Roisin's Drawing...

Róisín ... had to draw a pencil drawing for her art homework last week.... it had to be a face in profile ... this is what she produced ... all I can say is WOW !!

Dentist today...

YUCK .... and then some. My nerves before hand were rotten. And justified. Had to get a filling, and then she cleaned the teeth. Don't know about the filling , but the cleaning was horrible. YUCK.

In "Light" of the strike....

Electricians in an Irish hospital have gone on strike over who changes a lightbulb

So I felt this was in order ...


Q: How many (generation) Xers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two, one to go and shoplift the bulb so the boomers have something to screw in and the other to screw it in for minimum wage.

Q: How many vampires does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None, they *like* it in the dark

.Q: How many alt.vampyres readers does it take to change a lightbulb ?
A: None! Yecch! We LOVE the dark, stupid!

Q: How many dull people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One.

Q: How many one-armed people does it take to change a lightbulb ?
A: Only one, as long as he kept the till receipt.


.Q: How many Pygmies does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: At least three.

Look what we found...

Monday morning, Des is heading out to open up, Ken & Orlaith are standing on our driveway. Admiring our new ponies... except we never got new ponies. Well now we do!! We discovered five wee shetland ponies happily grazing in the back garden this morning. That was over ten hours ago and we are still waiting for them to be claimed.

It will be tommorow now.

Both Seán and Líadán want to keep one....

Wow I Won!!

I won a gift voucher on the cyber crop, for Annamaries shop too. Which is my favourite online scrapbook shop too.

So thats good news.

What a week its been!!

Its been a great week altogether!! What with going up to Cavan on Saturday, altered two tins, sitting happily in front of a roaring fire, contented with my own company, and some make and do. Then on Sunday the Scrapwest cyber crop took off. I had five of the kits and over the few days I got all five of the layouts done. So I have been cutting and sticking and inking all week. On monday morning there was also the craft club in Castleknock..so that was a most pleasent morning. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I was helping out with the book fair in the school. Only did a short stint on tuesday morning, as I had to go to WW in clonee...another pound bites the dust. I am doing so well there. Really got my head in the game since beginning of september, and its starting to show, certainly can feel the difference. Anyway, went back to the school then for the afternoon session of the book sale, again had fun at that. Then got to do the book fair on the Wednesday morning, so got to chat to loads of the kiddies. Thursday today, no book fair this morning, but there was a coffee morning on in the school, so had a nice start to the day again. Baked this afternoon, dress up day in the school tommorow, so made a cake for Liadan to bring in and some buns for after the dinner tommorow night. We have Fred & Dee & kids coming over for eats. Going to watch the Panel being filmed on Sunday night. Its been all go lately. Bestest of all... the kids are on Midterm from tommorow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lovely a week off school !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay !!

What a few days...

This uses the kit from Lainey's class, I changed the title and used a photo of me and des. It works well, the colours match the papers nicely.

This one uses one of the cover shots images of me...

Did this layout using photos of Aghaknock...

I love this one best of all... used photos of my grandparents..Rose aged 17, Paddy aged 19. Way back in the day...

It been a fun filled two days.... did two layouts on Sunday, and another two on Monday. Got one done at the Castleknock Crop, and another finished off this evening... Two more to go !!

Happy Days ...

Friday ... Yay !!

OMG .... TGIF.

Or whatever.

Des is home.

Liadan has a pal over.

And Sean is on work experience next week.

So no trying to get him out of bed for 7.45 am all next week.

Instead we get to try to get him out of bed for 8.15am instead.

So much better.

Its the little things that make life ... mediocre ...!!:-)

Missing Him....

Des is away working in Cork. And I am at home missing him.

Lunch was not the same, we always have lunch together. I am like a sap here on me own, missing my husband.

Feeling all mopey and sad and alone.

Just as well its only for one night - but its two days .... little me is all sad.

Eleven Days...

Since I last posted. I am not very good at this blogging yoke am I ...

Anyhow

Nothing has happened.

I am on Scrapwest !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been looking and admiring the layouts on Scrapwest blog for a few months now...and decided to chance my arm and submit. And I am on their blog... yay for me. I actually love this layout... although its a bit different now...

I have since added the line...

Took us some time but now we are .....

above the Friends bit.

Monday moan....

Monday moanday !! Ah no sure thats not fair really. I actually had a pretty good day. Walked in the park this morning..the trees are looking great .. all reds and golds with bits of green still peeping through. And as its back to the weekdays the joggers are gone, the weekday people have some time, so we WALK, none of this silly running business for us!!

Worked on a Sisters layout all morning ... turned out well. This is like an adiction...cant seem to stop scrapping ..what was it I used to do with my time? Well I used to spend a lot of it out of the house wandering around the shops, buying useless stuff. And a lot of the time I used to buy clothes for the kids, mainly the smallest one.

So now most of my money goes on bits of paper, pens, sticky stuff, and my time is spent looking through photo after photo after photo.

Could be worse ... couldn't it ?!?!?!?

Loads O'Photos!!!

Have been creating loads this week. And snapping loads too !! Got this lovely paper in I.Ideas this week...they are starting to sell loose sheets now... so did this nice layout of Róisín & Pals...

So I guess Líadán had the making bug as she created this .... they may just be a prize for quessing what it is !!

Well actually I will just tell ye !! It is a witch. For halloween. Made out of a cake doily, a hat, a jam jar, a hair clip and a plastic drinking cup. All lovenly finished off with googley eyes.

She is delighted with it anyway.

So got the double page layout finished for kiki's circle journal...sneaky out of focus photo here.

Sneaky out of focus image !! And I "pimped" the wee bag that came with the wee t-light butterfly we got Jade for her birthday....

Feeling very old when I am buying birthday presents for my son's girlfriend.

Sunday 23rd September

Smiley happy faces at Dublin's Collins Barracks Museum.

We had a lovely - if a tad expensive - lunch. A good look at the Viking Boat. And there was a falcon "show" scheduled. It turned out to be four people with some fabalous birds. But we got to touch them!!

Then a quick trip on the luas into Hickeys and we got some material and ribbons....

So a nice family sunday ... except we were missing Sean as usual. Ah Well.....

One Liners ...... LOL

A bird in the hand makes it difficult to blow your nose.
After eating, do amphibians have to wait one hour before getting out of the water?
Age happens
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Fishing is the sport of drowning worms.
Daylight savings time: Why are they saving it and where do they keep it?
Have you ever seen a plumber bite his nails?

How come abbreviated is such a long word?
I almost had a psychic boyfriend but she left me before we met.
I bought some powdered water, but I didn't know what to add.
I once had a dog I named "peeve" so I could really say, "I have a pet peeve."
I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

.I just got skylights put in my place. The people who live above me are furious.
I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
I went to a general store, but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific.
If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
In order to avoid criticism, never do anything. Ever.
I'm still not sure if I understand ambiguity.
Most packages say "Open here." What is the protocol if it says, "Open somewhere else"?
No man knows less than the man who knows it all.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Not afraid of heights...afraid of widths.
The early bird gets the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese.
Okay, so what's the speed of dark?
People who feel the need to tell you that they have an excellent sense of humor are telling you that they have no sense of humor.
Some people are like blisters. They don't show up until the work is done.
The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.
The latest survey shows that three out of four people make up 75% of the population.
The obituaries in the newspaper prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that people die in alphabetical order.
The four stages of man: He believes in Santa Claus. He doesn't believe in Santa Claus. He plays Santa Claus. He looks like Santa Claus.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.
The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you're off it.
The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
The way to achieve inner peace is to finish the things we have started. Today I finished 2 bags of potato chips and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.
The world is full of willing people: Some willing to work and some willing to let them.
The world's full of apathy, but I don't care.
What do you call a chicken that is afraid?
What do little birdies see when they get knocked unconscious?
What do they use to ship Styrofoam?
Why isn't there a mouse-flavored cat food?

Cake for a 30th Birthday..... spec - likes to travel, proud of being from dublin, and recently engaged. You cant see it but I did put a sparkler on her left hand.

Actually the photo is very dark....so its not really doing the cake justice :-(

It reminded me why I quit making the darn things for money. It took hours to make this cake, the blooming thing was difficult to bake as its very big - 14 inch round - and the centre seemed to take agesssssssssssssssssssssss before it cooked.

Then the actual making of the model etc took up almost the entire day. Ok so I didn't start till 10 am... stopped for ten minutes for a phone call... broke for lunch & school run from 1-3.30... but then I was another hour and a half from when we arrived home from collecting L.

Its too much work for the amount of money you can charge for it. Or rather for the amount I do charge for them. I totally undercharge for the cakes.

Silly me !!

..........................................................................

Lazy Saturday after hectic Friday...

.... Only fair so!!

Friday was a wee bit manic.... Lesley was heading away for the weekend and Pip could not swing a halfer. So into the breach rides I.

Which meant driving out to Trim for 12.30 picking up the lads, driving back home, just time for a quick bite to eat, driving out to collect Liadan.

It was all to the good, as it meant I got to spend some time with Liam and Tara. They all played away happily in the garden all afternoon. Pip collected them at 6....and Des and I sat down for a nice end of week rest.

But Then .... Then....

My mum and dad arrived....

Ah well best laid plans and all that......

.........................................................................................................................................................................


Saturday... was a real lazy day. Liadan skidadled off up to Shaunas... Sean went into town, my folks gave him money, so that was burning a hole in his wee pocket, he is aparently getting a new piercing... so watch this space !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spent the afternoon tidying up the craft press, sorting out this and that and the other.... and started making a new mini book.

Gonna watch the rugby now..

Junior cert ... done !!!

Well thats it then. The results came out yesterday. The school were holding the results back till 3pm. Which was fine by us. I could see no harm in them doing that. Not with our laid back lad anyway.

So I switched off the house phone yesterday morning.. and just stuck with me mobile. That gave me the chance to screen the calls!! I had no intention of talking to my smarmy brother about this whatsoever.... he drives me nuts ... feels you should expect nothing less than an A from the kids all the time.... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

So anyway...

Seán got .... ta da ...

One - A
One - B
Five - C
Two - D
One - E
One - F

Strange mix ... but the child had never got an honor before in his life. Got an A in history despite never having passed this in the school tests in three years !!!!!

Which shows what can be done when a child with severe dsylexia gets to do his exams onto tape and the writing element is taken out of the equasion.

Just think what he could have done if he had put even one ounce of effort into it !!!!!

Trilled for him anyway... proud as punch...and its got to do his confidence (which is sky high anyway) the world of good :)

The latest hair "do".....

This is what comes when a sixteen year old is left alone in a house with a razor. *rolls eyes upwards*

I had to take over and finish it.

And stick the plasters on his head.

And give him a clip around the ear for being ...... well 16 really :-)

I am a Lazy so and so..........

I have been so lazy about posting to this blog. Novelty sort of wore off... but will try harder!!

Have been doing loads of papercraft over the past week, with the kids back in school I have been parking the car at the school, going for a nice walk, then home to do a quick and I do mean quick tidy up.

Then its sticking this, cutting that and drawing and planning the other.

Have done four pages ... two polaroid photo frames ... bookmarks to beat the band....as well as going to the scrapbook workshop in castleknock last saturday.

Somewhere in all that time the clothes have gotten washed, the rooms tidied, the ironing done, and we have all eaten.

So its all to the good.

Spidy Time

Look at this beauty ... found him - or its more likely to be a her - today while cleaning out Líadán's toy pram.

Never saw the kids disappear so fast. To be fair it was the hoover that made them run .... not the spider.

I called Seán out to see it. Big strapping lad that he is ... nearly fell over in his speed to get away.

New Shoes & Flowery Cakes

Trip to town. Got new shoes for Líadán, lovely lovely new Doc Martins!! I love them. And seeing as how they are so nice and good for her feet, we bought two pair.

It should have been a fun trip to town, buy I had a teenager with me. So it involved a lot of sighing, tutting, and looking bored. But I tried not to do that too much !!

We did venture into Eason on O'connell street, and up to the first floor, for notebooks, but the queue !! My god has everyone in Dublin decided that Monday 27th of August was stationary buying day?

I took them home again. Well you have to really.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Remembered that I had made two small cakes on Saturday. So decided to play with the new cutters. Ok so they are supposted to be used for making roses. But I had some coloured sugarpaste and a few minutes on my hands so....

Then I figured I would try a black and white version....

This should have been easy peasy lemon squeezy. but it took so much paste to make the black that the icing was sticky. Stuck to my hands, to the roller, to the worktop, to blooming everything. So its quite plain. But effective. Will give the black & white another shot some day.

So what did we do today.....

Well what did we do today?

Great plan. So of course if we had a great plan what could go wrong, well this is us we are talking about. So naturaly our plan went a bit wrong. We borrowed the strimmer from Mum, and even went so far as going over to Woodies to buy extra wire for it. Got new wire for our own petrol strimmer too.

Picked up a new light bulb for my oven while we were there. Now you would think that would be a simple straight forward purchase. But its the wrong size, looks great in the oven , you can see all the dirt now - but I knew it was there anyway. But the cover does not fit over it. So its back to the drawing board with that one.

Where was I ? Oh yea. Buying cord/wire (what is that called anyway) for the strimmer. Standing beside Desmond (you can tell he is in trouble when he gets his full name) reminding him that its a flymo. Which would explain why he bought the boshe one.

We loaded up the car this morning with two girls, two strimmers, picnic basket, two fold up chairs, two patio chairs, yard brush and away with us to Cavan. Did quite well arriving there at 12 noon.

Unload car, persuade Roisin that its ok to get out of car, that there is not an army of spiders awaiting her. Open windows in house, put on radio. Find extenstion lead for electric strimmer. And guess what .....

The bloody thing ran out of cable/coil/wire and it was time to put in a new one. But what a suprise. It was the wrong one!!!!!

So I had to hop into the car, drive the eleven miles back to the nearest woodies, via a blooming diversion to boot. Liadan decided to come with me. So all the way there I got

Her "I'm bored, will you buy me a magazine when we get there"...
Me "We are going to woodies they dont sell magazines"
her "I'm bored, will you buy me an ice pop when we get there ...."
Me "We are going to woodies they dont sell icepops....."

And so on and so on.

She managed to wangle a new pencil pearer out of me....all the same. Persistance.

Drive back to the house, and by now its 1pm. So its lunch time. Not going good so far. Lunch was fine.

Except for the spider attack on Roisin.

We decide its best not to tell her that the baby spider did not in fact fall off into the grass - and did in fact fall down her top..... probably a good idea.

Des & I then spent four hours strimming the grass. But its looks great now. Me arms are killing me now. I fully expect to have the shakes all tommorow. It was worth it.

Finished up the afternoon by strolling down the road picking blackberries. They are just coming out now, managed to collect some nice ones. Hopefully we got enough to make some muffins tommorow.

Going to finish up the day now with a glass or three of red wine. May just have the first of them in a nice warm bath.

Diet starts tommorow. Not even going to weigh myself till next tuesday week at WW ... have been that bad I am afraid

Free Friday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another free morning. Still strange. What to do what to do what to do..... and all day to do it too!

Now of course I could do the ironing, clean the house, tidy up everywhere, make beds, clean bathroom, wash floors, mend clothes. I could do all these things. Will I - well the short answer is probably not. I will potter around on the pc for a while longer. Read this and that and the other. All vitally important to my day. Stuff i really really need to know.

I will spend some time awakening the teenagers. I will put on a wash or two. Then I shall find something more interesting to do. Involving cutting up bits of paper or making a mess with sugar and stuff.

Yes that is what I shall do.

So what do I need .....well the photo says it all really!!! I know what I will be doing now.

Thursday now. No littlest one for a few days. Its a strange morning here without her.

The other two - being teenagers - are of course comatose in the beds. My normal summer routine has been... Get out of the bed around 8.50 and stumble into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and bring it back to bed with my book.

Then shortly after that the little whirlwind that is Líadán charges from her room straight into my bed. She then leaps on you - from the edge of the bed...screaming "Snuggle Time!!!!!!!!!"

Its the best ten minutes of the day.

And I can highly recommend starting your morning that way. It does mean you almost always have to drink cold tea, and hardly ever get all the way into a chapter without being interupted, but its worth it.

Now this morning - my tea was hot - and four chapters read with ease. Have gotten up and had another cup of tea and bread with no other company but the radio.

You would think this could be bliss..........but for such a small person she leaves a big hole!!

I am reliably informed by the teenagers that there is nothing to eat in this house. Translated it means there is nothing they will eat in the house. But you know its bad when Seán wont eat any of the breakfast cereals of choice in the house, and there are usually at least four different types, not counting my porridge.

Get this - he wants me to wake him up early today - one to get back into some sort of routine before school restarts and two to come and help me with the food shopping. This from the boy who got up at 5.40 - in the afternoon - the other day. And the boy who I had to bully out of the bed by three every other day this week.

It scares me when he says sensible stuff too...

Also means if he comes food shopping with me I can easily add on another fifty euro !! The last time he went to Tesco with me he had the mohawk in his hair, and the stares he got. It amazed me... you could see people stoping and staring at him all around the shop. Just for his hair. I was speachless - of course he was not. Teenagers ... big big kids is all they are.

Well made the car all right.... it still looks bockety to me!! But its much of a muchness now, Dad was putting in a new loo. Why he decided to do this the day after the new bathroom tiles were down is anybodys guess.

So of course there was a leak of water. So now he has had to lift six of the new tiles. Dry out the floor.

Repair the loo.

Redo the tiles.

So.... the same day the gas company has dug up the side of their house...and all of this on the day that Líadán and Tara were to go over to stay with them for a few days...

So Des had changed around his week so that he could take tommorow off work, we were going to head up to Cavan, actually get some work done with out Líadán with us, so we would not have to worry about her chest.....

And I had planned to bring over the cake, and the card I made him, the kids could then all sing happy birthday grandad, and we could all make a big big fuss over him. Which was the point of making the cake.

After all with my mother thinking she is diabetic (she is not?!) she wont eat cake...

So whats happening now.

Lesley is coming over here today, she had planned on fitting in a trip to the centre on way to the Maters, and she will take Líadán back to hers. She was to take the cake too, then the folks will head out to hers tommorow, pick up the girls there and bring them back to their place.

But I think I will hang on to the cake, and stick to the plan to bring it to him, except do it on Saturday when we collect the girls instead....

Yep better plan....

Thats that sorted now. The best laid plans of mice and men (or me and Des anyroad) never go easy.

this is the car. I am not a bit happy. Not feeling too good this past few weeks and its beginning to show in my work. I know Dad will love it... he always loves when you go to any sort of effort for him. But I dont like it. Des says its good. And I know the photos does not do it justice. Its actualy much redder !!

These are the two small cakes I made today. Tommorow I intend to turn these into a car!!

They are to be for my dad's birthday cake, so its going to be a red ford escort - to celebrate him getting his favourite car back!!

This is my darling son, and my almost equally darling nephew. Anyone who knows me knows I worship my son, he is an amazement to me. That out of woman came this boy, rapidly growing into a man!! He is currently 5ft 11inches to my 5ft 2inches, and it is his hope to reach 6ft.

The little guy is so like him, they are both funny guys, love to laugh and to make others laugh. Despite the many times you feel like tearing your hair out, or running to the chocolate jar becasue of them, you have to love love love them....

Still trying to figure this out. I think some photos would be nice.

I will have to find out how to post photos onto it.

Hi di hi away we go to find out.

Sunday 19th August

Well now I have a blog.

So what next. .. .. who knows I guess these are like online diaries. So perhaps that is the way to go.

What have I been doing lately. Scrapbooking ... this has become my latest obsession. I thought I was doing ok till I went to a crop last week, and discovered just what can be done.

In order to hopefully improve and progress I have joined a circle journal. So I should be able to learn from others that way.