Back at Last!

Well it's been a while but I'm determined to be a better blogger this time. The winter has been horrendous with everything frozen solid and when you have to get hay and water to nine ponies in treacherous conditions it takes up quite a lot of your time! The sun's shining today and luckily the snow has all gone for us but is still on the ski slopes. We had some skier's from England in one of the cottages this week and they had a ball up at Glenshee. Never been skiing in Scotland before but have gone home determined to free up more time in the next few weeks to come back for more. They couldn't believe how good it was.

I was at the Perth & Kinross NewBiz conference yesterday and left determined to make lots of changes to my life. The keynote speaker was Michelle Mone (Ultimo) and she was excellent. A very inspiring lady. I also attended Rene Looper's Marketing - Web & E-commerce workshop and even though it's the third time I've been to one of his workshops I came away having learned several new things which I can hopefully use to raise our profile on the web.

I'll post some pictures later of things I'd planned to add in December but just didn't have time to. A few from Shimelle's prompts and some of the journal jars I made for Christmas presents. I should've taken lots of the beautiful snow scenes and amazing ice formations but when you're trudging around with buckets and hay bags/nets it's not exactly the first thing on your mind.

Back soon.

Phew, that was a busy week, and no time to Blog!

Mon - Put ponies out to field then attend Perthshire Area Tourism Conference (20 miles away), 9.30am-4.30pm, home by 5pm then muck out stables, do hay and water and bring ponies in.
Tues - Put ponies out then travel to Edinburgh (60 miles away) for dentist & hygienist check-ups. Quick trip to Costco then home, muck out stables, do hay and water and bring ponies in.
Wed - Put ponies out and try to catch up with field work missed over past two days away. Do stables, get ponies in, then get cleaned up for the local Youth Project AGM (on Management Committee) for 7pm followed by Merchants Association (on Management Committee) early Christmas soiree for 8pm.
Thurs - Put ponies out then travel to Dundee (20 miles) for 'Evaluation of the Delivering for Mental Health Peer Support Worker Pilot Scheme Dissemination Event' (Isn't that a mouthful!) 10am-3.30pm, home, and, you guessed it - muck out stables, do hay and water and bring ponies in.
Frid - Was again a day spent trying to catch up in between doing the ponies and then off to a 7pm Reflexology appointment. I was the one doing the treatment, not having it done.
Sat - Another event in Perth (20 miles away). This time Perth & Kinross Council Community Capacity Building Sub-Group's Communication Seminar. Couldn't miss this one as I'm a member of the organising committee and was doing the closing remarks.

All this leads me to the conclusion that I need to take heed of what Shimelle says in Prompt 6 and take stock of what I'm doing now and set some goals for the future. I know my first task will be to cut down on the voluntary work I'm doing and put more energy into setting up my therapy practice now that my daughter has left school and is more independent. Time to hit YouTube and tap along with one of my favourite guys - Brad Yates. I'm sure he'll have a routine for goal setting. I could do it myself but it's much more fun with Brad!

I'm going to print off Shimelle's prompts and hopefully work through them even though the class is now finished. Another goal - to finish what I start!

Make & Take

One of our groups of scrapbookers wanted a make-and-take class when they were staying for a crop weekend and we decided to do some rubber stamping as some of them hadn't done any before. I came up with this layout to show them different ways they could use a set of simple flower stamps on their LOs. We used a watermark ink pad and stamped the images on the top part of the background cardstock and then used embossing powder to highlight the images on the lower part. The black strip of cardstock was stamped and embossed with clear embossing powder which they particularly liked. Then we stamped the images onto some patterned cardstock, embossed with black powder and cut out the flowers to layer up. Apparently the heat guns were in constant use after I left the group and some members were planning their route home so they could stop by a craft store to buy supplies to continue their new-found technique. Success!

Don't Leave Home Without Your Digital Camera!

The last time I had to call out the AA breakdown service was when the exhaust fell off my car. It was late at night, pitch black, and I was on my own. I wasn't sure exactly where I was on the motorway and the person I spoke to had no idea where the motorway was let alone my location (call centres!) but I gave it as best I could as I could see there was a turn-off just up ahead.

As I sat in the car I considered getting out and walking along the side of the motorway to get a closer look at what the sign said but I didn't consider that for long. Remember, it was late at night, pitch black, and I was on my own. However, I had a brainwave (unusual for that time of night). I got my digital camera out, waited until there was no traffic, put my headlights on full beam, stuck my camera out the window with full zoom and clicked. It worked, when I zoomed in on the picture I'd taken I could clearly see the writing on the sign and was able to phone the AA again with my exact location. I was more than a little pleased with myself, but forgot to take a picture of my car being winched onto the lorry so I could do a LO.

An A-moooo-sing Tale for Prompts 7 & 8

Last winter one of our neighbours asked if he could rent one of our fields for two orphaned Highland Cattle which he had bought so we ended up with two little calves in the back field. Later in the year he bought some more young Higland Cows and put them in there too making seven altogether. A few months later one of our liveries rode into the yard and told us that one of the cows had just given birth which surprised us as we hadn’t been told any of them were in calf but apparently it was a surprise to the guy who bought them too!! He’d been a bit concerned that two of them were getting a bit fat. However, the farmer he bought them from assured him they couldn’t be pregnant - but there it was, proof of the pudding, so to speak. The mother seemed a little bewildered by it all as she wasn’t very old herself and kept misplacing it in the field when she wandered off with the rest of the herd leaving it sleeping ‘somewhere’. I walked by with the dogs one day and the calf was nowhere to be seen so I asked her where she’d left it. She raised her nose to the air and sniffed in several directions, peered through her long blond tresses, and ambled off to find it.

There is a twist to this tale as you’ll see in the picture below. Now, I don’t know much about Highland Coos, but I’m sure that calf looks nothing like one. How a different bull could get to these young cows without the farmer knowing is beyond me but one obviously had an eye for a pretty blond!

Blogging for Scrapbookers Prompt 5 cont'd

I love these jewel brads and it really sets off the flower. This Fiskar punch is a favourite but unfortunately it's now broken so I'll need to look for a replacement. I also like to have a selection of striped papers in lots of different colours to tie everything in on the LO.