Dolly's Dreamings

Sunday madness

You know how it is ... it's a lazy day. It's Sunday. All is right withthe world. You are relaxed and chilled.

Perfect day to convince the other half that, rather than wait until half term, when I only have a week off, we should decorate the dining room NOW!

Well I almost convinced him.

We have at least measured up and are off to look at possible furniture tomorrow.

The dining room and downstairs cloakroom are the last two rooms we have to do - well redo actually. It means that within the last few years we will have done the whole house and decluttered and freshened and updated.

We'll see how we get on tomorrow with a view to bringing our dining room into the 21st century.

I have been scrapping today and made a page using one of the colour charts as part of the Explore course I am doing.

I have loved the whole concept this week of exploring the idea of colour. What do dolurs say to me? How to colours make me feel? Why do I gravitate to specific colours? It has been a great journey to undertake and I feel I have learnt a great deal.

Plus Shimelle linked to some wonderful sites that I want to detail here as I will be using them again and again I know.

The first is my favourite. It is called Design Seeds and I love the way the colour combinations are shown.

In the end I chose to work with this one - Kilim hues.

 I scrapped another Californian page (and also the house challenge for UKS) I used the photos of Las Brisas, a wonderful hotel we stayed at in Palm Springs. I had found the pictures difficult to scrap as the colour contrasts were so strong witht he red bouganvelia and the desert and the blue sky. The colour swatch really helped pull the colours together. I will be using that technique again - believe me.

 

 The other colour site was  colour lovers   which is good but I don't love it as much as Design Seeds.

Today I am thankful for

• the pleasure in feeding the cats special treats

I was sent this e mail today and there are some good truths in it so I figured I would share.

A  Birth Certificate shows that we were born 
A Death Certificate shows that we died 
Pictures show that we have lived! 

I Believe that just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do love each other.

 

I believe...
that we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

 

I believe.. that true friendship continues to grow,
even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.

 

I Believe... that you can do something in an instant that will give  you heartache for life.

 

I Believe....that it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.

 

I Believe...that you should always leave loved ones with Loving words.
It  may be the last time you see them.

 

I Believe.... that you can keep going long after you think you can't.

 

I Believe....that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how  we feel.

 

 I Believe...that either you control your attitude or it controls you.

 

 I Believe....that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

 

I Believe....that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're

down will be the ones to help you get back up.

 

 I Believe...that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that
doesn't give me the right to be cruel.

 

 I Believe...that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences
      you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how
      many birthdays you've celebrated

 

I  Believe.....that it isn't always enough, to be forgiven by others. 
Sometimes, you have to learn to forgive yourself.

 

I Believe....that our background and circumstances
may have influenced who we are, but, we are responsible for who we become.

 

I Believe....two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

 

I Believe...that your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you. 

 

I Believe...that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.

 

 I Believe...that the people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.

 

The happiest of people don't necessarily

have the best of everything;
They  just make the most of everything

they have.

 

Colour me happy

 
So summer has arrived then!

 

I have wandered away a little from the Explore class prompts but I loved today’s which was all about colour and what colours are your favourites. What colours move you, what colours have particular associations?

There were some fascinating ideas in the prompt and they really got me thinking.

Children will often ask what your favourite colour is and it is a question I find really hard to answer as my favourite colour differs in different contexts and has changed with the years.

If I think of clothes then I tend to wear a lot of black for work, but accented with brights, whereas out of work I tend to wear far more neutrals. I really don’t have a favourite colour to wear, but I do have a colour I never wear. Yellow. I don’t think I possess anything in my wardrobe that is yellow or lemon or even orange.

When I think of home decor my favourite always was pink and/or green. Our home was decorated in pinks and greens and I have almost expunged every bit of pink from the house in recent years. Whilst we still have green accents in a newly decorated room, we no longer have pink. Our home now is, what most would say, very bland as we have gone for a very neutral palate of cream with bright accents. And the colour we most favour for those accents has to be aqua, turquoise, teal and so on. I tend towards soft bluey green colours, nothing too bright and scary.

If I have to say what is my favourite colour to scrap with then again I tend to go for neutral tones and then I most often use those same soft blues and aquas. Ranges like K and Co Blue Awning and Basic Grey Periphery sum up my choices perfectly (and yes they feature quite heavily in my albums)

I think blues are my favourite because I love nature and beautiful landscapes and those landscapes need to have water in them. I am a water sign and water is important. If I look at my albums one I love most of all is my album of the Canadian Rockies – lush green forests and beautiful iridescent mountain lakes in colours that seem impossible to believe until you see them for yourself.

It was interesting that the prompt was about colour as only yesterday I found and put out my colour album. It was an album based on a Big Picture class from several years ago with pages on each colour using different techniques for each colour and I so enjoyed looking back through it.

These are a few pages from that album

 

 

  

And this was another class I did about colour too

 

 

One of the links in the prompt was this – have a look and see where you fall in the colour spectrum based on your choices.

 What colour are you?

Today has been a sand and water coloured day as we have done something we have never done in this country in the summer – we went to the beach for the day. People travel from all over the country to enjoy the beaches we have here and we never visit in summer, so we decided to do that today. And we really enjoyed it. We are so not beach people – we would far rather walk in the countryside, but it was a good day and we enjoyed the sea too (not as cold as I feared it would be but certainly not the warm bath of the Gulf of Mexico) We both enjoyed it but that will probably do us for the next few years LOL.

 

Today I am thankful for

• Being near to such beautiful beaches
• Colours that brighten our days

 

A day of two halves

Today has been a day of two halves - weatherwise.

It was glorious this morning - really beautiful and very very hot. Then the clouds came and it all filled in a bit so now it is just muggy and overcase. But at least it is not raining.

I haven't had a chance to do my Explore class assignment yet and will need to buy some stuff for that (ooh what a shame .... still i will cope LOL) But I will get to it later.

Dawn has a new kit out today which is called Backyard Fun and it is great fun. There is a zingy alpha in it and so many cool doodles you'll love it.

I made this page with it to showcase the one decent green fingered thing I can do. I am no gardener - not by any means - but I do like my hanging baskets. I don't always make them. If I know we are going to be away for a lot of the summer I don't generally do baskets as they dry out so quickly if they are not watered regularly, but this year as a stay at home year I did dabble.

I took photos of the raw ingredients - the pots, the empty baskets, the endless plants I seem to have bought.

Then the other day I took some photos of them in full bloom.

They always work out differently - sometimes they can be a little heavier one side than the other, sometimes there is not enough 'tall' and sometimes not enough 'hang' but this year they have been pretty darned good actually. And that is far more do to pure good luck than to any skill or judgement.

 

I fear I may have to give up on a week in my life. I missed taking pictures yesterday when I could have snapped more and today i haven't had my camera out of its case at all.

Maybe I will do it another week LOL.

Perhaps what I ought to have taken pictures of were my keys. Or at least where I put my keys. I was all ready to go out to lunch - just as well that I always leave early isn't it - and I couldn't find my keys. I looked and int he end opted for the spare car key and a spare house key.

Nij and I searched everywhere and retraced my steps to the last time I had used my car. Of course we found them in a really obvious place we had checked. Heck - life is fun at times isn't it.

Today I am thankful for

• honesty and openness
• being true to myself, my values and beliefs
• cinnamon waffle crunch (Oh why do I always have to focus on food!)

I may be back with today's assignment later (if I do a little shopping!)

 

and I have now shopped so have played with some frames and altered a few of the photos from Monday. It is strange isn't it - we spend so long caring for our photos, keeping them in acid free environments so they are perfectly preserved and we restore old pictures and now I find myself making brand new shiny photos look old and distressed - and liking the results too.

It's an odd world, ain't it!

So - a straightforward TTV fame

a black and white version

 
TTV frame and written on as well - albeit digitally

 

 and finally TTV, old distressed sepia version of picture just two days old!

 

Kindled by a Kindle

 
What things trigger memories? The simplest of things obviously.

The prompt today was about triggering and recording those memories by using simple things around you.

As I sit and look at my desk I see my Kindle on there, and that brings up all sorts of memories and thoughts.

 
I resisted a Kindle for a long, long time, simply because books are so special to me. I don’t think, even now, that there is anything more magical than a brand new book. It has a very particular smell and, when you open that cover for the first time and flick to those crisp new pages, you enter a new world. It is like you are the very first person in the world to see that secret world contained within.

As a child I was a real bookworm. I was an only child and spoilt rotten with affection, but my parents were very careful not to spoil me with material things … in part because they couldn’t afford to. However, the one thing I always had plenty of was reading material. I had a lot of new books on a regular basis and was also taken to the library, which was a three mile round trip walk, on a weekly basis. I would lose myself for hours in books and, once put to bed, would wait until they had come back to check I was asleep and then use my torch to read more.

Once I was a teenager I discovered the joy of second hand book shops; a joy I would never grow out of. If new books have a very particular smell, old books have one too, just a different smell. The old musty smell is something equally magical and I love browsing old books. There used to be a great second hand bookshop in Westbourne where I spent much of my early money earned as a waitress when I was a young teenager. I also used to love a very special second hand bookshop in Boscombe. It was in an old church and had so many little hidden rooms, narrow passageways, tiny spaces, every inch of which was crammed with books. It was there that I also developed my love of really old, really little books and for a few pence I bought many with inscriptions in going back to the 1830’s; little prayer books, little illustrated pocket books.

I also spent many happy hours – and still do given half the chance – in a shop called Keith Jones. It is our local Christian bookstore and is another one which is a rabbit warren of different small rooms.

I find it very hard to get rid of books – I really do – and so it becomes a bit of a problem and they tend to take over and have to be culled every so often. I still had many of my books from my childhood, and all in really good condition. I managed to legitimise keeping those when I became a teacher. Most of them are in my classroom and the children love borrowing them. Some have bitten the dust, where they have been used so much, but many still remain and the girls love the whole concept of borrowing books I had when I was a little girl the same age as them. And the classics don’t date and, much to my surprise, neither does Enid Blyton. Having re read one recently I can’t think why today’s children still enjoy books like The Famous Five and Malory Towers as I think they are terribly dated, but they do.

During my university days I collected a huge number of books for my studies and whilst I sold some, I did keep a great many, justifying that by saying if I was teaching A level students I needed to keep the books. I haven’t taught A level pupils for 20 years, yet the books still remain. When we recently did the library I boxed them up, keeping some in the loft, throwing some out (ooh that hurt but they really were dated) and giving some to our Senior School library.

My paperback novels seem to breed when I am not looking. I do read an incredible amount and most books only last a couple of days, but I am a sucker for any ‘buy three for £5’, ‘BOGOF’ offers and have a whole pile of new books still yet to read. I keep those that are meaningful to me – and occasionally re read them, like my collections of Duncton Wood, my Jean Auel books and so on. I am getting better at passing on my paperbacks to charity shops and to friends. My best friend will only borrow a book from me if I tell her I don’t want it back, ever. She says she can’t stand the stress of borrowing them, because my books always look brand new even when I have read them. The spine bears hardly a mark and the pages are pristine. I guess it means they command more money at the charity shops.

I also get to read a lot of children’s books as either myself or our deputy head reads every book for older readers before it goes into the library, just in case.

We have a dedicated library at home and it is a room we have just refurbished. I did get rid of a lot of books when we sorted the room out, but we still have hundreds. There are two whole shelves (and they are big shelves) of travel books, dozens of cat books, loads of autobiographies, about 50 quiz books and more ‘coffee table’ books than I care to count. But I love them all.

So to the Kindle that started it all off. I was sure I wouldn’t like a Kindle. I mean an electronic device could never feel the same as a real touchy feely book could it.

Well no, of course it couldn’t. It’s different, but I love it in its own way. I love that it is small enough to go in my handbag everywhere I go so I am reading even more. I love that I can carry hundreds of books around with me at any point in time. I love that it is light to hold and easier to read in bed. I love the laziness of a teeny thumb click compared to the ‘enormous effort’ of turning a page LOL. I won't ever give up my real books, but I wouldn't want to give my Kindle up either ... there is a place for both.

And I did have a bizarre experience the other day when I was reading A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It was written in 1978/9 and one particular paragraph was talking about The Guide itself. Arthur Dent had never seen anything like it – an electronic guide. He found it fascinating that  small hand held book with a few buttons on it could bring up on its screen any of the entries and that if it had been a real book it would have taken several buildings to hold all of the information held in that one small device. When I read that in 1979 it was Science Fiction at its best. It was a very surreal moment to re-read it last week on almost exactly the device that Douglas Adams had described so creatively in the 1970’s. One of life’s really bizarre moments.

All of this, pouring out, from one glance at the Kindle on my desk.

I have been scrapping today, although I can only share one of the pages I have made.

 

It is another page for my California album and was my effort for the weekly challenge on UKS.

It is the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park in California. It is the largest living thing in the world and the photo simply doesn’t capture it at all.

The picture lifts up and this is underneath.

 

Today I am thankful for

• Books – all sorts, all genres, all ages

I will be back with my week in my life pictures after dinner.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Gosh - not sure where to start today as I have so much I want to say and share LOL. So ... are you sitting comfortably as today's explore prompt was kind of about sitting. So that is where I am going to start.

 

Shimelle challenged us to think about where we sat and what it meant, so that is just what I have done and, as I am also starting a week in the life project today I have remembered to take lots of pictures of my day so far.

So let's look at seats first. I am going to start with the seat I am NOT using at the moment, but one where I seem to spend most of my waking hours during term time. This is my office seat at school. I actually have a beuatiful office. It is large (you can only see a small part of it here) and it has a small balcony and french doors. As it is on the first floor it is like being up in the trees and I have views of gorgeous woodland. Not that I actually get to look at the views you understand! Anyway, this is my work seat ... sat behind the desk.

 

I guess I always feel different sitting there than I do anywhere else as I am in ‘work mode’. I stop being Scrapdolly and am ‘Mrs Headteacher’, calm, in control, busy and focussed. Well most of the time anyway.

My office is filled with things I have made or that the children have bought me over the years. It is also filled with files and paperwork and filing cabinets but they are all behind doors and in cabinets and so the effect is of an interesting place to be. I make sure there is a lot to look at as it is room the children come into and they love to look at things and fiddle with them. They know it is a room where they are allowed to touch things, allowed to chatter and giggle and that is important. Inevitably, however, and there is no way round this, it is also the room where I have to see naughty children and explain what they have done wrong and help them see how they can make sure it doesn’t happen again. It is also where children come when they are upset about something and want to sit and have a chat and often a cry and some reassurance. Sadly this means an essential in the room is a box of tissues … and not just for children either!

However, it is not a seat I am using at the moment.

When I look round our home there are many places I sit, but I guess one of the most sat in seats is this one.

 

It is my scrap room and study. I do sit here to work occasionally, but largely it is where I am creative and in the holidays I spend a lot of time here. It has wonderful views across the garden and the heath beyond. It is always clean and tidy – I am rigorous about clearing away after every single project – and it has lots of things I love all around. It is a room I feel very happy in. On the opposite side of the room Nigel has his desk and editing suite so most of the time we are in the room together, which I love. I would hate for us to have separate studies. We debated it as we do have 2 studies but we use the other as a library

This is another place I sit – my seat in the lounge – well my morning seat. It is very funny – we have two sofas in the lounge and we sit in different ones morning and evening. I always sit in this seat for breakfast and in the other when we finally sit down in the evening. No idea why we switch or when that switch started … it just did.

 

You will notice on the seat next to me a cat blanket. I stress this isn’t because I worry about the cats leaving hairs on the seat or scratching the leather. I long since gave up worries of that nature. Seats hoover and the leather is scratched to pieces as we bought the suite three months before we bought the CFH and they scratched it – all accidentally – when they were babies. They have never scratched anything deliberately, but kittens are not good at retracting their claws and are very good at rushing round madly at 100 miles an hour with their claws out. Anyway it is not there for any reason other than the cats don’t like to sit on cold leather. Spoilt – surely not!

I thought I would share my bed too – not dressed up for the photo, just as it looks every day. I think we hit being really old last year when we bought a new king size bed that adjusts so you can have the head raised, the feet raised, both raised. I love it. So I often sit up in bed reading.

 

Other places I sit include my beloved sun lounger in the garden. You can tell I am a sun worshiper by the permanent tan. I love to sit in the sun and read. I am NOT a beach person – hate it – but love sitting in the garden. It is very peaceful, no road noise, just birds and planes.  The photo was me in the garden just an hour or so ago – yes with Starbucks …. Of course.

 

The seat I also sit a lot in is the car – so a quick photo of Nij and I in the car this morning.

 

 Finally the seat where I eat every meal except breakfast. I have porridge for breakfast and it is eaten in the lounge when I am not at work and int he bedroom when I am. (I am blessed to be married to man who has brought me breakfast in bed every working day of my married life xxx)

We have a perfectly good dining room but I am afraid we eat all of our meals in the kitchen unless we have company. For years - 17 in fact - I didn't like our kitchen. It was dark cherry wood and I had always wanted a white kitchen. Three years ago we changed it for light units and I love it. It is always sunny and one of my favourite places in the house.

 

 So - I sit comfortably and I hope you did too!

Before I go on to share my photos from what was a great day out today I had better share some scrapping.

I made a second page for my Explore prompt for the weekend, a page based ont he week's thoughts about perfection. It is another page to go into My Freedom album and so is another double page and I apologise as the digital join putting the two paper pages together isn't great, but you get the general idea.

 

 

 So, onto a week in my life ... and here is part of Monday.

My day has been great today as the sun shone and we headed out for a great walk in the sunshine. We had breakfast at about 8.30 (and now you know where I sat for that) and then headed off to Sandbanks.

I really do count myself blessed to live where we do. We have world famous beaches here and whilst we are not beach people it is nice to see them. people come here for holidays and yet we get to enjoy it all of the time. I love my home town of Poole.

Anyway, we headed off to the ferry to go over to Studland.  You can drive round (we drove back) but it is fun to use the ferry from time to time. It is an old chain ferry and is something I love going on.

 

The picture of me ont he ferry has the Haven Hotel in the background and .... interesting fact ... it is where Nigel proposed to me.

 

 

 

Once the other side, on Studland, we parked int he National Trust carpark by the Bankes Arms and walked down to Old Harry Rocks.

 

 

 

This is the view over to Knowle Beach and Shell Bay 

 

 

 

And here is Old Harry

 

 

 

 

 Sat ready to have my picnic.

 

 

 Our view whilst eating lunch

 

and the wonderful fruit salad that was part of the lunch

 

 

   

Just pictures of us taken by random people

 

an artist at work

 

Journey back to Poole via Corfe

 

Our local Town Crier who is such a nice man. He is coming up to 50 years service to the town of Poole. we had quite a chat to him.

 

I bought two new swimming costumes ready for my trip to Champneys soon, but the real reason we went to Poole was of course, these

 

 

Boo sunning herself in the garden

 

and her beloved Daddy doing the same.

 

So all in all a great day so far. I popped to the vets a little while ago to get more painkillers for Fiki who is suffering with his back and leg again and it was gorgeous to drive there and back with the roof down and Bat Out Of Hell blaring out. I am not sure what I am going to do with the Week in my life pictures, but if nothing else I will have a record of the day on my blog.

Today I am thankful for

A lovely sunny day out

 and just have to add the photo our neighbours have just e mailed - 2 herons sat in one of our pine trees this morning. Awesome!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very enjoyable night and a bit of adventure

My birthday eveningw as very enjoyable. We went out to Georgie Porgie's with jakki Gary and Alice and ate way way too much.

Georgie Porgies is a buffet restaurant - an eat all you want for £13.99. They have a great range of Indian, Chinese, Italian and Mexican food, loads of salads and lots of deserts.

The food isn't cordon bleu standard, but it was all nice, well cooked, not greasy and very nice. I tended to stick to crisdy duck pancakes, the most goregous chick pea dahl, a little chicken tikka and lots of fruita nd ice cream. But I was so stuffed; we all were.

The company was great and I had an intriguing present from Jakki - it says I am being collected ona  given day and am not to know where she is taking me and what we are doing. They ALL know except me.

Anyway, before we come to scrapping, some birthday photos.

The first few are me and then us just beofre we went out - I was busy dead heading my hanging baskets and so have a handful of dead fuscias whilst waiting for him to get the camera ready LOL.

 

 

 

and at the restuarant

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

We were so full afterwards that birthday cake was not an option, but this was my 'too full to eat another thing' birthday cake back at Jakki's .

 

 

 

Now who knew you could get 4 candles in a single strawberry!! It was a great night with good company.

Today Nij is at a big speedway event so I have been scrapping (well actually Fiki and I have spent 2 hours lounging on the bed reading and dozing but I did do some scrapping first!)

I caught up on my page - well one of them that I want to make - for my Explore class. the challenge was to use circular embellishments, which i had fun making from scraps.

I decided to make the page - well actually it is a double page - for my 'My Freedom' album which was from another of Shimelle's classes. It just seemed to fit right in with that album.

 
It is actually 2 pages and I have just put them together so you can see the whole things.

 

 

 
Today I am thankful for

• a relaxing Sunday just chilling

 
 
 

A little squeeze and some butterflies

I have had a scrappy day today.

I started the morning by making a card for my neighbour whose birthday it is today. I used the ideas from yesterday's explore class and used concentric circles and they eneded up as a mount for the card.

 

 

 
and a little bit of bling in the flowers

 

Oh and tribute to Shimelle .... butterflies of course LOL

I then made a few pages for my California album. I haven't scanned them yet but will share them when I do. They are all quite simple as they are really just a travel record and not meant to be a great work of art. I'm actually not sure I ever make anything which is a great work of art.

But I do have a new digital page to share which I made with one of the new kits Dawn Inskip erleased yesterday. The kit is called Squeeze and is lush colours. She has another called Welcome to the World which is a verycute kit for babies as well. I will share that at a later date.

 

 

so here is one of my squeeze pages (Oh yes ... it had to be a butterfly page LOL)

 

 

I have also spent a long tme updating my kindle as I bought a collection of 70 books last night from e bay but they needed to be converted to mobi files and I had to down load calibre and then play around. But that was actually fun to do.

Today I am thankful for

• scrappy days
• Kraft card
• My kindle

 

 

The prompt for Explore today was about moments of perfection.  

I have been sat here quietly musing about the whole concept of perfection. Am I a perfectionist? No! Have I ever been? No! Do I live with one? Oh my, yes.

I have always believed that, so long as you do your best, that is OK. It won’t be perfect – well I guess it could be but it would be fairly accidental and quite miraculous – but it should represent your best shot at whatever it is you are doing. I always joke, though there is a bit of heartfelt angst there too, that I grew up with the word ‘but’. My father was always striving to get me to be better, to do better, to extend myself and so most things I ever did were greeted with a ‘How fabulous, I love the xxxx, that’s a great xxxx, BUT….’ There was always a but. Now I don’t want you to think that he was a terrible man. He certainly wasn’t and those of you who read here often will know I always was a Daddy’s girl. But he did teach me that actually, chances are, I am not going to reach perfection and that there is always more to strive for, but what I generally do is pretty good. I guess the ‘but’ could have screwed me up completely, but actually it didn’t. It kept me grounded.

Nigel is a complete perfectionist. And, perhaps more importantly, he is a thinker and a planner. He thinks through everything before he starts it (drives me mad as I am a bull in a china shop sort of girl) and he plans and he takes time and care and spends hours and pretty nearly always does a perfect job with everything. I can give you a fairly classic example. Newly wedded bliss, we had a new garden to create, were into being self sufficient on a very small scale. We went out and bought about 20 different herbs. Had in mind a beautiful herb garden which would looks stunning, flavour the wonderful dishes I was going to cook (who am I kidding, I still can’t cook) and be the envy of all around. Little pots of herbs were lovingly carried home and down to the end of the garden. Nigel disappears (no idea where or why) The soil is already prepared so off I go, slipping them out of their pots and putting them in their new home. No sooner was one planted than I was on to the next one. I didn’t hang around. By the time Nigel was back they were more than half planted. Instead of the praise I expected, along the lines of, ‘Oh my darling you have worked your little fingers to the bone, what an amazing job you have done and what a hard worker you are.’ I got, ‘What the heck are you doing?’ (Yes, I toned that down a little)

He had gone in to get paper and pencil to draw out where everything would go based on how high the plants would grow, what colours they might be, what would looks both aesthetically pleasing and be practical. He was going to PLAN it. He was going to THINK about it. Oh I could give a gazzilion examples of that.

Actually I guess it needs both of us to make things really work. It needs him to be the planner and thinker and strive for perfection and it needs me to galvanise things into action and help us accept that, if it isn’t quite perfect it is probably still OK.

I also started thinking about what was perfect in my life. Nigel isn’t perfect – he has faults, as does everyone. But he is perfect FOR ME. Utterly perfect. We are totally in tune, opposites in many ways and identical in others. My parents were perfect FOR ME. Neither of them were perfect people but they gave me as near perfect a childhood as I recon it is possible to have and I miss them every single day. My cats are perfect FOR ME too. None of them is perfect – they each have little flaws in both character and physical stuff. Fiki is actually a pretty perfect monster mind you.

Our home isn’t perfect. There is much I’d like to change but equally there is much I love and I have to say the rooms we have recently renovated fill me with so much joy. OK so there may be small imperfections, but they have been so lovingly decorated and changed they look fabulous to us. I like to think I am the sort of person who doesn’t spend their life searching for perfection and being permanently dissatisfied with what they have. That is no way to live your life. Embrace what you have, take joy in it, and if it isn’t perfect enjoy those imperfections as well.

One of my favourite quotes is

 
Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have. Rabbi Hyman Schachtel

 

But I also did a search on some other salient quotes and found these that I liked.

No one is perfect... that's why pencils have erasers.  ~Author Unknown

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.  ~Henry van Dyke

When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.  ~George Fisher

 

And finally my photo and quote combined. It is printed out and in my play book.

The reason for the photo and words is very special to me. I really am very happy with what I have. Over the last year I have changed enormously and am far more at ease with myself and life and all I have. It's not perfect but it is pretty darned good. The photo is of Nij and I three months ago on our 25th wedding anniversary when we had just renewed our vows in Sacre Coeur and do you know what - by a strange twist of fate that moment when we renewed our vows was completely and utterly perfect. The place, the mass, the chanting and singing, the atmosphere, the awe and wonder. God blessed us with a perfect moment ... and we will never forget it.

 

Aim for the moon, that way, even if you miss you'll still be amongst the stars! - W. Clement Stone

 

Scrapping, Mapping and a little light lunch

I really feel like it has been a holiday day today - and that is a very welcome feeling, I can tell you.

I started this morning by scraplifting a page for the play along with scrapfactor challenge.

i was inspired to scraplift Nic-B's page with the huge folded rosette. I have made the small rosettes as flowers for embellishments on pages and the idea of making a huge one was intriguing.

I used a sheet of 12 x 12 and cut it into three strips, punched the edges and then concertina folded it to make the rosette.

Sticking it down was a bit of a challenge and it needed a Nigel to help as 2 hands were not enough.

Then I set to decorating it and making it into what I feel is quite a pretty page.

 

This close up shows the folding a little more clearly

 

 
 

This i s just a close up of the pretty things LOL

 

This one allows you to read the simple journalling

 

This shows some of the stitching

 
I am actually quite pleased with it.

I went out for lunch with three other head teachers. Gosh I bet that sounds boring but it really wasn't. It was so nice to meet up. We rarely get to actually meet in term time as we are all so busy, though we do keep in touch via e mail. It was lovely to get together, relax and chat and enjoy some great food.

When I cam home I started on my explore prompt for today. It was all about maps and I had great fun going on line and printing off maps of places we know well. I printed them off for home, of course, for Newport Beach California, for WDW and for Vegas.

 I printed the maps off, annotated them and put them in my play along book and then I made this little summary page for my play along book - which kind of sums it all up really.

 
It is interesting that the prompt was about maps as I used maps on my page yesterday for my letters.

 

I still need to do my circles bit but I will get to that later.

Today I am thankful for

• inspirational pages to scraplift
• Lovely lunch with colleagues

 
and finally I share this received from a cousin in Oregon.

 

“The Dilemma

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To expose feelings is to risk rejection
To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing
She may avoid suffering and sorrow, but she cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love
Chained by her certitudes, she is a slave
She is forfeiting her freedom
Only a person who takes risks is free”

California Album, a bit of beach and an adventure

My holiday project this summer is to use our gazzillion photos from numerous trips to California to make a California album.

I have already made a few pages but decided to do the title page today. I knew what I wanted to achieve and it didn't work out in the way I expected, of course, but I think it works anyway.

I wanted a beach sort of feel as there are some wonderful beaches but I also wanted to express the great outdoors as we have loved some of the national parks we have visited and that was the bit that didn't work out as when I tired sequoias witht he beach it just didn't work. In the end I opted for just the beach and a map.

 

 

The letters echo the map theeme with letters filled with maps and then printed, mounted on to chipboard and cut out.

They are buried in the sand.

 

And yes I also used some real sand from years ago and some teeny shells.

The palm treees were printed (a Dawn Inskip special) and then mounted onto thick card and cut out.

The map was just downloaded off the internet and printed on cardstock and I used some old California stickers.

 

Continuing the beach theme there is a great Studio Mix collab released today and as Dawn Inskip was one of the contibutors I got to play with the kit and it is all beachy and summery (we just need the sun now)

So this was one of the pages I made with the kit.

 

Emily, of course.

I went out for coffee with Jakki this morning, which was lovely as I hadn't seen her in almost a week. Then Nij and I went and bought the new suite ready for the Downstairs cloakroom which is being fitted in september. We had finally - after a long time - found what we wanted so didn't want to wait until September and find it was no longer available. So all done. A little light shopping in Matalan and the Range and that pretty much sums up my day!

And so to day 2 of the Explore class. Adventure.

I guess if you were looking for a word to sum me up you may well go with cautious. I am very cautious in everything I do. I will always look for pitfalls and try to eradicate them with anything i do. I have had my moments of adventure. I rode a Harley down the Strip in las Vegas to celebrate my 50th birthday last year. I have swum with dolphins, I have cuddled a fully grown tiger, I have held a tarantula (and I am a died in the wool arachnaphobe) and I do own a Fiki monster, but I am not the world's most adventurous person. My adventures are carefully planned.

But I knew just what I wanted to record for this prompt.

I made my own postcard.

This is the back - I will address it and send it later.  I have also copied the text here as you will never be able to read it from the image LOL.

 
It reads ....

Note to self,

I was at my most adventurous when I went to America for the first time in 1983, totally unprepared. I had never travelled out of Europe and yet crossed the Atlantic at the drop of a hat. I had no visa, no passport, no money and three days notice. Nij asked me on the Wednesday if I fancied a holiday; we’d been dating just over a month. I said sure, where and he replied America. I’d always longed to go and figured it would be exciting to plan. When I asked when he said ‘Saturday!’ A new job meant now or never for him. 4 am on the Thursday I drove to Newport to get a passport . 5 am on the Friday I drove to London to the American Embassy to get a visa. I borrowed the money off my parents and on the Saturday we flew, standby, to America.

These days I am a planner. I plan everything meticulously. Every detail. Every possible eventuality. Where did that young carefree girl go? Where did that free spirit that was prepared to travel across the world at the drop of hat disappear to? When did I become the planner and worrier that I am now? Age and experience is the answer I guess. I had no conception of any possible pitfalls, so I wasn’t worried about them. But do you know what ... things did go wrong on that trip, but we survived. It wasn’t all plain sailing, but we figured it out and we had a great time. Maybe I need to re-kindle some of that impetuosity, some of that carefree joi de vivre and worry and plan less. Maybe I need to focus on putting the adventure back in my life a little.

From your older, more cautious self, with careful consideration x

 

 

 

This is the front - a photo from that very trip. Me at 23 being very very adventurous.

 

 
I need to re-kindle that less cautious approach to life .... at times and with careful consideration of course!!!

Today I am thankful for

• time to scrap
• Coffee with a friend
• Remembering to be adventurous and what that felt like.

 

 

New class - resistance was futile

 
Shimelle has a new class starting today. It is called Exploire. I saw it advertised and I resisted.People were chatting about it and I resisted. It came to the night before class started and - OK - I caved.

I don't know why I didn't just sign up as soon as I knew about it. I should know by now resistance is futile.

I love her classes and to have one running in the summer holidays is just perfect.

Why do I love her classes? It's not a style thing as she has a completely different style of scrapping to me. One I love and can't emulate. So it's not style. It's about inspiration. They are classes you can interpret. They are classes that inspire. They are classes that don't rely ont he fact that you have kids to scrap. They are classes that make you think ... think about how you feel and what things mean to you. They motivate me and inspiure me. Some of my very favourite albums and mini books are based around her classes. Oh yes ... I have done the odd few (every class except one to be precise!)

So I signed up and was back to my usual eager waiting for my first prompt to drop through my in box.

I have sat and made my play along book and enjoyed such a gentle start to class. I used my newly sorted scrap boxes and this is what I came up with.

 

 

A little bit of lace and, sorry about this but it is quite an addiction, some butterflies and some bling.

 

 

 

So I really enjoyed that bit. The next bit .... not so much.

Take a self portrait.

Mmmm - I suppose the only good thing is that it is not in focus! That's a blessing.

But for what it is worth, here is me and my camera

(I may replace it when I have calmed my hair down a little.)

 
You can see it is early morning - I haven't even got my watch on - just the white mark to show where it has been LOL.

So - to prompt 1 and the note to myself.

Today is Monday 18^th July 2011. I have been on holiday for a week and am now relaxed enough to start looking for things to do! Enrolling in a new class was the perfect option.

I wasn’t keen on the first task, mind you. It was taking a self portrait. I am not great at having pictures taken, though I am better than I used to be. I used to refuse to be snapped and, when forced, would adopt the hand under the chin pose, the gazing wistfully into the distance pose and only ever ever be shot from the waist – or preferably the neck – upwards. I hated my body. I’m still not keen on it, but it is better than it used to be. So the first task was a challenge. However, I do scrap myself. I have done a book of me and last year I did a whole album devoted to me in my 50^th year.

The prompt asked if I had felt creative. I have to say I pretty much always feel creative. Creativity is such a huge part of my life. My job is very stressful and I unwind by being creative. That is usually in the form of scrapping, and there is rarely a day when I don’t scrap in some way or another. I have to be exhausted or unwell not to scrap. I do like to have a focus for my creativity, though, and the challenge of a new class or a new project really energises me.

My weeks always have a focus, with Dawn releasing a new digi kit each week (sometimes more than one) so I usually get a new digi kit to play with every weekend. In school holidays I like to have a special project. This holiday I had already decided I was going to make a California book. We have visited California so many times and have covered most of the length and breadth of it so I am looking forward to making an album dedicated to the diversity of California (and yes, the latest TV commercial inspired me LOL) But seeing this class I knew I had to do this too, as I love the buzz of a prompt every day and new challenges. I have spent my first week off school purging stash, reorganising and I am now ready to scrap.

So, taking a moment out to consider the window question. My window in my scrap room looks out over open heathland which inspires and enriches me every single day. I watch the birds, the walkers, the wildlife and enjoy the changing seasons. Even at work, my office has huge French doors which look out over woodland so I am very definitely a window gazer. And I try to be a glass half full person. I was always a very definite glass half empty, but the past two years have brought many changes in my life and my outlook and I am so much more positive than I have ever been. My faith has gown and I no longer dwell on things and let them get to me. I am much better at letting go and moving on. Where I have shed weight I think I have gained a great deal of inner strength.

I am intrigued by the prospect of the class and whilst I have no real idea what to expect, I know it will be a journey I will enjoy and that will both challenge and inspire me.

Today I am thankful for

• a new class and a new challenge

 

I have some pictures I would like to share today - they came in an e mail from Nij (we do talk .... honestly LOL)

They are incredible and apparently show a man who paints himself - there are no tricks or special effects just photos of skilful painting (I actually think it must be someone else paints him but heck - still amazing.

Ther last one is really hard to spot him in.

Enjoy the pictures.