It's been one of those days...

Making buttons, Sth Africa and running over roundabouts

There’s something cool about being out and about at 5.30am.  Firstly, it means you don’t have to make the bed.  Last one out, makes it, right?  Secondly, it’s really quiet.  There is something cool about being out and about when everyone else is sleeping.  Lastly, and this is the coolest thing, you get to drive over round-abouts instead of around them.  Just the flat ones, mind you.  Not the ones with plants and signs in the middle.  They aren’t as much fun.

For those of you that started on the epic training-to-beat-all-trainings about 6 weeks back… I gave it up.  I gave up the running-the-roads-with-10km-as-a goal.  I still go to the gym 5 or 6 times a week and I have been known to take advantage of the guy taking the spin class (the sentence does not stop there, carry on…), specifically the way he has the music twice as loud and yells encouragement to the people in the class makes me carry on running on that treadmill while the class is going on in the next room… I’m up to 6km… and on the days I don’t run, I do weights.  I have the cutest.  little.  biceps.  If there were a cute little biceps competition, I would seriously win it.

Onwards though.  I just found the niftiest little button maker machine thing.  Epiphany Crafts.  Have you ever wondered what happened to the owner of Lil’ Davis Designs?  This is what happened… she started making button makers.  I like this page here cos you can play with the button maker.  Virtual button making.  Who woulda thunk.

A week til I go to South Africa.  Busy busy busy wrapping up my next Big Picture Scrapbooking class which opens for registration in the next few days or so… I have my twenty million immunisations which apparently were unnecessary and probably just a revenue seeking venture on behalf of my doctor.  The good news is that I am now immune to Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, Polio and my tetanus is up to date AND I am on a 6 week course of antibiotics incse of malaria and because of that I am keeping the probiotic companies in business as well. 

Cool idea for father’s day on Tamar’s blog.  I might be giving something like this a go… Actually it’s Paul’s 40th while we are in South Africa.. for anyone attending the event, he thinks he is so darn smart inviting everyone he knows to his 40th… hahaha it’s in South Africa he says… yes. very. smart.

 

My inbox – has anyone seen it?  Me neither.  If you emailed me and I haven’t emailed you back, that’s because it’s overgrown with ivy and if i try and go near it, bats fly out.  It’s a nasty overgrown, neglected word pit right now, and I apologise.

Time to go – it’s an early morning start for me and I still have a heap to complete tonight… I did want to point you this way though. After 3 1/2 years I have given up Tarisota.  I haven’t given up on the girls though.  They will always remain some of the most special girls in scrapbookey land.

Laters

 

Going on a Road Trip…

Welcome! If you have been sent here from the Prima Blog, welcome, I know there is some blog hopping going on today!  I’m taking time out from writing my new Big Picture Scrapbooking workshop, which will feature in Nov/Dec this year, to update my blog.  It’s long overdue!

It’s official.  I’m growing webbed feet.  It’s so wet!  We travelled to the Rotorua Tough Guy and Tough Gal competition last weekend and apparently we got 12 inches of rain over the course of the few days.  HOLY MUDDY WATER HOLE BATMAN enough already!!  Lucy and I were soaked and we didn’t even take part in the competition!  When I get my camera back off my hubby, I’ll show you the state he got himself into… crazy thing that they do!  It hasn’t stopped raining since and I’m about ready to fire the God of all things Rainy.

The plus side to all this rain is that I go the gym, so I don’t have to run in it :)

I’m leaving you with some pics of the Canvas Birdhouse I created for Prima, CHA.  The birdhouse opens to reveal about 6 pages which you can decorate.  It’s been 6 years since Evana took these amazing pics of my bubba when she was born.  The pictures were so amazing that I’ve never known how to do them justice.  I finally put them in this album and just love it… Abby loved it too! 

oh!  Just a note – I’ve been asked about the font I use a lot in my newsletters… the typeface font is usually either AL Worn Machine (and I believe the AL stands for Autumn Leaves) or My Own Topher, or LoveLetterTW.
Good luck!

Alrighty – back to content – enjoy the blog hop – laters.

Eureka!!

The face of a little girl that has just won the Eureka T-Shirt competition…

Fresh home from school with her hair in a scruffy ponytail and pen all over her hands from drawing.  She’s a happy girl!  A sincere thank you to all of you that voted for her.

Being the third child means Abby doesn’t always get to ‘do’ stuff.  Her two older brothers are allowed on their bikes around the street alone.  They go to bed later at night.  They play together, often excluding Abby from their imaginary Pokemon games. 

So when her ‘boys’ sat down to create drawings for the Eureka competition, Abby really didn’t think she had a chance.  The boys spent hours on their creations, discussing the whole time whether theirs would win.   Abby decided to draw something too, and her first instinct was to draw strawberries.. eating healthy was something they have been drumming into them at school, so it was a strawberry “Who’s eating healthy” creation that she made.  We put her entry in with entries from “boys” and off they went.

Imagine the giggles of delight at seeing her design as a finalist and Abby’s ‘boys’ weren’t.  Oh. The. Power!!

So thanks everyone.  Thanks for making a little girl’s day.  It really was fabulous to see her giggle and dance around the room knowing she had beat the third-child blues and succeeded at something that ‘her boys’ had not. 

Thanks to Eureka as well.  They have just rung and are sending the certificate and prize.  I look forward to handing it over to Abby!

 

Alrighty – an update with the running thing – am I running?  Sometimes.   Last week I threw my hands in the air at the weather and the dark and joined the gym in efforts to do something else.  And then couldn’t move for 3 days afterwards.  I was back at it on Thursday though, and have gone pretty much everyday since.  My focus has shifted.  I’ve been at this new fitness game for over a year now and it took me ‘til about 10 days ago to realise I’m never going to be much of a runner.  So I’m happy with my 5km fitness, and I hit the gym for toning. It’s a happy middle ground.  Except when I have to get out of bed at 5.15am to get there. 

Prima Build A Page for August has been released, this is my version.  This time the photo is of Skye and her Momma.  Such a sweet pic, I was thrilled to be able to showcase it!

Have a good one!

Laters

Sore muscles, fire engines and not being able to raise my hand

Hand up who has been working out this week?  I would but I can’t because I joined the gym and now I’m so sore I can barely move, raising my hand isn’t an option right now.  Two days at the gym and I’m toast.  I thought I’d get up this morning and go for a run on the treadmill.  Just to loosen up after two days weights.  In the end just getting up was a problem.  Any fitness experts out there that have an opinion on whether I should push through it and keep exercising – actually I think it’d be impossible right now as I can’t bend over to put my shoes on – or leave it til I’m healed, feel free to let me know what to do.  And yep, all this fabulous muscle work done under the careful eye of a personal trainer setting me a program.  I guess she found my limits, huh?!

So anyway.  I sat a lot today.  I typed.  I wrote the outline for my new Big Picture Scrapbooking workshop, due to run in October this year.

I cruised the internet trying to catch up on the CHA news – if you have seen a really good write up on a blog, I’d love to see it, link me up!

I personally loved seeing Christine Middlecamp’s write up.  Prima had some great pics of their own booth.  Crate paper has some awesome layouts that were designed for their booth and they have some really cool products coming out too.  Sassafras Lass has some cool CHA pics and products too. 

My thrill from the last week – well, one of the thrills…. during my run last Saturday the volunteer fire siren went up.  I was running only a few hundred metres from the fire station and sure enough it didn’t take long for me to spot the volunteer firemen in their cars – trying-to-stick-to-the-speed-limit-but-getting-to-the-station-as-fast-as-I-can whizzing past.  I was about to turn down a sidestreet but being the fire-engine freak that I am (you know how it is, trains, fire engines, I’m fascinated with that kind of thing…) I decide to carry on toward the fire station.  Just as I got near, the first fire engine left the station… lights on, sounding it’s horn loudly as it leaves as a warning to anyone that is near.  I’m quietly disappointed I missed it, being so far away.  but just as I near the station, the second engine decides to leave.  Not only did I get to see it leave, but I had to jog on the spot and wait (musta looked a right twit actually, big grin on my face, jogging on the spot, waiting for the engine to leave).  That one took off in a hurry too, I was left jogging along the path after it was gone, still grinning with the people in the cars going past wondering why anyone that looked as exhausted as me, doing the unfit-person-shuffle along the side of the road would be grinning so big. 

Alrighty, more simple… enjoying telling stories again

laters