My Life's Ingredients

No, I still haven’t managed to do some sorting through my scrap stuff yet, so everything mostly stashed away. However, my question is now for scrapbookers/paper crafters out there. How do you decide which embellishments to buy? I’ve got TONS of Halloween & Christmas embellies in my stash, but nothing much on the “general embellishments” side of things. I’m watching Shimelle’s videos and she’s always using such nice embellishments – but how do you select which ones to buy if you don’t know what photos/themes you’re going to scrap? Or do you buy your embellishments AFTER you printed your photos and made a list what would suit best? And that question is more for those chipboard/sticker type of embellies – not washi tape, ribbons, brads or eyelets. So – how do you handle this issue? Fancy going embellies shopping soon…

Today started fairly well, I got the girls ready after hubby fed them their breakfast, all changed and clothed, teeth brushed and faces clean, loaded them into the car and drove to playgroup with only 15 mins delay from start time (well, it’s an “open” group, you can arrive whatever time you want) – just to walk the girls to the door and find it locked. That teaches me to stay away from playgroup for about 4 weeks again due to holiday and illnesses (incl. suspected Rubella for Miss Martian). Ah well, walked the girls back to the car and promised them a trip to the zoo if the weather stays ok. And after a few Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes and lunch we actually DID drive to the zoo. Parked in the parking areas on the greenways (which meant we had to be back to move the car for 4pm, otherwise I could expect a fine) close to the zoo and walked to the front door. Yes – we walked. No buggy involved – that’s our first time at the Edinburgh Zoo without a buggy – and just with me and the gi

Well, hubby said this year’s scavenger hunt is much easier than last year’s. I partly have to agree with him. Although, there are a couple of items I’ll really have to think about. Someone or something sleeping is not a problem. I can take nearly daily photos of the Hobbits (sometimes even hubby) sleeping… So, the things that might be a problem I think are: 9) A photo with someone or something that is clearly out of place or doesn’t      belong 12) A cloud in the shape of something (well, given the grey skies we have fairly           frequently I can only hope for a few more nice sunny days!!) 16) A windmill 19) A Fisherman Well… we’ll see how that’ll go, have enough time to get it all done. For today I’ll give you your first dose of cuteness (but I think I’ll get even better shots of “Someone/Something sleeping”)…

It was supposed to be warm, and sunny … and all that. Well, it’s overcast, not that warm (had hoped to fill up the girls’ paddling pool again) and just managed to mow the lawn but don’t trust the weather to hold to hang out a wash – so onto the clothes horse it is with the load.   The girls helped me with the mowing, have been carrying the cable for me, however, I felt like they tried to corral me!   No headaches, no aura today (YAY!), just feeling shattered – which seems to be the going rate the day after an attack. Was hoping to sort through some stash tomorrow (embellies), but have to pop into town for 2 things and go to the gym, so I see only a short time doing the sorting. Will post something on the matter of embellishments soon…

Was more the “aura” (black spots and tingly fingers/lips) than the headache yesterday, but really got me as I haven’t had an attack with aura lasting longer than 1-2 hours this year. Yes, got lots of tension headaches, but I can deal with that – just not the aura!! Today I’m knackered… just fully exhausted, and my eyes feel like I haven’t slept at all (well.. the whole body is in that mode, to be honest!!). Girls are a bit grotty, too, as we had a fairly early riser again in Supergirl (5:45) who wouldn’t go back to sleep, even when I took her through into our bed. She was more like a dog turning and turning to get the right place to lie down – but she did that for 1.5 hours – during which I was awake. Now we’re watching some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and I hope the sun will break through the clouds so the girls can go out in the garden for a bit, too. Wish me luck…

but still managed to get some photo sorting done. DH decided to do an impromptu defrosting of our freezer as we had some issues with storage yesterday morning. So I started at 10pm to sort through some photos. Got through most of one box, which was mostly Football photos, so just took out the non-football ones, got them “labelled” (just a quick note-it on it with year/month and what it is) and stored in a RUB (really useful box) 5L. Think I’ll have another go tonight after the gym with the 2nd big box which most likely has more non-football photos in. I still have to find my folder with some of the negatives so I can store the others. Somehow I thought that the year if not month is noted on the negatives, but that’s not how it works. So some photos might be guess work… *sigh* Twins will be off to the grandparents tomorrow lunch until Saturday, so I can catch up with some tidying, decluttering and scrapbooking. Things like that are currently impossible with the girls around, as both

Once the girls are asleep that is and if I’m not feeling too tired!   Been watching a lot of Shimelle’s “Sketch to Scrapbook Page videos on youtube , and she has been scrapping a couple of her WDW photos. I know I have TONS of them, the most recent not printed but I have lots in boxes upstairs from trips from 1999 onwards. And I quite fancy scrapping them now. So, tonight I’ll go and get the 2 big boxes and smaller Cropper Hopper boxes and will sort through the photos – one box will then end up just American Football photos I think (Scottish Claymores, Frankfurt Galaxy, Edinburgh Wolves …) and then leave the other photos in the other box/es. Yes, that’s usually one of my problems when going to a crop – I “don’t have” photos – which is of course wrong, it’s just that I haven’t got them handy. For Saturday’s Edinburgh Crop I got 150 photos newly printed (mix of old and new date wise) plus still some leftover ones from the last print. Plus I then will be able to take my Disney photos

And we’re back after a looooong break of “Ten on the 10th”! I don’t think Shimelle is still doing it officially – very busy girl – but I thought I’ll still try from time to time…   This time I thought I’m going for places I want to go (non-UK) while the twins are young (not necessarily in order of importance or possibility). 1) Orlando (that’s planned for the year before the girls go to primary school) 2) Chiemsee 3) Tegernsee 4) Rügen 5) Senftenberg (most likely next year for a couple of days when we’re visiting family) 6) Croatia (lots of nice places) 7) Lake Garda 8) Side , Turkey (my mum said it’s fab there for the girls) 9) Malta 10) Greece (again, lots of nice places) There are lots more place, like in Austria or Switzerland, which I haven’t really looked into much so far. If you have any suggestions for family holidays feel free to post!

With all the stuff going on (toddler tantrums and illnesses) I totally missed the starting date of Rinda’s “2013 Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt! The list to complete is in my blogger side bar, and I’ll score out the photos I got as I go along. If you want to take part, just click here – it’s never too late to join as you have until 21 September. I joined late last year, too, and managed to get everything (with a few tweaks ) So … let’s see how I’m going to do this year. It really is lots of fun, and I got to see totally new areas of Edinburgh last year in my hunt for an outside stair and an Angel statue!!! Hope to see lots of you join in, will be fun looking at the different blogs again.

Yeah… that’s how I know it. We get nice days, we get used to it, plan around it, and then we get another colder day with barely sun and threatened showers. Arrrrgh!! Really could do without that! Ah well, twins are asleep right now, they went in the garden for some play earlier, but not in the paddling pool I pumped up yesterday when it was really warm/hot in the sun and there were barely clouds out. It was that good that I sent hubby to get the electrical pump - the paddling pool is “slightly” bigger than I thought, our foot pump is at 50% capacity with some holes (i.e. my Asthma lungs were asked to do their work) and we have a small bouncy castle still in the box in the shed, which I assume to be much bigger after I’ve seen the paddling pool!!! The girls  had great fun yesterday, I barely could get Supergirl out of the pool, while Miss Martian came back indoors after a while, she’s got an ear infection at the moment with higher temp, the wee mite. Let's hope that we'