Saturday, December 22, 2007

What colour tree should I have....

I actually wanted white this year... we always had white when the kids were little, but no. I've still got the green one... Ah well, maybe next year. White or silver... tho this blog thingummyjig suggests Gold for me... hmm... not too sure about that


You Should Have a Gold Christmas Tree



For you, the holidays represent a time of optimism and wealth.

You definitely have a generous spirit, and you give a lot during the holiday season.



You really go over the top for Christmas. Everyone on your list gets a great gift.

Even if you don't have a lot of money during the holidays, it's the one time you pretend like you do.



Your gold tree would look great with: All kinds of metallic decorations



You should spend Christmas Eve watching: Miracle on 34th St



What you should bake for Santa: A ton of cookies, cupcakes, and candy. You would enjoy spoiling him.

it's in the air...

Christmas is in the air... along with 500 million viruses, bugs, and bacteria....

The petrie dish where I work has once again triumphed and brought my entire house down with some vile flu bug, which I personally, cannot shake off.

I am sick to death of feeling ill - this has been a week now and i've had enough.. to quote Hugh Grant: My face is in the butter...

I just don't wanna play anymore.

I should be having a wonderful time...shopping and planning and organising... and I was! Until this kicked in, and it's just not fair. I feel robbed and cheated, and bloody well knackered. I also feel a bit scared because I can't breathe well today and have a pain in my chest, and as I already have asthma and have had pnuemonia before, I really don't want it to get any worse. Especially as my chances of seeing a doctor for antibiotics at this time of year is probably way way less than zero... Carl told me I should go days ago... but would I listen?

I've managed to do some of the housework I wanted to do. Carl helped me bless him, and I was grateful for that. But now i'm exhausted and can do no more. At least until I've had a rest. I wanted to go shopping but can't face it. Bad enough I have to go out tomorrow.. today I'm staying in, in the warm.

Maybe i'll have a little play with my scraps, but my creativity seems to be as weak as my poor tired bod, as I don't think I did a very great job on this LO yesterday, which was for last night's mojo holder. Shame, coz it's a nice pic, and the CS and papers are delish... I just didn't have any oomph about me, and it shows... Ah well, they can't all be fantastic, can they...

Be nice if the odd one was occasionally..... but there you go. A world class scrapper I aint ;-D



Hoping you are all feeling better than me... hugs
jk xx

Sunday, December 16, 2007

back on the road



Well, the car's fixed, and what a blessed relief it is to have wheels again :-)
Obviously I know I need it for work, but I had no idea how much I'd miss not being able to just jump in and go... I would have gone to Hemel and done shopping this weekend so it's put me slightly behind, but I think I'll still be ok, and can always go into town after work if I find I need to. And there's always asda.... bless asda, where would we be without it?

Went out today for a pre-Christmas lunch with one of my ladies and her family, and had a smashing time. I wasn't really looking forward to it as i'm just so busy, but once I'd resigned myself that I would go, I decided to relax and enjoy it. Gorgeous Hotel in Aspley Guise and a perfectly lovely meal. The only downside being that I have since developed a stinking cold and though I enjoyed my lunch I now feel rotten and think the only thing is to go to bed and try and get some sleep. Hopefully, I'll feel a bit better tomorrow. I don't fancy this lingering on until Christmas!

A couple of BOY layouts, above and below... much as this fella drives me crazy - he's still my fave scrapping material... ;-)


Saturday, December 15, 2007

surprisingly upbeat

Not sure why, but I'm feeling very mellow. Normally a broken car or something equally catastrophic would give me all kinds of kinds of the collywobbles, but somehow I just don't seem to be too worried. Sure, the cost is a bugger, especially right now... but even that's not enough to dampen my mood, which to be honest, is surprisingly upbeat as I write.

Thoroughly enjoyed the kid's Nativity last night, which saw Solomon taking a lead role - something we'd never have dreamed of when he started school. Even the head commented on how well he did - unbelievable for a boy who normally bursts into tears if he finds himself attracting too much attention. I was so proud of him, and me and his other Nannie almost clapped our hands off when he took a bow at the end. Isabelle was - of course - a star, playing her own part, and the part of another little girl who took sick.... :-) But then, there couldn't be enough attention in the world for that one!! Lol!

I do have photo's, but some are a little blurry, and others have stray children in so won't post them on here. Don't want to find myself in hot water for pasting up other people's kids without permission now do I?

A couple of layouts to share:


Last night's Mojoholder scraplift (emnol)



The boy looking delish as as usual, posing in a cute beanie hat :-) Loved the original, but not sure I really like my layout all that much, as I'm not mad on plain card backgrounds tbh. still, they're cute photos, if a little out of focus. (I was not the photographer... but I'm no better, so not sure why i'm even mentioning that lol!)


And a quickie I whipped up yesterday as it's so long since I scrapped I thought I might have forgotten how to do it and needed to get going again with something!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

mixed bag...

What do you want... the good news... or the bad news..?

Ok, we'll start with the bad news first.

The car is broken.
Broken, busted, and bloody well knackered, which is an awful pain as I really... really, don't want to be paying out on it right now. Less than a fortnight before Christmas, and less than a week since our little jaunt to the West Country, and our splurge on fun and frolics with the fam.

!!*Bugger Bum and Willies*!!

Clutch cables really pick their times, you know?

So, the car is stuck at work - which is ten miles from me, and I had to beg a lift home, and hopefully, a friend is arranging recovery tomorrow, and then, if he can he'll fix it over the weekend sometime. Assuming it is only the clutch cable, of course.....

So that's the bad news. Broken vehicles, and money for repairs.... I'd much rather be spending my dosh on something nice and pretty and patterned and papery ;-)

But such is life.

The good news is, we had a lovely time with the family last week, and I got some great fun photos, so now I've got over them leaving and going home until who knows when, I'm looking forward to scrapping my pics and sharing them on here.


We had a couple of days out shopping which they love, as Lanza just doesn't have all the shops and markets like we have here. I don't actually know how the plane took off with all their excess baggage but they got home alright, so it did somehow :-)

We ate loads of scrummy nosh, caught up on all our news, and on Thursday morning, took off for Cornwall to spend a few days with my sister in Truro.

On the Friday, we did a Murder Mystery Night, which was a scream. We'd had our characters for weeks, and they were so apt it was hysterical. Erkin, my son in law, who is a manager at Arrecife Airport, was Willie Crash, a pilot;


and Carlo (big Ju Jitsu man) was Marshall Hartz, owner of a Karate club :-)

I was Ginny Tonic - a writer and attractive barfly...... and I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions as to why I landed that role ;-)
While Vin was Dwayne Pokem - a guitar strummin country singer...

Jazz became Delores Delgatto - a waitress... The first job she had when she went to live in Lanza several years ago! Daave was Phil Muggs, the dodgy barman,

and my sis was Marlena, a mystery woman with a secret.... tho it looks like Jazz is the one hiding the secret here...

How Sanna found a box with such relevent characters in, is beyond me, but we had a total blast playing the game and everyone got right into their role, which made it all the more fun. It was set in a bar in Chigago, and nobody guessed the real murderer... who turned out to be ME!!!! Lol!!!

Next day we had 'Christmas Dinner' complete with pressies for all, where Sanna was assisted by her little helper - who even wore the T shirt to prove he was the boy for the job.


And it was just such a wonderful weekend, and over too soon, but we'll do it again for def, because it's far too much fun not to.

I'll leave you with some piccie's and hopefully I'll manage some layouts before Christmas.

I just cannot leave these baby's unscrapped!




Til next time!! Enjoy the season!! Take care!!

jake xx

Monday, December 03, 2007

Just a quick catch up post today ;-) Scrapping Goodies Dec kit is now up on the site - lots of luscious lovelies in there. I've been playing with the contents of my 1st box of DT stash... mmmm... anyone treating themselves to this kit will definitely not be disappointed!

Here's what you get:


I did a couple of chrimbly layouts



and a card
I love the snowflake paper so much.. wish we got more snow here. I'm forever buying snowflake stuff...papers and embellies...stamps... can't resist any of it, but I rarely get the chance to use it as the weather just doesn't oblige that often... lol.

There were some other lovely papers and bits, so I did a couple of everyday layouts too. I was absolutely cacking it about going back to the smaller size format, but why haven't I done it before? I used to love scrapping in this size and have several ring binders full of ancient layouts... too old and erm... embarrasing... to show, but i'd forgotten how quick and easy - and fun - they are to make. I'm hooked again now, so some good has come of it anyway :-)

Everyday layouts



Don't imagine I'll get much done for a few days now as the family arrive late tonight - Guess it's time to make a few memories instead of scrapping them.

And I'll sign off with a Christmas layout I made using a very special photograph... Remember I posted about some problems I was having recently? Well, it was all because of a rather unpleasant blast from the past... but as they say - every cloud has a silver lining... and you know, I think that may be true. As a direct result of this bad situation, I was last week reunited with some very precious old photographs... pictures I thought I'd never see again, and one in particular; which took my breath away.

DD One, my firstborn... Just Priceless... :-)


Hope everyone's enjoying the run up to Christmas!! Keep busy! Keep smilin! Be happy!

Jk x

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Still running.....

Still running about like a mad thing. Got so much to do and no time to do it. Still, you know what they say... Busy hands are happy hands.... hmm....ok. I'll just have to take their word for it... :-)

2 layouts here.
This one was done for Mojoholder this week, and is a scraplift of an Anita Mundt page.

My 2 fella's, in a huge tent where we dived for cover out of the sweltering heat of the hippy market in Ibiza.





And this one is my take on the AAE hindsight theme. Quite serious, but genuinely done from the heart. The truth is, I live with regret every day after losing my sister and my Mum within six months of each other. It was a very very hard time for me and deeply shocking. Not something I'm ever going to fully recover from but something I've sort of learned to live with over time. I'm not tortutred everyday any more.. but still have so many unanswered questions, and unresolved feelings, and I don't think that will ever change now. But I cope. Most of the time, anyway.



Obviously in retrospect, given the chance, there are many things I'd change...Too bad we don't have the benefit of hindsight when it matters.

Really matters.

Eh?

Related Posts with Thumbnails