & sour chicken with a toothpick, oh my and one man even resorted to eating his jelly with his fingers. And I found out the true meaning of love when one of my courses consisted of a bowl of icecream, a cup of tea, a toothpick and a little container of tomato sauce. What an assortment, my worst fear was having sauce with nothing to put it on. Mike quickly picked up the little container and downed the sauce in one gulp for me. Now I ask you, is that true love? Or is that true love?

Oh and if you complained at all during the night, or swore (and there was a bit of that going around) you were fined a gold coin. All in the spirit of fundraising. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I've never been to anything like it and it was fabulous fun.

I'm trying as I might to catch up on my project 365 pages. I have really let myself down here, oh I've still been taking the photos, but as for putting them onto pages, I've gone backwards. So there's been a major push in the last two weeks. Here's a couple on the catch up trail to show you.

Credits here.

Now I declare regarding Idol tonight, if James is finished, then I'm vetoing it. I refuse to watch any further and 60 minutes will be switched on. That I vow and promise.

Oh dear

Picture this if you will.

It's hot, very very hot here. Mike is wearing a white t-shirt which was a tad on the grubby side; his saggy baggy shorts which he can pull on and take off without having to undo them, mind you they are not elastic waisted, they're just that baggy; black socks dare I say pulled up; and bluntstone boots.

When I got home from work we were going to head down to the local hall. An energy company is putting a wind farm near our town and they were having a display and answering any questions throughout the day, so we thought we'd pop down at 6pm to see what they had to say. Mike thought, urrrgh, too hot, I'm going like I am.

Oh dear.

And as Murphy's Law would dictate, we ended up getting our photograph snapped for the newspaper, wouldn't you know it.

Eeeek!!!!

Here's a page I did recently with creashens fabulous kit "Anne with an E". I remember thinking on this 9th September 2009 day I needed to snap a self portrait, so I sat at the kitchen table, held out the camera and wham, blinded myself in the process.

Will I sleep tonight? I doubt it. I'm having fitful sleeps of late, darn heat.

Urrrgh hot!

So they said on the news last night that it's been the hottest start to November in a century. IN A CENTURY?!? Good Lord. Who on earth switched on the heat, it seems to have come in just like that. I'm sure a fortnight ago we still had the fireplace alight.

I'm not enjoying these days and certainly not enjoying the nights AT ALL. We've had the fan on all night every night. I know I'll get used to that lovely whirring sound. Then even if it's not a fan night, I still need it on otherwise I can't get to sleep. White noise or something isn't it?

Last night we went to a "fire ready" night run by the service clubs in town with a spokesperson from the CFA. About working out your fire plan, how to protect your house, how to protect yourself. Some really useful things to take on board. It really made a person very aware of how vulnerable we can be without a plan. And of course we think "it can never happen to us". Well a lot of people on Black Saturday may have been thinking the same thing.

Okay onto other things. I love this old photo showing my dad and poppa in the same band. So you know how it came to pass that I followed in their footsteps.

Credits here.

Now off I go to brave the heat, four more days of work! Yahoo.

Another hot one

Heck, two hot days in a row and we're flagging, and let's face it, by our standards it hasn't really been that hot, it's just that it has hit with a vengeance. Having said that mind you I have the oven on full bore right now, making a pav. I was going to get it done early but I didn't have the heart to start the mixmaster up too early whilst the rest of the house was asleep.

We sat and watched the two disaster movies on telly last night and I knitted and knitted the shawl, my goodness it is taking quite the effort to get from one end to the other now. But I'm loving it. In amongst that I started wrapping Christmas presents. Yes you may groan, but I want to get it done and dusted. Yeah, that's the spirit huh? ha. But more so I want to be more organised this year, so I've been checking my list and finding where I've hidden things (thank goodness I list everything down) and marking off once wrapped.

And because I am who I am, I do wrap with a colour scheme in mind. Everything this year is red, black and silver, and my labels are self-made Christmas ball shapes in silver and/or black. It looks just lovely, quite striking actually.

creashens has an absolutely lovely collaborative kit out at the moment with KStudio, called "Count on Me". Such pretty pretty colours. I ended up using it like this:

I like this photo as Mike doesn't tend to smile in photos, he gets such a stern look up, so this is a nice change. I look dorky because this was taken in the park after the Christmas parade last year and I had a santa hat on, ready for the Christmas Carols to begin. It just looks like I've got something white on my head.

And because I promised Lynn some knitting here's a little hat I knitted recently to give to my friend Victoria who had a gorgeous baby, she's now got the present so I can show it here on my blog. The pattern was a free pattern given to me from the lovely lady who owns the wool shop in Geelong in Ryrie Street, because I had admired the ones she had in the shop and I'd bought so darn much there, she probably thought a free pattern was on the cards! ha. It's knitted out of this absolutely fabulous yarn, Woolganics? something like that, it's organic wool and it was so nice to knit with.

Stay cool Victorians!

Weeeeeeeeeee!!! One more day and the work week is over

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Fridays. Well actually Friday evenings, but Friday is good, very good, last day of the work week. I'm already starting to fill up my calendar with things I will be wanting to do on my break in just over a week's time, and sure as eggs (where did that saying come from anyway?? hmmm) the three weeks off will go by in the blink of an eye.

I have been a bad blogger of late, but have any of you noticed how darn quickly the days are going by? I've got a couple of big crafty projects on at the moment. One of which my dear friend Tanya put me onto, shhhhh if you happen to know my mum, don't tell, but I'm making her a Forest Canopy Shawl. It's such a lovely pattern to knit, but boy it's getting longer in getting across the rows. I did shout myself a nice new set of addi turbo needles to knit it with. Gosh they make a difference, really the Rolls Royce of needles huh?

Oh and the yarn I'm using, Luscious Silk, how absolutely decadent, in the crazy name colourway of Strange Brew.

So anyway the shawl is for my mum. She reads in bed a lot and doesn't wear a bed jacket so gets cold shoulders, I thought this would be ideal for her to wrap around her shoulders. The idea came to me when mum was in hospital recently. I thought ah ha! Christmas knitting.

Okay okay Lynn, photos will be forthcoming. Oh yeah, so is Christmas. Hey, it is !

Now I've told you how crazy I am about my new American nephews. Errr, probably just a few times I've said it! ha. They really are the most sweetest kids and have settled into life in Australia like ducks to water. And they already know when Aunty Carol is around, so is the camera. Smart boys.

Credits here.

Now ... off to bed.

My new mantra

Two weeks
Two weeks
Two weeks

I kept humming that to myself at work today. Two weeks till I have holidays from work. YAY! I'm so looking forward to just being me, not having to worry about work for three whole weeks, get things done for Christmas so I can go into a cruisy December, spend some time with my mum, do some shopping, I have quite a large list of things to accomplish in three weeks off work.

Who watched Idol last night? I'm really so over it this year. I think the judges are definitely trying to sway the voting public. I'm completely over JD and him playing favourites. I do like James but I don't think he's getting a fair go, he sings far and above better than the others, but JD just sees the dollars that the others will possibly make. I can honestly say if James goes out next Sunday I'm switching off, I will have absolutely zero interest in the outcome.

Now that's ALOT for me to admit, because I generally love watching Idol.

We had a really big electrical storm before but no rain. It was great being out watching it and not worrying about getting wet. Although Molly has turned into a huge scaredy dog. She hates storms with a passion. Her eyes get wild and she tries to hide. So thankful Lucky hasn't picked up on her phobia, he was happy as larry sitting next to me outside watching the lightening in the distance. Actually I should say the storm seemed to be all around our town but not overhead, so it was in the distance, I had no worries of being spiked or anything.

Now, because the fabulous Shen of creashens fame is so amazing, she is the featured designer of Digital Artist Magazine for October. She's made a wonderful kit for the occasion called "Frankie Loves Hollie", it is soooooo cute. I know I have scrapped this photo before, but I like this page better and yes, they do have a special kind of love.

I am here !

You may be mistaken for thinking I have run away, but I am here, I promise. Just that life is getting in the way of blogging. How rude!

I did have a wonderful time in South Australia last weekend with my dear dear friends. The pink breakfast was magnificent. Who thought I would look so great in a pink cowboy hat with silver sparkles. te he So much money raised for breast cancer research and it's a credit to the lass Tracey who's mission and drive it is to put on these events, having been a breast cancer survivor herself.

Other times I have been over to Port Mac I've been a passenger, but because I was going a day later than the rest of the girls, I drove myself over, with the aide of Susie (aka Smartarse Susie, Mike's GPS). We name her Smartarse Susie because she thinks she knows better than us, she got that name when I went to Tassie a few months ago, she kept having to do route recalculations and kept telling us we were over the speed limit, hmmmmph.

So anyway Susie and I headed over and I figure that yes, Susie would get me there without having to do much in the way of thinking myself except for driving. And Susie obviously doesn't know the shortcut that we usually go because she ended up taking me via Macarthur and Heywood. Heck. A bit of the long way, but I got there and home in the end.

So then after our washing machine had broken down (and the new one is going magnificently), our TV has decided to call it quits. This is our lovely big plasma. Thank heavens for plonking down the money for the extended warranty, it is 2 years and 1 month old! We still had another 11 months to go on the warranty. So its away getting fixed, something about a button inside which was turning the TV off every two minutes. I wonder if it was trying to tell us something. So we've done a TV rejig and have the one from the bedroom in the loungeroom which is mighty small after our big plasma. No good for subtitle movies, or our old eyes!

Now anyone in the mood for some birthday fun? Twolittlepixels is having it's second birthday. I know ... I can't believe it either. Sharon's baby has just turned two, and to celebrate there are fabulous grab bags from the designers. It would be telling, if I told you exactly what was in [ksharonkdesigns] grab bag, but needless to say as a hint, the below page was made with items from it.

One of my darling new American nephews celebrating his birthday recently. Do you know how hard it is to actually type the word "mommy", it looks so strange. At least for these little fingers typing anyway.

Goodies available here: