I scrapped!!!

For the first time in months, I finally got something done.






I went to my LSS and met up with the girls there and a good time was had by all. I'm quite happy with the result, there was the general consensus however, that the jump layout needs a bigwheel die cut sometwhere. (Un)Fortunately, I couldn't find one.

Let's hope this is the start of many more...

Project 365 so far

I really did want to make a go of this but it's not even a week into the year and I've already missed a day, well 2 days actually but I sort of fudged one of them. As part of it, I started to journal every night too and so far, I've been keeping up with that. Just a page or so with the day's happenings so I can say I did something.

I've been painting too, which is a nice change. Feels good to smear colour again and squish stuff together.









I was slightly affronted when DH looked at them and asked if they were the right way up.

Can you hear that?

SHHH!! Listen...all that quiet...no kids!! School's back in session. WOOHOO!!

Isn't that terrible? I love my kids but I was really looking forward to them going back to school.

I've had a chipboard album sitting on my workspace for , oh I don't know, months maybe? I finally decided to do something about it. I have no pictures to go into it yet but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.




I tried to use a bunch of stash items - beads, buttons, rubons but I didn't make much of a dent, *sigh* still a whole whack of it left. I even painted the backside of each sheet as well. I just need pictures to go in it now.

Happy New Year

Here's to resolutions and breaking them. I don't know which one will be more fun...

Who's game?

I found out about Project 365 and I'm totally intrigued by it.

So, who else is game? I'd really like to be able to take the whole thing to the end but possessing a practical and scatterbrained ID, I'm not going to bash myself for missing a few days here and there.

LOL - I might even blog about it...

Merry Christmas!!!!

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy day. My cousin has had a baby boy and the poor kid is now doomed to a life of either a big combined present or 2 half presents. Welcome Plaxico and good luck to you. No, that's not his name but it was a joke a little while ago, I'm still waiting on the official name....and the pictures.

Once again, Santa has been very good to us and for the first time in a very long time, DH had the biggest present, hands down. Only problem is that he's going to have to fight the kidlets to use it and probably every kid on the block too.

Going to play some more...

I've come in from the cold

I'm Baaa-aacck!

I had to leave in a hurry, and no, no-one was after me, I just to had to catch up on some family time abroad due a sad but expected event.

On the other hand, I got home late last Thursday and realised that I had 2 weeks of baking and preparation to squeeze into 5 days otherwise it just wouldn't be Christmas.

Growing up in my family, it's all about the food. Food truly means love and the more food there is, the more love to be shared. My poor DH is having a hard time coping with that since the house now looks like a bakery exploded in it and the fridge doors are barely closing. To me, Christmas means black cake which is a fruit cake that's moist and marinated in rum and cherry brandy, pastels which is a type of meat pie that's steamed in a cornmeal batter and wrapped in banana leaves, cookies and ham. Without any of these, it's just not right. I had to make an attempt to remedy the situation so the oven's been on for 2 days and I've got most of it out my system. The ham is in the fridge and I'm making an apple pie for dessert.

This is what it looks like after I've given half the cakes and a third of the cookies away.



Black Cake....mmmmm....


Lamingtons for the DH....



Gingerbread for the kidlets to decorate



More sugar cookies for decorating



And...chocolate chips with Christmas M&Ms for the DS - by request



There are still a couple things that I haven't done that I usually do, but I'm time crunched this year. Maybe next week for New Years....

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

OMG, I didn't realize how long it's been since I've been back :)

Well, Thanksgiving was a pretty low key affair. We did have an invitation to go to my girlfriend's mom's house for dinner but I made a critical error. I let it slip that they karaoke and DH flat out refused to even think about going. We ended up having a nice, quiet Roast Beef dinner since we're not real big on turkey. DD was a little disappointed since they've been going on and on at school about the turkey dinner and she really wanted it but, like I said, no-one in this house really cares for it. At least not a whole bird's worth of it.

I braved Black Friday - that's traditionally what they call the Friday after Thanksgiving - and it's the day all the stores have the big sales to kick start Christmas shopping. I guess it's the equivalent of Boxing Day shopping. Only thing was that this year, it was pretty quiet compared to the past. I went to the mall around 6:30 am, the store I wanted to go to was supposed to open at 6 and I didn't realize that the WHOLE mall was open at 6 and while, there were quite a few people there, it was more like a weekend crowd as opposed to the BIG SALE day crowd. I've braved Boxing Day sales in Sydney and Toronto where I got in early and left before the riots, and I mean riots, no exaggeration. I've witnessed the wedding dress sale rush in Filene's Basement - you couldn't pay me to step foot in there that day. This year, there was nothing of the excitement of the sale which probably isn't going to be good for retailers. I also noticed that the sales weren't that great either, there was the usual electronics specials and a couple really good specials on a FEW toys but the real, bargains that you used to be able to find were almost non existent.

But, Christmas shopping is DONE!! I'm expecting the need for the last minute present as usual but family gifts are packed away to be wrapped. On that note, let me say that I don't approve of people putting up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving, even if you don't celebrate it. It just somehow seems disrespectful to me. It's like celebrating Easter before Christmas, doesn't seem right. There are quite a few houses in our area that have had their yards decked out with lights and snowmen for almost 2 weeks now and it didn't seem appropriate. And let me say for the record, in Florida, there is NO SNOW so there should be NO SNOWMEN in the front yard. Dress Santa in a Hawiian shirt and sunglasses, snowmen in 75 degree weather (22-ish Celsius) don't exist. Even if we are having a cold spell, it's still warm enough to wear shorts.

Still no scrapping :( but I'm in the (long, slow) process of clearing off my work space to set up the sewing machine to quilt. Ambitions...

Why is this so difficult?

We've been trying to sort out Christmas lists. The local toystore is going to be open on midnight on the Friday after Thanksgiving so I'm getting a list prepared and for all the stuff that they've been asking for, I still don't know what to put on the list.

We narrowed it down to about 4 items each and a couple big items that they have to share but for some reason it took all morning. I don't get it.

Another thing, I don't understand why I'm compelled to get them anything at all. Little monsters still can't pick up what they've thrown down and when I was that age, I was lucky to get anything at all. My mom will freely admit that we didn't get stuff when we were kids, mainly because the money wasn't there but also, my parents would work like dogs right up until Christmas Day and never had the time to shop anyway. Christmas Day was one of the few family days that we had and that was only after they got to sleep in.

What happened?

Not much. A funny thing happened though, I finished reading the Twilight series - and let me say now, I've never been affected by a story like that since I read Jane Eyre when I was 9. Ever since I finished it, I've been in a funk. I think it ended too well, too perfect and for the intended teenage audience, that's probably the perfect ending but for my jaded and advanced years, I found that I was depressed. It took a long time to figure out exactly what was bothering me and I think I was experiencing, for the first time in my life, envy. Envy that I physically cannot achieve that state of contentment and happiness that ended the story, envy that I don't have all the time in the world to pursue all the things I want to achieve. All this hit me last night and it was like a wall came down and I can breathe again.

Well done Stephanie Meyers!! You got me good and to be honest, I loved it.

Turning my attention to MY life now, quite a few things can happen in 7 days. You can:

• Start, er, restart, running again
• Completely overestimate cake batter volumes and end up with 3 doz cupcakes and a 15" bundt cake from the same batch
• Start and FINISH 3 novels - more on those later, I hate when I finish something in the middle of an incomplete series
• NOT download a cardful of photos from your camera
• NOT take pictures of all the Christmas tags you've finished
• Vacuum and mop up crumbs from under the dining table 3 times a day and still not see a difference
• Look helplessly at a mountain of crap on and around your desk and STILL decide to do nothing about it - reading is so much more interesting
  
• Wonder why it is your children are the ones in school but you're still doing homework
• Completely ruin a dinner that's supposedly fool proof
• Make new friend that could turn out to be a very distant relation

Yes, in 7 days, this and more can happen and there's still no mention of sleep in that list and a looming family crisis.

Anyway, back to the reading thing...

I think this is just to piss me off, but all the authors/books that I've gotten interested in or want to read, are not currently available in the US until sometime next year. Karen Miller's final installment to the Godking trilogy isn't available in the US until next year. I still can't find Alan Campbell's 2nd novel here -ok, ok, he's British, but it was available in Sydney when we left so I assumed that I'd find it here eventually. Brent Week's final installment to the Shadows won't be available in paperback until December and that series has been out for ages - and yes he's American so it doesn't quite suit the rant but it's my rant so piss off. Most of these books are written years in advance, why can't they be published together so I get them all at once??? No wonder I keep rereading them, by the time the last one's out, it's been 2 years since I've read the first one and the OCD in my compels me to finish what I've started. I have to reacquaint myself with the whole story and that throws me off.

Anyway, on my waiting list is Karen Miller's Godking finale, Neil Gaiman's next novel - I forget the name, oh and as a completely different aside, Coraline is being made into a movie and I'm really excited about that, I'm trying to find my copy so DD can read it. Sadly what could be Terry Pratchet's last novel is also due out soon. Hopes and good wishes to him and his family. Beetle Bardly is here in a couple weeks. I've also discovered that Lynn Fflewing has released a new series so that's on the radar too.

Onto my new friend...funny how some people seem to be destined to meet. I took the kids to a halloween party of a couple of their school friends and I met this really cool lady there. She's:

• Chinese
• Married to an expat Aussie from Perth
• Has 2 kids - 6 and 2
• Lives about 3 streets down from me
• In Chinese - that is, if it was written in Chinese characters - the SAME maiden name
• Totally cool
  

It was so funny. Bits of our conversation was something like:

"My husband's Australian"
"My husband's Australian. Where's he from?"
"Perth"
"Oh my God! My husband's from Perth!"
"Which community do you live in?"
"Savannah"
"No you don't!"

And so the night went on. It was like watching someone else have my life so we're keeping in touch so the boys can meet and the kids can play. That was one of the more profound moments of my week.

Finally, Madagascar 2 starts tonight so we're heading down to the drive-in tomorrow to check it out with a fried chicked picnic.

Ta daa!