Time Flies

I love it when the clocks go back, a whole extra hour in bed is like a wonderful super-early Christmas present and always leaves me feeling brighter eyed and bushier tailed for the following week. A feeling which persists despite being patronised by my mobile phone when I tried to change it’s clock manually before I went to sleep, apparently it had the situation completely under control and my interference was entirely unwarranted.

I had a lovely weekend in London, particularly meandering about in the Harrod’s Christmas shop buying tree decorations, resisting the very strong urge to make a frivolous purchase from the Ruby Slippers Boutique (imagine – a whole shoe shop full of red sparkly shoes) and eating my body weight in grilled cheese sandwiches and coke floats from the American style diner.

Still so sad about the loss of my little black and white friend, but the sharp and intense pain of having to make the decision and say goodbye is receding towards the dull ache of adjusting to life without her; and while stopping myself from pouring cat food into a 3rd bowl and catching myself wondering if she’s been given her daily injection brings it rushing back, I suppose it’s one of those things I’ll learn to live with in time *sigh*.

Anyway, that was a bit of bring down so sorry about that. Before I get even more maudlin, perhaps I better finish with the last couple of layouts from my holiday picture scrapping frenzy from last weekend.

Tess

So sad to say that we had to have our little Tessykins put to sleep last night.  She just wasn't getting better and her liver had started to fail so we had to say goodbye which is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.  At least we were both there to cuddle and stroke her so she knew that she was loved right to the end, but we will miss her more than I can put in to words.

The Very Best of Weekends

Even though today is Monday and no one, not even Bob Geldof likes Mondays I'm still a happy little button, because I had such a nice weekend relaxing at home and recovering from the last few weeks. On Saturday, we stayed home and I scrapped holiday pictures to my heart's content whilst making the (seeming permenant) mess in the dining room quite a lot worse (but in a good way).

I really like how this layout turned out actually, particularly as I wasn't super keen on the ScrapaGoGo kit that a lot of the stuff came from. Shows how much I know, I suppose because it really suits these pictures.

On Sunday, we decided to take advantage of the fact that now October is here, dogs are allowed all over the beach at Exmouth and took Elvie down for stroll and a few throws of a tennis ball. We even managed to enjoy some turkish delight flavoured ice cream, despite the fact it was freezing already and had to follow it up with a few seaside chips just to warm our fingers.

Both evenings, we snuggled up in front of our log burner (not that good at heating, but old, beautiful and locally manufactured) and took in turns to chose films to inflict upon the other. I chose Twilight for Saturday night which was of course, amazing but the downside of which was I had to sit through the Shawshank Redemption last night when I really wanted to watch the Mighty Boosh.

So all in all, exactly what I needed after the frantic time we've been having since we got back from Greece and a welcome break (not a service station) before I head off to London on Saturday.

Random Picture of the Week #7

It's been a while since we've had one of these isn't it?  I'd forgotton all about it until I had a mid-stairs revelation on my way down this morning.

Another Place, Crosby Beach - September 2009

Exciting Times

I'm finally able to reveal the exciting news I've been muttering about in my last post and non-post and the news is that I've been invited to become of a member of the design team for Scrapbook Kit Club (SBK) which is a monthly scrapbook club specialising in small kits, with enough beuatifully co-ordinated supplies to create a couple of pages - perfect for busy scrapbookers and people with tonnes of stash already but who can't resist the lure of monthly pizza box fix (actually, I think I'm both).

Originally based in Hungary, the kit club is now going international and the beautiful new website has gone live today so head over and check it out! The first monthly kit – A Walk in the Woods is available from today and is deliciously autumnal (and we all know how I feel about autumn) and fantastically easy to work with.

As well as the kits themselves, the SBK site includes a member's gallery to show off your work, a forum to chat with scrapbookers from across Europe and a monthly challenge which this month has been set by me - hurrah! And is all about lovely autumn-y pages and Keats - double hurrah!

You'll see more about SBK in this month's Scrapbook Inspirations, but in the meantime why not check out the new site, sign up to the forum and maybe even enter my challenge? Hopefully see you there!

Don't Blink

My goodness, that was a bit of a longer break than I technically meant to take, but hopefully things are getting back on course now and I firmly believe that sooner or later, my life and house will be back in order and I will stop having that struggling to stay afloat feeling.

Tess has been checked out by the vet again today and while she’s still not right, she’s much better and appetite stimulators are being prescribed to encourage her to eat her dinner and get stronger.  In the meantime, we'll contiue to feed her with a syringe which is not entirely fun.

The good news is I have signed up for my first scrapbooking retreat and this time next year I'll be super excited about heading off on the Go Go Getaway.  I was a little nervous about going alone even though I'm sure everyone will be lovely.  However, luckily for me Sarah stepped up an selflessly agreed to accompany me and so I just can't wait.  In truth, I wish it was this October but I'll suppose I just have to practice being patient *sigh*.

I have more exciting news to come over the next couple of days, but until then here are a few pictures of my first few pages of travel journal. 

Actually, in all honesty these are the only pages of my travel journal which do not consist entirely of scribbled notes and and folded bit of paper hanging out the sides. Oh well, one more for the 'will finish very soon pile' next to my LSNED and the Back to Future Project. At this rate, I may be giving Journal your Christmas a miss this year, but I imagine it would only have been moaning about Doctor Who regenerating so perhaps it's better that way anyway.

Keep On Keeping On

Well I'm back and I have hundreds of lovely pictures and lots of exciting things to share, details from my Travel Journal and the rest of my LSNED. 

However, this isn't a proper post as at the moment as I have a very poorly cat (she spent 12 days in the vet while we were away), I've just started back at University today (Did I mention I was studying for an MSc?), I've still a huge amount of unpacking to do, my parents are coming to stay this weekend and I can't seem to put down the Twilight books (did I mention that I was in love with a vampire?).  So please bear with me, normal service will resume shortly.

As no post (even an un-proper one) is complete without a picture, here is Tess my poorly little friend.  Isn't she a poppet?  I really hope she pulls though.