Oh Dear ...

It's been a long time between posts yet again, life is just too crazy busy it seems.

Harvest kicked off well enough with our canola - we got the last of it stripped literally just a few hours before the first of the rain periods set it. Lucky is an understatement because there are so many paddocks belonging to others where their windrows of canola is still just sitting there turning black and horrible because of the weather.

We are totally over the rain now - and feel guilty in a way for saying so after so many years of wishing and praying that it would rain. Why did it have to come at the wrong time? The boys are trying desperately to strip what they can but the wheat has been severely downgraded and they seem to spend more time pulling headers out of bogs that actually harvesting. There are a lot of frayed tempers and colourful language as you can imagine. Still, we just keep slogging away cos that's what we do.

Check out just a few of the wet weather pics I took around our house. It doesn't really show just how much rain we've had and how saturated everything is. I wish I had got pics of our driveway which has been literally a running river on several occasions - with dams over flowing and paddocks completely sodden the water just runs, and keeps running - it's been deep enough to be just over the side steps of the 4WD!

 I quit my job at the dairy a few weeks back with the intention of helping with the harvest but I've been really sick with a sinus infection that just wont clear plus the kids have been crook then last weekend I got sick again too with a very weird virus. Thankfully my parents had just arrived for a week's visit so they took over the household and kid-wrangling for me. It was a shame it wasn't a nice relaxing visit for them and we didn't get to spend much time together however it was good timing that they were able to help.

My parents were also here for the school presentation day ... and Miss Caitlin got an award for "Safe, Respectful & Responsible" behaviour. She also brought home a lovely report card the day before so it was proud parent and grandparent moments all round. Thankfully I was starting to finally feel better by then.

We also took a drive out to Wyangala Dam for a picnic lunch and paddle - it looks amazing with water in it!!! The best I'd ever seen it was just under 60% when I arrived here 9 years ago, and now ... well, skiing this summer will be a whole lot more enjoyable.

 

I have done a little bit of scrapping, but not nearly as much as I would like to.

I used some of the new October Afternoon "Seaside" range for these pages - the "Tinsel Tangles" LO is for my challenge during our Cyber Crop over at Red Earth Scrapping earlier this month.

 This page is for Scrapbook Top 50 where I joined in the "scrap whispers" during November.

 

And the double is based on the December Challenge sketch over at SBT50 as well which RES is sponsoring this month. I turned the sketch into a double as I wanted to use all these pics from the same day on the one LO. It's not quite finished to my eye but I decided not to sit on it anymore, perhaps inspiration will strike one day with what it needs to complete it.

 Here is my LO from Mistra's "Scrapilicious" Class we held at RES. I do love this, it's really special.

And how about this, 2 double LO's in the one post! This is from Penny's "Sunny Happy Skies" Class also at RES during November. This was such great fun and I was even inspired to continue the whimsy feel and use up some leftovers from the kit with another quick page.

Then there were these pages "just because" ... I am such a terrible product hoarder, it's almost embarassing so I am proud of myself using up all this old stash.

This page I created for a friend who is keen to get into scrapping (YAY!) ...

 

It seems like I have been doing a lot of scrapping but it really is only a bit here and there between all the other crazy life happenings and running about.

I was also very industrious preparing Christmas card kits for some classes I held in town on the first 2 Saturday's in December, aimed at kids coming to make a few cards. The 2 mornings were a success and got the RES name out there. Everyone asked for more classes next year, and there's adults keen to get involved too with scrapping and card making so it was really positive and worthwhile.

So, that's been life (in a nutshell) of late.

Hope the silly season is treating you kindly.

Til next time ...