Christmas is coming!

And some of our lights are up outside. The boys will put more up in the evenings and I think by the weekend all of ours will up. Hopefully the neighbours will put theirs up this weekend too.

I had people asking me today when all our lights will be up!

Home made gifts

Just reading Penny's blog on what she did last year and then an email from her sayig she doesn't have time this as she did last year. I understand as I am in the same situation.

Last year I made these Chocolate Christmas Trees (scroll most of the way down the page) which were a bit fiddly to do, but looked wonderful and tasted even better. I will probably make some more this year because they are the kind of thing that can be made in bulk.

The boys are saving for a PS3 so that's easy but I still like to get them little bits and pieces. The rest of the people who may or may not be coming? I'll make it up when I get confirmation that they will be here!

SBO Big Sale

There's a big sale over at SBO - go to Christmas Sale

It will be really nice to meet up with many of you at Senz next year and as soon as the Christmas season is over, I will think about making a Senz counter thingy!

ETA - Good idea, Trace!

Senz 2009

From the Senz website ...... SENZ 09 is to be held at the Auckland ASB Showgrounds Greenlane from the 17-19th July (that's the last weekend of the winter school holidays)

I am so excited about this as my SIL Jenny and niece Kylie are planning on coming from South Africa on a girl's scrapping holiday!

Instead of an Advent Calendar I think I need a Senz calendar!

Making Memories albums

I have recently changed all my albums from post-bound to 3-Ring as I don't scrap in order and I love the freedom of the 3-Ring albums. Anyway, SBO has 20% off ALL MM product until Sunday night so I bought another three albums! I need to put 2007 into two albums; 2000 - 2002 needs an album and of course I need a spare one, don't I?

PS. I have marking to do so can you see how I'm procrastinating here? Also been "talking" to my lovely SIL about Senz next year as she and my niece are coming for a girl's scrapping holiday. Just wish we knew some dates and a venue!

Entrance exam tomorrow

Colin has his College entrance exam tomorrow for placement (or not) in a streamed class. He and I have been doing Maths over the last few days and I firmly believe that he has been taught nothing at school these last eight years! He understood it once I explained it to him and then just ploughed through the work but it's been very hard doing all that work in a few days.

He also has to do an English exam and usually his writing is good - he just has to watch his spelling and punctuation.

Anyway, I will be a bit nervous all morning and then will be anxious to find out the results. I just hope we've done enough work! Think of us all tomorrow, please?

Thanks

Thank you to all of you who have cared and offered me words of support - I really appreciate each and every one of you.

I went scrapping today and I had a wonderful today - it was relaxing and I got lots of photos scrapped. They may not be works of art, and Up2Scrap won't want them; but I like what I did and they're photos and memories saved. Now I would love to finsih the journalling and the titles tomorrrow but I really need to get stuck into the exam marking. I'll see how much I can get done tonight.

It is great scrapping at KiwiScraps - it is such a convenient place (some would say too convenient lol). David was very kind to us today as well and gave us some great things so it really felt like Christmas.

I had one meltdown when I thought about what my Christmas wish is for the competition over at SBO - it's about my Dad and I'll share sometime.

I'll upload my l/os tomorrow or when they're done

Thank you again for your thoughts, wishes and advice

So down

I got home yesterday around 5pm after a long day at school and then taking my dad to the doctor again and just felt my seams unravelling. The boys were still in their uniforms; there were dirty dishes lying all over the place; the chicken I had asked them to get at 4pm from the freezer was still in the freezer and they had a bicker as to who was going to get it .....

I went to bed in tears and closed the door. Then I sent a text to hubby telling him I was on strike. I could not stop crying and then I felt guilty because there are so many other people who are worse off than me ... so I cried some more!

The phone rang and because I was on strike I didn't answer it - it was hubby instructing his sons to cook dinner! Which they did and it was delicious.

I stayed in bed and I had little taps on the door: "Mom are you okay?" "Go away." Again, another tap and another voice: "Mom do you want some wine?" "No go away"

I got up for dinner, checked emails and then went to bed and I did feel better this morning. But I did have a serious sense of humour failure at someone at work whose biggest problem is what colour nail polish to buy!

I need my all day scrap tomorrow!

I know Christmas is now less than six weeks away, but I really don't have the energy to even think about it at the moment ... maybe next week!

Catch up

My Dad: can't drive for the forseeable future and probably not ever again. Thise leaves me to be the taxi-driver to the doctor, the vet, the dentist, the supermarket etc. I was really depressed on Monday night and Tueday about this. Thanks goodness my parents live close by and it's easy to get to them.

The seniors left today - YAY!!! I was at the point where I was more worried about their exams than they are.

Juinors start writing exams tomorrow. That means lots of marking for me but it means that Ross write exams too. Right now Ross is learning the countries of Europe and Asia-Pacific. When I asked him if he had anything to learn, he said, "No" but then I found all this stuff in his school bag! ARGH! He's as bad as my seniors

Colin has his College entrance test next week and I'm stressing over that too

Scrapping on Saturday and I can't wait! I have a very cool little project up my sleeve for everyone but everyone else will be more creative than me so theirs will look better! I have started my first prototype and got as far as the paint and now I'm stuck!

Hubby is off to Seattle on Friday to a Sequel Server convention (don't know if I've even spelled that correctly but it's a Database) - boys and I can eat pizza for dinner!

8th November 2008

In New Zealand, women have been able to vote since 1893 - that's 105 years! New Zealand women were the first women in the world to get this right. Many people in many parts of the world do not have this right. In the 80s I voted for all people to have the right to vote in South Africa.

So go and vote today - it is a right that many people are denied

Home

My Dad is home tonight but without a very conclusive diagnosis. He is on antibiotics for suspected pneumonia and we are expecting some more results to come in the post. Hopefully we'll know more next week when they go for their three monthly check-up. We are all very pleased he is home because it is a 30minute (at best) drive to the hospital.

Thank you again for all your concern - it is very much appreciated

Update

... well, there isn't much to report: my Dad has had an Echo test and other tests too. So far - nothing. He's still in hospital but is looking much better. We should get the Echo test results tomorrow and hopefully he'll be discharged to.

Thank you to everyone who has phoned, sent emails and made comments here - I really appreciate it

My Dad

This morning before 8am my Mom phoned to say my Dad was not very well so I called the ambulance. I rushed down to their house and stayed with my Mom whilst the paramedics checked him out. Then I went to school to sort out some lessons for first two periods thinking I'd be back by 11am. When I got back, the paramedics were taking my Dad to Wellington hospital. I took my Mom in and we waited, and waited and waited. By 10am I realised I would not be back at school any time soon so phoned them to let them know where they could find the next lot of work.

The medical staff considered two possibilities - a heart attack or a clot on the lungs. After endless tests, I finally left my Mom at the hospital at 4.45pm as I had to get home to sort Colin out and make things as normal as possible for him. The plan was to meet Ross at the football to watch the NZ girls take on Colombia (NZ won 3-1 - go NZ!).

Adrian went to the hospital and found my father stuck out in the passage way .... for the night! He complained a little and eventually a bed was found for Dad in the short stay ward. He brought my Mom home and they got home at 9pm.

Tomorrow they will test for the clot on the lungs or pneumonia

I stayed with the boys in the rain and wind but they were very happy that the NZ girls won so that was good for them. Neither Colin or Adrian could concentrate very well today; I just spent the day sitting doing nothing which is very tiring.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll know what the (I can't think of the word) is, and we can either take my Dad home or to Kenepuru which is much closer.

Fifa U17 Women's World Cup

Most people in NZ will know that this is currently on. Ross is a flag bearer for the Wellington games which take place over four days. Each day he is there for seven hours: practising and then getting ready. Adidas have sponsored some cool clothes; they have a PS3 to play with, yummy lunches from Subway, and drinks from Coke. He is having fun even though it is a very long day for him.

Today started off really cold and miserable and I thought he would be cold but it soon fined up and turned into a wonderful day. We watched the England - Nigeria game and Nigeria deserved to win, but the English girls scored a goal against the run of play and that was it for the rest of the game!

Here are the flags and the English and Nigerian teams

Ross in uniform

New look

What do you think of it? I got it all free here ........ maybe there's something for you too. However, I do miss my photo of Ruapehu but I'm not sure how I can crowbar it in!

New blog and more

My SIL's that is: http://jennyindurban.blogspot.com/ please visit her and leave her a comment?

A peeve
Most of us scrapbook to leave the memories for our children/grandchildren and so we try to be fairly archival about what we use. My irritation at the moment is manufacturer's products that don't make the mark. In particular Heidi Swapp' "adhesive" chipboard - I only put it on the l/o last year and already it's falling off. I wrote to Advantus last year to complain and they were going to send me some replacement stuff .... until they discovered I lived in NZ. I tell you, that company and designer will get no more of my money. Have you come across any badly manufacturered product?

Labour Weekend

We headed north (along with most of Wellington) to Rotorua to catch up with my SIL's niece, hubby and children. They arrived a short while ago from South Africa and due to job constraints are having to live split up in Rotorua and Auckland. Their little boys are 5 and 2.5 and really took to Ross and Colin. Anyway, Adrian decided we had to go in his car as it's much cheaper on fuel than my car. The kids wanted to go in my car as it's way more comfortable and has more space so they got as much as they could legitimately say they needed to pack into the car. Well, Adrian had a fit at all the luggage and the boys and I just burst out laughing. Eventually we were all rolling around laughing but we did go in Adrian's car :-( However, he did admit while we were there that we should have taken my car

All photos blurred

Please note the matching clothes and poses! All chosen by the five year old in the photo!
Ash and I scrapped most of the weekend (I did six l/os and was pleased with most of them) and the six boys watched TV and played.

We went out to Rotorua Airport where Andy does tandem ski jumps to watch him do a couple of jumps.

And then we couldn't not go to our favourite Waikite Pools.

On our way home we saw a steam train outing and got a loud "toot-toot" from the driver when he saw me taking photos

Fiskateers

A few months ago, Rebecca from Fiskateers asked for some sewing projects. I sent photos of my quilt and this morning I got an email from Rebecca saying my quilt would be featured on the blog today. Here it is: http://www.fiskateers.com/blog/2008/10/19/fiskateer-sewing-week-because-i-say-so/

Scrapping yesterday

Despite not having the photos I wanted, I still managed to scrap and have a wonderful day. KiwiScraps really is a very good venue as it has everything we need (and more!).

I scrapped Colin's school photo in my normal fashion - photo on one side of a double l/o and a pocket on the other side for reports etc. If he does some nice artwork I usually take a photo of it, print it at 5x7 and put that in the pocket too. (photo and names blurred)


Then I scrapped some photos from February this year. We went to Whiteriea Park for an evening bbq and the boys found an old boogie board which they used as a slide down the grass on the hill. I loved how this one turned out and once I've done the journalling and title I'll photograph it and upload it here. Updated - I decide that it didn't need a title

Then I did a few more which I'm happy about, but I really love the boogie board slide.

It's always amazing to me that I can scrap photos and one l/o really just does it for me - the rest are fine, but there's one that I really love (until the next one). I suppose that's the joy of the memories

Update for Trace: Angel was in disgrace yesterday as she had been chewing up too many things! Boy, she let us know that she was grumpy too - the shrieks and squawks that were coming from her!

Update to the Snapfish saga

I got two replies - one of them included an apology. They have also given me a credit for the prints and the postage. This is good but still doesn't give me my photos for Saturday. Not sure what I'll scrap on Saturday now