One Happy Day...

Today was such a beautiful day... It felt like Christmas morning. One of those days where you feel like anything is possible. Perfect weather, 31 degrees (celcius - that's HOT) in the middle of winter, blue skies, absolute bliss! I've been enjoying taking some time back for myself, so my weekends have been really relaxing lately. And I've been having a lot more family time. It's a good thing...

So, I finally had a chance to make some finishing touches to the mini-album that I made with my pics from last weekend, so I thought I'd share! It's totally inspired by Elizabeth Kartchner's mini book that was featured in the August issue of Creating Keepsakes, even down to the font she used (and it is an awesome font, one of my faves now - LOL). The layout of her mini was perfect for my photos and the story I wanted to tell, so I thought why not... a little bit of scrap-lifting never hurt anyone - LOL! Plus the test-shot I took of the grass worked perfectly for a cover...

You can click each image to make it larger if you can't see the journaling! :)

Chipboard Album: Bella; Papers: Sassafras Lass, Pink Paislee, Basic Grey; Alphabet Stickers: American Crafts, Creative, Craft Supply (wood letters), Carolee's Creations, Making Memories; Journal Spots: Collage Press, My Mind's Eye; Cardstock: American Crafts; Chipboard Bracket: Maya Road; Stamps: Maya Road; Making Memories; Hero Arts; Ink: Tsukineko; Lace & Trim: Prima, Craft Supply; Flower: Green Tara; Fonts: Pee Pants Script, AL Uncle Charles.

Phew - now that is what I call a supply list - LOL!! I had fun making it!

Hopefully you are having a wonderful weekend wherever you are too! I'm off to watch some TV, and enjoy the rest of my night!

Til next time...

xx Zoe

Finally!

So, I've been subscribing to Creating Keepsakes for many years... Each issue I manically flip through the pages trying to find layouts using my stuff. And I never do :( So, I basically gave up on the flicking through thing, cos I figured it was never going to happen anyway. Anyway, so I got my August issue on Friday (we get them way after everyone else over here in the land of Oz) and was reading through...

And finally it happened:

Woohoo!! Thanks Sheri!! What an awesome page, and I'm so excited!! I think this is the first page I've seen that has actually featured heaps of stuff from a kit and I could recognise it as mine! Well, truth be told, I didn't at first. I was staring at it for ages confused because at first I thought it was my Bloom & Grow set with My Mind's Eye, but I was like... it's the wrong colours?? And then it struck!! So that's how good this layout is peoples, I didn't even know it was digi ;)

Onto other news... There is none - LOL! We celebrated Joshy's second birthday a couple of weeks ago and that was fun (and a little scary - LOL!) I've been sick with the flu (for you Americans that is what us Australians call a cold-flu, not a stomach flu in case you are thinking I'm pregnant) for what seems like FOREVER! I finally got over it last week, and then it came back to me on Saturday and I am SO OVER BEING SICK!!!!! We've all got it, so I dragged the whole family up to the Doctor's office yesterday afternoon, and we are all on the same anti-biotics, except Joshy's is liquified of course - yum!! Poor Marty has been so sick that he's lost 5kg in just under a week. I wish I had the exact strain that he has cos I ain't lost a thing - LOL! So, yeah I've just been taking it easy for a little while trying to shake it...

And now I'm going to overload you with photos - yay!! It all started last Thursday. We've been having the most beautiful, sunny, HOT days over here even though it's supposedly "winter". Winter is a very loose term over here in Queensland, believe me - LOL! We've been getting up to 31 degrees (celcius) this last week, and it's been great! Though, I don't want summer if this is a taste of it... 50 degrees, here we come!!

Anyway, sorry got sidetracked by the weather. So, as I was saying it all started last Thursday when I decided that I wanted some photos of me and Josh in the green grass, and my new favourite photo spot in our yard is by our timber fence. I didn't get any ones of Josh on Thursday... He did come and press the button on the remote for a couple of these, and they actually turned out some of my favourites!




And then on Saturday, we had another glorious day, so Marty and I had a fun time with the camera, Josh and the tripod... These are seriously my favourite photos ever, I love all the green grass - LOL! I've tried to just pick a few and it was hard. Sorry there are so many!!

Oh yes, and Prima flowers also make for lovely hair-pins - LOL!! I just stuck a bobby pin through the back of one. Did I mention that I really love that watermelon, hurt-your-eyes-to-look-at pink/orange in my last post? The colour of that flower is what I'm talkin about.


You can tell Marty's right into this can't you??


And I have decided that 3/4 leggings under a denim skirt are not a good look for a short-arse like myself - LOL! Apparently I thought I looked alright when I got dressed, but the camera doesn't lie - unfortunately!! I am joining the gym this week.

My little two year old dude... How much has he grown?!? He's such a big boy now, it breaks my heart to look at these photos :(

Now for a quick costume change... No, I'm not that vain - LOL! I just had a heap of itchy grass stuck in my shirt from cavorting in the grass...

Josh hates having his photo taken at the moment and makes a bee-line for the door as soon as he sees the camera - LOL! So I have to resort to holding him down and tickling him to get a photo with him (probably to the point where he pees his pants - oh wait, he's still in nappies thank goodness) . Well worth it, even if his little face is a little smooshed!!

What a fun day (and lots of new pics to scrap!!) I've already made an album of these photos - I couldn't wait... I will show you when I have time to take photos, etc. Also have a stack of pages to share, but again just depends on when I get time to scan them in!

Thanks for reading if you made it this far... I hope you are all having a great week :)

Bring On Summer! Or not...

First up, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to remove my last post... Apparently I thought it was a good idea to post about it at the time, but I've been in a totally weird headspace the last few weeks (if you haven't noticed - LOL). I usually don't feel inclined to share such personal things about myself, but for some reason at the time it felt quite cathartic to get it out... But, it's my own personal nightmare that nobody really needs to know about. I'm sure if you've ever lost someone you love, you want to share how that feels with the world but at the same time keep it inside too. So, yup, I've gone with the latter just so I don't have that reminder here whenever I come to my own blog. Anyway, to everyone who commented, thank you - it meant a lot :)

So, what's been happening the last week?? On Tuesday my completely reliable and faithful Mac completely broke my heart and went and crashed on me... I was working away and all of a sudden the screen went to grey and told me that I must restart. So I restart, and all it would do was beep beep beep away at me with a blank screen. AAAACK!!! I think I've lost everything, but thankfully it was just some faulty RAM and all was good. Took me a while to get the type of memory I needed, but she now works like a charm again and is faster than before - woohoo! :) Still need to archive though... damn it!

Then on Tuesday night I had an asthma attack for the first time since I can remember and all of a sudden I was sick with the flu. Like, seriously, I went from being 100% fine to sick as a dog in the space of an hour. So, I spent most of the week sick and miserable and coughing like a seal pretty much 24/7. So it was kind of good timing that my computer had a meltdown when it did because it gave me an excuse to just have a few days off and try and get better. Here's to spending all day in bed!!

It's birthdays all round this time of year! Wednesday was my Sister's birthday, and I was meant to be having a milkshake party with my darling little niece Mali while Kell & Clayt went out for dinner... But Marty had to go up instead because I was sick and didn't want to make my poor little poppet ill so I stayed home instead. Hopefully we will have that milk party soon. Aunty Zoe might hit the hard stuff though, like Milo or Quik, maybe even add some malt or something, just to liven things up a bit ;)

Friday was my Step-Mum Leanne's birthday so on Saturday we all trooped over to my Dad's place for the family BBQ, which was great as always... I hardly get to catch up with that side of the family, but it's fun when we do. It's always nice to catch up with my stepbrother Nat and his wife Renee and their kids, even though catch ups are few and far between... So, Marty was designated driver seeing as it was my family thing. I had a couple of Rums which is always nice, but then I ran out so started drinking my Dad's home brewed ginger beer. Which is lovely going down. But not so nice coming back up at 2:30am. Thanks Dad! :)

This coming weekend will be Joshy's second birthday (OMG!!!!!). So, in preparation for the shindig we will have to celebrate, today we went out and bought... a new outdoor setting!!! Which I'm so excited about because the one we have is seriously falling apart. It is still standing, which is strange seeing as it is standing on just three legs - LOL! But time to say goodbye to the old and in with the new fancy schmancy one. It's made of beautiful timber, and has the bench seats which I wasn't too keen on at first because I wanted the nice chairs, but then we figured that we don't have the space for the table with all the chairs and went with the bench seats. Our outdoor area is just our verandah, so we're kind of limited by the beams that run up the house and have to fit everything in around that. Still nice though! Better than the old thing anyway - LOL!

AND we got a new mattress which I'm even MORE excited about! (Sad times when you are excited about a new mattress, I know, but I take my fun where I can get it - LOL). Seriously, we never treat ourselves to anything, and we both wake up with sore necks and backs each day from the mattress we have now which I have had FOREVER! We've been wanting to get a new one for ages, and today I just said lets just do it. All the sides have given way on our one so it's more of a round mattress than a rectangle these days - LMAO! So, as I said we rarely treat ourselves to anything, and generally we would go for the cheapest one we could find. Not this time baby... We got the full top of the range (well, top of the cheapest range anyway - LOL), with a pillow top and O M G!!! I can't wait to get the thing. It's soft and snuggly and you just want to sink into it, but it's still nice and firm. So so sad that I'm actually blogging about my new mattress. But there we are ;)

Also bought some tea towels today. Am also excited about them, but I won't bore you with that ;) (they are very pretty, I won't say any more)

So, that brings me onto BRING ON SUMMER!!!!!!!!! We are in the middle of Winter over here, but in Brisbane that doesn't really mean winter. It's still pretty warm most of the year. Anyways, we've been having some really beautiful days lately, so I'm starting to wish that summer was here. Well, not summer because our summers are EXCRUCIATING, but maybe spring. You know when you get those beautiful days but still the cool nights? Love that time of year. Anyway, so we were at the shops (and of course they are all bringing out their summer ranges) and I spotted this GORGEOUS little singlet in my favourite colour at the moment (that watermelon/coral/orangey pink that almost hurts your eyes to look at it), and also yellow (which I do not wear well but would probably buy anyway) LOL. They had ruffled eyelet trim and were just cute (yeah, I know it sounds gross, but they were totally cute).

I got all excited about THAT too.

And then...

I realised...

I AM TOO FAT TO WEAR ANY CUTE FRILLY SINGLETS THIS SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crap. And there goes my summer dream of me wearing a cute watermelon/coral/orangey pink frilly singlet frolicking on the beach (with my imaginary perfect figure and all).

Hence the "Or Not" at the end of this post's title.

Seriously need to do something about this spare tyre I've got going on. And the bingo wings. And the three + chins. Or I could start wearing a cravat for that at least. I just don't DO exercise, never have, never will. The only thing I do now is sit on my ever-expanding arse all day in front of a computer and have no physical activity at all. I used to be able to stay in shape by walking up a few flights of stairs at work each day. And age is not on my side anymore either. Looks like I might have to go and see Amazon woman at the local gym and feign interest in their programs yet again. I hope she doesn't recognise me from this time last year - LMAO!!

So, there we are. Sunday night ramblings done. Time for bed! Stay tuned for more riveting updates next week ;)

Some Pages...

I've been meaning to post these for ages, but I've never really thought of myself as a "paper scrapper" so I felt a bit silly - LOL! But here I am bored on a Friday night (again - LOL), so I thought I'd share some of my traditional pages...

Most of you probably know me as a digital scrapper, but leading up to the show I rediscovered my love of paper crafting and went on a scrapping binge (and I have the bank statements to prove it!!) I really love paper scrapping and hope I have some more time to get into it and do some more pages again soon! It's really therapeutic for me, and as much as I love digital scrapping, there's nothing like getting off the computer to do something creative... So here you go - a peek at me from the other side :)

You can click the images to see them bigger if you want... I've tried "stitching" them together the best I can, but some of them are a bit bodgy... You will also see that I have an unhealthy addiction to Basic Grey - LOL!

Papers & Chipboard Stickers: Bittersweet by Basic Grey; Flowers: Prima, Kaisercraft, Green Tara, Sam & Lucy; Gems & Pearls: Kaisercraft; Letter Stickers: American Crafts; Stamps: Making Memories

Papers, Chipboard Stickers & Rub-Ons: Urban Prairie by Basic Grey; Flowers: Green Tara, Petaloo; Buttons: My Mind's Eye; Gems: Kaisercraft; Chipboard Leaf: Maya Road; Letter Stickers: Doodlebug Stamps: Making Memories; Ink: Stuart Superior

Papers, Leaves, Journal Card, Bracket: Bloom & Grow (by yours truly ;) ) by My Mind's Eye; Kraft Paper Flowers: Green Tara; Buttons: My Mind's Eye; Gems & Gem Flourish: Kaisercraft; Lace: Prima; Letter Stickers: American Crafts (blue), Basic Grey (orange), Making Memories (white). Other: Stitched ribbon & white lace - craft supply.

Papers: Bloom & Grow (by yours truly ;) ) by My Mind's Eye; Flowers: Green Tara, Kaisercraft; Buttons: My Mind's Eye; Gems & Pearls: Kaisercraft; RicRac: American Crafts; Chipboard Title: Basic Grey; Other: Lace - craft supply

Papers: Stella Ruby by Basic Grey; Flowers & Brads: Sam & Lucy; Buttons: My Mind's Eye; Letter Stickers: American Crafts (brown), Dymo labeller (white); Chipboard Bracket: Maya Road; Other: Lace - craft supply.

Papers, Chipboard Stickers: Offbeat by Basic Grey; Kraft Paper; Border Stamps: Sassafras; Letter Stickers: American Crafts; Stamps: Making Memories, Hero Arts; Ink: Making Memories; Digital Elements: Sun shape from "Show No Fear" by Zoe Pearn & Eva Kipler - Sweet Shoppe Designs.

And this is one of the ones I did for my classes with my Bloom & Grow line with MME - it's my favourite page EVER! :)

Papers, Paper Flower & Leaf Embellishments: Bloom & Grow (by yours truly ;) ) by My Mind's Eye; Flowers: Prima; Buttons: My Mind's Eye; Crystal Swirls: Prima; Chipboard Flowers & Leaf: Maya Road; Title: My Mind's Eye; Lace: Prima; RicRac: Maya Road; Ribbon: Piggy Tales; Glitter: Stuart Superior

Okay, boredom relieved! That's brought me up to bedtime now... G'night! :)

There's Nothing Quite Like...

... THIS to bring back the mojo and remind you that life is good. :)

Also reminds you that you love your job... happy days!

Taking Back The Reins...

First of all, thank you to those of you that commented on my last post for your well wishes and advice... It really does mean so much!

It's been hard for me not to go and delete my last post, simply because I would never post such personal thoughts in a public arena, but I've decided not to. Even though I like to take a back seat sometimes and try and show only the Zoe that I know people like, I don't feel like I should have to censor myself and my thoughts... I am only human after all, and I think we all have moments like I was having the other night. Maybe it will ease the burden to stay "happy" all the time if people know that in reality I'm not always the happy and smiling Zoe you see around the place, I do have my darker days as we all do. But, anyway... just had to get that out :)

I've been doing a lot of thinking over the weekend, mainly about how I can go about trying to change things, and also trying to figure out why I'm feeling like this at the moment. I think part of it is totally obvious, I don't get out enough to do things that I enjoy and see people... See, I am the type of person who hates "wasting time", and I feel as though if I do things for enjoyment, and not for work, it is a waste of time. So, after I wrote my blog post the other night, I went to bed and wrote myself a list (yes, I am a list maniac - LOL) to try and reverse that way of thinking:

* It is not a waste of time to do things that I enjoy
* It is not a waste of time to spend time with people you love
* It is not a waste of time to do the housework (well, come on, any excuse will do - LOL)
* It is not a waste of time to take care of yourself
* It is not a waste of time to have regular time off
* It is not a waste of time to read a book
* It is not a waste of time to sit down and just do nothing for a change
* It is not a waste of time to go to bed at a reasonable hour

And I also wrote a few things to try and remind myself that I am human...

* You can only do what you can do

* You are only one person

* Only work as much as you NEED to

* Try to find a balance so you can get back to enjoying being creative, so that it doesn't feel like a chore

* Take your life back. Make it a good one.

* Take time to reflect on the GOOD things in your life.

* Remember, you are LUCKY. You get to do what you love for a living and not many people get to do that.

* Even if it gets you down, accept that there will be times when your mojo disappears... It is trying to tell you something... It needs a break and will come back after a rest. Accept it and move on, don't analyse it so much.

* You only have one life. And it has a long way to go. Don't screw it up - you can never get it back.

I think when you rely on your creativity for a living, it can be really depressing and stressful when you can't seem to come up with anything... I think I over-analyse that way too much, and get myself into a state of "I'm not good enough to do this anymore", and then it just snowballs into other areas of my life... Silly, and probably very obvious, but I think I just need to accept it as a natural thing and part of this type of work. See, prior to this, I was in Admin Management, and that made sense to me because my work was quantifiable, and I felt like if I got my certain number of jobs done I had achieved something. Designing for a living is a completely different kettle of fish, and sometimes I find it frustrating because my work ISN'T quantifiable. Anyway, at least I guess I am seeing this now, even though it's probably pretty obvious to most - LOL!

Another big thing on a more personal level that I think has been getting at me and making me feel under a lot of stress, is that everyone keeps telling me it's time to have another baby. While I would seriously love to give Josh a little brother or sister, I'm just not quite ready yet. I think I felt so under pressure because we had planned to start trying again in the next couple of months, and I feel like I have so much that I want to do... Like get the house in a better condition, lose weight, get my working schedule a bit better, give up smoking, etc, before I have another baby. And I felt that I would have only a limited amount of time to get it all achieved, like only a couple of weeks, maybe a month, on top of all my other commitments and it was doing my head in. Plus the fact that the next baby will most likely be my last, I feel really sad about that and want to really enjoy my pregnancy next time around. I had such a stressful time with my last pregnancy, with my work at the time and other things, that I don't want it to be like that again. I finally spoke to my husband tonight about it all, and it is such a weight off my shoulders. I think I can finally dig myself out of this hole.

Anyways, thanks for listening again... I just thought I'd post so you don't think that I'm just sitting here like a demented mad woman, and that I have kind of sorted myself out and gotten my head back together to some degree... I really needed someone playing the violins in the background last time didn't I? LOL! Having the weekend off to just hang with the family really helped I think... So, keep your fingers crossed for me that I take my own advice for once and don't end up in the same mess in two weeks - LOL!

G'night! :)

xx Zoe

And Life Moves Along...

Okay, I'm having a super down day today so bear with me... I usually don't like to post much, but who do you talk to at 12:30am and everyone's asleep and you're balling your eyes out? Your blog of course :)

So, I've been having these weird epiphanies I guess you'd call them over the last few weeks... I've worked so hard over the last four years, building my business and spending every spare moment working. I've never felt in that time that I've been missing out on anything by doing that, I just figured I'm doing the best I can for my family and that's the main thing, right? But I'm starting to get the feeling that's not true, I have been missing out on SO much. The most frustrating part, I can't do anything to change that. I can't change how hard I work, and I can't make up for lost time, so what do I do?

I guess it was the classes I did the other week that really opened my eyes to that. I haven't worked outside of the home since I had Josh, almost two years ago. Which means I haven't had social contact with human beings apart from my husband, family and a couple of friends, for almost two years. I've been too busy to miss having a lot of friends and social things. And now I'm kind of mourning that, you know? Like I've never even thought of it as something that's missing from my life, and now I have this big, empty, gaping hole that is completely consuming me. Again, I don't have time now with all of my commitments to change that either.

So, I guess I'm angry. Really angry at myself. For letting THIS become my life. This thing that I am sitting in front of right now. It is my BFF, and that is freaking sad. I hate it, but I don't feel like I can change it. But on the flip side, I can't keep living like this either. Because it is not living. Don't get me wrong, I do love my job and what I do, more than anything, I couldn't live without it either. I get to do some really cool things with my work. The thing is that I have BECOME my work, and that is not healthy. I need to find some sort of BALANCE. And I don't know how to do that.

I've just been thinking of all the times I have missed out on, precious times, because I've been too "busy". How I will carry the guilt around with me for the rest of my life that I missed out on seeing my Nana a few times before she passed away because I had so much work to do. At the time, I didn't think that was wrong, we all have to work after all. But, had I known it would be my last chance to see her, I would have done anything, even thrown my computer out the window. And will all this be worth it, if my Dad dies and I haven't seen him for six months? He lives half an hour away... and I rarely see him, it's awful! My work will never fill that hole.

But I've made my bed and I must lie in it.

I think the thing that has really hit home tonight for me is I feel like life has moved along without me. I was just looking at my best friend, who lives overseas now, on Facebook... She has photos of her with all of her gazillions of friends, looking healthy, happy, enjoying life. SHE IS ENJOYING LIFE. She has moved on, and is happy, without me. I'm not even a blip on the radar anymore. And it's all my fault. That is what set me off. I used to enjoy hanging out on the weekends with my friends, going out, shopping, just SPENDING TIME, breathing easy. I don't do time off now, I can't. My mind is always going 100 miles an hour and I can barely sleep sometimes because I just can't stop THINKING. Thinking of all the things I have to do. First thing every single morning, I stumble down the hall and the first thing I do, without fail, is switch on the computer. And on the rare occasions that I force myself not to switch it on, I can't concentrate, I get all fidgety and panicky. Like I can't live without it. Sad, very sad.

Anyway, I just needed to put what's inside my head into words... Sometimes it just gets too much and I feel like I'm going to implode if I don't get it out somehow. And fortunately for Marty he is asleep now so he missed out on my musings for tonight - LOL! Thanks for listening to my random thoughts, and I promise I will post on a more happy note next time... And in the meantime I might try and figure out how to change this little old life of mine.

xx Zoe