Family holiday disasters

They say you always remember bad things that happen to you. If that's the case, then me and Andy certainly have some memorable holidays.

First, there's the holiday where, as we were packing up to come home, the maid appeared in the doorway hurrying us along because she wanted to clean the apartment. We hurried along and on arriving back home, realised we had left ALL of my dirty washing in a laundry bag in the wardrobe. I'd bought a new wardrobe for the trip and the hotel never did respond to my email. I hope the maid enjoyed her new (albeit dirt and very smelly) clothes.

Oh and then there's the cruise that we went on in 2005...a fabulous trip to the Caribbean. We'd just got there and were unpacking the clothes. I'd put all of the clothes away and only had the t-shirts left to unpack. Andy passes me a stack of his t-shirts and I dutifully put them away in the wardrobe. "Ok, pass mine over" I said. "That's all of them" he said. Turns out he thought my t-shirts were his and had thought to himself as he was packing "I've got way too many t-shirts, better put some back" and basically left ALL of my t-shirts on the bed at home! I had to survive a 2 week holiday with the t-shirt that I was wearing, which was dirty - since I'd spilt my lunch down it on the plane - and a selection of his t-shirts. Thank goodness we're about the same size!

Ooooooh and here's one for you...we'd just arrived in Tenerife and was about to unpack the clothes...(there's a theme here, have you spotted it yet? LOL). I asked him to pass me the padlock key for the suitcase. At that moment, I remember leaving the key on the kitchen worktop and we had to get maintenance to break into out suitcase for us. For the return journey we bought some of those ones with the combination lock...and the lock mechanism failed so we had to break into the case when we got home too.

On our last cruise in November 2008, we were loading the suitcases into the car (on our way to the airport...yay!). It's 5pm and the shops are due to shut..and guess what? Our case falls apart and clothes start spewing onto the pavement. Eeeekkkk!!!! We had to dash to the shops to buy a new suitcase, on the way to the airport, and with the shops due to close...we met my mum and dad at the airport looking stressed and well ready for a holiday.

I'm just wondering what will happen this time LOL.

Talking of horrendous family trips, I was just reading this article on the BBC news website (so funny) and I especially liked this bit...

Particularly memorable was one journey to France aged six when a fellow passenger vomited on her leg on the ferry; with her clean clothes buried somewhere deep inside the family Land Rover, the senior Kennedys thought it wisest to clean her up at a public convenience when they reached the continent. Unfortunately, when they did so the young Emma managed to step into the squat toilet and cover herself in human effluent; she was so traumatised that she fainted and, as she recalls with a shudder, her parents then "had to wrap me in a bin bag, take me to a garage forecourt and hose me down".

Does anyone else have a funny holiday disaster?

Day trip!

Today Andy & I went to Scarborough for the day. It's late and I'm tired now, but here's a few pics from the day :)

This is the main reason why I don't go to the beach much - too many people driving waaaaaaay below the speed limit - causing queues a mile long!

 

 

The harbour

The beach

Lots of these everywhere!

PS: If you follow my photography blog, you might recognise the third pic as being the one that I posted here - just taken a season later!

awesome timing

I just posted this on the wrong blog by mistake - grrrrr

As you know, Andy lost his job 15 months ago now and to say we have struggled sometimes has been an understatement. With the mortgage insurance payments ending next month that was beginning to be a HUGE worry for us. But for the last couple of weeks, I have had this really strong feeling that everything was going to be ok. I'd had a talk with God and vented my frustrations a week or so earlier, and then that's when this feeling and calm (in amongst a few moments of sheer panic began). In fact, I had so much faith in this feeling that I even started to plan for the future (remember the study and my talk of a holiday?) - something I hadn't done for nearly 2 years, since the job losses were announced. Over the last week or so this feeling has got even stronger and FINALLY today Andy was offered a job!

I always knew this would happen in God's own time - and just in the nick of time too! To have this happen a month before we would have struggled to the point of actually making a mortgage payment is just proof in my eyes of the awesome powerful nature of God.

Ok, so I'm rambling, but I just can't get my head around the awesome timing. Suddenly everything makes sense :)

This exciting life I lead :)

I have had such a productive day today, I've even surprised myself! I woke up at 8am and went to do the grocery shopping....joy of joys, doesn't everyone just hate that job? Much better to get it over and done with don't yah think? I called at the post office on my way home to post some parcels (website annoyingly sent the wrong item to what we ordered grrrrrrr) and then got comfy for a marathon graphics catch up session. After last week's fiasco, I had LOADS of work to catch up on.

So, I re-installed 4 blogs (after adding their graphics to their own Photobucket accounts) and then installed a gorgeous blog for a cake maker, which will be posted in my Portfolio tomorrow. Don't miss that one by the way because it is one of my all time faves! I then made a logo, a selection of headers for another customer. Last night I designed a business card and logo for the same cake maker.  Phew!

Tomorrow, not really sure. I have an appointment with a  Joyce Myers podcast at some point and maybe a little bible study, but I'll probably spend the rest of the day finishing off my new digital scrapbooking kit. I can't wait to release it. Sometimes I get way too excited about my graphics, it's just sad LOL.

Oh and I had a great idea for my birthday giveaway and I think people are going to really LOVE this one!

Well, nothing else is going on here really, so sorry it's kind of a work related post, but I hope somebody found it enlightening anyway. Anyone up to anything exciting this weekend?

Relationships in times of trouble

I had an interesting conversation with my mum last night (erm, I don't think she reads this blog, but I don't think she's mind me mentioning it anyway). We were talking about relationships and how in the last 10 years mine and Andy's relationship has had many, many storms to weather. Seriously, I don't talk about everything on my blog, but our lives have basically been one catalogue of disasters since the day we met. She was asking how our latest troubles with Andy's unemployment (now at 15 months) had affected our relationship...I think she just wanted to know her big little girlie was happy...you know? I told her if anything it had STRENGTHENED our relationship, that we were more patient (most of the time) and more considerate and loving as a result. She seemed really surprised by that, which surprised me really. I always thought that most people would get closer during times of hardship, but mum said in her experience they tend to drift apart. I guess what I'm basically saying is that I think everything happens for a reason and that maybe God does know what he's doing after all...though I'd be quite happy if we could catch a break LOL.

I'd like to say I've been bored but...

When my computer died a death on Friday night, I {almost} had a panic attack. I mean, I spend literally EVERY minute of my spare time making graphics, so the thought of having all this spare time was actually really scary. I didn't get a wink of sleep on Friday night, wondering how on earth I was going to break the news to people and whether they would understand the delay.

I needn't have worried as everyone was super-cool about it. I just hope that Dell get me up and running quickly, otherwise I'm kind of up the creek without a paddle. People won't be patient indefinitely I'm sure of that.

Anyway, I'd like to say I've been bored, but I've actually had a lovely weekend. I spent Saturday morning at a local store gathering more ideas for the study. I found a nice lamp, lightshade and curtains. We had a BBQ Saturday afternoon and then spent the rest of the day (until late a night) sat in the garden just talking. It was like re-discovering my husband again LOL. Today we just did the usual, but also made 3 meals for during the week - all meals that I can just throw in the slow cooker on my way to work :)

So, what do you think of these?

vase

side table

picture

caption

light shade

lamp - to go on the side table

cushion

curtains

Dreaming of decorating my study

I've had a terrific week. Did anyone notice the sarcasm?

It all started earlier in the week when I was sent to work away with like 3 hours notice. I got back home yesterday and was happily unwinding by reading a few blogs...and then I noticed it....a big FAT notice on some other designer's blog about Photobucket's changes in their terms and conditions. I can't tell you how upset I am, my blog used to be within their terms and conditions...and I paid enough money for it for goodness sake! Now my blog falls outside of their terms of use and it's only a matter of time before I have to cough up a monthly rate for the image storage. The other designer is paying PER MONTH 20 times more than what she'd have paid in a year! If that happens to me, my blog will no longer exist because it just doesn't rake in that kind of money.

So I've spent 2 days drawing up a list of who needs what doing with their graphics. An action plan for 350 customers....now that's time consuming...booooooo. Oh anyway, I'm fed up just thinking about it...I wrote about it here anyway.

I cheered myself up by dragging myself around Ikea and looking for inspiration for my study. We've lived here 3 years and our house still doesn't feel like a home. When we moved in I was still a full time student and then after I finished uni Andy lost his job. So basically we've never had money to put our stamp on the house and I sooooooo want to live in a home...and feel settled. Does that make sense? I found a few things, most notably a sofa bed, a desk, a wall unit/storage thingy and a nice cushion. What do you think?

This sofa bed should go well with a neutral/green theme

I'm looking for some storage for all my books, files and other nonsense. I liked this because I can hide all my junk away and it will be easier to keep everything dust free too :)

I fell in love with the fabric on this cushion

I fell in love with this desk too but alas it won't match my theme (natural textures and colours).  But I found a similar desk with a frosted glass top

The desk we'll probably get

Comfy looking?

Of course all we need is for Andy to get a job so we can pay for it...and that's a whole new depressing story. Gosh I'm happy today aren't I? Will try harder...promise :p