Hello

Today we have Jon's brother Simon staying with us. He's been in the UK on business (from Chicago) since last Sunday and goes back again this Sunday. It's great having him here! We had lunch at a pub when he got in, before I took him round to say Hi to Mum and Dad. We've spent the afternoon sitting out in the sunshine (yes, I said SUNSHINE) catching up. (We had thunder and some heavy rain later on in the afternoon!!) We went out for dinner this evening and have been relaxing since we got home. Got to have another quick chat with Liz again this evening - wish she could also have come over for the week!

Before Simon arrived I had a chance to do yesterday's layout. I have to admit, I played around with this one a bit before I settled on the squares I used. As you can see I'm still running with the white background - I can see a few pages perhaps being remade ;o)

Also managed to fit in a coffee with Helena at Nero's this morning. Always good to meet up with friends! And, this afternoon, I got the call telling me I've been put forward for second interview. Not sure when it will be yet. Going back to work after 20 years is quite a scary thought!!

Hope you have a good weekend planned.

xx

It's Wednesday

Had a busy couple of days and last night decided to talk to my sister-in-law Liz, in Chicago, rather than do a blog post. Don't regret it for a minute :o) But now, I need to catch up again. Yesterday was a house catch up day - washing, ironing, hoovering, cleaning, checking bills, etc. and then a visit with a good friend before Emily came home. Today, started good - had the ironing from yesterday done by 9am and had a few more chores to do before going to meet an old friend, that I hadn't seen for ages, for coffee. I got a call from the school at 9.15am to say that Emily was in the sick bay and they thought she should come home. The headache was back again, she was slightly warm, plus she was looking pale. I picked her up from school, sent her to bed when we got in, did a few chores and then asked Hugh & Claire to watch her while I went to meet my friend. Does that sound uncaring? She was ok with it, she read her book and was still fine when I got home. This afternoon she's back downstairs, seems ok but still says she has a headache. How do you know when these things are enough to warrant staying off school and when they're not? The joys of being a parent!! I'll see how she is in the morning... This afternoon, I've been able to catch up on my layouts. I'm happy with the way these turned out. I'm now thinking I really like the ones I've done with the white background - am wondering whether I should change the other ones so they all have white backgrounds. What do you think?

I must now make dinner for the girls before I go to Weight Watchers.

xx

PS Just back from Weight Watchers where I was really chuffed to have lost 2 pounds - this means I've hit my first stone - 14 lbs down WooHoo!!!!!

Back to normal

Life has returned to "normal" today. Jon is back at work and Emily is back at school. Mum and I went and did the weekly grocery shop at Sainsburys. I do like some sort of routine.

While in Sainsburys this morning we saw the lady who is getting married. I had to go and ask her what I'd got wrong - it was only the DATE!!! The wedding is this Saturday coming!! I will now have to go to the church this Saturday, just to prove there really was a wedding to go to ;o). She is getting nervous but is looking forward to her big day. I hope they have good weather and have a wonderful day.

I had a telephone interview today but won't know anything until the end of the week. Today I learnt that I DO NOT like "competency based interviewing"!! What happened to good old fashioned interviewing where you were called into the office, it was a one to one situation, you answered some questions and a few days later you found out if you had the job or not. I must be getting old! Guess we'll have to wait and see if I get through to the next interview or not. My way of looking at it is, if it's meant to be I'll go through and if it's not, I won't. Simple!!

I have completed the next layout for Shimelle's class, not sure yet if I like it but I think it's because it's out of my comfort zone. I like clean lines and not too fussy (as I'm sure I've said many times before - sorry!!). I'll post a photo of it anyway.

Text reads "The laundry piles never end!"

Now I need to go and start preparing the dinner - fajitas

xx

A reply and layout 6

We're having a very quiet day today, the "children" (think I may have to start calling them the "young adults") are all doing their own things - Hugh's on the Xbox360, Claire's gone to Caffe Nero with friends and Emily is on her computer. Jon is playing pool and I've just finished my next layout for Shimelle's class :)

As you can see, I've kept it very simple and my text refers to my post yesterday!! Did you guess that one already - were the flowers in the church a give away??? Lol!!! I'm going to have to ask when the wedding actually was, next time I see her! (I see I've managed to chop off a little bit of the layout - the inking goes all the way around the edge.)

This next part is for Judi W who left this post for me : "Hi Rhona, Judi from Central Alberta, Canada presently in Dawson Creek British Columbia the next province over. (My challenge to you &/or your girls is to find it on a map.) DH works away from home and I'm up here staying with him until end of Sept when we'll take our RV trailer home. I'm in Shimelle's LSNE class as well and found your blog link from there. It's truly amazing to be taking a class with women from all over the world. We're all unique and yet have so much in common. Bye"

First of all, thank you Judi, for leaving me a post - I love finding out who's reading the blog.

I have spent part of this morning looking up where Dawson Creek is and can now pinpoint it on the map (but don't know how to add it here). I also read up a little bit about this "small city", as they call it. It seems to me that one of the major things about it is the fact that it is "Mile 0" on Alaska Highway - in other words, at the beginning of the Alaska Highway. Have you been to have your photo taken next to the flags at the start of the highway? I also know it sits below Taylor and above Pouce Coupe. I checked out Central Alberta while I was at it and could now put them on the map of Canada. My nephew and his family live in Vancouver and I have a cousin who lives in Saskatchewan; I now know you are roughly north east of Vancouver and to the west of Saskatchewan. Thanks for the Geography lesson this morning, I had fun with it! :) I had wondered if this Dawson Creek was the same as Dawson Creek the TV series but, having looked it up, I see I'm way off track with that one as it was actually set in the fictional town of Capeside, MA. So, I've learnt some new things today!

Think that's all for now, enjoy what's left of the weekend.

xx