..I might be able to post properly later today! My genius dad has fixed our computer and with any luck internet connections will be up and running by this evening! Hurrah!! No more sneaking off during school to log on and see how much I've been missing this past week he he! We shall wait and see...
So our computer died a few days ago. Well, it's not actually ill, but it's in dire need of a quadruple bypass or something else! Bottom line - it's not working! And it feels like I've had an arm cut off. Clearly I spend way too much time on here and am therefore at a bit of a loss as to what to do with myself without it! Michael is convinced I'm having withdrawal symptoms, although, how he's managed to cope without logging on to Property News for 2 days I don't know!
In the interim, I have almost completed a mini book for a friend. I would show pictures but my sister doesn't have a card reader on her printer, so that pretty much means no photos either, boooo! And I can't show you the very cute pictures of Patrick with his pumpkin, or all our little chums at Sheila's Hallowe'en party today. When I'm finally up and running again you'll be bored rigid with photos for a few days.
And that's that. I'm off to check the weather forecast before my Ikea trip with Lesley tomorrow. If the boat is cancelled because of this wind there will be two v unhappy girls with Ikea catalogues and nowhere to go! Here's hoping...!
Tiny has the dreaded pox. Very poor show indeed. And downright rude of the first offender in Patrick's nursery to feel the need to spread the pain! Patrick had such a mild dose of it that I thought we would hardly notice when Conor got it. WRONG!! It's everywhere. Poor wee munchkin :0( He not happy. It's even in all his wee baby chub creases and covers his scalp. Needless to say mum and dad not happy either, especially as sleep (at night time) is once again a dim and distant memory. Oh well, at least it's done and dusted before they both start school. But I am not happy with my half term being scuppered. All my plans to do fun stuff - such as posting on here and browsing websites that others post on their blogs!- will once again take a back seat to my littl'uns! I see a pattern emerging here! Might there be a lesson to leart about priorites??!! Anyway, he won't thank me for it in years to come, but I think he needs all the sympathy he can get right now, so here's the little pox-ridden lad. Let me hear you all say "Aawwww!"
I'm off for half term. HURRAH!! Lots more time to play with scrapbook goodies, post on my blog and do lovely things with my boys for a whole 11 days.
I have beautiful things to look at and use on a daily basis. As seen below we have
- the bargain £10.80 piece of Laura Ashley blue and white spot pvc for my kitchen table;
- the totally fantastic door stop Jo made for my birthday (way too talented to be at home all day!) and the beautiful Cath Kidston shopper that came with it:) I've always wanted one of those babies, if for no other reason than to hang somewhere I can see it everyday.
- this totally funky bowl that my friend Jen bought me for my birthday. Doesn't it look like it's begging to be filled with actual Dolly Mixtures?
I'm also loving the black grapes that Tesco have in store at the moment. Patrick and I have been known to eat through a whole bowl of them in one sitting.
...sometimes God just gives you a reminder of how amazing the world is. This was my view as I made breakfast yesterday. Totally put me in a good mood and made going to school a whole lot easier.
...I found a new issue of Real Simple magazine in Eason yesterday. It would have been wrong to just leave it on the shelf!
How cool is this? (Admittedly it may only be cool to other like-minded control freaks who love nothing more than a good article about how to organise a room in your house!) This magazine just speaks my language! It's all about storage, organisation and cool time saving ideas. Plus they have the most amazing pages that are just begging to be used as ideas for a scrapbook page! And they have a website that will e-mail me storage and organisation tips! Truly a wonder:) Incidentally, Michael doesn't seem to 'get' it!
...the latest Cath Kidston catalogue. Mmmm! Just looking at the products makes me happy. I'm very easily pleased this weather!
...my promotional cards have arrived! How amazing do these look? They were done by a local company called Three Creative Design and were a total bargain. Now all I need to do is get them out there and wait for the phone calls and e-mails! Here's hoping...
(front)
(back)
Pretty much sums up last night. My 2 scrapping chums, Jo and Sheila came round for a night of scrapbooking, giggling and chocolate cheesecake! Absolutely marvellous!! It was so cool to have other people to talk to about BasicGrey and the virtues of all things Making Memories, and who were just as giddy and over-enthusiastic as I generally am! We took pics of ourselves and then all set to creating a page about our 1st ever crop. This is mine - a package came from 2peas just in time full of that lovely My Mind's Eye front porch range.
And the lovely Jo was playing with some gorgeous Gypsy bits and pieces from aforementioned BasicGrey. How cool is her page?
And you can see the fab Sheila's page here. Go check it out too. Love these girls and can't wait to do this again:)
In the words of the mighty Meat! I've been very bad and not gone to bed when I should and instead did this layout of two of my favourite pictures. The top one is of Patrick lying on me and the bottom one Conor. I remember feeling so totally content when the boys were so tiny that they just lay on my chest and fell asleep, and that time disappears before you've really had time to appreciate it. So this one is for my own little book. In hindsight, I think the photos would have looked better in black and white, but it's done now and I don't really care. This one is for my 'It makes me happy' book, and it does. Make me happy, that is. I'm so far behind with Ann(i)e's challenges I can hardly bear it, but this one is about #10 or 11. The one that unifies 4 papers together with stencilled paint, or in my case stamped paint. Really love how it turned out, even in colour!
Seriously, if anyone has seen where my time went could you please let me know so I can go and get it back since I had a lot more to do! I promised myself that I would do 3 layouts this weekend and so far I've only done 1, and it's 22.10 on Sunday night. I'm guessing that's probably my lot!
I say I don't know where my time goes, but I'm pretty sure I saw Patrick and Conor sneaking off with most of it this weekend. The poorly little chicken pox sufferer has been pretty demanding, although after 2 massive tantrums today (which the grandmother will think I have made up!) I'm fairly sure the worst is over. More than likely Conor will get it just in time for my days off this week! That said, I honestly don't know how much more of my time that baby is after, since he now has me up during the night again, clearly aware that during term time it really is the line of least resistance!
Anyway, I did get to do this page about 'Trouble', as we so often refer to Conor these days. He is such a monkey. All cries and tears until you pick him up then nothing but smiles. And he moves so fast already, always towards poor Patrick's things. It's as if he was born knowing that his lot in life was to infuriate others while retaining the ability to melt their hearts at the same time! Sometime during the summer he produced this face. It usually occurs just as you're trying to shovel more Weetabix into his mouth and is accompanied with a sort of huffing down his nose, thereby spreading said Weetabix all over himself and the feeder! These phots caught it perfectly, and they make me laugh every time I look at them. Journalling (scrawled on the rocket paper) says: "We've always said you'd be 'nothing but trouble'! And once you produced this face, we knew our suspicions were spot on! If this isn't trouble I don't know what is!"
I'm having so much fun with my fab Rhonna Farrer frames that I downloaded from 2peas. Totally worth the bargain price of $4! And as always, BasicGrey rocks!
And no, I don't mean my post-children body, although I can see why you would have immediately made that connection! No, let me run you through my day so far.
1. Got up at 6.45 to feed Conor - not a bad start
2. 7 am Patrick appeared after having asked for and drunk 2 glasses of apple juice in bed
3. 7.05 Patrick produces 2 glasses of apple juice all over the kitchen floor and down his jammies
4. 7.10 Get Patrick changed and discover that he has the dreaded pox! It was inevitable since half his nursery school have had it and he's not been particularly well for about a week
5. Everyone is content for a while so mummy gets a shower and fixes foxy new hair do
6. 9 am Conor goes back to bed (admittedly this is anything but pear-shaped and is indeed heart-shaped!)
7. Mummy is so pleased that all is well in her happy (poxy) house that she decides to clean a bit
8. 10am after cleaning the kitchen I notice a funny smell, only to realise I'm about to set the house on fire because the steriliser, which is sitting rather dangerously I admit on the hob, is quietly melting! I had accidentally knocked on the ring where it was sitting as I cleaned the cooker and it was spreading all over the top of the hob!
9. Patrick has a blue fit because he thinks the smoke alarm is about to go off - why wouldn't it since there is now smoke practically bellowing out of my kitchen as I scramble to get the melting plasitc off the ceramic hob so that Michael doesn't have to know about this if I choose not to tell him. He rarely reads this, but I've just realised that most of the steriliser is now all over one of his wallpaper scrapers so the truth will out eventually!
10. All is well now and harmony is restored - at least for a while, although foxy new hair do is looking decidedly un-foxy due to sweating over earlier fire hazzard. Conor is just about to make an appearance, so I can only guess what will happen next.
Do check back later for further installments of crazy life with Janine and the boys. I hope no one from social services reads this!!!
This was how Michael wished me happy birthday this morning! The cheek of it! He'll be sorry when I get to retirement age a whole 7 years before him - being older won't seem like such a bad thing then ha ha!! So anyway, happy birthday to me! We were just talking at teatime tonight about how David Cameron could be sure of being elected next year if he made it against the law to have to go to work on your birthday. Bad enough that I had a full teaching day, but I had kids in detention too. Although, since one of them didn't bother turning up I decided to let the other one go early - and jolly well requested formal detention for the reprobate! I felt like it was really my birthday then! The simple things really do make me happy :)
I have set myself the task of listing 35 things that truly make me happy - I think it will do me good to actually think about this, so here goes:
1. Michael
2. 2 gorgeous sons
3. Great parents who never say no (or rarely do anyway!)
4. My lovely sister - see below for a pic, although not her best side!
5. Way above average in-laws! Truly thankful for them given some of the horror stories I hear!
6. Cups of tea
7. Dairy Milk chocolate
8. The first flick through a new magazine - combined with # 6 and 7 = perfection!!
9. My camera
10. Gareth and Rosie
11. Too many other good friends to mention in one go (Leanne, Sheila, Jo, Jan...........it just goes on!)
12. 'Friends' - as in TV show. Doesn't matter how many times you've seen it before!
13. The computer
14. The internet
15. Scrapbooking supplies - can't believe this is only no. 15!
16. Magazine subscriptions
17. Seeing Patrick run into nursery
18. Seeing how pleased he is to see me when I pick him up
19. 2peas
20. E-mails from friends I don't get to see too much
21. Seeing how in love with their babies the mums I have photographed are
22. Wednesday, 3pm!
23. TK Maxx bargains
24. Reading other people's blogs
25. Fat Face
26. Trips to York
27. A whole night's sleep - uninterrupted, of course!
28. Conor's babbling
29. Michael's 'Strictly Come Dancing' dancing - a sight to behold! Even funnier than the moonwalk!
30. Bill Bryson books
31. Visa bills that look payable
32. A glass of red wine on a Friday night
33. Stationery shops
34. Fairy lights
35. Rainy Sunday afternoons in the winter with the fire lit and a good film on tv.
Oh, the list really could go on, but I shall stop there. Have a lovely evening - I'm off to indulge in a few of the above! Obviously it would be wrong not to post some birthday photos, though!!
Sorry Lesley - it was just too funny not to post!
At least, there's a whole lot less on our heads than there was a day ago! I've long been thinking about getting mine cut short again, but I always get a bit deluded somewhere along the line that if I just keep growing it, it will look like Jennifer Aniston's! Alas, in my (almost) middle age wisdom it turns out that it will never be so. (Apparently my post-children midriff will also never look like Jennifer Aniston's!) So I give you the new 'do'.
It's affectionately being referred to as the FatFace cut, inspired by the beautiful girl in the Autumn catalogue. Now all I need is some birthday money to order some chunky jumpers to go with it! However, not one to be outdone, Michael decided he'd finally do what he's threatened to do for ages now, and took his down to a #1 all over. He is dreading seeing his mum haha! It would be fair to say I'm not overly keen on it, but I do think he looks particularly handsome in this fabulous photo!
Obviously I'm going to have to post a picture of Patrick to make up for the shock some of you may have had looking at these previous two photos! I love this wee man! Look how happy he is - a direct result of having both mummy and daddy at home for two consecutive days. And another reason why I need to get my own business up and running. I leave you with this.
