The Cupcakeinator is Sick

Yesterday Noah and I made cupcakes. Oreo cookie cupcakes.

Yes, it took far longer than if I was just making them by myself. And yes, they took so long I had to wait to ice them until this morning but look at our results. Look at those cute mini Oreos:

Of course he had to call himself "The Cupcakeinator" (The Cat in the Hat movie has influenced our family greatly...).

But sadly the Cupcakeinator is poorly today. In fact as I type this, at 12:42pm, he is in bed with a headache, a reasonably high temperature (38.8) and fast asleep. And for all of you with 5 year old boys you will know how unusual this is. As a mum, I'm trying not to worry and enjoy the relative peace and quiet, but the worry is always there...

So, sadly the Cupcakeinator has not even had a cupcake yet! Although I have to admit that this is probably not such a bad thing - that icing is soooo sweet. Reminder to self 'use less icing sugar next time'!

Learning...

... lots of new things.

I recently signed up to do a Jessica Sprague online digital scrapbooking class, Now We're Rockin' With Photoshop, and I am learning so much, you wouldn't believe it. Now, I don't by any means consider myself an expert in PS but neither do I consider myself a complete beginner. But I have been amazed by how much I have learnt by doing this course. It's worth it for the short cuts alone!

Here are the class layouts for the first 3 weeks (it's a 4 week course):

       

I love Jessica's use of brushes, not something I've used a lot of on my previous experimenting with digi-scrapping, but something I think I will use more of in the future. Can't wait for next week's lesson and will definitely be signing up for the next course (Digi: In Deep).

The other thing I've been learning (apart from how to exercise patience when Noah is involved in the equation) is web design. I signed up last September to do a course in basic web design at the local college and even though I did learn something, to be honest the course was just too slow for my liking and I didn't learn anywhere near as much as I would have liked to. The course was due to go on and develop further and I was considering enrolling but decided against it, which is lucky because not long after I received an email from the course tutor saying the course had been cancelled as he was ill.

Buy boy am I glad that I did decide not to sign up because I got pointed in the direction of Lynda.com - and cool is that site! There is so much there to get your teeth into and learn. I feel a little like a kid in a sweet shop: where to start, where to start? so much to learn, so little time.

I've taken on the web maintenance of a local church (NS Church). So far I've only tidied things up a little (created a template, done a bit of CSS to create a more uniform look to the site etc.) but do have some ideas about bringing up to date and giving it a bit more of a 'wow' factor. I feel it is far too wordy at the moment and looks slightly outdated but I don't want to run before I can walk and also I need to be a little sensitive and not just start out by saying too many negative things. The code was all over the place though, hardly any CSS used (mainly just setting out fonts used etc.) so it has taken a lot of time and effort to even make the small improvements I've made but at least now the maintenance of it is much quicker and easier.

OK, that's all for now, my brain hurts.

I'm back!

So, iWeb just didn't work out for me. I don't know why.

Whether it had to do with it being different that I just wasn't in the habit of using it.

Or if I was just so bowled over with my fantastic new Mac that I spent too much time playing with it doing other things to actually spend time doing the blog.

Whatever, I've decided to come back to the tried and trusted Typepad. For me at least, it just seems to work.

Lots of things to tell, lots have happened in the past few months and lots of stuff to show you. I'm big in to the whole digi scene at the moment. Have been doing some web design stuff. Have gone back to work, to the sort of work I swore never to do again (wouldn't you just know it). Have a second car (as of today) now. And, well, lots...

... I'll catch you all up over the next few days.

Oh, it feels good to be back :D

I Have Moved

Yes, it's finally done, not finished, but enough to point you in the direction of my new blog/website.

So, please update your bookmarks or whatever with my new blog details: www.joolsg.com

Looking forward to seeing you all there :D. I'll leave this Typepad account open for a little while longer but will close it in the next month or so.

I still have a ton of things to add, links, photos etc. but I will get there. I created it using the fabulous iWeb Apple software and it is so easy to change and update so hopefully this means I will update it more often. Famous last words!

Interesting Things I Found On The Internet Whilst Trying To Cheer Myself Up

OK, feeling extremely low today for a few reasons, which I won't go in to, so I decided to randomly browse the internet to find interesting and weird things in an effort to cheer myself up.

I stumbled (can you actually stumble virtually?) on a website by someone called Zyra and learnt or, should I say (as I can't guarantee the accuracy in some of these claims), inwardly digested the following titbits:

? On 'Real Names': The misconception of a Real Name being what someone was unfortunate enough to have bestowed upon them when they were born has various attached problems to do with freedom and self-determination. It is a fundamental right of a person to change their name, and it is good manners for others to respect that. It is important for an individual to be in control of their own life, and one aspect of that is that they are in control of what their Real Name is. Another aspect of the rights of naming is this: The only person entitled to give a name to you is yourself. Ok, when you're just born there is a convenience for your parents to give you a temporary name until you're abilities of reasoning develop enough to think up a name for yourself, but ultimately YOU DECIDE. And then, that is your Real Name. You can change it again as many times as you like, and at any point the current answer to "What is the Real Name? is whatever you stated most recently. Another point about naming of persons. You don't have to be 'FIRST NAME' space 'LAST NAME'. You can be 'UNIQUE IDENTIFIER'. This can sometimes make form-filling a bit messy on computerised forms, but that is a result of inflexible thinking on the part of the people specifying the forms. My advice on that is, if you're called GANDALF for example and you encounter a form with first-name/last-name, put "GANDALF" in one or other of the spaces and put a single non-alphanumeric character in the other. This fools all but the most stubborn of forms. Unique identifier format is popular in adventure contexts and stage-names and has historical precedents. For example: Voltaire, Plato, Cher, Geronimo, Elvira, Hercules, Shiva, Pocahontas, Tutankhamun, Arvind.

Hmm, this actually struck a small chord inside me as I was born and named Julie by my parents. As I grew up my dad started to call me Jools and I found out a few years ago that I actually prefer this. It suits me better, I 'feel' like a Jools, I don't feel like a Julie. So during the move to Canada I made a conscious decision that this is what I would prefer to be called and introduced myself as such. This carried on when we returned to the UK but I still have to stop and think when people and friends I knew before Canada (including family) call me Julie now. It doesn't feel right. It sounds alien. It's not my Real Name any longer...

? Lightning versus Lottery Win: You are about 40-50 times more likely to win the lottery than you are to be killed by lightning, assuming such things as that you always buy one lottery ticket per week and that you are out in thunderstorms only as much as average!

Perhaps I really should buy a lottery ticket?

? A Fine Toothcomb?: You often hear it; "They searched the whole place with a fine toothcomb", or "Even after going through all the stuff with a fine toothcomb the evidence still wasn't found" etc. But, has anyone stopped to ask, "What IS a FINE TOOTH-COMB?"! Rather like "every which way but loose" it seems ok at first, but on closer inspection doesn't really make any sense. Even though there exists such a thing as a hair brush and a comb and a tooth brush, so there might be such a thing as a tooth-comb, of which the higher grade ones would be of the type "fine toothcomb", it really doesn't work, as there is no such thing as a fine tooth-comb. What the term really means is a FINE-TOOTH COMB, ie a comb on which the teeth are fine. This makes sense as it would be a comb which would have very narrow slits, thus preventing any objects of significant size from slipping through. However, you still hear people say it "fine toothcomb", when it should be "fine-tooth comb"!

? Viking Helmets: They did not have horns on them!

And so endeths the session on semi-interesting things for today. I'm off now to go and knit a scarf.

All Gone, All Going, All Coming

I've not just been a bad blogger, I've been a terrible blogger. Hopefully that will change now that my back is on the mend and the children are back at school.

I do have lots to share but just for now I'm going to give a quick bullet point update on what's been happening over the summer and what's coming up. They will not be in date order but just randomly as and when they pop in to my head. I will try and expand on some of them in the next few posts.

* Noah turned 5! Can you believe it? Although he was more excited about the fact that his birthday also marked the first of his summer football academy sessions.

* I did my back in - but after 5 or so chiropractor sessions I'm finally feeling that I'm getting on the mend.

* I got my lovely, gorgeously attractive iMac G5... and I'm still in love with it.

* Katarina started at senior school. When did that happen? When did she become old enough to go to 'big' big school?

* I've signed up to the Open University to start a degree. Not sure in what yet so have left it open but my first module is in web design so I'll see where that leads. Also considering graphic design.

* It looks as if I will be teaching scrapbooking at a local college on Thursday evenings. There has to be a minimum number of sign ups. To be honest I was almost on the point of pulling out of this one as when I was originally approached I didn't have a lot on and thought 'why not?' now I'm just thinking 'why????'. We'll see...

* I will be switching from Typepad to .mac for my blog and website but this won't be for a little while longer as I want to link it my standard domain name site but some other things need to be done before that can happen.

* We had a visit to Longleat Safari Park which Hettie in particular loved. Especially getting the opportunity to speak to the keepers and actually get to see Trevor the ostrich in real life!

* Shamefully became addicted to Big Brother 8. Why, oh, why did I allow myself to get hooked? I WILL NOT be watching next year! There are better things to do with 13 weeks...

* Actually did some scrapping for the first time in a LONG time - and I mean a LONG time. Last week I did a promo evening at the college, went to PaperArts Friday night crop (strangely on Friday night) and cropped all day the Swindon Scrapaholics 1st birthday crop on Saturday.

* And finally, as that's all I can remember at the moment, I've decided NOW is the time to return to work so I'm actively looking. It may take some time as I definitely want a term time job and those can be hard to come by.

OK, that's all for now as I have to go and pick up Noah from after school football club (he now thinks he's David Beckham...).

My Baby Off To Big 'Big' School

Katarina tells me she's not nervous, just excited. Then, in the next sentance, that she couldn't sleep last night, in fact woke up at 3am, went back to bed (where did she go???) at 4am, woke again at 6:30am and thought that she may as well get up.

But no, she's not nervous... She then spends the rest of the morning until it's time to leave talking ten to the dozen - a sure sign of nervousness (I know - this is something I do).

Now obviously I want to take some photos to commemorate the occassion (I'm a scrapbooking, it's in the blood) but she's now reached that age where it isn't cool. I managed to snap a couple of photos at home and dared to get the camera out at school and managed to get a couple of her, unawares, waiting in her tutor group line.

Love the second one where she is just chatting away to one of her best friends (there's a group of 4 of them who have been bestest friends for the last couple of years and luckily they are all in the same tutor group - they are dead excited!). The third photo shows her "I'm concentrating" face - there was a scary lady teacher banging on about the poor turnout of some in the children's school uniform, top buttons undone, ties not done up properly etc. etc. Kat was very quick to point out to me that ALL the children from her primary school were all very smartly turned out - and they were!

The last photo I can see the "oh, no, my mother is taking photos, again" look on her face. Priceless.

Oh, and as usual just click on the photos to see them bigger.