Times sure flies.....

Hi there,

My sister Sue rang me yesterday to see how I was as she hadn't heard from me in a while and also noted that I hadn't updated my blog either. Wow I hadn't realised it had been so long. 

What have I been doing... well I'm doing a course for managing your chronic illness and chronic pain which has been very good. I am learning to pace myself so I don't get so tired and also one of the components of the course is a Move Easy Program which is a short exercise session on a CD to follow. If you happen to have a chronic illness or several as I do then I would recommend that you ask your Dr about doing this course.

Another thing I have done in the last 2 weeks is a photography course over 3 nights for 3 hours each. It has been interesting but I need lots of practice so I can take photos on manual mode instead of just using auto. 

Friday 16th March my son David had his 21st Birthday so I gave him a party at home with a BBQ. It was a nice quiet evening with 22 guests.

Then last Thursday we went to Geraldton for Critishia's 21st birthday and her Nursing Graduation was on the Friday evening. It was a lovely trip and we were very lucky  that both were together so we didn't need to drive up twice.

 Tish also recieved an Award of Excellence

 Birthday Girl

 Emily, Critishia, Graham and I

I have also been making cards for the launch of the Autumn Winter Mini Catalogue on Sunday 1st April. I am having a launch here in the afternoon. I am having fun playing with all the new stamps and punches. I am taking part in a Blog Hop on Sunday so drop by and follow the hop over 25 different Demonstrator Blogs. I will try to not leave it as long between posts next time. Thanks for stopping by.

Greetings from the Farm

Hello there,

I hope you have all had a wonderful time over Christmas with your families. I have been enjoying my time down on the farm with my family. Graham and my kids went home on Boxing Day and Skye and I stayed. It was very hot here the past 2 days but today is so nice. It has even rained today. I have been taking dad and mum's pups for a walk twice a day with Skye running loose enjoying the freedom. The pups have to stay on the lead as they run away and I would hate to lose them. I go down the drive to the chook pen and let out the chooks and collect the eggs in the morning and then at 7pm I go down again and shut them in. Dad has 9 chooks. I counted them twice last night and still managed to see only 7 so dad went down and sure enough there were 9 but I couldn't see them hiding somewhere on the roost. 

Here are some of the photos I have been taking. Sorry they are not of cards but lovely animals and scenery. 

 Bindy

 Cindy

 9 Chickens

Cindy and Bindy taking me for a walk. You would never think such tiny dogs could pull so hard. 

Well that is all for now. Happy New Year to you.

We have been fishing.

Hi again,

today Graham and I went fishing on the boat. We had planned to be on the water by 7am but due to a late night we slept in a little so was on the water at 8am instead. What a perfect day to be out on the water. You know the saying that when there are lots of people somewhere .... every man and his dog was there.... well today I think every man and both his dogs were out on their boats. The car park was full and they had to open an extra car park for the boat trailers. We didn't have great success though and came home with 3 Skippy and a flounder. I caught a few Rass which we don't eat so threw them back. I had never seen a flounder before so I took some photos.

 

The Rass that I kept throwing back. Pretty but not good eating.

Graham caught 2 of these Sambo's but they weren't big enough so got thrown back.

Now how did she get in here on a fishing post..... oh well I did mention dogs didn't I?

This is the Flounder. Graham hooked him but he got off and then I cast my line and caught him. This time he didn't get off. The fish is flat and a mottled colour on one side and white on the other.
Wow 2 post on one day. Making up for all the quiet times I have.

Anniversary Present

Hi there, today is our Wedding anniversary and Graham surprised me by bringing a present in at 6.30am. He said he had looked up and found that the 9th anniversary was pottery so he had this big pot to replace my pot plant that had broken. As we don't normally worry about buying presents it was a lovely. Anyway he then asked me to look in the pot and there was a Canon digital SLR camera. WOW!! I had been saying I needed a new camera and that I would love to one day have a SLR and he had gone and bought me one but he did say we would both be paying it off over a year interest free. Of course I will have to learn how to use it but the first photo I took was of Skye as she was right there checking out the camera as well. So here she is, all nicely groomed.

As I have not been able to take photos of my cards, the next photo I took after 20 or so of Skye was of one of the cards we made last night in a stamp a stack. This one is cased from my friend Jennie who may have cased it as well. I love making the poinsettia with the leaf from French Foliage. I used Very Vanilla with Riding Hood Red and Garden Green.

Now I am off to learn about how to use my new camera and take all those photos I have been wanting to take. Watch out.... I will be shooting anything that I can. yipppeeee!!!

Its been awhile.....

wow I just checked in and realised I haven't posted for 10 days. I really must set myself a reminder. Its not like I don't have anything to show you, I just get busy with life and forget to post.

I had Emily's 18th birthday party on Saturday and it went off really well. For her birthday present she asked for an acrobatic flight so we went out to Jandakot on Friday afternoon and watched as she actually controlled the plane for taxi-ing and take off. It was a half hour flight and she loved every minute of it. Her dad paid half so it was a joint present. We had a dinner at Nero's for the family party on Friday night and then her friends party on Saturday here. I cooked all day and they all loved the food so I was happy.

Anyway back to cards. I have some more from World Card Making Day. I made use of some swaps from Regional's and the first one is Pendant Park. I have had this set for ages and never used it so thought it was about time. I changed it by sponging over the scored lines to make them noticeable and also the greeting. I have just looked everywhere for my swap that I cased to acknowledge the creator and cant find it anywhere. If it was yours please let me know.

 The next card is also a case made by Jenny Chilton. I didnt get this swap but saw it on Jenny's blog. I gave the girls a choice of colours and they all looked great. Thanks Jenny for a lovely card.

I don't have my own computer this week as Emily has taken it on holiday with her so I am using Graham's. Its strange how you get used to one computer. I hope to post some more this week but for now I have to get the washing out on the line to make use of this beautiful sunny weather. thanks for stopping by.

Rainbow over my home....

Last week Emily rang me from the local shops to tell me to go outside and look at the rainbow over our home. Even though I was in my dressing gown, I just had to go out in the rain and take some photos. My camera doesn't take wide angle so I joined 2 photos together, (not so well) but it shows how magnificent this rainbow was. It was a full rainbow with a second one just above. The end of the rainbow looked like it was right there in our culdesac.

What a reminder of God's great creations.

Have a great week.

Back from the farm.

Hi there, I got back from my week down on the farm last night. I didn't get as much time as planned out on the farm as dad is in hospital so I drove mum into town every day to visit dad. I did enjoy being out in the country. Every morning I would take mums puppies out for a walk and this is the view from the verandah.

The pups are 5 months old but not trained yet so I enjoyed taking them out every hour or so for toilet training. They are Chihuahua cross toy poodle. They are cute. My camera is playing up and the pups didn't keep still for long so I didn't get any good photos of them.

I got to visit with my sisters Sue and Barbie while down there. We spent an evening together stamping. I got some of my swaps done for upcoming Perth regional's. I also used mum's sewing machine and made some patchwork items. I will show you them next week when I have them finished properly. I actually enjoyed using the sewing machine. I haven't sewn for about 15 years but now plan to get my old machine serviced and start doing some sewing again.
Anyway that is all for now. Have a good weekend.

Bulk Rubbish

Hi there, 

We have bulk rubbish collection in our street so Graham and his mates got to work on Sunday and cleared our messy verandah and stuff from in the shed and around the yard. I threw out so much stuff, Grahams mate actually checked my fore head to see if I was sick... For those that have been to visit and seen our very messy verandah its now got nothing but a couple of potplants on it. There is still so much more in the shed to be sorted through but havent got time for that at the moment. The boys worked so hard. I am so happy with the result. Here is the pile on the front verge waiting to be collected.

back soon with another card from the weekend

More Exmouth holiday.....

Hi again, 

Today we went fishing on the beach at sunrise. What a beautiful time to be on the beach. I caught 4 fish and dad caught a shark. It took him over 15 minutes to reel it in. 

 setting up for fishing

Shovel nosed shark that dad caught.

Unfortunately this Internet connection is so slow it has trouble up loading photos. I just had a phone call from my step daughter Tish and she is on her way into Exmouth so it will be great to see her and her partner Will.

Hello from Sunny Exmouth

hi there,

I know I said I wouldn't have access to the Internet while up here in Exmouth but I found out after a week of being here that they have wireless hot spot here. I am having a really wonderful relaxing time here. All I have done is socialise with my family, play cards, snorkel, go out squidding with Tom on the boat and lie on my bed and read. 

Yesterday while mum and I were playing cards with her friends it rained quite heavily so I came back to find the front part of my tent floor rather wet. The front section is just fly net. I'm living in this tent but have my meals with mum and dad in the caravan.

This is my home for 2 weeks.

We went to the beach to watch the sunset on the shortest day of the year and I took heaps of photos as usual. The fishing boats look great with the sun setting behind them.

I'm having trouble uploading photos so that is all I will show you today. 

I hope your weekend is going well whatever you may be doing. 

until next time take care

Skye

back again.... but not with a card this time. I took Skye for grooming yesterday. She was looking very shaggy as I had held off taking her as I didn't have the money. Anyway shes looking all wonderful again and I thought I would share this photo I took of her. She was having a stretch.

I took a photo of my cat Meeka as well. She is 14 now but is just as cuddly as ever. Skye is scared of her but they still fight over who is going to sit on my lap.

Anyway thats all for today.

Last post on holidays....

hi again, today can finish my holiday posts and get back to showing you some cards.

Our last trip out of Melbourne was down to Philip Island. We bought a 3 parks pass and went first to see Churchill Island Heritage farm. It was interesting to see inside the house still set up as it was back when it was settled. I enjoyed seeing the animals on the farm as it reminded me of my childhood growing up on a farm with lots of animals.

The next park to go to was the Koala conservation park. you could walk up a boardwalk amongst the trees where the koalas were but they were very high up and sleeping so not as good as I thought it would be. I think seeing those koalas on the side of the road was the best memory for me.

 the sunset on the way to our last place for the day was beautiful. Then we were off the see the penguin parade. It was great to see the little penguins come in after sunset. we weren't allowed to take any photos so I don't have any to show you.

the day after was Friday, our last day in Melbourne. We packed up our things, said goodbye to Richard and Tracy and took the car back to the airport for our flight home. We did have some time to kill so stopped at a DFO to have a look what everyone was raving about. Well I sure am not a shopper as it didn't find anything that I would want to buy. Maybe that was because I had no money to spend. 

I like to take photos out the window of the plane of the clouds. This was coming into Perth.

It was a fantastic holiday and we really enjoyed it but it sure is good to be home. thanks for checking out my holiday.