~*~Life as Me~*~

Netmums, DT, Blog Challenges & a Bit More :)

Got an email this morning that informed me that I was the Chairmum for Netmums in my area to help source and arrange local get togethers with mums and their twinkles...I found out quite by accident but I'm secretly pleased and excited! I've never really settled in this area and I admit that I'm looking to move a mile or two up the road BUT having the opportunity to get to meet other mums locally is pretty exciting for me I have to say.

It's far too early for me to be thinking of the next step or any kind of strategy, but I have been 'given' a couple of freebie thoughts already! Dontcha love it when these things just 'come to you'? I do, saves my brain cell going on overdrive!! :) I wonder if I will come across any scrapbookers? Obsessed? Me? Not on your nelly!! :)

Talking of scrapbooking, I have given a lot of thought to my Scrapblog and as I have now joined forces with my good friend Karen (a fellow Lds chick, a wicked Sunday School teacher and talented scrapbooker, and the ONLY person in the world who just does NOT have a blog! She fails me miserably!!!) we are in the throws of setting up two kinds of monthly crops and the weekly/monthly challenges on the Scrapblog, this will all tie in with the Design Team as we go along but like all great things it's going to take time to come into fruition but saying that, you and any other crafter you know is more than welcome to come aboard with us and make the whole experience more fun. The weekly challenges will start next monday and will be uploaded before 12pm each week, the monthly challenges will be on the 15th of the month and if I can get the right sponsor I will be offering goody bags for the random winner of the best layout.

Right now we are working on some designs for challenges as well as a some sketches, I have about 22 to upload to my site which i'm hoping to do sometime today. The DT crew is starting to come together, we are still on the look out for a range of crafts other than scrapbooking so if you know someone who might be interested get them to email us!

What happened to the summer? I know Jd has the sun over there in Utah, over 100f which I think is rather excessive and over indulgent of them! I was taught to share, but not thos Utah guys...they wanna KEEP the sun to themselves!! Jealous? You flippin bet I am!! Lol
I dont mind the winter or the cold, but I haven't finished with the summer days yet, not that I really got started but there just hasn't been enough of the sunshine for me to happily accept the cold and dull skies yet!

Hey ho, like those smilies I mentioned in my previous post, nothing changes so moaning too much aint going to get me far is it? ;)
So is the twinkles ready to go back to school yet? Charley wakes up every morning, gives me the biggest hug ever and asks 'Today I go to school mummy?'. We have the same conversation EVERY morning and it goes something like this:

Me: Not today darlin, just a few more sleeps
Charley: Ooooohhh (add the dramatic tone there!)
Me: It wont be long then you'll get to go and have lots of fun
Charley: Yeah, me likes fun mummy
Me: You do? Gee I didn't know that!
Charley: You're silly mummy
Me: I know, but you love me anyway
Charley: Yeah mummy, I love you when you are crap

Now I dont know where he's got the idea that I'M crap but they say kids say the truth right? LOL I dont think he actually knows what crap means, I know he's got the word from me though so I think I ought to replace it for something like wonderful, the best, awesome, great...wadaya think? Lmao Oh I can imagine calling a minor disaster 'awesome'!!
His latest thing is pee'in wherever he is. Thankfully he doesnt do it in the house outside of the loo but when he's outdoors its nothing to him to flop his winky out and just stand and pee...even in the street! Getting him to understand that its only seriously intoxicated men that do that is no easy task! I caught him a few days ago at the front door, I wasn't quick enough with my camera so you gotta get the image here....

Charley: PUSH!
Me: What you doing?
Charley: I'm pushing
Me: Pushing what?
Charley: My wee
Me: What?
Charley: I'm pushing my wee, it wont come out
Me: NOOO!!

Running to the door to grab him before he starte his proud raise, aim, fire I just about caught him in time! Turned out he thought it would be quicker to go there than go upstairs when he was in the middle of putting his Sportacus outfit on the dog!

The mind boggles!

My lil dude turns the big 4 in 15 days time and for the life of me I cannot see him as a 4 year old at all. In my head he's still the tiny little prem baby that I had...erm almost 4 years ago! We are doing a little party for him, he is so excited and wants to invite the whole world, he doesnt care for presents but he does want cake, ice cream and lolipops! 10pm last night he wakes up for a drink, sitting on his bed stealing a few minutes with him he decided it was time to talk. This is the total truth and when I think back to it I could pee myself laughing!

Charley: When's my party mummy?
Me: 12 more sleeps now
Charley: Whats sleeps?
Me: Its when you go to bed and sleep
Charley: Oh. Whats bed?
Me: This (bouncing him) is bed
Charley: Oh. Whats a bounce?
Me: This (bouncing him some more) is a bounce
Charley: Oh. I like bounce
Me: I know you do. (moved to leave the room)
Charley: Mummy?
Me: Yes son
Charley: Whens my party?
Me: Tell you what, I'll make you a chart so you can count the days, ok?
Charley:  Fooorr meee? (high pitched voice)
Me: (chuckle) yeah for you!
Charley: wow mum, your crap!
Me: (realising he really doesnt understand the word!) Gee thank you son, that means a lot!

I closed his door and laughed all the way down the stairs, I really have to tell this boy what I REALLY am!! LOL

Everything with Charley is 'why' even the simple things, even the things I know he knows the answer to! I soon realised that it moves on to him knowing that he's teasing me and he chuckles himself with a full belly laugh! This kid is just so darn cool!!

I could sit here for ages writing about some of the conversations we have or the things he says but right now they escape me, I ought to write them as they happen really but as he says I'm 'crap'!!! :) Thankfully I do have most them in my journal, I just cant be bothered to go and get it just now!!

Enough of me now, I have a wedding to plan! ;) I set up a blog last night to record the preparations, given that I like to 'record the moment' I figure it would be a safe place to stress without stressing out poor Jd!! ;) Nice really aint I? Lol I will share the blog cos who knows, I might get lucky and have someone give me some ideas or pointers that I haven't had! Brains are much better when they are someone elses!! :) Right now its empty though, except for one lonely post!

Not liking posts without photos, this is the best I can come up with, i've run a bit photo dry lately and try as I might I just cannot get back into Her Space: My Space again! But here's my man doing the happy dance on the table when he wanted to go swimming...!!! :)

Have a great day

~*~Debs~*~

Time Out

I have hated today. If it could go wrong it has so I stopped for an hour and decided to just relax and change my thought process. So I spent some time working on my well neglected website. I started off with all the projects to upload, sponsorships in the works and heaps of information to write up then I looked sideways...BIG mistake! The minute we take our eyes off the ball we lose it and that's what happened to me. So in my madness I decided to revamp my site, keep it simple, pull it all together slowly. As I am about to jump the pond it would be impossible to start doing classes right now and the others i've already made are actually packed away so I cant photo them till I'm unpacked on the other side. No matter though, I would hate to have people waiting for their project indefinitely while I got my stuff sorted! Wanna go check it out? Really? You sure? Oh ok then....its HERE! Going back to last year when I first began writing up project classes I was inspired by three particular people who I have long since admired, Heidi Swapp, Stacey Julian and Melissa Goodsell but the turning point came when I was over on a popular UK forum site and seen just how much bitchin was going on about other people layouts! Oh my! The competition was feirce, but why? It wasn't about scrapbooking after a while, it was all about personal stuff, well that's what it resulted in with a few people I spoke to and it made me sad. What made it worse is the fact that all the bitchin and jealousy that was going on was over ranked, cos none of the work they were bitchin about deserved it! About this time I began to think more about journalling on my pages and in my books. Now being a bit of a talker (oi, be nice!!) I want to record ALL that I can remember about my photos and to date the layouts and projects I'd done didn't have much of that going on...so out came my three writing qualification certificates, a gentle but swift reminder that scrapbooking is what we all make it. Some like journalling, some dont, and thats fine. Piecing it all together it just made sense that I embark on a project that I could potentially spread the fun of journalling. The rest is history really, I'm still living in my dream of designing, making and writing up a variety of fun and inspiring projects for my site and I know I will do it, in time. For now i'm just going to keep my note book in hand and build up all the ideas I can for when I will be able to get to work on them! Sound like a plan? Yeah I thought so too! :)
So here I am looking at the pretty pink website wishing I hadn't packed those projects away and that I could photo them and get them up on there! AARRGGHH!
I think this chill out time has been rather productive eh? I'd like to think I could do it again and be so productive but in real terms we all know they only come by when we dont expect them...and not very often!! :)
Photos, I have promised myself never to post again without at least one photo, doesn't have to be relative to my waffle but just something...so here goes:

This was taken as we were going to Asda a couple of weeks ago. Kirsten and I saw it and ooh'd over it! It was only around 4pm and still light but the whole view just looked amazing. I'm sure we looked like proper numpties sat on the side of the road with a camera flashing into nowhere!! :) Someone has to! :)

~*~Debs~*~

Relaxing Monday :)

At the request of my friend, Sonia (**waves**) here are some more pictures of Jd...aint he cute? :) He's going to get so embarrassed when he see's his mugshot here...three times!!! Then I can just imagine him flexing his muscles and loving the attention! (Yeah babe, I know what you're like!! Hehe) Jd hates white shirts passionately but I think I'm converting him! When he was here I insisted he wore one for church, he was really good about it and took my reasoning as good logic (as if us chicks dont have good logic!!) and was quite happy to choose one out. I have to say though, he looks darn good in anything but white shirt and trousers and...well lets not go there!! :)

I have been slack with this blogging thing the last few days cos so much has been happening and I've either not had time or i've been so tired I just wanted to crash out, but all will resume at some point. I set the blog prompts for my Scrapblog to be posted automatically but guess what, they didn't post! I was very frustrated over that and can't figure out why so I'm still waiting to hear from blogger.  (I think i've mentioned that already!). Anyway, this week is going to be a little busy but as I now have my laptop I am more mobile around the house while I'm doing stuff so I can post more often. I do miss my blog when I don't keep up with it! It ought to be a paid job methinks! :)

"We encourage you, (men)...to earn the respect and confidence of your children through your loving relationship with them. A righteous father protects his children with his time and presence in their social, educational, and spiritual activities and responsibilities. Tender expressions of love and affection toward children are as much the responsibility of the father as the mother. Tell your children you love them" - Pres. Howard W. Hunter (LDS Prophet)

I am extremely blessed to have a father that is not only loving, supportive and consistent in my life but he is a wise geezer who isn't afraid to tell me what he knows is best but has defined himself to allow me to be me without criticism or judgement. My dad isn't a member of the church I believe in yet from the get-go he has 100% supported me and encourages me to keep my commitments at any time I am floundering. He knows me enough to say the encouragement when he see's it and gently but fairly say something firm when he feels it. My dad has my utmost respect and admiration and I love him so much! I don't see him half as much as I should do but good ole phones offer a great compensation!

Yesterday I went up to Wolverhampton to see my dad. Charley, Kirsten and her friend Gabby came with me. I met his girlfriend, Tina for the first time and I got my aunt June to come round, we had a hoot! I don't think my poor dad knew what hit him with all the female hormones going on in one room!! Lol Secretly I think he enjoyed it though, especially all the attention he was getting from Charley boy!! :) We stayed longer than I expected so by the time we did leave the girls were 'dying' cos they were so hungry so good ole MacDonalds served up ok. They don't really do much for me, they're nice at the time but afterwards I always get some kind of stomach ache from it. I ought to not eat it really!

Sadly the kids didn't get to see their dads. Charley's dad is  a whole negative thing and although I will celebrate anything with my kids (even a tooth that's come out deserves a celebratory cake and speshal meal!) he doesn't do anything that is anywhere near the emotional thing, so fathers day has always been a duty for him to 'accept' a card that has been threw on the wayside seconds later. Kirsten's dad got a phone call as his family set up is going through some challenges that she doesn't want to get too close to. It works for her and he was pleased to hear from her so it wasn't as bad as it coulda been, albeit sad. Maybe next year will be better.

I couldn't help but reflect on my two grandads. Both have passed away now but they were such positive forces in my childhood. My paternal grandfather was a man who everyone loved, he would take me up and down the street pretending to chase me, he'd take me for walks over some amazing  fields and hills, sit and play games or read. I was 12 when he died but my memories of him are so full of love, I know he loved me more than himself so losing him was difficult, especially at the age I was. My maternal grandfather was also a great influence on me. He was very much a man's man, he would tinker in his garage for hours on end, teaching my brother how to fix cars, do this and mend that. By the time he died, I was around 13, my brother who is 4 years younger than me knew more about cars that any untrained adult, and was rarely wrong! My grandad was very much into his heritage Scotland, family and learning. He was such an intelligent man that I didn't need school, he taught me so much just by being with him. He used to have a response that would reduce me to tears every time I asked. Whenever someone (namely me) asked what something was he would say 'meddleycots for meddlers'! I would never open a box to see what was inside but my curiosity was enough to start on the 'oh grandad please tell me properly' road which he just took like water off a ducks back! He was a card!

I have been lucky with the three key males in my family line, I believe I have parts of them in me which totally thrills me because now I am able to share all my memories with my children and hopefully enhance their relationships with their fathers (and me of course!).

Kirsten has suffered all night with her stomach and throwing up. Poor thing was white as a ghost and so weak she could barely move to the bowl. I wonder if it was the MacDonalds though because I actually threw up a few times too. Too much information there I know! :)

June is always a busy month for me, with two of my kids having birthdays, my neice smack in the middle and then friends birthdays jotted all around. The 1st of June saw my Scott turn 18, he was so bogged down with college work that I didn't see him till the week later. Scott lives down in Somerset with my mother so he can attend the best college that offers the exact course he wants to do before going to uni. Princess Kirsten turns 12 on the 28th of this month and in our church its a big thing. She will go from being in Primary to being in Young Womens. This is going to be an amazing transition for her and will aid her no end throughout the next 6 years of teens, hormones and challenges. She will have her own self worth reiterated, her spirit with grow and flourish and she will learn all sorts of wonderful stuff that will encourage her to be a true daughter of God with all the wonderful qualities He offers to us all. I am so excited that she will get this added opportunity in her life, I know I would have LOVED this opportunity, but hey-ho, I aint done too bad! :)

I have lost all sense of creativeness this last few days, probably because I haven't been able to focus on doing anything. I have managed to cut out and pin 4 hand puppets for Charley, he's not too impressed with them yet but I think he will be when it all comes together, he loves imagination play. At the moment he's sat on Jay's lap watching Diego, telling Jay all about the parrot on his shoulder, its a boy one called Polly! So far Polly has kissed him on the head and pecked his nose, he kept him awake last night talking and then he flew off to find the Marmosets! He is just the coolest kid I know....and yeah, i'm bias! :)

Scrapbooking: I am yet to get together an email interview with the lovely Jenn and our sponsor over at Jacques Crafts. This week I shall be uploading their profiles and making the formal introduction. I am still looking for crafters to join the DT. That includes you Chris (**waves**) cos I know you are pretty cool at the digi stuff!! :) I am looking for a selection of people who do a range of crafts that would be happy to share their stuff on a rota basis with instructions and inspiration on each project. Even though I hope to post something each week, it will be a different kind of craft. I.e. scrapbooking one week, Photography tips another, then perhaps a sewing project...get my drift? There's no real commitment other than a pre-set week of your project in the spotlight! If you are interested or know someone that might be, drop me an email and we'll talk :)

Ok that's enough from me, I have finally got Jay to myself and I plan to just chill out with him and cruise through the day....honestly, I'm not going to get him doing any chores, gardening or housework! Ok thats cos the house is totally spotless (apart from ironing which is slowing decreasing!!) and it's about to rain and I daren't send him out with electric tools! :) Meanie mummy? Oh yeah but they luv me!! :)

Have a great Monday! :)
~*~Debs~*~

Where is the inspiration?

I have misplaced my inspiration somewhere and I'm not quite sure where to even start looking! I have a few craft projects on the go, a home that needs a fine eye to detail and an ironing pile bigger than the floor to ceiling...ok that's slightly exaggerated but its not far off! :) Today I went for a bike ride with Charley over to Prinknash Abbey Park, its a big wooded area with a park, picnic area and ducks etc, we love to just wonder over there when its nice. I have two cameras, one of them is still (another story) not working properly and the Fiji one is perfect for what I need right now but I don't have the correct card reader to upload the pictures...and my laptop is still being fixed (good sole Kirsten allows me access to her computer) so I am feeling rather sorry for myself today! Oh go on then, if you insist, get the violin out for me! :)
Ok, lets get this a bit more happy! I have a very talented friend joining me on the Design Team I am putting together, go take a look at Jenn's stuff and leave her a message...she really is a clever chick! More on the DT at a later date but if you or someone you know is interested then please email me with some details, gallery and your craft. You do not have to be a scrapbooker, I am looking for crafters of all sorts, it can be sewing, knitting, woodworking anything at all that you are willing to share and inspire on a monthly basis. There is no hard and fast commitments and you get to choose what projects, techniques etc that you share! As I said though, email me and we'll talk about it.
I admit to being a bit of a blog-a-holic, I love to browse blogs from a range of places and subjects. I log them and revisit them as often as I can but the more I go to the more my list grows and I end up losing touch but I cant quite stop! I tend to have one full day a week where its all about blogs, I read, laugh, cry, coo and comment and totally enjoy myself, I find so many things that I want to have a go at doing or share with my kids that my to-do list is much longer than any shopping list ever was! Lol I love blogs and all the different ones out there just totally tick my clock! So, as I go along I will be adding some really great blogs in my links, some will be crafts, some Lds and some with be of any other subject I think are well worth sharing so don't be shy and leave me and them a comment to let us know what you think. I know I will always leave a comment in response if I haven't already found your blog! :)
Wrapping this up now, I am off to get my photos from my memory card put onto a disk...then I may be able to put some life into the look of this blog until I figure out a nice template and banner!!

~*~Debs~*~

Blog Prompts & Design Team Call

I started to some inspirational prompts for blogs, scrapbooking or photography inspiration over on my scrapblog, for anyone that would like to take part hop over there and have a goosey-gander. Anyone that leaves a comment will get one left in return, its all about inspiration and staying in the friendly loop of the crafting world and its just my bit of contribution towards it :)

At the beginning of the scrapblog (dont worry its a new one so there aren't many posts yet!!) you will an invitation for anyone who does any kind of crafts to come help me form a Design Team to further spread the inspiration and the chosen craft we do with as many people as we can reach out to. I know I for one am getting oh-so into needle work at the moment thanks to Jenny from Allsorts and the wonderful things she makes! This had added fuel to my idea's of what I would like to do with and aside from scrapbooking and handmade books!

So click over to the scrapblog, read up on the requirements and drop me an email, I will respond to your initial email then check out your gallery/site etc.

Have a great day :)
Debsx