Month In Numbers - May

May was the month of the Scala choir.

 It just about trumps anything else I did this month including the 12 hours I spent at a friends wedding (a long time for me, I usually bail before the fun starts!), the 92 points the boss's golf team scored to claim 7th in the tournament and win us a meal for 2 in a local restaurant and the 2 random prize draws I won in a week *yay*.

The boss loves Scala and Kolacny Brothers (to give them their full title).  He heard they were playing in Dublin at the beginning of the month so having a little money left over after buying my new camera, I picked up a couple of tickets.  You see, the boss is not much of a concert goer, whereas I will go to see anyone, so when he tells me about a date, I will jump through hoops to get him ...and me, there.

Incase you have never heard of them, here is a taster of how great they are....

There are tons of videos on YouTube and they do covers of loads of popular songs, including Smells like Teen Spirit, Creep, Under the Bridge and Bittersweet Symphony to name but a few. To find out a bit more about them, you can find them here.

So, the day in numbers goes as follows:

16.02 train to Dublin....the journey takes around 2 hours and costs €40 return. The bus costs €17 less but the journey is less comfortable, it takes half an hour more and the travel times are less frequent.

60 seconds walk from our hotel..The Fitzsimmons...to the Olympia Theatre.  Good choice by the boss and it only cost us €90 for the night, which in Dublin on a Saturday night at short notice is pretty good.

€3.50 a pint till 8pm in The Turk so took advantage of that.  They were showing the Heineken Cup final and we managed to catch the end...Leinster beat Ulster 42-16 so the locals were mighty happy.

The show started at 8pm and we were in Row M, seats 5/6 which was a pretty good view (and situated close to the bar and toilets...always a bargain in my eyes).  I have always liked the Olympia...it is a beautiful building and the accoustics are brilliant in it.

The support band were a Donegal country/folk band called The Henry Girls and they were fantastic.

Then at around 9pm, the main event started and I have to say, they were everything we expected and 100 times more. I found watching the brothers fascinating, especially conducting the girls.  They connected really well with the audience and an hour and a half really wasn't long enough. They sang a few well known songs as well as some original pieces. And much to the boss's delight, they also played his favourite, Yellow.
(26 September, they are the O2 in London.....I hugely recommend it)

And, that is my month.  Cut off a bit short admittedly but this is probably the 5th draft I have written and thats it....my brain just can't cope anymore lol.

So, thanks for looking and do pop here to get a link to Julies Pinterest board and visit a few other participants

Oh, and I better warn you now, June will consist largely of Euro 2012 ....so if you dislike the beautiful game, sorry!!! ;)

I may start crying!!!

I want to move on with my Cover to Cover work ... lots of notes but no physical work done.

I want to scrap but now I finally have time to do some, Jean has fled (newly christened creating gene!!!).

I want to write my Month in Numbers post but can't seem to get the flow going. I am proud I have lots of notes to pick from though (and you can go here to find out more and get links to others while I procrastinate)

I know this is the reason why I am having brain freeze.....



I want to leave it till next week when I have my days off between nights so more time to organise.

I guess what I want just won't fly today if I want Jean to return....reckon she left in protest!

I think I want to cry at this point as this is such an ongoing issue!

O, Jean just whispered to me there is a LO in the making here and if I do a little now, my reward will be a short visit of encouragement.

See ya later :)

RIP Robin Gibb

I love the Bee Gees.  Their songs are ones that I go to when I need cheering up because you can't help but smile and sing along.

Such a sad day that Robin has passed. RIP :(

My favourite Bee Gee song 

Organising....!!??

Organising is something I thought I was reasonably good at. The boss begs to differ on the strength of my room. He does have a point I suppose, but at least it's an organised mess...as in I know where everything is and he doesn't have to ;)

However, recently I have noticed that I am a great list maker but a poor completer of these lists. Now, I am working on changing the completing part but I love that todays prompt is all about the list part :)

Yep, I know I have skipped prompt 5 here but as I am currently on nights, i think some of these will be jumbled a bit depending on my sleep pattern which can be poor to say the least.  I am blogging and that, for me, is an achievement in itself :)


Now, in the interest of complete transparency, I haven't made this list yet. I only just read the prompt to be honest. But I have a few ideas of what albums I would like to have and it is just a case of getting it down on paper and starting.

Since I don't have a system at the moment, this should be relatively easy to get started.  Not too much shuffling, just albums to purchase. And so far, I have ideas for albums on each of the nieces and nephews, heritage, early years (family), early years (me), our life (now), our life (since we met), wedding,  me, him.

But then Shimelle got me thinking. I have several lists dotted around the house about ideas for pages. Maybe I need to use these (did I mention something about collecting this list before?) and see how they would fit into each of these lists.  You see, while I like the list I have, I am not sure if it is exactly what I want. I am sure there needs to be some refining somewhere. I am sure there are some aspects of my life that I could document and not realise, so it is a good chance to look at where I am at the moment will work great in conjunction with my OLW


All this thought process from what is effectively a bit of homework on organising.

Which, I better go and do, since I have to hunt these bits of paper down and eat something before I leave in half an hour :s

xx

Anything missing?

 

I don't need to look through my pages to see what is missing.  I know that journalling has always been my weak spot and a lot of pages have more story that can be told.

Above would be a good example.  I did this in response to one of Shimelles online crop challenges but never got round to uploading it....it was the colourful one I think.
There are lots more stories I can tell about this day trip.
There is a story I can tell about taking these pictures actually, now I come to think about it. It would also be nice to see if #1 and 2 have any memories of this particular day.
So, the next stage is do I add to this or do another LO? I will have to see if any other pictures survived the great death of the first laptop....many didn't and I thought I had backed them up. Was pleasantly surprised to find some stored in Photoshop the other day :)


So, lots to look and plenty to think about......think I need to buy more notebooks....!

A few people on the forum were answering the questions laid out in the prompt and I thought that was a good idea.So, here goes....

Do you start with a plan, sketch or inspiration piece?
- not always although I do find them very helpful


If you print your photos at a variety of sizes, how do you choose?
- A lot depends how many pictures I want on the LO or if I am following a challenge. It       also depends if I want one to be prominent or not


How do you select the colour scheme for your page?
- I sometimes pick the photo first so that leads the colours. Other times I may go with the paper I am loving at the time . But to be honest, it varies alot.

Do you mix and match your supplies or stick to just one collection?
- I always mix and match. I rarely buy whole collections and if I do, I end up mixing them up and forgetting I have them :P

Which comes first: embellishments or writing?
- It used to be the embellishments but recently, I have been deciding where I want to write before I begin the process of prettying up the page.

Do you handwrite, print or stamp your words?
- handwrite ....i like the look of printed words but I love writing so...!

What do you do with your page once it’s finished?
- photograph it, put it away, then post it up here and/or on 2peas

:)

Photos, photos everywhere......

I, like a lot of people, thought that so far, I had very few pictures, especially since I have had only the use of my iPhone camera all year (new camera arrived Friday though....my picture uptake will triple while I learn how to use it  :D ).

Nikon D3100 ...my first DSLR but I will whittle on about it another time :)

Guess I had forgotten about Instagram then!

my 2 fur children....proof that i did take some pics!!!

And the fact I am doing Take Twelve this year.

I have TONS!   :shock:  :D

Now, I like the idea of sending a print order every month because, as much as I like printing at home, I do see the costing point of view (hence the reason why I am actually changing my printer since 50 pictures dried up my colour cartridge and I heard that Kodak prints upto 100!).

So, I think I need to put in 20-30 photos a month into my budget.

Because, if I am honest, it bugs me big time when I have a photo on the computer that I am dying to scrap but can't print!

2 days in and I think I have changed nearly my whole process of organisation now....well, got it on here what I want to do anyway. That cant be bad  :D

April- Month in Numbers

No LO again this month but then, not much crafting has happened since I went back to work after my 2 week break over Easter and for the last 2 weeks in April, I seemed to live at the place.
In the week ending 22nd, I managed to do 57 hours from wed thru sunday....that's not including the 10 and a half hours break I had for the 3 split days which I don't go home for! I think I will have to be careful about how flexible I am for others in the future!!

I managed to do 6 pages for Shimelles online weekend crop, but only remembered to upload 4.  I still have the challenges though and plan to work my way through the rest of them as I have notes and ideas for all.

1 new baby born to my neighbours and above is the present I made for them. I love the Mabel Lucie Atwell designs. They are so cute.

If you look in the bottom left of the picture, you can just make out the 2 chilli sign which indicated here that this houmous ranked as medium on the 'burnt mouth' scale. I have a reasonably good tolerance for all things spicy but this...? Well, this blew my head off.  Medium, my eye!!!!

2 days...how long it took me to eat this medium sized beauty. Which considering it is chocolate and Creme Egg chocolate, it was a minor miracle it lasted 2 hours!

Well, thats me done for the month. I actually have plans that don't involve the house or work this month, so I will have to remember to document some numbers down somewhere!!
In the meantime...head off to Julie to see what everyone was up to :)