This, That and the Other

OK, so it's been a while but life has a way of just taking over sometimes and lately that's how it's been. Lately it seems that any time I get near the computer it's for business and never pleasure. Hence the neglect of blog, digital scrapbooking and well, pretty much everything else I do connected with access to the www!

So, what has been happening? Actually for someone who's very busy, not much really. Just stuff.

The school holidays were pretty much taken up with illnesses in one shape or form. So, last week turned in to being more about survival than anything else. Noah we've discussed in a previous post. Katarina finally ended up on antibiotics for her cough (which is still going, 4 weeks later but she is slooowwwwwlllllly recovering from). I had whatever it was that Noah had and Harriet seemed to be the only one who escaped lurgy free. But that's probably for the good because she had other 'things' to keep her occupied - namely Giant African Snails... don't ask! You could see the 'envy' on all the other mums' faces when I was the 'lucky' mother seen taking these gorgeous snails out to my car at the end of term! They are HUGE. The biggest one measures about 5-6" in length:

Work is great. Too great in fact. I imagined that it would take me some time to build up my client base, that I would probably have months ahead with not much to do. But no. Apparently there is a big need out there for management accountants and bookkeepers who know what they are doing! I've been working pretty much flat out and work is coming in at a more than steady rate. And you know what? I'm enjoying it - mostly :D

What else?

Yesterday some very good friends of ours, you know who you are, came and took all three of our children off our hands for a few hours. They are not only good friends but weirdly seem to actually like all our children. They are keepers obviously.

I know that they intended for us to have some 'us' time but we couldn't resist the urge to actually do something and so we did. Richard literally cleared/gutted my office. It is now echoing as there is no longer any Basic Grey/KI/Urban Lily etc. etc. to absorb any noise. This is the first stage of the office/scraproom clear out. Oh, yes, I'm 'doing' my scraproom out. I have far, far too much stuff,
embarrassingly so it feels. Some friends and I have been talking and
discussing why we don't scrap so much nowadays. Are we tiring of our
hobby? Is the industry taking all the joy out of it? Do we put too much
pressure on ourselves to create a masterpiece each time. But do you
what? We think it's because we have too much stuff. We scrapped so much
more, and enjoyed it more, when all our stash was kept in a single
drawer in the dining room! So that, and the fact that I digi-scrap more
and more, has given me the incentive to finally get around to cleaning
out my space, decorating the room and thinning out my stash. Some I
will sell, some I will give away but I am determined to hold on to only
the stuff I love. Really love.

And what was I doing whilst Richard was putting in the hard graft? (It was so much better for him to do it as I KNOW that I would only have taken 3 times as long as I would have been distracted at every door opening!!!). Well firstly I made a killer chilli con carne (Jamie Olivers' recipe, yum, yum, and the best in the world in my opinion) and then I made these:

After Eight Mint cupcakes. How scrumptious do they look? And this picture doesn't do them justice. The icing is 'Wicked' green.

And on that note I'll stop. Till next time...