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June 2006
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August 2006

Back in my comfort zone ....

Aghhh that's better. A pink and green layout. For a day or so I thought I was going to go crazy and even start doodling or doing those poppet layouts! Another page for the holiday album, my Mum's glorious roses.

Mums_roses

The papers I used here were Wild Asparagus - this reminds me to tell you about the awesome new papers released by My Minds Eye at CHA Summer in Chicago. Check out their website here - OMG the 'Signature' range and 'Bohemia' range are so beautiful.

Speaking of shopping I see Kimmy has been busy uploading products to the new Scraptacular online store - woohoo. It's a slow process with all that stock, but watch this space! Only 2 months now to the Scraptacular weekend. Can't wait.

Had a cool day today - a total family day, my fave way to spend a Sunday. Even going to do a page about it - just an ordinary Sunday. So precious. The weather was sunny (but cool) and now it's really blustery outside, like it's blowing up a storm. Think that will do me for tonight - you know when you start talking about the weather it's time to sign off.

Night lovelies,

Claire and Co


Give me the simple life...

Have been feeling the need to simplify things this week, pull back and have some quiet unscheduled time. So today I put the answering machine on all day, and didn't do one ounce of work (helps when I am the boss!). I taught Samuel to walk down the steps holding the hand-rail, I had a leisurely coffee at the shops, chatted to my sister and brother on the phone, went and picked Josh up from creche myself, and tonight we looked up his favourite dinosaur's on the internet and printed out the pictures and laminated them for him. I even cooked a delicious risotto for dinner and bought fresh fruit for dessert. I'm feeling very virtuous.

My niece is doing amazingly well. Amazing the recuperative power of a healthy 17 year old. She now has the hard brace on which she reportedly is very unimpressed with and will have more x-rays in a week to see how it's all going. I wish my brother had been as lucky.

Today I scrapped another page for my holiday album. OK, so I got very carried away here (for me anyway) but it was great therapy and it reminded of beaches and home which can't be a bad thing. The colours are very unusual for me, but it's hard to get pink and green and brown to match with beach scenes, LOL. These are some of my fave beaches in South West WA - Myalup Beach and Eagle Bay, both near Dunsborough.

Beach_feet

Sorry for not being in touch much with everyone this week, just needing some quiet at home with the family days at the moment. Hope you all have a great weekend,

Claire


Thankyou friends ....

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for their caring words about Cassie, I will be sure to let her know she has many people thinking of her. It really helps me as well.

I am feeling lots stronger today - I think I have a greater confidence that she will be OK, and I spoke to my brother today and he seems to be doing OK. I was reflecting today on how well our family rallies around each other when things like this happen. We are good at keeping each other informed, making sure everyone is OK and just being there for each other. I am grateful for such a strong sense of family.

Pam made a comment about our 'things happening in 3's' is now complete. I was just thinking that same thing today. I sure hope so. You hear so much about the tragedy of people dying in car accidents, and having experienced that with my father (my dad was killed in a pedestrian accident in 1996, a different accident to my brother), it certainly is the case. The thing you don't see though is the effect on the individuals and families from the many more people who are injured in car accidents. I can't begin to describe the impact, but it is huge, and raw, and very very sobering.

One of the things that my brother talked about this morning, was that during the actual accident and immediately after, Cassie remembered some things my brother had told her about what to do to decrease the chances of further injury - I can't imagine how you would remember that in such a crisis, but she did. I must get him to write it down one day. Apparently Cassie was found by a lovely lady who comforted her and stayed with her until the Ambulance arrived. My brother was trying to track her down to say thank you today.

Paul had the day off today which gave me the chance to regroup a bit. I was emotionally exhausted so I slept and had a leisurely drive down to Scraptacular to drop off Shazzas pages (OK, and drool over the new stuff). OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG yummy new stuff from KI, yummy metal baby embellishments and yummy yummy yummy new American Crafts D-Ring albums in cool colours and styles. I had been reading about these on  Cathy Zieleske's blog - she has pictures of how she has rearranged her albums using these. Very cool.

Finally, the new FK is out, and Paul and bubs are in there! So proud - I even took this picture myself. Love pictures of babies sleeping on shoulders :)

36_hours_take_2

Anna has challenged me to do a single page LO using a few photos - that will be my next project, along with a few goodies for the shop. Unfortunately I have work to catch up on first though.

Night lovelies and thanks again for your best wishes for our family.

Claire


News on Cassie...

I have news. Good and bad, but best summed up by saying my niece Cassandra is one very lucky girl. She is now in one of the major hospitals in Perth and has had a CT scan and they have confirmed she has broken the C7 vertebrae (the one at the base of your neck) right through, but it didn't injure her spinal cord. We all know too well how lucky she is, as it is this very injury that has left my brother in a wheelchair for life. They are going to immobilise it and put her in a hard brace, and I imagine she will be in hospital for some time. I am so shocked this has happened again, I think it's shock but I also feel angry and sad and thrown for a six. We do draw some relief from the fact she is being cared for by the spinal consultant who has managed my brother all these years, and he is a great man who we all respect greatly, especially my brother. I am not sure what else to say so will leave you with a picture of Cassie with Samuel taken at our family picnic in April. I feel all teary just posting it. I think this has bought up lots of feelings from my brothers accident and my Dads that were still lurking. I can't help feel that life is just so fragile. Night lovelies.

Cassie_sm


Shaken up ...

I hate those phone calls. The ones that start with '..... has had an accident - I have had too many of them and got another today. My niece Cassie had a car accident last night and rolled her car end to end on a country road. This is my brothers daughter. She seems to be not badly injured, but is in hospital for observation. I really feel for my brother. As much as he is putting on a brave face, I imagine this would have really shaken him up. Thank goodness she is OK. I wish we all still drove horses and carts. I hate cars.

On a brighter note I had some much needed silence this evening as Paul took the boys out to have tea with a friend, so I got to finish my two layouts I did on Saturday night. How cool is it to have a layout that matches your blog, LOL:

So_grateful

and continuing on the grateful theme, this one is for my brother. There's a little tag tucked under the photo with 14 everyday little things I wanted to thank him for.

Lucky_me

Josh is currently driving around the house pretending to be an ambulance. He drives up on his little pooh car and says really sternly 'hello my name is Pam and whats wrong? OK where do you want to go to the doctor or the hospital' - amazing what they pick up. Her also announced today he wants us to buy a real bulldozer and currently has his Uncle Roly checking out prices for him. never a dull moment.

Oh sh*t - just had another call from my Mum to say they have decided to fly my niece up to one of the big hospitals in Perth (she is in a country hospital at the moment) as they are concerned about one of the vertebrae. Some positive vibes and prayers our way would be really handy. I don't think our family could cope with too much more like this. Will know more tomorrow. At least I am comforted somewhat knowing she is moving OK. I hate being across the other side of Australia when stuff like this happens. Sending you big hugs Cass.