Dolly's Dreamings

Oh Monday Monday

I don’t like Mondays. Mmmmm not the lyrics to the song just not liking Mondays.  It is still pitch black when I leave in the morning and jolly chilly too. I’d far rather be snuggled up in bed to be honest.

But work it is – it has to be done.

It’s not been a bad day at work – a little manic, but I have had worse.

I went to the doctors today about my raised cholesterol and explained I was worried that  - according to the internet which is the root of many worries - it is high and I am doing every single thing already that is meant to reduce cholesterol. I was told it was Ok and they couldn't treat everyone with pills and my ratios were fine so I'd be fine. Mmmmm, Whilst i am pleased I don't need to take pills I wasn't entirely convinced by the argument I have to say!

I have a page to share today which I made at the weekend.

I am trying to cover the more unusual elements of our holiday and this page was another of the restaurants we like to eat at – The Cheesecake Factory.

The Cheesecake factory menu reads like a reasonably substantial novel – and there are so many things on it that I would actually like to eat. Quite unusual for me as I am a fussy eater.

However their speciality is obviously the cheesecake, although we never usually manage to make it to dessert.

We have learned to our cost that the best way is to order dessert to go. Nij has a favourite cheesecake –the raspberry Truffle. I have toyed with different desserts in the past but have now accepted that eh is right and that one is the clear winner.

 

The funny story about the cheesecake was that when we were in Las Vegas on the trip, having already eaten at the Cheesecake Factory at fashion Island in Newport Beach, we were so desperate for raspberry truffle cheesecake Nij walked all the way from the hotel down to The Forum to get some to take away. Whilst we thoroughly enjoyed it he was a little irritated to find that The Grand Lux Café at the Venetian where we always stay was a sister to the cheesecake factory and they sold it there. Hey ho – you live and learn.

Today I am thankful for

• Memories of great holidays
• Plenty of walking

 

 

Glorious weather

It has been a truly glorious day today. the sun has shone all day and there hasn't been a cloud in the sky. True it has been bitterly cold, not rising a lot above freezing, but it is my favourite sort of weather. Crisp, cold, bright. Wonderful.

We went for a long walk over the heath this morning and it was lovely. Then it was home for lunch and a gentle afternoon of scrapping. except I would have done a lot more scrapping if I hadn't opened Bubble Shooter. I really do have a terrible addiction and need to take it off the computer really.

Anyway - I did do some scrapping and this is one of the pages I made.

 
It is my weekly page for the week that ended on Friday. Our weeks are proving very quiet, but quiet is good. We like quiet.

Today I am thankful for

• lazy Sundays and simple pleasures

 

Meeting challenges

I love scrapping challenges. When I can't figure out what the heck to do I look for a challenge and it always inspires me.

Today I did the weekly challenge on UKS

 
You had to use something new like a baby, so Fiki was a little baby kitten in the pictures. Use earth tones and a star and the word WHO.

I found out some old Basic Grey papers that i love. I was a major Basic Grey fan and had every single collection. I don't tend to like it now - it is too bright and patterned for me. But i still have loads of the old stuff.

I also dug out my ink pads and distress embossing powders and I didn't have the right letters and so needed to make them all match.

Poor Fiki, he was such a little runt and quite sickly and he grew into a big strapping - and wicked - cat.

We moaned in December about the snow we had. For my brother-in-law in New England it is a regular feature of winter life. he sent these photos yesterday of his home.

 
That's the road in the foreground and the banks of snow in front of the house.

 
You can see how high the snow banks are where he has dug the drive and those are some pretty impressive icicles.

We have been there when it looked like this!

 
We didn't have snow here today but Nij and I went for a long walk all along Holes Bay and into Asda at Poole and it was cold on the way there but on the way back it was bitterly cold. My head hurt it was so cold. Good exercise though!

Today I am thankful for

• being able to go for long walks
• Asda cookies (naughty naughty)

 

Finally!

It's been a funny old week and a funny old day.

This is another page I made with Dawn's new Mixed Up fairytale kit.

 

I am planning a long relaxing weekend of walking and scrapping and relaxing and being with my boy. I hope you all have a great weekend too.

Today I am thankful for

• Letting go and de-stressing my life

 
And finally I share this I received in an e mail today.

Five Finger Prayer


This is so neat. I had never heard this before. This is beautiful - and it is surely worth making the 5 finger prayer a part of our lives.



1. Your thumb is nearest you. So begin your prayers by praying for those closest to you. They are the easiest to remember. To pray for our loved ones is, as C. S. Lewis once said, a "sweet duty."

2. The next finger is the pointing finger. Pray for those who teach, instruct and heal. This includes teachers, doctors, and ministers. They need support and wisdom in pointing others in the right direction. Keep them in your prayers..

3. The next finger is the tallest finger. It reminds us of our leaders. Pray for the president no matter how you voted, leaders in business and industry, and administrators. These people shape our nation and guide public opinion. They need God's guidance.

4. The fourth finger is our ring finger. Surprising to many is the fact that this is our weakest finger, as any piano teacher will testify. It should remind us to pray for those who are weak, in trouble or in pain. They need your prayers day and night. You cannot pray too much for them.

5. And lastly comes our little finger- the smallest finger of all which is where we should place ourselves in relation to God and others. As the Bible says, "The least shall be the greatest among you." Your pinkie should remind you to pray for yourself. By the time you have prayed for the other four groups, your own needs will be put into proper perspective and you will be able to pray for yourself more effectively.

 

A Fairytale Romance

I count myself blessed each and every day to be married to Nigel. I mean who else in the world would put up with me.

 

I have known Nij since I was 14 years old and we really have grown up together in the truest sense of the word.

Our romance wasn't straight-forward. We both went out with other people and subsequently got engaged to them. We used to go out as a foursome and people used to tease us saying we should be the couple as we got on so well together and had such a lot in common.

My fiance and I fell out on several occasions about Nigel. I was, allegedly, always talking about him and once spent and entire evening with him at a party to the exclusion of everyone else there. And I guess there was a little truth in his accisations as I did fancy him to bits.

Anyway, I planned my wedding, he split up with his fiance. I split up with mine a couple of years later and Nij took me out a few times as a mate to cheer me up and try and mend my broken heart. Thankfully we only went out as mates, just the two of us, for a few weeks before we both realised what had been staring us in the face for so long.

We celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this year and - sorry for the soppiness - we are happier than we have ever been. Of course we row - Oh boy do we row sometimes. But actually we are totally in tune with each other and we really and truly are soulmates.

So - with Dawn's new A Mixed Up Fairytale kit - I had to make this page.

 
If you buy the kit from her Scrapbookgraphics store now you get an amazing add on and three - yes three - free alphas with it.

 Today I am thankful for

• Nij bringing an emergency skirt in to work for me this morning. Long story and relatively boring

  

Shopping heaven

I am on a bit of a roll recently with paper pages.

I seem to go through phases of paper scrapping and I am enjoying this one because it is completing a paper album I am quite keen to see finished - the album of my 50th birthday holiday.

Anyway this page stems from a challenge set by Nigel. He said I hadn't recorded anythinga bout shopping and - as he rightly pointed out - shopping is an important part of my holidays to America.

This year was even more important.

I always like to do a bit of stash shopping and it is the second time I have been to LA and found amazing bargains at the Jo-Ann store on Baranca. This time everything was reduced by 40%. It was amazing. I got so many sets of stamps for next to nothing it wasn't true.

I have always shopped for clothes in America  and to eb honest it was because they have always had a lot more clothes for the larger lady. It has always been a joy to shop there.

I was worried this time that now I was a more 'normal' (whatever that might mean) size I wouldn't take so much pleasure in it. How wrong was I. I had an absolute ball.

So Nigel - I have now recorded my shopping.

 

Today I am thankful for

• Entertaining meetings

 
 
and finally an e mail. I have had it before but how true it is and how precious the people who share our lives are.

To realize
The value of a sister/brother
Ask someone
Who doesn't have one.

To realize
The value of ten years:
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years:
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year:
Ask a student who has failed a final exam.

To realize
The value of nine months:
Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize
The value of one month:
Ask a mother
Who has given birth to a premature baby..

To realize
The value of one week:
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one minute:
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one-second:
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one.
Treasure every moment you have.

You will treasure it even more when
You can share it with someone special.

To realize the value of a friend or family member:
LOSE ONE.

Remember....

Hold on tight to the ones you love! 

Lovely food

I am posting hastily today as i am waiting to get my hair cut.

This is yet another page I have made for my holiday album - it is proving to be a big album - looking like beings a 30 pager at least.

This is one I had no photos for but was a memory that needed recording.

We had never eaten at The Olive Garden before, but will be seeing them out in the future.

 

The meal was very reasonable and came with free refills on soda, unlimited garlic breadsticks (Nij loved them) unlimited salad (too lush for words) and was just fab. Real value like you never get in this country.

The page was made with no photos but i think it kind of works. I wanted the large circle to represent the pizza we had and stuck with terracotta type papers.

Another one that looks crooked and really isn't.

 Today i am thankful for

• tests results not so bad the doctor had to ring me but not so good either.

 

 

 

Believe

Over at Its A Creative world - where you can get inspiration every day of the week - we have our latest word of the month up for viewing.

I love being part of the team over there and the creativity of the girls is awesome. The projects are all so different from scrapping and card making to cooking, sewing and altered art and everything inbetween.

Anyway, our word this month was belief or believe.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this page. The theme of my album is that each word is represented with a flower photo. For me the word believe was tied up with the word miracle and so it had to be the miraculous field of poppies.

 

The photos were taken at the end of October 2009 at Fontmell Down in Dorset. No, you didn't read that wrong. End of October in the UK. No, poppies don't flower at the end of October in this country. They flower in the early summer. But this field of poppies flowered at the end of October right through until remembrance Sunday that year. they even made the national newspapers. They called it a remembrance day miracle. It seems the field was ploughed at an unusual time, the weather conditions were just right for the seeds to germinate and though it was bitterly cold, they flowered. We happened on the view purely by accident when out driving. As we topped the hill I saw the field and couldn't believe my eyes. We turned round and went back to marvel at it. So you see why it had to be my page for believe.

 

I used a kit by Dawn Inskip called Heroes as well as some of her gorgeous fabric letters for the title.

 

 and here is my completed printed out page fpr my album

 
Today I am thankful for

• listening to bird song as I am sat here typing

 

 

B is for Boats

So we come to the end of the second fortnight in 2011 and time to share my B photos.

I guess B is for boats was a given knowing I live by the second biggest natural harbour in the world. And B would have been for beach too - but we didn't go to Bournemouth Beach so it isn't!

Anyway here are my B photos for the last two weeks.

B is for bargains

 

B is for beach and Baiter Park

 

B is for bench (Nij's signature picture is a bench)

 

B is for bird

 

B is for boatyard

 

B is for boats

 

 

 

B is for Boggle - we are both addicts

 

B is for boulders

 

B is for beautiful Bucks - OK - tenuous connection there but it seemed a pity not to include the picture of the Starbucks!

 

I also have my Week three page to share - not terribly exciting as it wasn't a terribly exciting week to be honest.

 

Today I am thankful

• I finally managed to switch off bubble shooter!

And I also have the final two inspirational phrases fromt he e mail of the week.

When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them; and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you. 

 WORRYING does not take away tomorrow's TROUBLES; it takes away today’s PEACE.

 

That last one is my favourite and something to live by for all of us.

And finally, in the same vein as yesterday - I share this one

 

 

Chilly and chilled out

It cold cold cold today, but that doesn't stop us having a nice time.

Scrapped this morning (after not waking up until almost 9 am which is unheard of for me. ) and then we went for a long walk ending up in Poole centre where we had a Starbucks and a little shop. I confess to a fab impulse buy. We now have a Troll Bead stockist in town and I have been looking for a red bead to fit my Troll cross for over a year. Today I found one. Shouldn't have splurged but I did!

This is a page I made this morning for the holiday album and I was inspired by this week's Chicken soup challenge.

 
Another one that is straight - I promise - but the scanner makes some things look bent. I assure you it is measured and straight!

 
The photo of the frozen banana store is really special. The first time I went to America was in 1983 and it was all a bit of a rush. Nij came round one lunchtime as he had just heard when his new job would be starting. It was a Wednesday and he asked me if I fancied going away on holiday with him. We had only been going out as a couple for two months, though we had been friends for years. I said yes of course I did, where did he have in mind. He said America. Now I had never travelled out of Europe. I knew he had family in America and had been several times. I was so excited and started mentally planning on saving up for a big holiday the following year. I asked when he had in mind and he said 'saturday!'

Yes, I was a tad shocked. there were a couple of problems to his plan.

I had no money.

I had no passport.

I had no visa (you needed a visa in those days)

He always has been Mr Fixit.

Mommy and Daddy agreed to lend me the money.

I got up at 4 am on the Thursday morning and drove to the passport office in Newport Wales - the only way you could get a passport immediately.

I got up at 5 am on the Friday morning and drove to London to be in line at the American Embassy when they opened so they could put a visa in my shiny new passport.

I got up at 5 am on Saturday to go to Heathrow where we had standby tickets for America.

Believe me standby tickets were NO fun. The tickets were with BA and when we got there they said they had no seats available so they transferred our standby to Pan Am. We waited three hours at Pan Am and in the end they said no they couldn't do it and transferred us to TWA. Our bags had already flown with BA to Los Angeles (can you imagine that these days. No way would your bags go on a plane without you)

We were warned TWA might not have seats and that if they did they wouldn't be together. They boarded the plane and then began, one by one, to call the standby passengers. Now bear in mind I had never flown other than to Spain. I was about to embark on a 12 hour flight, possibly alone, to meet relatives I'd never met in a country I had never visited and I was severely sleep deprived and totally terrified.

Well, we got seats - next to each other! We arrived in LA late afternoon and it was all a bit of a blur. But the following morning Nigel's cousin took us to Balboa Island. I was still in a daze at the wonder of actually being there. The first thing i remember really clearly is having a frozen banana - an island speciality. I was so thrilled when we went back some 27 years later to see it still there.

And thus started the love afair with America - that first visit of what has ended up being literally dozens of visits.

Sorry - long story to explain the picture.

 
I had great fun making the butterflies and swirls for the page.

Today I am thankful for

• a troll bead I have searched for for ages
• Simple Saturdays

I have been sharing the wise words from an e mail Lynne sent me

Here are two more I love

•  Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, GOD smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!  
  
   When GOD solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when GOD doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.  

Finally not a LOL cat today but those of you who know me well know puns are my absolute favourite sort of humour so this tickled me .... childish I know!