I am on Holidays....Yahoooooo...............................

I don't think I have ever looked forward to holidays like I have this term. It's been a hard term, so it is nice to have the next couple of weeks off to unwind. I would love for time to stand still a little so that these holidays don't rush by too quickly.

I've been scrapbooking again. I don't think I have ever managed to do as many layouts as I have done this past month. I think I am up to 21 which is an all time record for me. I must admit though, life is heaps better when you take some time out to remember and reminisce about some of the good things, and the things I am grateful for in this life. I can't say these layouts are totally original. I have been doing a bit of blog surfing, and gallery surfing this past couple of weeks, and have certainly been motivated and inspired. Not sure who to credit this first layout too, but I loved the patchwork feel to it and wanted to do one like this myself. Also made me want to get out my sewing maching and have a play too.
This next layout was inspired by the work from this great scrapbooker. I am always inspired by looking at her gorgeous work. Photo of Chloe's special birthday breakfast.I have a heap of double layouts that I need to do, and was off gallery searching for some inspiration as I have felt that my double layouts lately were all becoming too alike as I try to scrap as many photos as I can on the pages. I came accross this lady's work - I just love it, very me. Even better, she is an Aussie scrapper who lives in Qld. Pretty much scraplifted this layout but love how it has turned out. I am just getting around to scrapbooking the photos from our Scrap of Faith retreat - only 8 months later. Have a few more pages I want to do too. So many memories of this weekend. Other exciting news from our place this week. (well exciting for Steve) He got a new work laptop this week and has had fun playing with it. It is so much faster than his old one (Probably because he hasn't had time to fill the hard drive yet)Steve has two very high powered computers in his graphics room at school. They have been nicknames "The Beast" and "Seniour Beast", so it was a bit of a joke when Steve picked up his new laptop and found that they had names it for her - Yep you got it "Beast Jnr"
Here he is playing with "Beast Jnr" finishing off the Work booklet for the CQU course he is teachng this week.
Just putting the finishing touches to his cover page. His new computer has Photoshop loaded, so he has been having a bit of fun with it.

Friday night the girls from church had a Girls night in at our Place. The idea was we would watch a movie on the big screen in front of the fire - only problem being it was way too hot to even light the fire. We had a great turn out, over 20 of us. We watched the movie "Bride Wars', and then had Coffee (well some of us had Hot Chocolate) and supper together. I made these special little cupcakes for the night.
Finally a couple of random shots taken here late at night.
Have lots of plans for this week - a bit of house work each day, back to the gym, a road trip with the girls I used to work with at Allies, a scrapbooking day - probably card making, more kitchen quotes, try out some new recipes, but most importantly I will get to have a bit of a sleep in.

Things I am thankful for today.

1. Having holidays.
2. Have my washing all up to date and folded.
3, Girlfriends and enjoying spending time with them
4. Supportive DH who enjoys seeing all my layouts and is so complimentry.
5. Having fun with my DH as we worked together this afternoon to get his work done for his course tomorrow.
6. Macca's ice-creams
7. Praise and Worship music
8. Sleep ins
9. Peace and quiet
10. Online friends who encourage and support me.

4 Sleeps to the Holidays

I have to admit, I am really looking forward to the holidays this time. It has been a really hard term. I am sure though that the holidays are just going to fly by. For the most part we will be spending them at home. Steve is busying. He is teaching a course for CQU the first week of the holidays, then hopes to go fishing with the boys for three days, and the we are all flying to Brissie. Chloe and I will be gone for 4 days, but Steve is staying on for a few extra days as he has a conference to go to.

Last Saturday we had our monthly scrapbookin get together and I shocked myself by getting almost four layouts completed. I think this is the most I have ever done. I mean it took me a whole weekend to get five layouts done at our retreat. I must admit, I had prepared a little before I went.This first layout was an inspired scraplift from a layout by Christine Middlecamp. I love her work. She is really into detail and embellishments. I was really happy with this layout. Got to use, flowers, bling and Kindy Glitz.
Great shot of the girls butts. The give me a hard time when ever I want to take their photos, so if this is the angle they give me, than this is the angle I photograph and scrap.
Just some of the group shots from our scrapbooking retreat the other weekend. Have more photos to scrap a double page and hopefully will get some more pages scrapped over the holidays.
The new look Pete - he couldn't be bothered shaving when we had our holiday at Christmas time. Had planned to take it off when he started his new job, but by the time he was ready to start, it had actually grown into a beard and he thought he would leave it. Kind of suits him.

That wonderful young daughter of mine is still bringing me home flowers. I've managed to photograph most of them, and I'm thinking it might be nice to do a layout on them all .
Speaking of flowers, these goreous orchids and
these have all come out of the garden in the last month.
Got to catch up with this lovely lady for morning tea the other week when Betty came to visit to see photos her Grand daughter had posted on Facebook. I first met Betty almost 30 years ago when we first moved to Rocky. She was one of my advertisin clients when I first started working at the Bully here. We hit it off straight away. She was always talking about her daughter in law Eleonore, and her granddaughter Catherine. It was inevitable that we would become good friends when our girls went to Pre School together. Both Eleonore and I had both heard about each other long before we met. We have now been very good friends for 24 years.

Just thought I would share some great quotes that I came accross this week.

Our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God.

Brother Lawrence

"To love God is the greatest of virtues; to be loved by God is the greatest of blessings."

"Love is the sum of all virtue, and love disposes us to good."

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies: probably because they are generally the same people."

"The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve."

John Stott

Thanks for coming by and visiting. Don't forget though to stop and say Hi.

Thank goodness the cold has gone for awhile.

I am sure we were not the only ones experiencing really cold weather, but we actually had frost and ice in Rocky last Friday when the minimum temperature dropped to 2 degrees. I can't remember it ever getting that low. For goodness sake, we live in the tropics are are just not geared to survive in temperatures that low. Fortunately the temperature climbed to about 18 degrees during the day.

My scrapbooking has slowed down. I did manage to complete another double, but really can't claim creative originality with this layout, as I mostly scraplifted it. Unfortunately I have no idea who to credit it too, as for some reason I just saved the photo of this layout without the web address for it. If it is a layout you have done, please let me know so that I can give credit where it is due. These are the only photos we have for Christmas 2008. As you can see I am still very much into the circles.
We have our monthly scrapbooking crop this Saturday - boy these year they just seem to roll around so quickly. I am hoping to get some of the photos from the Scrap of Faith retreat scrapped this weekend.

Thought I would share some pretty random shots from the past week. Not a lot of exciting things happening here at the moment. In fact life has kinda of settled down a little which is nice.
Friday night I went out for dinner with my friend Eleonore to celebrate, as she landed a job that day. Steve was having dinner at school as he didn't really want to come home until he had finished his marking from the exam that day.

Steve sat up until 3am Saturday morning finishing off writing reports so that he could have the day off on Saturday. We actually had a great day together. We went off hunting for Kitchen ideas in the morning, as we had an appointment today for someone to come out and design and price a new kitchen for us (man alive got the quote this afternoon and all I can say is Kitchen's don't come cheap) We ended up going out for lunch together and went shopping for some Clothes for Steve (almost impossible to get him out clothes shopping so need to make the most of it when I can)

Sunday afternoon we had a luncheon to farewell the Chaplain from Rockhampton High School as he and his wife are moving back to Canada. He will really be missed. It was a good time to catch up with friends we hadn't seen for a while also.

Yesterday I also got a new one of these.

It will probably take me a little while to get used to it as my old bible has all my favourite passages marked and I know just where to find everything.

On the job front - still no news. Only two weeks left till the end of term. I am trying hard not to let it get to me. There is obviously no way I can speed up the decision, so I am just trusting that God has it all under control and I will find out when I need to know, and meanwhile I will just be thankful that I am still being paid each fortnight.

Here are a few shots taken from our evening here last night. Steve and I started watching this on the big screen before he had to go out to a meeting.
Kind of feels like being at the movies with the big screen and surround sound. By the time Steve got home, Chloe had a few friends around and they spent the rest of the night doing this.



They were all very serious, but none quite as serious as this one who really gets involved in playing with the kids.
Whilst they were busy playing this, I got a bit more of this done. I am now past the half way mark with my knee rug.
My dear daughter bought me home another bunch of these again this weekend How I love the beautiful fragrance of these lilies. I am so blessed to have such a thoughtful daugther and I really do thank the Lord for her daily.
Finally our fish tank seems to be exploding with new baby fish. We foever seem to have new babies. WE've already got rid of a few but we need to do a much bigger cull next time

Well my eyes are barely staying awake as I type this so it must be time to go to bed. I have an early morning start in the morning - date with a swimming pool again.

Finally in closing I came accross these couple of quotes and would love to share these couple of little quotes with you.

"That is a good day in which you make someone happy.

It is astonishing how little it takes to make one happy.

Feel that the day is wasted in which you have not succeeded in this."

[ t. de witt talmage ]

Still scrapping strong.

Just a few more layouts too share. I am still no where near caught up but I am working on it.
Spent the long weekend scrapbooking. I had the weekend to myself as Steve was really busy marking exams and writing reports. My friend Jan spent the day scrapbooking with me on the Monday. We had such a good time together that we plan on having a couple of days in the holidays to do it again.

Anyway here are this weeks layouts. I'm afraid the photos are the best. It has been pretty overcast and then on the day the sun was out, there were shadows everywhere.
Colours haven't photographed real well on this layout, but I do love this photo of Chloe and Steve.
Sarah's friend stayed with us for six weeks. She was great company for Chloe, and also good value in the friendship stakes as well. I am sure that Chloe learn heaps from Amanda in regards to what being a good friend was all about.
This layout was inspired by the work of this wonderful scrapbooker. I love looking at her work and this layout was slightly altered scraplifted from her.
Another layout of Chloe's Formal. This didn't photograph well at all. Too many shadows, The layout is basically, black, white silver and sparkle, although the photo doesn't show this. There is a row of journalling under the "rgs Senior" too.

Gotta go pick up my baby from work. She has had a long day - 10 hour shift today. Be back soon.

Edited to add:
Man it is freezing cold here tonight. Our very first night of winter and I had to go out. I fell chilled to the bone. However I did come home to find a nice fire lit in our fireplace tonight. Feel like sleeping in front of it - the rest of the house is really cold. It will be 2 degrees here in the morning and we live in the tropics. I am really feeling for all you girls down south.

I've scrapped some more this week.

Not a lot to share this past week. Mostly just recovering from my weekend away last weekend. We did have a public holiday last Wednesday which was nice. I am still in limbo in regards to my work situation. There is only three weeks of this term left and my current job is only really guaranteed for the next three weeks so I really have no idea of what my future holds work wise. I am so thankful though that God knows and that I can claim the promises from the verses in Jeremiah 29:11-13.

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

It was so nice to scrapbook last weekend - it's been a bit of a hard year, and unfortunately I have let slide some of those things which have given me some me time, namely my scrapbooking. After last weekend, I have realized that it is these things that help to keep me sane, so I have made a conscious effort to do some scrapbooking this week and it has been good. I have been struggling to scrap Chloe's formal photos as I have had all sorts of problems finding papers to match her dress, but I think I have found something that works and it has been good to get in and get some of these photos scrapped. I've scrapped another layout tonight, but need to photograph it before I can share it.
Looking forward to another day of scrapbooking tomorrow with a couple of girlfriends. Steve is busy marking exams so we have the day to ourselves so hope to get a couple more layotus done. Hope to have a couple more layouts to share in the next couple of days.

Some layouts to share

Thought I would share the layouts I managed to do at our scrap retreat last weekend. I managed to complete 5 and start a sixth (which I am still working on). Considering I had no idea what I was going to do when I left home, I am very happy that I managed to get these layouts done. I have a huge backlog of photos to scrap. I still have photos from Chloe's formal, the Scrap of Faith Retreat, Chloe's Validictory Dinner, Christmas, Our Holiday in January, The RLO Farewell, and Chloe's 18th to do, so I really need to find some motivation again real soon. I need to give my scrap area a huge clean up and I plan to finish doing that before the weekend so that I can scrap this weekend while Steve is up at school marking exams.

I have to apologise for the dodgy photos. The weather has been awlful lately, very overcast and dull so it was hard to get a decent photo. S

Becasue I haven't scrapped for such a long time, and didn't have a lot of mojo or creativity. I found this sketch from this site and used it for my first layout. Sort of helped to get the creativity flowing again.

This sketch was the inspiration for this layout.
After this I was on a bit of a roll and managed to do the next few.
This layout is not quite finished, I still have to do the journalling over the painted area.

We are in State of Orgin fever in this house at the moment. Chloe has a group coming over to watch the first game tonight, so is busy making pizza's as I type. The house is decorated with balloons and streamers.
Three guesses who we will be cheering on tonight.

Go the Mighty Maroons.