More Scrapping

Yesterday was our s/b day and I'm very pleased with what I did. I think I am almost finished all my digital photos so now I have the hard job of scrapping baby/toddler photos! Why does that somehow seem so hard for me to do?

Anyway, the first one is about watching the RWC final on TV "with" friends around the world. We commented on FaceBook all the time and this particular "party" got to 335 comments! It was such a fun evening sharing with my watching and friends

Then I have now completed all my Rarotonga photos: this one is about the two whales we saw one morning

This next one is the scenery - both mountains and sea. It's hard to think that Raro has such high mountains though

And the final bits and pieces. I love to scrap postage stamps, moeny etc. This Cook Island $3 note and the shape of the coins is so interesting
I'm not sure how clear this one is; might have to delete it and take another one. It's the photo shoot we did when my BIL was here and I have put lots of journalling on the back
And then of course 11:11am on 11/11/11! Journalling yet to do
Another great day, and my friend Tracy said that I was almost my old self. Onward and upward!

11.11.11.11.11

Eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh of the eleventh month two thousand and eleven!

It was morning tea time and I was in the staff room so took a photo of my cell phone!

Finished!

My China album, that is. All journalling complete, pages sorted into a reasonable order and it's in its own red album. All it needs is a photo in the little opening on the front cover.

I couldn't make myself get out of bed this morning - too depressed, Finally at 12.30pm I dragged myself out and had a shower. Then I did four loads of laundry, filled a fairly large box of stuff for someone else to love (aka stuff for the garage sale). Then I settled down to scrap.

I started on my China pages and did all the missing journalling. Then I sorted it. I am happy with it and Colin loved looking through it.

I have also filed a few more l/os but have more to do.

I did feel as though it has been a productive day and I feel better for it. Tomorrow I have to do the groceries and help sort garage sale stuff out. Maybe I'll have time to do some more scrapping

Brother-in-law visits

I haven't seen my BiL for nine years so it was wonderful when he said he was coming to visit. This morning we had a photo shoot.

Boys with their uncle

Boys with me

Two boys

Tonight's the Night!

▒▓██ A █ L █ L █ B █ L █ A █ C █ K █ S ██▓▒

Well, the Springboks are out, so now I'm supporting my other team

I am so pleased with my bargains I got today! The cordless phones have been dying so I went looking for new batteries today. To replace the batteries is almost as much as a new set of phones which aren't cheap. I saw some at Harvey Norman marked $69.99 for three handsets. perfect! When I asked for a box they were marked $109 so I said I wanted the $70 ones. The kind salesman gave them to me at $70 with another 15% off as well! I bought two sets so that everyone can have a phone in their bedrooms as I'm sick of looking for phones only to find them in the bedrooms

Then I got 40% off on curtains so now I have new curtains for all my living rooms

New background

I'm trying a new background in honour of the All blacks!

Also a new Blog title :-(

Scrapping on Saturday

I really enjoyed my day scrapping on Saturday - it's the first one in the last three that I have really felt motivated and got something done

This one is the photos from June when my Mom and I went on the Seal Safari - journalling complete too!

This is the RWC game I went to and enjoyed so much. The journalling is written but I want to print it on to a transparency and place it over the flag
These four are from Ross' Formal - I have ordered white glitter Thickers for the title as the red ones I had were more pink than red. I don't know how to do the journalling - white pen onto the black c/s; strips of white c/s; or ?? The strips of c/s are silver and gold and rather glittery IRL which is what I wanted

So mad! Happy mail. Renovations.

Something happened today that really upset me and I felt very emotionally fragile. Now I'm just mad about it!

I went scrapping yesterday and had a wonderful day! For the first time in three months I was able to scrap and got nine l/os done! And I'm really pleased with them. Then I came home to find these three beauties waiting for me

Part of our house rearranging has been to redo Colin's room. In this photo you will see his old (baby) curtains, a duvet cover that he has been using and his furniture that we painted ten years ago (when he was five) in bright colours

Here is his new room - dark blue curtains, new net, an new duvet cover to match the curtains and the furniture painted in more grown up colours. Not to mention the HUGE tidy up that went on in there! He is so pleased with his "new" room
And my dinning room suite didn't sell :-( :-( :-( I will relist it again and there maybe be someone else who is interested otherwise I will send it to an auction house

And just forty minutes until the semi-final between the All Blacks and the Wallabies - go the ABs!

Edited to add: Go the ALl Blacks!!

Holidays!

No alarm, no school lunches, no rushing - two weeks for me to do lots of marking and start sorting my house out. I have taken good photos of my dining room suite and that will be on Trade Me tomorrow night as well as a few other bits and pieces that I've found. Once that goes, I can clean the room and move furniture; and clean and move and so on until I have upstairs sorted out.

The RWC cup here has been so exciting! Lots of people have flags on their cars and their houses. I have my flags in my class room and I should have brought them home - oh well. We're into the Quarter finals and I really hope that SA beats Aus tomorrow night! I paper pieced an SA flag so that I can scrap my rugby outing photos

Oh and today's date is 9/10/11! Unfortunately I wasn't even awake when it was 6:07:08 this morning

I have uploaded my dining room suite on to Trade Me and now I just want it gone. As soon as it goes, I can clean the dining room properly and then the dining room will become the new family room with my lounge suite in it. The lounge will then get a good clean and will become my craft area. The current family room will get a makeover and some "new" furniture and will become the rumpus. The boys don't really need a rumpus to play in any more, but they do need a space to bring their friends to. Then hopefully by February, all the re-arranging will be done and my Mom will have moved in. I am in the process of loading other bits and pieces on to TM as well.

I am starting to take charge of my life and I am feeling good!

Long week

It's been a long week this - very emotional and stressful.

The RWC is on and when there's a game in Wellington, I spend time collecting boys. One will finish about 30mins after the game does and hopefully get a train home but I still have to fetch him at the station so in total about an hour or so after the game finishes. The other finishes about three hours after the game and there are generally no trains then so I have to drive in there to fetch him usually between 1am and 2am in the morning - of course I go in my pjs!

Ross and I put our names down to play in a bowls competition yesterday but no one told us it was ALL day and maybe Sunday and we had to take lunch! Well, neither of us did too well and by the end of the day I was cold and very tired. I was very pleased when they said we didn't have to go back today! And then I went to bed at 7.30pm - it was bliss!

Daylight Saving has started and I hope that will make a difference as we have more daylight hours

My Mom bought me this cyclamen plant to thank me for everything I do for her.. It has lots of new flowers budding and when it dies I'll plant it outside the front door.

Two weeks to go until the school holidays and then I have lots to do. I want to get into every cupboard in this house and clear out everything I don't use. I also have to sell my dinning room suite (square eight seater oak with a sideboard) as I have to rearrange my house for my mom to move in. I am a bit sad about it as it was my pride and joy when I bought it over 22 years ago. And when I look at the cost of new dining rooms suites I'm astounded! I have a vision of what I want my house to look like when I'm finished but it's going to take hard work to get it there.

I also have to sell my Honda Odyssey which I also love but it's pointless having two cars and the Honda is the more expensive to run.

And then I will have to go through my house with A and sort through what each of us will keep. And that will be hard

Oh

and did I mention I love my new camera? All the photos in the last two posts are from my new camera. It was so easy to carry into the rugby as I didn't take a handbag and it's compact size meant it could hang around my neck very easily. And when I uploaded my photos, I did not have to rotate the portrait-style photos - it happened automatically!

I love my new camera!

Carlucci Land

In June I bought some vouchers to for mini golf at Carlucci Land - an 18 hole mini golf course created from recycled materials. There is lots of recycled art works in the grounds too. So creative!

Three kiwis on a branch

Looking back down - there were lots of people there today

The golf ball comes through a chute and round the tree in this wire meshing to land on the green

My boys waiting to play

Some art work with some pretty yellow flowers behind

A scorpion

A fountain

Close up of the fountain with the boys sitting half way up

Metal flowers

A crocodile

An elephant?

It was good to get out into the open air and enjoy some time as a family

South Africa vs Fiji

Last year when the RWC tickets went on sale, I was determined to buy tickets to get involved in the atmosphere. AT 9am the day the sales opened, I was online to buy the cheapest tickets I could! $66 for adult tickets and $34 for children - I bought two adult and one child's ticket. My students asked me what game I'd bought tickets for and I had to go back to check - it just happened to be SA vs Fiji. Come earlier this year and my tickets were delivered to me. Later on, I realised that I was the only one going to the rugby. Then they phoned me from the RWC office to tell me that my D-category tickets were impaired viewing seats and I was being upgraded to category A tickets at no extra cost! Now who to take? I took my colleague from work and one of the students that I each - she was so excited! Anyway, we had a great evening and here is my colleague and I waiting to go in

The Springboks and the Fijians walk onto the field

At some point during the game

More rugby

A conversion

One idiot was evicted as he was picking a fight with anyone and everyone; and one poor old man lost his footing and cut his head open very badly but apart from that there were no other incidents.

We had a fantastic time! After the game, we met Colin and went down town to find somewhere to have a drink before catching the train home. On the train coming home, Colin realised that he had lost his cell phone and he thought it was on the platform. We got into my car and drove to town and there was the phone on the tracks! It had bounced onto the concrete platform and then into the tracks and was still working! The staff at the station were great and as soon as the train left they got his phone for him

It was a fantastic night and I was not bored at all!

Weather

We had the most amazing weather at lunch time today. It started raining but the rain soon turned into hail which covered the ground making it look like snow again. The school kids were making "ice balls" and throwing them at each other! This is a corner of my garden around 4pm

A closer view

The temperature dropped from 12°C to 4°C in 30 minutes! Wellington also had 200 lightening strikes and the accompanying thunder in that time. The photos above were taken after 4pm so still a fair bit of hail around

RWC

So today is the opening! While I really don't care for the rugby, I think that having the RWC here is a big deal! Today we had mufti day (civvies day) at school and Colin went in his SA shirt and flag. At morning tea he asked me if he could go into town to Te Papa with his friends to meet the SA rugby team. I let him go! He came back buzzing! he got signatures all over his flag and was thrilled.I am supporting the RWC so my shirt has all 20 flags on it! I also made a pink crown that has "The World in Union" printed on it
A photo of Colin with the SA team in the background.

It is 6.20pm here now and I have my glass of Savignon Blanc and I'm waiting for the opening ceremony and our fish and chips for dinner to arrive. I am set for a good evening! Enjoy if you are watching in your part of the world!

What a difference a day makes!

Well, it was a real pity party yesterday and I lost the plot in the middle of the day. I couldn't look at my class I was crying so much. One of my colleagues came and took me out of my classroom and gave me a few minutes breathing space.

I also came home to this beautiful card that Danice had sent me. She is so talented and has a beautiful handwriting too!

I have a cold so decided that I'd stay at home to try to recover both emotionally and from my cold. Yesterday I phoned the hairdresser to get an appointment so my day started well with a hair cut. Then I went into the shops to find Colin an SA flag and to find some bunting for myself. The flag was easy but not the bunting! I finally tracked some down and hopefully I'll get it next week.

I came home and hung my sheets outside in the sunshine and started defrosting my deep freeze. And while that was happening I filed a huge pile of l/os - some of them from 2009! Look at that pile

By then it was time to fetch the cat from the vet and the boys were home.

I definitely feel better today and ready to face next week!

Broken heart

As I walk this land of broken dreams,
I have visions of many things.
Love's happiness is just an illusion,
Filled with sadness and confusion.
What becomes of the broken hearted
Who had love that's now departed?
I know I've got to find
Some kind of peace of mind
Maybe.
The fruits of love grow all around
But for me they come a tumblin' down.
Every day heartaches grow a little stronger,
I can't stand this pain much longer!
I walk in shadows,
Searching for light.
Cold and alone,
No comfort in sight.
Hoping and praying for someone to care,
Always moving and goin' nowhere.
What becomes of the broken hearted
Who had love that's now departed?
I know I've got to find,
Some kind of peace of mind.
Help me..
I'm searching though I don't succeed,
For someone's love, there's a growing need.
Oh, he is lost, there's no place for beginning,
All that's left is an unhappy ending.
Now what becomes of the broken-hearted
Who had love that's now departed?
I know I've got to find,
Some kind of peace of mind,
I'll be searching everywhere,
Just to find someone to care.
I'll be looking everyday,
I know I'm gonna find a way.
Nothings gonna stop me now,
I'll find a way somehow.
I'll be searching everywhere...

Fourteen Years

That's how long we've lived in New Zealand. Sorry the photo is so small. Look how little the boys were - they're now great big hulking teenagers who eat everything in sight!

It's also 14 years since Diana died

My new camera

I have been eyeing this one for months - an Olympus XZ-1! And what makes it so special? Well, look at that lens! The i.Zuiko lens is F1.8 at the 28mm equivalent end and it's still a very impressive F2.5 at the 112mm setting. (That last sentence is from dpreview). For me, the beauty is it has no lag! It is 10mp with a 4x optical zoom

This is a photo I took of the proteas on my desk just before 6pm with no flash.

It's a very beautiful camera and I can see myself using it a lot. My other Olympus is also a great camera but they will both have different functions in my life

My Creme Brulee

So what do I do with mine?

Instead of vanilla beans I found this vanilla paste - works even better than beans!

Then I have so far served them a bit warm but I had two left over the other night so put them in the fridge. Oh my word - they are wonderful cold! And if you don't have a blow torch, caramelise the sugar under the grill in an ice bain marie so the custards don't get hot

And then what to do with the left over egg whites? Make meringues of course! My recipe uses three egg whites and one-and-three-quarter cups of castor sugar. But I had four egg whites. Just as well I can do Maths: divide by 3 multiply by 4 and there I had it - 2 and 1/3 cups of sugar - easy!

And then serve with strawberries, melted chocolate and cream! Yum

And I still have more egg whites left so tomorrow night we will have Baked Alaska