Grandma to the Rescue!

Got a phone call at 6:30 this morning wondering if I could babysit a sick monkeyface! She actually isn't all that sick, just sounds awful when she coughs and dd wanted her to be little more quiet than she might be at the daycare. She was up when I went to pick her up and when I asked her if she wanted me to stay there or if she wanted to come to grandma's house, she was up and heading for the closet saying, "boots on, coat on, let's go"!! That gets repeated a few times before we get out the door. I am so happy for an insulated garage on these fridgidly cold days! My vehicle is not at all cold to get into early in the morning. And by the time I got over to my dd's house, it was toasty warm and not too bad for sick little girl to get into. She has been entertaining us all day and other than a runny nose, hasn't acted too sick at all. But she has been playing quietly and not running around with other kids! She has been having a long afternoon nap as well, guess I should go and check on her. I did do a layout of us with her at the pumpkin maze they had out a Dutch growers too.

I used my Slice to cut the flourish, I don't seem to use that little guy too much but there are alot of things on those little cards!! I use the alphabets quite abit but I don't seem to think about what else is available on them. I have a few more photos of that day to get onto layouts as well. I should get going on that as the Christmas ones will be here before long and then the birthday ones shortly after!!!

Cleaning windows!!

So this is what happens when Poppa and Monkeyface play by themselves. They get to clean the windows after they blow on them and make drawings in the fog that is produced!!!! Monkeyface is going to make a good housekeeper later on in life because she really liked doing this!! Imagine, someone who likes to do windows!!

Happy Halloween and Some cards

We have been invited to a couple of birthdays in the next month and both are for little girls that are turning 2 and 3 respectively. So I thought with the snow today I would stay home, warm and cozy and make a couple of cards. I thought while I was at it, I would make a get well card to have on hand as they usually are needed whenever I am not able to sit and think about what to make.

The birthday I made this one for is going to be Teddy Bear's picnic theme.

And I don't think there is a theme for the 2 yr old's party so thought a clown would be good. Maybe I will come up with another one that is better before the party but for now, this one will be it. This is another attempt at using up some stash!

Beautiful sunrise this morning

I was sitting and drinking my coffee and reading my book and I happened to look up and out my kitchen window and saw these gorgeous colours. I grabbed my camera and ran outside, stopping only for a moment to set my shutter speed alittle slower. Kind of nervous about doing that because I still am not secure shooting in anything other than P mode. But I am happy with the way these turned out.

I took a couple from different spots in the backyard. I think these are some of the best ones.

By the time my dh got out to the kitchen, all the colors had gone, so I was glad I had proof of why I was outside in my housecoat and slippers!!

Keeping up, sort of !!

I am trying to keep up with my personal goals of doing a layout every day this month, use only my stash and get my old photos scrapped. I have been doing fairly well with all those goals even though I haven't posted all my pages here, I am getting some done. I haven't necessarily been doing layouts that are fancy and full of new techniques but I have been getting the photos on paper with some memories documented with them, even if it is only a date and people's names. This is one that I did of my dd when she turned 2, she just turned 32!! So, needless to say, I am a bit behind!! When I look at these photos, I can see all the things I did wrong while snapping the picture, but then I think, at least I have a picture of the event! I mean, just look at that ugly ironing board propped against the wall, it could have been moved and maybe my eye wouldn't immediately wander over there! I realize that I have learned alot about photography in the last couple of years and I do know that I can learn alot more!
I am hoping that the weather forecasters are correct and we are going to have some nice weather soon. I am tired of the snow, we need some sunshine at least!

Some scrapbook pages

I have a goal for October, and it is to do 1 layout everyday. I didn't make this goal until just the other day so it wasn't the 1st day of oct. that I started. So far I have managed to do this. And my other goal is to only use my stash, nothing new. So we will see how I do.

I decided that I would really try and mix up my older photos with some of the newer ones, that are of course of my dgd, monkeyface!

so I dug out photos from the 90's. These ones are of Harvest Days in Les's hometown. The fields were "stooked" just like in the early 1900's and an old threshing machine was brought in to show people how harvesting was done in "the olden days" It was a great demonstration and it showed how it really took a team effort to get the harvesting done then. They started out with horses pulling the hayrack but I think the loud noise of the old tractor running the threshing machine scared them , so they converted to a tractor pulling the hayrack. Or maybe they were just running out of time, I can't remember. But I thought this was a great memory to have in the scrapbooks. I am going to try and find some photos of actual threshing in my mother's old albums. If I do, I will add a page of them to this set.

I am trying out the method of grouping my embellishments in 1 area like I have seen on alot of the scrapbook blogs and sites. I am not sure I have the knack for this but I will keep trying and see how I like it. I still prefer simple and minimalistic but I have to use up some stash so will try to add alittle more than I usually do and see how it goes.

On the weather topic, it is still snowing here and I don't like it one bit. It is way too early. And with the wind, it feels like winter, not fall. We had a long cold spring and now an early winter, it just isn't fair!!! But we all know the answer to that one, don't we????

Say it isn't SNOW!!!

Arghhhh, Look at what it is doing this afternoon in our neck of the woods! This can't be, it's only the 8th of October, we just got finished with snow, didn't we??? Where was summer??? Where was Fall??? What happened to global warming??

I can't take it anymore!!!

I am really hoping that this is going to go away and we will have some nice weather until Christmas. Maybe if I rub the little lamp, a genie will pop out and grant me a wish, just one, that's all. I am so not ready for this.

Cupcake Ectasy!

Our little monkeyface loved these cupcakes or "cakes" as she called them. She licked every little bit of icing off her fingers and really seemed to enjoy every little crumb! We all enjoyed them but she seemed to enjoy them the most. Thanks again to Saucy at Saucy's Sprinkles!

It took a long time for her to eat this one little cupcake!

Look what was delivered to my house!

Look what was delivered to my door in the afternoon on Saturday!! They were the most scrumptious cupcakes ever!! I had mentioned on Saucy's blog that I would be sharing them if I won them. Well, I did share them with my family on Sunday. My little monkeyface was here with her parents for supper and we certainly enjoyed them right to the last crumb. Monkeyface is starting to talk, some of it we understand quite well and some, well, we just guess!! Anyway, "cake" is one word she understands and says very clearly!!! The icing was fabulous but tucked inside was a strawberry cream mix that was heavenly!! Saucy, you are just the best!!!

The awesome colours of Fall

I went down to the riverbank yesterday to see if there was anything interesting to take pictures of. I didn't get too far and my ankle started to hurt but here is one that I took. I tried to frame the beautiful blue of the river with the pretty colours of the trees. I kind of like it.

Beds, Haircuts and Living Life!

So, today was the day that I decided I had to get on with the next item of my to-do list and that was go bed shopping. We NEED a new bed, this one is getting soft spots in it. My husband has given me the "I will be happy with whatever you chose, dear, just go do it" speech, so I decided that I must get this crossed off the list. So, I rambled around the city today, looking at beds, listening to salesmen talk to me about beds, laying on beds, and trying to make a educated decision about a new bed. I would personally like a king size bed but unfortunately, our bedroom isn't set up for one. There are many kinds of beds out there!!! I did come to a decision however, based on information given to me and keeping in mind our budget that we had for a new bed. Sears has a sale on right now and I think we got a good quality bed, firm but comfy and we have 60 days to decide that we really like it and will keep it. So that was done, crossed off the list! I had an appointment to get my hair trimmed, to me a trim means just alittle off the ends, however, to a hairdresser, it seems to mean, cut off as much as you can get away with!! I do like my hair alittle shorter but it always seems to be just about where I like it when it becomes alittle unruly and I think, just alittle off the ends would be good, so I go for a trim and almost always come away unhappy. Thank goodness, hair grows!!
We have windows that have wooden frames, that was the thing to get when we built our house, now there are vinyl clad windows, they would be so much better, but when I inquired about how much it would be to get our windows done, it was very expensive, we could amost put in new windows for what it would cost, so today I went to the paint store to find out what I could do with them. I found some stuff to paint on them, after I wash them with bleach and the tsp! It's going to be alittle bit of work methinks, to get them looking good!
I started my fall housecleaning this week, I am almost through all my cupboards, washing, re-organizing and purging! I have a few boxes to go to community living. I have been through most of the closets too. I am really thinning things out. I am being ruthless!
I have been trying to get some scrapbooking done as well. I have picked up Stacy Julian's PhotoFreedom book again and am trying to organize my photos as well as get a few pages done. I am not getting much done for either task!! I signed up for a class on-line at Big Picture Scrapbooking, doing a book about myself. My dh and I had a road trip to Lethbridge this past weekend to see his brother. We had a few hours on the road to discuss alot of things, we were just about at Lethbridge when we realized we had gone the entire way without the radio on or any other distractions!! We had alot to talk about! He has been so busy this summer that we haven't had our usual times to relax and enjoy each other's company. We did have our little vacation to Niagara Falls, but that was different, there were other things to talk about and we were doing the "tourist stuff" as well. anyway, I digress, we started talking about leaving our stories behind for future generations and of course that lead to my scrapbooking and how I scrap our kids and our vacations but I don't really do anything about us and our childhoods. so we thought we needed to do something about that. He really doesn't have alot of photos of him as a child but he has lots of memories that we could write down. We are going to try and get something done about that this winter when he has alittle more time. It has been put on the to-do list. The one for both of us!! We are working our way through a bucket list too! We have our trip to Europe booked and sort of planned for March 2010. That was close to the top for the bucket list and I am quite excited about going.
Well, this post has become quite long and if you have stuck with me this far, I thank you. If you got bored and left, well, I do understand. I just needed to get some of my thoughts down, if you know what I mean. I am doing a mini photography course on the Flickr site and I need to do a study of light for this week so I must go think about that now! It's cloudy and cool outside so today might not be ideal for this little assignment! But I can plan.

My little princess

This is pretty much the only thing I got done this summer that would qualify as creative. I did a photo shoot of my little princess and her cousin at the end of June, for their 18 month pictures. We had them outside and I took about 500 shots of the 2 of them. This was one of the best head shots that I got. We tweaked it abit because she had some scratches on her nose and chin but it is mostly as I took it. I had some help from the ladies at JSI as I took everything in there and asked for the help. This is my first attempt at doing a canvas and I don't do much 3 dimensional stuff either. So with their help, I glimmermisted the canvas with 2 colors of glimmermist and a butterfly mask. The flowers are prima, the paper is from Webster's pages line. the swirls are cut apart from the big package of swirls and the butterfly on the top flowers, I found at Michael's in a package of butterflies. I glimmermisted a couple of extra white prima flowers so that they matched up with everything and glued it with zipdry and fabric tac. Oh yes, and the lacy ribbon around the photo was from JSI's wall of ribbon!! The masking on the canvas doesn't come through very well here but IRL it looks quite pretty. I was quite happy with the final results.

Gobsmacked!!

Isn't that just the funniest word you have ever heard? I am reading Barbara Taylor Bradford's book, "Being Elizabeth" and she uses that word in place of stunned or speechless! Everytime I read it or I think about it while I am going about my daily routine, I giggle. I think it sounds hilarious. The book is based in London so i am guessing it is one of those english words like spanner, torch, knocking someone up. trolley, etc, etc. that we find so unusual when we hear them. There are probably some words that we use that they find funny too! But I just have to giggle when I think about being gobsmacked!!

I am trying to get my mojo back, still. I really need to start doing some scrapbook pages and I have almost used up all my cards in my cardbasket, so with all the birthdays and things coming up this fall, I really need to find it, wherever it went. I signed up for an online class with BigPicture Scrapbooking. It starts September 3rd and I am really hoping that it will jumpstart my creativity. Wish me luck!

Flutterby butterfly

I took alot of photos in the Butterfly Conservatory, and also of the Botanical gardens. I am not sure how I will scrapbook them, I think I may try to do a collage page. The gardens were so beautiful and lush, I was so envious, we just can't grow gardens like that here in dry, hot Sask. We certainly enjoyed looking at all the flowers there, or i guess i did, I really can't speak for dh, although he didn't complain and he carried my camera bag too! What a great guy!!

We celebrated our 35th Wedding Anniversary!

This is only a small view of what the streets look like in Niagara on the Lake. It is the most beautiful place, but having said that, it is quite expensive! At least, during the tourist season.

My dh wanted to see a play at the Shaw Festival. So we booked tickets for King Charles' Golden Days which meant that we had to stay an extra day here, hmmm, not so bad an idea. We walked the streets and checked out all the little boutiques. Lots of art galleries and little stores with pottery.etc.

This was our spectacular room at the Hilton's Embassy Suites for our stay in Niagara Falls. We stayed there one night, our anniversary night and then we moved onto Niagara On the Lake. They had alot of B&B's there, but unfortunately they had no vacancies. I had wanted to book on line but dh wanted to "wing it" for this holiday and the only room he let me prebook was this one. I am not a great "winging it" kind of gal but I did it for this week. We actually had pretty good luck with finding rooms when we wanted them.

And this was the view from our suite. It was breath taking. We did go on the Maid of the Mist ride and that took our breath away too, but because it was windy and extremely wet!! We stood on the top and in the front, probably the windiest and wettest place to be on the entire boat, but we did get a good look at the falls!

All in all, it was a great holiday, we enjoyed our time together and even though it was very hot and humid, we did get to see alot of countryside.

So Sorry everyone. I haven't been a good blogger lately. I really don't have an excuse, I just haven't been keeping up with this. I really haven't been doing any scrapbooking either. I just can't seem to get myself motivated to do anything crafty. I have, however, been reading alot of books!!

I am getting excited though. We are going to go to Niagara Falls on Sunday, my dh and I, to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. I may have mentioned this previously but now the time is actually here!! We would have left earlier than Sunday but dh is involved with the German Club and he has to be there for these 3 days of Folkfest. So that is why we are leaving on a Sunday.

We did manage a short visit with friends at Tobin Lake last weekend and I had my camera with me, with my trusty telephoto lens, so I did get a few good shots of a friendly little squirrel they had running around. These friends have been building a log cabin on their lot. Last year, they moved out the old trailer that they have been using for many years and they started on the cabin that they have dreamed about. Our friend retired last June from the department of highways and he had made the decision that his first year of retirement would be building this cabin and then maybe he would look for a parttime job after it was done. They just have some varnishing to do yet but basically it is all done. I will post a photo on here and not feel guilty because their kids have it posted on facebook so they probably won't mind that it is on my blog. The cabin.....The cute little squirrel......This is a woodpecker that visits the birdfeeder hanging in a nearby tree at the cabin. There are

2 of them and our friends know what the proper names of them are, one is quite abit bigger than the other one.

And finally my patience won out and I got a couple of shots at catching the ever elusive hummingbird!! I sat for quite awhile to capture this little guy. And he kept coming into the feeder from the tree side so when I snapped the photo he blended in with the tree. He finally decided to try the other side of the feeder and I got a couple of snaps in, but he was pretty quick with his snack!!

Thursday already?

My how times flies. I can't believe it is thursday already. I have been doing nothing in particular and everything in general, you know, the laundry, regualr household chores, etc. I did have someone over to look at our main bath and I am hoping I get a reasonable quote for renovating it. So then I went and looked at bathtubs and sinks. We have an older home so it has quite a small bathroom. which may create a problem for switching out the tubs but when we moved the house from the farm the tubsurround separated from the tub and I think water got behind it and the drywall now looks alittle crumbly. anyway, we are going to replace the tub and sink as they both are chipped and rusting alittle. I also want to replace the livingroom carpet. I really wanted hardwood floors but dh says absolutely not so i have finally given up on that ( I have put it off for quite awhile hoping that he will cave, but it's not to be). So I went and looked at carpet samples as well. And I looked at the newest duraceramic tiles for the bathroom floor. I quite like them. So then, I looked at new blinds for the windows, and while I was measuring them, I noticed that the wooden frames look alittle water damaged from frost melting and pooling on the ledges, so now I have to visit a paint store and check out what I need to do with them before i get any new blinds on them. Probably will paint them instead of stain and varnish. I hear there is a new kind of paint that will protect against any mold forming and gets rid of any that is there now. So I must go and check that out. I may as well paint the entire livingroom them too, right? So guess we have to get that ball rolling now and I think it is going to pick up some speed as we go along. I am thinking maybe new furniture too!!!! Argh!!!! What have I started???? Will there be no end? It could go on and on and on!!!! Stay tuned to future developments!



I have been reading Stacey Julian's book, Photo Freedom and trying to imagine having no guilt about my ever growing pile of photos. I have decided to embrace a part of her philosophy. I will start just pulling out photos and scrapping them, and not care if they are recent or as old as the hills! So I did that. I just went through a pile of older photos of our girls and picked 2 out of the pile. Then I made this layout. The paper and embellies are from the July kit from Just Cre8. I decided it would go into an album named "everyday life". Maybe someday I will get to the part about sorting the photos into her 4 categories, but for now, I think this is how I will start!

I have done a few other pages from one of my old albums but because it is of dh's sister's wedding I don't think I should post it here, there are too many other people in the photos and I don't know how they feel about being in my blog. Suffice to say, I did alot of cropping and got many photos onto a page without losing anything but alot of white background! My old photography skills sucked bigtime!! The cheap camera probably didn't help much either!

Oh and if you want a smile for today, you should go to the Just Cre8 forum and look for a youtube video about a wedding procession, it is priceless. I would have posted it here but i have no clue how to do that so you will have to do the work and go find it. maybe I can put the right post here with a url, I will try and see if that works.

http://justcre8.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8489

okay, here is the post in the forum, enjoy.

Photography Road Trip

On Saturday we decided to do a road trip to look for things to take photos of, just for fun!! WE started out around 9 a.m. and headed north toward P.A. By Rosthern there is a deserted farmyard that has a car ( a Cadillac I believe) that has a tree growing out from inside the motor compartment. There is also a falling down shack and a bunch of old machinery.




We left P.A. and went east towards Choiceland, stopping here and there along the way if we saw something that we wanted to photograph. We found old churches, flowers galore, abandoned yardsites with falling down houses and old granaries. It was hot and the flies were everywhere!!! We had a great time and then towards evening we ended up at St. Louis. From there we travelled along the river back to Saskatoon. All in all we were gone for 12 hours and we travelled close to 600 kms.!! I took over 300 pictures and I am including some of my favorite ones here.

This is a frog in one of the churchyards we were in. I was taking photos of flowers with my macro lens at the time. this little guy wouldn't stay still for me very well and was hard to get a focus on him!! Patience paid out though. I think he thought he was hidden from me here!!!

The St. Louis bridge. It was around 7 p.m. and I set my shutter speed to get this lighting. I can't remember what setting I used but I know that I wanted it to look different than what I was getting so I played abit to get the look I was trying for.

This was alittle later and the evening light made the canola field look so bright against the old granary and the green trees. The fields during the harsh sun of the day looked way more washed out.

This is my absolute most favorite photo of the entire day! I just love it and it was taken on a whim with no pre planning at all!! Isn't that just how it works some days????

This elevator is at Hagen and we just laughed at all the different angles all the separate pieces were leaning at!!

A prairie lily. It was one of the things I was specifically looking for today.

We looked all day for a lane that would photograph this way, like it went on forever. I took quite a few photos of this and with different lenses to see what would give me the look I was aiming for. This one is with the 17-85mm lens.

I don't know how I got 2 of the same photos on here, and I tried to take one off but I couldn't figure out how to get one off and leave all the others so this one got left! There was a radio tower that I could see in my frame and I tried many views to get it not to be there, finally found this one where the church steeple hid the tower perfectly!!! There's that try every angle tip that I was told about in the one and only photography course I have taken!!

I am going to put more of these photos on my Flicker site next, so if you want to see more, try going there and looking. Thanks.