Scrapped. Stones. School.

Aahh... it has been over 2 weeks. Where do I begin?

I have scrapped. Layouts. Yes. Quite unbelievable, I thought. I have not scrapped a layout in months. Then in the last 2 weeks, I did 5!!! I am very very happy I did. I felt that I am a-l-m-o-s-t back. hehehe.....  I submitted them to the mags and 2 layouts got picked! Now, I am beside myself, thrilled and getting excited about being published all over again. LOL... I need some "KitchenAid money". :) :) :)  

These are the other 3 layouts I did.

My Barista - a double-page layout about my hubby honing his coffee making skills after he attended a Barista course, and is now a TAFE certified Barista. Perhaps he should leave his job and become one! hehehe... I used Rose Moka papers, KI Memories Sheer Delight and lace cardstock, Luxe rubons, Prima barcode tape, Scenic Route chipboard letters, 7Gypsies metal embellishments, Scrapware chipboard circles and Elle's Studios XL journaling card.

{HUGS} - Hugs department, always open, always free. I like this layout because I challenged myself to use minimal patterned paper and make more white space. Products: Basic Grey papers and chipboard stickers, American Crafts chipboard letters and Carolees Creations letter stickers.

Castle Cake - I haven't used pink cardstock for layouts for as long as I can remember. But somehow, these patterned papers just called for it. It's my daughter's birthday cake when she turned 6 last year. Very amateur in cake-icing as you can tell, but hey, it saved me heaps of money and she liked it. That's all that matters. But you know what, I think with lots of lollies, most people will overlook the flaws of the icing. hahahaha....  Products: October Afternoon papers and diecuts, Bazzill cardstock, American Crafts puffy alphabet stickers, Rose Moka letter stickers, Heidi Swapp flower, Heidi Grace pin and brad and Elle's Studios journaling card. The 2 leaves are made with Making Memories Slice Machine which Felicity kindly let me use. Thanks, Flick!

Anyways, my husband has been suffering from kidney stones for 11 days. Everyone I told seem to give me the same reaction - Ouch... it's very painful. Yeah, don't I know that. Mum in Singapore said it's more painful than child birth, so did Peter's aunt, and many women. Mum kept asking me why it's taking us so long to have it removed. Well, the simple answer is our sickeningly screwed up health care system in Australia. Peter suffered his first kidney stones attack in Singapore while we were on holidays, Jan 2000, we weren't married back then. We first went to a 24-hour clinic because he was in a lot of pain in the middle of the night. The doctor injected him with morphine straight away. So he slept in the surgery for a short while. The next day, we went to a hospital when the pain came back and he was white as a sheet. They admitted him straight away, sent him for a CT scan and diagnosed the sizes of the stones straight away. Because they were tiny, he was advised to let them pass.

This time? We waited for an hour at the emergency to get triaged, another hour to get into an examination room, only to be given some panadeine forte, a blood test and a urine test, and an all-clear-good-to-go-home. For the next 2 days, he was just pumping panadeine forte like lollies but to no avail. I finally dragged him to go back to a doctor and get it checked. This time because it's a normal GP, he had to do blood test, urine test and an Xray - all Medicare SOP (standard operating procedure). Went back next day, to get results - inconclusive! THEN he ordered a CT scan (now compare the days it took for us to get a CT scan here as opposed to Singapore). Carrying on the brand of healthcare sucks, Melbourne was hit by a massive power outage which prevented the Imaging centre to send the results to the GP for a few days. Until today, the GP still hasn't received the scan results. I got fedup and asked Peter to go collect the results himself. That way, clinic and imaging centre can stop playing the blame game! So he brought his scan results into the clinic today to get the GP to explain what next. The biggest damn stone is 8mm big!!! Finally organised for him to go for surgery to have it removed. Mum cannot get her head around the length of time we had to wait to get treated, and all the different places we had to go to get things done (don't forget we had to pick up the scan results ourselves or else we could still be waiting), hence increasing the waiting time and finger-pointing games. Quite frankly, after living here for 10 years, I don't either. Doesn't our healthcare here suck big time?

Today, it's our first day back at school. After staying at home for 6 weeks, I think my kids have had enough, so has their mum. Not to mention, the last 2 weeks, I had one sick, grumpy old man under the roof 24/7 as well. Let's do a bit of math here...

Grumpy sick man + 2 feral kids x last 11 days of school holidays = a very very unhappy mum.

I was telling a friend, and probably using a bad analogy, that it feels like I had been constipated for 2 weeks and today was my first bathroom visit. Get it?

A BIG FAT RELIEF!!!

Anyways, Phaedon's first day at Prep was perfect. He bounced out of bed at 7am, dashed to the dining table and asked for cereal for brekky, scoffed it down in minutes, greeted me with a 'GOOD MORNING MUM!" and a big grin, rushed to get washed and cleaned and changed into his uniform, and was ready by 7.30am sitting on the couch. Good huh? Let's see how long this will last..... On the other hand, the big sister was the opposite but I won't delve on her too much cos she was just miserable and difficult.

We got to school and took Ellen to her classroom. All of a sudden she just became clingy and shy and didn't want to say hello to her teacher. I know why, it's because she knows that Phaedon has got the same Prep teacher she had -- Jealousy. She used to be the teacher's pet. Now she has a new teacher, and her favourite teacher has become her brother's. Phaedon on the other hand just cruised into his classroom and sat down playing.... no drama at all. See the difference between girls and boys?

Think this is a long enough post. I'll leave you with a few photos taken today.... pay close attention to the proportion of the size of school bag to the kid.

Good night from me, everyone.