eek July

Well we all know that I am not a great blogger. Somehow the days go by and nothing gets written. But perhaps occasionally will suffice. I don't think I am ever going to have a blog to rival the Pioneer Woman, but perhaps my occasional little waffles will do.
Currently it is miserable Winter here in Melbourne. Yesterday was not so miserable and we sat out in the sun and enjoyed the break in the weather, but today back to dreary. We took lots of photos yesterday, because the sun made everything so much better looking. And of course my brother is staying and he bought his brand new Nikon the day before so we were busy playing with his new toy.
I have tried to fit in a bit of scrapbooking here and there, although I seem to be having a lot of problems with Finishing things. Starting is ok, but getting it done is a challenge. I have had a few photoshop issues where it has closed suddenly and then i forget to go back and reopen the layout... another UFO. I suspect that photoshop is responding to the fact that I have been experimenting with editing RAW images and of course you get 2 or 3 of those open and it is having to work hard. I bought a bundle of actions from Paint the Moon designs the other day and have been having a ball playing with them. I think it might be the first time i have actually paid for actions and I am totally rapt. There is something so satisfying about pushing play and watching your photo edit itself.
So today I finally finshed a new layout, using a whole bunch of kits from Shabby Princess. I love Shabby Princess stuff and have been buying her kits ever since I discovered how wonderful her freebies are. (does that makes sense?) When people tell me they are taking up digiscapping or want to try it, I always send them there, because she has so much great free stuff that you can certainly get a real taste for digital scrapbooking. The newest kit Hopscotch is a beautiful bright, fun kit with lots of great elements. It is included in the credits for my layout called Four.



I used the Piece of cake template available on the Shabby Princess blog, to enter the template challenge for July. I love what I managed here and I love that I finshed it!
Shabby Princess Blog Template Challenge.

A backwards blogger

I decided at the beginning of the year to blog more. And here I am in May with no blogs to my credit. And yet for the last 2 weeks I have faithfully kept a travel journal which when I think about it would be so much more interesting online. Perhaps it might give other people ideas of places to visit, adventures to try, even hotels we could recommend.

It all started way back around February I think when I decided that I was going to drag my gorgeous and hard working husband on holiday. Something Eastern seemed appealing and flights were advertised for quite reasonable amounts. Kuala Lumpur seemed a pretty good option, and we also fancied Singapore, Hong Kong... man what didn't we fancy? Finally we decided on Thailand becuase it seemed to have so many options. And then Jetstar had a flight special that was about half price and we booked it. 3 weeks in Thailand, including 10 days in Krabi province by the sea just relaxing.

We took 6 weeks leave and worked hard for Belmore nursing agency making the money to pay for the holiday. Luckily there was a lot of work and we were able to do some serious saving. Mike decided that if we were going to Bangkok we should check out the dental options as it is about 1/3 of the price of Australia, particularly for fancy stuff like crowns, bridges and implants.

I can't even begin to tell you how many hours it took me to book all our accommodation. Bangkok has a plethora of hotels providing everything you could posibbly want. Lacking any knowledge of the geography of Bangkok it was hard to figure out where we wanted to be and what it was we needed out of a hotel.

Finally we settled on the President Park which we totally impressed with. The price was very reasonable. They met us at the airport with the cute little sign board, whisked us off in the limousine and gave us such spectacular servide for the whoe 4 days. The hotel is built in multiple buildings and the doorman would open the door for you and then rush out to ensure the road was clear for you to cross safely. They doormen were delightful, so charming and so helpful. It was a wonderful experience.

So what I have decided is to copy out my travel journal day by day... it does mean you will be getting the details a week or so out, but if i am really organised u might get some pics.

What I really wanted to achieve with this blog is to include some reviews of some of the great services and accomodation we used because I found other peoples reviews invaluable in planning my vaccation.
So you can consider this the preface and stand by for more info.

Happy new year

Yes for us here it is now the New year, 2010. I will have to remember to write it correctly when I go to work this afternoon. Despite it being the holiday season there is no let up in terms of work. Greg and Mike both started at 7am this morning and I am heading in for an afternoon shift. Still on the plus side the money is always good for working public holidays.

The new year didn't start with much joy for me as I am suffering from a miserable cold. I was asleep well before midnight. But I have some hopes, maybe some sketchy resoutions for the new year. Perhaps principally I want it to be a better year than last year which was overshadowed by lots of problems with my back. I am working hard at my physio and plan to do more swimming to strengthen all those core muscles which they tell me will help. We now have two children (young adults i suppose) out working which has changed the dynamics of our household somewhat. Greg has been very busy at Bunnings while Caitlin isn't getting the hours she needs from Subway. She is hoping to do an Aged Care Course this year as there is plenty of work in that field. If she likes it then she will hopefully go on to do nursing. She is working hard on getting her hours up on her Learners Drivers licence. I am impressed with her driving and she is gaining more and more confidence. She drove us to the Airport on Christmas Day! Mike is planning on doing Uni again in the second semester. Before that we have to take 8 weeks holiday. Well, he does as he has accrued too much. We are trying to work out the logistics of a rural short term contract. I think it would be a really interesting experience. Ben's future is still up in the air because his mother was disorganised and hasn't completed his enrolment for boarding school. In fact we still haven't figured out if we can afford it! Certainly it would be good for all of us and he would really like to go. Will have to wait a few more days until they reopen to see if it is still doable.

Otherwise it is life as normal. I plan to do more photography this year, I would really like to improve my skills. My scrapbooking seems to have come to a screeching halt and I can't seem to create anything I like. I am finding it totally frustrating. I have decided to focus on cleaning up my hard drive and sorting my stuff out until I get some inspiration back. I am totally sick of staring at poor pages that I know are lame but are the best I can manage.

I have been reading a lot, all sorts of stuff. Having finished my library books I have been reading Caitlin's books which mostly seem to consist of Vampire stories. They really are most entertaining, I can see why they catch on.

Anyway work time beckons and I have to fill up the car on the way. I hope, believe that this is going to be a good year.

Just another Tuesday

Although I have to say that I like tuesdays because that is our Lucus day and we try and do something fun while we have him and today Finally the weather remembered it was spring and the sun shone and it was beautiful. We went shopping over at Parahan, and then took a picnic down to the banks of the murky Yarra river and ate on a jetty where a beautiful swan came and had some nibbles of our bread. It was really lovely to see the change in the weather and feel all that warm sun. I am so over winter.
I made a page about my mum last night. I just had this sense that I wanted to write some more of my memories down for the kids. I saw the challenge on the daily digi for More with four and the crochet flowers just shrieked Jean at me. My mother was such an avid crocheter (not sure if that is a word) but she loved to crochet. She was a complete perfectionist and all her wool was colour coordinated and she would often take a whole strand off the ball to make it the right weight. It drove me nuts! She had wool everywhere. She didn't finish too many of her rugs because she was like me constantly starting new projects without finishing the last. Anyway here is my page about my mum. Hope you like it


Everthing I used in this came from the Digi files - its a real bargain at only $5.00. So much cool stuff. I picked up some yummy templates while I was there too. Worth checking out.

Just a wee note

I downloaded a few actions and a story board from Coffeshop.com. there is just so much information on her site. Actions, tutorials, templates. Fascinating stuff. So here is my first storyboard. Photos from Tuesday at the beach. and that's it. nothing else to tell.