Monthly Archives: January 2011

A wee summary of 2010

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Courtesy of my friend and scrapping inspiration back home, Michelle…here are a few questions she posted on her blog that I liked as a summary of the year that was:

Did anyone close to you give birth?
My cousins girlfriend had a little *huge* boy, called Larsen. It has been fun seeing all the pics of him growing through his first year thanks to the joys of Facebook. They live in Melbourne, Aus.

Did anyone close to you die?
A friend from school, Ayla. She had been battling cancer for a long time with several times of remission but sadly she left us for a better place with God in September this year. It was hard to grieve as I missed the company of all my school friends back in NZ who gathered together and comforted each other but I had the support of Dave which made all the difference. Love you Ayz… xx

What countries did you visit?
Well, now this one I can answer a lot!!! Hong Kong, England, France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Amsterdam, Belgium, Scotland…What a great start to our O.E!

What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
An enjoyable time being fiance to the love of my life!!!

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Quitting a job that was making me miserable and landing a great job at Flight Centre UK (ok, pun totally not intended!!)

What was your biggest failure?
Thinking that finance in the U.K would be similar to N.Z. It’s not at all.

What was the best thing you bought?
My phone, the HTC Desire. After exclaiming I would never own a smartphone it has been a Godsend in keeping me in touch with friends and family back home due to time differences.

Where did most of your money go?
Rent sadly..this is something we are working to remedy…or at least to make it seem more reasonable. Second to that probably travel and scrapbooking.

What did you get really excited about?
Getting engaged!!!! Dave proposed on Dec 27th in Tarves, Aberdeen on one knee in the snow on a quiet residential street. *melt*

Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Totally happier, in different ways, I was certainly happy last year but this joy is a joy of seeing the many wonders God has created and enjoying a precious and new time in our relationship.

Thinner or fatter?
Fatter. Yes, I have succumbed to the Heathrow Injection. :(

*sorry no photo evidence to share here*

Richer or poorer?
Neither in money really…but certainly richer in life experiences.

What do you wish you’d done more of?
Travelling, but that is for 2011 now!

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying about sticking out a job that was making me miserable.

How did you spend Christmas?
In Tarves, Aberdeen, Scotland. Our first white christmas. We were hosted by the lovely family of Dave’s Grandma.

Did you fall in love in 2010?
Again and again. With Dave more, with the world more and with a new job that is awesome!

What was your favorite TV program?
Any new British show never seen before in NZ. I believe I have relinquished all ability to turn off the tele when crap is on…I like to think of it as a time to appreciate how great my life really is, unlike the dramas of say, Kerry Katona or the kids (adults but you wouldn’t think so…) in “The Only Way is Essex”…

What was the best book you read?
The Red Queen by Phillipa Gregory closely followed by Pride and Predjudice which was a new venture on my phone using the Amazon Kindle app.

What did you want and get?
Travel and a proposal

What did you want and not get?
A Church to call home…maybe I just didn’t want it enough. I really didn’t put in enough effort to be upset by this but it certainly is on my mind.

What were your favorite films of this year?
The Social Network and Eclipse. ;p

What did you do on your birthday?
Worked then got dined at a fabulous expensive restaurant called Charlottes where Dave had the most amazing Chicken and I enjoyed a seafood meal with a side of French butter beans and a karafe of NZ Sav Blanc then home to a cake with candles and two boys (Dave and our friend Gareth) singing happy birthday to me. Oh and a skype call from home and a few lovely parcels of love from family and friends. Chuffed. A great day even though I worried I would be sad I wasn’t!

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Primark. Haha….no fashion really, just cheap plain clothes that did the job.

What kept you sane?
Skype to keep in touch with all my loved ones and the rock in my life, Dave- he is so emotionally stable it makes me unstable just thinking about it!!!!

Who did you miss?
Everyone I know and love in NZ.

Who was the best new person you met?
Natalie, a friend made through similar interests (scrapbooking), similar age (both in our 20s) and our heritage (both Kiwi’s living in London) Yay for that!!! :)

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
Sometimes it doesn’t pay to persevere, somtimes it is better just to bite the bullet and do something crazy!

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Now this is hard…mostly because I am not a person who knows who sings what and what that song is called but my latest favourite is this tune from Ministry of Sound because it makes me want to dance and because I am so truly, madly, deeply in LOVE! :) But just in case you wonder…it’s mostly a tune that makes me wanna dance.
Alex Gaudino-I\'m in Love (vocal club mix)

Absences

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So all of a sudden it’s nearly the end of January and I haven’t been posting for over a month…what happened to my goal of posting more regularly? Well, as usual life got in the way and has been keeping me busy and tired when I get home so never feeling in the mood to update the blog. My Google reader has also been neglected sadly…Looking at it now I have 389 unread blog posts! How am I ever going to keep on top of it all????

I have been working now at Flight Centre for nearly two months. Succesfully passed training in December and have been in store for all of January. I am enoying the new challenge but my body has been taking time getting used to working on a 7 day roster. I like having these mid-week weekends and spent 3 hours cleaning yesterday, looked at some new potential flats etc and today have been catching up on unreplied emails, tidying up my inbox etc and would like to think I will get some scrapbooking done…maybe.

JYC was a bit of a failure, I loved getting the emails and taking time to appreciate my first snowy christmas (including getting engaged!) but only made up about 3 pages. I know I want to keep it going so have enforced a strict rule for myself that all my half finished projects of the last year will be completed before I sign up to a new class. It’s a hard task at times and I really haven’t done anything yet but here is the list of projects I started and want to complete:

- Holiday Art Journal (pages prepped, started working on it then lost the mojo…no inspiration as I am missing the girls who are the masters at this art at my old LSS in NZ.

- Jumbo Card week by week (Started off well, then the lady organising it got sick and stopped posting “recipies” so I lost it and once she came back on the scene I was months behind and already working on other projects). This was a challenge on www.scrappinpatch.co.nz

- LYPLYP (started well, wasn’t working so took lots of photos but hadn’t yet worked out where I could print good quality photos so the pages started slowly, and then slowed off until I had a job and hadn’t the time and then hated work, got down, lost mojo…).

- LSNED (I have all the pages in the album but need to apply finishing touches, print the last few shots and it will be complete, but I don’t like all the pages so possible re-do’s???).

- BFS and SFAM (bought with a discount from a previous Shimelle class but never really started them).

- True Stories ( won the class from a blog giveaway and loved it but never got down to writing the journalling I felt inspired to write…time, job, sadness…).

- JYC (started really well, excited prepared and bought up a storm, did about three pages then life happened! Got a new job, training was really full on and got too tired at the end of the day to sit down and scrap).

So there you have it! And I am probably missing things from there too!!! But I am determined to keep working away at these projects as they all have a special place in my life and recording the journeys and adventures Dave and I are having while living here in the UK so I know I will appreciate having the memoirs when we are older and have them to relive the memories.

I need to enlist all my readers to keep me focussed, no more new classes, OK? Please! I mean it…I said that to myself a few times last year as new classe came along that I registered to but my goal is to catch up before LSNED 2011 so that I can put all my energy into that and make a MUCH better album. : ) And of course in between all that I have birthday cards, anniversaries, current adventures to scrap etc etc…so I sense that if I can keep my focus and keep remembering the reason for doing all this that I may just be succesful. And what is the reason? I love the creative time, the space to unwind and create, to see the joy on our faces when we look back over all we have achieved and done, and to keep a record of this all for the future and whatever it brings!

So there we have it! My first post for 2011 and I am just a little late in setting “goals” but I have many other things I want to work for but that is yet another post for another day.

Hope you are all well and enjoying 2011 so far!

xx Lou