hour by hour, we are getting through

I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of love

the thanksgiving service for Ray is in a few hours, please pray for us

My heart is broken, and I am lost.

My darling man, my life, my love, is gone.

A terrible accident has taken him, and we are bereft.

note to Ray: next time a mouse noise wakes you up at 3am, and it is keeping you awake, and you turn on the light and chase it under my side of the bed, and trap it in a box - expect to be made to get up and keep me company because I can’t get back to sleep.

Yes, my Monday started shortly after 3.15am, and by 11am I was just sick! I don’t do 3 hours sleep! I managed to stumble through the kids’ homeschooling, keep food on the table, go shopping in town for bread and milk, and work on a few online projects (nope, not designing). I vegged on the couch and watched CSI NY (don’t like that one much) and headed to bed earli-ish and couldn’t get to sleep till after midnight anyway.

Feeling almost human this morning, got some washing hung out, and another load in the machine. The repairman is coming to fix the dishwasher again (the handle broke again, but this time we couldn’t keep using it as it was leaking water during the wash cycle). The kids and I will be glad to not be washing dishes by hand again! I seriously appreciate my dishwasher - do you have any idea how many dirty dishes a family of 8 can make?

Pop over to PickleberryPop and join in some fun challenges - the new ones for May have been posted in the forum, and I’m hosting the font challenge. You can’t see the detail on the papers in the preview, but those are the bits I used to make the layout of Kate in my previous post, and that’s the font in use too.

Lots of movement around the digi-scrapping world, it’s hard to keep up sometimes with new store, designers moving stores or opening their own stores. One I’ve recently taken note of is Michelle Coleman, who has moved on from Scrapartist to start her own site with her sister Lori; Little Dreamer Designs has come online overnight (and looks lovely, by the way). I’ve been buying Michelle’s stuff since she started at her own site Second Mile Design, so I’m glad she hasn’t left the digiscrapping world (she has a gig with one of the paper companies too). I’m expecting they will probably have some special Grand Opening event, maybe sales or coupons coming up, but for starters, if you sign up for their site newsletter, Michelle and Lori have a lovely gift kit for subscribers, and I’m sure that will be the best way to keep up with their news and sales, and I’m sure it will be loaded with inspiration too. (hint, hint, you really should sign up, the kit is beautiful, and free).

And it’s birthday month at Little Scrapbook Shop, Cath has lots of fun stuff planned, including a treasure hunt on the site, sales, special shop offers, and a ginormous cybercrop. Keep an eye on the forums for all the happenings! And it was my turn to do the freebie this month, so take a peek in the store for that one too in the next day or two.

it’s raining! we had almost half-an-inch overnight, and some more this afternoon. Ray has been harrowing the front paddock and spreading some pasture seed today - too many tough summer’s has killed off a lot of the seed in the ground, and this drought has left us with bare earth and patchy pasture over most of the farm.

the girls are staying overnight with Laura in town, they’ve been there all day. The boys have had the Playstation to themselves! So the girls will be back after church in the morning, and Caleb and Josiah are due to spend the afternoon at Michael’s house - just to keep the mix interesting!

I’ve kinda taken a mental break from the have-to-dos and done a wee bit of scrapping.

I used Tracy Rivera’s amazing templates again for the shabbified photo edge effects, photoblast goldenrod for the bw conversion, Michelle Pearson’s flourish, and the papers and butterflies are from something coming up soon from me. (flower and clip are older bits of mine)

I finished off the Lifts with a Twist scraplift for this week, a scraplift of an Aussie girl, Megan! Go Aussies!

background paper by Sue Cummings - Nantucket Colorwash Vol 3; wordart laugh every day by Sue Cummings - Everyday words; notepapers by Karen Hunt - Take Note; stitchings by Karen Hunt - Sewing Box; ricrac by Syrin - Circus freebie; brad sprinkle by Amy Cheeseman - Crash; red buttons by Lisa Whitney

and finally, this one for a challenge issued to get people to use one of the RAK kits this week, in memory of KellieP’s baby boy Miles (it was the anniversary of his death this week, and several designers created kits to RAK everybody on Kellie’s behalf)

Trying to get an early night tonight - one last cuppa and I’m off to bed.

We hadn’t planned to take a holiday on Anzac Day - Ray was working (Telstra has to give it’s employees the day off, but screw the contractors), and the kids got into their work as normal before James phoned to ask if he could come for a visit. So we had a half-holiday, and a visit with James too. He brought his old Playstation and games down for the kids, so they were very pleased to see him. We had a lovely afternoon, James seems much happier and more relaxed, and it’s so very good to have him wanting to spend time with us.

I’ve been working on converting my templates for those who use Digital Image Pro, and I got those finished over the last few days, tested by some DIP scrappers (because I really wasn’t confident using this program, but I think I did pretty well!). And they are in the store at Pickleberry Pop: six rectangle packs and six square packs for DIP users.

I’ve also converted the ABC brag book for DIP, available here at PickleberryPop

We had a lovely night scrapping in town tonight, I half-finished a layout, just need to add journalling and title. Ray taped the finale of Biggest Loser, so I’ll find out tomorrow who won. Lots to do.

um, this has been in the store for about 2 weeks, and I just haven’t blogged it! slack me! I tried my hand at turning out a brag book template pack, this is based on an ABC album I did of my kids a couple of years ago

available at PickleberryPop for just AU$7, this would make a quick and fabulous Mother’s Day gift.

And, a DIP template version is almost ready too, I’m just having it checked by a DIP user, as I’m not so familiar with the program, and want to be sure I did it all correctly before it goes into the store.

See what some of my team and I did with the template pack!

If you prefer readymades, there is also a colourful graphic-style album of pages ready to plonk photos onto and print off.

available at PickleberryPop and Little Scrapbook Shop (also $7)

got this from AmyK’s blog, she got it from Robyn’s cyberparty preparations LOL. A bit long, but fun for this Austen fan.

You scored as Jane Bennet. As someone who would rather see the good in people, Jane is a true pacifist and caregiver. At times, her shy temperament and naive outlook of people can land her in a compliant position, but those who know her love her for her positive spirit and cheerful view of what surrounds her. Jane Bennet 69% Elizabeth Bennet 56% Elinor Dashwood 53% Marianne Dashwood 50% Charlotte Lucas 44% Emma Woodhouse 38% Lady Catherine 16% Which Jane Austen Character are You? (For Females) Long Quiz!!! created with QuizFarm.com

Very glad I didn’t come up as Lady Catherine! or Emma Woodhouse - I’m having the hardest time getting through Emma! I’ve started reading this book dozens of times in the past 20 years, and never got beyond the first few chapters. I’ve perservered over half-way now, and I’m really not enjoying it. What a shocking admission from a Jane Austen fan! I’m not certain of Austen’s intentions, but none of the characters are sympathetic in any way, and the flawed characters she has created are more annoying than I’ve found in her other novels - at least in other novels there were only one or two with seriously flawed characters, and many with steady natures to provide balance. I’m not finding that in Emma. I’m determined to finish it this time, and I’m hoping to discover something better by the end. Maybe I need to seek out some critiques, some study notes, something that would help me to better understand what Austen is up to in this novel.

this isn’t it. I’m just checking that this thing is still on. too busy, homeschooling, housekeeping, lots of plans in my head which don’t seem to make it into reality, a list of things to do for others, and did I mention busy?

We went up to the Valley today to collect the post hole digger, buy some jumpers/windcheaters for the boys, get gumboots for Noah, just doing stuff. Bought Eragon which the kids had to watch tonight, they enjoyed it - dragons and special effects will get them in every time (Isaiah went and played on the computer, he just wasn’t interested), but it was really pretty ordinary. We passed up on Happy Feet, will wait till it is cheaper (in about three weeks LOL).

It’s terribly distressing driving anywhere - although the weather has cooled, the drought has not broken. The inch of rain that we had early in March only brought the grass up to die off again. I’ve never seen dairy farms look so bad - around here, there should be lush green grass up to the cows’ knees. I actually saw a herd today being strip-grazed, but there wasn’t any difference between what they’d grazed and what was fenced off - the cows were just standing there, not even bothering to graze. And a large dairy farm further up the mountain has been sold and is being prepared for timber plantation. I’m not sure where “people” think their food is going to come from if farmers have to quit farming for lack of water, or for lack of stock, because they’ve all been sold for pennies to supermarket corporations who screw both supplier and consumer. (If the farmer gets $1.20/kg selling his beef animals, why does the customer pay $8 (for the cheap stuff) to $32 for the best steaks?) Of course, we can import most everything from overseas, just so long as you aren’t too particular about what chemicals might be sprayed, or what kind of waste water is used to water your lettuces (would you like some human excrement with your greens, madam?)

It will rain. One day. And when it does, we need to have some more dams to collect the water. The political bullsh*t that goes on is just unbelievable. Dams are apparently not politically correct at this period of our history. But common sense dictates that as the population increases, the amount of water required also will increase. So you need to be able to store more, eh? But it’s been many years since politicians allowed common sense to interfere with their careers.

Oops, sorry to rant, but it’s just getting very hard to look at the bare earth, to have cattle bellowing when you start up the tractor cos they want hay, to wonder if it’s going to rain in time to save farmers everywhere.

Caleb still isn’t 100%, I’m starting to wonder if he is developing an intolerance to milk - yesterday he had a cup of milo and ice-cream for dinner, and this morning he was - um, unwell again. Frequent trips to the toilet. We’re gonna take him off milk stuff for a week or two, see if the problem is gone, then give him some milk and see if it happens again - scientific, eh?

Not keeping up with my bloglines, but I had a giggle tonight at Antique Mommy.

Enjoying the daily card of this very talented 22-year-old, who linked to this amazing article about a social experiment in a rush-hour crowd (it’s long, but really worth a read).

And tomorrow night we’re heading to Crossing the Gap, a motorcycle stunt show, with fireworks, free bbq, and everything - it’s a guy thing…

yeah, I know I’m an idea-book junkie, but I need to make some space on my shelf, so I’ve listed some on ebay that I can maybe do without. I haven’t done the ebay thing in the longest time, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by schtuff and clutter again…

These are just listed for Aussie buyers, cos postage is just too stupid from Australia (and within Australia too) - see them here.

And I promise I’ll be back with a real post soon …

We made a good start back into homeschooling - until my sister phoned! When Mum’s on the phone, the kids manage to disappear. But we got back into it pretty well, Caleb’s onto his seven-times tables, and Noah is coming to grips with phonics (and his maths is good). Kate is starting on Little Women this term, Josiah and Grace just keep on keeping on.

Good mail day - April’s Scrapbooks Etc and Jessica Sprague’s Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking arrived from IdeaBooks4U. No telling when magazines will appear in our local newsagency, I think they might have cut back some of the lines they carry too. Gotta have my ideabook/magazine fix.

And this afternoon I did the accounts for last quarter and got the BAS ready to post tomorrow - it was pretty easy, not much activity this quarter. Ray will make up for it this quarter though - the invoice for his new post-hole digger came this afternoon, we will (hopefully) pick it up this Friday when we go over to the Valley for the shopping that didn’t happen last week.

Apart from that, three loads of washing, a bit of a tidy-up, and fried rice and homemade sausages (from our neighbour) for dinner. I’m gonna veg with my magazines and get another early night - still trying to get on top of this tiredness.