What a weekend

Well I had an absolute ball of a weekend. It was soooo exactly what I needed.

After making the decision to cut the things and the people from my life that stress me and drag me down and fill me with self-doubt and actually finding the courage to face these people (some positively and I will be glad to keep these in my life - some I walked away from with the resolution that these people were not good people to have in my life) it has been a hard couple of weeks but I'm getting there now.

Went to Canberra with Gail to meet Hannah and Jo for a weekend of scrapping and it was a blast - (although Hannah's best scrapping mojo seems to appear between the hours of 2 and 5 AM!!!!) Heaps of laughs and fun and a little bit of scrapping got done!

Here is the four of us at the end of our 2 night scrapping weekend

And one to prove that scrappers can be lady's!

COUNTDOWNS

4 working days left before I become a part-timer!

24 days until Melbourne

QUOTE FOR TODAY

Learning by experience often is painful- and the more it hurts, the more you learn. Ralph Banks

Life begins now!

Well after much soul searching and lots and lots of discussion with my friends and family (thanks for listening!) I finally resigned from my main job today. So I am no longer the secretary to one of the greatest orthopaedic surgeons in the country. I will miss my job terribly it was a great place and we worked so well together but there were other influences at work that made it impossible for me to stay.

I am still a part-time receptionist/typist for a cardiologist 1 day per week so I guess I'm not unemployed!

I feel so much better now. I have smiled and laughed more today than I have in a long time. I have one more week of work, finishing up on the 30th of March. Will be a happy day to be saying goodbye to some but also absolutely heartbreaking to say goodbye to others!

Anyway I am off for a wonderful weekend in Canberra with the amazing Hannah and Jo (and yes you too Gail!) for a weekend of scrapping and chatting. Just what I need!!!!

I am planning on having a few months off to be at home with Tony and the kids and then will look for part-time work later in the year - hopefully it won't be too hard have had two job offers already since people found out I was leaving but I'm not ready to jump straight back in yet.


QUOTE FOR TODAY: Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why


OOOHHH and don't forget - Jane's b'day in just 4 days and ................................................................................................................................................................... 30 days until Melbourne!

Its Happened!

Well tell you what - turn your back and all of a sudden your little boy has grown up!

Kyle turned 11 today and he is definately 11 going on 30. I am very proud of the gentleman he is turning into. He doesn't always make good choices and is as bad as his mother at coping with comflict (which doesn't bode well for peer pressure in the future!) but all in all he seems to have his head screwed on well.

He is growing up so much and so quickly ~ although luckily he still loves giving his mum big hugs.

Love you mate, hope you have a great birthday

When will I learn?

When will I learn to stand up for myself?

After much soul searching and discussion between Tony and myself I had finally decided it was time to stand up for myself and had made a decision about my future.

However once I had started to tell people about this and hearing them say how disappointed they were etc I felt myself starting to doubt my decision.

Why am I always so worried about pleasing others and put myself and my own happiness so far down the list?

I am sure that this is the right way to go and the best thing for my family and for me I just need to dig down deep and find the strength to not cave into what other people want and this irrational need I have to keep the peace and not upset anyone! I know where my insecurities come from but that doesn't make them any easier to deal with!


Countdown status
0 Days till frog hop cybercrop ~ it's on now!!!!!!
3 days till Kyles bday
7 days to Canberra camp
10 days to Janes bday
36 Days to Melbourne


TODAYS QUOTE

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.-- Diane Ackerman

SHOPPING!

Went to Miranda Fair on Saturday and I drove all the way there! I am terrible at driving in Sydney I hate it but I drove all the way with no trouble (it really wasn't that difficult)

Tony Tasha and I went shopping for Kyles b'day present ~ he was at a friends place for the weekend ~ and after kicking my toe in the morning before we left and hobbling round the shops for half the day Tony told me to go and buy some sandles so I could take my joggers off and we went into Big W and got summer shoes on sale for $5!!!!! couldnt buy just one pair at that price!
Anyway - took my shoes off and there is one very black little toe - no wonder it hurt!

Am thinking of trying out for the design team for Frog Hop. I know I have no chance but thought I might give it a try anyway - could be an interesting experience!


Countdown status

3 Days till frog hop cybercrop
6 days till Kyles bday
10 days to Canberra camp
13 days to Janes bday
39 Days to Melbourne



QUOTE FOR TODAY:

Choices are like connecting highways. They all take you to the same place. Some just take longer to get there. (Dream for an insomniac)

COUNTDOWNS!

Well my poor calendar is getting a beating at the moment! Countdowns for sooo many exciting things!

Only 11 days until Kyle's birthday (my little boy is turning 11 years old ~ how did that happen?) and he is making sure we don't forget!


Only 14 days until the scrapbooking camp in Canberra - Can't wait to meet up with Bubbles and Jo! Don't know that much sleep will be had but I am sure lots of laughs and fun will be!


Only 17 days until my wonderful friend Jane's birthday. Still trying to think of something special to do for her birthday. She deserves to be spoilt rotten ~ any ideas?

and........

the most exciting one of all.............................

only 44 days to go until I go to Melbourne! YAY I may not have mentioned this before (hehe) but I am soooooooooooo looking forward to catching up with flutters and family.


So as you can see lots to look forward to! Certainly need it at the moment or I would seriously go insane (or maybe just hide away in bed and never surface again!)

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Here is another quote for you from my favourite movie of all time ~

Why is everyone always telling me to be nice? - Dream for an insomniac

All Clear

Well if I never see another doctor again I will be happy ~ (could be kind of difficult since I work for two of them! lol)

I finally seem to be coming right.

Saw the cardiologist about my heart problems and he said to just wait and see. If I have another attack I have to go straight to casualty and have an ECG to monitor what is happening. Would be nice if I could just stop going dizzy and passing out! Was witnessed by Michelle at work once but all the others were at home alone so that's a bit scary!

And the main thing~ breathe a huge sigh of relief ~ my breast scans came back all clear. With our great family history of breast cancer finding a lump in my breast made me hit the panic button but apparently it is nothing to worry about! PHEW!

Don't know why I spent all that time worrying about it now! hehe. But I must admit worrying is one of the few things I do well!

Pics

I promised pics from our latest class so here you go!

And heres some of my latest scrapping

All scrapped out!

Had a scrapping day today!

First this morning I went to a class with Gail at the LSS. It was an OTP class with julie Love where we did a TV! Yes sounds interesting! I am actually very very happy with my finished product AND ~ big moment ~ it was the first time I have scrapped photos of my dad. the pics I used were of the last day out we had with him.

Then this evening I did an exploding box class and LOVED IT! Can see this being something I will be doing more of!

VALENTINES DAY

Well you could knock me over with a feather today!

Tony has always been anti-Valentines day (You know commercialism etc) - Even to the extent he told the girl selling flowers on Valentines day just after our wedding (Yes we were still on our honeymoon in Queensland) that "I don't have to buy her flowers for Valentines day I'm married to her now!"

Today I come home from work and find another bunch of carnations and a gorgeous gold chain with a topaz (my fav stone)

I am one lucky girl.

MELBOURNE HERE I COME!!!!

I am so excited. I booked my flights this morning so I head off to Melbourne on Sat 21st April until Wed 25th.

I am soooo looking ofrward to it. Can't wait to catch up with flutters and her family.

Just over 2 months and I'll be in Melbourne!

YIIIPPPPEEEEEE

(Did you get the hint that I'm excited) ~ hehehe ~

I'm a lucky gal!

Well I had a pretty rough week last week and altohugh yesterday was our anniversary I didn't think much of it.

We aren't big on anniversaries etc. tony isn't exactly the most romantic!

But I walked in the door from a full on day at work to be greeted by: A gorgeous big teddy bear holding a bunch of long stemmed roses AND a bunch of carnations (my favs).

How sweet is he!

How lucky am I!

Have we done the right thing?

I am starting to wonder now if we did the right thing.

The kids are back at school and Kyle has his contract for the OC class which has some pretty difficult tasks but if he plans them out properly they wont be too bad. He just needs to get organised. But he is just saying, this is too hard, there's too much work and is almost gicing up already.

I spent time with him tonight breaking it down a bit into sections and he seems a bit happier but I wonder.

Are we pushing him too hard? He says he is happy to be there. I think it is just that he decided the workload would be super heavy before he even started and has talked himself into it

Busy Weekend!

Boy what a mad weekend.

Started with a very late finish at work on Friday (well late for a Friday anyway!) didn't get home until 6:30.

Sat morning I had suggested to Tony we go up to the New housing display village at Haywards Bay and then he suddenly (in the middle of an online chat I was having with Flutters) stood there going "hurry up" (insert blackboard voice here) so we rushed off to check out the new houses. Not that we can afford to move but just for a stickybeak. Anyway I totally fell in love with an AV Jennings home called Jaala. It is lovely.

As we finished looking at the houses I learnt why we had been rushing this morning when Tony turns to me and says "You know seeing we are up here and its still early........ The races are on a Kembla Grange so what do you think?". I felt I had dragged him around houses all morning so we went off to the races - no hat - no sunscreen! So I now have a very red face.

Then when the races finished at 6pm we went off to Hogs Breath for dinner. I LOVE HB! I regularly ask Tony if we can go there for dinner but usually it is out of our budget or too far away but this time we had to go past it to get home!!!

Then today was grocery shopping and tidying up the house before trying to catch up on some of my swaps.

australia Day 2007

WE celebrated Australia Day this year with a traditional aussie bbq!

Had a great day. We had Jane & Simon; Tracy & Jacob; Gail, John & Haylee; Simone, Greg, Jhorjie & Dominic; and us!

The wine flowed, the food was plentiful and there was laughs and chats. All in all a wonderful time.

It was great to catch up with Tracy and spend some time with Jane that didnt involve tears and sadness (we seem to be meeting at funerals lately!). Hope to do it more often

I dont believe it!

I spent last weekend participating in the scrapyourselfsilly cybercrop and had such a great time.

The girls there are so friendly and welcoming and helpful and I had lots of laughs and really enjoyed pushing myself with the challenges. I actually finished all 4 challenges for this cybercrop including a bleaching class taught by the lovely Crissy. I had so much fun experimenting with this technique and trying it out on just about every colour card I had in my scraps box so I had heaps of flowers which I used in my layout.

I found out this week that I won the bleaching challenge. How exciting. I have now entered two cybercrops in my life and have won a prize at both of them. Wow

I will try and upload my LO's here



Challenge 1 - paisley



Challenge 2 - find a LO you like in the gallery, get the owners permission and scraplift a LO using techniques from that page




challenge 3 - christmas, ribbon, flourishes/doodling



challenge 4 - Lo using bleaching (my winning LO)

A morning of memories

Had a great time on the weekend. I met up with a group of friends from school (yes that long ago!) that I hadn't seen in a couple of years.

We met at Tina's Place and there was Tina, Louise (who was my bridesmaid and I hadn't seen for 4 years after a falling out (long story)), Tracey Dean, Tracy Hawkes, Josephine Bugg and myself.

We had a great time catching up with each others news and learning about jobs and families and discussing old times at school. I had such a fun time and hopefully we will get together more frequently. They are just the nicest people and spending time with them reminded me of why we got on so well at school.

The downpoint of the day was that we were talking so much I forgot to take pics. What sort of scrapper am I!

Here he is!

Introducing Dominic Pignataro

Dominic Jaymz is here

Simone, Greg and Jhorjie's new family member arrived safely this morning after a caeserean delivery.

Mone rang me from recovery to say things were going well and to tell me that it was okay - Greg didn't faint!

Apparently Jhorjie is smitten with her baby brother which is great.

He is tiny (6lb 8oz)ad has gorgeous black hair. A real cutie.

Went up and saw them this afternoon and mum and bub are both doing well

Exhausted

Boy am I tired!

Had a mad day at work today - first consulting day after three weeks of holidays.

Headed off to work at quarter to 8 this morning and walked back in the door at quarter to 7 tonight and it was just go, go, go all day. Total mad house!

I am sooo thankful for my great husband who had the kids fed and bathed when I got home so I could just collapse in a heap and veg for 1/2 an hour or so.

Mone and Greg's baby will be here by the weekend so can't wait to meet him.

Will update more later - too tired now