Sunday Afternoon

The end of the week end, *sigh*
The kids had 2 days off during the week for the annual Exhibition fair.
We didn't go but it was nice to have the time off getting up early for school.I ordered a Hard Ons CD and DVD from their record company in England, so I am looking forward to them arriving plus I have 2 other CDs on order at the local record store.
Recently I also had 2 fun orders arrive from England...
Australia isn't really into Halloween that much, so bat obsessed me has been unable to find these here, so was forced to finally look elsewhere for these gorgeous bat themed objects....A scrapbooking bat paper punch and a bat cookie cutter, which is the cutest thing, I can't wait to make bat cookies with this! :)I also got my new purple Nokia phone on Saturday, so happy! I have to work out how to use the thing now!
I still haven't done many layouts recently. I have felt completely uninspired, however, I have started a layout with the lyrics of 'Where Did She Come From' by the Hard Ons... I just need to find a suitable mermaid to put on it... as there is a girl in the video clip dressed as a mermaid and I want to have this old double exposed photo of me as a teenager... coz I have been wondering lately were did 'she' go... lol... I really need to get the latest version of ACDeeSee, I am totally lost without it.... makes scrapping completely crap without it. I was hoping to use the freeware 'Windows Live Photo Gallery' but for the life of me, I can't work out how to use it... I can only see jpgs in there, which is useless for a digital scrapbooker.... I need to be able tag pngs with it.... so if anyone know where I can go to read decent tutorials for it, please link me up!
I am looking forward to this week end coming, my sister is coming over on Friday to see 'Eclipse' with me and staying for a girlie week end. I am getting some Midori and we are going to giggle and watch girlie movies together and have lots of fun. Hubby will have to supervise the kids, coz I am going to be off duty! Bring on Friday!!!

Hard Ons Gig!

The Friday before we went to see the Hard Ons I went into the city to get the tickets and bought 4 Hard Ons CDs, one being their recent album. So I listened to these over and over all day Friday and Saturday before we went.Here we are just before we left to get the bus into the Valley and before it went all pear shaped for poor Rob, lol. Rob decided to get irrationally jealous, I'm talking off the planet jealous! Oh dear... He believes that my eyes lit up when I saw the band.... umm... they are my all time favourite band at the moment.... I may have smiled... I was happy after all.... I don't think I was giving them puppy dog eyes... surely?? Never mind, I really enjoyed the night and they played brilliantly. I knew most of the songs... What Would Stiv Bators Do, Sunny, Two Laps in Serbia (I love that song and it is SO good live!) There Goes One of the Creeps That Hassled My Girlfriend, Don't Fear The Reeperbahn (mind you these are in no particular order and I can't remember all of them) Raining, I Don't Want to See You Cry, quite a few songs off the new album and a few oldies were sung too.... I was really thrilled they played 'Where Did She Come From' as one of their encores ... and they came back onstage 3 times (much to hubby's dismay, lol) It was a great night and I am so glad I insisted Rob take me. The only disappointment was that the stage wasn't raised a little, so I could see them better. Hard On fans all seem to be 6 foot or taller... here are a few if the meagre photos I managed to snap.... hubby, who is 6 foot, totally refused to take any photos for me, lol!It may have taken me 4 days to placate the husband afterwards but it was worth it, lol! :)
The following Saturday night we went to see Ecdlipse. That was fun too, probably not so much for poor old Rob, lol. Yes, I'm a spoilt brat... well, it's about time I say.... I must have done something right, because he is now insistent that I upgrade my phone... can't afford the lovely purple blackberry but this purple Nokia will make me just as happy..I should be getting it next Thursday, yeah! :)

Can't Wait For The Weekend!

As I said in my previous post, I am overdosing on Hard Ons music. I've decided I do like Blackie's singing and I am damned that I am going to miss seeing them again, so I am biting the bullet and dragging my husband to see them this Saturday in the Valley! Yippee!!
I feel so miserable that I didn't really get into them back in the day. As I said before, I had heard alot of the earlier stuff from a friend but for whatever reason, I didn't investigate them for myself. I think it might have been because it was thought of that the Hard Ons were a 'boys band' and not for little girlies. Yeah, how suckie is it that I went along with that ridiculous notion. I am so cross with myself and sad that I missed seeing them play live when Keish was the singer. I think what also makes me enjoy them so much now is that for the past 18 years I have been bombarded with my husband's heavy metal. I wasn't able to listen to my music, and for the first 11 years of us being together I didn't listen to a bar of my music. Not because I didn't want to and not only because Rob wouldn't let me play my music when he was around but because I was so busy raising 4 babies and absent mindedly getting into the head space that everyone else came before me that I just put my interests aside and did what seemed to be the only way to go. I don't regret putting everything of me aside to be the best Mother I could be, my children are my life, nothing is more important than their happiness and security, but I now realise that my happiness is important too. I was unable to listen to my music as the needle of the record player went missing in the moves from Brisbane to Melbourne/Melbourne back to Brisbane and the stereo that I bought before I met Rob stopped working. I did get Rob to buy me a Sony CD walkman, but I barely used it as the songs would jump and skip when I walked the babies in the pram. Rob had a good stereo in his garage but I couldn't sit in there with a baby on my lap, it was smoky and dangerous for the children, so I just went without. Almost a year after our youngest child was born in 2003 we got our first computer and my sister sent me a CD of music that we used to listen to when we were young, as Rob bought good speakers for the computer and I could finally listen to my music when he was at work. I started collecting CDs of the records I used to have. I still had a little baby to think of and was still not used to putting music on, but slowly I started enjoying my music again and it felt like I was slowly waking up from a very deep sleep. Well... years of listening to Rob's heavy metal, Kiss, Accept, Black Sabbath and the like, I have got used to heavy guitars, maybe that is why it was so easy for me to fall in love with the Hard Ons, lol! On Friday I am going into the city and hopefully I can get a number of their EPs and albums as I am burning up all my downloads watching YouTube, lol! So I am sticking it to the man and dragging him kicking and screaming to a Hard Ons concert! LOL, what a way to introduce him to my kind of music!! Although, really it isn't the first time. When we were first going out, Nick Cave came to Brisbane at the Livid Festival back in 1992. It was also the last time I drank alcohol as well! I was really nervous about running into an old flame at the festival while I was with Rob that I totally over did the alcohol intake and made myself completely sick. Rob was so lovely, patting my back while I threw my guts up. Charming, I know. I remember dancing down the front to Def FX and then falling asleep in one of the porta-loos. By this stage, Rob had had enough of the music that he didn't understand and enough of trying to smash the portable toilet door open to get me out, so when I finally did emerge from the toilet, he insisted that we go home. So I missed out on seeing Nick Cave sing as he was last to play that night. I had seen Nick play live a few years before but still, it was a disappointment to miss what I paid for, although it was totally my own fault. It was the first time and the last time that Rob saw me drink. Until more recently, but now days I can't drink more than 2 glasses. As a teen I now realise that I had a binge drinking problem. So many things happened that I just can't remember. I should have some wonderful memories of my time as a young girl but alot of them are obliterated by alcohol consumption. I suppose I could adapt that old saying "If you can remember the 60's, you weren't there." Well, it's true of my youth too. My sister and I often talk for hours on the phone, helping each other remember all those fun times we had. Yes, I truly am having a mid-life crisis, lol! I am turning 40 in October after all! I'm allowed to!

16 Year Anniversary

On Friday, DH and I have been married for 16 years!
I remember years ago, before we were married, we'd gone into the city to go to a 50s 3D SciFi movie marathon and as we walked through the mall to get to South Bank, I stopped to listen to a girl busker singing 'Another Piece of My Heart' by Janis Joplin. I stopped because I love that song and she was doing a great job of it and as I looked at her, I realised she was a girl I had known in primary school in my home town. We were thrilled to see each other and I introduced her to my future husband and she asked how long we'd been going out. I said 6 months and back then, it seemed a long time.... Well, 16 years is a long time. There has been ups and downs but there is still much love and that means the world to me. We will be going to see 'Eclipse' together. Poor Rob, I think he will be relieved when all these movies are done, lol! Speaking of which, after I finished reading 'The Complete Goodies', I read the recent Sookie Stackhouse novel 'Dead In The Family' and then I read the Twilight/Eclipse novella 'The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner' I am presently reading some short stories, which are virtually Mills and Boons with a vampire in them... ho hum, well, it keeps me busy, lol. The next book that I am intending to read is 'Little Dorritt' by Charles Dickens. The BBC production of it was recently on the ABC and my god, I loved it!! I have read quite a bit of Charles Dickens but not this one, so I shall remedy that as soon as possible, wonderful story. The lead actor 'Matthew Macfadyen' played 'Mr Darcy' in the Hollywood production of 'Pride and Prejudice' . I own the DVD of it, so I had to watch it. Bawled my head off the entire way through. *sigh*
I recently had to swap my mobile phone sim card with my DHs old mobile phone. Six and a half years ago, Rob and I got matching LG mobile phones. He upgraded his in September last year but I said I couldn't be bothered, mine still works. Plus we got our eldest son a mobile phone and put him on our plan, so we really couldn't afford to upgrade my phone as well. Anyway, my phone decided to drop dead a few weeks ago and as Rob's old phone was still working, he just switched my sim card over. Which meant that I lost all my phone numbers and my ringtones as I had only saved them to my handset and not my sim card. I had bought a Violent Femmes song 'Blister In The Sun' ringtone when I originally got my mobile phone. They had a retro category to choose from, but now they don't have that category, so I can't even buy that ringtone again, or anything that I would vaguely liked. So I got a bee in my bonnet about making my own ringtone. I found a place online where you can make one, although I haven't worked out how to get the volume as loud as I'd like, even with my handset turned up as loud as it goes. It's not as loud as the 'Blister In The Sun' ringtone, so I need to keep playing with it. The song that I used for my new ringtone is 'Don't Go Now' by RatCat. I decided that it was my all time favourite song. Although, this week I am on a 'Hard Ons' kick and can't stop listening to this song... 'Where Did She Come From' I just can't get enough of this song, I adore it! And I have been listening to the few things I have of theirs... 'Girl In The Sweater' and some other older songs and especially 'Wait Around' . I am going into the city for lunch with my cousin Barb soon, so I will be popping into 'Rocking Horse Records' and buying anything pre 1993 by The Hard Ons that I can get my grubby hands on. Sorry, I am not a fan of Blackie's voice and style of singing. I love Keish's voice. If that makes me a big girl, so be it. I don't like the thrashy stuff. Crikey, I hope they have 'Yummy' in store, it's one of my favourite albums. So if I can figure out the ringtone thing, I might put 'Where Did She Come From' on my phone, might have to rotate it with 'Don't Go Now'. If I could afford it, this is the phone I would love to get... a purple Blackberry. Yummy! But the next thing I do want to buy is a purple Cannon Power Shot.... Yum! I'm tired of crappy photos, so I am looking forward to getting a decent camera and this camera does it for me, yeah, tax time! :)

I haven't been scrapping too much lately. But here is one that I did of my son on a fair ground ride, we both went on it. We are the only ones in our family (so far) that like the fast rides, lol. It was at the Union Picnic that we went to back in May. Mostly by Flergs. Credits: You Spin Me Right Round
That's it for now, I have to read some more of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' to my kids ... gotta get it read before the movie comes out. I've read each and every one of the books to the kids. The eldest son is over it and doesn't come to listen anymore and the other son has to have his arm twisted, but it has been a nice tradition over the years to sit together and read it.
Goodnight.

June CT layouts

Well, I have been busy doing some layouts for Scrapartist. I am really enjoying my time there, the other ladies are so welcoming and the designers are so artistic and creative, it is a joy to work with their designs!

This is the first layout I made, using Wish Bliss Studio's 'Kelly Bea' and Paula Kesselring Designs 'Scrap On The Beach - Papers'
Credits: @ Scrapartist @ DST

I have been waiting for ages to scrap that photo and these kits seemed to be the perfect fit for it.

This is my second page, using this cool wooden alpha by Paula Kesselring: 'Wood Printer Blocks'and Pixel Works: 'Remembrance Day Elements' I do so love Pixel Works word definition clip-tionary bits! Credits: @ Scrapartist @ DST
This one was done for the CT Scrap For Fun Challenge. Credits: @ Scrapartist @ DSTI used too many kits to include previews of them all but I just had to share this preview of SherrieJD's Kitschy Kitchen, it is to die for! The wooden kitchen utensils in the kit are red and yellow but I recoloured them to make them purple. I truly do have purple kitchen utensils and I do actually have a purple potato masher almost exactly like that!
The theme was "Then and Now" and I chose a photo of me when I turned 19. The quality of the photo is poor but it is one that I love. I am holding my cat, although it is hard to see him. I think I must be going through a mid life crisis because I am reminiscing about my youth more and more these days! I never thought I'd marry or have children and even tho I was lonely I was happy enough with just my cat for company. Then love came along and swept me off my feet, made me a wife and a Mother and I have been so busy being those things that I had forgotten who I was before it all started. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I adored being pregnant and having little babies. I breastfed for virtually 12 years straight and I loved nurturing my children, they are my whole life, but it is nice to remember myself and get back to being who I am as an individual. From carrying 4 babies, my thyroid issues and the ups and downs of married life, I've put on over 40 kilos. For a long time now it hasn't bothered me much. Being pregnant 4 times, I'm sort of used to the big tummy, plus my husband, God love him, has never complained about my weight. He still finds me sexy and that's all that matters, right? But other people don't see me that way, not that I've ever cared about what others think of me. I have the oppposite to anorexia I think, lol, I don't feel thin but I have always felt 'normal' and it's taken me a long time to come to the realisation that I am terribly overweight and I need to do something about it. So I have been very good the last 5 weeks and have lost about 5 kilos, so I am happy about that. I am determined to keep it up this time. In the past I would be good for a month or 2 and when I hadn't lost 40 kilos in that amount of time I would just give up because it was taking too long and seemed too hard and I would get despondent and go back to overeating. This time I know that it will take a long time and I am OK with that. But I am determined to be me and get back to who I once was. The size I was. I don't even look like 'me' anymore and I want that to change so much. One of the best things I can say is to drink plenty of water. I drink at least 2 litres a day. And if I am feeling 'hungry' I have a glass of skim milk as a snack. Calcium is something I can definitely use these days. I gave up coffee a year ago and I haven't looked back although I might have one every 2 or 3 months. I have tea once in awhile but not too often. I am hoping I stay focused and keep believing in myself. I know it will make me a happier more energetic person.

Here is another layout I have done.
Credits: @ Scrapartist @ DST

It is made with Christine Honsinger {Fiddlette}'s kit: 'Kitschy Kutie' I know I had some of those beads, bows and plastic bits as a kid.
Now, I haven't spoken about what I am reading for awhile and that is because I have been reading the same book for months on end. It is a wonderful book but it is not a novel and the format of the writing, while entertaining, it is hard to wrap my brain around at times. So it's taking me an age to get through it. I am reading 'The Complete Goodies' by Robert Ross. It is a very informative book, reviewing and reporting every television appearance, every public appearance, every TV show, every radio show and every book, comic or vynal and CD publication and recording that each of the Goodies have ever done in their lives. As well as any other key actors that they have been involved with. As much as I am enjoying learning all this information, it is not written in chronological order of appearances, rather it is written in alphabetical order. So all of Bill Oddie's birding shows and books have come before all the Goodies stuff in the book, even tho that all happened some time after the Goodies finished. I know it makes me very dull complaining about that but there you have it. I am enjoying it however as I am a huge Goodies fan and they really shaped who I am today. Many of the quotes, jokes and quips that are classic Goodies are in my regular vocabulary and there is nothing that makes my day more than the image of Bill Oddie's quick jerk of the head and saying... 'Wayhehey!" Awhile before my old computer died I had started a layout on why I had become a vegetarian and I credited Morrisey of The Smiths as being my eye opener with their song 'Meat Is Murder' but really if I go back in my childhood, I really must say The Goodies really lay the foundation of my vegetarianism. The image of Bill eating the rabbit host of the chat show in the 'Animals' episode shocked my 7 year old senses to the core. And after reading the detailed reviews of each Goodies episode in this book I am reading, it brought back all the different images of critter consuming and animal abuse that is in the show. Tho as a 7 year old I found it confusing as to what was a joke and what was point pushing, but that is what they were doing, I guess. Anyway, they are brilliant and my kids adore them too, we watch the 2 DVDs I have every now and then.... I do wish their entire 9 seasons were on DVD. Here in Australia they were repeated and repeated on the ABC and I have almost every episode backed up on my brain but it would be nice to be able actually see them again.
Last week end, hubby and I went into the city and saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the doomed Regent Theatre. It was the last week end that it would be playing movies before it gets knocked down to make boring office blocks. It is such a beautiful cinema, the subject of my 'A Gothic Daydream' layout. Terribly sad to see it go. Anyway, as you can imagine, my very macho husband thought going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the worst idea I'd had in my life, but truly there was nothing else we could stomach seeing. I'd rather slit my wrists than see 'Sex In The City 2' or 'The Back Up Plan' as would he, so I made an executive decision to just go and watch my all time favourite movie 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' Of course I had to bribe my husband into going.... I lured him with rum, lol... we snuck rum and cokes into the theatre. And being the sweetheart that he is, Rob eventually just said, 'Well, as long as you have a good time, then I'm happy' And did I ever! It is the first time I have seen it on the big screen. Can you imagine, Frak'n'furtur larger than life!! What IS it about a man in a corset???!!! I had a wonderful time, although I really wanted to sing out loud along with it, tho everyone else in the cinema was really well behaved and as it was a send off for the Regent Theatre, I thought I'd better be respectful, well, that and the fact that I knew hubby couldn't take me singing AS WELL as them, lol! I giggled all the way home. Hubby said it was because I'd had too much rum but I didn't care, it was a wonderful night out. A too rare occurrence. So it was extra special.
Have to get to bed. Goodnight.

Guest CT Spot For June!

Yeah! I was one of the lucky winners of the guest CT layout challenge at the Scrap Artist Birthday celebrations in May. This is my winning layout. Credits at Scrapartist

and here is my avatar and CT avatar photo... can you tell that I am just SO excited to be guest CTing for Scrapartist??!! I have loved Scrapartist for YEARS! It is such a thrill to be working with all the fabulous designers there and all the other creative goddesses. I can't wait to soak up the inspiration while I am over there!!!!

This past week end the whole family finally went to see 'Alice In Wonderland 3D' It was wonderful and we all really enjoyed it. It was a rare treat to be able to go to the movies as a family. So for this month's desktop, I went all 'Alice in Wonderland'...Normally I will make a square layout version of my monthly desktops but I was too excited to post this online so it didn't happen, it does look so much better closer up and it is such a cheerful reminder of our nice day out. Credits Here.
Another fun layout I made in May was a 2 page layout of my sister and I at the movies at a very beautiful cinema in the city...

Credits for 'A Gothic Daydream' page1 page2

Can't wait to blog again with my first Scrap Artist CT layout! :)

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mums out there for tomorrow. :) I just got a call from DH saying that he can take me out for lunch the day after Mothers Day while the kids are at school for a late Mothers Day celebration and that he will cook dinner for me on Mothers Day, so that's something exciting to look forward to! Yippee! His work shift is changing and this will be the last Monday that he has off, so our last opportunity to be able to go out together without the kids, so it will be a nice "last day alone" OK...heaps happening....somehow I totally missed April...We went up to my parents farm for 10 days of the Easter holidays. DH drove us up there and we spent Good Friday to Easter Monday together before he had to go back home for work and then he came back the following week end to pick us up and take us home. Again I taught Mum more things on the computer, so I think she will be fine from now on. Easter was a busy, wonderful day. It was also DHs birthday, so I cooked his favourite pumpkin strudels. My Father is currently growing pumpkins so there were pumpkins galore. I also cooked an onion cheese flan and a zucchini slice, curried egg salad and we had other salads. Mum made her famous chocolate truffles and I made DHs favourite black forest chocolate cake. We had all this for Easter lunch and as we made so much of it we had the left overs for dinner. And of course there were chocolate Easter eggs a plenty!April Credits

I haven't actually scrapped the Easter lunch table as yet, so this variation of my April desktop will have to do for now. I haven't had a lot of scrapping time lately and Mum came for a visit for the last week of April for 2nd DSs 13th birthday. Yep, I showed her a few more things on the computer. It is always busy when Mum comes for a visit, as she can only spend a small amount of time with each family member in Brisbane, so I have to make sure I get everything done that I wanted to do when she is here before she moves on to the next family member. On the Thursday that she was here, I took her to see the movie "Beneath Hill 60" A wonderful Australian movie about WW1. My maternal Grandmother's cousin died in that area around that time of the war and his 3 other brothers were also over there in the war, his elder brother died back here in Australia from wounds sustained in the war, so it was a personal reminder of what our soldiers had to deal with at that terrible time. Arthur, the one that died in action, is the middle one in the photo with his 2 other brothers, his older brother who died at home from wounds is not in the photo. The photo on the left is the actor Gyton Grantly from the movie Beneath Hill 60.
Mum enjoyed it very much, for many reasons...it was a true story, it was an amazing visual of what her 2nd cousins endured during the war, it was an Australian story and by no way the least... it had her favourite actor Gyton Grantly in it. She adores him! Of course I enjoyed the movie very much too and also like Gyton. As an 18 year old I worked in a fruit and vegie store in the suburb where he lived, so I probably served his Mum and him as an 8 year old if they came into the store where I worked, lol!
The other thing to happen recently is DigiShopTalk's Scrapper Choice Awards are here again. This year I decided to submit a few layouts.
Best Overall Layout:
Best Title Work:Best Use of Template:
Best All About Me Layout:
Best Inanimate Subject Layout:Most Humorous Layout:Well, that's it for me for today. Have to go and hang out the 3rd load of washing because I don't want to have to do anything but laze about in my pjs tomorrow for Mothers Day. :)
Happy Mothers Day!