New Technique

I taught myself this ages ago, but semi forgot how to do it lol. I got a refresher course on a forum that I am on. I haven't done another one but atleast now I can remember how I made these LOL. I used Paint.NET which is a free program.

I am a bad Blogger

I haven't blogged for ages... ok.. what has been happening... I will back post so I can add photos, but here is the run down..

• Went to Wangaratta and up to Harrietville for the Scrapbookit Retreat (View photos here)
  
• I didn't scrap much. I spent alot of time talking.
  
• Met some lovely people there.
  
• Made some cool altered stuff
  
• Did a couple of classes
• Went to Paperific
• Met a cool scrapbooking pom named Zoe, we plan to meet up again
• Got to see a few of the ladies I met at the Scrapbookit Retreat
• Made lots of Makes and takes
• Bought lots - lol
  
• Went to Bundaberg for my best friends commitment ceremony (view here for pictures)
  
• Got to visit all my old mates
• Got somewhat drunk on one night
• Had a night out with a new boy (a 6 year old, lol)
  
• Went to Brisbane with Mum for an early Christmas present in late Nov-early Dec
• Stayed in the City
• Walked 700miles to a scrabook store for a free class... which nearly killed mum and I
  
• Went to a free class at Scrapbook City, had a lot of fun there, bought a lot!
  
• Ate out every night for a week
• Went to the Casino
• Entered Scrapbookit altered item comp and came in Runner up, won a lovely paper pack.
  
• Went to Murtoa for Christmas
• Got some LOVELY earrings from Michael. The Diamonds in my earings are larger than the stones in my engagement ring lol.
• Got a pretty pendant from Mick as well
• Mum gave me some yummy Scrapping stuff
• Mum also gave me an altered word - Create which I love.

I can't think of anything else atm.. I am going to post some of the things I have scrapped lately.

Back to Bundy

I went back to Bundaberg for Chon and Chrissy's Commitment Ceremony. I went for two weeks, stayed at Shannon's in Brissy for a few days on each side of the trip and also stayed at Katie's. Zoe was kind enough to board me for the week and a bit that I was in Bundy

Shannon's crazy hand fed Bush Turkey

Shannon, Lindsay and Me at the Sushi Train

Chon & Chrissy Chrissy's sister, Lynn, Chrissy, Chon, Me, Jason

Chrissy's sister, Lynn, Chrissy, Chon, Me, Jason

Me and my hot date :D Declan

Scrapbookit Retreat 2007

Mum stretching her legs

Mum and I having a break at Glen Rowan

Lesley, Michelle and Me after Michelle broke Lesley's Sizzix

Explosion box class Card class, this one was SOO much fun and easier to keep up with, even though we didn't make all the cards we were supposed to :)

What is wrong?

Sometimes I get so angry at our government. So angry at the people who have everything, and don't give a dam about the little people. The ones getting squashed.
I have recently join a charity group called Knit4charity, and through them I learnt of a nice man, Borge Rasmussen, who runs his own charity called Care for Street Kids, he is almost 70 and I presume his wife to be near to that age, they go out daily giving children, adults and families in need, food, clothing and blankets. They have been doing this for about 15 years. They have a group of volunteers, who drive vans around to deliver goods. A lot of this work is done out of theses people's pockets and money donated to the cause... Just recently they went for a government grant and were turned down. WHY?? These people are helping FAMILIES LIVING IN CARS FOR HEAVENS SAKES!!! What kind of world are we living in when the tribe no longer cares to help each other? Do we have any hope? Why is it more important to get that new television? Or car?
I have decided I am going to help, I am helping in the knit4charities cause. I am going to knit things for people in need. You can help too, it doesn't have to be much but something counts!! You could write to the government asking for them to donate more public taxes to helping out AUSTRALIANS in NE ED, donate all your old clothes and items through charities rather than leave them on the side of the road for the garbage collectors. A lot of charities will come and pick up gear these days, so you don't even have to go out of your way... maybe you could be like my mother and let it rattle around in the boot for a while before you donate it when you go past a drop of point lol.. Have a garage sale and before you start set a certain % that you will donate to your favorite charity.
DO something, even if it is small, it will help someone else, and you will feel terrific!
To read the article about Borge go here. If your interested in helping out this charity ring 42265770 or 0419249929. If your a knitter or you have some wool/postage paid envelopes/stamps etc you'd like to donate to knit4charities please visit the group.

GOLD, Gold, gold

So I have mentioned all this gold talk but not been so kind as to show you the pictures.... Now the little piccy is the real size of the nugget and the larger one is so you can actually see it LOL. It is tiny, and got lost momentarily, but I wouldn't get rid of it for a second. Michael and I both love his little piece of Eureka!!

GOLD Hunting

Ever since we went to Ballarat last year in February Michael has had Gold Fever. When we still lived in Hillston there wasn't much he could do about his fever. He did buy himself a Metal Detector last year off Ebay. He used the metal detector while we were visting my long lost cousin in Pambula. I had to let him get the detector so that I could go to Pambula. I knew he would go if he could go gold hunting - interest in my Genealogy alone wasn't going to get him there lol.
Ever since moving to Victoria, Michael has been lucky enough to go gold hunting 4 or 5 times. In June he went gold hunting and I went visiting my mother in Horsham (she had just bought a house in Murtoa) he went of to Avoca and was lucky enought to actually find a small Nugget.
Last weekend we went to Avoca just over night so he could gold hunt but we didn't find anything unfortunatly.
This weekend we went and altought we didn't find any nuggets we did find small specks of gold while panning. We even bought a bucket of dirt to pan at home, so keep your fingers crossed, we might find some more yet LOL.

Lifes busy

Moving to Melbourne has been awesome!! We love it here, we do miss the farm at times, but the lifestyle here is so much better. It no longer takes one and a half hours to get to the store because you have to drive 109Kms. We can drive 5 Mins and be there and spend an hour SHOPPING lol. We love it!! There are so many specials around here, cheap bread, roast chickens for $4 ea.. everything is great!! Lpg is only about .47c/Lt here where as in Hillston it was like .90c/Lt

Here is a couple of photos I took down at the beach the other day.. SOMETHING I missed heaps living in the desert!!

Day 13

Last day at Denham, weren't supposed to be going so early so it is a shame as we are missing out on alot of things. Atleast there was a pretty sunset for me.

Day 11

We got up early to drive to Monkey Mia to feed the Dolphins. I even got to feed one of the dolphins. Here are some of the Pics I took.

Day 6

Didn't do much, Katie was not very well, went shopping managed to find $9 in the change slot of the parking meter while I was trying to figure out why it didn't refund our money, which was nice. Washed all our clothes (BOY THEY NEEDED IT) Katie pretty much bummed around for the rest of the day so I went off for a swim at the beach. We organised ourselves a nice BBQ, but when we got over there the gas had run out so we had to walk all our food back plus our dried washing.

Day 5

Got up at 8am, rushed to dress and get downstairs by 8.30 to catch the bus, which didn't arive until 9ish, got to the city caught the Red Cat to stop three, rushed down the street to the car hire place. Katie got instructions back to Cottesloe, but the lady said go left instead of right, so we drove for 20 mins in the wrong direction. Turned around and headed back to the city, I managed to lead us back to Cottesloe where we ran around madly trying to pack our bags as we were 30 mins past check out. I had rung them on our journey to let them know what was happening so they were fine about it. We drove to Peters to get some stuff I had stored there and got a map, then we headed to Geraldton. We got to the Belair Caravan Park and found the rooms we had wanted (but never booked) didn't have any left, that the only ones that were available were 100 a night, so we went down the road to the Backpackers... We had to climb to the first level where we found a nice man, he said they had no double rooms but that he would give us a dorm room for the same price, we had a look and said ok... he then told us to drive around the back and by the time we got our bags up the stairs he would have the room swept and the beds made. When we drove around the back we noticed a toilet block, we then started to get scared that this was the only toilets, we also started discussing the fact there was no fan or anything in the room.. So we ran away HAHA. We went back to the c'van park and got the expensive unit, but instead of $300 for the three nights it was only $260 so we were really glad we came back. The original rooms we were hiring were going to work out as $228, and with these they have two bedrooms, a kitchen/lounge and a bathroom.

Day 4

Went and had breakfast at one of the restaraunts above the beach and had a scrumptious burger and fries and a capuchino, Katie had chicken fettichini with mushrooms, capuchino and a yummy looking banana smoothie.
I caught the bus to the city and then caught the train to Joondalup. Kit(an old friend) came and picked me up. Spent the day there with her and Brett and Kit took me out for Chinese and dropped me back at Cottesloe, had a very tiring day.

Day 3

Peter and Pauline took us to Cottesloe so we could get our room and drop of our bags. They then drove us to the Claremont Showgrounds where the BDO was being held. On the way there was a car load of young people in front of us and the guy in the back obviously didn't have his seatbelt on, Pauline commented on this and then said "oooh I don't have mine on either" we all cracked up laughing and couldn't control ourselves for a few minutes. I am not sure how Peter managed to keep driving.

Big Day Out
WOW, what a day it was awesome I saw so many cool bands, there was a few bands that I didn't think would be that great but turned out to be fantastic and there was one band that I found to be a little disapointing. The first group we saw was "The Herd" they are not the sort of music I listen to, but they were so energetic and full of life that you just couldn't help but like their stuff. They do a cover of "I was only nineteen" by !?!?!?!?! and they brought him on stage to help with the song. It was so fantastic, both Katie and I had goosebumps and had tears in our eyes. He also did a statement before the song and the crowd just went wild. It was along the lines of "we have to stop sending our young Australians to fight other peoples battles, no more taking them from their families. We need {use today} to send a message to John Howard and Peter Costello that we've had enought, that we don't support this war but we always support our troops." He then dedicated it to the 500 Australian troops lost in Vietnam.
The rest of the acts I saw were, Evermore, Scribe, Spank Rock, DJ Mark Murphy, Eskimo Joe (a little disapointing), John Butler Trio, Something For Kate, You am I (FREAKING AWESOME!!), Tool, Crystal Method DJs.
The last show finished at 11pm, we had to wandered around to the taps because I got something sticky in my shoe and I wanted to wash it out, and we found a tray of cold diet cokes lol so we flogged two, then we filed our way to the extremely busy train station, where about 500 people got on the same train as us.
Luckly a two Pommy girls got off at Cottesloe with us and were heading to the same Backpackers so we followed them for a while then we walked the rest of the way by ourselves. I was tired by the time we got home so I showered and went to bed, Katie went downstairs for the rest of the evening, and got home around 3am.

DAY 2 traveling around Perth

As it was going to be 40 degrees Celcius today, Auntie Pauline decided it would be a good idea if we all went for a drive around, rather than just sitting at home in the aircon, we may as well do the same in the airconditioned car. End the end a picnic was formed, we drove for hours looking at the sites. We headed through the Swan Valley, and stopped at the "Cola Museum" in Toodyay for a cool drink, strangly enough not cola lol. I took a photo while there of the old 'Connors Mill'

We stopped at the first pumping station/dam, for the pipe line that runs water up to kalgoorlie so we all jumped out in the nasty (NASTY) weather, and all contemplated jumping in the dam.

We continue driving until we came to a nice park, where we sat and had our yummy food, there were some strange statue things, which when we first got to the park we were not sure if they were real people or not. hahaha
Here is Pauline, Katie and Peter ready to organise the picnic.

We decided that we should should shout Pauline and Peter to tea, so we grabbed Chinese at there favourite resturant. It was fantastic!! Nice to have a change from our local. Anyhow here is a pic of Pauline and Katie about to tuck in. Note the great setting Peter chose!! A lovely evening we had. Now to get to bed for the Big Day Out

DAY 1 in Perth

I am safe and sound in WA. We arrived on the first at 4.15pm Wa time. Katie and I are staying with my Aunty Pauline and her husband Peter, we are having a wonderful time and have been well looked after. Peter has been doing all the cooking, and is a wonderful cook. We had a wonderful curry last night, well 3 actually one beaut fish curry, a (OMG WONDERFUL) beef curry and a pretty darn good reason to eat lentils, curry. We went to the city yesterday, and spent alot of it lost.... Well, ok, we got to town ok, and even got a free ride on the bus. I think because we asked the bus driver where would be the best place to get off as we are both from interstate. Anyhow this Nz'er heard our plight and decided she would help us out. An Indian bloke behind us gave us some directions as well. The girl from NZ actually got off the bus and walked us around a bit which was awesome. The getting lost part was really trying to get home. We were at the bus station and couldn't figure out which bus to take there was like 4 lanes of buses and each time one pulled up we ran over and asked the driver if this was the one we needed. In our journey into town we never bothered to look what street we had caught the bus from, so this didn't make life much easier. Finally after trying about 6 different buses we got a 'new' driver who was able to tell us where our bus left from lol... which was NOT the main depo lol, so we walked ALL the way back around where we'd come from, asked random people where we should go and made our way to the stop. When there we asked a bloke which bus he was on and even though it was a different one than the one we were going to go on he told us to get on and we would be close to where we needed to be. He was right, although in the opposite direction than where we left from we ended up a block from 'home'. Today is going to be 40 degrees C so we're not venturing out by ourselves, instead our hosts are taking us out to the bush.. Here's hoping we don't get lost hahah

7 Days to go

Man it has taken soooo long to come around and now it is almost here. It started with "A Proposition", and hopefully is going to end as one of the best holidays that I have been on. It is coming at a good time too, Michael has been working so hard, and it is frustrating me to the max. I just wish that he was able to come, but I understand the reasons why he can't... If you know me/us well, you probably understand.. If your just some random peeping tom, then... well.. you don't need to know :D
Anyhow back to the point of the story.. 7 days to WA WHOOT!!!

Ooopsy..

Something happened to the Laptop last night.. I was using it.. All was good, then the net stopped working, and we couldn't dial up, it is 4 or so days away from being out of it's one year warranty.. Mick got on the phone and put it on the taxi truck. The shop where we got it is going to have a look, my poor baby lol.. I am lost, I have to use this prehistoric (6yr old) Windows Me Computer.. Arrrrrggghhh. Everything is so slow it has taken 1/2 the day to just do some of my normal surfing. :( My computer has to go to WA with me able to connect to the net or not, I need somewhere to download all the photos I am going to be taking :O

Half ways there

I can't believe it has been six weeks since Katie asked me to go to Wa with her, it is so exciting. We have been emailing back and forth, having muliple phone calls not to mention the long Msn sessions. It is going to be awesome! Michael & Zac *Katie's Man* won't be coming sadly, but at the same time, it is good too, although she knows Michael fairly well, Mick and I hardly know Zac. We'd expect to spend a lot of 'girl' time together, and the boys would just be left to their own devices.. Both of us agree, it probably would have ended with each hanging out with their respective partners, and not getting alot of Katie and Liz time, because we'd be too busy catering for their needs..
I have promised Mick that me and him can go sometime, around Sept one year would be nice, the cooler months and when the wild flowers are in bloom.

Egg Bound Chook

On Thursday I noticed this chook had layed and egg on the path with no shell on it, but had some ?shell stuck out her vent, I didn't know what to do so left it there, apart from not wanting to hurt her, I had to go out. I am not sure if she pasted that or not.. I think she must have, though I haven't found it around the yard or their pen (but the dog may/would have eaten it).On Friday and Sat she was contracting her vent a lot, and doing lots of just clear liquid poo with a bit of white poo in the middle, the clear poo is almost like egg white, there is heaps of it and it is thickish, when I wash it off the paths the white poo is like spiderwebs. Sunday I figured out that maybe she was egg bound, gave her a warm water bath, massaged her sides and underbody, no response, after a while I got an eyedropper and put a small amount of oil in it and (poor girl) got my Fiance to put some up her vent, about 5 mins later she pass a very large egg, no shell formed though, just a very tough skin on the egg. Also like an umbilical cord She was alot more active after this moving around and eating more. Monday and Tuesday she has sort of been the same, sleeping lots either standing in one spot sleeping or sitting, she is drinking heaps, eating too, contracting her vent a bit but not as bad as the weekend. She is ok, just not her normal active self. Generally I go outside and they all run over to see if I have anything for them. I did give her another 'oiling' on Monday, but she didn't lay another egg. They all eat laying pellets and wheat, as well as the odd veggy scraps. They only started getting wheat about 2 weeks ago.. It is fresh as we havested it when they started getting it. I gave all the girls a dusting last night as I noticed little white mites on them.
Blue Lace from The-coop suggested giving her, Molasses Flush, and then milk/yoghurt food.. Instructions below. THANKS Blue Lace!
To make the molasses flush, just mix 1 tablespoon molasses with 1-1/2 cups of water. Let that be her only source of water and let her have her regular food too if she will eat. Give her the molasses flush for no longer than 8 hours. Then the next day, if you have buttermilk, mix some with some of her regular food, however much you think she will eat in one setting. If you don't have buttermilk, regular milk will work. After all of that has been absorbed, add a teaspoon of yogurt and mix well. If you think it's too dry, add a little water. Too much yogurt can cause diarrhea and I think she already has enough of that. You don't want it to be soupy, just a wet mash that's easy to eat.