scrapbooking

is what lead me to blogging.

I started this blog to showcase my layouts. I started scrapbooking over 5 years ago. I had wandered into an Archivers store whilst on holiday in Chicago. I was in awe of all the products on offer. Each time I visited I would wander around the shop, I wasn’t aware of any shops in the UK where I could buy any such products.

So on the return from one of these holidays I went into a stationary shop and found the ugliest album with some stash for the sale price of £10. I walked around for a bit and then went back to buy it. I sat at my dining room table trying to work out what I should do. I remembered a garden centre that had a craft session, so I drove there and talked to the owner. She showed me a sample of her scrapbook and I bought some extra stash and away I went.

I’m embarrassed to show you my first scrap layout. It’s hidden away in that crappy old album in a drawer.

I was also new to the web when I started scrapping. So I started learning to Google and I was away. I found UKS the scrapping forum for UK scrappers, and then I found little scrapbook shops dotted around my area.

But the biggest influence on me was a copy of Creative Keepsakes that my Hubby bought me back from Chicago. I devoured that magazine. I started to live, breath and dream about scrapbooking. My creative juices were in full flow. I bought more stash and kept it all, in a wheelie tote bag. This was the time when I made most of my favourite layouts. Bizarrely cropping and more stash has made my creative juices dry up.

In the old days I had a little book, where I wrote down ideas, quotes and kept notes on LO’s I liked.

Now I see the new SMASH book by K&Co is the latest scrapbook craze. It made me remember this old journal and I’ve dug it out again.

If I could get my hands on a SMASH book, it might get my juices flowing again.

So I thought I would share with you some of my favourite layouts from my early years.

I scrapbook to tell the story of my family. To have a hobby that will leave glimpses of the past, that I want remembered, long after I have left the planet.

l almost need to go back to that old bag of stash and the dining room table. I never seem to have the time needed to sit and ponder, and sort through my stash anymore. I keep waiting for the moment when I am “ bored ” and have nothing to do, like the old days. My days are filled to bursting now. Not being able to sit and having to stand on the spot is too painful now. Even surfing the net has to be done standing and the fact I can’t seem to concentrate anymore, doesn’t help.

How have you kept your scrapping mojo going ?

What motivates you to record your families life ?

I would love to see your first scrap attempt. Dare you share ?

a test blog

I am having problems posting my blogs, so I am just doing a test run.

My pot belly

 

I have always had a pot belly. By that I mean I have always had a belly that protrudes excessively. As I child I was extremely skinny, compared to my peers. But I always had a sticky out belly.

It would seem that was a marker for what was to come.

Over 20 months ago, I went to see my Doctor about the consistent pain I suffered, deep in my left hip. It kept me awake at night. So I was prescribed sleeping tablets and after some blood and urine tests. He sent me on a wild goose chase, undergoing many tests for kidney cancer! See blog here.

But I still had that deep hip pain. On my first visit I mentioned that  I had done lots of research, and I felt I had piriformis syndrome and/or hip bursitis.

I also mentioned the same thing to my surgeon during one of my many visits to him. He poo hooed it, and said it’s a made up term by Americans. It doesn’t exist. This made my osteopath see red when I told him.

 

It was weird as Teejay always had to work on my piriformis muscle along with my psoas before I could attempt to work on a Pilates reformer bed.

 

 

Paul my physio and Pilates teacher now, always checks me out in class as I struggle with the stretches. He always tells me, my culprit is in my muscles. The pain is coming from my prolapsed disc, but the culprit is my muscles.

I feel I have been sent on a path of discovery in this long year of pain. Something made me check on Pilates reformer bed classes in my area  at 3am, one long January night. The incredibly knowledgeable Teejay was shown to me and I started receiving treatment and Pilates training from him. Then miraculously a new Pilates gym opened nearer to me. Thus lessening the agonising drive.

Who should I be given on my introduction session,but Paul. He is a fully trained physio as well as a fantastic Pilates teacher. I joined his rehab class and he gives me one to one tuition, in a room full of people. I’m not sure if I have mentioned this on here before. But it would seem I have been his most challenging person to date. After a rehab class with me in it, he had to retire to a darken room to recuperate.

After another challenging class I limped out of the class to see a man in white stood in front of me. Something made me stop and wait to talk to him.

He is the osteopath that works out of the centre. I told him about my back problems and history and I agreed to let him try and work his magic on me 3 times. Paul joined us during our talk, which is when I found out about him and the darkened room.

So yesterday was my second session. But miraculously after a long and lengthy first session and only 15 minutes of body work, I slept the two following nights straight through. It was such a joy to wake up and it was time to get up with everyone else.

Yesterday, he confirmed all my initial thoughts that I have probably got piriformis syndrome along with deep psoas muscle problems.

During our consultation I mentioned my weird eating disorder SED. It was like light bulbs going off in his brain. He said I am going to check your diaphragm as it can hold regressed emotional tension. And low and behold I have the tightest diaphragm he has ever felt.

It turns out the diaphragm connects to the psoas muscle at the base of your spine. A tight diaphragm means an incredibly tight psoas .A tight psoas means a tight piriformis. The sciatic nerve is then compressed by that tight muscle. The spanner in the works for me is that because I now have a prolapse disc. The surgeons have just been concentrating on that. But I know my body well, and I could tell that my muscles don’t feel right. It would explain why after only two days my epidural and nerve root injection didn’t work. A lot of the pain is as a result of my deep muscle problems. It would explain why as a child attending ballet for years, I was the only child who couldn’t do any of the deep stretches.

Now, why the pot belly you might ask. Well a tight diaphragm  means you stop deep breathing with your tummy and your stomach muscles slacken.

In my first session I couldn’t breathe using my stomach at all. I breathe just by moving my rib cage only slightly this then impairs the digestion and elimination process. Creating even more problems. Of course this is then compounded by the fact that my digestive tract no longer works properly because of the drugs I have to take for the pain.

So my pot belly was the marker for what was to come. I also have a tilted pelvis to add to the mixture. I would love to say that after my session yesterday I feel amazing. But I don’t . I have just struggled in extreme pain to see who rang our door bell. Luckily, Hubby got to the Jehovah Witness before me. Or I probably would have told him where to stick his pamphlet.

After the session yesterday I felt “ normal”, and pain free. But the short stint in the car on the drive home sent me back to the black hole of pain again.

one down, one to go

Over this Bank Holiday weekend, Ryan has been moving into his apartment. I have been mainly the spectator, my job has been done. I have spent the last few weeks photographing items for the apartment. If I buy them, Ryan insists he doesn’t want or like them. but I have found if I show him an image, he happily pops to the shop and makes the purchase. So it has been great to see lots of my ideas come together in the flat. But I am particularly happy to see the choices Ryan has made on his own, has certainly met my exacting standards admirably.

He is certainly a chip of the old block.

3 days it has taken Chris to put all the complicated furniture together. Thank God for handy Dads ( Granddads ) ( and girlfriends )

 

But this is where you will find the rest of us most of the time, leaving Hubby to it.

Late last night, Hubby’s jobs were coming to an end. Just Ryan’s new 3D TV to sort out. The poor neighbours. He has bought a sound bar (?) It fills the apartment with surround sound (and bass). No one is going to be getting much sleep in this neighbourhood.

A TV like that comes with a LOT of leads. Every one of his  (many ) game consoles are also fed into it.

“ erg ,what about this one Ryan ? ”

Oh, and before you go Dad, could you just put up 3 wardrobes…………

Oh, and a picture…………

unfortunately Ryan is just missing one vital ingredient for the apartment. A BED !!!!!!

It hasn’t arrived yet.

I think it’s a ploy to continue living at ours, to keep his apartment tidy.

And so that he doesn’t have to start a bit of reading.

funny going’s on

 

 

 

We all tucked into our sausages and mash,

and then the men disappeared?

This is where I found them…………

Yep, in bed together !!

With Steve's trousers suspiciously undone?…

Luckily, I know Chris isn’t his type, he prefers brunettes…………..

They were snuggled up watching football on the TV.

Whilst Judith was cosseting them with tea, cake and chocolate. Tasmin and I got the giggles as we were left with the pugs.

and Bobbie decided he couldn’t wait any longer ……..

They then just stood there and looked at it, blaming each other.

But we knew who had done it……….

Your in deep trouble mate…..

catching up with old friends

We used to meet up most Fridays for Chapman's sausages and mash with our best friends. But our friends abandoned us for the sunny, high life in Spain. But I’m glad to say they are back. So sausages and mash it was, around their new pad.

 

 

You would have thought they could have stretched to a bit more than sausages and mash with a pad like that. But when you have to pay six million for a house I suppose money is tight?

 

 

 

 

I dread to think what they would feed us, if they bought this ten million pound house we popped around.

I mean I even had to bring a batch of cupcakes to keep us feed.

Really we met up for me to use my new camera skills. I was at the homes to capture details around the properties, for their imminent sale.

There was one problem though, I spent my time snapping away avoiding any building materials. Always keeping them out of shot. But it turned out, that was exactly what Steve wanted to capture, “a work in progress.”

Luckily he managed to get a few of those shots as he randomly clicked away on his professional camera and lens, with no idea what he was doing and all in automatic. But I was pleased to put one of those professional lenses on my camera and click away in full manual mode. I was rather pleased with the fact that even though the light was dreadful ,almost all of my snaps had pin point sharpness.

This is to give you a small idea what six million will buy you in our neck of the woods.

and ten million pounds

I told Steve it was a shame I had purchased the apartment last week, otherwise I might have been interested.

Hopefully we were good omens for them, as whilst I was shooting away at the gates someone stopped for information. And he got to get a full tour like us. So fingers crossed

Ojon

 

I knew all that Ojon shampoo and conditioner would come in handy.

Teddy is moulting bad, and as I don’t get his coat clipped, he gets a bit smelly and matted.

So Saturday was wash day.

The only problem is, he goes mental the second he gets out of the shower. He rubs himself on anything to dry, including my newly changed bed !!

We then walked down to Ryan's apartment for a “snag” visit and for the saleslady to go through everything in the block and apartment. He starts moving in this Friday. So I was looking forward to our days/weekends being ours again.

No more trips to furniture shops . No more phone calls to the solicitors.

But somehow I ended up buying one of the remaining apartments!!! The show flat… I’ve been in it so many times and never gave it a moments thought that it could be mine.

But when a friend pointed out it could be a good rental investment and then I found out she is considering buying one of the other remaining ones. We acted quickly.

It feels the right thing to do. It could act as a first home for Tasmin in the future and who knows it might make a great retirement pad for us.

So it looks like we are back to the shops again.

Will I never get to watch my Erin Cobb Clean Colour video?

Pass or fail ?

Tasmin took her driving test yesterday……..

Pass ?????

or fail ?????

She thought she had passed, but maybe there were some clues in what happened during the test. The driving examiner asked her to repark somewhere “safely”, maybe the corner of a junction wasn’t such a good place. Plus, he on reflex put his hand out to the dashboard to save himself at one point. He also asked her repeatedly to go at her “normal"speed when he was about to ask her to do a manoeuvre. She was confused 20mph WAS her normal speed!

I’m afraid when she was recounting her test later, we all laughed so much at her expense, that Hubby nearly shocked to death.

 

Oh well. we looked on the bright side.

At least I won’t have to buy her a car anytime soon.

How did that happen?

from this

to this

I actually keep forgetting how old I am .

I always think I am older than I am.

Must be the old age dementia…………

The grass survived

Just……………

We had been warned that last year about 100 people bought tickets for the towns charity garden openings. 100 people seemed like a lot to be walking around my garden, but we thought whatever, why not.

Now, I am a nosey person by nature and you couldn’t get anyone nosier than my husband. He believes everyone should have a plaque outside their homes saying what they do as a job and how much they earn, so you could tell if you could afford their house or how they got it. So I had no problem with people nosing around my garden and peeking in the windows.

Well, it was with some surprise ( or maybe not ) that after our walk around the gardens, all the gardens we loved had been in the same families since at least 1957. The families in them had never lived anywhere else since they had married. Now, these weren’t small properties, they are some of the most unique, large old properties our town has. These properties are well out of the reach of “ normal” people. I mean one of the gardens alone employs a full time gardener! I think this sort of thing will never happen again. Properties are so expensive nowadays and these properties would all be in excess of a million pounds if they went up for sale now. What first time buyer could buy that now and live in it for 50 years +.

My garden had some serious competition, and it was definitely one of the smaller ones. Our house now stands on only a quarter of the land it started with. Each owner has taken a portion of the grounds and built a house to live in. So our garden is a bit compromised now in proportion to the house. But I think our garden offered some of the most colourful planting out of all the houses we visited.  Plus add to it the fact that we have only been in the house for 3 years and in that time we have replanted the majority of the plants.

It was a long, tiring 3 hours and we walked miles. The first garden we couldn’t wait to see, is just over the road from me. It had by far the most impressive grounds. It had 2 lakes, a river and 5.5 acres. It even had a peacock on the lawn!

People would be visiting mine after this one!!!!!!

But at least one of the others on my road, owned by our local MP was so bad we didn’t think it should have been open. It was a complete, dilapidated mess. Plus a building site as well.

We returned to our house to make our door man a cup of tea and we got a fit of the giggles when we saw a lady with a Zimmer frame trying to get up our gravel drive. There were already some people in the garden. Very weird…..

I think we were the only people who weren’t in their gardens to talk to people. But we really wanted to look around the gardens, so we were disappointed we didn’t get to speak to people and what they thought of all our hard work. But maybe next year?

We went to formal gardens, cottage gardens, ones with orchards and grass tennis courts, but all three of us agreed on our favourite garden. the fact that it was in one of the largest houses in our town didn’t actually matter to us. The second you walked in to it you felt at home. It had such a lovely feel about it. It wasn’t the best planted or manicured. But it was old and established and had everything you could want in a garden.

It was again an old family house that the owners had been there over 50 years. There family run one of the oldest businesses in the Town, along with our butchers. Who had a very impressive formal garden. That must have a gardener or two.

 

we almost run out of time, as we didn’t use the mini bus service provided. We had to return home and jump in the car, so as not to miss one of the secret houses in our Town. The man had lived at the spot for his entire 80+ years. It’s down a track hidden away on a busy road. But you enter over an acre and a half of tranquil paradise. He had orchards a walnut grove, a vegetable garden and many other gardens around the house they built, stood in the middle.

 

It was a lovely day and I look forward to next years. Teddy was an angel and didn’t bark once.

He just watched everyone out of the windows.

We saw the organiser of the event on our way around and apparently they believe they had sold over 260 tickets.

260 people traipsing through my garden!!!!!!! No wonder the grass is looking a bit tired.