Retreat madness

I don't know what happened to the last two weeks. It's the last day in February already. Tomorrow we pack for retreat. I am off to Evedon Park with a group of online friends for four day of scrapbooking. I have organized photos and some silhouette cuts. I hope I can stay focused on my diet as the food is always great. I will also need to do a few laps around the lake to reduce the calorie intake. My costume is nearly finished, so that is another job done. Tomorrow i have a day in PrePrimary before I can start the packing.

Weekend wares

No tissues were needed for our trip to the cinema last night. It was sad, but didn't move me to tears.
Todays I have done a lot of blog surfing and a little play with candle and fabric.
Here are some of the results.

DH let the sheep out for a bit of green grass from our back yard while he chatted on the phone to New Zealand.

These chillies were a present from a friend. I'm not sure what to do with them. I do love the colour.

Now to organize some lessons for tomorrow.

February is off to a flying start

School is back with new staff and new students to get to know. Even though I miss those who left for greener pastures, it is great to have new graduate teachers full of energy and ideas. My teaching load is much the same with junior science, visual arts, computing and a day in PrePrimary. Fridays are my recovery days. I often feel the need to sleep after school. I'm not sure if it is my Dukan diet regime or just old age catching up. I have lost 9kg so am well on my way to a healthier and thinner me.

Last weekend I made Christmas cards using the challenge set by Chookscraps and also scrapped a new monthly pack from Chookscraps.
The last weekend of the holidays we went to Perth to watch John Cleese and spent some time at the beach and Fremantle before heading home. It was a lovely way to round off the holidays.

Tonight we are off to see the Descendants with George Clooney. I have been told to take my tissues with me.

Holidays come to an end.

This week is the last week of the school holidays. I spent Saturday gardening to earn brownie points with DH as I wanted to scrap for the rest of the day. It is way to hot outside for gardening after 9am.
This week I have watched a lot of great tennis. It will be over all too soon and school work will arrive in earnest, so I am enjoying the down time while I can.
Today I had a sewing day at the home of a very dear friend. I was blown away by her energy and drive. Her vegie garden provides more than enough for her family. She bottles, preserves and dries for the off season. She doesn't watch television, but sews, quilts, draws, paints etc etc. Maybe some of her energy will rub off on me.

The Chookscraps Cyber Crop was on this weekend. Here are my entries.

Sunday scrapping

Today I had the pleasure of scrapping with friends at Chookscraps. The weather was quite muggy, but the shop was cool. I managed to complete a calendar LO for a swap and a sketch challenge for the monthly challenges. I also managed to spend a voucher i got from the Collie Show as well as some vouchers from cyber crop wins. Now it is time to unpack the car. DH has cleaned all the fly screens from my scrap room and cleaned the glass as well. I just need to vacuum thoroughly and I will have a very tidy scrap room ready for some action. On Thursday I managed to add another bag to my collection. This one is a great size for knitting or some scrap paper. It was made from rice bags in the Phillipines by a cooperative set up to help women earn a living. I was very pleased to be able to help by buying a bag.

Happy New Year

I cannot believe how fast the rest of 2011 went. I have been steadily scrapping my UK trip when I have had a break from school work. All I know is that I was very tired at the end of the school year.
Christmas and new year has been filled with food, friends, tennis, cricket and a resolution to gain control over my body. I have made a start, so just need to stick with it. A lot of my friends are taking the 366 photo challenge which I did a while ago. I am going to try to update my blog once a week instead. Here goes nothing.

I collected all my Christmas cards together and bound them into a cover as I didn't want to recycle them.

I used a free file from the Shuttersisters to make a CD calendar using photo from my trip. This is going on my desk at school.

Chookscraps is running a challenge to make a different Christmas card each week for the year so that you don't have to panic when it is time to send them out. I will post my card when the glitter has dried.

Back home again

I did not attempt to blog while in the UK as I was using an Ipad and some functions are limited. We have been home for a week and I am nearly ready to go back to work. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to take an extra week of long service leave, so that I had some rest after the trip home. It is a long way from the UK to Perth and the time difference plays with your head and body.
We did a lot of touring in our hire car and my favourite purchase was a TomTom which I bought at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. It took me a lot of trial and error to work out how it works, but by the end of the trip I was able to arrive at our destination without a problem. Even though I had a huge map book of the UK, it didnot give enough detail when it came to roundabouts.
We also visited a newsagents nearly everyday as my DH loves the paper and his magazines. I found a couple I have not yet seen in Australia. One of them I took out a subscrption for and downloaded the first edition to read on my Ipad as it was out of print.

I have been making some flowers ready to add to a teacosy that is ready for decoration.

I can't wait for the next edition to arrive in my postbox.