Duckie, duckie

Yep, sorry about that, but I can’t resist the photos of the cute little duckling lol. Soon it will have grown and I won’t bore you with those photos…The good news is, one of the Mum’s at work has lent me their chick raising hutch, so my little duckling (Grace – so it better turn out to be a girl!) can stay outside during the day. This means I can now get back into my scraproom for a few hours each night if I so desire – she is coming in at night still but is in the lounge for a few hours before being put to bed in my scraproom. So today I spent time doing a sketch from over at SBO – if you’re looking for a great sketch for some inspiration, Jane has one up for the Friday night sketch, and it’s a beaut, better still you have till the 9th of December to upload it – so I should manage to finish it by then LOL.

Not a lot else happening in my neck of the woods at the moment…busy walking dogs, caring for ducks, baking for Lyall. Hmm baking for Lyall…my car started playing up on Monday – the orange lights on the dash all came on. Lyall took it for a drive and said it will be the computer chip so will have to go into Nissan for diagnosis. Off I duly went the next day…and then my car stopped twice in the middle of traffic at four thirty in the afternoon in the city. Not fun. I didn’t want to drive it any further (to Moorhouse Ave, for those in CHCH). My knight in shining armour came to my rescue and in his third week of his new job they had no probs with him whipping off early and even said ‘take the car transporter’. However he and I swapped cars and he rode the brake and accelerator and got it down to Nissan. Two days later, and one cam sensor later and the car is all good again. So I’ve done some baking for his boss/workmates to say thanks.

Right off to my scraproom – have a fantastic week everyone.

Peep, peep, peep!

Saturday and I got to catch up with Vicki and family – we spent a lovely relaxing day scrapping away, and I managed to get a bit more done on a three layouts that have been sitting on my desk, like forever, mocking me lol. I had the best of intentions to finish them the next day…more about that later.

Saturday night saw Lyall and I at a party catching up with some good friends who had come down from Auckland. Before I met Lyall, I was good friends with a couple, Grant and Katrina. They split up over time, but I’ve remained really good friends with Grant and his family – and two of his brothers have subsequently shifted down here. One of them, Wayne was having the party/barbie on Saturday night, so I got to catch up with his parents, and another brother, and meet more rellies. So all in all it was a lovely night, even if the weather meant we ended up in the garage lol.

During the night, on Saturday night/Sunday morning, Danny dog, kept whimpering, so Donna and I ended up taking him to the emergency vet on Sunday morning. Just a little tummy upset which painkillers and anti nausea drugs fixed. We got home about ten ish and so Lyall and I headed out to get chicken mesh for the new chicken coop. I also took the opportunity to put in photos at Harvey Norman so as to update PL. And I ran into Vicki. The photos were going to take an hour. So we went and checked out Noel Leeming. And Vicki and Andrew were in there. And we went to the next shop and they followed us in. They were stalking us ROFLMAO!! Finally our hubby’s got to meet so that was good! Lyall and I even managed to get some Christmas shopping done.

Long story short, we ended up home about four ish and Chrissie, Mike and the kids were here, and after a drink or two they decided they needed to see the chicken coop out in the garage, and we were standing there yakking and their rottie was lying on the grass, when this wee duckling comes hooning over peeping away. Chrissie grabbed the dog before the dog spotted the duck lol and Lyall managed to grab the duckling. We spent the next hour walking up and down the street trying to find the Mum but to no avail. So by about seven thirty that night after talking to bird rescue, we decided to hand rear it ourselves. So cooped up in my scraproom is a wee duckling. He or she is doing extremely well, as it darn well should as I went and brought it special duck rearing food at twenty dollars a bag lol. It’s in our dog crate, with a hottie, and a soft toy, towels and it’s food. It’s had a swim in our bath and it comes out of the crate for an hour and a half in the morning and about four/five hours at night. I thought it would be a matter of a couple of months and then it would be on it’s merry way, but the lady at the feed shack said “do you know that if you’re a good Mum they stay around for about a year, and then whoosh, they are suddenly gone”. Nope, didn’t know that! Dan and Darce have rubbed noses/beaks but as yet Tui isn’t aware that it’s in the room…I’d like to keep it that way.

So for the next few weeks there isn’t going to be much going on in my scraproom. Once it can regulate it’s body temperature (right now it needs a hottie and the heater going to keep warm and it can’t yet dry itself as it doesn’t have oil on it’s feathers – the Mother ducks do that for them), then it can come out of my room, but at the moment, that’s where it’s living. Let’s hope it just keeps on growing and getting stronger, the lovely wee thing. Messy, but lovely lol.

Have a good week people.

Phew...it's been a busy week or two.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me. You can see by the collage that my Dad and Step-Mum have been down for a visit. Good ole Christchurch turned the weather on and the aftershocks off. They went home last night, and we got hit by an aftershock at two ish this morning and then woke up to a howling northwesterly and it’s now lightly raining lol. Dad, you’ll be glad you went home yesterday…Lyall flew in from Auckland early this morning and it was quite a fun ride lol.
We’ve had a lovely time round and about the city and picturesque north Canterbury. The dogs have been out with us on most of these visits, having fun in the rivers and being spoilt rotten by Dad. He even went and brought them new toys each lol. He also brought his daughters new stuff too lol. So it wasn’t only the dogs that got spoilt. He did a bit of Christmas shopping, and I’ve hidden away Lyall’s Christmas present from his father in law! He better not be a snoop and go looking! Pat did some shoe and clothes shopping, that was fun, she’ll have to come down here more often lol. Oh and I also caught up with one of my cousin’s. Turn’s out he’s often in Christchurch so will be coming to stay with us when he can – some of his visits are fleeting, in and out the same day, but some he stays overnight for – so is looking forward to a home cooked meal. He said “I try and sleep in my bed once a week.” Bugger that, too much travelling for my liking. I’m to much of a home body.
It’s about this time of the year that apartment living once again looks good, as hayfever takes hold (and some days when you’re dropping family at the airport the other ‘hayfever’ is worse lol!). I’m now not mowing lawns again till next year when all the grass has stopped seeding. Being out on the ride on has certainly worsened this.
Tomorrow sees me hand in my appraisal at work. They are quite a time consuming document. Aye Mandy lol! They aren’t particularly hard work as you gather lots of evidence during the year, but they do take a bit of time to put together and a lot of typing and printing. I’m so glad that’s out of the way (still the discussion bit to go, but I have no concerns about that). What this all means though, is now I can get back into some scrapping. I can’t create when theres too many other things going on. The lovely Andrea over at Scrapbook Outlet, sent me and email last week asking if I wanted a blue or pink Slice as they were due in anyday. I initially chose the pink because I thought the blue was that greeney blue – you know quite dark, as in the colour of the original Slice, and I’m not a huge fan of it. However when checking out accessories at SBO it turns out it’s the most delicious light blue. However the pink one is on it’s way…”no worries” said Andrea. Once it’s here, she will send me a return courier ticket and then send up the blue one. Talk about fantastic service. Looking forward to finally opening that box lol…then adding to it with a few more bits and bobs. Hmmm wonder if Lyall needs some Christmas shopping ideas????
You know how our dogs go to dog obedience on a Monday night? Well Lyall comes to and he works a border collie named Molly. Tomorrow night is his last night with Molly as her owner’s return from Oz. They asked for some photos and we wanted some as well, so last week took the camera with us and snapped away. So that’s the dog he’s with in the collage. He’s going to miss his Molly girl, I tell you.
Have a good week everyone.