Back to School...

Well, yesterday I started my web page design course at Tafe. It’s a smaller group than I expected, only 7 of us, but a nice mix of interesting people all with different reasons for being there. It was mostly theory yesterday; we didn’t actually even have to turn the computers on, but we learned a lot about the set up rules and the importance of having a plan for what it is we want to achieve from having a working website. We were asked to stand up and introduce ourselves and give a bit of a background, I froze at the thought of it, but then I thought, everyone is probably feeling the same way as I was. The first guy stood up – he didn’t look nervous – he actually looked quite comfortable (obviously done it before), but then Bill got up, bugger, he did really well too!! The next one, yep, you guessed it, no problems. I was next – I was so nervous and I’m afraid it showed, my heart was pounding, I could feel my face going red, I was over thinking what I was saying, to sum it up, I totally bombed, I’m sure none of them got very excited about the things I do or have to offer and I was so grateful when it was over and you know the old saying, “what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger! Hopefully over the next few weeks everyone will realise that public speaking just isn’t my forte and they’ll see that I’m more of a one on one kinda girl??

As soon as I got home, Joe and I went up to Westfield to have some lunch and grab a few groceries. Jo rang while we were there and asked if Jayden wanted to come over and pick up some things she had put aside for him after their garage sale. She had some household goods she thought Jayden could get some use from when he finds a place to move out to. (Not happening anytime soon. One of the boys he was looking for a place with had an accident in his car and now has a $2,000 repair bill to pay and can’t afford to move out of his parents house just yet). But the stuff will come in handy when they finally get themselves organised and we’re really grateful to Jo for thinking of him. My kids are really fond of Jo, she’s always been great with them and even though she’s known them since they were 8 and 6, over the years she’s become just as good a friend to them as she always has been to Joe and I, although she is more like a little sister to me, we all love her very much.
On our way over to Jo and Andy's, I gave Jessica a quick call, she was getting ready for a 'Pirate Party', she seemed very excited about the night ahead and told me that they had gone to Toyworld on Thursday night and got some Pirate of the Carribean dressups. I asked her to take lots of photo's, so when she sends them to me, I'll put some up.

We couldn’t stay long at Jo and Andy’s because I had to get home and get ready for a birthday party we were going to. I had so much to do and we were running out of time. Jayden had taken Joe’s car somewhere and we had forgotten to take TomTom out before he left, so we had to call him and ask him to bring it back home for us. Just as he arrived home, we were nearly ready to leave, so while I was finishing off, I left Joe to put the address into TomTom.
The party was in Ormeau, so when we passed the Ormeau turn off and saw that we still had 15km to go before we needed to exit the motorway, Joe was becoming a little concerned. I asked him what address he had put in, he told me and I looked at him and said, “You’ve missed a part of the address”. I quickly reset TomTom to the right address and as soon as I did it directed us to take the next exit. God only knows where we we’re headed, but at least we realised our mistake before we actually reached our destination. We finally got there, albeit a little late, but we had a really fun night. The hosts, the food, the company, the atmosphere AND the slurpie style ‘Strawberry Daiquiri’s’ were all really great. We were home by midnight, my boy child was home asleep in his bed and no hang over this morning – Ah, life is good!

We got Jayden to take a photo of us before we left for the party:

Jayden's girlfriend, Amy, had her 21st birthday on the weekend and I did her invitations. When I got home from Tafe yesterday, these beautiful flowers were on my kitchen bench: A thankyou from Amy - isn't she a sweetie!

Easter Long Week-End

Easter long weekend – Yay – 4 beautiful days off work. It’s been a bit of a stress fest lately and I’m so grateful for some time away from it all.
It’s been a very different Easter for us this year, it was the first year ever that we haven’t all been together. Jessica and Ray went camping on South Straddy and Jayden went boating with some friends. He did make the effort to be here Sunday morning to wish us a happy Easter though, which I really appreciated.
We also had Roger with us, which was nice, he came with us to lunch with our good friends Jo and Andy and some of their friends. We went to Harrigans; an Irish pub right on the water at Jacobs Well. A really beautiful relaxed setting, with timber tables and chairs and huge umbrella sails to shield us from the sun – yes sun, we actually saw it A LOT over the long weekend. We we’re warned constantly in news bulletins leading up to the break that it was going to be a wet weekend, but were pleasantly surprised with the gorgeous weather we were treated to. We did have periods of rain, but it was contained mostly to the evenings, where we were tucked up inside and weren’t affected by it at all – the campers on the other hand would have found it tough going if their tents weren’t water proof – some of the showers were quite heavy! When it came, it really came. We haven’t been able to contact Jess all weekend; we’ve tried a few times, but with no luck. Probably a service problem, so we haven’t heard how they faired yet. We’ll give her another try today; she should be home by early afternoon I’d say.
There is great Roger news to report…. I don’t know that he would want me announcing this – but – he is seeing someone!!! It makes me so happy to know that he is feeling better about his future and that he is open to experiencing love again. He is, as Roger does, taking things really slowly, but there is contentment about him that I haven’t seen in a very long time. It’s not to say that ‘she’s the one’, but she very well might be. I think that Jessica will be happy for him too. Thank you to everyone that sent us happy Easter greetings and I hope you’ve all had a super-relaxing break. In my opinion it is the most religious time of our calendar, where we are reminded of the very painful unselfish sacrifice Jesus Christ made so that we could have life. With that, I am mindful of how I am using my gift of life and wonder constantly if I am achieving my purpose? I don’t know, but what I do know is that I try each day to do better and that I am ultimately aware of my downfalls so I strive to improve every day. I would like to be a better wife, mother, daughter, (in-law), sister, (in-law), aunt, cousin and friend and with each new day that I am blessed with the challenge to be the best me I can be is consciencely taken on.

This is a layout I did over the week-end, the photo is circa 2000, but I love it so much. It brings back happy memories of family playfullness in a time in our lives that weren't so much fun.

And it was little Madison Catley's 10th birthday and I've been so busy leading up to it that the chocolate and card I made for her was a bit of a rushed job! Happy birthday for last week Maddy.

Help is at hand!

We had a visit from Roger today. It's always great to see him and catch up with what he's been up to. I'm glad we've been able to stay in contact with him; he was such a big part of our lives for a long time. He's still hurting, but I think he is trying hard to get on with his life. He's also our number one computer guru and he knows before he gets here that there will always be some work for him to do, which we are always so grateful for!!
He had a look at my networking effort….and fixed it! Ok, so I’m not as brilliant as I thought I was – it was going wasn’t it?
He also set up both Joe and my laptops for wireless printing which was even a feat for him because he doesn’t know his way around a Mac very well. Thank you Rog for all your help and of course, your great company!
Well I am looking forward to the long weekend coming up, things are really stressful at work at the moment and on top of all the work I’ve got on, I’m not sleeping very well. I woke to Joe’s snoring at 1:15 this morning and for the life of me, I couldn’t get back to sleep, I just lay there willing sleep upon me, with no success. I was even tempted to get up and go on the couch, but thought I would probably disturb Joe and then we would both be awake. So needless to say, I’m not feeling very refreshed this morning and I’ve decided to take some Phenergan tonight to give myself a chance to get some decent sleep.
I haven’t got anything recent to show, that I’ve worked on this week, the couple of jobs that I’ve got on this morning are still in progress. I’m having a meeting with a current client this week to sort out layout details and the 40th slideshow that I’m doing is at the adding music stage, but then I have to design the cover, so that’s probably a few more days off being finished.

In lieu of anything recent, this is a dvd cover for a slideshow I did in October last year for my good friends Joanne & Andrew, for Andrew's mum's 60th.

And this is the chocolate wrapper that I did your our Godson Aaron for this 12th birthday in September.

Meet Mr Mac

I'm so excited...it's finally here! My new Macbook Pro laptop. I had originally bought a Windows laptop just over 12 months ago, it wasn't long after that, that Jessica enrolled in a uni course and of course needed a laptop for her studies. Guess who handed over their brand new baby to her baby? I figured she needed it more than I did and I was very proud of the moves she was making to further her education in the field that she was working in. I just finished paying that little sucker off in November with the salary sacrifice program. It turns out you can apply for salary sacriafice every 12 months, so I went to my boss and asked if he was happy for me to go on it again. He had no problems, so here we are, with my even better, faster, shinier new Apple Macbook Pro laptop. There was a little drama attached during the purchase and delivery process (isn't there always), which meant I ended up with the very latest model for $200 less - I still can't figure out how that happened, but all I had to do was wait an extra week for delivery. The way the weeks are flying past - it was hardly an inconvenience.

The next challenge for me was to set up the wireless router for internet access for both Joe's laptop and my new baby. Again, a bit of a story, but I won't bore you with it, just let me tell you that I feel very accomplished - we now have three computers running internet and now the printer is also wireless so we can all print from any computer - I know, I know, I'm brilliant!!

I currently have 3 jobs on the go - baby shower invitations:

The 2nd is a 40th birthday slideshow for family in Victoria and the 3rd job; I'm really not too sure how to explain it. Its for a family reunion, so she wants caricatures of some of the family members who are travelling from interstate - it may be a little out of my area of expertise, but of course I'm going to give it a go - we'll see!

And just for fun, I did another layout of our beautiful Georgia Mae - at her cousin Libby's wedding she felt very special when she got to carry 'the brides bouquet' - she was an absolute delight the whole day, she had everyone in fits of laughter when she partied the night away, long after a lot of the 'oldies' had had enough! Love you Georgia girl xx

Finally....'The Bling'!

This morning Joe and I went and saw Jessica and Ray and finally got a look at the beautiful new ring on her finger. It really is gorgeous and I'm afraid the photos don't do it justice. But they will give you an idea of what it looks like anyway. They have set a wedding date of 19th April 2009 - not too far away when you think about it. We will need to check for when Easter falls next year as it will be a little more expensive to travel and get accommodation during that time, so we would like to avoid that if we can since most of the guests will be coming a distance for the occasion. We will keep you posted on that one.

I also wanted to add Georgia's birthday layout that I just finished.

My new do!!

Many of you will not know, but recently I went to the hairdressers and got a new do! A very brave, short, new do. It's been about 3 weeks now and I still don't know how I feel about it. I don't miss my long hair, but realise now, just how easy it was to have it long. If I didn't feel like doing anything with it, I just put it up in a ponytail - now, the work involved it getting it just right every morning is something I hadn't really bargained on. Too late now for regrets though, it's done and apart from waiting about 12 months for it to grow back, there is not a hell of a lot I can do about it.

I do want to say - 'Sorry Dad'!!- he loves his girls with long hair and I only just told him on Thursday night that I'd had it cut when he rang me and only then because it slipped out - he was not happy with me and he told me he would rather have not known. I am putting some photo's up to show him that it's not that bad, but he if wants, I will grow it back. So Dad, let me know?

I also designed a business card for my really good friend Cheryl O'Bree, she is trying to develop her stamping business, which she runs from home. She is so well set up, her and husband Matt, just finished their beautiful home in Nyah last year and when Joe and I were there in October we went to visit them. Their home is truly beautiful, it's an open plan design with a wide verandah overlooking the Murray river, so fresh and welcoming with timber floorboards and spacious living. Cheryl has a large room set up at the front of the house with a long table running down the middle so she can do demonstrations and host party plan evenings. It's brilliantly set up and I wish her love and the best of luck on the success of her new venture. So if anyone wants to check out what Cheryl does go to http://www.stampinup.com/ or email nyobre@aapt.net.au

Last but not least, this is a layout I did of Jachob's birthday presents:

Tomorrow Joe and I are heading into Brisbane to have lunch with Jessica and Ray - we get to see the puppies (Basil and Lulu) and there was something else we were having a look at - Oh the ring!! I will be back with photo's, I promise.