I Know, I Know...

... I'm a bad, bad blogger!

But in my defense I have been very, very busy. Here's a brief catch up of the last few weeks (in no particular order):

• Work has really taken off. I've got lots to do and to be honest we haven't as a family yet adjusted to the fact that I now work. This means that I've still been trying to do all the things I was doing before I started work and work... hmmmm... something needs to change. Shall I give up work? LOL...



• The Thursday before the Easter my mum and step-dad arrived. They stayed until the following Tuesday. We all know what it's like having visitors don't we? All go...



• We've bought 2 new cars. I hasten to add they aren't brand new, second-hand cars, but we are really pleased to not only move up to having a second car (we so needed it) but to downsize from the Chrysler Voyager. We just didn't need such a large family car anymore, not now that Kat and Hettie aren't in child seats any longer. So we are the owners of a small little Renault Clio and a not so small (but smaller than the Voyager) Renault Grand Scenic. We're a Renault family!



• I'm in the middle of decorating my office (photos once it's completed). Awful 1980s dado rail removed, walls sanded, repairs made to where the dado rail once was, walls painted, shelves erected, now just need to sort out my stash which is currently taking over the conservatory and I'll be all set. I MUST be strict with myself over what I will or won't keep. My rule? To only keep what I absolutely LOVE.



• Hettie was off school for a couple of days. Some sort of viral thing which brought her out in spots. We thought for a moment (and so did the nurse) that it was a second occurring of chicken spots but thankfully I don't think it was.



• More work.



• And Linsay came!!! I had an email from her a couple of months ago saying that her parents were coming over to visit and stay with her brother in March, oh, and would I be home on the day they arrive as she wanted to send over a little parcel full of canadian goodies (yes, I do miss somethings!!!)? How shocked was I to open the door on Good Friday to not just find Linsay's parents but Linsay herself???!!! I was so, so happy to see her as I've missed her so much. We talk and email but it's not the same as one on one chatting. She stayed briefly for a quick coffee but then left to go visit her brother. However, I was able to pick her up from Somerset on the following Saturday and she stayed with us until the Monday. You'd think we would 'do the sights' wouldn't you? No, we chatted, drank coffee at Starbucks, had roast on Sunday and went to the cinema. And you know what? It was great, we were right back to just chilling with friends. It was fab but oh, too short.



• Lots of driving... down to Somerset and back (one and a half hours either way), up to Heathrow airport and back (a similar length of driving time).

There's probably more but my brain is frazzled just thinking about that. Have some digi LOs to post and will try and get around to them in the next day or so.

Back From A Great Weekend

What a great weekend. The perfect combination of good friends, lots of chatting, lots of eating, not a small amount of drinking and some much appreciated time in the spa and a swedish massage!

Thanks to my villa buddies for such great company (Cherry, Dani, Jackie, Janina, Julie and Mary Anne - sorry you couldn't make it Kirsty - next time eh?). Special thanks to Mary Anne for being patient with my first stumblings in to the art of crochet! But thanks also to Carole (my very own crochet guru). Loved my time with my pineapple gin buddies - thanks for the 'time out', the albatross sanctuary and well, you know what else! LOL...

I LOVED the spa. When can I go again? I want to particularly point out the Japanese Salt Bath, the Laconium, the Turkish Hammam and the Tepidarium - my personal faves!

I just have to go again so I'm going to look in to going to either the gorgeous spa at Bath (maybe a girly day out with Katarina) or I also know that Center Parcs do day visitor pamper days and feel a regular visit is in order... I never thought I was the 'spa' sort but what do you know? I was wrong!

OK, so tired now. The drive back was awful, weather (as we all in the UK are aware of) is particularly bad today, what with all the severe weather warnings and storms, so I'm in much need of some further rest and an early night.

Mothering Sunday

Last Sunday was Mother's Day here in the UK. And I had a great day.

The children brought me breakfast in bed (toast and marmalade) and the excitement on their faces as they gave me their cards was priceless. Katarina had made me some bubble bath! Don't you just love gifts like that? Handmade from the heart. Apparently she found the 'recipe' in one of her many books - it explains her nagging me every time we went shopping for red food colouring!!! She took great delight in telling me this ("see mum THAT'S why I needed it, not for me but for you) - I just hope that my using it doesn't turn my skin red!

And Richard bought me a new bead for my troll bracelet. It was the scroll bead and he had engraved on it: 'You are so beautiful my beloved, so perfect in every part' (from Songs of Solomon 4 v7).

How lovely is that?

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...

 

Update on the Cupcakeinator

Well, he slept for 2 hours and when he woke he was a veritable furnace! No kidding - he was hotter than a radiator - even down to the soles of his tiny, still cute, feet.

Took his temperature and it was 39.8 - too hot. However, he was more perky, and after a shot of Ibuprofen perked up for the afternoon, enough to play Cars on the Wii at least.

Still didn't want to eat very much but I nagged him to drink some water at least. Told him I was going to be the 'Water Nagger' to which he replied that I wasn't and added, to quote, "Mum, you're the greatest!".

<<<I'll remind him of that when he's feeling better and decides that maybe I am a pain in the proverbial...!>>>

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.