Hot Hot Hot

Wow how hot is it today. It is finally starting to cool down. Jamie and I had a sleep-in this morning and didn't get out into the yard til about 11.30 and it was stifling hot. We had a few chores to do, edges and mow the lawn, plant some more plants before anymore die in their pots. We got this done as quick as we could so we could head down to the beach for a cool off.

The beach was beautiful, the water appeared colder than it was because my feet were on FIRE from walking on the sand (even with my thongs on) and I even broke into a jog to get to the wet sand quicker. It was lovely just hanging in the water for about half an hour to cool down.

Before I went to the beach I hung a load of washing out and it was dry by the time I got back before the next load had even finished in the machine, that is just crazy HOT.

Anyway this afternoon I spent scrapbooking Sketch #8 for Inspired Blueprints so here it is.

Yay the weekend is here and its a long 1

Well it is Friday and I am just debating giving myself an early mark and head off for the long weekend. It has been a hectic week with a lot more work enquiries and appointments and next week is shaping up to be busier. We also had 2 family birthdays, Maria (Jamie's sister) turning 18 and Jamie's 35th. We are going out for dinner tonight to celebrate both these occassions with the Griffins and then on Sunday the Broome family are coming to our place for a sausage sizzle and a swim at the beach.

Other than that the weekend is ours to do as we please. Nothing much planned a little house work and some garden maintenance and mowing so I hope this weather cools down for this.

I would like to spend some time scrapbooking as well and I am sure I can schedule this in.

So Happy Australia Day everyone and enjoy your long weekend.

Photo Fun

My dear friend Lisa put me onto this great website http://www.picnik.com/ a really fun photo editing site. I will definitely be subscribing to the Premium features. These were a few pics Jamie took of me, he was just being annoying with the camera and amazingly they turned out great but with some editing they were awesome. My NY Resolution page is going to be about changing my jewellery more frequently and this is 1 of my fav cheap sets that I am wearing.

BEFORE



AFTER



The picture on the right has used the Effect "Lomo-ish" and the 1 on the left has used "Orton-ish" with "Vignette".

Fun in the Sun

I was invited to attend a Barefoot Bowling Day run by Woonona Surf Life Saving Club. The day was fun, my partner in crime Colette was on our team along with Sam and Stuart. We were all very competitive and thankfully won our first game 5-3.

The purpose of the day was for my Personal Trainer Ian of Pioneer Fitness to make a presentation and donate 2 Indoor Rowing machines to the club that had been won through an interactive Rowing competition as well as some other funds being made up by sponsors such as myself Mortgage Choice, Transfield Services, NRE Mine and Easy Fix Engraving.

After the presentaion which involved a few more drinks we headed back onto the green to compete in the semi finals, unfortunately we didn't win that 1 and to be completely honest we got flogged 9-0.

But it was all good fun.

My darling husband Jamie came to collect a slightly intoxicated Colette and myself and chauffered us home. On the way we stopped to get some take-away fish and chips and also got some battered pumpkin which was delicious. The deep fried food as nice as it was while eating it, didn't sit well later and I was having a little bit of food remorse. Well today is a new day, time to do some scrapbooking and have a little bit of food with salad or veges and maybe even a little workout.

Happy New Year

I hope everyone celebrated the new year in their own special way. We had a great intimate party at our place with 25 selected friends. The theme was Cruise ship, nautical etc. We have named the new awning area The Lido Deck. There always seems to be a deck of that name on most cruise ships, hence where we got the name from.

Captain Jamie and I as the Cruiseship Activities Co-ordinator have put in a lot of effort into getting the front and back yards and water feature etc finished and on New years eve afternoon it was time to sit back and relax. It was a do-drop-in afternoon/evening with people arriving from 2pm onwards. Some friends with kids came and took the kids to the beach and hung out for a few hours and left early. Other party animal friends came later and stayed til the following day. We had 11 people sleeping over for 2 nights and some staying longer, so the house was kaos and mayhem for a few days.

It was great to catch up with friends who I hadn't seen for a while. It seems since we started doing the shed and yard work our social calendar has had to be put on hold so relaxing and having a chat with friends was just what we needed.

The caravan park across the road had fireworks at 9pm and midnight and some of our guests walked down to the beach to watch the Wollongong fireworks at 9.30pm, so we got our fix of fireworks.

I had also set up the disco / party room with lights and disco ball and hired a slushy machine with Jack and Cola in 1 side and Pina Colada in the other and then we had to refill later in the night with a margarita mixture. So there was a substantial amount of alcohol consumed but surprisingly not too much drunken disorderly behaviour.

With the party winding up at about 3.30am it was deemed a sucess by all who attended.

I hope 2009 is a great year for everyone.

My new years resolutions:

* Continue on my weightloss and excercise regime.

* To use my environmentally friendly reuseable shopping bags more (a bit corny I know but just want to do my little bit for the environment).

Renovation Rescue

Well I said watch this space and here it is, after hours of work my new sCRAP room has taken shape, I emphasize the word CRAP as I seem to have found a lot of that whilst cleaning. Anyway here are some before, during and after photos. I still have a few too hard baskets and a little more sorting to do but I have put all loose pages in albums, and have done a heap of organising. I would still like 1 more shelving unit, which I might get later in the week and have to hem the organza curtains. From having a room that was a makeshift garage and craming all my scrapbooking into the dining room (with a table that we couldn't eat at) to a lovely organised and laid out area. I am really happy with how it has turned out.

Watch this Space

Well fellow scrappers prepare to be jealous. My scrap room is going to be awesome. I have made the decision to do a renovation rescue on the sunroom. Yesterday I spent the day buying supplies and removing everything out of the room and filling holes and general preparation. This morning I spent sanding the window edges and started painting. For those that know my sunroom it has horrible wood paneling on the walls, so I thought painting it a nice cream couldn't look any worse. I also bought some cube shelving from Fantastic furniture and some fab hot pink and lime green drawer type things to put in it. I am also going to head back to the paint shop to find something to paint over the tiles as they are horrible too.

I took some before photos (of course) so watch this space, I am going to be a busy bee getting this all finished before NYE when my friends will be decending upon me. Will put up the "before" photos soon.

Too many photos

I have been scrapbooking tonight doing more and more of my Honeymoon album. So far 64 pages done, but am getting a bit bored with it so thought I would cruise the blogs to see what my friends have been up to lately.

I am concerned that I could have the same amount of pages to go, we did take 14 GB of photos on the trip and I have culled and culled and then printed them and culled again. I need an album that is going to fit all these pages in, but I fear it could be a 2 or 3 album series.

I got a bit of inspiration from Inspired Blueprints with their latest sketch so might have a little break from basic holiday pages and do something more creative.

I am dreading the weekend, need to plant another new garden before my plants die in their pots, prepare the yard for turf, i am sure that means I will be on the end of the shovel and I would love to get my new clothes line up, only got it for Xmas last year or was it the year before, I can't remember.

I dream of a weekend where I don't have to work in the yard and can relax and enjoy the new facilities.

Almost a Backyard

We have been very busy every weekend over the last few weeks getting the new driveway prepared for the concrete to be poured and finally it is in. The mud and mess in the backyard was almost getting unbearable as we couldn't even step outside without bringing mud back into the house. It was impossible to keep the house clean throughout all this.

I have also planted a whole stack of plants into 1 new garden. I was trying to design the mini Mondo into a heart shape but, Jamie mentioned it looked like a fanny, so the "Love" garden has now been renamed the "Muff" garden.

Milestones

Yesterday was weigh-in day and I managed to crack 10kg's lost. It has been a hard to keep up the motivation and balance between socialising, alcohol, take-away, excercise and healthy eating. The next 10kgs I would like to get off before Xmas so might have to cut back the socialising between now and then.

Also an update on the shed, we have just finished pouring the last of the concrete for the driveway. By this weekend everything will be functioning as per normal, as normal as can be for our life. Now we can work on doing some gardening and landscaping, decorating and the finishing touches.