Wife | Scrapbooker | Amateur Photographer | Crafter
I have Taz’s collar & his blanket. I miss him so much 
But it’s about time we had some good news…
Thankfully we can start telling people, that we are expecting 
Which is a relief because of baby & colitis bloating, I’ve been trying to hide this…
Still far too early for me to be showing (due date is November 21st)! I look forward to when the bloating goes down and I get a proper bump
Monday last week was one of the hardest days. Taz went to the vet as his health has been failing and he never came home as he was put to sleep. My adopted furry little brother is gone
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Making the most of the bank holiday Monday, lots of work to do around the flat. Gareth is repainting the bathroom and the garden needs tidying up too, thank heavens for the gloriously sunny weather.
Finally today the health hazard of a carpet was removed and new flooring put down, I am so excited & happy! (Ah the joys of settling down and getting old, a new Dyson vacuum cleaner and new flooring in your bathroom and you think it’s your birthday and Christmas all rolled into one! HA!)
It’s been quite a stressful few weeks health wise too, and after getting nowhere with the NHS I ended up going to a private hospital in the next town for a check up, and now a letter is being written to my colitis consultant at the regular hospital and I’ve been given the thumbs up, so a HUGE relief! I’m hoping soon enough I will be OK to go back to zumba class but for now I’m quite content lazing on the sofa & taking it easy getting Hubby cuddles 
And while lazing on the sofa, I get to catch up on class. I’m doing Cathy’s “Clean & Simple: The Workshop” over at Big Picture Classes. I love it so far, but I am a week behind on the assignments. Bit of catching up this weekend methinks!
I bring a peace offering for being missing in action the last couple of weeks, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me. It’s at the end of the post
This weekend (seeing as my weekends now start at lunchtime on a Friday, YIPPEE!!) I began work on my Project Life Albums and I just love the system! Going over my Florida photos made me want to get out the light up mickey mouse cubes! We will go back to America one day
And I got my belated birthday present of Sims 3 University! So may have taken a few breaks 
My first layout in my album, (as I’m not doing a week in review each week for my spreads, I am simply using it as a regular scrapbooking) was of my gramp.
and for the following 2 spreads I had some photos of my nephew Oli making halloween cupcakes with my mum when he was eating more of the batter than making cakes, though I was super gutted I didn’t catch shot of him with his head in the bowl! HAHA!
Then there was the snow day we had, and I went to my parents to see my family and get to play in the snow with my brother and Oliver & Elijah
In fact I love the pocket scrapbooking system so much, I got the Simple Stories SN@P binder with page protectors after seeing Kelly Purkey’s and Peppermint Granberg’s. Love them!
Of course, finally, is my mini project life: The Disney album!
I used my little photo printer as I was so excited to start filling up my albums… Unfortunately just up to a mere 40 prints and my cartridge was empty, and at £27.99 for it (OUCH!) I decided I won’t be doing that in a hurry again any time soon, no sir! I shall instead put in an online order to Asda and pick up in store after an hour!
So the part you’ve probably waited for: My Project life cards (in .jpg format only, no printable PDF I’m afraid) for you to print off & use as you please in your own projects
Clearly all the changes that had happened thus far in 2013 wasn’t enough for me, and the day before I turned 30, I went a bit loopy…
… and I had all my hair cut off!
Well most of you who know me or my story already will be fully aware that I donate my hair to charity, so little girls with cancer can have a wig from it Though it’s a BIG difference getting used to less hair, but with everything that had been going on I figured why not cut it all off and have a fresh start?? New job, new year, new hair do… It just seemed rather fitting!
The ponytail was a few inches shorter as they needed a little bit extra there to work with to get the style I was after, so once my ponytail was cut I had a nice bob like I normally had, but I wanted a pixie do!
Gareth has been quite ill lately and in a lot of pain, so my birthday was cut short as I looked after my poorly husband who went to hospital on Monday, and that meant valentines was put on hold as well. But it wasn’t all bad… I got myself 2 Project Life’s to play with! The big 12×12 binder which I am not going to be doing weekly spreads as everyone is doing. Nope, mine is just going to be a regular scrapbook, but the ease of the system was far too wonderful to pass up! Bit gutted Seafoam Core Kit had sold out, but it’s OK… I am going to be doubly sure to get the Midnight edition when it is released. I love Paislee Press, Liz is one of my favourite digital designers! Other favourites of mine are One Little Bird, Three Paper Peonies, and Digital Design Essentials… and speaking of Project life I purchased Seafoam at ACDigitals.com and Traci Reed has a sampler over at her blog, which I adored so much I purchased her version of the templates!
I printed off a bunch of the Seafoam cards and put them in a baggie ready to quickly scrap at a moments notice…
The mini album will be our Disney holiday album which I have been working on using the collab kit “Day Planner” by Paislee Press and One Little Bird This whole being 30 thing isn’t so bad!
I am back to Zumba classes So fab to be with such lovely ladies, and they were all talking about a video which Reg gave us a demonstration of (minus the Zumba men!) So glad to be back.
I’ve also been on Illustrator which just does not want to co-operate on my laptop. I managed to export 2 of my vector images but for the last 2 it claimed I did not have enough memory to complete the operation. Thank heavens for smart layers! I copied and pasted the vectors into photoshop.
8 papers made for a new “Shout It Out” kit I’ve been toying with for Hanson Crafts. Hopefully will lead on to phone wallpapers, 10×8 print to go with the subway art I made… My vectors are far from perfect though, but I made them so they’re good enough for me ^_^
On Friday the snow came down, a LOT. Nobody was going anywhere around our part of the neighbourhood, even the buses weren’t coming up our end and so mum had to walk to where the buses were actually travelling to be able to get in to work but then the office was closed at lunch time. Gareth’s office was closed and my brother couldn’t get his van out either so Friday was a fantastic day! There were snowball fights, snow angels and sledge rides
Oliver had lots of fun throwing snowballs at us all!
And Elijah got in my sledge so I pulled him around which he loved!
Stewart made a snow angel to which Oli got in the snow next to him and instead of moving his arms and legs, wiggled his bottom which made us giggle!
however the roads by my flat were just sheets of ice, and the paths were no picnic either. I have spent the entire 7 days in wellies, and Gareth slipped on ice and badly hurt & bruised his foot & hurt his arm. Thankfully my car was at my parents house where they gritted the road so I didn’t have to battle with the ice and I was still able to carry on as normal.
So the week after I last updated, I said my goodbyes to my colleagues and worried about my future, but looked forward to a week helping out my dad. He had treatment at hospital and was on crutches, so I drove him to work for a meeting & we had a few bits to get from Morrisons. I liked helping him out And he needed to rest up.
During that week I had 3 leads on a new job which was a surprise to me. One call was within an hour of leaving my job! The one though came on Tuesday, I was told the company wanted to meet me on Thursday, so I went in, they liked me and I started my new job on Monday. It’s been a great week, and this year so far has been just so overwhelming. A friend told me things happen for a reason, but I’ve always been quite skeptical but my luck has truly switched around and it’s strange how things have turned out for me so far, but I have indeed managed to salvage 2013 Yay!
The Christmas break was just awful. On the plus side it’s all over and though the New Year didn’t start quite as we’d hoped, I get to start over.
We had a package from our Floridian friends which Oliver helped us open. I was so excited to see the American cereals, we’ve had fun trying them all out!
To drown my sorrows I have been eating absolute rubbish. In just one day I ate an entire tub of chocolate ice cream, and my chocolate santa from my brother and sister in law… The hubby was lucky he took his away from me otherwise I’d have eaten his too! But I am going to eat much better from now on!
And I have the best family and friends. Katie sent me a Hanson package in which I have declared my new Hanson bracelet to be my lucky charm, and a friend at work gave me her Buddha to watch over me, as I won’t see her again as my last day is tomorrow, after 8 years in my job.
But it’s still early enough in the year that it’s not a complete write off, I can turn this around!
Christmas Eve is tomorrow! Can we just pause for a little bit, I have 2 more presents left to finish! Only have half a day at work to get through before swinging by the shop for last minute essentials and hubby’s stocking gifts.
I cheated with everyone’s presents at work this year, I found some Christmas scented tea lights on sale in Sainsburys, so bought a box of those (bonus for me, I get the left overs!) and some of the Soft Caramels from Tesco. Cheap and cheerful! I had some wrap left over from the easter eggs last year so I used the last of that to make them look pretty! It’s OK, everyone has already received them
Oliver made us some ornaments for the tree
And yesterday Elijah was playing at Nan Irene’s, as it was the Saturday before Christmas we had a full house!
A lot of stuff is going on at the moment, so I will be missing in action (though I may tweet a little, so keep your eyes peeled and follow me! @mmmbisto ) I shall be spending time with family and will not be blogging again until the New Year. So I will leave you saying:
Wednesday I had the day off work, and it was nice to simply do nothing.
Well I say nothing, but I did blow the bulb in the lamp, had to change that & then I had the fire on & so checked the carbon monoxide detector and changed the batteries on that. And cleaned up a little. But other than that, I sat & watched Miracle on 34th Street… I find it hard to believe myself that I’ve never seen this movie before but I loved it! Then recorded Phineas & Ferb xmas special onto DVD along with another film “home for the holidays”, 100 years of royal variety show… Just catching up on TV shows I can’t watch normally because the darling husband of mine has been rather attached to Call of Duty. I don’t know which one I hate more: COD or World of Warcraft LOL!
Saturday previous to that though I headed out with one of my favourite nephews. It was just me, Mum & Eljiah and we caught the bus into town. We didn’t do much, it was just nice to walk around and I got to push Elijah around for a little too which was quite a novelty for me ^_^ and while mum went in to a small shop to get some stuff I chatted away to him & took some pictures. OK 10 Hipstamatic photos, but I need some photos to get cracking on his scrapbook!
Fast forward to last night & I got to go out with the Zumba ladies & I didn’t get to bed until 1am! Oops! But we had a great night, and tonight is our work xmas meal. Erm, after last night I certainly won’t be out late tonight!
