An overdue update.

Hi everyone, where did January go? I cant believe I haven't been here for over a month! I've done a few crafty things since Christmas which I'll post here soon.

I think it's been quite a while since I shared any of my personal life here, a lot has happened over the last few months, not much of it is good news. If you've been following me for a while you'll know that I have had bowel cancer for nearly two and a half years. I had chemo for the first year then a long break since November 2010, which for the most part I've been feeling quite well. However things began to change from about November 2011, I started getting quite a lot of back and hip pain, and the CT scan I had in December showed that my already enlarged lymph nodes are getting bigger, I also discovered further enlarged lymph nodes in my neck a while before that. My oncologist told me that I would have to start chemo again and this will commence next Monday. My back and hip pain has been getting worse by the day and pain killers are not really working well, unless I use the heavy duty stuff which just knocks me out and makes me nauseous. I've started having acupuncture for the pain and after 3 sessions the signs are encouraging with some pain relief for a few days, I'm told this should improve with further treatment. Unfortunately the pain has severely restricted my movements, I can no longer just go for a walk or practice Tai Chi, even going to the supermarket is a bit of an ordeal which I can't do on my own.

I really hope that this new lot of chemo will reduce the enlarged lymph nodes so that I can start to enjoy the things that I can't do at the moment. I've been told that the main side effects from this new chemo apart from the usual nausea, tiredness, hair thinning etc. is pins and needles in the hands and feet. Fingers crossed that I'll still be able to do some craftwork. My acupuncturist tells me that she can help with some of the side effects so I hope she can deliver there.

Sorry to be full of doom and gloom, but I'm not feeling sorry for myself I've known that this would be happening sooner or later and it's just another roadblock in life. The Monty Python song, I think from 'The Life of Brian', 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' comes to mind.....I know only too well that there are others who are much worse off than I am!

An (almost) white Christmas!

Hi there, how was your Christmas? Hope you all had a wonderful day spent with your loved ones! We hosted our Christmas celebrations at our home this year, it was lovely seeing how excited Annika, our 3 year old grand-daughter, was opening all her presents. She even got to open her baby brother's presents too....I think it's more about the unwrapping than what's actually inside that excites her!

We had the strangest weather on Christmas Day! It started off as your typical Aussie summer's day, I think the temperature reached somewhere around 30C, then the weather turned very nasty! We had a bit of rain, followed by a hail storm......the hail was the size of golf balls! It sounded like someone was throwing big rocks on the roof. Both sons-in-law made a mad dash for the cars to put them undercover, one of them looked up at the wrong time and copped a few hail stones on his face...ouch! There's a photo below of the hail still sitting on our lawn and nature strip taken well after the hail storms finished......we ended up having at least 4 of them, along with some torrential rain! Luckily we are on top of a hill and the only damage was where some hail stones came through the laserlite sheets on our back veranda. Others fared much worse with flooding, car windscreens broken and broken roof tiles. I was really worried as my 82yr old Dad had only left 5 minutes before the storm hit, but thankfully he was OK and only had a few dents in his car from the hail.

Here's my last Christmas card for the year! I made this one for my grandson Ben's first Christmas! The little bear stamp is by Stamp-It, the greeting is from a Kaisercraft clear set. I coloured the bear with Copic Markers, put some Kindyglitz around the hat fur and cut him out and popped up with dimensional dots. The DP is also by Kaisercraft.

I'm linking this card up with the Forever Friends December Challenge - It's all Christmas!

I had a last minute crafting frenzy on Christmas Eve as I still had more gift-card holders to finish and I made my own Christmas Crackers (Bon Bons). Thankfully my daughter Hayley helped me finish off the Crackers......and wrapped my gifts for me as well, or I would never have finished everything! I didn't get around to taking photos of those last projects though!

I can't believe New Year's Eve is tomorrow! Hope you all have a Happy New Year, I'll be back next year!

More about Feed Readers

Just thought I'd post a couple of screen shots as an addition to my post yesterday regarding feed readers, in case I was confusing you with what I was talking about.

The picture above shows the FeedDemon reader, I find the soft colours are much easier on my eyes than the stark white of the new version of Google Reader (see screenshot below). The blog list is also easier to read on FeedDemon and I can see the scroll bars to go down my list. You cant see the scroll bars on Google Reader until you run the mouse over them, which is a nightmare to use on my HP Touchpad as my finger is used instead of a mouse.

What do you think, I'd love to hear your opinions?

RSS Feed Readers?

I'm guessing that most people who read blogs have them organised in some kind of a RSS feed reader, the most common one being Google Reader.

If you use Google Reader, what do you think of their new interface? Supposedly the makeover is to make it more user-friendly! I don't know who they tested the new interface on but they couldn't have got it more wrong - and from what I've read on the Google discussion groups, there are hundreds, probably thousands, of users who agree with me! All that white space is just too hard on the eyes, and as for those narrow disappearing scroll bars.....pfft!

I decided it was time to search for a new RSS reader and have discovered one called FeedDemon. I downloaded the free version, but there is another paid version which is ad-free and has other features. I don't really need the other features and the ads aren't annoying, so I'll stick with the free version for now. After using it for a few days I quite like it. It was easy to import all my feeds from Google Reader and I like the way you can set it to show various views of your feeds - I have mine set to show unread items, but you can set it to several other views as well. It's fast to use and I can also make comments on blogs without having to open a separate window. I can also switch between FeedDemon and Google Reader and both readers update the feeds that I've already read. I guess the downside is that it's only available for Windows computers and it uses Internet Explorer as it's browser. I'm using FeedDemon on my desktop computer, but I can't download it to use on my HP Touchpad because of the different operating system it uses.

If anyone uses a different RSS reader and likes it, I'd love to hear about it too!

I'm back!!

Hi there, just popping in to let you know I'm back from my holidays.........in case you thought I'd disappeared from the face of the earth! I've actually been back for almost a week now but I've been busy catching up with too many things to have time for blogging or creativity!

New Zealand was a wonderful experience, it's such a beautiful place and the people are so friendly. We had an awesome time there, although the weather was getting a little cold, especially in the Sth Island.

We were home for a week, then it was off to Queensland to stay with my brother (that's him in the photo with me) and his family for a week. The weather was just perfect, 26C most days, I really hated  to come home to Winter in Melbourne - it's a chilly 11C here today with hail and rain, and it's going to be much the same for the whole week (sigh)!

Goodbye Daisy - a sad farewell.

This is a post that I haven't been wanting to write. Last Friday we made the difficult decision that it was time to let our best friend, Daisy go. She was 14 years old and had been battling cancer and arthritis for some time. Her condition had deteriorated over the last few months and she had developed ulcers that wouldn't heal despite repeated antibiotics. We took her to the vet's and were with her until the end, many tears were shed then and in the following days since.

The photo below is one of the last ones we have of Daisy, she had a lot of grey fur by then. My favourite photo of her is the next one, taken way back in 2002. Her eyes are so expressive!

Daisy had such a sweet nature and loved being with her people. When I first started having chemo and coming home from the hospital feeling pretty drained and nauseous, she would come and just sit by my chair just letting me know she was there for me. I look out my kitchen window each morning at her empty kennel still expecting to see her there........I really miss her!

Rest in peace Daisy, my sweet girl!

Some News!

Hi everyone! Just in case you were wondering how I got on with my CT scan results, well, I'm happy to report that there has been no change since the last one! I was really nervous about this one as the previous one had shown a small increase in size, so it was a huge relief that things were still the same. What's even better is that the oncologists have decided to give me a further break from chemo for at least the next 3 months.

Since I now have a little time on my hands we've decided it's high time to plan a trip away for some R & R. The last 18 months have been pretty draining on both my hubby and I, and if we don't go now, we may not get another chance. We are thinking of going to New Zealand, but need to organize passports etc. so stay tuned!

.....but wait there's more!

I haven't shared this other bit of good news here yet, but my daughter Jo is expecting her 2nd baby in September! Exciting times ahead for sure!

I'll be back soon with some cards that I made yesterday!

An award!

I recently received an award from the very talented Sue, her blog is A Consuming Passion. Thanks so much Sue! Please go and check out Sue's blog, she does amazing work!


This award is to showcase some of the not-so-well-known blogs. We have some talented crafters out there and this is one way for you to find new and interesting blogs. All I have to do is nominate three to five blogs I read and want others to get to know .


If I tag you and you want to participate, create a post where you post the 'LOVE BLOG' image. You should also blog the persons link that gave you the award and inform her/him that you accept the award. You can then choose 3 - 5 favorite blogs which you also link in your post, then each blogger will inform you that they have been tagged.




Special Note from the Originator:
Dear bloggers:
The aim of this action is that we bring unknown, good blogs to light, so I would ask you not to blog fellow bloggers that already have 3,000 followers.


I chose 3 that I think deserve more followers than they have, because in my opinion they are very talented and make stunning creations...Please pop over to see their blogs - I promise you will NOT be disappointed.

Carole: Carole's Creative Corner
Vicky: My Paper Palace
Sonya: Pickles Patch

A clean sweep for the New Year!!

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great New Year's celebration! We had a great time in Melbourne, although it was a really hot 40C during the day. We got to see two lots of fireworks, as there is an earlier family friendly display at 9pm as well as the traditional midnight display. We had a great view of the fireworks as they were set up on top of all the tall buidings, it didn't matter where you were standing you still got to see them. I was pretty tired after they ended, so no partying on for me, it was back to the hotel for some sleep.

For those of you who asked about the gift card tutorial from my previous post I've now added the link to that post or you can just click HERE to see it.

I don't have anything new to show you today, BUT, I do have some rarely seen photos of my craft room! Usually it's just a total mess that I'm too embarrassed to show, however, I've had a major clean-up today and this is the result!

As you can see, I now have a clear desk AND clear bench space. I'm not sure how long they will stay clear for, but it's looking pretty good for now. Notice that I'm only showing you one corner of the room though, LOL, the rest is still a bit messy and so is the floor!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Ten Two Studios Holiday Printables Countdown

Lisa Vollrath of Ten Two Studios is again hosting her annual Holiday Printables Countdown from December 1st to December 25th. The first two days are up already, you can download them HERE. Don't forget to leave a link on your blog if you download the images.

It's all good!

Hi everyone, thanks so much for all your well wishes about my CT scan......they worked! I got the results yesterday and there is nothing showing on this one, my Oncologist thinks that it must just have been a kink in my bowel that showed up on the last scan. He's also giving me 2 months off chemo...........YES!!! So, I'll be having Christmas and New Year off it, then another scan to work out where we go from there.

Sorry, but I don't have anything new to show, but I do have some photos of my grand-daughter, Annika that my brother took while he was staying with me. I've also bought myself a new toy that's keeping me busy. I got a Sony Touch Ereader, so I've been busily downloading some free books to read on it. I love that I can store a heap of books on it and it's only about the size of a thin paperback novel.....and very lightweight! The best part is I can just pop it into my handbag and carry it around with me......great to have when you seem to be waiting forever for a doctor's appointment.......and if I happen to forget my glasses, I can just make the font size bigger!

I've got a bug on my arm, and it tickles!!

Whew! This is hard work!

Hey, what you looking at, can't you see I'm busy!




Aaah! This drinks good!

Hope you enjoyed the photos, I'll try and get back into my craft room soon and get into making some Christmas cards so I can get them finished on time! Thanks for stopping by!

Wedding Photos

Hi everyone, here are some of the photos from my daughter, Hayley, and new SIL, Trevor's wedding.

As you can see from the photo, the weather was just perfect for an outdoor wedding!

My DH organised the cars for the wedding, this one belongs to his cousin's DH, the others belonged to his hot rodding mates.

Hayley made the wedding cake and all those cupcakes, which she decorated as well.

The happy couple at the wedding reception!

My grand daughter, Annika was the flower girl. She was just perfect during the ceremony, the wedding celebrant was using a microphone to speak through and Annika was just mesmerised by it.......she looked like she was hanging off every word!

Annika is with her Mum, my other daughter Jo......yes, she and Hayley are twins too!

Last one, here's one of Annika and her Nana....Me! In case your wondering, I haven't gone grey overnight, I decided to grow my hair colour out when I became a Nana!

A beautiful gift...........and the roller coaster ride continues.

I was hoping to be able to post some good news today after my visit to my Oncologist yesterday..........sadly it is not to be. My PET scan has revealed that the cancer has spread into the lymph glands, it means that they are not confident of getting rid of it all with chemo. The hope is that they will reduce the size of them and prevent them from spreading into other parts of the body. This news seems to have hit me harder than the original diagnosis did, I think it's finally sinking in how serious my condition is.............it really felt like a kick in the guts hearing that news yesterday! The weird thing is that I don't feel like I'm ill right now!

I start chemo in around 2 weeks from now, I'm just waiting on notification from the hospital........my life seems to revolve around doctors' appointments and diagnostic procedures lately!

Thanks again for continuing to post positive, supportive comments.....I really appreciate it! I refuse to let this disease get the better of me and am trying my best to remain confident of a good outcome.

Anyways, that's enough of me, please have a look at the beautiful gift my lovely blogging friend, Sonya - Pickles Patch, from NZ sent me! It's a beautiful journal with lots of stamping and pockets and spaces to put photos and journalling etc. I've photographed the cover and just a few of the pages, so please scroll down and have a look at them all. Thanks so much Sonya for such an awesome gift!

I'm still here!!

I just wanted to give my blog readers a long overdue update on how things are going here, and show you some of the lovely cards I've been sent by well-wishers from around the world.

I can't believe it's been 5 weeks since I had surgery! I'm pleased to say that I'm feeling much better now, it took me a while to figure out why I kept feeling so nauseous during the night. Finally the penny dropped that it was a gastric reflux thing.........and I already had medication for it, I just thought I didn't need it! I haven't had any nausea for almost a week now so I'm eating a little better now, but still not up to a proper meal size portion. I've lost around 9.5kg since I got sick, but have only put 0.5kg back on again, so I have to take some protein supplement drinks to try and get my weight back up again.

My CT scan was clear, but my oncologist tells me that it won't show up microscopic sized cancer cells, so he's sending me for a PET scan next Wednesday. He hasn't scheduled me for Chemo yet as I was still feeling so sick when I saw him, but I guess I will know more when he has the PET scan results.

Here are some of the beautiful cards I've been sent from some of the online groups I belong to, and from my wonderful blogging friends. Thank you all so much for caring about me, I can't tell you how wonderful it's been reading your heartfelt messages!

Clockwise from top left: Sandy Nolan, Sharon Williams, Sonya Pickles, Janis Rothermel, Elaine Cox and Shanti Keogh.

Mary Waspe, Margaret Ashby, Bonnie Waliezer, Bonnie Belk, Margo Seegrist and Lyn Wareham.

Lydia Storey, Nancy Freckelton, Carole Meisenhelter, Diane Young and my dear friend Wirgie.

Suzanne Boyer, Marie Doody, LaVerne Wilson, Vicky Fernando and Minda Oberle.

How uncanny!

Last night I posted a card featuring a pink elephant image.......this morning I find out that I made the Top 5 at.............wait for it!



The Pink Elephant Blog!



The card was for last week's colour challenge, and my entry was THIS CARD I made for my nephew's birthday. BTW, he loved the card too, it was his birthday on Tuesday!

OK, that's enough tooting from me, I have another busy day baby-sitting today so I won't have a chance to do any card-making. Hope you have a great day!

Happy Birthday Annika!!

My beautiful little grand-daughter, Annika, had her 1st birthday yesterday! That year has just flown by! Here she is opening some of her many birthday presents!