What lovely weather......for October :o COME ON SUMMER!!

Here a a few pics that I took on macro setting for the Pad May Photography assignment #1

In a round about way I arrived at Christy Tomlinsons blog which has a sneaky peak at the new Chatterbox lines that will be launched at the Summer CHA!! OMG I want them all.........NOW!!

I am back on my stash diet, so I can afford ScrapManic and I have to save up for these papers!!

I am in LURVE!!

Last night I made another baby keepsakes tin, this time for a guy at work who became a dad, to a precious baby girl, for the first time last week! The sad bit is him and mom are not together anymore :( so I thought he could use the tin to keep a few bits in so he always has something of Abigails with him.

I have one more tin that's tiny and I may decorate it for Stu to keep the little shoe of Rebeccas he has in his bed side draw.

lol, Jules call me paranoid!

So chuffed

This is the tin I made for the guy Stu is working with and I got this message last night......Dear uncle Stuart and auntie Caroline, thank for my lovely present. So far I have put my name bands and umbillical clip and my cot tag in my tin and my clothes are lovely. When I get some hair i'll put a lock of it in my tin. Lots of love Darcey X

I was really excited that they like it and am so glad it will be used. Home made gifts always make me very anxious, as i'm never sure the recipient will 'get it'.

Woo Hoo

I have just booked ScrapManic6 and am so excited! Although it is still only 185 sleeps away, lol! Now I wonder if I can start packing yet :o

Last weekend we did alot of work in the garden, John has lent us his lawn mower so I redid the lawn, and it looks great. I did a much better job than the clown who has been doing it for the last few months! He was mowing and leaving the grass cuttings in trails behind him, so between us and the cats we had more grass in the kitchen than in the garden. I have also cut it short so it doesn't tickle Flos tummy as she walks over the lawn, haha.
One of the flower beds is over run with a plant I can't identify so I am in the process of digging it up again! It grows very quickly and regrows from any root left on the soil no matter how small. I can see it being a big job but i'll get there eventually.
There was a rose bush in the same flower bed that was being strangled by this triffid like plant, so I had to move it, but I don't think roses like being moved. I really hope it doesn't die :( I have been giving it lots of TLC so holding thumbs!

I have not done any 'me' scrapping for a while......there are so many things I want to do but just seem to run out of time in the evenings. Will try tonight!

I altered a tin at the weekend for a work colleague of Stuarts whos wife had a little girl two weeks ago. It's a keepsakes tin and we filled it with baby grows, as I imagine they go though a few every day! He was very touched at the sentiment and so excited to get it home to show his wife......it's lovely when people appreciate the hard work that goes into making gifts :)

ETA: I called the letting agent to ask that they stop the guy coming to do the lawn, and as she couldn't find any info in the house file about the garden service she has to call the land lady to cancel direct.
She calls back and would you believe we are not allowed to cancel, this clown has to continue to mow the lawn!! Well of course I wasn't taking no for an answer, as the garden looks so shite after he has been! I said please can I give more 'evidence' for my case (lol), and told her how he doesn't cut around the stepping stones or around the edges of the flower beds, he leaves the cut grass on the lawn and we are trailing it into the house blah blah blah....
So Kate (she's the nice lady from the letting agency) called the land lady back and she has agreed to let us look after the front and back garden but would rather her guy do the big bit at the side of the house. Now in all honesty that big bit is a bit like a really rough sea, it's all humps and bumps so I guess I don't really mind not having to do it. But I will take photos the next time he is round and then redo it myself and take more photos to prove what sort of job he does, and why we wanted to do it ourselves.
Crikey, normally people would jump at the chance of getting something for nothing, not this lot, haha.

it's nearly Friday

and the end of my second week of early waking up. I am awful at getting up in the mornings and would rather lay in bed till the last possible minute, then rush around getting ready and race out the door. But out in the counrty it is so lovely to get up and enjoy half an hour of the day before starting my journey into the city. I get a chance to hang the washing, have breakfast and a cuddle with the kitties. Definate feel good factor!

My flowers are all coming up and it feels great to see the rewards of all my gardening :) Stus veggies are looking good too and I can't wait till we can eat them. Imagine that, eating fresh veg grown yourself! We just have to keep the rabbits out.

I have not done any scrapping this week, the weather has been too fine to sit in doors. We have been enjoying G&Ts in the garden watching the sun set.

The weather today is lovely and I'm stuck in the office! But I hope to have an early finish to go home and enjoy the afternoon. We have also planned a bbq for tonight, YUMMY. Tomorrow looks like it will be fine and warm, Saturday should be dry and around 15 but it is forcast rain for Sunday :(

I have sorted through my scrap room again and have more for sale in the marketplace over on UKS. Soon I will have loads of empty storage to start filling up again :o

hey hey it's Friday!!

Well little miss Flo came home yesterday morning and is acting like nothing has happened and ignoring the fact she put me through 3 days of HELL, the naughty minx. She looks good and healthy so she must have managed to feed herself out in the wilds. Haha.

Last night Stuart decided it was too fine and sunny outside to waste the evening indoors and we had a braai (bbq, heehee). It was lovely, he cooked chicken, sweet potato and steak and I ate far too much but enjoyed it all, YUM YUM!!

The cats had great fun playing in the garden and I managed to get loads of cool photos of them.

I have been getting up early every day to have breakfast before leaving for work and it has not been the awful struggle I thought it would be. I feel much better and more awake when I walk out the door and getting ready is not the mad rush it usually is. Lets just hope I can keep it up!

It continues...

I have decided that instead of sitting at reception in the morning I am going to sit down in the main ofice so that if security send any delegates in before 8.30 they will just be stuck at the dooor and I don't have to deal with them till I go out at 8.30am. I used ot do this months back but got bored of being in the main office so relocated back out to reception, this is fear was my mistake ;)

Phew, I can't believe we are into May already, this year is just flying by. I have ideas to update my blog daily but it never works out that way so please excuse my slackness.

The bank holiday weekend was rounded off nicely by my having yesterday off too. And as it turned out Stu also had most of it off so we had a nice break together. Saturday was a shopping day, again, we had to go to ASDA to top up the food shop, Baldock to get meat from the South African butcher and Hitchin for thread for my sewing machine. The afternoon was quiet and relaxed.
Sunday Stuart was out with John at the motor X, they had a great day but the landie started playing up on the drive home so Stu wasn't too happy.

I had a scrapping day but didn't actually manage to achieve anything constructive :( I have a design project to do for SI and it just wasn't happening for me. Silly really as I should have put it away and done other things till the idea came to me, which insidently it did last night in bed, and I so badly wanted to get up and do it!

Monday we managed to get out into the garden and I cleared more flower beds and planted more seeds. It is so lovely to see some already growing and I can't wait till we have lots of colour out there. Stuart cleared a grassy patch next to the veggie garden so it's bigger now and he planted some corn, so hopefully it grows. The beans are growing nicely as are the onions he got from George. His potatoes are also coming up and the radish is too. I do hope we manage to eat from the garden as that would make the hard work worth it.

Yesterday we managed to fix the landie, problem was the clutch had given up but it just needed a flush of fluid and it came right, I had to be the one to pump the fluid through the cylinders though and my poor legs were aching afterwards, lol.

My little Flo has gone walk about, not seen her since Sunday and I am devastated especially as I didn't get to give her a birthday hug, she was 2 on Monday. We have heard from neighbours that she's been seen running about and that the cats usually have far too much fun chasing rabbits at this time of year to be bothered about going home.
Rons barn is also a great hang out as there is an abundance of mice and if she gets locked in there she is very unlikely to starve, as I said abundance of mice!
I found rabbit bits behind both sofas yesterday so I guess that's what she's up to!
The black cat with the white tipped tail came into the house again last night, he doesn't come in too far just has a sniff around the food bowls and maybe some crumbles but any movement and he's off. Josh doesn't seem too bothered about having him in the house as he never goes to chase him out, but this could also be the result of him having double helpings of dinner and is too fat and lazy to go see him off.

Well I think I have typed enough for today. If I made the effort to update every day I wouldn't have to have mamoth sessions like this, hee hee.

Am I being unreasonable??

Oh goodness me, sometimes I feel like such a moany old fart but I get so aggitated and annoyed at people who just don't get the message!

I work in a company that does microsoft and CISCO certification, so we're basically a training centre. We open from 8.30am - 5.30pm and classes run from 9am to 5pm. Now I like to get into work by 8.15am so I can make sure the tv is on, put the newspapers out on the rack, make sure the coffee machine is stocked and make myself a cup of tea. It has nothing to do with anybody else what time I get to work as long as I am at reception and all the sign in sheets are laid out by 8.30am when the doors open.

Well it happens at least 4 days out of 5 that delegates arrive at 8.20 or sometimes earlier and bloody building reception let them in! For goodness sake WE ARE NOT OPEN!! Why must they do that?? If I get to M&S at 10.15 on a Sunday morning the people inside don't let me in just cause they are there already.

Every institution in the world has operating hours why the hell must we be any different!

Besides that the delegates are told that access to the main building is from 8.30am and if we are not open then what is the point of arriving so early??

I am a moany old fart aren't I??

Flo the hunter

When Flo was a kitten she used to hunt sticks, or rather twigs, lol. She would drag thr poor 'things' through the cat flap and leave them for me to find in the morning. At one point she had so many I could have used them to have a bbq, haha.

Then one night she caught a mouse, the thing was tiny, but I was so proud of my girl, I lavished her in praise, clever kitty!

And then we moved out of the city and into the country.....and that's when her true hunter self began to emerge. For the first few months we would come down to mice and shrews, sometimes 3 or 4, dotted around the house, thankfully always downstairs. One a few occasions she managed to catch a bird but again thankfully only a few.

At that point I decided to put bells on their collars, Josh isn't quite as bad but then he is much younger than Flo. Things improved and although we still have a mouse or shrew occasionally, they aren't half eaten or pulled to bits, eeuuww.

Last Friday afternoon I came home to a patch a fur and a bunny tail in the dining room surrounded by blood, loads of it. Luckily I got it all out the carpet! I'm not sure what happened to the rest of it but I thought perhaps she had stolen part of someone elses kill....

until last night! I was in bed, asleep, and Stu called up to me that he thought I should come down. She was in the dining room, under the table with a rabbit! A little one, but never the less it was at least half the size of her. I chased her out and got Stuart to make sure it was dead, I had visions of touching it and finding it was just stunned and not dead. I may have fainted at that point! But no is was dead and Stu carried it out, by it's ears, and threw it up on the garage roof for the owls and crows.

I have no problem with her being a hunter and no one in our villiage objects to cats killing rabbits (as they eat all the veggies) but I really don't want them in my house! I may have to resort to locking the cats out at night.

Now as a scrapper you may ask if I took photos, lol, i'm afraid NOT! Although this morning I did think that maybe I should have kept it to pose in the garden and get some close up shots. I will not be doing dead bunny LOs anytime soon!

Last week started off as quiet and pretty boring, but by Thursday all hell had broken loose in the office and we had 40ish manuals to print off and no printer to print them on! The main one needed the Xerographic module changed and refused to carry on till it had, the one in the main office hadn't worked for 3 weeks and had i known I could have chased IT! Then the other 4 we have are so small and slow it would have taken a month of Sundays to get it all done.

IT, thankfully, steped in and offered to print it all in Chiswick and then send it over on Friday morning for us to hole punch and bind. SO at the end of the day it was all done and dusted. Sometimes it nice when everything goes wrong, it keeps us on our toes, lol!!

It was the UKS cyber crop and as usual Scrappybunny did a great job of organising it all. The classes, well the ones I managed to look at and do, were fab and I got some cool LOs at the end of it all.

I didn't manage to spend all weekend cropping as we had John, Brendalene and the girls over for a braai on Saturday night. We had a lovely evening and Stu did a great job of cooking!

So some of my LOs from the weekend!
Life is good - Thereslys class

Fairies - Dollys class (sorry it's so dark)

Trees celebration book, not sure what occasion to use it for yet, but no doubt something will pop up soon enough!

Ansos class - Josh.

Will upload more later today!!

a late update

We had such a great relaxed Easter weekend it was thoroughly enjoyable. On Friday we went out and bought Stu a new bbq, he wanted a gas one so we went to a garden centre that had a good range of OUTBACK, whick is an Aussie brand. They do both gas and charcoal. After a good inspection and analysis of all they had he chose a super douper, all bells and whistles, 2 grid, with a hood bbq. On our way back home we stopped off at Homebase for an outdoor table and ASDA for the chairs and some weekend food. Of course we had to build the bbq when we got home and use it straight away, lol. I spent the afternoon taking photos of ladybirds and flowers.
On Saturday we went out to do a bit more shopping aarrgghh, the afternoon was spent scrapping, chilling and watching CSI dvds. Sunday I gardened a bit and took more photos of flowers and bunnies in our garden!
Monday was much the same, but I am happy to report I am not nearly as sore as I was after my first gardening experience, haha.

Now I am off to stroke my new basic grey Oh baby! boy papers...

I'm obsessed....

How sad am I?? I am obsessed with Brangelina!

Yes the saga that is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolies sorry love story. Now to start with let me just point out that I am a huge fan of Jennifer Anniston and have been in her camp since this whole sordid affair started.
But I have to admit to now feeling desperatly sorry for Ange, I think the poor girl is making one mistake after the next and is in a downward spiral. She has one failed marriage under her belt so who can blame her for not wanting to tie the knot just yet, but why oh why did she fall pregnant? Come on girl have you never heard of birth control? How about giving yourselves time to get to know each other, form a bond, have some time to live a little, decide if you actually want to grow old together!
Her latest issue is Jens interview on Oprah when she was quizzed about her marriage breakdown, Ange can't stand that people feel sorry for Jen and she is the victim....hang on....why the hell not! she's an actress and she makes money on her popularity and if she's in the spot light her movies will make money. So again why is she not allowed to milk the situation.
Ange has also stated she wants to live on a yacht and have no fixed address, this hasn't gone down well with Brad who wants to settle down and have a suburban lifestyle. Chalk and Cheese comes to mind, poor things are just on opposite ends when it comes to compatability.
But everything I base my feelings on is hearsay and who knows how much of it is true. At the end of the day I am spending a fortune buying these silly trashy gossip magazines whenever I see their names on the cover just so I can keep up with the Brangelina!

PS Having a baby in the very early days of a relationship is not always a bad thing and I do not judge anyone who does, My grandparents where together till death do us part and they were pregnant with my mom before they got married and very young!

PPS I have some great photos that I took this weekend so will do an update tonight (if I remember!)

My thoughts and prayers today are going out to a dear friend Sally whos husband is very poorly in hospital :( Love and hugs for you both.

My marketplace sales on UKS are doing very well again and I have reduced my stash pile considerably, although Stuart still thinks I have way too much, hey ho!

We went out for dinner last night to the green man, it was great to sit and chat away from the tv, pcs, and cats. I had the giant yorkshire with roast beef and Stu had the mixed grill, which was huge and it's not even the mamoth mixed grill he had! We chatted a bit about the wedding, and both agree that it's going to be very quiet and small, I really don't want a fuss and don't want family in SA to feel pressured into coming. It's far to travel and it's very expensive.

I am off tomorrow so my weekend officially starts at 5pm today WOO HOO. Although we have no firm plans yet, if the weather is nice we plan to spend the time in the garden.

Weekend update

Saturday
We had a lovely time shopping in the morning, went to ASDA, my new fvourite store, lol! Then we came home and I read my book and Danni and Stu watched tv. At 4.30 we grabbed the cameras and went to the farm to see the cows being fed but after half an hour the farmer hadn't arrived and it was so cold we went to the pub for a drink, although we did get a few pics! I got this one of a bunny rabit on the way to see the cows.
Danni and I camped out in the field for a while trying to get photos of the baby bunnies but had no luck :( The storm clouds were moving in too, so it was time to go indoors

On Sunday morning I made a banana and chocolate cake, all by myself (I usually assist Stu when he makes it) and then made my way out to the garden where I proceeded to clear out a few flower beds. I had to rest mid morning and have tea and homemade *chuckle* banana and chocolate cake to keep the energy levels up and then got stuck in again. I think I was out there for about 3 to 4 hours and I tell you my legs and butt are so sore I can bearly move but I feel good that I achieved something with my weekend! The sun even came out in the afternoon and we sat out in the garden and had lunch, it was so nice to feel the grass under my feet. But all too soon the storm clouds moved in and we had to go back inside.

My pizza box prize arrived from A Trip Down Memory Lane this morning and it is so lush! Thanks Mel and Jill. Blonde moments patterned paper with co-ordinating cardstock, some co-ordinating ribbons, spring basic grey rub ons, some mm alpha rub ons and a heidi swapp mini mask (which I have been dying to try). I think I may use this to scrap the gorgeous photos I took of Sarah and Jessica in their fairy outfits.

I owe wanna-scrap Kirsty a HUGE thank you for showing me a neat trick on photo shop I have been having a play around with my photos and WOW what a huge difference the curves make. So thanks Kirky pants!!

Danni is coming to spend the weekend with us, so excited as I need someone to camp out in the garden with to try get photos of the cute bunnies!

Well as it turned out I was so busy yesterday I didn't even manage to get my {21} day art journal out my bag so have not caught up yet :o Will try again today!

Last night I unpacked my stash from the weekend and also tidied my desk which was littered with little scraps of paper, tools and stamps. Tonight I plan to sit and do a little scrapping and hopefully *blush* upload some photos, i'm hopeless I know!

Danni is coming up to stay this weekend and we have a braai at Mike and Chantal which I know Stu is really looking forward to. It's also the Pad cyber crop but i'm not sure I will get much time to do anything. Will have to check out the class list as I will probably only try do the LOs, not too keen on the altered stuff.

bbrrrrr

Ooh it's a cold one today, -2 at home, and very frosty, I thought summer was on it's way!!

I have just seen I won the birthday draw over at a trip down memory lane if you've not been shopping there, now's your chance, they have loads of birthday specials running this week!

Last night I finally managed to finish my entries for the fairy cj group. I have held up the group so badly and feel awful but I totally lost my mojo :( so was battling. I now just have a shoes entry to do for Anam and I am finished all UKS cjs! Although I am hosting 5 newbie groups :o

I am a little behind in my Rhonna Farrer {21} day challenge so will spend today playing catch up and then hopefully upload some entries tonight.

:o can you belive I completely forgot to post that my photo of the cutie little lambs I entered for the photography competition on UKS has been chosen for the top 20 voting poll! I am so excited although i'm sure I have no chance at all of winning, lol, it's nice to be involved.

The theme for April is PATTERNS so I have to get my thinking cap!