......{insert title here}.....

I have a headache that just wont go away! No matter what I take, it will go for about 10 minutes and then come back.

Anyway... When I was a kid I remember asking mum how come birds can stand on the electrical wires and not get fried. She told me it was because the birds have "special rubber feet" and they aren't affected by the electricity.

Fast forward 26 years to just yesterday... I was driving to work and there was a discussion on the radio about how you can hold on to one electrical wire and not have anything happen, but as soon as you touch a 2nd wire, your body acts as a conductor and all the electricity goes through and you get electrocuted.

I turn to Trav who was in the car with me and ask if its true, to which he said yep. hmm... then I told him the story of the birds with rubber feet and he could not believe that at age 26 I still believed that story!!! LOL I'm so disappointed that it's not true!

So, when we have kids they better watch out, I'll be spinning them the funniest stories when they ask me questions! ROTFL

WELL, not much has been happening around my little corner... Just plodding along. I'm a bit under the weather today but I had to come into work as the boss is at a training course, the Senior health inspector is off for the school holidays and that just leaves me to hold the fort and deal with all the complaints and sewer problems!!
ugh I dropped my camera in a big puddle of sewerage yesterday :( Fortunately it was the work camera.... but still.. YUCK! I smothered it in alcohol when I got back to work! hahaha

Quick dog update: Onlsow has lost a grand total of 10kg!!!! He WAS 57.5kg when we went in April to get his shots, and now just 3 months later he is sitting on 47.5 :) The goal is 45 so he's almost there :) I was looking at photos of him from April and OMG he looked MASSIVE!! LOL like a big fat blob-a-tron!

ANyway I can't be bothered typing anymore. Who wants to see some pretty layouts?





Check out the layout credits in my gallery

Well, thats all from me for the time being! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Done!

ahh isn't that pretty? The photo in the header was taken by me at Wanaka in NZ :) Such a beautiful place, I just love it.

Anyway just sitting here relaxing after a fairly busy weekend! We had to wait forever at the vet, but the good news is he doesn't think the lump is malignant but just to keep an eye on it. so thats good. And he didn't charge us either, which was nice. We must be valued customers with the amount of money we spend at that vet! LOL

So as soon as we came back, I ate lunch, got dressed and headed out to catch up with a couple of friends from high school who I hadn't seen in aaages! It was so good to finally catch up and amazing how even after all these years it still felt exactly the same, we really haven't changed much at all :) So we will have to do that sometime again very soon! - Sorry Kate, I forgot to bring the camera! I'll remember next time ;)

By the time I came back from there, I ate dinner that Travis had cooked while I was out, then sat on the lounge with some wine and Trav made scones :)

Today (sunday) we got up early, went to the shops to buy our fruit and veg for the week, I came home an cleaned up the mess from the late-night scone making, cooked our lunches for the week, hung the washing out, cooked a pasta sauce for our late lunch / early dinner, cleaned the kitchen again, sorted washing out, went out the back with the skipping rope and jumped for a good 45 minutes, cleaned the bathroom and shower, had a shower, cooked some home-made gnocchi, ate it, cleaned up the kitchen for the 3rd time today and packed away my clean washing and now im tired! LOL

What a boring story! hahhaha
And with that, im going :)

Thank God it's Friday!!!

The week has flown by but bring on the weekend!!! I'm so over work and am counting the days until we head off to Europe.

Tonight we are going out with some friends to Una's at Darlinghurst mmmmm yum!!! I LOVE this place :) The first few times we went there on a Saturday, but last time we went on a friday night and for $15 we got the "special" which was 2 HUGE schnitzels and a beer. The schnitzels seriously hang off the edges of the plates and are sooooo nice.

Anyway then tomorrow morning we are running to the vet again. This time for Belle. She has had a small lump on her elbow for about a year and over the last couple of months it's gotten noticeably bigger, so we booked her in for a checkup, but I guess they will want us to bring her back on another day to cut it out and see what it is. Is it just me, or is there always some kind of drama with our dogs?! LOL

Saturday afternoon I am catching up with some old school friends who I haven't seen in years!! It should be great!!!!

Sunday nothing much on the plans at this stage... maybe go for a drive somewhere. Or maybe just stay home and be boring LOL depends on the weather and how we feel.

We started watching the new James Bond movie last night.. I was exhausted so I fell asleep half way through :) as usual!! LOL So I have to finish that at some point over the weekend.

I'm still tired because the dogs went NUTS in the middle of the night... Belle was jumping at the window at the front and barking, Onlsow was running around doing the most viscious growls I have ever heard him do! I rolled over trying to ignore but Belle decided we had to get up so came bounding onto the bed barking and jumping on us. Nothing was there though. It was probably a cat. But I love having them inside at night for that reason. If anyone is hanging around they just carry on and on. And because they are such big dogs they have very loud, deep barks and sound so much tougher than what they actually are! hahaha

Observations...

Ok so the most random things enter my mind and I generally start talking without thinking.

Take the other night, for instance.
I was washing up and Travis was cooking pasta.
He opened the packet and pulled out a long spagetti (raw) and sticks one end in my mouth.

I very very carefully eat my way through it, which was pretty tricky without having any hands to hold the rest of the pasta in place while biting bits off the end.

Once i'm done at start to marvel at the way the mouth is set up. "wow isnt it amazing how my teeth, tongue and lips all work together to eat the spaghetti".

Travis looks at me like im crazy.

I continue... "well, my tongue pulls the pasta into my mouth, my teeth snap a part of it off, and my lips keep the rest in place until the tongue can pull it back in! Amazing!

Travis isn't impressed and declared he could do the same thing without lips.

So he stands next to me, holds his lips apart (looking like an ape at this point) and gets me to put another spaghetti in his mouth. As soon as he took a bite, the rest fell into my washing up water.

At which point I stick a big soapy finger in face and yell "AHHHH-HAAAAAA!!! SUCKED IN!!" and then go back to the washing up.

I seriously don't think we are very normal ROTFL

finally!

I have been meaning to fix up this blog forever!! I hated how narrow the main bit was. Anyway now all I need is a new blog header with some pretty blues to complete the look :) Watch it take me another 6 months to get that done :p

2 weeks...

...worth of updates! LOL

Tattoos - well they healed nicely and im hanging out for warmer weather so I can show mine off! LOL I went and booked my 2nd one in yesterday, which will be on the 28th July. I was so impressed with Kaylene that im more than happy to wait 3 weeks for her to do my 2nd one :) This will be a cute little cat on my lower back with some pretty swirls either side :) I like girly and I like different LOL

What else... we had a great night up at Katoomba a couple of weeks ago as well! We went up to Linda and Scotts place, where they lit the outside fire thingo and we ate, drank, laughed, toasted marshmallows and basically carried on like clowns till the early hours of the morning.




So it was sooo cold and there was frost at like 8pm or maybe even earlier! Leanne hopped on the trampoline and her feet stuck to it! LOL I had a go on the swings until Linda pushed me off, We drank a few cowboy shots, someone scoured the streets for a real estate sign and we went sliding down the frosty hill!! LOL Later in the night after most people had gone home, travis had a turn at trying to "surf" on it, slipped and fell and didnt get up. We laughed, I yelled "Are you alright?" There was no answer, and no movement...I asked again, there was a lsight moan and we all just ignored him and enjoyed the fire. Poor thing!!! He could have been really hurt or knocked unconscious and we (Me, Linda, Scott and one of Scotts mates) just sat there laughing at him!! ROTFL Fortunatley there was nothing wrong with him and he was just laying there laughing anyway. ahhh fun times!!!!

The oven got fixed on Friday! Not that we really use it much.. i do 90% of my cooking on the stove.. I pretty much only use the oven on weekends to make pumpkin scones or muffins to put in the freezer for snacks at work..
I did some home made gnocchi again yesterday :) yum I could eat it all day and its not that hard to make. I did a delicious Pumpkin soup as well on Saturday :)

We went to the Alliance Francaise (sp?) in the City on saturday with our french teacher and 2 other people from our class. LOL I got to order my food in French.. no idea what she said to me after that though! hahaha. Travis thought he was brilliant when he went and asked (in French) where the toilet was .. and then expected the answer in English, and when it came in French he had to think quick to try and understand :) Anyway I ended up buying up a French cook book! One page has the recipie in French, the facing page has it in English. So many tasty recipies.. Travis has earmarked about 10 ginormous meals for me to cook him. ha! yeah right....

So the dogs.. well Onlsow is recovering nicely from his operation. I cant believe its been like 9 weeks already! Anyway he is climbing on the lounge again.. actually he's a bandit for that lounge these days! He will park his ginat body there around 8:30pm / 9:00pm and he will still be in the exact same position when we wake up at 5:30am! I do find that he rarely jumps anymore though.. im not sure if its because his knee is still a bit sore, or if he remembers hurting it from jumping last time and he's scared.. either way its nice to come home to only one jumpy dog instead of 2 jumpy dogs! LOL

And on the weight loss issue, he has gone down from 57kg to 48kg!!!! He still looks like a fat barrell though.. Belle is now 40kg so maybe thats why he still looks fat.

Anyway scrappy stuff.. here are some recent layouts :) I have been creating some of my favourite layouts lately, mostly with stuff from Christy Lyle which hasn't been released, so I can't show it off!!!! Anyway here are some other layouts that I CAN show off ;) Follow the link to my gallery on the left if you wanna know where anything came from.




hmm well I think this is pretty long now and Ic ant think of anything else that needs saying, so I'm heading off!!!! :)

Branded!

At least thats how I feel.. LOL Like a cow thats been branded with a red hot iron stick thing :)



And this is Travs:




And I have my 2nd one all planned, I took it in with me to check that it was do-able. So after this heals I will go and book it in. Although it may have to wait until after we get back from our trip.. I dont want to have a healing tattoo while we are overseas. So thanks SM :) I saved up all my recent cheques and it was enough to cover both of these and I have just enough spare to get my 2nd one!! woo hoo!

Apart from that, not much has been happening. At work on Friday I dozed off at lunch (we have comfy lounges and a TV in the lunchroom.. I always fall asleep!) And I woke up feeling so off. My throat and/or ear was sore.. I couldnt tell which one. ANyway I just got over a bout of the flu and I hate it when people come to work sick.. I take days off to get better, come back and everyone is coughing and spluttering all over me.

So I did nothing on Friday night, except scrap... wrapped up in a blanket, listening to the footy on Tv and scrapping away.

Saturday I woke up feeling sick.. all achey, sore ear/throat and one eye was really sore and itchy. Anyway we did grocery shopping, then came home and did some housework. At about 12:30pm I sat down on the lounge with some soup and the dogs. Onlsow curled up in my lap and went to sleep, I thought that looked like a good idea, curled up around him and fell asleep in 2 seconds. Travis had to come in and wake me up at 5:00pm!!! I was out like a light for 4.5 hours straight... Onlsow had gotten up, went outside, came ben an hour later and curled up with me again and I didnt even notice. I was feeling a bit better, took some cold and flu tablets, rugged up in a billion layers of clothes and went to the footy. Came home, watched The Departed and then went to sleep.

And I woke up on Sunday feeling perfectly fine!

So I cooked up a storm. 2 lots of stir fry vegies with U-don noodles for lunches at work, home made gnocchi and a very tasty sauce for dinner and a double batch of pumpkin scones. I was doing all three at once, and whacked the scones in, checked on them 15 minutes later.. and they were stone cold. The oven was on, it had been pre-heating for a good 20 minutes while I made the scones, and nothing. I could touch all the racks and they were barely warm. SO looks like the oven has carked it!! So I put the scones in the microwave and they are rock hard!! LOL They still taste delicious though.

well thats all from me.... catch ya later :)

Tagged and stuff

I joined Twitter! LOL Its so much fun :) I have spent all morning sending and reading updates hahaha!

And This is just a little something I whipped up last night.. credits in my gallery over to the left. Too lazy!



I bought a new exercise DVD! A hip-hop cardio workout:

ROTFL Its like a full on dance routine and so HARD! It will be heaps of fun when I can learn the steps.. there is a "learning the steps" section where she goes through each step slowly, and the actual workout is a proper dance. I was puffing and panting half way through the WARM UP! LOL Anyway I got it from Home Fitness Delivered, I received it within 2 days of ordering and including postage, it set me back a whopping $13.48! Worth every cent too :)

Anyway the weather has been nice and chilly, forecast today was 14C, but its raining and there is a very cold (and strong!) wind blowing :) Its GREAT! I love weather like this!!!

I was tagged by Kate a while back.. I am finally getting time to do it now! LOL

The rules: Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs the 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag 7 others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog.

Ok 7 Random Facts:

1- I hate it when people {travis} sing the wrong words to songs. It drives me mental and Travis makes all the words up and sings on the top of his lungs. The more I correct him the worse he gets LOL

2- When I was 17 I got my first part-time job at the local bowling alley. I worked HALF a shift, didnt get paid and they never rang me back ROTFL I had to go collect all the empty plates from the alleys and I "accidentally" picked up all the ash trays and washed them, and then packed them away in the kitchen, thinking they were just normal saucers!!

3- I have no co-ordination.. :) well, I semi do in my legs and hips, it's just that my arms seem too long and skinny for my body and fly around uncontrollably.. much to Travis' amusement. He sneaks in when I'm going aerobics and laughs at my "gumpy arms".

4- I wish I had a pet goat! I went past houses with pet goats on my way to uni and would love some. I love goats in general :) Wonder how they would get on with the dogs?

5- I barely watch any TV and I cant stand reality shows. I sometimes watch the news, usually watch ACA to see which Councils they are bashing and hope they dont do an expose on any of the food shops in MY area! LOL. I flick through foxtel a lot and we usually end up watching the comedy channel or a movie. Oh and every single game of rugby league! hahaha

6- I used to hate seafood but I actually enjoy it now. I had grilled baby octopus the other day.. and mussels! mmmmm tasty :) 2 years ago I would have gagged at the thought of even looking at either of those! LOL

7- I love cooking!

And here is a tag I stole off Jodie

1. regular or diet soda: I dont drink that stuff... but if i had to choose I would go normal. Dont want brain tumors from the artificial sweetner LOL Give me water any day!
2. salt or pepper: Pepper
3. hot or cold weather: cold. Perferably with rain and wind
4. dogs or cats: Dog
5. dieting or exercise: Exercise.. I believe in eating healthy, diets are rubbish and just make you crave the things you cant have even more.
6. cooking or doing dishes: um this is hard...I do love cooking.. but I also enjoy washing up.. its like a mini bubble bath and kind of relaxing in winter!!
7. sleeping or shopping: Sleeping I guess? I need my sleep, I dont need to shop. LOL This is a stupid one!
8. Red Lobster or Outback Steakhouse: Dunno... but if it meas meat or seafood, I'd have to go with... a big juicy steak!!!
9. classical or hip hop music: Neither. Give me some good old-fashioned rock music any day!!
10. dancing or playing sports: Dancing
11. back rub or foot rub: oh definately the back rub. I hate people touching my feet, and I hate touching other peoples feet! LOL
12. fruits or vegetables: In Summer, definately fruits!! In winter its gotta be vegies :) I'm not really a fan of citrus fruits.
13. Grey's Anatomy or House: I have never watched an episode of either one. Next question...
14. coffee or tea: Lipton Vanilla Chai Tea. Very tasty :)
15. curling up with a good book or a night out on the town: Going out, having some drinks and having a bit of a dance :)
16. straight or curly hair: hmm.. straight.. but I like curly hair on other people, but I would be too lazy to make it look good if I had it!!
17. skirts or shorts: SKIRTS!
18. burgers/hot dogs or Chinese food: Bleh, NEITHER!!!! Give me a meat pie or sausage roll :)
19. vacationing in Switzerland or Mexico: Switzerland cos thats where we're going in a few months!
20. sports car or SUV: Sporty so I can whizz around and look cool :)

Anyway I'm tagging whoever wants to be tagged :) Pretty much everyone I can think of has already done these!

photos

Well, when im home and bored what do i do?? Annoy the dogs with the camera :)

:ONSLOW:





:BELLE:





Onslow is getting so possessive about "his" beanbag! I keep it in the spare room at night or if we aren't around to supervise, jut in case he chews a hole in it or something.

Anyway this morning he came up, hits me on the leg, and walks to the spare room door, comes back, hits me again and walks to the door. So i get up and he races to his bean bag and just stares at me.. as if to say "come on! get it out!" So as soon as I did he parked himself on it and hasn't moved.

Belle, meanwhile, loves to lay at the front door like a watch dog. And every time someone walks past the house with a dog, she races in whining, hits me on the leg and gets me to get up and check it out with her.

They are so funny.

Random Randomness and Stuff

wow, my last post was post 100. What an exciting entry for y 100th post LOL

So im off work for the next 2 days with a headcold. Nothing major just some sniffles but if the doctor offers me 2 days off work, well, who am I to argue with him? Besides, I have almost 300 hours of sick leave up my sleeve ;)

so anyway.. lets start with another vet update seeing as that seems to be the main event every weekend...

And lets start the vet update with a story about a cow that we encountered in the waiting room.

So.. There was Trav and I with Belle and Onslow, and another man with his Labrador in the waiting room, all 3 of us sitting together, and all 3 dogs playing together nicely.

In walks this lady with 2 very poofy poodles. You know, the weird looking, big poodles with the poofy hair looking all prissy and silly with fluffy tails and ridiculous hair do's? (I can tolerate the cute, little poodles, or big ones with natural hair... I HATE the big ones done up like big poofs!)

Anyway she also looked like a poodle, all prissy, and dressed to the nine's and left her sunnies on inside. She is waiting for the receptionist who is serving someone else. So she walks in, looks at us and the 3 dogs laying together, grabs her precious poodles close and scowls. The lab is very friendly and wanted to greet the poodles, so the guy stands up with it. Conversation goes like this:

Lady: Do you need to go down the hall or something?
Man: oh no thanks, It's just that this one {pointing to dog} just wants to say hello to your 2 dogs.
Lady: Oh {glaring at the Lab and pulling her poofs in closer}

And that was it.. end of conversation. The man then sits down, probably thinking the same thing I was thinking!

Finally the receptionist looks at her their conversation goes like this:

Receptionist: You can just take a seat, the vet wont be too long.
Lady: {surveying the room with distaste} Oh.. so I have to wait?
Receptionist: Yes, he won't be too long.
Lady: Well, how long??
Receptionist: um.. well I really can't say, but there are about 5 people in front of you.
Lady: {scowling and glaring} Tsk! Oh, well I'm going to wait outside then.
Receptionist: Yeah, no worries, I'll come out and get you.
And then the lady spins on her heels, pointy nose in the air and takes off.

What a cow!!!! When we left, we saw her still sitting in her car with them LOL. There is only one vet on Saturdays, and this week was Rob Zammit and regardless of when you make the appointment, you always need to wait cos EVERYONE comes in to see Rob!

So, anyway, Onslow is allowed outside during the day now so we will swap.. Belle can be cooped up inside and Onslow can have the yard. We were told it's for his "mental and physical benefit" LOL He is also starting his "rehab walks" which is a 10 minute, slow stroll every 2 days. Then next week its 15 minutes. And in 2 weeks time both of them will be allowed to stay outside together! woohoo for that :)

Onslow discovered the comfort of a beanbag yesterday:



I should have thought to close the door to the spare rooms... look at the lovely ironing board and printer LOL Oh well, nothing a bit of editting cant fix up! And just cause I think this is the cutest pic, here's one more :)



LOL I realised the other day, if these were real kids, Belle would have such a complex.. I have way more photos of Onslow than I do of her! But then again, if she wasn't so ADD and was able to sit still there would be more photos of her. Most of the indoor portrait ones are blurry cos she won't keep still, and the ones outside, well she moves so fast and so often its usually half of her head, or her bum :)

I did do a layout of Belle yesterday though:



I used Sweet Sugar Pop - A new 2 Scoops by Lauren Grier and Fee Jardine at the Sweet Shoppe. Paint is from Lauren's Full of Sweetness kit, also at the sweet shoppe.

So.. what else.. we went to dinner on saturday night for the in-law's 35th weddig anniversary. Travis' sister stole their wedding photos, and I worked some magic:


(papers by meredith Fenwick, ribbon by Faer Oak, chalked overlay by Lauren Bavin, bling alpha by Shannon Lee)

and I also blew up a colour portrait and printed it out at 8x10 and framed it as well. The layouts looked great in their frames side-by-side.

Ok well Im actually quite starving and pretty tired.. so I might go munch on a banana and have a nap :)

woo hoo.. FRIDAY!!!

Oh I love fridays. And this week has just gone soooo quick :) Unfortunatley the weekends seem to go even quicker and before I know it, it's Monday again!

Anyway check it out.. Belle and Onslow have their own DOG space accounts!!! ROTFL

Go look at them:
BELLE
ONSLOW

They are getting a nice list of doggie friends already :)

So what else... well, I have a cold. I've dosed up on cold and flu tablets so I'm feeling great :D For now.

Its been a big week work-wise! Tuesday I had to inspect a morgue, and wednesday I had to inspect a LEGAL brothel! ROTFL talk about 2 extremes!! ANd everyone seems to be in a complaining mood.. about EVERYTHING so most of my time this week has been checking out noisy neighbours, people dumping rubbish, overflowing sewers... ugh.

I forced a layout last night... I started using this kit on saturday, canned the layout (it was of Onslow and he doesnt suit these colours LOL) and then started again on Sunday... got stuck, left it and *finally* finished it last night :)



Kit - Pomegranate Margarita by Lauren Grier and Joana Carvalho. Get it at the Sweet Shoppe! Page fold - Kara Fredrick, Alpha - Michelle Coleman

hahaha I remember that cake took us forever to make, ages to decorate and a long time to light all the candles!!! But he was a hit! and so tasty :)

Not much lined up for the weekend... Another vet visit for Onslow to get the last of his injections tomorrow, going with Travis' parents out for dinner on Saturday night for their 35th wedding anniversary, going to the football on Sunday to watch Penrith take on the Tigers. And hopefully win. Im sick of loosing games at home... not just loosing, but playing bad, making heaps of mistakes and just handing the game to the opposition.

well its getting nice and cold and crisp in the mornings!!! The days are still sunny and warm.. I want those nice, gloomy, dark wintery days to set in :) I love Winter!!! I love being all rugged up in my thick jackets, boots, scarf and hat :) Maybe I need to live somewhere with snow... Maybe New Zealand. In FOx Glacier and I can get a job taking people for treks up there. Or Picton. That was really pretty. Nice diving there too, I could become a scuba diving instructor or guide. ahhh to dream!!!!!

Bits and Pieces

:holiday stuff:

well in almost 4 months Travis and I will be heading to Europe. I can NOT wait. To start, 2 nights in Bangkok, then first stop Germany, namely Munich for Oktoberfest!!! Then moving on to Berlin, Cologne, Brussells, Paris, Lyon, Another french town I have forgotten, then moving on to Switzerland and heading back to Munich before flying home. We have booked accomodation for Berlin, Cologne, Brussels and Paris already so we're all fairly organised.

We will be spending our third wedding anniversary in Munich at the end of the trip, so we might need to splurge and get something fancy and upmarket!!


:onslow update:

Well its been about 3 weeks since his surgery and he is obviously feeling heaps better. He has figured out how to push through any kind of barricade we put up and likes to run around the place. I think he's finally starting to go crazy after spending 4 weeks cooped up inside the house all day and night, except for about 10 minutes worth of toilet breaks a day. And the worst part.. we still have FIVE weeks of this to go through!! Because he has such bad hips, the vet wants us to really wrap him in cotton wool for 8 weeks so the knee can heal as best it can. But she was very happy with how his knee joint is coming along, and said its healing really well.

On another good-news note, he has lost 7 kilos and is down to 50.5kg now!!! his first goal weight was 52, now we have to get him in the mid 40's. The skinnier he is the better for all his dodgy joints.


:work stuff:

I had to do a presentation at a private school last week about the role of Health Inspectors.. and I was Podcast-ed!! LOL I found it hilarious. I was also informed that each student has their own laptops issued by the school, wireless internet and all other kinds of spify things. wow... considering at my high school we barely had enough text books for one-between-two, I was just in awe! But the presenatation went well, the kids were all very well behaved. I included some of the worst pics I have of dirty food shops, including one of a big rat peering out from a hole in someone's store room. Im proud of that shot.. I "hid" crouched down silently for about 10 minutes just waiting for him to appear cos I knew he was there... and I got a pic of his little face popping out of the hole :)

I also had my first case go to the land and environment court on friday! I received a complaint way back in April 2005. After nearly $2,000 in fines and several orders being served there was still no action being taken, so we took 'em to court :) That was a bit exciting for me!


:scrapping stuff:

Just a reminder to head over to Pickleberry pop and pick up some of Deb Fishers goodies. For those who havent heard, she tragically lost her husband, Ray, in a tractor accident. She lives in rural Vic (or is it NSW?) with 7 kids, 6 of whom she homeschools. For the entire month of May every cent that people spend on Deb's products will go to her beautiful family.. so far there is over $4,000 raised!!!

I've been too busy to scrap lately and I really havent missed it. If I have a spare few hours I have been veging on the lounge or playing with the dogs or just hanging around annoying Travis with random stories and observations. I did have to pull my finger out on Saturday night and get some stuff scrapped for my CT committments. I also have some stuff to do for my in-laws by the end of the week.. but they are just going to be super simple.. a few photos on a pretty background with some fancy brush work or frames or something. No biggie.

Here are some layouts of our Italy trip last year.. still got about 800 photos to scrap! LOL Better get that sorted before we take another billion photos in September!!



I was intending on manually editting these photos to make the colours POP but really couldnt be bothered LOL. Maybe I will before I print them...but then again maybe not! Travis hates when I make them B&W or alter the levels / curves and get the "artistic" effects.. but I find them boring just left normal LOL


:healthy stuff:

My new eating and exercise habits seem to be paying off, I have lost a few centimeters from my waist, hips and thighs, and in the process I have lost nearly 2 kg! Considering I only had about 4 kilos that I wanted to loose (6 that I HOPE to loose) im actually quite amazed that its only taken 5 weeks to achieve half of my first goal! Im sure the next 2 - 4 kilos will take forever though!

I eat breakfast when I get in to work, boring all bran topped with a banana , then for morning tea a low fat muffin or for this week - a slice of low fat sticky date cake made from scratch by me and its so yum!!! For lunch I have vegetable stirfry with Hokkien noodles or pasta or salad with tuna and beans, then some fruit to see me through the afternoon. For dinner I generally just do some vegetables with beans (chick peas.. I cant get enough of them!) or some couscous, or some brown rice... something easy! Oh and lots of water. I try to drink between 1.5 - 2lt of water a day.

On saturday I made gnocci from scratch and it was so delicious! (for two people - 500g of potato, boiled, mashed and cooled mixed with 1 cup of plain flour.. kneed into a dough, roll into a thin sausage, cut in to 2cm strips and roll with a fork. Boil for only a couple of minutes and its done!)

I have been exercising every day (mostly). During the week I mix it up between high impact aerobics, kick boxing or a 30 skip in the back yard (I need music pumping for this.. it's a killer!), and on the weekends Trav and I go for a couple of nice, long bike rides. The other week we did 30kms in only 90 minutes. yay for us! I really enjoy my kickboxing and aerobics.. I come home from work and get stuck into it straight away and it gets rid of any tension or stress or annoyances from work and the traffic on the way home LOL

:wrapping it up:

Well, this has become a bit of a novel hasn't it?! Enjoy your week, take it easy and catch ya later!

so Roomy!

hahha so much room he just did not know what to do with himself... kept moving about and changing positions. And as you can see, he looks very VERY pleased with the new car!

The vet we go to is next to a sheepdog rescue place. I love peering over the fence.. well, its sad that they are there, but they are so cute!!!!! Check this one out:



LOL How adorable is that face?!

Anyway Onslow is recovering well..a little *too* well for my liking. He has been full of beans and scooting all over the place if you take your eyes off him for just a minute. Its good that he is feeling better, but so much harder for us to keep him confined!! All he needs to do is run and land on his leg a bit awkward and snap goes the new ligament and we have to start all over again!!! For the record, I could have bought myself a new Canon DSLR with the money we spent getting him repaired.. LOL I certainly don't want to go through that again!!!

Well my exercise and good eating regime is going well. Not that I ate rubbish food anyway, but i'm proud of the small things like only having ONE sausage instead of 2, thinking twice before having a huge mug of full cream milk, and keeping my purse empty so im not tempted by the vending machine at work! LOL

Yesterday we drove our bikes to the rowing lake and we did SIX laps which equals a bit over 30km in only an hour and a half :) My legs are pretty sore today, but I pushed on and made sure I did my aerobics tonight. Thankfully tomorrow is a rest night as our French lessons are on Tuesdays this term :)

Anyway thats it from me... the poor neglected dogs are wanting attention! :)

Rest and Recuperation

Are the order of the next 4 weeks. The operation went really well, he got home this afternoon and after wandering around from room to room every 5 minutes he has just settled on his mat in the dining room. Belle was so happy to see him and gave him lots of kisses, checked out his bandage and even licked his shaved leg better :)
Belle left half of her bone in the sunroom this morning - It started raining and she got scared of the noise so ditched it to come in - and when Onslow came home, he ran to it and went to town finishing it off. By the way he was devouring it, anyone would think he hadn't been fed for 3 weeks!!




So he has to rest, stay inside and no running around.. and no walks for a while either :) We are going back on Tuesday to get the bandages off, and then every weekend for the next 4 weeks he has to get Cartrophin injections to help with his arthritis. He already has it in his hips, and as with any joint injury / repair he will develop it in knee as well. So the injections will help ease that pain and help the joint anyway.

The timing of getting the Rav4 couldnt have been better!! With his leg completely bandaged, all he could do was stretch out, and no way would he have been able to do that in the sedan. He was a bit funny at first.... scared and standing up and then falling over. Eventually he realised if he layed down its actually nice and comfy! Belle was the same last night. Although she wasnt injured and was standing up and running in cirlces whilst trying not to fall over! hahhaa Poor thing. There is sooo much room in the back for the 2 of them to lay down comfortably without being all on top of each other so its great! I should have taken pics of each of them in the back of the car. Not to worry, I can grab some next time :)

mm well I just made a yummy vegetable soup with some sausages in it for good measure. Should be just about ready... good cos im STARVING!!!! :)

Cuts, cars and cakes!

Well Onslow is probably knocked out right about now.. probably getting sliced open! We are just fixing his knee at this point and seeing how he goes. As he was not limping prior to doing his knee we saw no reason to operate on the hips. The vet was happy to do whatever we decided... hips, OR knee, OR get a 2nd opinion. I couldnt bear the thought of him hobbling on his ruptured knee any longer than necessary. I figure we can get that fixed and then look into the hip issue a bit more after he has recovered.

{Everything from Crazy Love - Dani Mogstad}

And today my new car was delivered to work!! woo hoo!! :) It is a lot bigger than I thought and so roomy inside.. full of all kinds of fun nooks and crannys to poke around in :) Seeing as Onslow has to stay overnight at the vet, we are going to bundle Belle in the back and take her out for a spin tonight. Maybe go to Windsor and have some grilled fish on the bank of the river or something.

I have been all into cooking lately! I found Calorie King which is a great Aussie weight loss / nutrtional site. I put in all my food into the calorie tracker to see how much fat / calories / fibre etc i was getting each day. I love things like this! Anyway I relaised I have a lot of white carbs and little fibre and protein in my diet, and as weird as it seems I am not eating enough fats or enough calories! So i have gotten all into beans and checkpeas and lentils and low GI stuff and things with "good fats" like avocados and nuts and things. And I am feeling soo much better for it. Much more energy to exercise with each day and already I have lost about 700g in 2 weeks. Ok that doesnt sound like much, but i only have 4kg to loose and I have been trying for 6 months and it hasnt been budging!

Anyway they also have a great recipie section! I made this Sticky Date cake for Travs birthday last week and it went down a treat! Actually pretty tasty and delicious warmed up with a smidge of butter. I made it exactly to the recipie (rare for me! LOL i always like to add my own 'touch' to things)

I also found a tasty-sounding Banana, Apricot and Date muffin recipie but didnt like the fact that it contained 1/2 cup of oil!! Nor did I have low fat vanilla yogurt on hand, or rolled oats, and I didnt like the apricots either LOL :)

SO here is my variation. When made like this, each muffin only has 164 calories; 4.4g of fat; and 1.8g of fibre!

1 cup Self-Raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup Ground Hazel Meal (Its been sitting in the cupboard for a year so I thought I better finish it off!! This was the rolled oats substitute)
1 3/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
2 tablespoon Honey
1 egg
1 cup Skim Milk (full cream milk takes the fat content up to about 5g/muffin)
2 medium bananas - Mashed
A handful of pitted dates - chopped

I chucked everything in the bowl all at once and mixed it up. Whacked it in the oven at about 180 degrees for about 15 minutes and thats it. Deeeeelicious!!!!

While I was baking and calorie counting, I whipped up a batch of home made biscuits from my Donna Hay book to take for morning tea at work. I loooove Donna Hay recipies. Anyway I had no real butter so I had to use my reduced fat margarine... and when I entered all the ingredients into calorie king, it only have 1g of fat! LOL I admit the biscuits werent very big, but I didnt feel guilty having one with my morning cuppa :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Diagnosis...

is, in a word, BAD!
It turns out Onslow DOES have a torn cruciate ligament in his knee, meaning the knee joint is "unstable" and which is why he hasn't been able to put any weight on it.

That would have been a super easy fix, except for one other thing...The x-rays showed that he also has Degenerative bone disease in BOTH of his hips :(

We were told from day 1 that it was unknown what would happen. He responded well to the tablets initially which was great, but the bones could degenerate super quick, or just not degenerate at all, or be somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately his regular vet is the resident expert on this stuff and more importantly this breed, and he just happens to be away and wont be back until Thursday. So the vet we saw today didn't want to fix the cruciate ligament and risk doing more damage, so he has to remain confined for the next week or so.

So... looks like he will most likely be needing surgery to fix his hips, as I had already thought. I don't care how they fix him, just as long as they can!! Its horrible seeing him hobble and want to follow us around but not being physically able to.

Anyway I am exhausted!!!! At 4:00 he started to wake up from the anesthetic, so I jumped in the car, already dressed for going out later on, and raced to the vet. Got there at 4:45, chatted to the vet, had Onslow in the car by 5 and took off back home. Got home at 5:45, locked Onslow in the spare room with his bed and water and let Belle say a quick hello before I seperated them and took off. I left home at 5:55, thankfully there was no traffic going to the City and I got to the cinema carpark at 6:42 - Movie started at 6:45. However I had to race down the road to the shops to get some cash, then back up, ring Travis who came out to give me the ticket and then I got to finally go in and relax JUST as the movie started to boot up!

We got home around 9:30, and I cooked a delicious low fat Sticky date cake (although I might have to add some caramel to the recipe... it just needed *something* else) Put some candles on and mustered up just enough energy to sing happy birthday to Trav.

I think I will sleep well tonight!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to Travis :) Hope you have a great day... and don't stuff yourself full of caramel mud cake at work! LOL

Here is the birthday boy with the injured boy before leaving for work this morning:



What a day! At least I got the day off work though ;)
Anyway lets start at Monday... I get home from work and Onslow was limping about and being all sad. Certainly not the boisterous dog he normally is. So I gave a few extra painkillers for his hip hoping he had just been playing rough with Belle and jarred his leg or something.

Well Tuesday came around and he was walking fairly normal, a little stiff but nothing to worry about. Wednesday saw even more improvement.

Anyway so I come home on Thursday, run out the back to do my exercise (30 minutes of skipping before picking Travis up) didn't really pay much attention to the dogs and Onslow spent the whole time laying down. When I finished skipping I called them in and thats when I noticed Onslow really couldn't walk. He wasn't putting any weight at all on his left back leg. about 18 months ago found out he had hip dysplasia in BOTH hips (He was only 10 months old at the time). Anyway the left was really bad, the right only partially.. My immediate reaction was "oh here we go.. the left hips finally gone"

he was no better this morning and I left bright and early to take him to the vet. At the moment I'm just waiting on the x-ray results. Its either a sprain / injury (unlikely i think), his hip has degenerated and needs injections and / or surgery, OR he has snapped a cruciate ligament in his knee! Which is apparently very common in Mountain dogs. Go Figure!! Anyway I was kind of hoping he would stay overnight because we are going into the City tonight to catch a German movie at 6:45pm. As it is now, at 4:00pm I have to run to Vineyard (45 minutes from home) pick up Onslow, chat to the vet about the x ray results and where we are headed, do the 45 minute (maybe more with traffic) dash back home, drop Onslow inside, and then try and get into the city (about 50 minutes with a good run!) before the movie starts! Its going to be tight :)

Well my free paper and alphabet appeared in the new Scrapbooking memories magazine! LOL It looks so funny to see my design in real life on paper, and even funnier to see the great layouts that the design team made with it :)

I am really loving rectangle layouts at the moment...


All the above layouts are in my gallery if you wanna check out credits :)
{click here for my gallery}

And this is one I did with the photo I restored for Travis' mum :) This is Travis' Aunt who passed away at an early age (in her 30's I believe). The title was all Travis' idea :)



CREDITS: I *think* the papers are from Meredith Fenwick... The Quirky paper pack I think; Gerbera - Possum; Curled frame - Nancy Comelab; Painted Frame - Jen Wilson; Painted flower - Helena Jole; Alpha - Meredith Fenwick; stitching - Lauren Grier

Well I took Belle for a 45 minute walk. It was so funny to take her on a walk by herself. usually she *insists* on being in front and zooms off at a billion miles an hour.. but because she didnt have Onlsow and Travis to race today she took her time and stopped every 2 meters to have a good sniff in the grass!! LOL I wore her out and now shes sound asleep instead of wandering around like a lost soul looking for Onslow :) I came back home and did my high impact aerobics and im exhausted now! I think I need a nanna nap before going back to the vet! LOL