Soccer and sickness

Well, winter has well and truly set in here. Meaghan (who has hardly taken a day off school for illness and has never been on antibiotics) was struck down with a bad cold, right at the start of testing week (of course..). She lost her voice for a few days - a bit of a novelty as she does like to express her opinion, quite loudly, esp when she has her headphones in - which is most of the time... all ok now.

Henry then got the same cold but ended up at Accident and emergency at 4:30am on a very cold Canberra morning due to asthma getting the best of him. Geoff volunteered to take him, so I manned the phone with relevant info from our cosy bed. It was only a mid attack so he was back home by 7. Still home from school  now but improving.

All this meant he missed his beloved soccer on Saturday - but at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge, I used this sketch

To make this LO

about his soccer playing this year. Henry has leapt in confidence and is happily taking shots at goal, sometimes scoring (I had previously only missed three games of soccer in his short career and he had scored goals on each of those occasions, no other time, just when I'm not there!) But I finally got to see him score a couple of weeks ago, fun to see them celebrate afterwards.

And the house is getting scarily closer, I know that sounds odd but we have so much to do (and so much more to spend...) before September, it is going to be full on. Now that it is nearly at lock up, we have no idea if things are happening inside. We drove past on Saturday, debated whether to go in because it looked the same as last week and it had been raining all week but to our surprise the garage was full of newly derived tiles, and then walking past the family room, we spied this -

 No balustrades yet but nice and solid.

And the first of our internal doors has gone in  -

They will all have the grooves on them, yet to be painted. It's all happening so fast now.

Once I work out where Geoff has put all the photos he has taken, I will update the house blog - sorry to bore you with it all here...

Must go do housework now, at least this house is nice and small, doesn't take long to clean.

Have a good one and I hope those of us in Aus/NZ are avoiding the worst of the bugs going around xx

Busy week

It's all happening here - Matt started a new part time job today, Henry plays in his band publicly for the first time today, Meaghan starts her first major exams next week and the house is flying along. All good stuff though.

I have been managing to get a few scrapping pieces done, firstly this one for Get Creative -

 using this months colour scheme -

And a couple for The Lilypad's June challenges -

Apparently Henry is my only child... (it is hard to pin the other two down to get a decent photo, will try harder...).

Quick post today, off to watch Henry's band now. None of them had played their instruments before this year, the first performance is both exciting to see the progress and I will admit it, sliight dread as their is  need for some ear protection for the odd wrong note.  All good fun and by next year they are suprisingly good.


Have a happy long weekend if you are in Australia, we have a couple of soccer games so will stay in Canberra, maybe a day trip some where. xxx

The Proposal

Ok, we have finally settled into the newest temporary house - it is small and falling to pieces but it is warm, the kitchen is a decent size, the showers are acceptable and we are so close to everything now. I am a convert to this suburb (esp with  major roadworks still happening just near our old/new house).

 The rebuild is back on track and will be finished by September or possibly sooner (we actually don't want sooner as we have a lease here until mid Sept and our budget needs those last few weeks to get some extras done on the new house. (budget has taken major hit with unexpected site works, and major services on both cars, sigh). Anyway, it is stuff we have bought upon ourselves and the house is looking pretty good. Front door goes in this week (fingers crossed) and the internal walls will be finished as well.

 

 Henry looking completely thrilled to be dragged through he house - again....

this is the kitchen and behind that wall is my lovely walk in pantry.

Ok, onto more interesting things. Anne, at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge,  has come up with a wonderful challenge this month, document a proposal, whether it is your own or another persons, tell us a story. I have chosen Geoff proposing to me, with the wrong ring. All turned out well in the end..

I was tempted to tell of my first proposal (actually had forgotten about it until now - that's how significant it was) - I actually can't remember the blokes name - or if I was ever told it... I was moving to Brisbane to live with Geoff and some friends up north. We were selling everything that didn't fit in the back of the car including the washing machine. A young bloke turned up straight from the bush - hadn't been in the big smoke before (Wagga in the 1980's apparently counted as the big smoke as it had more than one set of traffic lights). He had never used a washing machine before and asked his Mum before buying it how to get one to work - "find a wife to use it for you" was her oh so helpful answer.

 So the young man took this advice seriously, and popped the question while standing over the machine. I laughed, thinking it was a joke, but no - he thought it was worth a try, save him the hassle of looking around I guess...

 An opportunity lost, sigh.

I hate moving (warning - text heavy post)

Oh Yeah - that's right moving is truly awful, and this time we couldn't just up and leave and have all our mess smushed into a bazillion pieces - so that meant some intense cleaning - and more cleaning and then more cleaning - sigh...

We got the  keys on Friday, had the movers Saturday and picked up most of the rest on Sunday. Inspection was Tuesday morning and I spent much of the intervening time and my hands and knees, scrubbing. It wasn't even that dirty but I didn't want to miss anything. Tuesday night I came home after 9:30pm and collapsed in a blubbering heap in bed...

Our manger was only young but any dusting, cleaning I may have missed, he either pointed it out for me to run a cloth over or he did it himself. Last inspection (granted it was 20 years ago), we had a cow who pulled out the white gloves as soon as she walked in, didn't bother checking the pre rental condition report and tries to charge us because a couple of light fittings were dusty - which was an improvement on the greasy state we found them in).  

We are still waiting to see if we get our bond back, there was a big water leak a couple of months ago and the carpet in Meaghan's room was pretty much ruined - not our fault and we rang our property managers many times, so Geoff will hit the roof if they try to pin that on us.

The new rental is about half the size of our last one and we were feeling quite depressed about squeezing in here at the start of the weekend (and the fact that one light was permanently on, several lights were blown, the garage with 70% of our belongings were stored didn't lock as promised and the laundry door didn't have a key). But now that some of the boxes are unpacked, I put my own lock on the garage - go me -  I am more than happy at it's smaller size - less cleaning at the end and easier to heat over the next few months.

And Meaghan is walking to school and it only takes me less than 5mins to drive Henry, I am enjoying it.

So now, we are having a procession of tradesmen through this house to fix the problems and I am slowly unpacking, and getting rid of more stuff. And the Internet speed is faster, so am a happy camper for the most part - although I still need to spend half my day resting, still getting over the weekend...

Ok, onto the good stuff - two challenges began last week.

first Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge is another good one - tripping down memory lane -

What did you want to be when you grew up? 

 A doctor? A fireman? A nurse? An astronaut? A mummy??

I of course wanted to work with animals. I didn't know girls could be farmers then, otherwise that's what I would have wanted, although in hindsight, I would not have made a good farmer - I hate mornings..

And Child's Play has a skipping rope as inspiration this week. None of my children skipped (the thought of Matt attempting anything as coordinated as skipping would have been amusing to watch - does that make me a sadistic mother??) so I just used a skipping girl image.

Now I just have to work out how to get our digital photos etc photos from our off computer storage, it's not letting me at the moment. My plan to spend the day  digi scrapping could be somewhat hindered by that...

have a good one, back to normal blogging soon. xx

Old and New

Get Creative's latest challenge is to redo your earliest scrapbooking efforts - same photo   

but updated LO. As all my photos and pages are packed up, I went to my first Digi attempt. I didn't know how to resize anything but I must have known about layers and stamps and that's about it. This one was done in 2006.

 And my updated version. Coincidentally, both Lo's were done entirely with freebies (although The Lilypad's Freebies, Jump for Joy, from their Facebook hop are just superb, love them, all still available if you follow their designers on Facebook)

 My latest style is a bit (lot) messier then the original but lots more colour and movement. I have done some Project Life Lo's, week by week for the start of the year (God bless Digital photography for making that easier) and they are much more structured -

 It's harder than it looks ( that's a slight lie, I used a template, so physically it was dead easy but mentally, being tidy - such a stretch for me...)

We finally signed a lease for our new rental, lots closer to both kids schools and bus routes - all good (ignoring the fact that Geoff will take longer to get to work..). Only for 5 months fingers crossed.


It's finally starting to feel cold here, had the heater on for the first time this weekend, love that dusty smell first time they are fired up. Our next rental will be over winter so hoping the heater works well. Seems to be ducted to every room, so vital in Canberra's winters.


Ok, back to sorting more junk to be thrown out - how do I accumulate so much stuff?? Getting easier to get rid of things now, Hopefully by the time we move into the new house, the Purge will be complete.

Have good one. xx

A couple of template/sketch challenges

Things are staring to get busy here, so what do I do? Sit and play at the computer of course...

actually taking advantage of the time when
a) the monitor is working, very slow to fire up each day now, I fear it is on it's last legs; and
b) the elder two aren't  home, as both their laptops are in the process of being fixed (or not in Meaghan's case as it will cost more to fix it than to replace it - luckily it is still usable).

Anyway, Anne has another wonderful sketch up at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge - this time challenging us with circles - love what all the girls have come up with. -

and here is mine -

 this photo is taken at Canberra's latest attraction - The National Arboretum. They have planted a gazillion trees in different forest types, will be truly a great place in about 20 years... In the meantime, they have put a couple of sculpture on the couple of hills within the forest as well as a couple of interesting buildings and a large amphitheatre - such a good use of public space.

And just for fun, the have their monthly freebie template over at the Lilypad -

More circles which I have conveniently ignored -

and this was part of the festivities at Easter when we all went camping at a friends house for his 45th birthday. Lots of highly flammable vegetation was piled up and went up a bit more vigorously than expected. No damage done.

Ok, back to packing. have a good one. xx

Mary Poppins

I will admit that this was one movie I could never get into as a child - I was more of a 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks" Disney girl... (and somewhere along the track, Mary Poppins merged with Peter Pan, always get them confused)

But having said that, I would love to see the musical.

And yes, these musings are leading somewhere -

At Child's Play the latest challenge is to base your work on Mary Poppins

I went the Umbrella route -

Luckily for my instant gratification fix, Splendid Fins at The Lilypad was selling an appropriate kit and I am so pleased with the way it turned out.Old photo of Henry looking very pleased because this was after a very long drought and rain was such a welcome sight. He has only owned one pair of gumboots in his time as a little boy as they just weren't needed for so many years... But he still loves his umbrella.

We have had an up and down week. I have struggled to get rid of a cold, Geoff hurt his back, Mum had a bit of a health scare, we had a few issues with the builder (nothing too catastrophic but really annoying) and we still didn't have anywhere to move to. Come weeks end, all issues with builders resolved, the scaffolding came down

Isn't it pretty?

and we now have a place to live, much closer to our old place and very close to Meaghan's school, Henry's school and Matt's girlfriend, so all happy. (well further away from Geoff's work but we can't all be perfect).  Mum is recovering from a mystery illness but all  tests negative.

And I survived two parent teacher nights with mostly good reports.

So currently in happy place - hopefully my lovely hawks will beat the nasty magpies today (AFL talk, my first love) and all will be well in the world! (just don't think about the packing..)

Hope you are all in an equally good place. x