Hell bunny!

A sneaky peak at the detail on my Hell Bunny page I started at Newlyn the other week.  Jordan loved the make of dres and when she bought one it came with ribbons and labels I couldn't not use.. mind you, I had to make do with photocopies as she had the ribbon on her wrist for a while!

I chose a great pic of her with her guitar, a present for Xmas a couple of years ago.
The little guitar brads are cute too and I used lots of core paper and cuttlebug bits as ever.

I love red and black!

Heading out..

.. into the wind and rain.. to go see Rhod Gilbert at the Hall for Cornwall.  It was booked for October but rescheduled to tonight, it'll be a nice diversion for Zac & JB from exams!

'Flat as an omlette' setting..

I am currently reading Dawn French's novel 'A Tiny Bit Marvellous' featuring dialogue from 3 corners of a somewhat dysfunctional (or is that normal 21st century) family: a 50yr old chld psychologist, her Katherine Tate-like 18 year old daughter and her Oscar Wilde-like 16 year old son.  It's very easy to enjoy and quite amusing when you find her describing situations and thoughts you imagined were unique to your own head, then you realise it could be the cries of pre-menoapausal women almost anywhere, in this era and many long gone I should imagine!

Well a couple of weeks ago I got confirmation of my post-50 year old status as the envelope landed on our doormat inviting me for my first breast screening appointment. Interestingly I was invited, rather than summoned, but why anyone would refuse this kind offer I cannot imagine.  Generally these days we hear that we will have to beg, borrow and steal a freeby  from the NHS but here it was, up for grabs! And grabs appeared to be the operative word...

Dawn French made me slightly nervous as she related the choices of setting the nurse would have this afternoon.. well I am glad to say she didn't opt for 'flat as a crepe' and chose the 'flat as an omlette' setting and lucky for me it was about 3 eggs on fluffy setting she chose too.  Not a bad experience at all and hopefully I won't be revisiting this blog entry in a few weeks wondering how I was so laid back....

(Sparing a little thought for you Yvonne as I'm sure you've had your share of 'flat as anything less flat than a boob' type settings! Love to you x)

Long, long day!

Up at 5am Friday and home again at 1am Saturday, 600 miles and twelve hours driving later, but mission accomplished! We went to the Open Day at the Marine College and Zac's got all the information he needs now to make his choices.. his exams are looking okay too, not too much pressure to get unobtainable grades, and the biggest decision now is whether to go for an American orientated company or one based in Southampton. 

One lady we spoke with said her newest cadets have just left for their first trips... leaving here to fly and meet ships in Buenos Aires, Sydney and Fort Lauderdale...I remember Fort Lauderdale as one of the loveliest cities I've ever been to, marinas, beaches, beautiful buildings... oh and the sun!

Nice feeling yesterday to wake up and find it was still only Saturday and there was a whole weekend to enjoy!   Oh, and I thought I should get out the cruise ship photo now..

PostSecret goes Scrapbooking!

A friend of Ross' introduced me to a website called www.postsecret.com which is updated each Sunday evening with a batch of secrets which have been received either on postcards, or by email to the guy who runs it.   It is a big thing in the US and he does books / motivational talks etc and has lots of followers.  Some of the secrets are funny, some sad and many very personal, perfect for the voyeur in me...and it would seem lots of other people!

Well this week scrapbooking has featured.. there is one postcard where someone writes that they're going to get high and scrapbook, a perfect Monday evening.... and an email which says ' I'd rather spend twenty bucks on craft supplies than three grand on a shrink.'   My sentiments exactly.. except in my case it's blogging which also helps, though my scrapbook pals have also been great friends to me, and I'm sure they'd like to charge me a little?!

'In the navy..'

.. do you remember that song? I think it was a Village People number which even if you hated it certainly stayed in your head for hours to come.  Well a few years ago, when Ross wasn't appearing to have much direction workwise, Colin used to tell him that he should join the Navy.  I was not really impressed with the idea, after all he was my firstborn, and he would be bossed about and have to be clean and tidy, and people might shout at him....mmmm, sounds a bit like staying living with me, maybe Colin was thinking straight  and I had been prepping him for it after all??

Well, I digress (as if), when Ross came in the room Zac used to play the song on his phone..'In the Navy...etc'  Must have worked as Ross seemed to get busy doing something somewhere and is now well settled and really very good at what he does.  

Ironically though it is Zac who may be heading for the high seas, but it's the Merchant Navy this time, and at last I actually understand a little about what it is.  My oldest friend had a brother in the Merchant Navy and to me it meant he was away a lot, had a blue uniform (which I only ever saw in those posed photos on his Mum's wall), was always suntanned, had lots of tattoos and he always seemed to be just home from Singapore with a Chinese style dress for his Mum...mind you, that was in the 1960's and Singapore doesn't seem quite so far across the world to me now.

Zac is hoping to get onto a Cadetship with a Cruise Ship company and ultimately onto super yachts, but let's just get him to the Open Day at Southampton tomorrow before we start plotting his journey around the world!  (though if he does get on the course, he does 28 weeks away after only 16 weeks study!)

Really like this poster, but really should have posted a pic of a cruise ship..

Quote today..

.. on this blog reads :

'There is no sight on earth more appealing than the sight of a woman making dinner for someone she loves'

written by a hungry man?

Still tidy!



Almost afraid to go in!



Well here's the 'after' photo, and see how the curtains are open! Even hoovered the carpet today because I can see it again!! Thanks Ross, looks like I might be able to pimp him out to all my pals with untidiness in their lives!

I remember visiting an Old People's home when my Mum needed a place for respite, took Ross with me to a place where the huge office was like an absolute pit! As we left he said,  'Did you see that room, I almost offered to stay behind and tidy it for her!'

There's got to be a million made for him there somewhere? mmmmmmm...

(off to watch my guilty secret.. 'Big Fat Gypsy Wedding')

On the bright side...

I'm not sure when Ross first exhibited his slightly OCD tendancies, perhaps when he was two or three and Brio mad. Do you remember that wooden train set they used to have set up in Early Learning? Maybe it was when he used to line up all his cars, and the one with the trailer which took a boat on it, in a tidy line along the steps into his play space?

well we sometimes give him a little amount of grief for it, because tidying things out of sight is not always the best thing when he's then out of the house so much and we're all looking for the offending article. I guess if we all had places for stuff in the first place we wouldn't be moaning, but there's so many of us it's hard to have a place for everything.


How it was...



Anyway, tonight I collected big style. I cooked a great roast and soon after Ross dragged me off to tidy my scrap room..it was a big job, there was no desk to be seen, bags all over the floor and a host of plastic boxes, shame there was nothing in them. 

Two hours later and I have a room to be proud of, lots of things sorted and even the stuff that isn't sorted is stashed away in drawers and seems almost manageable... funny how since I began scrapbooking I have more photos, reprint, scans, zooms, photoshopped, pictures taken just for scrap-sake!  yes, we managed what I never do, to get past the piles of old kids school reports and birthday cards from years gone by, to create almost a system.

(The only thing is, all the soft toys which were quietly nestled on the tall shelf around the edge of the room, have been ousted to a basket on the landing, next to all the other things not deemed worthy of a place in 'Mum's scrap heaven.'  A job for another evening methinks)

..but it really is good to see 3 layouts awaiting completion laid on the desk, tools in my big mug alongside and brads and pens waiting to adorn the pic of JB and her guitar. I can even put a chair back in there now! But does this mean I have to scrap in there? I quite like bagging up some stuff and scrapping on the kitchen worktop, TV on to listen to and the kids inning and outing.. well at least I'll be able to find the bits I know I own, but so far haven't used because they're there.. somewhere!

Thanks Ross, my hunney! Hoping I can do you justice, and who knows if those layouts get finished I might even be able to open the curtains in there again (currently on night mode all day as I fear the effect of the sun gazing on the photos etc. day on day.)

Good scrap day.

...sometimes the best laid plans etc..or maybe not.. at 9.15am today I had no plans for my layouts or anything, no photos, no ideas. But off I went with a mixed bag of stuff, happy to just drink coffee and chat if nothing else!

Well, as ever, I did plenty of chatting, drank plenty of coffee and even got two layouts close to completed.  The theme was pleats and flowers so nice and easy to play with paper and shuffle things around. I ended up with two pages almost complete with Jordan as the subject, not really what I'd expected at all. But I'm quite pleased with them...pics to follow, but this was what I started with.

On the way home in Tesco I saw the sister of an old friend from when Ross & Lisa were small, haven't really seen her for 15 years but she didn't seem to have changed a bit, and it was lovely to feel the warmth of meeting up and saying hi after so long, she's such a friendly person but I did feel that we were both pleased to catch up.

Funny really, I think that's what I like about living somewhere where there is a chance of someone you know being around every corner...and in the absence of older women in my family, it felt good to see someone I had some common history with..ahhh.

On the other hand I also had a great conversation today with someone I have only met a few times, and I think we both learnt more about each other and appreciated that too.

Daily quote.

'My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people...'

..made me smile, and sounds like Orson Wells doesn't it..and it was!

Mind you I guess Col will have a few Domino's this week.. 1400 miles in 5 days plus calls!

Loving my...

.. new car! I'm never too enthusiastic at the prospect of getting a new car but the excitement rose as we looked at them and the fact that I just didn't want a silver car started to grow into an enthusiasm for the one we finally chose.  We waited almost a week to get it, you know how the garage likes to titivate it and everything, so you can make it messy real quick... but it arrived on Thursday and even then I didn't drive it til Friday evening really.. not sure why, I just hate gloating and stuff about new things, and I think also I put off that moment, just to savour the anticipation a little longer.. but boy, now I love it.

Not feeling every bump, having wipers which work and a heating system which heats up without waiting on the engine ... I reckon this tells more about the car we've left behind than the new one!

Works been real busy this week, but I'm very excited as we seem to have turned a corner and we're seeing the results of tipping all the effort in the top and now the jobs seem to be trickling out the bottom of the funnel with satisfying regularity! Mind you Col is earning his keep next week with a trip to Newcastle via N Wales and home via Great Yarmouth, Google tells me it's going to be about 28 hours driving, as well as the customer calls each day.

My scrapbbok friend Yvonne called by Thursday and it was great to catch up with her, we may even do a long day session with Linda in March, which might get my 2011 scrap project under way. And I started sorting my scrap room (again) last night, but each time I end up just poring over old cards, bits of ribbon and creating a bin bag full of rubbish... but thanks to Col I am the proud owner today of a bunch of plastic boxes so perhaps I can create some chaos of the room eventually.

Jordan came shopping this afternoon, relaxed and talked all afternoon, even enjoyed reminiscing it all again and hour later to Zac & Col who sat bemused at all our purchasing and the things we'd seen and found funny.  Maybe most of the things were 'you had to be there moments'.. but we were there and it was funny!  Mind you this coaster was one of my favourites, and hey, we all know someone who had a lucky escape don't we?

That same feeling..

.. you know the holiday is coming to an end and can feel the moments hurtling past you, helpless to slow them down, tomorrow is the last day and inevitably the time off will end.  The feeling seems to be the same whether you're in the Maldives or just home bimbling around..that urghh back to school feeling!

We tried hard to enjoy today though, lunchtime drinks with Zac's girlfriend for her 18th, a little visit to see Mum's old friend, much welcomed and pleased myself too that we managed to call by again. New Year's Resolution No. 2 is to call by more often, it is good for both of us. Makes me kind of feel like I'm paying back a bit, remembering my Mum and all that.

Then we called at our favourite pub, the Dolphin in Penzance, it'd be our local if it wasn't ten miles away! Quick snack and home for a few chores, and easy tea at 8.30pm (yes, again, but it did involve eggs and bread so not completely lacking!)

Sadly I think I can feel another cold in the pending section of my shoulders and throat, so I'm off to have a few oranges and a shot of port, see if that'll knock it out.. and if it doesn't, I've also had fun trying!

A good start!

Happy New Year!.. and always in that high emotion American accent with the accent on 'New', isn't it!

I've had a nice day, slept in a good while (well for slept in read 'laid in bed, eyes shut, listening to TV, resting body' until at last I couldn't listen to the 'Last Flight of the Concorde' any longer!) Got up, had copious cups of tea and coffee and ordered a few things off the Sizzix Sale, nice rub-ons and a few embossing folders.

Mid afternoon we went and took the babe down the river walk to feed the ducks. It was a real blast from the past with her swinging between me and Colin, just the way her Mum had done about 20 years ago. We laughed about it and agreed we've really done okay.

I'm not sure why I chose to go feed the ducks, especially with my fear of birds; maybe it just seemed less of a messy option than the beach. Well, the ducks it was, and my, how they have grown. I think maybe they're the same ducks from when Kate was young, all I know is they are the size of small dogs! I survived though, my instinct to keep Lilly safe was greater than my urge to run! Colin said it all added to the entertainment value of the trip!

 

We came home, it got dark so early, and had easy tea..Lilly and I cut up the Pandoro cake we've all wanted to break into since Christmas Eve, and sprinkled it with icing sugar. It certainly looked like the one on the box, but tasted rather lighter and drier than expected, it would definitely be done justice with raspberries or strawberries and custard or ice cream!