Hey - finished the last 3 LO's for "My Freedom" and just got the prompt for "Scrap Your Day" for August so off to have a play, also realised I am behind (again) with my A-Z Journal I need to get to Q pretty quickly to catch up, better pop and have a look where I am, also got to do 3 ATC's with a "Beatles Sing Title" as the theme for my swap with the lovely Shirley.

I really need to get up to date as I have Shimelle's "Learn Something New" class starting Monday and a Challenge for the Artcards UK 12 hour crop at the end of Septrember, I'm really excited about that as it will be another couple of classes with Cleo Jarvis, which is why I bought my "Big Bite" in preparation.

See you later when I hope to upload bits & pieces.

The "I Love Your Blog" Award from Beautifulily

I've been given a lovely award from Beautifulily. Go check out her blog, it's full of great stuff and I love the colours and design, and the photos & LO's are lush.

The award means you: -

1. Can put the logo on my blog - done!

2. Link the person you received the award from - done!

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs - done! (Steph, Sally, Fay, Marie, Karen, Scrapdolly & Cleo)

4. Put links of those blogs on yours - done! (my links are on the right hand side panel)

5. Leave a message on the girls blogs you have nominated (to do!)

Just off to upload some more blogs I like - done!!!!

Great Time Cropping!

Well I had a great time yesterday cropping at PaperArts, I went with a scrapping buddy (Wendy) and we had a great time, it turned out there were only the 2 of us and we got so much done as well as some stash shopping of course. I acquired a "Big Bite" somehow ?????? which I will put to good use at my next local crop as we have Cleo Jarvis coming to do a couple of classes at out 12 hour crop in September. I have family here at the moment so can't do any uploading etc but will do when I have a chance.

Sadly behind! (or should that be a large behind?)

I know I've not yet finished the last couple of pages from "My Freedom" but tomorrow I am off to a crop at PaperArts and I've taken them to finish there, along with a mini book I started 3 months ago and a new mini book to start and finish in 1 day!

On a different note, I saw myself on a video taken at the weekend (the wedding!) and was completely horrified, my DH had taken a shot of me limping over to the edge of the reception area and taking my shoes off. I looked like ****, with a big blue behind the size of a bus, my DH did inform me when I made an exclamation of horror at the viewing that it was wide angle shot, but never has anything stirred me into taking action as that did. I have beeen on a lifestyle changing regime since then.

I'm not saying D**T as I hate the word - as I seem to have been on and off D**TS all my life, it has such negative/depressive connotation.

I've tried WW, SW, Cambridge, Grapefruit, Atkins, Low Fat, Lo Carb in my time, with varying amounts of success, but I just can't sustain them for long periods of time after weight loss.

So watch this space, I'm not going to tell you my starting weight, but I am going to record weight loss, I'm hoping it will be quite therapeutic for me.

Oh, by the way - I'm trying the Paleo regime, I've been on it 4 days, feel OK, not hungry (which is my biggest issue normally).

Better today

I felt much better yesterday and even better today, plus I had a lovely surprise, my step son & family sent a flower arrangement for me as a thank you for the weekend. I really appreciated the thought.

What a last few days

Well we had a family wedding last Saturday, we've been looking forward to it for nearly a year and finally the time came. The idea was that my daughter and her family and my DH's son and family would all stay Friday & Saturday nights so we could let the cousins spend time together. We paid tas money is tight on all levels for the kids.

That failed orginally (I say orginally as see below!) at the first post as DH's son only wanted to stay the Friday (No thought to the fact that the wedding was at 1.00pm and they had to be out of room by 11.00am and all that that entails with a 16 month & a 12yr old!!!)

Anyway we did have great weather on the friday and I did get to spend time with Ethan who was a little cherub as usual. We didn't get to see too much of my DH's son & family they had been to the seaside to give the kids a run and then decided that mum would stay in the family room with youngest and dad would bring eldest to eat with the rest of us. We had a good time but did not see the others.

Breakfast time came and I was just about to settle in to choose a yummy cooked breakfast, when stepson arrives with the 2 kids and asks if we can look after them as his wife is feeling poorly and needs to go to hospital urgently. So everything went to pot, I haven't seen the children for nearly 12 months, their grandad (my hubby) is involved in video links and transport for his youngest niece's wedding and so has to disappear and so it's all on me. Suffice to say eldest then starts feeling poorly, there is an ambulance waiting to take his mum to hospital, youngest does have a nap (thank goodness) and I know nothing of the youngest's routines, mum & dad have gone and eldest is violently sick ............ HELP!!

Everyone having hair & makeup done and getting changed, me stuck in the family room with unhelpful phone calls and thankfully a SiL who does as much as she can in between apps and getting changed.

By 12.15pm I still have not showered, changed or anything. We have to be in seats by 12.50pm and it's pouring with rain, I haven't seen my DH since 9.10am and I'm really stressed.

In the end we go down to our room, I lock myself in the bathroom, sit eldest with bin for emergencies and hastily throw on wedding outfit, no makeup, no teeth cleaning, no shower, no perfume, no time to fuss with hair and fascinator, just about manage jewellery.

I get to where ceremony is - soaked to skin, fascinator dripping with about 5 mins to spare, thankfully SiL takes eldest who is looking very seedy by now.

Great ceremony apart from fact I can't see it as I am at the back of the room, and hubby is videoing at the front, rush to reception room with youngest in buggy and hastily grab large Pimms and request large glass of white wine off ANYBODY who will listen!!!

By 2.45pm I am so stressed, but DH has joined me and we are waiting for his son to arrive back at hotel with the news that a Dr has seen his eldest and now he needs to be taken to A&E.

Suffice to say, they end up staying an extra night, there are only 4 of us on the table instead of 9 and I'm so stressed I don't enjoy much, we went to bed at 9.30pm and woke up the next morning to find out step son now had the "bug" and was very unwell. I damaged my already bad knee further and was having to limp everywhere, we arrived home battered and bruised and collapsed in a heap. Stepson and family declined offer to stage their journey at our house, we haven't hear how they are despite leaving messages.

To top it all, I woke up yesterday feeling very sick and spent most of the day in bed or in the bathroom, lets hope today is better.

"My Freedom" - Day Twenty Five (Catch Up!)

Well after much thought I decided on my photos for the YES, NO & MAYBE pictures and here they are! Cupcakes of course (strawberry flavour with pink icing)

"My Freedom" - Day Twenty Four

Blogging prompt: "What's one thing in your daily routine that you would happily say 'n0' if you had the option to magic it away?" - Shimelle

My first thought was only one? And then I realised that actually the one job I would say NO to is loading and unloading the dishwasher. For some reason my DH is just not as efficient at loading the dishes as I am and when he unloads he stacks the dishes on side and then puts them away, unlike me, I just put them straight into cupboards from dishwasher. So I get to do it most times. As an aside, I also hate ironing!

"My Freedom" - Day Twenty Four

Still playing catch up so prompt 23 is here.

Blogging prompt: "Tell your blogreaders about a time when you suddenly had more confidence than you expected - maybe in replying 'yes' or 'no'!" - Shimelle

Of all the prompts so far I think this has been the hardest one for me, so I'm going to come back to it!

"My Freedom" - Day Twenty Three

This is catch up time again so prompt 22 is here.

Blogging prompt: "When was the last time you said yes to something new? Share that experience and what you learned with your readers." - Shimelle

Thinking about this, the last new experience I had was I decided to enrol on a one-day jewellery enamelling course with my niece Emma, she is a gifted amateur jewellery maker and has done courses whenever she can (family life permitting).

Her tutor at evening class did one day courses for up to 3 people in her own home in Wookey, Emma persuaded my sister in law and I to join her and I'm so glad we did, my sister in law made a beautiful brooch and I made a pair of earings.

Of course there is also Scrapfever 2008, I had never attended a retreat and neither had my scrapping buddy Maggie. We needn't have worried, there were others like us there as well as the truly experienced retreaters, we so enjoyed the experience of meeting "other like minded people" that we booked to go next to year's Scrapfever in April and also to Skraptzacular 2 later this year in November.

"My Freedom" - Day Twenty Two

Due to interrupted computer service yesterday, this is the post for prompt 21.

Blogging prompt: "In general, do you prefer to scrapbook with single photos or with a group of photos? Share a few of your favourite examples with your blog readers" - Shimelle

Generally for me it depends on the subject and the size of the page. For "My Freedom" I have used a variety of sized photos but all the LO's have been double and so needed a group of photos. I also think about whether there is a story to tell, if there is then a group of photos has to be it, if I want to have an impact then it would be one.

Unfortunately I can't give you any examples other than the photos already on my blog as, if you read yesterday's blog post you will know I had a catastrophic computer crash and have lost all my photos, not just the ones of my grandson's first year of life and of my daughters wedding but all my scrapbooking photos, all the ones I had taken for "My Freedom", that I had not done anything with yet.

I have finished my Q&A LO and also my Title Page, but although I have spent the last 30 hours upgrading my laptop with downloads etc to make it run more like my main computer I still have to upload the programmes to run my iPAQ synchronisation, and my camera uploads to my photo package.

Well I have just done all the programme uploading, and taken the photos of my two LO's, the one above is my title page for "My Freedom", I decided to to go for all photos, giving a glimpse of what is to come, the title is on the front of the album anyway and I will put all the extra journalling at the end of the album.

This LO is the one for the Q&A topic, I did 4 ATC type question and answer cards at different times of my life, I had 3 of the 4 photos in stock and had to scan my school days one. I think it works as a single LO, it gives me opportunity to do another bonus LO!

"My Freedom" - Day Twenty One (Catastrophe!!!!!)

No blog prompt today as this must be one of the worst days of my life, my computer has crashed catastrophically - the hard disc has packed up. My DH has spent most of the morning trying to get it back up off it's knees, all to no avail, so it has gone to the doctors at PCWorld, they do not hold out much hope.

I am devastated and before anyone says anything NO I did not have my files backed up, how stupid, all my photos, the whole first year of my grandson's life (and before) gone! The only pictures I have are the ones I have scrapbooked, thank god for that is all I can say.

"My Freedom" Bonus LO & Creativity LO

Well I finished my other LO today and so I've uploaded both to my blog, I didn't get chance to delve into the wardrobe as I was too busy, maybe later. I did get to do another Q&A though, giving me four.

The first LO is the "Collect, Display & Annotate" LO for day seventeen, I loved the idea using my large circle punch and laying them around the pages.

The second LO is the "Creativity" LO for day nineteen, my thanks to Marie for the idea of the flow chart, it suits me down to a tee!!!!
I did a four piccy shoot of making cupcakes, to show my creativity, as well as my flow chart, on the other page I showed some of the things I do, like - curtain making, pottery, tiffany glass, photography & scrapbooking as well making teddybears which I don't do, don't wan't to do, but think that people who do are very gifted.

Naughty Girl!

Well I've been busy selling on eBay again, loaded 50 items, it took me 4 hours!

On another note I have been a bit naughty and booked Shimelle's online Class that starts 1st September "Learn Something New Everyday" and I also saw she was doing a workshop in Gosport "Everyone Has a Story Album", which I accidently put in the basket too and checked out before I knew what I'd done - LOL.

I've decided to stay the night before in a B&B and make it a bit more special.

I have finished my bonus LO from Day Seventeen - Collect, Display & Annotate, I have taken a photo and will upload tomorrow, too tired tonight.

I've also printed off my photos for Day Nineteen, so will have a go at that LO tomorrow.

I need to get in the wardrobe and find some photos to scan for Day Twenty's LO - Q&A ATC's, I have filled in 3 Q&A cards at the moment, might try to do another one, but need to find photos to go with all of them.

Watch this space!

"My Freedom" - Day Twenty

Blogging prompt: "Share a story with your readers about one moment when you felt independent and in control." - Shimelle

I had to think long and hard about this prompt, I suppose when I look back over my life, I may have believed I'd been independent on many occasions, but the control thing put a new perspective on it.

The following incidences came to mind!

Going into further education to take an OND in Hotel & Catering Operations at Stafford College, the decision seemed to be made for me, by others as there seemed to be no alternative, I just fell into it - as it happened it was a good grounding for my future degree, but at the time I seemed not to be in control.

My first marriage, independent YES! in control NO!, my dad said as we left the house to go to the village church, "if you don't wan't to go through with this, then don't, I'm giving you permission to say no", but I didn't, all I could think of was 100 people waiting in the church, a reception paid for and a house with a mortgage awaiting me, this was in spite of the fact I knew my husband to be, could not and would not stay faithful.

Going into special education at a time when I was quite newly qualified, I went with what others thought would be a good option, it might have been on reflection, but it was a decison that others influenced me on and I felt out of control.

Let's get to a positive then, marrying my DH Tim, I was independent, we had come through a lot together and I was in control when I said "YES". It was a really happy day, first when I said yes and second the day of our marriage. I've never looked back, we've had brilliant times, good times and the not so good times, but I am mistress of my own destiny now.

Just to back that up, I have given up a well paid teaching job, to take on the occassional supply work and craft work as an alternative, because I hate teaching full time - and I can do that because I said I didn't wan't to do it anymore, so I'm not going to!!!!!