Great weekend.... past and future!!

Last Saturday, a group of us Scrap Pile girls went to Scrappy Hollow and had a crop. The fantastic duo, Cass and Kim came from Sydney to Melbourne to have fun. We had sooooo much fun yakking, and eating and cropping. It was one of the best crops I've ever been. Thanks Cass and Kim for making the trip. I hope you guys had as much fun as I did. Fantastic Kim did what... 5?? 6?? layouts??? AND 2 ALBUMS????!!!!! She is just a freaky crop machine!

During the crop, I did 2.5 layouts, and finished the last half today. To me, that is a great achievement. LOL ... they are EDM layouts.

Title: Cupcake Art

My daughter's art from kinder. She's only spent 1.5 weeks at kinder and everyday she has brought home 2 pieces of artwork. We are stressing out on how soon she's going to catch up with her mother's scrapbooking layouts.


Title: Hobby or Obsession?

Probably needs some journaling.... what do you think? Does this make sense to you?


Title: Well-trained

A double-page 8.5x11 LO... my first attempt doing something like that. This is inspired by Carrie Civinskas' LO in Dec CK.


Today was my turn to be on kinder roster. I had to bring Phaedon with me to Ellen's kinder. So it was kinda like an outing for the 3 of us. She was happy having us there, and Phaedon got to play with other kinder kids. I never thought I'll say this, but I actually had a lot of fun being there. I was actually dreading to be in the same room with 28 kids and 2 of them are mine! I thought Ellen was going to be clingy when I am there, and Phaedon was going to scream his lungs out because he is hoarding the toy cars and other kids will be trying to take them from him to have their turn. Most kids are actually very well-behaved and well-mannered. I know of a few kids who tend to be very shy, but were happy to approach me for help. However, I know I could NEVER do this as a full-time job. Salutations, kinder teachers.

4 more sleeps to the RETREAT!!! I'm going to The Country Place with 50 other women for a scrapbooking retreat this weekend! We'll be attending a class by Renata Watt and Katie Toland. CAN'T WAIT!!! Ants in my pants already!!!!!!

TTFN!!! (Ta-ta for now... as Tigger says)

So it has been announced...

I think it's OK to make the announcement now, I think some have got their mags.

I made it to the For Keeps Design Team for Issues #52-57. I was very very thrilled when Julia rang asking me to join their Design Team! And that was back in October 2006, after the deadline for the Awards for Excellence. It was excitement through the roof!!! On the other hand, it was almost quite a kill joy cos you've just been told the greatest news, but you are not allowed to tell anyone. For these past months, we've just been powering through DT layouts but cannot show or tell anyone about them! That was not too fun. But then, I wasn't quite the good girl. I told a FEW friends. I had to. It was just too painful not to share joy.

Nevertheless.... I made it!!! I've done 3 months' of briefs. I was finding it rather challenging, but I usually quite like the end results. These are my 1st 2 layouts for Issue 52.





OK. So much for sharing joy. This is another story from my Coffs Harbour trip. This happened on the drive home.

We have always made ample allowance for toilet breaks. We did not have a problem driving up to Coffs. But on our way home, my daughter's central nervous system decided to work overtime, and she had to go. We were on the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway ... no toilets in sight for miles. When we finally found one 10 minutes later, it was a dunny with a difference. But by then, I had to go too.

Me - city girl.
Toilet - cavemen invention.

It was a composting waterless toilet. And if you are one smart ass trying to google what one looks like, let me tell you, this one we found looks nothing like those on these googled websites. It is one that is supposed to do wonders for the environment, cos it doesn't use water, so no flushing. The entire procedure involves you doing it, "it" goes straight down to the composting system, you leaving. "It" is collected and composted as fertilisers and what not.

This thing stank from 50 feet when we were approaching. Of course, my daughter had to go first and we had to hold them while they were sitting on the toilet seat for fear of them becoming "it", then my son's turn, then finally mine. This had to be the longest moments of my life, and I made sure I broke my own record when I had to use it myself.

When I came out, I had to wash my hands. And there was this miserable little sink outside the sad toilet, that the tap just trickled some water over my hands. I wonder where this water came from..... hmmmmm. We had to leave. I couldn't stand another moment near this toilet. And quite frankly, I'd rather stand next to a barbeque AND a smoker, and hence smell like a combination of charcoal, oil and nicotine, than have this toilet stench lingering in our car. For the next 1/2 hour, I was in search of another toilet just to wash my hands properly cos I just didn't feel clean. I shudder at the very thought of these inventions. I know it's all meant to be good for the environment and so on.... but I'd much rather do it on a roadside and risk another human being (or animal) catching me in the act, than use one of those toilets again.

That was my other instalment of MFM - Michelle's Funniest Moments, Version COFF.

I hope I've kept you entertained.

Signing out.

Kinder Days... sigh

Ever since we got back from our holidays, it's just been chaos. The 2 kiddies started their kinder. Yes, I have 2 monsters who started kinder this year. Ellen attends the 4yo kinder whereas Phaedon does the 3yo kinder. And because they are newbies, kinders here do this 1/2 sessions thingy, lasting about 1.5 hours. And every sessions start at a different time!!! So all I have been doing, is checking when Ellen has kinder, and when Phaedon has kinder; and what time to drop her off, what time to pick her up, what time to drop him off, what time to pick him up. I was sure they did this to drive us MENTAL!!! And it's not like you can do a lot in that 1.5 hours - grocery shopping is a rush, going home means you'll have to leave before you even get to read 10 emails. STRESS!!!!!!!! In any case, this was Ellen's first day going to Kinder. She was that excited!



And within the last couple of weeks, I did 2 layouts and completed 3 CJs. There are more deadlines to meet from here on . I have to finish the Everyday Moments (EDM) layouts by end of February (that is 5 LO... yikes!!), and I have 2 more CJs to do before then as well. It is the 1st day of Chinese New Year on Sunday and it's a superstition that it is bad luck to use sharp objects at home. No cooking is allowed because we are not allowed to use knives, scissors ... etc and that means I couldn't scrap. You wouldn't believe how painful it was for me to stare at that list of deadlines and couldn't do a damn thing about it. It's past midnight now... I might just see what I can churn out.

These were the 2 layouts I did during the past 2 weeks.

A no-photo layout of Aussie slangs. Title: Fair Dinkum!!


And this is one of the EDM layouts for January's theme - Relaxation. Title/Journal: I love you just that lil bit more while you are sleeping.


Oh... and there is a giveaway at Scrapping Angels going on. They are giving away 5 FREE Designer Deluxe kits. All you need to do is mention and link them on your blog, then go back to Scrapping Angels' Blog or onto Trish's personal blog and leave a message that you have given them a mention. My good friend, Ruey has just become one of their designers recently. I'm sure many of you know her and her work, so you can be rest assured that their kits will simply amaze you.

Of course, I promised in my last entry to tell you some of my holiday stories. Here's the first instalment.

One of those stinking hot days at Coffs Harbour, we were driving around deciding where to have lunch. We stopped at this little shopping mall that has a couple of cafes, and they are all facing a nice lake, and beautifully tucked under some bushy surroundings. So we looked at their menus and decided on this cafe called Mangrove Jack's. Cool name, nice menu... shouldn't go wrong.

WRONG!!

As soon as we took our seats on the deck overlooking the lake, and placed our orders, disaster struck. I heard some rustling in the bushes a few tables away from us. Then I saw some beige / black patches near the bush but couldn't figure out what they were. But when I heard those tapping on the wooden deck, and saw the beige/black stripes moving, my worst fears were confirmed - LIZARDS. They must have known that it was lunch, and the locals are used to having them, so it's party time for them. There were at least 1/2 a dozen of those creatures coming out of the same spot, all measuring about 4-5 feet long .... like they just walked out onto Project Runway with their designer outfit, and started creeping towards tables. My face must have turned white as a sheet because I am PETRIFIED of lizards and snakes. Next thing I remembered -- my feet were on the seat, tears streaming down my face, my body was stiff as a log, and I could hardly say a word. I had to beg my husband to shoo those things away if they came anywhere near our next table. Despite of the constant lookout for them, and only half interested in what my food was, I stayed at finished my lunch. But I couldn't wait for my kids to finish theirs and had to excuse myself to go back into the car. This has to be one of those classic stories I will live to tell my kids when they grow older, and grandkids when I have some.

And don't you DARE ask me if I took a photo and plan to scrap about it, because I didn't and I won't. End of discussion.

I hope you have a nice week ahead. :)

We're BAAAACK!!!!

Yes, we are!! We came back from our 1 week holiday at Coffs Harbour (north coast of New South Wales). Some of you might know, we drove. It took us approximately 10 hours to get to Sydney, stayed the night, then drove another 7 hours to get to Coffs. We took the advice of many friends to buy those car DVD players, with 2 screens (one on each head rest) to keep the kids entertained. Although I can't say the kids were completely happy all the time, after all we did drive 10 + 7 hours, it contained them most of the time. Other times, we had arguments over who wants to watch which movie, "can I have this (snack)?", "can I have that (snack)?", and naturally, "are we going to the beach?". We didn't get the cliche "are we there yet?" but I had my daughter saying, "I don't want a long drive anymore ... I wanna go home." That was a new one.

The cabin we booked at Park Beach Holiday Park was GREAT! It had all the amenities as pictured in their website, no false advertising there! The cabins were clean, neat, and modern. Our cabin was just a hop, skip and a jump away from the pool, just out the door, cross the road and we are there. All the kids wanted to do as soon as we got there at 4pm, was go to the pool. We couldn't disappoint them since they had been put through the longest drive ever. So there they went!
I probably took a hundred photos at the pool just within that 1 hour we were there! It was such great joy watching them play, while I'm shooting away and playing with my camera. You'd ask why I wasn't in the pool. Well, that's how organised I was. I am normally a very good "packer" when going for holidays. I don't usually miss anything but I forgot my own bathers. It would've been the biggest joke of the century -- going to Coffs Harbour without a pair of bathers!!! We had to run out next morning to the shops to buy one. I looked at the surf shops, they were all too expensive - $150 for one pair???? I wasn't going to spend that money just for this week when I already have one sitting at home! So I ran to Target at the other end of this shopping mall, went in, found 1 set at $40, probably the right size and paid for it. I didn't really care if they won't lift my saggy girlfriends, I can live with some criticisms behind my back for wearing some ugly bathers at the pool for that one week (although I must say, there are no ugly bathers, just bodies that don't fit them...LOL). Mind you, with the weather at Coffs Harbour, $40 to spend on a pair of new bathers to let you soak in the pool is really not much to ask for. And I wouldn't care too much if I didn't look the hottest babe at the pool cos it was such a family friendly place, you'll see lots of women with enough kids to demand for that figure. And we weren't there to body watch anyway... so I really felt a lot better showing my barrel gut, stretch marks and all.

I'll come back another time to tell you about some of my "experiences" with food at Coffs. But for now, it's getting the kids ready... kinder day today.

Ciao!