Creating Space

Moving again!

No, I'm not moving house again! Just blogs. I have been terrible at blogging this year for quite a number of reasons. One is that I now have a child in Primary school and, being a 'responsible parent' I've joined the PTA. We also have homework, dance classes and swimming lessons to get to so time has been somewhat limited. Secondly, I am now Mummy to a very very active 2 year old who seems to need constant entertaining.... oh and she has Toddler Groups and swimming lessons to get to too which has limited my time even more! Thirdly, despite the fact that I don't have the time I have actually taken the plunge and started my own business. It's small but growing and will hopefully oneday turn a profit! I have a seperate business blog and have been trying to do that fairly regularly! If you want to go have a look its at www.stampin-divas.blogspot.com Leave me a comment or something so I know you dropped by!

Fourthly, I have had a major blog project on the go. In keeping with the current economic climate I have decided that I can't afford to keep paying for this blog. So in my search for a free blog I came across Blogger again and realised that they had improved vastly since I last used them. So I took the leap and set up a blog and I have been working on it for a while now to get it right. In a complete fit of stupidity I decided it would be good to have all the posts from here moved over there and as there is no simple "export" button to click I have manually copied and pasted every. single. post. from this blog to the new blog. Madly, I also decided to copy and paste every. single. comment. too!! So, now that they're all over there and I've prettied up my blog I thought I'd post the link here so you can come over and say "hi" to me.

As I was copying and pasting every. single. post. I realised how little I've been blogging this year and it also got me thinking about what I had to share with you. So, next week I'll be doing (yet another) catch-up post to update you on the years events and also my weight loss! There's a lot to share though so it might have to be over two or three posts. I hope you don't mind?

Anyway, the new blog is called Fit, Fat & Flourishing I hope you will make the move with me and I'll see you on the other side!

WW3 has started!

Having finished with breastfeeding in August last year I had been looking at myself again and thinking that my weight was definitely spiralling out of control. Ok, so I'd had to quit my last attempt at Weight Watchers due to falling pregnant. However, since then I'd gained over a stone again - all in the name of needing to eat more due to breastfeeding. Hmmmmm..... not good! Anyway, I dithered and swithered and finally persuaded myself it wasn't worth starting a new diet just before Christmas. Ha! After Christmas I got on the scale only to find I'd gained another stone during the festive period. Right. This was getting ridiculous and had to stop!! So mid-January I finally dragged myself off to a Weight Watchers meeting and took that first horrendously embarrassing step onto the scales of doom. The result was a whopping 18 stone 12.5 pounds! 

So I had these two pictures taken to remind me how far I had let my weight go. And I'm planning on taking a photo at fairly regular intervals to show my progress during this journey. I have an enormous amount to lose to get to my final goal weight. However, I know I can do it this time! In fact, I've already lost a fair bit... but I shall post about that another day!  

The future of Blogging

So I'm seriously considering my position on blogging. Time is short and there's so much other stuff going on at the moment that I haven't actually been able to sit down and blog for ages! Is it worth keeping going or do I pack it all in? What do YOU think?

Where does the time go?

 My goodness, how time does fly! Today is the 10th of the month, which means that it is Little Miss' 'month day'... and today she is 17 months old! Where did that time go? It seems to have gone so quickly and suddenly she is doing new stuff and trying new things. I can't keep up!  She's walking properly now - trying to run even! She's finally cut her third tooth, ages after her peers have but at least it's there now. I'm hoping that the fourth one isn't too far away! Talking is progressing well too; she has a few words that are quite distinct and loads of words where the general sound is present but not properly formed yet. Signing is still popular and she seems to be learning or making up her own signs almost on a daily basis! She has started dancing to music now; well, waggling her bum really but that's as close to dancing as a toddler gets! She loves singing and has learned the tune and rhythm to loads of nursery rhymes. The words aren't quite there yet but in some cases (particularly 'Twinkle Twinkle') she is forming the sounds quite well. All good and positive things... however, there is a downside too. 

The beginnings of the terrible two's have struck as well. It's as if someone flicked a switch last weekend - and suddenly the tantrums, the head-shaking and saying "NO!", the running away from Mum & Dad when called and the fighting over toys - has all started! Except now we have herself joining in too as usually the fighting over toys is because Little Miss has something herself wants to play with. Suddenly herself has turned into a Little Madam as she realises that her sister can not only get around much faster, but as she is standing up too she can now reach the toys that had previously been out of reach! And so, trouble ensues! Somehow though, over the next 18 years I'm hoping that they will learn to put up with each other, but right now it's not happening!

My baby is growing so fast, and I'm having to learn to keep a camera handy at all times just incase I miss that vital moment that marks another step forward. Unfortunately it means that I'm snowed under with lovely photo's and not enough time to scrap them all! 

January Craft Update

I'm amazed! I have actually managed to get some scrapping and cardmaking done this past month. Wonders will never cease! There are a few things which I didn't get any photo's of; the last CJ that I did, for example. I'm working on another one at the moment, but will probably forget to take a photo again. I usually do, simply because I'm usually in a rush to get it to the Post Office. It's only after I have posted it off that I remember - by which time it's too late! The other thing I don't have any photo's for yet, is my weight loss journal that I'm just finishing off at the moment. Once it's done I shall take some piccies for you to look at.

Until then, you will have to make do with pictures of a few cards and one LO that I did this month. It's not much of an output, but it's more than I've done in quite a long time!

I made these three cards all at the same time. One for my friend's birthday and her hubby's birthday (they're only a few days apart) and then also one for my SIL's hubby who is around the same time. 

Then I also made one for my FIL's birthday which is in early February. He's a massive Beatles fan (as he went to uni in Liverpool when the Beatles were still gigging there) - and as he's turning 64 hubby commissioned me to do a card based on the song "When I'm 64" from the Yellow Submarine album. The inside of the card has the words of the song printed inside. Hubby was pleased with the results!

I somehow managed to find a few days where my Mojo returned for a bit of scrapping too, so I did this scraplifted LO. It was based on a LO that has been in my UKS favourites folder for ages! It worked really well and was lovely to do a LO about my baby girl growing up! Unfortunately I can't remember who did the original - so if you know please give me a shout so I can credit her!!

Anyway, I hope everyone out there is having a fabulously crafty time! I'm going to go finish off my weight loss journal so that I can update you all on that a bit later!

December Catch Up : Advent Calendar

 From this...

To this....

Its only taken me two years to complete, but I finally managed to finish this advent calendar which I gave to my Sister-in-Law and her family just before the Advent season. I have another one waiting to be done for our family. Hopefully it won't be another two years before we get to use ours!

All Hail the King!! (of Rock 'n' Roll)

 

So in honour of Elvis' birthday (which would have been today) I'm taking part in the Music Blog Train organised by Helen. If you'd like to follow the blog train from the start go back to her blog here! If you've just come over from Laura's blog welcome!! 

We're all talking (in various ways) about our musical tastes and styles... which really got me thinking! I wonder if any of my lovely readers would know about my musical past? No, probably not! It's not something I advertise much because for many years now I had 'fallen out of love' with music. Sure, I still listened to it but I haven't taken part for ooooh.... nearly 13 years now. However, over the past few months I have started feeling a stirring, an urge to get involved again.

I started playing Piano at the age of 6-ish and went to lessons after school for years. At High School I started doing my lessons at school and eventually I got my Grade 8 and sat my Matriculation exams in Music. Several times I had wanted to quit, but my parents kept saying that they "hadn't paid all that money for music lessons just so I could give it up!" During the early  part of High School I started singing in choirs and groups and the latter part of High School saw me involved in the Natal Youth Choir. At the end of High School I was unsure of what I wanted to do with my future and found myself being "guided" into doing Music at undergrad level. I enjoyed the first 18 months of it as I transferred from Piano to Voice as my first instrument. Then, it all went pear shaped. My whole life fell apart for various reasons and I left Uni at the end of my second year vowing never to play an instrument again. I returned to the UK and met my husband. It was at this stage that I realised that my musical tastes were not exactly 'normal'. All my life I had only really ever listened or participated in "Classical" music. After Uni I decided to start 'educating' myself in more modern music. I started at early Jazz and Ragtime and there I fell in love with the arrangements of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. The crooning of the jazz singer's including Ella Fitzgerald and the gravel-voiced Sachmo (Louis Armstrong). They led me onto the wartime years where I fell in love again... with Glenn Miller and Vera Lynn and Nightingales in Berkeley Square. Elvis followed soon after followed very quickly by Cliff Richard and the Shadows. I was lucky enough to see Cliff Richard perform in Durban soon after the sanctions had been lifted in 1993 and was amazed by his energy. I dabbled a bit in the Beatles too, but that is where my musical 'self-education' seemed to stop. It was only after I met and married my hubby that I realised I had missed out on so much. The 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's all held so much that I needed to catch up on! 

Now days I can say that I'm a little more 'with it'. I'm enjoying Snow Patrol, Keane, Paloma Faith alongside some of the older bands such as the Rolling Stones, BeeGee's, Pink Floyd as well as some of hubby's favourites like Big Country and the Housemartins. Yup, to the casual observer it may seem that my musical tastes have caught up somewhat... however, the more discerning eye will still catch me putting Classic FM on the radio and enjoying my Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt...  In fact, I'm considering returning to my roots all together as I've raised enough money between my Birthday and Christmas to invest in a Digital Piano . The only question is... am I going to play Classical Music... or teach myself to play more modern stuff? I'd love to play the Blues like Jamie Cullum!

Now, head on down to Tracey's blog for a look at her musical tastes!

New Years resolutions and just one word....

Happy New Year to all my friends, family and random readers! I hope that 2010 is a year of peace, happiness and prosperity for you and your families. I don't know about you, but I'm actually looking forward to 2010 and everything its going to bring with it. I can't believe that we are already a full week into the new year. See? Only 51 more weeks to go until we do it all again!

Seeing as there has been so much snow around this week, I've not been doing a lot of rushing around like I normally would. This forced inactivity gets a person thinking and this week there has been an awful lot to think about. Two things have been the focus of my thinking.... firstly, New Years Resolutions. OK, so if you're anything like me these are a nightmare. I make a looooong list of things that I want to change and by the time the end of January comes along they've all fallen by the wayside and are long forgotten. The last few years I tried not to make any resolutions at all, which was okay-ish, but I felt I was lacking something to work towards. Not really a problem for two years or so as I was too busy dealing with being pregnant, renovating a house, putting said house on the market, packing up, moving, finding a new house to rent, starting eldest daughter in new nursery, moving in and unpacking lots of boxes, having new baby, having too many sleepless nights, finding a new house to buy, organising 4th birthday parties for the same day we got our new house keys, decorating and flooring the new house before we moved in, packing and moving in loads of boxes, changing eldest daughters nursery again to be closer to the new house, having a first birthday 'party' for youngest daughter, getting stuff fixed on the new house that the previous owners had bodged, my own birthday, preparing for Christmas.... and trying to remember to breathe in amongst all that lot! But this year I don't forsee any babies or moving or renovating. In fact, other than the eldest daughter starting 'big school' I don't actually forsee much happening at all. Ah! Bliss! Ok, there will still be the usual day-to-day stuff and routine maintenance on the house... but this year I would like a challenge of some sort. So I'm resorting to New Years Resolutions again! So here they are....

1. Lose weight. My excess weight is really affecting my health and mobility now. I've had enough of it all and am going to make the change to get rid of it.
2. Get fitter. 
3. Create more. I love being creative, but with all that I've been doing over the last two years its taken a bit of a backseat. I would love to increase my creativity... including the painting and sewing I used to do before eldest was born!
4. Learn a new skill. I still have to decide what I would like to learn. Something creative that I haven't tried yet? Or maybe a new language?
5. Be more involved at Church. 
6. Improve my relationship with my kids... basically, yell less and hug more!
7. Improve my relationship with God... basically, yell less and listen more!

Are these impossible? I don't think so. The key to all of these things is self-discipline. Something I'm not terribly good at. Will they last? I hope so, but only time will tell. Check back at the end of January for that one!

Part of the New Year Resolutions thing for a lot of people, including Ali Edwards , is to choose one word to live by for the whole year. Just one word that will guide your thoughts, actions, goals and dreams for the year. I participated in this a few years ago and found it to be really inspiring. I chose the word Create for that year. And boy did I? It was a great year for creativity, not just in scrapbooking or artistic stuff... but also for creating a home out of a building site, creating a second daughter, creating a calmer environment for all of us as a family etc. This past week I've been thinking about choosing another word for the year. Create came to me easily, but this time I was really struggling. Then, a couple of days ago I suddenly struck on the word Seek. No, its not a generic, feel-good factor sort of word... but I think it will work! It came with a couple of Scriptures attached too....

"Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" Matthew 7:7

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well" Matthew 6:33 

 (source: http://elegantwordart2.blogspot.com/ )

So this year I believe that if I seek God in all these things then I will be able to accomplish the goals I have set myself. This year I'm going to Seek a slimmer, fitter body; A more creative life; A new skill; Greater involvement; and Better relationships. 

I don't think they're bad things to strive for... do you? What resolutions have you made?

JYC Prompt 28

My favourite Christmas indulgence... baked goodies! Shop bought or home baked I don't mind which! Mind you, home baked is definitely better!

 

I'm still trying to catch up with all the JYC Prompts that I've missed. Its going to take some time though as I'm waaaay behind!
 

JYC Layouts

Sorry for having been absent the last week.. or two.. or three! You all know how it goes, Advent arrives and you swear its going to be calmer and  more organised than last year; and then before you know it you're running around like a headless chicken. Well, its happened again!

The good news is that we are now with the extended family and have been forced into a more sedate and calmer way of life. Which also means that I've been able to get some essential stuff sorted out on my laptop... things like - organising the mess of photo's I'd just dumped on my laptop for the past 8 or 9 months, and also sorting out my digi scrapping kits that I'd downloaded and then done nothing with. Anyway, they're all sorted now and actually inspired me to do some scrapping! Going along with the theme of catching up, I decided to do some layouts for Shimelle's 'Journal Your Christmas' class! So here are the two that I've completed today.. and hopefully there will be more in the next week or so, so keep checking back to see my progress!