Bad hair day

Which is likely to turn in to a bad hair month, perhaps longer, depending on how quickly my hair grows!

Yup, I had a hair cut this morning. It is awful, I hate it, I think I look like something out of Prisoner Cell Block H. My hairdresser, and I hope to goodness she isn't reading this, is normally great. Does a fantastic job, so I don't know what has gone wrong. But wrong it has gone.

It's so bad I don't want to even leave the house and of course I now look ten times worse with the results of too much crying - red eyes. And I can't do anything about it except wait, and wait, for it to grow - or buy a BIG hat.

So, if you see someone out and about with a paper bag over their head (altered and distressed of course!) it will be ME.

I think I've found it!

The hunt for the elusive perfect white journalling pen continues.

My good friend Juanita very kindly sent me a great White Sharpie all the way from Canada and whilst it is OK I have to admit, sorry Juanita, that it is not what I hoped it would be.

However, I may have found one that could well live up to all my expectations and I saw it in action at the PaperArts crop last weekend. Thank you Karen. It is by Sakura, in my opinion one of the great pen manufacturers, and is from the Souffle range of pens. From what I saw it initially doesn't look promising as it is quite opaque looking (the blight of many a white pen) to start BUT as it dries it sort of puffs up (reminding me of those fabulous puff paints I loved as a child) and becomes a very white, very solid looking colour.

Too cool. I've ordered some (!) and of course a few other bits slipped in to my basket too...

I scrapped

Yay! Not only did I get to have fun at the crop but I actually managed to complete two. whole. layouts.

Unheard of for me. It must be a world record. Three layouts in one week. Simple ones I know but completed all the same. Sorry for the bad picture but as I haven't yet bought a new scanner I am reliant on taking photos and as I've tried not to use the flash, for obvious reasons, and it's a dull day today, so they are rather ropey looking and the colours look nothing like they do IRL!

Happy Birthday PaperArts

Yesterday was PaperArts 3rd birthday and Fiona celebrated with a 12 hour crop - always very popular and not entirely due to the delicious fish and chips!

Fiona also took her life, and business, in hand and asked if I would teach a class. I really enjoy teaching at Fiona's crops, not that I've taught that often, only once before I went to Canada and once since my return, but I really enjoy the company of the people I'm cropping with so it's always a fun time.

This was the layout I designed for the class, very simple but then it would have to be because, as I've said on more than one occasion, all my stash is still boxed up!

Thanks Fiona, I had a great time

My little war evacuee

Katarina is currently studying World War 2 at school. A couple of weeks ago she gave a Power Point presentation all about the evacuees and today they have the History People coming in to school to bring it all alive for them. With this in mind the children were asked to come in to school dressed like evacuees complete with gas mask boxes and name tags (cue mummy running around like a headless chicken trying to find something appropriate to wear - the key find was the knitted beret!).

And here she is, my little war evacuee:

Girl with stash

So I haven't been buying much stash lately :(

I mean there doesn't seem to be much point as, apart from the few classes I'm teaching, I've not really done any scrapping since the move back to England. 4 months! 4 months with NO scrapping but more importantly 4 months without any real stash buying. How is this possible?

But, wait, I was searching on EBay recently and saw an 8" x 8" Slab of Christina Cole papers. 30 different styles, 3 sheets of each. Well it was hard to resist so I didn't. And I actually bought 2! They arrived yesterday but I've only just found time to open one up and sit and drool over it. They are yummy. I'll try and take a photo later to post but in the mean time there's this link which shows 20 of the styles included in the slab.

Off to drool some more and dream about what I'm going to use them for once I finally get back in to the scrapping groove.

Relaxing?

We're back from a long weekend break at Center Parcs (Longleat) which is supposed to be relaxing, or so everyone has told me. Am I relaxed? In a word, no.

What with all the walking, not to mention running to catch up with a missed land train and all that swimming, well, quite frankly, I'm shattered and hurting in places I didn't believe it was possible to hurt.

If it was just swimming I don't think it would have been too bad but Katarina wanted me to accompany her on the wild rapids ride (more than once) which resulted in my pulling a muscle in the back of my right thigh, then Harriet wants to go down one of the water slides but DOESN'T want to land in the deep water at the end - cue my 'role' of going down in tandem with her but having the enviable job of keeping her head above water whilst landing at the end - this results in a clicky jaw for me and, I don't know what else I did but suffice it to say I can hardly walk 2 steps through the pain in my shins.

So, do I feel relaxed? No. But we did have a wonderful time :)

In the name of love

Because it's Valentine's Day and because it also happens to be the wedding anniversary of my bestest friends, Nik and Cam, I have changed my blog page. It will be temporary but I am thinking of making a further change which will be more permanent. What's the old adage? A change is as good as a rest?

So, happy Valentine's Day Richard, here's to our trip to Paris in May.

Nik and Cam, hope you had a great day, that you managed to have some child free time and that neither of you were working!

{{A}} The A-Z of Me

Art

Well I suppose this is an obvious one really. I'm not going to pretend I'm the "arty" type, I'm not, but I do like art.

Before I met Richard I would say I was pretty much a main stream art appreciator, Monet, that sort of thing. Richard on the other hand very much admires artists like Dali, Escher, Picasso and I just couldn't understand why. I mean, they're weird!

However, as in most relationships you suddenly find yourselves, slowly over time, actually starting to like some of the things they do, even when you have no intention of doing so. I actually now do like various different art styles and whilst I am probably still fairly main stream even in my modern art tastes (Hockney for example) I can even appreciate and see something even in the really weird stuff. I mean I actually now have a Picasso print on my bedroom wall - but I draw the line at Dali, I really do!

 

Someone pass me the matchsticks

I am so tired. But truly that just doesn't sum it up, I am beyond tired. I have no idea how women whose husbands work away a lot, for example if they are in the forces, cope with having children and doing absolutely everything. I suppose it all depends on what you are used to.

Yes, as you can guess Richard is away at the moment. He went off last Sunday and won't be back until next Monday morning, a whole week. Away. In Bermuda.

And wouldn't you guess this would be the week where Noah decides that it would be great to wake his mummy up no less than 4 times a night, that the girls think the hour before 6:00am is really the best time of the day to get up and, say let's just throw in a little fever for one of us too Mummy? Oh, and let's not forget the Power Point presentation for no. 1 daughter that needed Mum's help and the art exhibition at school that I just had to attend and then Noah deciding that this week he really didn't want to go to pre-School. Anything else? Yes, I'll just say the two words 'scrapbook' and 'magazine'!

Don't get me wrong, I love my children, they are, generally, good children but there are just some days where I think if I hear the word "Mummy..." one more time - I'll scream! And being tired just pulls my nerves even tauter (is that such a word or should it be tighter?). I don't sleep well when Richard is away anyway but the combination of constantly having to get out of bed every 2-3 hours and then being woken up at a time that starts with the number 5 (this surely is still the middle of the night, isn't it?) do not a happy Jools make.

I am NOT a morning person, never have been, never will be, so why then can't my children take after me? Why do they have to be like their Dad, able to wake up, jump out of bed and be ready for the world?

Now, where are those matchsticks....?

The A-Z of Me

OK, I have succumbed and I am going to do an A-Z of me album, journal type thingy. However, I am not starting it until I've done the right amount of preparation - for this read looked at everyone else's lists, especially with a view to the difficult letters (x for example), compiled a complete list of my own together with copious amounts of cross-referencing, and finally get around to finishing the book "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life".

I did think though that it would be fun (and may make me be a little more discipline and actually buckle down to doing something) to post my encyclopedia here in my blog as it gets compiled. I'm thinking of maybe a letter per week? Yes, I'm going to do this. But the question now is do I start from the letter 'A' and systematically progress up through the alphabet in strict order? Or do I just randomly pick a letter?

Hmmm, my organised, perfectionist self is pushing for the first option but the creative side of me is saying "go on, go for it, mix it up a little, you know you want to ....."

Time will tell as I am going to start with the first letter of the alphabet. Now I just need to think of some things.

Oh, b*gger!

So, I spend ages yesterday typing up a response to the tag Nat sent me last week and guess what? Yup, I didn't save it as a draft and just as I was about to publish it I accidently closed down Firefox and so therefore closed down Typepad and so lost everything I'd typed - darn blast it (I have to keep it polite, my 9 year reads this!).

So, I am now faced with the dilemma of whether I re-type everything, and you just know it won't be such a fantastic piece of journalling artistry nor as witty (ha-ha!), or do I just forget it and take up the latest tag challenge sent out by Nat?

Should I take a vote on this?  Or would it be embarrassing in it's lack of response? But then again, my one reader should have some influence over the drivel I'm producing, surely?

Ok, please feel free to comment and leave either an {A} Yes, re-type you lazy so and so or {B} No, you've been there, done that, it's time to move on (see the trendy use of Ali Edwards style brackets!).