Checking in

It's been a day of catching up around the house today. Emily was feeling well enough to go to school this morning and is coping with just the Neurofen. She had a good day (apart from all the stairs she has to climb) and brought home the stir fry she had made in Food Tech.

I started my morning making Tomato Soup to try and use up some of the home grown tomatoes we have. Dad gave us two plants in about May and we have had bowls full of tomatoes from them. We've used some and given some away. There is still another bowl to use and a smaller bowl still ripening. I made Jon a curry for tonight - and put more tomatoes in that too! ;o)

After lunch I got stuck into the pile of washing I had waiting to be ironed. I find if I can do the ironing 2 or 3 times a week I can keep on top of it. The baskets are empty at the moment but I know I'll have at least a couple of loads of washing to do again tomorrow. It never ends!!

The rest of the day has been quiet and I'm looking forward to getting started on my next layout tomorrow. I couldn't decide who I was going to do it about or what photos to use but I think I've finally got it sorted. I may end up having to make a couple more of this type of layout once I've finished the one for class.

And, because a post doesn't feel complete without a photo, here's one of my cat Charlie. He sits on the wall at the back gate watching the world go by and I love the way his tail hangs down behind him :o)

xx

DYL Week 2 Sketch 2

I'd been looking forward to getting the Week 2 handout for Cathy's Design Your Life class but knew I had a few errands to run in town before I could even sit down to read it. Funny how things can change! Emily came down this morning complaining that her back was sore and she was getting shooting pains in it. She was absolutely fine when she went to bed last night and didn't know of anything that might have caused this to happen. I gave her some Calpol and we waited to see how she felt but by the time she was due to go to school she was still in pain and a bit weepy. I kept her off and phoned the Doctors to get an appointment. It seems the muscles in her back were going into spasm but it's not localised pain and the Doctor has recommended giving her Neurofen to keep the discomfort down. She's been told she's not allowed to do dance next week and not allowed to play netball for the next two weeks. I don't know that she's too upset at being told that ;o). This means that I've been home most of the day and I've managed to get my first layout for this week finished. I knew straight away that I wanted to use the photos from my Dad's 79th birthday for the second sketch so that's the one I've done first. For those doing this class that read this blog; I swopped the layout around because of the direction people were facing in the photos. I didn't have the yellow I wanted for this layout so I used a text box with the yellow as the fill colour. I then just added Heidi Swapp chipboard alphabet letters for the title. In the text box for the journaling I just typed as normal with the yellow as the fill colour again. Journaling reads: We invited the local family members round to our house for afternoon tea on Dad/Grandpa's 79th birthday. It was a beautiful sunny day so we sat outside and Mum/Grandma and Claire had fun blowing the bubbles that Debbie had put in Dad's birthday package. Tyler had great fun trying to catch them. It was a relaxing and very enjoyable afternoon. The little circle on the right hand page has the date in it. Hope you like it Dad! Love you lots. xx

Before and After

This is what my table looked like after a few days of scrapbooking ;o)

I decided if I wanted to do any more layouts it might help if I could find things so I had a quick tidy up yesterday and it's now looking like this :o)

I must be one of the messiest scrappers around but it's just the way I work. Always enjoy it when it's tidy again and ready for me to mess up once more!

xx

I never know what to call these posts!

One thing I don't enjoy about blogging is trying to decide what title to give the posts! I certainly don't come up with catchy ones and I'm sure everyone would soon get bored if I put Monday, Tuesday, etc every week. Maybe I should just put the date? I'll persevere and see how I go!

So, today I've taken a few photos while we were out and about. As you know, Emily had the day off so we didn't have to rush in the morning. This photo was taken soon after I came downstairs this morning. Lovely and sunny and not too cold, just the way I like to start the day.

We went into town just after 10am to get a few bits. I had a contact lens check up to go to for the new lenses I was trying out. They seem to have settled well so I was able to sort out my reading glasses to wear with them. Hope to pick them up in a week or so.

A photo of London Road, East Grinstead (unfortunately, the truck blocks off a bit of the shop frontage!) We have a lot of history in the town and some lovely Tudor buildings.

Emily had art homework, which involved going to the local community centre (Chequer Mead) to see an exhibition of art work done by the GCSE and A Level students from her school. We picked Jake up on our way and went and had lunch at Chequer Mead before going into the exhibition. What a fun lunch, I love how Emily and her friends are at an age now where they quite enjoy having more "adult" conversations with us and they bring a fun element into them as well. We were joined towards the end of lunch by Elliott and his mum, Carol. Emily, Jake and Elliott have been friends since they started school together and they still get on really well. I hope Emily will keep both of them as friends as she goes through Senior School.

As for the art exhibition, there was some impressive work on show. These children obviously have to put a lot of time and effort into their coursework. I took a few photos so you could also have a peek.

Emily enjoys drawing Manga and she liked this collage.

The long picture at the bottom had some interesting detail added to it. The water in this picture of the pier is brilliant. It was one of the pictures that caught my eye when we went in. Another one that I kept being drawn back to.

Ceramics

As we were leaving, a photo of Elliott, Emily, Carol and Jake. Not sure how Jake thought he wouldn't be in the photo :o)

Finally my photo of the bonus layout for Cathy's class which I said I would post today. For this we were given a colour palette to try and use. I used most of the colours - think the yellow was the only one left out.

That's all for now.

xx