Sooooo.....

I've received an email from someone (you know who you are) telling me that my blog needs to be updated! lol
I wish I had something really cool to blog about like going away on a trip (we have to work that one out) or getting a new dog (our other dog prefers to be #1) but we have a relatively boring life.
Let me see if I can come up with 10 random facts about the last week.....
*1 I attended the ScrapArtist Downunder crop last Friday night and laughed myself silly but when I got off the computer (rotten headache) I got into trouble for chatting for so long
*2 Work is really busy. My roster is full but I had the weekend off
*3 I have discovered with work that I would rather have a full shift working with a non-verbal client with behaviours than with the clients that are verbal and are intelligent enough to play with your head and emotions
*4 Miss Six went to a bowling birthday party on Saturday and had a wonderful time except when one of the other children threw up everywhere in the car and her mother said later that she had been sick all the night before
*5 Miss Six spent all day Monday sick herself and although fine yesterday has woken up this morning sick again (thankyou mother who sent her child to a birthday party when sick)!
*6 I have a day off today but I am babysitting my little granddaughter and her mother called to say that she is sick as well. So I have two sickies today
*7 Said granddaughter (who has just reached her 6 month milestone) is now crawling and pulling herself up on everything. Time to childproof my home again
*8 I spent all day Monday doing housework so that when my mother comes to babysit my daughter whilst I work, she won't say anything!
*9 We had a rude awakening at 4am this morning when Mr18 set off the smoke alarm by burning his toast before he went to work.
*10 Aaaah yes! Almost forgot this one. We have to go to the Telstra shop on Friday to sort out why our new phone plan that supposedly was to be capped at $45 and have 50 free SMS messages has come in with a bill at almost 3 times that amount with only 4 phone calls and about 15 texts! We also received a bill for our pre-paid phone!!!! Give me a break.

See... life is boring around here!
But, I have been scrapping. Here are some layouts. Was going to put a link to my SA gallery here but it looks like SA is down.

So I worked it out

I was sick (or coming down with it anyway). I went off to work that afternoon and things were going okay. I cooked dinner for the guys and ate my own and within half an hour I was soooo sick. It wasn't fun.
I went into the office to do bookwork so I'd be away from the guys and I kept falling asleep. They would tiptoe in to check on me but I'd wake up. Anyway, I felt marginally better after sleeping that night but couldn't wait for my shift to changeover in the morning so I could come home. I spent most of yesterday sleeping and laying around.
Feeling not to bad this morning - just as well. I have an 11 hour shift today. Well it's actually two shifts with three different clients but I'm not looking forward to it. And then I have a huge shift tomorrow as well.

I wanted to scrap last night. I still have the heritage and altered challenges at ScrapArtist to do but I ended up going to bed early. May get a chance tonight but I'm not holding out much hope.

Okay, I'll share some of my layouts from the past week or so
This was my layout for the blog relay. Our inspiration piece was the ScrapArtist home page.
For the heritage challenge.
This was a scraplift of a layout by Buddhini about her childhood.
This layout was to do a creative title. I had to scrap these photos of Mr18. One was taken when he was 13 months old and the other was taken about 17 years later. Bit of a change hey?
And one last one that I did just for some fun - and I love it.

Well that's about it for my ramblings.

I don't know what is wrong with me!

I just want to cry. I have no idea why. I'm tired (as in weary) but I'm not sick, I'm not menopausal (at least not yet that I am aware of) and I have no idea why for the past few days all I want to do is burst into tears.
I asked for more hours at work - and I got them... and then some. I picked up a revised roster from work yesterday and I am working every day just about. I have to have 4 days off a fortnight but since on one of my days off each week I babysit, that basically means I have 2 days off a fortnight. However, that said I don't know when shifts will be cancelled or changed around. Admittedly, most of my shifts this fortnight are cover shifts for someone who is away.
Funny story... the other day I was working with a client and he was exhausting me. He wouldn't sit still for 2 minutes before he was off to do something else. Even the nursing staff at the facility where I was supporting him noticed and sent me off on a break before I collapsed from the fatigue of keeping up. lol By the time it was getting close to going home time, I said to my client 'I'm getting tired and cranky. Can you tell?'. His reply? 'Yes Sue. Sorry Sue'. I just had to laugh then because he really is a sweetheart. Just a very busy one!

Anyway, I don't know why I want to cry? I have the love and support of my wonderful family. Although I feel guilty because I'm going to sleep at night and not able to spend the time with the MOTH that I want to. And then he is up early the next morning and off to work. Today I'll get to see him for about an hour after he gets home from work and before I head off to do a sleepover this evening. At least my day shift tomorrow has been changed. So I get to spend time with my family for a bit tomorrow. That is, after we've done the grocery shopping, taken Miss Six to a birthday party etc etc.
And yesterday I found out that I won some awesome prizes from ScrapArtist in their birthday celebrations. I can't believe that I won my wishlist. But I feel guilty in this case as well because I haven't been spending much money lately and just adding stuff to my wishlist for when I go to spend again. So there is A LOT on my wishlist.
Oh.. and more guilt. I have put on so much weight since I left the gym. My clothes are getting tight. My face is breaking out again. I am getting aches and pains again. I KNOW what I should be doing but I can't motivate myself to do it and then the guilt sets in again.
I think what is making me tired is not working - it's guilt!! Who would have thought that it could be so exhausting and causing me to cry at the silliest things. (Would you believe that I actually had tears in my eyes watching Home and Away last night? That is so bad)!

Okay... today is Miss Six's fundraising fun run at school so I am going off to watch that this morning before coming home and doing the housework before I have to go to work. Might get a nanna nap in some time as well because my shift doesn't finish until 11pm tonight and there is nothing worse than dozing off toward the end of your shift. lol

Have a great weekend!! (I feel so much better for having vented).

Oh wow! I can't believe it, I have received a blogging award. It looks like this - in all it's virtual reality!
I know that I get a lot of hits on my blog but often wonder who would find my random ramblings fun to read. lol So today I get a comment from Kellie (who is an aussie) telling me that I have received this award.
So this is what it's all about:
For those of you receiving the Award, here are the rules (I've done a cut and paste from Kellie's cool blog):

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Artey Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
http://arteypico.blogspot.com
5) Show these rules.

.... and here is the 5 I decided to choose ...

1. Karen Hunt (Because I'm the Mum, That's Why).
Karen is an aussie and one I have known for a long, long time. (Okay about 3 or 4 years). I can actually say that I have met her IRL too - and we talk on the phone. But the reason I am awarding this to her blog is that she has such cool posts. They are always witty. She is a creative designer and photographer and shares her wonderful designs and photos in a fun way. At the moment, she has a cool Mother's Day freebie on her blog.

2. Kim Hill (A Day in the Life of Kim)
I read Kim... I just don't always comment. Kim has the most amazing photography on her blog and isn't hesitant to share her layouts either. And she's a wonderful and generous digi designer to boot.

3. Garynka's blog Simple Joys of My Life
Gabi is one of the most talented layout artists I know. You just have to read her latest blog post to see some of her amazing layouts. I adore the layout of her son in the waves and love what she's done with it.

4. Persnickety Chick - Permanently Altered
Amber has only recently started blogging but she rocks altered digi layouts. You've got to see this girl's stuff to believe it! Just check out her ATC gallery slideshow and you'll see what I mean.

5. Erika a.k.a. Dancing Scrapper
Nobody does heritage layouts like Erika. She's been the Featured Scrapper at DigiShopTalk and she's a Creative Goddess at ScrapArtist and when you see her layouts then you'll see why. Her heritage layouts and altered layouts have to be seen to be believed. Her talent is inspiring.

And that's my five. I'm sure you'll agree with me.
I'm not a big blog poster but I like to read blogs. And these blogs are an inspiration to me. Check them out and you'll see exactly why.

The week's rundown

....and this week was very unexciting but very busy.
I asked for more hours - and I have gotten them. But there have also been roster mixups and cancelled shifts. But you get that from time to time I guess.
I have two new permanent clients on my roster. One of them is going to be quite challenging I feel but underneath it all, he is a lovely guy.

I've been enjoying my scrapping this week. It's ScrapArtist's 3rd birthday so I've been doing the challenges for that. We've had a scrapping relay and since my work commitments were mainly toward the end of the week, I elected to go first and create my layout using the inspiration piece. I just sat and stared at the screen for about 10 minutes waiting for inspiration to strike. It finally did, but things went in a different way to what I had originally intended. I'm happy with my final layout but none of the teams can reveal their layouts just yet until after the judging.
Actually, several of my layouts this week have taken on a life of their own once I started them. Seems to be a recurring theme there. lol

Before I share my layouts, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful Mother's Day. I hope you all truly feel the love of your families.
I'm working all day but I intend to enjoy my evening once I get home.
So, here are my layouts. All are in my gallery at SA where you can see the credits (link up on the left there).

Was all set to post yesterday

.... and then misplaced my USB drive with the photos.

I searched everywhere for it... well everywhere that it should have been. No, that's not true. I also checked down the backs and sides of the lounge chairs and in the washing machine. I called my mum and asked if she'd brought her 'gremlin' with her when she visited the other day (she loses stuff all the time). And I bought another flash drive. And then whilst I was chatting on the phone (and still looking), I found it. In my camera bag! I have no idea how it got into my camera bag. So I now have the photos.
Last weekend saw Anzac Day. We went to the Dawn service. There would have been about 600 people there. That's excellent for our town. And there were so many children, and not one of them made a noise. I took photos but none of them are any good. Then I headed off to SWIG (for those not in the know - this is a scrapbooking retreat). I haven't seen some of these ladies for many years and it was so great to catch up. It was wonderful to catch up with Chrissy, Christine, Beryl, Wendie, Robyn, Bev, Judy and meet so many others like Mandy, Sue, Nik and the Chix from the Stix. I went with all these plans of doing all my ScrapArtist digi challenges (took my laptop) but didn't get a single digi layout done. I did however complete 7 paper layouts, 2 hybrid explosion boxes (gifts for Mother's Day), a door hanger for Miss Six and finally completed a circle journal I have had here for far too long.

I have never laughed so hard in all my life as I did on Saturday. It was a combination of funny stories (from Bev), funny happenings (Bev again), karaoke for raffle tickets (yep... you guessed.. Bev again), meeting Trev (Bev, you could have come up with a more original name) and an especially moving rendition of 'Don't Cry for me Argentina' (still waiting to see the video of this. ... but you're not are you Bev)?? lol
I'll just share some photos from the weekend....

This is me and Trev.
The theme of the weekend was 'Life's a Beach' and some of us dressed for the part. Here's a photo of the gang (although Robyn is missing from this one).

And what does a room look like when 28 women are set up for scrapping??

Whilst I was away, my daughter and her Daddy went shopping for new jeans. Miss Six came away with a new top as well. And then Daddy did a photo shoot using Mr 18's camera.

Not much else happening around here. I've asked for more hours at work - and got them. So I'll probably be a little more scarce. Dibble the duck is growing so very quickly. Found this photo on the camera when I downloaded (it was taken when he was still pretty small). And I think my girl Suki may be a rooster. Of course I'm hoping not but she makes a pretty strange noise. I have found a home for her though in case she does turn out to be male. We can't keep roosters here in town.

Have a great weekend ladies. It's NSD!! I'm working most of it but plan on hitting the sales.