I did it !

I was up early and out the house at 6.45 and I did it......I ran the feared 5.5 Km village loop....Woo Hoo me !!!
I did it at a slightly slower pace just because I just wanted to be able to do it so a minute and a half slower than my normal 5Km,so still not too bad in my book.
My shoulder wasn't as sore and I think if it had been feeling normal I could have manged the 6.5 route I have mapped out...........another day :)
The light rain actually felt quite nice and I completely lucked out because as I hit my driveway it started to come down in bucket fulls !

Anyway this post was to say the good luck messages from Fridays post must have worked !

So with this rainy day ahead I think I'll get the kids to watch a movie with Grandma,while I try and sneak off to scrap.......I am missing it :(
Fingers crossed,although I have a feeling it will be another week or so before I really get to scrap again !

The week went where ?

I really don't know :)

• Adam's graduation ceremony.
• Last day of school celebrations.
• A midweek day off for Stuart thanks to St. Jean Baptiste which we used as a celebration for Adam finishing Elementary school so we went to see 'UP' which I really enjoyed and then home for a BBQ.
• The start of swimming lessons.
• Soccer.
• Birthday parties/sleepovers.
• All the other stuff that needs to be done !

Tomorrow hopefully Mum and I are going to have a day to ourselves so we might venture back to our old shopping ground of Westmount/NDG.

I made this page a week or so ago.......

I've been running for 6 weeks now and I miss it if I go for longer than 2 days without a run.Although I've aggravated my shoulder again,somehow,which means I'm not able to run as far as it gets sore towards the end.I think I should really have a week of cycling to give it a rest but I just really like the feeling of running over cycling !
I'm addicted ,it's insane :)
I've knocked nearly 2 minutes off my initial 5km run and I can definitely feel a difference in my general fitness level,which was really my main goal although the added bonus of a perkier bum can't be smirked at :)

I've set myself 2 goals.
One is to run the Terry Fox 5KM our town holds in September.
Two,manage a 7.5KM loop of my town,which is very up and down,focusing on the ups on the way home since I live at the top of a hill!! by Thanksgiving.

I've decided that a lot of this running business is mental ! I am now up to 6.5 KM and adding a little extra every run.I have plotted out a smaller 5Km loop through the town but in my head that still seems further than the area I run now,maybe because at the moment I run so far then turn back on myself to come home......Anyway physically I should be able to do it,it's the long uphill run home that's scaring me ! So Monday I'm going to try it.....the worse that can happen is I have to walk it !

Have a good weekend and I'll try to be better blogger next week.

TGIF :)

I went on my first proper date with my husband to TGI Friday's so it always makes me laugh to myself when I write that ! I remember that night so well,I should write it down and do a page.

Busy,busy week but a good busy.Mum arrived safe and sound,although she always checks in so early that it always mean her luggage seems to make it last off the plane.....I had 2 tired boys desperate to stay up and greet her,at least school is all but done.

Ad had a sleepover at the school last night as part of the grade 6 graduation celebrations.I have no idea how it went since he wanted to stay at school for today(they had the option of having today off) I have a feeling I will have one tired boy tonight though,as the kids all seemed in high spirits when I dropped him off last night.

Not much else,still keeping on top of our photo a day challenges,it's fun.
Hoping the weather improves for this weekend since it would be nice to spend a lazy day outdoors for Fathers day.

I'll leave you with a new double page layout,made with the photo montage I posted from Victoria day weekend...



Hopefully I'll be back next week sometime to post something.

A midweek layout !

I started a couple of layouts last Friday,one of which was this one for the challenge on the American Crafts blog.It was to use a photo larger than 4x6 and I had just got this one back from being developed,perfect timing.......


Super simple one for my nature/garden album.Loved this picture which is why it's my blog header for the moment too.
Sorry about the glare and it doesn't seem to mater what I do I can never get limey greens or magenta pinks to photograph right.

Supplies: American Crafts: Paper,Spring and Summer(cucumber sandwiches) Teen(Honor roll) Moda Bella(reverse side of Timeless)
Rub-ons: Minimarks,spring and summer book 1,Garden Phrases and Spring promotion book.
Letter stickers: Minimarks,Henry and Hannah
Other:Bazzill cardstock

Hopefully back Friday with another layout from last weekend.

Oh dear......

....seems my little blog got neglected this week and it doesn't look like being given much attention over the next few weeks either because my Mum is coming to visit.
Arriving next Wednesday for 3 weeks,the boys are so excited,they are on countdown for that and the end of school( although I know some of that excitement is down to what goodies she will bring in her luggage ....all I can say is there better be a huge stock of English choccie because my stash is empty !)
I'm excited too.
We haven't seen her for 8 months,I think she's really going to notice changes with the boys.
So that means scrapping will be on the back burner for the coming weeks although I do hope to maybe get some done on Sunday,just maybe.See if I can make a teeny,tiny dent in the huge pile of photo's that are waiting,patiently.
The break may do me good too because I'm beginning to feel all my layouts are all looking the same !!

Maybe I'll have time to pop in with the odd photo or 2 or 3 and I still have my photo a day challenge to keep up with on the other blog......we're day 12 already !

Anyway since it's Friday that normally means I try and share a layout or two,maybe I'll still be able to do that as well,since I still have a few I haven't shared.

Since mum's coming I may as well show this one,I made back on NSD,part of my scrapping older pictures to build up Adam's album.Pretty simple page and it wasn't until I photographed it I realised it didn't actually have a title.....


...Oh well,the paper strip of smiles will do ! I can't believe how blond Ad is in these photo's.

So far it's looking like we may have a good weather weekend which would be a very good thing indeed because I need to get out and tidy up my garden.Adam has a baseball game Saturday and it would be great to watch in the warmth something we haven't done yet,I may even be able to get pictures !

Have a good weekend whatever you're up too.

After the weekend

We spent last weekend at our friends cottage.
We are very lucky that they let us use it when they aren't there and because of that we always like to make sure we help contribute in some way while we are there.
This time we spent most of Saturday in between doing other things like walking and fishing and taking 350 odd photo's(that would be me !) we burnt a whole pile of dead branches left over from last year and all the leaves I raked up from this year.
So it's neat and tidy down by the lake for them when they next go.

Not much else to say so I'll fill this post with photo's from the weekend.

This one's for Julie and Patti.......a dandelion :)


These are the ones,according to my boys,that grow into the giant seed heads like these

We saw a snake.......


He was about a meter long.

I spent this morning sorting through all the pictures and have already planned my layout to include these.........(should click bigger)


I can't believe my boys went in the lake.......it was warm in the afternoon but to me the lake was still on the cool side,toes in only.Not to them,they mainly paddled but Ad swam to the diving rock so he could claim he was the first to do it.

I took this one of the moon Saturday night,I was thinking of Julie's challenge for the next day which was 'reflection' and thinking if I stayed up until midnight something like this could be my shot......



........but after all the activities of the day I was too tired and called it a night.

Friday Stuff !

The end of another week,that's flown by,again.
Not a lot of very interesting stuff just general day to day happenings.

Still enjoying the running and made more progress this week :) I was all intent on going back and running my original 5KM route this morning to see if I was running it any faster but I completely forgot Ad had an appointment downtown this morning.So that idea will have to wait until next week.

Ad has finished all his ministry exams and feels quite confident about them which is good.He is definitely counting down the days left until the end of the school year,he loves school but I know he will be glad when this year is over.
No baseball this week for Ad but Ol got a soccer game in and it wasn't raining......yeah ! Took a ton of photo's but already edited them down and sorted out a layout......I am trying to keep on top of my photos this summer.

The photo a day challenge has been keeping me busy this week........it's fun though.

Good stuff planned for the weekend,hoping to get some relaxing family time and it starts with the schools annual family BBQ tonight,which is always fun.

A couple of new layouts,my first 2 for June.
I ended up making 8 layouts in May (including 3 older pages for Ad's younger years album) which brings my total to 42 for the year.May wasn't a very scrappy month for me.

I had this one sitting on my desk for a while,just couldn't find the right papers.Then the other afternoon I decided I just had to do and I finished it up really quick !


It's very loosely based on this sketch I did last year. ...it strayed as it went along.

This one is something I rarely do and when I do it's normally part of a challenge.It's a scrap lift of Nathalie's page I saw a week or so ago on her blog.I really liked her simple design but I also knew I had a similar picture and this was the nudge I needed to scrap it.


This was another quick page,love it when that happens which isn't too often !

Have a good weekend I'll be back Monday,as usual :)

A couple of cards

A while a ago I was making cards regularly,2 or 3 every month but not anymore.So when I saw the challenge on the American Crafts Blog last week,of using Thickers on a card I knew I wanted to do it.

So here's my birthday card......


American Crafts Supplies: Paper: Kids(playdate,Red Rover,freckles),Thickers: Giftbox(letters) and Vera(accents),Rub-ons: Minimarks Laurel.
Other supplies: cardstock:Bazzill

And because I'm lazy I copied it to make a fathers day card for my FIL also using American Crafts !


Why not :)

Monday

The weather forecast says no rain after tonight.............I hope so because I've had enough for the time being.
It needs to warm up too.
Yesterday Ad had a baseball game and I kid you not we were sat there with coats, blankets and umbrellas until it just got too unbearable and we moved the cars so we could watch from the warmth..........thankfully it only lasted 1 full inning before the game was cancelled.

Chippies out and about eating all the seeds from the helicopters that have landed on the deck...........
I also caught him eating the petals from my Busy Lizzie's,the photo is after the fact..........he'd eaten the evidence ! So far he's not found the parsley because last year he stripped it bare !

We took a trip Saturday to the Canadian Museum of Civilisation in Hull to see a couple of exhibitions they had going on.This one was the main reason for going and was interesting but I wish it had been bigger,fuller.Also this one,which was interesting,I always love seeing Egyptian relics.We haven't taken a trip to a museum for a while so it was a fun day.

Today being the 1st of June starts another month of a photo a day.
I'm doing this fun challenge with Patti again but also we've roped in Julie too.
Since Patti and I enjoyed our weekend challenges last time we thought we'd have a word/challenge for everyday this month...should be interesting !
So we've picked 10 each.....we don't know them until the night before because a certain someone thought they might be tempted to cheat if they knew them all in advance !!
So I'll be posting them on my other blog.

I'll leave you with a couple more shots of stuff in my garden........

Love these so much mainly because they seed like crazy and are just too pretty and this year they haven't been attacked by nasty ants like last year.....

The pink......

and

The white......

The purple.....

Still waiting for the red ones,which is weird as they were out in abundance at our friends cottage a few weeks ago. !

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 !