Another year over.....

Another year has flown by. Seems these days if you blink you miss days, even weeks at a time. The world just continues to carry on without us if we do happen to blink twice. Such is life.
I'm not one for making New Years Resolutions I tend to just go with the flow of life and see what the Universe has in store for me. I'm not one to diet or sweat my butt of exercising so why stress myself? I am what I am...flaws and all.


In saying that though, what is your New Years Resolution?

I didn't get a Xmas blog done so I'll just do a quick one here. We had a lovely, quiet Xmas with family...yummy food...my beloved Scotch and great company. This year we did a Xmas brunch with all the kids as Rhiannon and Steve were heading down the South Coast for dinner with Steves family. The brunch was so yummy and something I might even do again as it kept the boys full till dinner...LOL

I did manage to get a nice photo of the 8 of us though thanks to Steve. xx

Then it was off to Michaels sisters house for dinner and more pressies. She had this awesome Santa suit that you know I just had to have a go at...hehehe...


The 27th was Jye's 15th birthday but unfortunately we spent the best part of the morning up the hospital with him as he had a migraine poor little possum. He spent the rest of the day asleep. Not much of a birthday for him. I only managed a couple of shots of him as the camera flash was hurting his eyes so I took his birthday portrait of him asleep on the lounge. :(


Yesterday was Michaels birthday and he spent that fixing the van with his father and I'm very happy and grateful to say they got it working...woohoo!! So I never killed it after all.

I have a special someone I'd like to introduce you too...Renee (Nay Nay) our second Princess. She and Jayden have been going out for some time now and they are in luuuuurrrve as 17 year olds are these days. So cute xx Isn't she gorgeous?

I have some layout shares as well this post. I've had a bit of a chance to play and must say I'm loving the time I get to scrap.
I made this wall hanging for Renee. I made it all vintage and put an antique action over the photo.

This layout I did of Jedd as he has just turned Sweet 16 on the 12th of December.

I printed out a photo of my 3 cricketers and scrapped this:



This next one was of me in the Super Sized Santa suit. Not very happy with this one but oh well:

And this last one of my great nephew in his uncles work boots trying to get into the garden:

Well thats it for me...my last post for 2010.
Wishing everyone happiness and good health for the New Year.
Stay safe.
Love Shaz
xx

Masters 2011

FINALLY the winners are announced and the mag is out! Congrats to the 10 Masters I'm really looking forward to seeing you work through the year. Congrats also to the girls that got HM's.


Woohoo! I got a HM for my OTP which unfortunately I don't have a good photo of but you can see it in the mag.


I can now share my single and double so here we go.


Single is titled 'Feeding the Ducks'.

Double is titled 'Once Upon a Time'.

Sorry for the rushed post but must fly.

Cheers

Shaz

One bitch of a day!

So I'm starting to think I've run over a Chinaman or pissed off an undercover evil witch (no points for guessing who THAT might be by the way) but somewhere along the line the planets have aligned to wreak havoc on my world at the moment. Everything and anything goes...well actually that's the wrong term to use it's more like everything and anything DOESN'T friggen go!!

Computers blowing up, postman leaving more bills than a fucking duck pond, things breaking left, right and centre and the rain...OMFG THE RAIN which means Michael doesn't work = no pay = the STRESS!! but not just once a week but EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past few weeks this has been happening!

Today though...today was the icing on the cake. Everything was going great this morning getting Jedd ready for a big job interview which we had to go to a Burwood agency for. Jye and Jack decided they'd come for the drive, which in hindsight I remeember telling them to come as it would be an adventure and little did I know how much of a friggen adventure!
We decided to leave earlier in case of traffic jams and to find a good parking spot and not to have Jedd stressed out about running late etc etc.
I went the Hume Highway route as it's the way I know best and turned off at Woodville Rd to head down towards Parramatta Rd. Those of you that know Woodville Rd will know it's busy, busy, busy even out of peak hour time and it was jam packed today.

So...we get to Guildford and we're stopped at traffic lights...the lights went green and I put my foot down to accelerate and the van didn't move. At first I thought I'd stalled it (yes you can stall an auto) but then when I tried to kick it over it wouldn't start. So...here we were in the right hand lane of a perilously busy intersection in a van that had decided to give up the ghost with asshole upon asshole beeping at me to move. It was right at that point that my Guardian Angel must have landed on my shoulder because instead of getting out on that main road at that busy intersection and screaming from the top of my lungs with a crowbar in hand at the assholes beeping at me I calmly assessed the situation, put the hazard lights on and told the boys to sit tight and not move as they couldn't get out of the van and to leave their seatbelts on, just in case one of the aforementioned assholes wasn't watching and rammed up our ass!

Then, just like in a movie, two real life Guardian Angels pulled up behind us in a RTA patrol van and OMG they were brilliant! One of them told me they'd tow us to safety, across three lanes of bumper to bumper traffic, through the busy intersection and I could've kissed his feet right there and then. He then asked if I minded if he steered which of course I didn't but that posed the question of how I was going to get my fat ass in the back of the van without getting it cut in half! So it was either throwing it up in the air, up and over into the back of the van or him stopping the other two lanes of traffic while I walked around and jumped in. I opted for stopping the traffic. Believe it or not while this guy was obviously helping me the assholes were STILL beeping and yelling!

So they towed me around the corner out of harms way (well kind of it was still extremely busy) and let me use their phone to ring Michael as yet again I had no credit. Of course, he didn't answer the phone! Right at that moment my own mobile rang and it was the guy from the agency confirming Jedds interview. Couldn't have picked a better time hey? Thankfully he was sympathetic to our cause and asked me to ring him when I got home and not to worry about coming in.

The RTA guys went on their merry way and left me to ponder our choices, which weren't many let me tell you. It was either leave the van right there, throw a match at it and walk off or take stock of the situation and come up with something better. I spotted an auto mechanic on the other corner so Jack and I walked over to ahem...BEG for help. On first impressions, the hooked nosed skinny little guy leaning on the counter drinking coffee wasn't good. On the second glance though I noticed this Liberace style gold crucifix hanging around his neck and an I Love Jesus sticker on his massive toolbox and almost dropped to my knees signing the Hallelujah! I must say though that after telling him about our plight he was initially very disinterested and a bit rude. Cut a long story short he turned out to be yet another Angel in disguise and came over for a look at the van where he soon determined it was the timing belt that had shat itself and that there really wasn't much he could do about it. Again the light match and flee idea kicked in but no...I put my big girls panties on yet again. I asked him if he knew any tow truck drivers who would help me and he got on his phone and although I have no idea how to speak Lebanese I could tell that he was buttering up some poor bugger. He managed to get a tow for me for $100- which from Guildford to Campbelltown is quite a good price.
So I left the keys with this guy and set about getting myself and the boys home.

After giving us directions to the nearest train station ( which I was kind of hoping my Lebanese Angel would offer us a lift as it was stinking hot) we set off on the long walk to Guildford station, parched as Arabs and no friggen shop in sight for ages. Let me tell you when we did finally manage to find a shop it was the best can of Coke we've ever had!!

Upon reaching the train station I had to ask some guy where to buy the tickets, which of course was right over the other side! So up at least 30 stairs and down the other side we got to the ticket window just as the station guy put the sign up saying use the machine I'll be back in 5. So I asked him politely if he would sell me the tickets as our train was about to come in but he said no I'd have to use the machine as he had to help someone off the said train. It was right at this point that I FUCKING LOST IT!! I have no fucking idea how to use the machine to buy tickets...I haven't caught a train in FUCKING years...I've had a PRICK of a day mate NOW FUCKING SERVE ME!!!!!!!!!
He threw his hands up and pointed at the machine and walked off!! It took all of my energy and willpower that was left and let me say it wasn't much, not to push that motherf****r in front of an oncoming train!!

So I stood there with tears in my eyes having no idea how to use a ticket machine while people were staring at me and watching the train that we should've been on sail past.
I had to wait till a girl of all of about 15 used the machine and then show me how to do it God bless her. Got our tickets and went back up those 30 stairs and down to the other side to sit and wait the 30 minutes for the next train. Time was on my side though as I remembered I didn't even have a house key anyway as Josh had it so hey...we were locked out when we got home anyway!

Finally we made it back to Campbelltown and thought about how we were getting home from there as apart from not catching trains for years...I don't know the local bus service very well either and had yet again no idea where or what one to catch. So we walked up to the Mall where I could get the poor buggers something to eat before jumping in a cab as I had to get home in case my van was here and the tow truck driver was sitting out the front waiting for his $100-.

Michael and Josh are now home so we are all inside but there is still no sign of my van. It is now 7.30p.m and I left it at 1.30p.m. Do I want it to find it's way home? Hmmmmm...hopefully the Universe thats so against me at the moment makes that decision for me. Let's just hope it's a good one.

Hope your day was better than mine but hey...tomorrow is another day
God Bless
xx

Change, changes everywhere....

Hi all,
I know I've been such a bad blogger but so many things have happened in the past 7 weeks or so it's been mind spinning.
So we've now moved and are (almost) settled into our new house...just a few more boxes to unpack or get rid of and we'll be right. (OMFG if I see another one of these I'm going to cry!!)



So far we're loving it. It's smaller than our last house but I think because the last house had a massive L-shaped lounge/dining room/ family room you could've put us in a mansion and it would feel smaller. We've fit almost everything in so that's the main thing.
This house has such a country kind of feel to it and my furniture looks so much better here than it ever did at the other house and OMG it's so much easier to keep clean. No more carpets!! Yippee...

The move itself was friggen horrific! The crap we had after 10 years of being at the other house and 6 kids was unbelievable! I vow and declare...unless there is bloody good reason, I won't be moving again for another 10 years!!

We had great help but due to us also having cricket all weekend it was a bit harder than usual. Michael still had to play on the Saturday afternoon so most of our unpacking was done during the week. On top of that our bed fell off the truck during the move and instead of buying a new one Michael spent his afternoons rebuilding the old one and it's absolutely GORGEOUS!!

From this:

To this:

Isn't he just the cleverest??

Anyway on to a different subject I so dont like talking about moving...LOL

We now have two young men who have finished school this year which only leaves two at school. Gawd I remember counting the days down till they all started! So we're looking for a mechanics apprenticeship for Jedd at the moment and Nug is having a some time off from just finishing his HSC.

We also now have our big boy Josh back home too :)

Speaking of changes, today marks the day of 1 year of massive changes for us as this is the day we found out I was pregnant. Since then it's just been a massive whirlwind of changes, some bad but most great.

I really don't embrace change very well but in hindsight I can reflect on some things that have happened in the past year and see how they have been for the best. Life really is a funny thing sometimes isn't it?

I've been doing some sewing and made some mobiles for this house and also some Xmas gifts but I can't share them as yet as there are stickybeaks around. ;P

I can share this though, it's a vintage little Xmas tree I made for Handmade magazine for the Country Christmas issue but forgot to send it in...oops.

Made from doilies and fabric stiffener, a gift box that I crackle painted and tied some ribbon around and a painted chipboard star for the top. It's very sweet.

Well that's it from me for now but I'll be back again soon.

Take Care

Shaz xx