Bad at this...

Ok, so we all know by now - I'm bad at this...

I'm bad at keeping up with blogging, and I'm bad with reading other people's blogs that I really like to catch up on...

I have excuses - lots of them; I hadn't been around for so long, I wanted to reformat the blog and have had a 'reason' to have been away, and one to be back with a whole brand new look...
I have had some up's and down's - as in up's and really downs - and I feel like no one wants to know or read about things that I would write while I'm feeling crappy...
Or I felt like I had nothing interesting to say - nothing going on in my head that anyone would want to read...

Anyway, I'm here now - back - for the moment anyway...  Nothing interesting to say for right now, I will share some of my crafty stuff soon...  And some photos - I have a new 'do' that I got tonight, so will take a photo that's not an end of day worn out looking one - soon, maybe tomorrow morning...

So, that's all for now - I'm back, I'll write some short ramblings, I'll share some stuff - and the new look for the blog, I'll sort it - sometime soon-ish, I hope - when I can work out more about what I need to do, or at least be motivated enough to spend some time - perhaps hours on the computer in a setting outside of work to see how to do what I want...

Thanks, if you're still here - or back with me, along for the ride - I promise I'll try to be better...

A whole month... how did that happen..?

Wow, a whole month - it's been a while...

There's been a bit going on - I had a bit more of a battle with salmonella, we had dramas at home with the internet, went off for a holiday over Easter to Malta, packed all our stuff, moved apartment and unpacked everything again...

While I was feeling better after I got smacked with salmonella while I was at home and resting and not eating much - I'd go back to work after the weekends and gradually (or suddenly depending on the week) decline.  I'd had the lovely stabbing pain that came along with the salmonella for almost a month in the end.    :(  I got a phone call from the Disease Centre chasing me up - obviously here as in many other places a doctor who discovers salmonella has to report it through.  The woman at the Disease Centre told me that there'd me about 20 people in this outbreak of a salmonella they've not seen here before (it had an indian name, but I can't really remember what it was!)  and had I eaten cashew nuts in the week I'd contracted it.  Well, I almost certainly had - I'd gotten a mixed bag of nuts from one of the supermarkets near work the week I returned from Oz and in fact I've been eating them on a regular basis (picking out the 'nice' ones like cashews) right up until that morning.  Well, of course a couple of days after I stopped eating contaminated nuts I started to feel much better!!

We were obviously in the middle of having found a new apartment to move in to and the landlord at the old place had started to get ready for some new tenants at our old apartment.  For some reason, part of this was ordering a new modem (although there were already 2 there - not really sure why!) in the process of this the company providing the internet (and modem) had decided that because there was a new modem on order the old one wasn't working - and so stopped the internet coming in on it...  Not very helpful to us when we still had something like 3 weeks left there.

Easter we jetted off to Malta - we spent the long weekend with a couple of other friends/colleagues and although we didn't have the best weather (can you believe it was warmer in Stockholm the weekend we were away?!!) we had a great time all together and a relax away from the project for such a long weekend.

The remainder of the week once we got back from Malta was spent packing - most of which was thankfully covered off in one 3.5 hour session.  Then we had the help of our friends/colleagues and a couple of trips in a rented station wagon to move everything last weekend.  One of the problems of this lifestyle is that you have to live with someone else's furniture (and often ugly things!) in your house.  It's great from the point of view that there's no furniture to move, but from the point of view of your everyday life that's the easier thing sometimes!!  The place we were in needed quite a bit of new furniture to finish it off, but there were lamps in both the bedroom and the lounge that were ok for us to live with - so we had the famous big trip to Ikea funded partly by the landlord.  But there was no pictures on the wall or ugly things around - this new place has ugly pics everywhere and ugly lamps in the lounge (none in the bedroom).  So, the last week has been spent trying to hide most of the ugly, trying not to kill the landlord (we were to have a washing machine installed in the bathroom - that has only worked since Friday just gone, and some more internet issues just for good measure!).  The whole trying to negotiate things when you don't share a first language and trying to get someone with a different work ethic to your timetable - well, let's just say it's less than easy!!

So, we currently have two toilets sitting in the bathroom - well, one sits - the other is actually kind of attached to the water anyway - not so much to the floor, while we wait for the landlord to install the new one.  And the washing machine - installed and looking pretty in the bathroom since we moved in on Saturday, got plugged in on Friday so we could use it - with a long extension cable into the lounge room!  Anyway - at least it works, and I've spent a bunch of time since then trying to work through the gianormous laundry pile that has accumulated since the day before we went to Malta.

So, that's been my last month - oh, apart from missing joining in on the live run of beyond blogging for scrapbookers and looking in any way at my reader with everyone's feeds in it - I'll be working to catch up on that sometime soon.  This week SO's parents arrive for a weekend visit, so we're counting down the days in earnest and getting excited to see them...

Recent Scrapbooking efforts

It seemed time for me to show some of what I've been up to lately (apologies to those who know me on Facebook, this will all look familiar!)...  Yes, here is me - in all my double page anal retentive glory!

Pub lunch:

The view from up here:

Sacre Couer:

Notre Dame:

Features:

Inside and out:

And finally, sisters (from my very homesick day a couple of weeks ago):

I really should get around to getting Photoshop or PSE on my lovely little macbook, but I just haven't yet - so none of them are trimmed or put into a proper shape - apologies for that...

Scrapbookers question

Hi all,

Now that I have a few scrapbookers dropping by (hopefully) semi regularly - I have a question for you all...

In recent years, more and more it seems the 'fashion' for scrapbooking has been leaning towards single page layouts...  Being the anal retent that I am - I just have not been able to bring myself around to the single page - preferring the 'balance' of looking at double pages... 

I tend to scrap all (or at least most) of the photos I take (or certainly intend to - at some point!) there is nothing in 'other' album forms with plain photos for example...  I have also resisted (partly because of the double page OCD) the one photo to a layout trend (although it has happened where I have a lot of journalling on the 2nd page, or ephemera like invitations, tickets, etc) - even when I only have one photo of something I print it multiple times (usually in different sizes) to include...

Which way do you swing?  Or do you go both ways?  What determines which way you go with any particular layout?  Or does no one else agonise over this stuff like me..??

If you're a single page layout gal, how do you arrange your pages - do you worry about having similar papers or colours adjacent, or do you just pop things into the album in chronological (or some other order) not concerning yourself with the differences between each 'side'?

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!

Something that amused me lately

Another for the Why Sweden, Why file:

This post bought to you by prompt 5 - Blogging for Scrapbookers

Amazing Days

For our 2nd prompt Shimelle asked us to think about the amazing days of our lives, and prompt 3 talks about lists (I'm sorry but there are many more than 5!)...

I have had so very many in the last 18 months or so that it's difficult to choose:

The day at Iguazu Falls in Argentina:

The day at Perito Merino Glacier in Argentina:

The days of trekking the Inca Trail in Peru and arriving at Machu Picchu:

 

The day we went parasailing over the Sacred Valley (very amazing for 2 so scared of heights!):

The day we went white water rafting - no photos from this day!!

The days on our cruise around the Galapagos Islands and being so close to the wildlife:

Our night out in Paris for my birthday:

Getting to see London and Stonehenge:

Having the opportunity to live an work in a foreign city (with snow!):

More recently though my amazing days were spent doing things like:

Meeting a girlfriend's (not so) new baby and spending time with her and her other son:

Dinner with family and friends:

  

Catching up with friends and family in Mildura:

A concert with mum:

Playing in the sunshine in the park after a haircut:

Coming home to SO:

Hmmm, I guess there'll have to be more on all of the above sometime (soon-ish!).

Gotta be startin' something!

Well, as I've mentioned I've enrolled in an on-line class blogging for scrapbookers and as yet, I've not nothing but faff about reading class notes and surfing other people's blogs!!

In my defence I've been sick, so I haven't wanted to be doing much of anything - but am feeling like I'm on the mend now, so look out - I may now overload you with posts today!!

Shimelle asked us to think about the goals for our blog - I was always quite clear about this, I wanted an easy way to be able to keep in touch with friends and family with the on going 'stories' of what we were up to...  After being away in South America for almost twice as long as we'd originally planned in the end - and trying to keep everyone up to date-ish on FaceBook, and the -very- occasional bulk email to family and close friends...  When after only being home for 4.5 months we were off again - on holiday (I was to be gone 4.5 weeks) and J was going to work in Stockholm for 12 weeks, I waved everyone farewell with a very casual 'see you in a month'.  Hmmm, that was mid July last year...  After I was signed on to work for a while - I decided that I might test my toes in the world of blog - and so here I am...

I never expected much that too many people would take an interest - that the friends and family who wanted to keep up with what we were doing would have a cursory read now and then as they had the time...  I have been reading only those blogs of a few friends (only one another 'expat') and stalking about the posts of a few scrapbooking blogs...  I was a little taken back when so many people from the class were talking about reading the whole class full of blogs (on a fairly regular basis) and that many of them had made friends over not just the duration of the course but since then (2009) as well - I shouldn't have been, on reflection - but initially I was...

I have often found myself nodding in agreement, empathising, sympathising, etc with the blogs that I read - and not only those of people that I know personally.  On reflection it didn't really surprise me at all that many of these classmates had made lasting friendships - when they are 'talking' to each other regularly about their day to day and sharing interests, etc - is that not the very definition of friendship?  Of course there would be lasting relationships develop where you can associate to other people and their lives that you're 'hearing' about - especially where you 'click' with what the other is 'saying'.

And so, I'm enjoying more people stopping by to comment and join in and having new blogs to read - and can see that I'll likely loiter around them on a much more regular basis!

As for aligning the blog to my scrapbooking goals - I think that I probably need to work much more at it being able to help me when I'm looking for the words for my pages - I blog less when I'm down or feeling homesick (or just plain sick) and there are plenty of words from days in the recent-ish past that I could be talking about - almost none of the South American trip has been put on pages, and those photos that have were for a kit for a girlfriend's scrapbooking shop, so there was no journalling on them - they were just 'showcase' photos I guess you'd say...  And then my recent trip back to Melbourne - where there were so many highlights that I could have been getting down...  *sigh* So anyway, be prepared to see more 'blast from the past' type updates before I forget everything around those events!

A very long blog post for prompt 1 - but I've had it all turning over in my head for a few days!!

My 'scrap table' (SO keeps telling me it's the table in our lounge room - but there's never anything else on it and I've kind of taken up the real estate!) last night after I'd finished a layout:

My blogging happens generally in my lap - either on the couch or in bed, as we don't really have the space for the computers to permanently live anywhere and we're both on laptops...