Finishing Up

I have decided to not remain active with my blog. I'm really just over it......and never get myself excited about new posts or adding photos anymore.
So, have decided this is my last post.
I appreciate my lovely friends who have left comments etc. over the years. Especially when I was struggling with cancer. It means a lot to me that even though there is no way of knowing if anyone or how many people actually read what's written, some sweet people often left a comment or two. So, thank you!

I think my blog has served a great purpose for me, especially when I was struggling and became a great tool that later I used to make a journal of my cancer journey.

Now, I rarely spend time on the computer. I check emails and do some 'business' related things but I don't spend ages checking out scrapbooking websites etc like I used to. There is too much else I'd rather spend time on.

So, from me....it's adieu!!!! And thanks for stopping by.

What's going on?

Not sure what's happening with my blog. I can't get any photos uploaded on to it. Will have to play around with it when I feel better.
I'm still battling a sinus infection, have been really sick but not with swine flu although I was given a course of tamiflu. It's all from my sinus's. Am having a CT scan today as my oncologist is just making sure we rule out anything unsuspecting.

Will get back to my blog when feeling better as I have some great news.
A wedding in the family - that's already happened!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joshua's Baptism Day

Joshua was so looking forward to turning eight! Turning eight means getting baptised like his big cousins.

Although we are looking somewhat nervous here with Nanna and Pappa. Such a yummy boy you are Joshie. And we are so proud of you as we are of all your cousins. Making the big decision to be baptised is really important and one that you will never regret.

And here we are....all the family. Mum and Dad, Joshie, Riley, Harrison and Baby Bella. Family is just the most amazing institution ever.

All Done

Finally I finished cleaning out, culling, throwing away, giving away and tidying up my entire scrapbook room.
It is amazing how much space I have in there now. It's calling me to come and create.
It took me a couple of weeks to complete the whole project and I am so glad and so relieved that it's now finished.

I went through every single item in that room...made callous decisions about keeping or chucking away and it was sure worthwhile.

I havn't kept anything that I wouldn't use now. That was my criteria.

Now I just need some time to get in there and start working on some projects.

I have made a few cards because we've had some birthdays and other family functions. But I havn't as yet started a scrapbook page.

Pretty soon I'll be right in to it.

I have been battling a bit with health stuff. Like three out of three people are at the moment. It started with a Sinus infection, then laryngitis and now I have asthma. Which is something I only had when I had pneumonia. However, I'm being well looked after by my Doctor and more importantly by Colin. He has been fantastic....making meals, cleaning up. Very protective!

Really feeling the cold today. Can you believe that? Me, the person who always wants the heater turned down, the cooling turned up. I'm freezing today even with the heater on.

Culling

I have finally decided to cull my scrapbooking products. A major decision in the life of any scrapbooker. However I am so tired of my 'cluttered' room. I find I go to the same products all the time. And all the ones I've had for years that I thought I was putting away for my days when I am not earning money and can no longer buy 'new' stuff - have really lost their shine. I wouldn't use them anymore.
A lot of what I've kept stashed away for 'later on' hasn't seen the light of day for years. I've spent so much money that I am ashamed of the waste. Although I am giving it all away and hopefully some of it may get used or passed on.
For instance the amount of idea books I had at a cost of around $35-40 each and the piles and piles of magazines that are all so outdated - why keep them? Possibly to justify my decision to have spent the money on them. But they are really past their 'use by' date.
So I took a huge amount of them to a friend who can look through them, tear out what she wants, pass them on to others of just throw them away.

I am only keep this years CK magazines and all my Scrapbook Trends and CARDS idea books.

I bought four of the large photo storage boxes many, many years ago and enthusiastically began putting photos in them. But somehow they got put out of sight and then for a few years I just kept adding packets of photos on to a pile of other packets of photos.
Last night I got them all out and put them in the boxes - much tidier. And am grateful for digital photography and the fact that I tend to now only print photos I intend to scrapbook!

My desk is a nightmare so I have to yet tackle that. As well as the umpteen little plastic drawers sets I have with who knows what in them.
Then it's a matter of tidying up my ribbons - again. Then my tools. My plan is to have my cuttlebug and my cricut out all the time so I can just access them easily. I am even hoping to be able to have my sewing machine on a desk with the other two tools.

Lots of plans........a full rubbish bin, and a car boot or two to give away.

And then......no more buying stuff!!!!

Yesterday I went with Anita to Paperific at the showgrounds. It was fun going in by train and tram. Lots of chatting and catching up about our families and life in general.
The show was disappointing though. There really wasn't anything remarkable there - and any make and takes were hard to find.
I did buy some glimmer mist cuz I've been wanting some of that, some stickles and some lovely pens that I intend to use to make my 'old' flowers a bit more interesting.
It was nice to catch up with some friends from the past. Nice to see you Didi, Jodie, Deb, Kerry and Lyn.

Now I've got to make some dough for pizza's to take to Andrea's tonight.......I have a huge basket of ironing that I've been ignoring and I need to prepare a lesson to teach my young friends at Church tomorrow.

Future Socceroo

I li

Could this boy become a future Socceroo???? Being a biased Grandmother I think he can.!!!

He is also a very handsome soccer player as well!!

India and McKenzie two very faithful supporters of their soccer playing brother....even when it's a freezing morning! A lollypop helps!

We hadn't been to see Isaac playing soccer yet and as it was Martin's birthday on Saturday we decided to catch up with him at Isaacs game.
He is a little 'gun' player! He loves it and that's the most important consideration. However his sisters get a bit bored when it's so very cold and McKenzie just really hates it when it's windy so she wasn't going to be too co-operative with photos.

I can't believe that my second youngest child is now 31! How old does that make me feel? Although as they say 'every day above ground is a bonus' and so every day I get older I am grateful!

I 'might' be getting a new car. My Astra that we bought a couple of years ago is turning out to be a bit of a lemon. It was fine until we had a service done and since then it's been back at least one or two days every week for the last 8 weeks! So we have been looking around a bit at our options. The Hyundai i30 is looking good. But we're just not 100% sure we should be committing some well earned super towards paying for it!! Hmm......Decisions, decisions.

I am nearly finished with my 'type drawer'. I think I'm pretty happy with it....however the good thing about this is I can change anything anytime I want to. When it's all done I will take a photo and post it here. Still need to add a couple more photos and then there is one family shot I still need to take which isn't easy. It's of Andrea's family and it has to be a really specially good day for Sahnie to sit and have her photo taken.

So, now that I have almost finished creating a 'mess' in my scrap room I have decided to clean it out really thoroughly. I am going to cull big time! I have so must 'stuff' that I bought years ago because I felt the need to have to have every new thing that was released. Even if I didn't have an immediate plan or need for it. I liked it, at the time of course. However, now that I just scrap for my own pleasure and not for teaching or displaying in a shop my need for all this 'stuff' has really diminished.
In fact, most of what I put on my layouts now is from Cricut cartridges or the cuttlebug (sometimes!). Or even piece things together myself. So the demand on all the pre-maid things is very minimal and taking up a lot of space.
I have books and magazines going back years that I never look at. And the current pile is getting higher and higher and I never even get around to referring to those.
I am also fed up with the messy, cluttered theme of my scrap room.
Now that I've written this I realise this is going to be some task that I am going to undertake. Will have to break it down to small steps I think. And two BIG boxes - one for things to pass on and one for the grandchildren to play with....and then there is the rubbish bin as well!
Hoping to get started on this today!

I have decided to find a quote or statement each month that will give me a bit of a push to work on myself to be a better person.

At the moment it's this one:-
"Help me to be cheerful
when things go wrong.
Persevering when things
are difficult; and serene
when things are irritating."

I like this one........because like most people I have and do overreact to different things that come and go in my life. I have been trying to learn to not be this way because the only person who I am hurting is myself. I have learnt that on our journey we naturally get challenges thrown at us. Some are so hard....others we make harder by how we respond. It sure isn't worth responding to anything in any other way than cheerful, serene and persevering.

Good News For The Locals

Well, it seems that Kaiser Craft are more than likely going to open a store at DFO in Cheltenham.
This week Robyn, Rosemary and myself trotted around Geelong checking out a local store and Kaiser Craft. I met Chris Kaiser - the better half of the Kaiser Team!!!! And she told me that they are pretty much coming down to sign the lease next week!!! If it all comes off it will be great. They are doing so well with their products. Just releasing some new ribbons on cards at a very cheap price!!! And their new ranges are going to be released less frequently, but with more to the range such as rub-ons and stickers and ribbons and 6 papers per range instead of 4. I think the first release is in July.
How cool with it be to have them at the DFO in Cheltenham??? It will take me all of 5mts to get there!

It was so good to see Rosemary again. It's been since late last year, I think. Her new home is gorgeous. And she will have a huge scrapbooking room - as soon as she unpacks her house!

It was a long day driving to Geelong and back - shopping - and having a very yummy lunch. We all had the same - a potato and bacon pancake with cheese, two eggs and advocado on the top. Delicious!!! I won't mention what dessert was - a bit too decadent and way more than I should have eaten.

I am really keen to getting back to scrapbooking pages. I am stuck trying to finish my type drawer and am just not getting the creative juices happening at the moment. I might have to put it away for a bit and do something else for a while.

I've been roaming around a bit on Twitter and it makes me wonder what the big deal is about it. I much prefer reading blogs and catching up on what people are doing and creating. I can't see the point in one sentence comments that no-one even knows what it's all about. I did read one that is full of revenge and spitefulness. What's the point in that???
Who even cares? So I won't waist time snooping around there anymore.

I'm looking forward to a long weekend. I think some of us are going to do some bowling on Monday. We've had lots of fun before and it's a great activity to involve the children - especially on a cold, cold Melbourne day. (as is predicted anyway).

Alison - lovely to read your comment - thank you!!!!

Off to get some sleep.

Absolutely Ages

It has been quite a while since I added anything to my blog. I think I'm a bit over it these days and asking myself why I am keeping a blog at all.

Then I remembered all the benefit of having a blog when going through difficult times and how I was able to record all my thoughts, feelings and what was going on in my life at that time. Later I was able to refer back to all that information I had stored to create a journal of that time in my life. It was so helpful being able to do that. So, I figured that it is worth keeping on going with my blog.

What have I been doing? Nothing remarkable......everyday things!

Movies? - just saw Angels and Demons yesterday. Great movie. I love Tom Hanks as an actor although he is a bit controversial in his private life with his opinions on some things that I don't agree with and that has kind of changed my view of him a bit.

Scrapbooking? not a whole lot. I am finally working on my type drawer that I bought about a year ago. Mine has lots of very narrow long sections in it and so it's taking me a bit of trial and error to work out how to be creative with the whole thing. I am finally getting somewhere now. I have done a couple of classes at The Scrapbook Scene....which is always fun and I enjoy very much.
I notice through store newsletters and in talking to some store owners that there are a few online stores and retail stores being sold or closing. I guess that in this economic climate scrapbooking products are not really a necessity (although.....I could debate that point!), and I can imagine that sales etc. are down a bit.
It's still important to keep recording those personal/family memories - just have to figure out a way to keep the cost down.

Family? Always busy with my family. My darling eldest daughter, Andrea who is a single mother of three and has already had confirmed that her youngest daughter is Autistic has now had her eldest diagnosed with Aspergers. Quite a lot to deal with and poor Orson in the middle misses out a bit. So we are trying to have the children over for sleepovers at different times so she can focus on one at a time or have a day to herself.
I am so grateful that I am well enough now to be able to help her out this way.
Our other children and their families are doing really well. Isabella is 6months old now and so very cute. Time goes way too quick!
Sara is looking 'pregnant'! and has started wearing maternity clothes.....she looks so beautiful. In a few weeks she will find out if this baby is a boy or a girl.....can't wait to find out myself!

I had to stop going to the gym. It was taking too much out of me and my doctors told me to quit and just stick to walking. So every day Colin and I go for a 40mt quick (for me it's quick) stroll around the neighbourhood. I can only do it in the morning though!

My tests are still good.....and I am still having my 'every eight weeks' treatment. I do have to be very careful of infections because my lymphocyte count is much lower and always will be due to the damage from the lymphoma. So I'm hoping to not catch anything 'sinister' this winter.

I have been really enjoying reading again. I am devouring books lately and I guess that's why I am not getting as much scrapbooking done.

This week I am off to Geelong with my dear friend Robyn to the Kaiser Craft outlet and maybe check out the local scrapbook store and hopefully pop in to see our other dear friend Rosemary who has moved to Lara. It will be a great day........friends and scrapbooking 'stuff'. I'm looking forward to it.
Later in the month I am going to Paperific with Anita and her friend. 3 Dutchies together!!! Great fun......and hopefully some good bargains to buy as well.


I will try to keep up with my blogging a bit better than I have been.