Wednesday...

This is from Hannah's blog...


Where is your cell phone? On the bench, charging.

Where is your significant other? In the kitchen finishing off dinner which I'd prepared.

Your hair color? A few different shades of blonde and brown - anything to hide the grey!

Your mother? Passed away from breast cancer three years ago.

Your father? Well he's probably sitting in the massage chair having a beer about now LOL!

Your favorite thing? Way too many 'favourite' things to list!

Your dream last night? You'll just have to make something up because I was so dead to the world last night that I didn't remember a thing come the morning!

Your dream/goal? It depends in what area of my life we're talking about...

The room you’re in? A spare bedroom which is really my scrapbooking room, well at least until this long weekend - then it will be packed up and turned back into a bedroom ready for the house to go on the market.

Your hobby? Scrapbooking.

Your fear? Claustraphobia

Where do you want to be in 6 years? In a different part of New Zealand to where I live now. In a postion financially where I can choose to work, rather than having to work.

Where were you last night? Home sweet home.

What you’re not? I'm not messy. I'm not skinny. I'm not a chocoholic.

One of your wish-list items?A new dining room table and chairs. Lyall made our first one, but now it's about time we updated.

Where you grew up? In Howick, Auckland.

The last thing you did? Checked through all my friends blogs.

What are you wearing? My old brown shorts and a blue t-shirt, because I came home from work and mowed half the lawns. I will live to regret this later tonight as the hayfever will hit (I'm suffering from it anyway), however it's a busy weekend and it's meant to rain, so I wanted to get the lawns mowed!

Your TV? Is downstairs and is on for the dog more than the humans!

Your pet? My two furbabies, Milo the yellow labrador and Tui the black short haired domestic cat.

Your computer? Is an HP Pavilion. Next update, am thinking probably an apple, as I'm so used to working on them at work now.

Your mood? Nearly always postive.

Missing someone? Well I miss having my Mum around, but I also know where you have life you have death and I'm grateful for the memories.

Your car? Is certainly getting on in years. It's a Nissan Terrano 4WD. I wouldn't go back to a car after having a 4WD, I love the height, especially at night, you don't get other cars headlights blinding you.

Something you’re not wearing? Socks.

Favorite store? I love designer homeware stores, like Redcurrant.

Your summer? Who knows where it will be...

Love someone? Family and friends.

Your favorite color? Blue.

When is the last time you laughed? Today...when you work with kids you get a few laughs.

Last time you cried? Today. One of our boys left for school and Mum cried and that set us off!

As Hannah wrote... Passing this on...

To ALL the blogs I read - I wouldn’t read them if I didn’t love them!

To those who asked:

Nope the house isn't sold or even on the market yet, however new carpet is due in next Thursday, which incidentally is the same day Lyall is having his shoulder muscle fixed so the packing has had to start a little early as he shouldn't be doing anything that uses his arm for a few days and then he probably shouldn't be lifting couches etc when it is time to move it! So everything has to be moved for the carpet to go down, and then because the house will be 'dressed' and then onto the market, stuff like my scrapbooking room and the cupboard fill of dog towels all need to be packed because they don't really give the right impression LOL!

Busy, busy, busy!

 


My apologies if I haven't been commenting on your posts - thanks to TW I've now changed from Bloglines to Google Reader as there were a a few who weren't showing up as new posts (and LOL Tracy LR, your posts are as great as ever to read, just didn't know you were out there LOL!)

The packing starts today...We have a massage chair. Yep, one of the ones you see in the malls. And yes it is great...however when we go to sell the house it really doesn't fit in with the overall look, so Dad is going to look after it for us. I'm sure he will check it on the odd ocassion to make sure it is still working well LOL! Lots of other stuff will start to go into a storgage facility. The chairs a bit too much of an odd shape to take up the room in the storage facility and we can't put boxes etc on it. Needless to say some of my scrapbooking supplies will have to be packed away (not all, couldn't quite cope with that!). We've decided that we'll keep the house on the market till the end of March and if it hasn't sold by then, we'll take it off, and try again later on in the year, or whenever we think the market suits. However houses out here are still selling, so I don't forsee too many problems, but life does throw some curve balls sometimes so you just don't know!

My dog and cat aren't particulary fond of the rain (and really what animal is?)so with it pouring down on Friday morning I left them inside and phoned my sister to see if she'd go round later (we only live a couple of streets away from each other) and let the out. She arrived about ten to a happy dog and a cat crying. Tui had managed to get herself caught up in the curtain puller for the roman blinds, she had it wrapped around her foot. The computer keyboard was on the floor. The two chairs were tipped over. The sewing machine was on the floor. She had panicked big time. As you would. So Donna sorted her out and brought her into me at work. Fortunately we were staffed in such a way that I was able to whip up to the vets with her. I had thought they would have to knock her out for the afternoon and x-ray her, but no, the vet said nothing is broken, gave her a painkiller and sent us on our way. The curtains now have those little tie hook things. One of those jobs we kept meaning to do...Lucky to that because she was hand reared she loves the car and just goes to sleep in her cat cage.

As well as the packing and normal household stuff I need to do today, I have to go gather up some lollies and gingernuts. My nineteen year old nephew is off to Tonga at the end of the month. He'll spend about three days there and then is helping to crew a yacht back to NZ, which will take about ten days sailing. Fortunately he's had a heap of sailing experience,(offshore as well as inshore). The joy of this one, is that it isn't a race, so I can stock him up on goodies before he leaves as there is no weight limit! Also it's a crew he's spent a few years racing with so they know each other well and are experienced. But you still worry...

Happy birthday for yesterday Michelle - hope dinner out was lovely!

Have a good Sunday all!

Wahooooooo it's Wednesday!

I've got a heap of photos from trips around the country sitting on my computer, so thought I'd randomly throw in a few whenever the mood took me. I thought Kim might like little snippets of our beautiful country. These ones are all in the South Island of New Zealand Kim. The bird is a fantail - it's little tail sticks out like a fan. In Maori mythology it's an omen of death if it enters your house.

The plate of Mussels is from a little restaurant called Mussel Boys, which in a tiny little bling and you'll miss it settlement, called Havelock. I don't do shellfish, but the hubby loves them!

Wahoot Wednesday...

Okay so this is the last post that I'll talk about SENZ. But it really was great to catch up with old friends and meet some lovely new people. The goss is that next year there will be two, one in Auckland and one in Dunedin. Does anybody know if that's true?

Road trips with your sister. Heaps of fun. You have the same upbringing so therefore you share a very similar sense of what you like and dislike. We got to stop lots of times, shop lots of times. She didn't care when I stopped to pat every cat and dog I came across...

Wahoo for having a great hubby. I came home to a clean house, tiling done, washing done (though he did comment that there was heaps of it - umm honey, it was all yours I wasn't here remember!!)He even cooked dinner (we had to keep ringing and chaging our time of arrival, well there were a few markets on and you know we have to help out the local economy ROFL!)

Finding a cuttlebug on special still. The wonderful Mandy is off to pick our new toys up on Friday. I'm hoping it rains this weekend because then I can play instead of garden. The garden looks like a jungle...(we have eleven seperate gardens plus two vege gardens, it's a continuous cycle of weeding!) And I guess I'd better get my act together and do some BOM layouts too!

Enjoy the rest of your week.

More SENZ photos...

My apologies for not writing who was who in the group photo yesterday, so here you go...from left to right, Lee is standing, then in front of her is Donna, then Davina, Mandy and at the back Annette and the me!

In these photos:

Photo one, is the world famous in New Zealand corrugated iron gumboot in the gumboot capital of NZ - that would be Taihape. That's for you Kim!

Photo two - is a bit of Wellington from the botanic gardens - another one for Kim.

Photo three - Meet Mandy M, the 'other' Mandy!

Photo four - This is what you have for breakfast when you've been at a crop unti ten and then certain people come back and crop till midnight when you then send them to bed because they have classes the next day ROFL! And it was a set up, I didn't really drink the coke, but a certain Southland lady had it ready to take with her for the day and I couldn't resist the photo op!

Photo five - that same very kind and thoughtful coke drinking, fart joke telling, chunky dunking (she no longer skinny dips, she chunky dunks ROFL) gave me this beautiful gift.

I was reading Louise's blog today, and thought, that's right I didn't take a photo of the papers I brought (Louise has photos of all the papers she purchased)...or tell you I put in a Stamp'n up order as well (well I had to you know, because there was a discount attached, and I need more supplies, I'm sure I do!)

Cuttlebug news - Never one to let something get the better of me (except for flying!) I searched and found a place that still has cuttlebugs for ninety nine, so come this weekend Mandy and I will have our own cuttlebugs. I'm off to Glenfield on the weekend to pick them up. You might like to visit the place I got them from, as I'd never heard of them...they stock mainly rubber stamps and cuttlebug accessories.

SENZ!

What a wonderful weekend. Great company, great company and great company. Oh and Wellington turned on it's best weather and the shopping was an added bonus!

After a great drive down, stopping and checking out a few places along the way, my SENZ highlights would have to be catching up with friends, both old and new! The fact that I got to scrapbook, shop, and do some classes was an added bonus.

Like most I was a bit disappointed in the amount of stalls (still managed to shop though!) in comparison to other SENZ weekends, but really the classes were good and the organisation superb. Yep, one class we hadn't recieved the class list so most of us didn't have the right supplies, but heck the class itself was wonderful and the person taking it isn't at fault, it's the people behind the scenes who are meant to get all that side of it done. It just wouldn't be SENZ without a few hiccups - that's what memories are made of!

Loved the fact that I arrived on Friday and lined up for my goodie bag and along comes Beverley. Then off to my class and I ran straight into Janine (Angelgurl) now that was just awesome. Loved that we went down to the shops afterwards and these two woman came up "are you Trace?" Yep, that's me..."we are Bronwyn and...(sorry the names gone out of my head!) from Timaru, you look just like your avatar!" Now that's cool! So neat to see such familiar faces all around the place. Loved that whenever you went to the VIP room there were people that I knew. Loved our dinner out at Cobb and Co - they were fab - well organised, super friendly and it was a great night.

Speaking of which, they tried to kick us out of our motel on Saturday. My sister had arrived back from a bit of shopping and the moteliers came over wanting to know if there was a reason we hadn't checked out...ummm yes, because we aren't meant to! They had double booked the room, but we had it first, so some other poor souls had to find somewhere else. Better them than us with our scrapbooking bags, clothes, food...We went to the crop on Saturday night where I ate one of Beverley's famous and delicious cupcakes for dinner - I know there are photos on other blogs, and I have to say they looked to darn good to eat (but it didn't stop me!!) At the crop I managed to cut out a circle and do some strip journalling. That was it. To busy talking, which really was far more fun...oh and I shopped some more...AND then on the way home to the motel Lee, Mandy, Annette and Davina started telling jokes, and most of them had tears seeping down their little cheeks at one point or another!

On our drive home the weather was just stunning and the mountains looked at their very best. We stopped at a couple of markets (three actually) because we hadn't done enough shopping...I was well behaved, only buying veges, a jar of apple and mint jelly (for my roast lamb) and two books to cut up. They were expensive, twenty cents each. I'm kicking myself just a tad though. I don't own a cuttlebug (oh I heard that collective gasp of shock!) I do have a sizzix sidekick and don't use it all that much (even though there are five alphabet fonts sitting with it) and so didn't want to rush out and get a cuttlebug just for the sake of the embossing folders. But now I do want one. Just for the embossing folders LOL. They had them for ninety nine dollars at SENZ, but I thought I'd wait till I got back to Auckland and get one here. I can't find a shop that still has them for ninety nine. Shouldn't have hesitated, should have got one at SENZ. So if your an Aucklander and you see them at this price, please let me know.

I've come home to a clean house, sun kissed sheets (his words!), the tiling in the kitchen done and the carpet booked to go down the thirtieth of November.


Okay will throw more photos in during the week. For now I'd better cook some dinner and do a ton of ironing (all that washing from SENZ!).

Sunday...

The first one is for the Celebrity challenge, four different colours of cardstock, a monogram and a hand cut title (in my case I used the Sizzix)

Hannah's sketch challenge

Milo and his friend Max up in the forest - they used to race to see who could get in the water first LOL


It's got to Sunday and I'm printing out photos and trying to get myself organised because I've finally realised that SENZ is nearly here LOL! I kept thinking...plenty of time, but I have to work the next two days (professional development tomorrow and set up on Tuesday) and then it's the road trip down, come Wednesday, whoops better get sorted! So what am I doing, well my scrapbooking 'stuff' of course - I'll worry about some clothes etc come Tuesday night...

Last week was just one of 'those' weeks. Lyall has found out that he will need surgery on his shoulder (which is what happens I guess when you don't sit still like the doctor said to do...)but the biggest bummer for me is that it falls on the Thursday before the retreat so I am going to miss out on the retreat. But alas sometimes you just have to put your hubby first ROFL...

And then the car was giving off this sulphury kind of a smell. So I got Lyall to take it to work (I usually drive it - we are a two car family)and he got to work and told me that the alternator has given up the ghost which has taken out the battery (hence the sulphur smell) which threw the headlights and one of the tailights. That's his mechanic speak not mine! About a thousand dollars later and the car is now fixed. Could have been worse, Lyall was a mechanic before he came off the tools so while we put it into a diesel place to get fixed because he wouldn't have got the time before I needed it this week, they wanted to charge him quite a bit more for parts that he could get a lot cheaper...so he got the parts and they did the work.

I went to a pirate party today (Mandy M who some of you will get to meet down at SENZ, her youngest turned five) and one of the Aunties was there doing a pirate show. Have you seen or heard of the Aunties? They do quite a few different shows and I'm pretty sure they are nation wide. They used to have a tv show. She was excellent - one of the funny things she did was make two balloon swords and then in pairs the kids had sword fights, that was fun...and a great way to completely hype them up! Because of course they weren't hyped enough, with it being a birthday party and all!

Okay I should get this posted as I have a hundered and one things to do! Have a nice week!

Woo Hoot Wednesday!

First I'm going to answer a question!

My English friend from 'Heart in the Country' (sorry don't know your name LOL!),SENZ is kind of like a scrapbooking conference. It's held over three days and there are stalls (shops) and classes. You can book into as many classes as you like or you can just go to shop. You can go for all three days or you can go for an hour. This year it's being held in Wellington which is about eight hours drive from where I live, or one hours flight if I wasn't such a chicken (and no offence to your darling and very cute chickens!). Now I linked both Wellington and SENZ and when I went to check the links wouldn't work - sorry about that. You could try typing in www.senz.co.nz and you should be able to see what we're up to!

My Wednesday list:

I've said it before, but you really are a great bunch of friends. Thanks for your support regarding the flying...or lack of!

School holidays. While I'm not a person to sleep in, I love that I can lie in bed and read. I love that I can get to the dentist etc without having to rush. I enjoy being home with my dog and cat. I love being able to catch up with friends for a leisurly ladies lunch LOL.

It's a short list as some things are happening that aren't to Wahoot about, but I'll save them for another day!