Lovely Lovely Lovely

I am really enjoying looking at the submissions our luverley little design team are sending me for our first months gallery! I have had 5 out of the 6 submissions in (early cos the due date is 7th March!) and woo hoo I *adore* them ALL!!!!!!!!!!

I have had a busy day today helping Mum packup orders. Belle was a little poppet and slept and played while we did it but her teeth are hurting again :( She did enjoy a little jog (yes you read that right - jog) down to the Post Office with a parcel Mum had left behind by mistake. We made a deeply unattactive attempt at jogging down the hill (no one saw us thank goodness) but met Mum at the Post Office and went back home in the car!

Blurgh - I have to go to work tomorrow but at it coincides with the UKS maintainance \ upgrade day! I actually don't mind going to school - it is nice to catch up and see everyone but it is amazing how easy it is to adjust to being a Work at Home Mum and so Wednesday is the one day a week I don't have the freedom to do what I want, when I want, with Izzy and I don't particularly look forward to it!

I have done NO scrapping for a WHOLE week - I have taken some pics and planned a layout or two though (in my head you understand - whilst multi tasking!) I love these pics I took at the weekend of Isabelle and Darren and his beloved Drum Kit! I got some great pics of her on her own sitting on the drum stool hold the drum sticks! When she was really little we took some pictures of her by the drum kit but she was too little to show an interest but now she loves to watch her Daddy play the drums and is happy to grab the sticks wave them about and pose for photos!! Bless.

If I ever get round to scrapping the layout I have planned for these (the photos arrived from www.photobox.co.uk this morning) I will upload them. At this rate I wouldn't hold your breath though!

OK so I have to get up in 7 hours and I didn't sleep more than an hour or two last night so I am going to go and lie in bed awake and wondering why on earth I can't sleep.

Well its been a busy weekend of uploading, sorting out orders and baby birthday parties! I spent yesterday uploading new products to the site and restocking others. The new primas I added went down a treat, so much so that we are gonna have to go and sort out emergency restocks!

I *love* the Karen Foster fold n go Totes we have added. I am desperately short on scrap space so hanging storage is very welcome. Funny I searched for ages for one of those back of the door organisers to try and customise into scrap storage and now I have the purpose made item I was dreaming of!

Really chuffed with how ATDML is going - it has been our best month to date even before you take into account the new Basic Grey pre orders so smiles all round here!

My pet project at the moment is developing ideas for an event (not sure whether we are talking show style or retreat style yet but any ideas and input gratefully received either here or via e mail - mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk

Spent this afternoon away from the PC and at my friends little boys first birthday party. Fun but exhausting :)

And on that note... I am going to put my feet up in front of the TV

I found paradise in Asda!

Well ok to be more specific in a tin foil tray in Asda! I bought this delectable little morsel in a moment of weakness... they have it described as Rocky Road but I always thought that had nuts in but this doesn't.
It has layers of fudge and squished up digetives and marshmallows and other healthy things! If you look really carefully you can see the calories oozing out of it. By the way i didn't eat the other three pieces all at once! Just felt the need to share my exciting food find with you!

70's Disco Hen Night!

Tonight was my friends hen night - she isn't getting married until the middle of April but she wanted to go to a 70's evening in Chelmsford. We had a nice meal and then boogied our socks off! Somehow I ended up offering to drive so it was a sober attempt at dancing (I say attempt because when I have had a few to drink I am GREAT at dancing but stone cold sober I have the co-ordination of a hedgehog. But hey I had fun who cares. Funnily enough the floor almost cleared apart from a few of my friends when they switched from Disco to Glam Rock and Punk! But we were in our element with a bit of crazy dancing to Anarchy in the UK before it changed again and we all bopped along to Blondie!

Hmmmmm will see what the pics are like (didn't take my camera but my friend did) and maybe upload but as we weren't all dressed up the pictures aren't too incriminating!!!!!!!

Argh - need sleep - I'm worn out.

Birthday

Well to be honest birthdays are getting less and less exciting! Belle stayed at Mums last night so I woke up this morning without her here :( As I had to go to work today and we had to go out last night to view the photos it made so much sense for her to stay with Mum but it meant no birthday morning snuggles. I did get the Desperate Housewives DVD which I asked for from Darren - I am one of those annoying people who refuse to do the same as everyone else and watch the popular shows on TV and then end up wishing I had and buying them on DVD! Mum and Dad got me a PI tote which was great and providing it will hold my trimmer it is my birthday present - if it doesn't we are sending it back and I will get a different Tote! Trimmer IS essential!!!!

URGH! work. I walked in and my lovely lovely friend Dorothy was singing happy birthday to me. But when she finished she said that was the end of the good bit and that I was taking her class ALL DAY! My usual class are wonderful and were mine last year (and there's only 21 of them!) but hers are supposed to be naughty, noisy, unruly and there's 30 of them! But actually they were OK so I forgive her for that little surprise.

I went and got Belle and read my birthday messages on UKS - thank you girls :) and then read the terrible sad news on community that Lemons DH passed away suddenly. I was so shocked and saddened. I haven't met her IRL but we talked on the phone and in cyber UKS land and it really brought home how precious life is and how much we need to be thankful for those around us.

Take Care everyone xx

Just so you can see

I thought I would upload a picture of Belle because she is delicious, delightful and delectable! Also because most of my birthday was a bit crap but when I went to get her from Mums this afternoon she brightened it up no end! :)

OK so you can only see a bit of her peeping out of her pram but I snapped this the other day when she was all bundled up and we were going out for a walk. She thought it was most amusing that I was standing on the doorstep photographing her whilst turning blue and shivering!

My Gorgeous Girl

We went to have some studio shots done of the three of us during half term and tonight Darren and I went to view them - I was so pleased. We have ordered 4 pictures, two of the three of us together and two of Belle on her own. There were some lovely shots and one in particular which I think is stunning. When I get them I will upload them here. I am feeling kind of lost tonight as Belle is staying at Mums tonight as I am working tomorrow so when Darren and I were out it was really weird not having her with us and the house feels empty without her.

Tomorrow is my birthday and for the first time in my whole life I have to work on my birthday :( When I was a kid I was always on half term on my birthday and when I worked before uni I could take my days off when I liked. When I was teaching it was always in half term and now I only work one day a week at school my birthday falls on a flippin; Wednesday! Poo.

Anyhow - I said I would spill the beans about what we ordered at Stitches... Blonde Moments (although it seems the world and his scrapbook store have ordered this!) Scrapperdashery Papers, Some Christina Cole, Rob and Bob, Stix2, Junkitz, Crate Paper, More Prima, Heidi Swapp, Fastenaters, Chatterbox, Fab Karen Foster storage and lots more!

I forgot to say in the last post that as well as meeting up with Kirsty and some UKS girls I also met Stacey and Kenny from Junkitz and Tim Holtz. All very nice people with some great products! :)

So unbelieveably knackered so I am going to dash now.

Night

Stitches

We came back from a day at Stitches on Sunday with aching feet and an aching bank balance!

There were so many great products we ordered loads and have earmarked others for ordering in the near future.

We had a great time and were chuffed to meet up with quite a few people. We saw Kirsty from our design team. There is a picture of us all together on her blog - click here to see it. I warn you now I HATE this pic of myself but Mum and Kirsty look great.

I will come back later and let you know some of what we ordered but I am under orders to get our order done for the Ranger Inks and Tim Holtz DVD \ books sorted out.

Ta ta for now :)

What a way to go....

Well, I am finally back posting in my blog after nearly departing this earth by drowning in a sea of Basic Grey. Let's face it - if a girl has got to go then there are few more pretty ways to go than being suffocated by Urban Couture, Squished by Oh Baby! Hung by Hang 10 and Done in by Color Me Silly.

We are off to Craft Hobby and Stitch Trade fair tomorrow. Very exciting - tonnes of delicious product lines to tempt us and then I found out the added cherry on top is that Kirsty is going to be there with Practical Publishing so we are going to meet up for coffee (well I hate coffee but you know its just a saying)

Right, off to go and rediscover a layout I started days ago and then get an early night as we are leaving at 5:30am... ouch!

What a Weekend!

Wow it's been a stressful weekend - I forgot until Saturday morning that I had posted a message on UKS saying we would announce the results of the Design Team Competition THAT DAY! ARGGGHHHHHH Cue long long phone conversation with Mum about who to pick. Talk about spolit for choice. I lurrrrve the entries we picked and I am so excited about having these guys on our team (Imagine that - real famous people on our teeny tiny little design team!) but there were tonnes more delishhhhus entries as well.

Poor Belle was a bit off colour but on the good side Ipswich Town beat arch rivals and evil budgies Norwich city - yeah yeah I know half the world thinks football is boring but we love it our house :)

Right, I am off to mess about and see if I can ruin this blog before I have even started by fiddling with the settings!

Night.

Well Here I Am

Alone in cyber space wondering how on earth this blogging lark works. Well I guess I will go ahead and post this message just to see how it works before I waste an age typing a long entry that is going to go down the cyber drain...