How times flies

I cannot believe that the first month of 2009 is almost over - 5 days and counting. It amazes me how fast the time goes by. i know time goes by quickly when you are having fun, but by the looks of things, time goes by even quicker when you are busy, irrespective of whether you are having fun or not.
Things have been a bit busy at the office and at home. And the worst of all I have not been able to do any scrapbooking for 3 weeks. It is really depressing.
I started with ballet clasees again, after about 2 years of not dancing. And the best part is that I still enjoy it. I never realised how much I missed it. I'll be doing my Grade 8 (last graded exam) in May. After that I have 4 advanced exams left, then I have finished all the exams and I qualify for my teachers. I honestly do not know whether I'll ever teach, but at least I'll have it. JYB (Johannesburg Youth Ballet Company) also started this past Saturday, so now everything is up and running again.
So between work and ballet, I have not been able to scrapbook a lot, but I have been doing some tidying at home. I am looking at doing some redecorating as time goes on. The first room that I want to do is the guest room. I want to hang some kiwi/dark lime green suede curtains with white crushed voile; for the bedding I saw a nice white set with similar green patterns; I want to add some black to the room by getting tiebacks and scatter cushions in black. So in the end it will be a green, white and black room. I reckon it will look quite nice. I am a bit hesitant about the black, but if it does not work, I'll just go for the green and white.
My husbad and I are off to the spa on Friday evening, for a relaxing spa session and overnight stay. I cannot wait!!!!
To finish off with here is a little something about women that I received the other day:

A Woman has strenghts that amaze men.

She can handle trouble and carry heavy burdens.

She holds happiness, love and opinions.

She smiles when she feels like screaming.

She sings when she feels like crying,

cries when she's happy and laughs when she's afraid.

Her love is unconditional!

There 's only one thing wrong with he:

She sometimes forgets

what she is worth...

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Technological Problems

Our server at the office was off from Monday morning until yesterday, which meant that I was unable to do ANY work. And of course it is Murphy’s Law that when you have tons of work to do, the server will be off.

We had an uneventful weekend. I had lunch with a close friend after work on Friday afternoon, went home with the idea of doing some sorting of the guest bedrooms, but fell asleep with Zorro and only woke up when my husband phoned at 6 to say he is on his way home. We were going to go out for dinner and some ten-pin bowling on Friday evening, but in the end we stayed home, got some pizza take-away and watched Eli Stone. On Saturday I got started on the sorting and cleaning out – but once again I did not get very far. I went scrapbooking in the afternoon where I finished a layout I started about 2 months ago and finished another layout. Both these layouts are of our honeymoon in Mauritius. In the evening my husband took me to dinner at our local Chinese Restaurant. Sunday we just hang around the house watching TV and I made supper for my parents, since they arrived home from their holiday late yesterday afternoon. I also attempted some crumpets – which was a big success for my first attempt.

I have not had a chance to upload the layouts I did over the weekend nor those I did over the holiday. But I reckon I might be able to upload them tonight.

I read a very nice book over the holiday called Dewey. The book is about a kitten that is found in the local library of a small town in Iowa. The story then unfolds as the kitten grows older and how it then changes the life of the people in the town. It is a very sweet but sad book in the end – since Dewey dies. But then again, nobody can live forever, not even a cat. I also started reading Photo Freedom by Stacey Julian over the holidays.

At the moment I am reading 2 books; the one The Appeal by John Grisham; and the second book it The Tales of Beatle the Baard by J.K. Rowling. Both books are very nice. I started The Appeal over the holidays once I had finished Dewey, and by now I am about half way through. But then when I walked into Exclusive Books the other day I found the new book by J.K. Rowling, and since I am a big Harry Potter fan, I just could not leave the book. It is a thin quick reading book, so maybe by the end of the week I’ll have that finished, then I will return to my Law thriller. What is also nice about The Tales of Beetle the Baard is that it consists of 5 short stories of a few pages, and each of these stories is independent of the other. So I can read a story a night, which is nice, since I do not always have the energy for reading a lot of pages once I get to bed at night.

Quote for the day: “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.” – G.K. Chesterton

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Home From the Holiday

We finally arrived home from our December holiday on Sunday.

My husband and I travelled to St Francis Bay where we have a beach house. We were there for 2 weeks, and I honestly wish I could say that it was long enough. But unfortunately, it never is. I always wonder why that is. But then again, if we don’t work, then we won’t be able to go on holidays such as these. So either way it’s a catch 22 situation.

After leaving at 5 in the morning with both Zorro and Luigi in the car we arrived safe and sound at the coast on Friday 19 December at about 19h00. The first 2 days we did not do much. We went to the beach once or twice, if the weather was nice. My husband went fishing with my dad while I either sat in front of the TV, on the patio reading my book or behind the scrapbooking layouts.

I took this picture the one day while the men were busy gearing up for the fishing. The fishing rod was standing against the wall, and

Just before we left for the coast we received news from a close friend of mine that her baby boy was born on the 17th of December. He was 53cm long and weighed 3.8kg. He is too cute for words, and looks exactly like his dad.
We had a very quite Christmas Eve, with just my parents, my sister, my husband and me. We had a nice dinner, and opened gifts at 00h00. Even though it was a relaxing evening, there was definitely not a shortage of gifts for everyone. Even Zorro celebrated Christmas. I bought him a blanket for the winter and made a bowl with goodies and toys in. I placed his prezzie in a gift bag, which he then climbed into to get to everything - very sweet really.

On Christmas Day the whole family (on my dad’s side) had lunch at my Gran’s house. That was just as much fun and a big success. We had lovely food, but ate too much, as usual. And once again there were tons of gifts.

My husband and I bought Boyds Bears’ Christmas decorations for each person. After they received their gift we decorated the tree, and in the end it turned out really nice, and everyone enjoyed it.

I went to a local scrapbooking shop near our beach house during the holiday. They have a lovely shop with tons of stock. But in the end I was not that impress with the class. I arrived and left about an hour and a half later with a finished double layout. Yes I know it is quick, but the problem is that with tehe exception of sticking the paper pieced and my pictures I did nothing. They did all the cutting everyting, they even painted my chipboard letters. Well I at least got to choose the paper. The rest was all their doing. Luckily I did not have to pay any class fee...

Between Christmas and New Year my sister's boyfriend joined us as well as my cousin. Shame, she wrote matric this year, and while she was staying with us she received her results. She was so stressed while waiting, but in the end all her results were very good, and everyone was very pleased.

On New Year's Eve my parents, my husband and me had a braai at one of my close friends that stay in St Francis. It was a very nice and relaxing evening. There was no need to wait for food, or having to stand in a queue to get something to drink. We did however have a bit of an upset when we arrived home - one of the dogs had ran away. The poor dog is terrified of fireworks, and once it started he got scared and hit the road. We got into the car and went looking for him, but unfortunately we could not find him. Luckily when we woke up the next day he had come home by himself. The only drawback was that he had hurt his feet with all the running on the tar roads. But luckily his feet are recovering very well.

On New Year's day my dad's family came over to our place where we once again had a lovely lunch and ate too much. We also celebrate his one brother's birthday which was on the 2nd of Jan. We got him a cake with candles that can not be blown out. So he was huffing and puffing, but without any luck. In the end we had a wonderful day but we were very tired.

All and all we had a wonderful holiday and I took tons of pictures, and unfortunately we had to come home.

Quote for the day: "Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!" by Horace

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New Year, New Beginnings

It's a new year with new beginnings. I can not believe that 2008 has come, gone and bought us 2009 already. It feels like yesterday that my husband and I were getting ready to get married, but now we've almost be married for a year (6 weeks to go). It is really scary!

What is even scarier is the fact that we all make these new years resolutions, but no know ever keeps them. I have not really made any resolutions, that way I can not break them. What I have done is thought about things I would love to do during the year. And what's nice about that is that if you do not do them, it's alright, I guess. I haveno't really thought about it a lot, but there are some things that I can put on paper so long:

• I want to organise the bedrooms in our house and redecorate them.
• I want to go on the New Year's cruise (2009-2010) to Mauritius.
• I want to organise my scrapbooking stuff (the reason for this is that I have started reading Stacey Julian's Photo Freedom over the holidays. I got really inspired by that book to get my pictures and scrapbooking organised.

That is all I have so far - but as time goes on I presume, no I know, the list will get longer.

Quote for the day: "Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better" by Richard Hooker.

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