It's Friday !

A very wet Friday.

Ran 5.75KM with a change of route to add a few more inclines in :) I'll stick to this one for the next week or so before adding more distance.

A few things on the to do list this weekend

• Ad has a baseball game
• Trip to a museum....haven't done that in a while
• We have to cut the grass at some point....if it ever dries out
• Movie night...these tend to get disrupted during the summer,unfortunately.
• Wine :)
• Some scrapping,since I have a pile of recent pictures sitting here ready and waiting

So onto a couple of layouts.
My last Halloween page,that I created back in April,another one with my favourite colour scheme,the little bats are pop dotted..........

Leading nicely onto this one ! My black on black layout.......

Pictures from my younger years ! I'm trying to do a few pages with some older pictures of myself,just for fun. I really enjoyed making this page,I don't think it shows up as well online but never mind.

Have a good weekend.

ETA....I added my current play list to my post on Wednesday.

The other weekend

This weeks flying by.
I got to watch Ol's first soccer game of the season last night in the pouring rain and it was absolutely tipping it down,I'm being polite.The kids didn't seem to mind one bit,even though they were drenched.He had a blast and is totally into it.

So the other weekend,Victoria day long weekend,we went to our friends cottage in Ontario.
It was a weird weather weekend,very windy(not good for taking flower pictures !) and cold but the sun did show up a few times.
I was preparing the photo's for a layout and thought I'd post them as the montage I'm using........it should click bigger,I hope.

Lots to see although I was disappointed I didn't see one bullfrog.

• We did see Oriole's savouring the apple blossom.
• A herons nest which I forgot to include a picture of !
• Turtles, Water lilies and Trillium's.
• A nesting duck.........which we must have walked past a dozen times before we spotted her.
• Hummingbirds......which turned up within minutes of hanging the feeder.

Back tomorrow with a couple of layouts since it's Friday and all that!

Short and sweet.....

......is today's post.

Last week I finally ran 5KM and I've done it twice more since so it wasn't a fluky one off thing !
It's been a long time coming.
I don't know if it was a mental block that I couldn't reach this tiny goal of mine before now.
I changed a few things,drank and ate something an hour before,slowed down ,altered my play list to keep the tempo going and changed the route slightly.

There is no way I could do it without music,no way.I've set that play list to give me a boost every so often,it really works.
So now the goal is to run it faster (love the stopwatch feature on the iPod) and run further......the weird thing is I'm actually enjoying it rather than it just being a means to keep the pounds away.......the fact it's giving rain the next few days isn't deterring me in the least....

I feel a page coming on !

ETA: Current running play list.....since Ash asked :)

Tracks 1,2,3 are my warm up walk,I walk about 1 KM first so I normally start running towards the end of track 3.
Track 9 is timed for my first lull and seems to get me going again.
Track 12 kicks in just as I get home at the moment...........I continue to listen while I stretch which I'm sure my neighbours opposite wonder what I'm doing but my front steps are the perfect height for some good stretches :)

1. 4am....Our Lady Peace
2. Float on....Modest Mouse
3. Love Lockdown.....Kanye West
4. Magnificent....U2
5. Lose Yourself....Enimen
6. DOA...Foo Fighters
7. Extreme ways....Moby
8. One headlight....The Wallflowers
9. American Idiot....Green Day
10. Homecoming....Kanye West/Chris Martin
11. S*x on Fire .... Kings of Leon
12. Goes Around....Justin Timberlake
13. Spiralling....Keane
14. South side....Moby
15. Last fight....Velvet Revolver

Tuesday

This week sees the start of the boys sports seasons and they are well and truly getting underway.
Ol had his first soccer (it's taken me about 9 years to doing it with out thinking but I now call "football" soccer because it just got too confusing and when I referred to "football" as American football I'd get odd looks !).He had a blast and can't wait for his first game tomorrow,I hope the weather co-operates although it's not looking promising for the next few days.
Ad has his first baseball game Thursday....I think we will be eating dinner a lot at the park this year!

Well I scrapped yesterday but didn't finish my page so I'll post this one from I did on NSD..........

I'm not sure but I may have sorted out the poor image thing,although this one has come out a little dark but I'll take a little dark over fuzzy image.

And another shot from the garden,forget me nots are everywhere......

OK got to get on my bike......... to my first class in 4 weeks,hopefully my arm is fully rested but I know I am going to ache tomorrow :)

I said......

I'd post everyday this week....mmmmmmmm!

OK I'll start with this weekend,which was great,the weather was nice so we got lots done outside.

• Wonderful,fun dinner Friday night to celebrate a friends "special" birthday.
• Finished planting up the veggies and seeds.
• Cut the grass
• More weeding.
• New way of cooking/marinating ribs......yum :)
• Dinner with friends last night......where Stuart decided it was time to use their pool for the first time this year............even my boys went in......not for long but they went in !!!
• We didn't have time to get the nets up on the gazebo though but I might attempt that on my own this week because the mosquitoes are driving me crazy...........and they are huge,nasty evil devils this year !

I don't like to post without a picture so these are a few I took around the garden yesterday......

I have a couple of varieties of these....I love them and they just take care of themselves and keep coming back bigger and bigger.

This is probably a little over exposed but I liked it anyway,I don't remember planting this colour so I'm not sure if it's reverted back to it's original but I don't care as it's super pretty and had seeded it's self quite nicely around the garden !

Oh my peony buds............not long before these beauties open.

I didn't do any scrapping but I am going to do some today in between doing the laundry.There is one good side to sharing my space with my washer and dryer. Since it's sunny and windy out there it's a good day to do all the bed linens............nothing better than getting into a bed with fresh air dried sheets !

I have a new punch I am dying to use and a pile of pictures ready and waiting.

So back tomorrow ............

Back with a layout.

This week has been a blur,in a good way :)

Anyway I'm here to post the layout I managed to squeeze in for this weeks American Crafts blog challenge to create a wedding layout with non-romantic themed products.

I really wanted to do this one as I have not scrapped any of my wedding photo's.We didn't have an official photographer,we just asked people to take photo's and send them us.........so I have this box full of pictures waiting for something to be done with them !

Well now I've done one......it's actually a loose lift of a page I had sitting on my desk !


American Crafts Supplies.....Paper:Craft fair(Edith Fitzbolt),Travel(reservation), Metropolitan (Billboard)
Thickers....Giggles(date),Smoothie(mr/mrs),Subway(&)
Rub-ons.....Minimark books(Accessories book 2 and 3,Spring&Summer book 1 and Celebrate book 2)

Other.....Cardstock:Bazzill
Fabric heart:Paper Valise

To make up for my pitiful blogging this week I aim to post everyday next week !

Unofficial start to summer and some layouts !

Well it's been a great start to the day so far and it's still early.
I got up at 6 and went for a run,got home as Stuart was leaving,the boys were still sleeping,it's a ped day.So I started on the laundry,baked some cookies and tidied up a little and it's still not even 8.00am !

Anyway,some layouts and thanks for all the comments on last Fridays post they are very much appreciated :)
Sorry to say these pages have nothing to do with summer......both I made back in April......

It's called first snow in case you can't read it.My pictures don't seem to come out very well on here,they look fine on my screen but not on blogger.I messed up the title,I had to improvise a bit with cutting up a rub on !

Here's a Halloween page.....

I finally got to use that making memories paper I bought last year.

Here's a birthday card I made for a friend.......
I forgot to mention on Monday, that last Friday we saw our first hummingbird of the year.......smack bang on the same date as last year.......we've seen them all week mainly in the morning and evenings.....

No pictures yet this year,the mornings and evening aren't light enough for getting good pictures........and I should give credit to Stuart for having the patience to stand wait for this shot.

This weeks gone really fast and I am really looking forward to this long Victoria day weekend,the unofficial start of summer,it should hopefully include

• some long walks
• lots of photo taking
• family time
• wine........funny how this one always creeps in there :)
• games and reading
• hanging out and relaxing
• maybe some fishing
• some more planting

Here's hoping the weather co operates and I'll be back with Tuesday with a photo heavy post I'm sure.

Have a good one :)

I know you shouldn't but.....

A while back I mentioned I had decided to re do a couple of older layouts........that dark no no area of scrapbooking !
The main reason was because they made me cringe whenever I looked at them.Everything else I've ever made I could live with but these 2 just bugged me......badly.
I remember making them in late 2006,I made them on the same day and I think maybe I was possessed for a few hours by some tilty weird angled bizarre paper cutting demon because these pages weren't my style at all.

Anyway the deal I made with myself was I had to re do them as quick as possible,turn them into a simple design and re-use the photo's,titles and embellishments.....I actually enjoyed doing it and it certainly felt good to rip those pages apart.

I thought I'd post the results.........I was sure I had the original pages photographed but I don't and really if I did I don't think I would have had the courage to post them :)

I had to trim these photo's down because I had cut 2 of them on a really weird angle but luckily I managed to hid some of that under the chipboard photo corners.All I added was the scalloped trim in the original paper and all the cardstock,everything else was on the original.............not a favourite but I've always loved those photo's of Ad.....they look washed out here but they aren't.

Next.....

Again,everything here,title, journaling water drop things and the date were off the original page all I added was the scalloped edge and BG paper for the border.This one was harder as the title letters had left some marks on the photo's so I had to place things to try and cover that up,I actually quite like this one !

I did both of these in the time it takes me to normally do one page and it was better than ditching both of them which was what I had considered doing at the beginning.That would have been a shame because the whole thing started with me looking through this album deciding what pages were needed to fill it up......so really I couldn't afford to loose 2.

OK back Friday with some new pages.

Monday, Monday

So glad it's a new week.......this is a photo heavy post as I don't have much to say.Plus I've had really intermittent Internet connection all weekend so I hope I don't get cut off. A while ago I learnt about the 'post options' button so I've also written Wednesdays post too.It's all set and ready to go even if I have no connection :)

We all spent the best part of Saturday in the garden,the boys both had friends over so they spent all day outside too.
I weeded all my flower beds,all 8 of them and Stuart found a robins egg in the grass.

Which is a shame,obviously she got spooked off her nest or didn't have it ready in time.

Oliver made this cute ladybird for the garden at school for Mothers day.......

So I let him decide where he wanted to put it and it's got pride of place on the front steps !

I took quite a few photo's around the garden,I think they should look better clicked bigger......

The tulips are out and blooming and so are the leaves.....


This one is the same tree as in my header after just 3 days........

I can't believe how much everything has grown,it makes me very happy to see all that green and bits of colour out there.
No scrapping time though,unfortunately but hopefully this week in between getting outside and working on the garden some more.

Ramblings and layouts

Another week coming to an end and it looks like being a rainy one this weekend. I'd planned a few outdoors things to do,Oh well I can hope they are wrong.So whats on the agenda for us this weekend ?

• Registration for the pool......hope it's not the 3 hour disaster it was last year !
• Some yard work
• A walk
• Maybe some scrapping ?
• Good bottle of wine..................it is Mothers day this weekend after all !
• BBQing...the rain never stops us doing that !

I'm sitting here and the 2 chipmunks we have,who live on either side of the garden are having a really vicious scrapping session and not the paper and scissors kind..............it's getting ugly !

OK onto scrap stuff.
In April I created 10 pages including 1 older photo's page so that brings my total this year to 34.

When Patti and I did our photo a day challenge we also agreed to make a layout from it within the following week......Patti made her page last weekend and I'm a day late but it's here now......

I based it along the lines of my October and December pages except I printed the photo's a little bigger than I would have liked and it's purple circle under my yellow chipboard flower.

This one I made last weekend......

The photo's are from last fall,Voyager provincial park just over the border in Ontario.For the last 3 years we've been taking a walk here in the Autumn,we were a bit late this year but it was still pretty.

Thats all I have,back next week :)

A layout

As I mentioned yesterday I was taken by the challenge this week on the American Crafts blog which was to create a layout from your favourite ad....set to work and whipped this one up pretty quick....for me anyway !
I have a pile of ads I've ripped out over the years,hard to choose a favourite one so I went with the top one,which was this ......

and created this layout,using the top part as inspiration,the top pictures/colour blocks with words............
American Crafts products.......
Paper:Travel( Reservation),Kids(Red Rover),Play (?)
Thickers: Subway
Mini Mark Rub-ons: Laurel.
Other supplies.....Cardstock...Bazzill.

Another page with older photo's,hence the poor quality of the pictures (this one definitely looks better in real life) but at least Ad's younger years album is beginning to fill up. This one tells about when we first moved here we found a Loblaws on Jean Talon and every week when we'd go and get groceries Adam would get something painted on his face.........without fail !

New Week,New Month

That was my chant this morning.
I have got to get back on and keep to my fitness plan.So as soon as the boys were on the bus I went out aiming to run and I felt good,it was warm....a little too warm,should have put shorts on ! and my legs felt good, my lungs didn't feel like exploding but my shoulder let me down.............I use my arms quite heavily when I run ............in a sort of propel me forward and make this over faster sort of way ! So at 3 km I stopped and walked it, briskly.....damn.Looks like being a couple of looooong walks this week,or maybe I'll try cycling see how that feels....I will not give up :)

Anyway despite that,what a beautiful start to the week not a cloud in the sky and what a fun weekend.This is what my dining room normally looks like..........

This is what it looked like Sunday morning (sorry had to make do with my p&s camera for this one)......... after a full days scrapping on Saturday !

Yes my boys left and my girlfriends came,bright and early.
We scrapped,talked,ate,drank,laughed and even managed a walk....and we were all fairly productive.I set myself a fairly low tally of being happy with 2,ecstatic at 3 and actually produced 4 with a fifth one started....not bad at all.My shoulder felt great so obviously scrapping must help so I think that's what I should pop off now and do..........I just saw that the AC blog challenge this week is an ad challenge,always something fun to do so I think I might try that.

With all the scrapbooking talk I'll leave you with a page,it's not from this weekend,I still have to photograph those.This is an old one from last September based on this sketch.....I don't think I ever posted it online.

Regular blog posts will be back..........

...hopefully next week !

I'm still limiting my computer time regarding my arm/shoulder,so nothing to show or say really,except I haven't scrapped for nearly 2 weeks so hopefully I will get a page or 2 or 3 done this weekend.....in celebration of National Scrapbooking Day on Saturday (yes really there is such a day !) and it will probably flow into Sunday too............the boys are away for the weekend.

This weeks been a wash out regarding fitness..........I did so well last week,2 days of running and 1 class and this week couldn't do anything.So I will (fingers crossed) get back on it next week and stick to it.Hopefully the path markers will be put up soon and I can run my favourite route because it's amazing what difference they make to the cars whizzing past.

No page today but I'll leave you with all 30 images from my photo a day challenge I did this month with Patti.........better images can be seen on my other blog here. As making them all square cuts off some of the image it should click bigger !


Hopefully we'll do it again in June with some changes :)

In bullet form......

Still trying to keep computer time down to rest my arm as I have to be fighting fit for NSD next weekend !!

• Saturday was hot,hot,hot !
• One very excited and lucky birthday boy.......lots of Lego!

• Bowling birthday party was fun,fun.fun !
• A certain newly 7 year old got to build a bear....thanks Carine :)
• BBQing all weekend
• No scrapping......I'll make up for that next weekend !
• Another scorcher today
• The garden is coming alive.......woohoo !

That's all for today,short and sweet again.

Short and Sweet

This one's going to be short and sweet because I'm supposed to be resting my arm (I've aggravated an old problem and typing/computer stuff makes it worse)but I can't not have a post on a Friday.

This week has flown by,in fact April seems to be flying by.

So a layout......
I made this one straight after making the one I showed of Ad last week.It's pretty much a straightforward lift,I couldn't resist.......I love making Fall pages,sorry it's so small but the title reads,natures best toy...hours and hours of fall fun.

I don't have another layout,I do but I'm behind on photographing them. I do have the first 16 images from my photo a day challenge I've been doing with Patti.It's been fun and can't believe it's nearly over ........

This should go bigger.I had a nature/garden theme this month and now things are beginning to grow it's becoming a little easier and hard somedays to pick one !

Busy weekend ahead as it's my baby's birthday on Saturday......he'll be 7,I can't believe it and he's super excited we've had a count down going on all month.

A layout

Later than I normally manage but here's my layout for this weeks AC blog challenge.The colours are a little off,I have a hard time photographing limey greens !

As I mentioned Monday,I've had these pictures printed and ready to use since last September,so glad I finally got round to scrapping them.Taken at our friends cottage last Labour day weekend,it was such a great weekend.


Supplies: American Crafts.....Paper,Christmas(bushels of fun),Spring&Summer(Teapot) and Backyard(Drip and Ribbit)....Thickers,Smoothie.....Rub-ons,Lauren......Journaling sticker and Chipboard stars.

Others:Cardstock....Bazzill and Making Memories letter stickers.

I think I have a severe case of rectangular right side-a-titus because my last 4 layouts have all been like this.......change is in order.

Chicken Tikka Masala

I'm here this morning with a recipe.
If I'm ordering from a restaurant I'm more of a Rogan Josh,Bhuna curry fan but at home I like to cook this.You can use an indoor grill(broiler) but I like to use the BBQ.

I've made a few changes to the original recipe.For instance it called for a whooping 7 teaspoons of salt,4 in the marinade and 3 in the sauce........I cut it down to half and half but even that was too much so I took it out the marinade and would suggest towards the end of cooking you taste the sauce and add the salt to taste.

It also suggested marinating the chicken for an hour.........I do it in the morning and leave it all day.

I also double up the amount of sauce shown here.........but that's because I'm a sauce type person !!

Chicken Tikka Masala
Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

Marinade:
1 1/4 cups plain yogurt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into big bite-size pieces
skewers (metal or wood,if wood,soak for at least 20 minutes)

Sauce:
1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons paprika
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce (I use crushed tomatoes)
1 cup heavy cream (I use the 35% cooking cream)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional,it's mainly a garnish)

1. In a large bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, ginger. Stir in chicken, cover with cling wrap, and refrigerate for for at least 1 hour but the longer the better.

2.When you're ready to start.Thread chicken onto skewers and discard marinade. Preheat a grill for high heat.

3. Start the sauce.Melt butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic and jalapeno for 1 minute.Add the cumin, paprika and stir,cook for about 30 seconds. Stir in tomato sauce and cream. Simmer on low heat until sauce thickens, about 20 minutes.

3. As you turn the sauce to a simmer,lower the heat of the grill to medium high and grill the chicken skewers until the juices run clear about 5 minutes a side.

4. When the sauce has thickened slightly after it's 20 minutes,add the chicken pieces from the skewers,taste sauce for seasoning and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

5. Serve,sprinkled with the coriander with either rice,naan bread or both :)


I'll be back later with my AC challenge page. 2 posts in one day to make up for poor blogging this week !

Monday,Monday,Monday !

It's here again,my favourite day of the week.

So the weekend,it was supposed to rain all day Saturday so we ran some errands in the morning but by the time we were home the sun was out,so I spent it pottering around doing this,that,everything and nothing.
Sunday morning was chilly,we spent it watching try outs for baseball but again by the time we were home it was beautiful. I spent all Sunday afternoon in the garden,raking,trimming,weeding.........I love gardening at this time of year,it's not too hot and there are no nasty bugs !

My second autumn in this house my mum and I planted many,many bulbs....I picked crocuses,narcissus,daffodils, all white flowering bulbs and I planted them all over.Well not one of them ever appeared because the nasty squirrels got to them first.So I never bothered planting anymore, however much I love spring flowers because it just seemed a waste of time and money.Why I am I telling this little story .............because look at what I found while raking my front lawn........

One solitary crocus !!
Now I know that my gain is somebody else's loss here because some pesky squirrel has raided a garden and buried this in mine but it was one of those little things moments,it just made me happy.....Stuart didn't seem quite as impressed as me as I made him come and see what I'd found while grabbing my camera !!

No scrapping for me, the nearest I came to anything scrap related was my friskars garden tools !! I do want to try and do the AC blog challenge this week because I have photo's from labour day weekend that have been printed since last October but still not used,so it would be perfect. I have to finish my taxes first though :)

OK I've decided this is the week I have to get my butt kicked into gear over my fitness,especially after eating so much food on Saturday night....so much in fact it was afternoon Sunday before I even felt like eating again ! So I am about to head out for my first run this year......it's going to be hard,it's still a little chilly out there.

Later.......

Yeah,it's Friday !

It seems to have come around really quick this week but I think it's because the boys have only had 3 days of school and I've had lots of errands to run but it turned out to be lovely weather wise,that's always a plus.

Only managed to scrap 1 page this week and rather than show that or my remaining 2 Halloween layouts, I'll dedicate this Friday layout slot to Ad.
I will confess that Ad's albums are considerably thinner than Ol's.Mainly because I started to scrap when he was older and it's a pain having to go through packets and packets of older photo's.I am trying to remedy that through,slowly,very slowly ! I have managed at least 1 older page each month so far.

Anyway these 2 are newer ones......

This one I did back in January.
One of 2 pages I did after having a guilty moment about the amount of paper owed versus used.Despite the amount of paper here(for me anyway) and the tilted photo I like this one.Journaling talks about having to deal with situations you may not like but will help you grow stronger.

This one I made back in March.........

This is my favourite page I have made this year so far and my first layout with computer journaling,only because I was too scared to write on the photo for fear of messing it up ! Love that BG paper and was desperate to use it and I love those OA letter stickers too except the V looked like a U and looked like I couldn't spell,so I cut up a #7 and used that instead.

So here's hoping to a warm sunny weekend that will include......

• More raking and yard work
• Stacking wood in the garage
• A good curry
• Baseball tryouts
• Dinner with girlfriends
• Wine !
• A bit of scrapping
• Photo taking,of course
• Hoovering out the cars.....boring but has to be done !

Until Monday..........

A good weekend.

It most certainly was.
Friday and Saturday we spent most of the time outside,raking leaves,clearing garden beds(well that was my job)taking down the tempo and generally clearing up everything that said winter ! It felt good to be outside after being cooped up for all those months,I hate winter and cannot get into that whole embrace it thing,I just can't,so as a result I hibernate !

We picked the best two days too as yesterday was cold,the Easter bunny was very chilly setting out those eggs early yesterday morning.The boys came back in for hats but refused gloves,they were just thrilled to pose for me !

We took a walk on one of the trails near the house and were out about an hour and that was long enough.I didn't even take my camera as I knew I didn't want to take my gloves off even though I saw quite a few cool images.

We had what will be our last roast dinner until Thanksgiving,slow cooked shoulder of lamb and it was delicious,mmmmmm,followed by cheesecake,which the boys insisted they put mini eggs on....
Excuse the image,it was dark.Just like chocolate chip cookies everyone has their favourite cheesecake recipe but I stand by this one from an older issue of the LCBO's food and drink magazine.I've used other's but nothing beats this one in my book and I've never had a disappointed dinner guest.

I even had time to do a page,another Halloween one,that's it now they are all done from last year.I sorted and organised my paper again too.

Still keeping up and enjoying my photo a day challenge with Patti,we've decided to set each other a challenge for the weekends left in April.

The boys are still off school so today I'll tackle one of the last 2 flower beds(one's still under 3 foot of snow,the last remaining clump left) and get everyone outside for more fresh air.

I changed my banner,still using the tree next door with it's growing buds since all my bulbs are still under snow.