You're packing for a weekend away from your family. You're going to be seeing a bunch of online friends for the first time at, oh I don't know, maybe a CHA tradeshow in California.What do you pack? What do you wear???
Wow - how exciting to consider a freedom run - should I pack sexy, seductive, practical, my own age or whatever is comfortable. I would proably think all of the above but when it comes to the actual packing - in would go my comfortable but modest clothes, suitable for business. A couple of my designer labels would go in (they are my only designer labels), my camera for sure, and lots of tissues - who knows when I might cry a few tears.
I have to smile at this as on this very website I have met a lady living in the same town as myself. We found we both lived in Mandurah, Western Australia, when we both started posting similar photos, many of which I recognised. We met for coffee and asked a stranger to take photos - of course it was the week before I had my hair re-coloured. LOL. We even were on the same highway about the same time as I recognised a photo I was going to take but kept going.
The photo above show one of many boats celebrating Australia Day here in Mandurah today.

Which camp are you in: Should the toilet paper be hung so the paper dangles over or under the roll?

Had to go and check which way the toilet paper is hanging - found a book I had lost - sat to read a bit and almost forgot to come back and reply. LOL. Another blogger asked what happens down under - I wondered if this is like the question of which way the water runs out of the sink - clockwise or anti clockwise - depending if you are a down under person or a up over person.

Commenting from DOWN UNDER - (Western Australia) - my toilet paper is over the top so does that mean because I am Down Under it is going up and not down?

So confused.

Here is today's challenge from DSP:

This Moment: just back from looking at the comet
Your Shoes: none as my feet have swollen
Craving: Cherry Ripe Chocolate
The State of Your Home: organised chaos
Annoyed By: a single fly buzzing
Noise In the Background: the fan humming
Really Want To: read a book
Thinking about: how to burn a slideshow to a DVD
Smelling: dogs around the house
Favorite Product: my digital camera
In Office Supply Aisle: stationary
Don't Ever Want To: parachute out of a plane
Your Eye Color: brown
The Weather: HOT
Have Never Tried: rock climbing
Think Everyone Should Try: taking photos
Last Vacation Destination: Italy
The Last Thing You Had to Drink: a cup of tea
Your Bad Habit: forgetting what I have to do next
What You're Going To Do Now:go to bed and read.

I have been going through my holiday photos from 2006 - a trip 700kilometres (about 500 miles) up north of the coast to a place called Kalbarri - has gorges that are famous for abseiling, fishing (but it rained while we were there) and a bird sanctuary called Rainbow Jungle with the most amazing coloured birds. I fell in love with the LoveBirds - see the Layout above.

This is an 8x8 layout so to use the space at the bottom I have made a bookmark. It is free here for a couple of days. It is a jpg image that can be printed out on its own or at the bottom of a 8x11 page when you have done an 8x8 layout.

I used my kit called Love Birds at The Scrapping Garden if you would like to have a look.

Do I Like to dress up - I think we all do - it just depends on what the situation is - I dress up every day to go to work - I prefer trousers rather than dresses. At home it is trousers or shorts. The last time I got really dressed up was in a designer label dress to attend a fashion parade that included some of my daughter designs. That is the layout above - I used my white Daisy kit available at The Scrapping Garden. I am on the left in a "Liz Davenport" outfit.

It is Australia Day next week on the 26th January. I will be having a crop on that day at 9pm EST at The Scrapping Garden. I have 4 Australian themed kits that will be on sale.

One is a new kit that is called Koala Times - I mean what else what you do when you saw a koal like this.

He lives at a local wild life park near to us. We werent allowed to touch (they scratch and wee on you) but I got a load of photos.

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What do you dream about lately? Hmmmmm now I know I sometimes have a dream but I cant seem to recall one lately. I remember I had one last week and I think it was about crabbing - we had been in the boat that day crabbing, but I cant recall any detail. Not even sure if it was in black and white or in colour.

Our dogs seem to dream sometimes - Kurgan, the 5 yr old Staffy, was sitting beside me on the couch sound asleep when he started to make these funny noises and little yelps - I could imagine a big cat coming into the yard and taking his bone.

I found this photo of our 16 year old Staffy, Agro - she was just 6 weeks when this photo was taken. She now sleeps about 20 hours a day and is totally deaf. I used my new kit called Softly, Softly at The Scrapping Garden. The photos corners were made using Atomic Cupcake's Gel action. I just love using actions and am so glad I purchased the CS2 program - much more fun than PSE3.

The layout bugged me all night so I added a word - seems better balanced now.

To celebrate some rain at last I have a freebie - 50 buttons I made. Its available for 24 hours if you want them.

Do you usually arrive on time or late?Do you get annoyed when other people arrive late or you really don’t care?

This is interesting for me because I used to have a 15 to 20 minute allowance either side of the appointment time for arrival. Up until I met my second husband, time was not something I gave a lot of thought to - I arrived when I arrived. My second husband becomes so anxious if we are running late that it is easier to go with the flow and arrive on time, even though I hate being the first person of a group to arrive at a function.

At work I have always been punctual for appointments so my comments above refer to my private life. I hate being so organised at home, get annoyed with shopping lists and like to do things in my own time - probably the result of living on my own for 15 years.

At work I get annoyed if people run late as sometimes I have back to back appointments, but at home - who cares.

I tried a fandango challenge from DSP tonight - freestyle. Boy was this hard to do - you would have thought with me disliking working to rule this would have been easy. Here is the layout of my daughter.

Last week I was in the depths of depression and feeling so miserable - some kind comments on the blog helped me along the path towards acceptance of who I am. thankyou to those people.

So back to nature, the animals and their young - I was driving on the road just up from my house and taking photos of the kangaroos at sunet when I noticed this lady right beside the edge of the road. Her joey had just popped out for a look. I have done a kit called Kangaroo Kapers. Have a look at it here.

I have just snuck in to do this prompt for my blog as we have visitors - supposed to be getting a cup of coffee - -"Describe your sleeping style" - - hmmmm - lets see - I sleep on my side hugging a pillow. I'm a light sleeper so any noise often wakens me.

as I am about to get my cuppa here is a photo of one of the kangaroos up the road - we drove slowly past and it wasnt until I was about to take the photo that we saw the joey in her pouch.

The kit is my latest called Lilac Dreams on sale until 8 January at 30% off.

What do you sense you're supposed to do before your life is over?

wow - what a question to ask. I am going to be 59 this year and still have no idea. Is it to become the mother my adult children want me to be? Is it to have the confidence to say "I am an OK person"? Is it to say I have achieved some good things in this life? This is so emotionally draining to answer.

So here is another Kangaroo photo from yesterday morning - the sight of them cheers me a little - so nice to see nature at work amongst all this chaos we call life.

Did you see my new kit called "Softly, Softly" - on sale at 30% until Jan 8th.

The question has been asked about collecting things - I ponder this as I look over the top of a pile of scrapping albums I have bought - just in case I need to do an album in a hurry. I justify the number because I went into the shop once looking for a 6x6 album and my favourite shop had none.

Then my mind moves onto the teddy bear making supplies - the piles of mohair I still have even after two years of no sewing (rsi of both wrists killed the sewing). I thought of putting them away in the linen closet, but when I opened the door, I was faced with the early nineties collection of cross stitching supplies. Oh dear, so where can I put the supplies of essential oils I have from my early days of being a single woman again - put away when the new man in my life wondered what " that smell" was.

I turn back to the computer and breath a sigh of relief - the kits I have purchased are on my NEW hard drive (bought to accomodate all the softweare and files I have created), the kits I have designed and of course all the photos I take with my digital camera, are all neatly tucked away on the new external hard drive and take up little space. I am guilt free.

To show that all this was essential, here is a preview of my new kit called Red Gum. This is inspired by some photos I took of a flowering red Gum eucalyptus tree here in Western Australia. Of course I have kept the excessive number of photos I took -just in case I need them for something else. ........

Here is a freebie stickit page to celebrate my new Red Gum kit, available at The Scrapping Garden. This will be available for 24 hours only.

The photo of the kangaroo is one I took this morning - he was about 100 yards up the road from my house.

I am reminded of New Years Resolutions - what are they for this year? Well, number one has to be to lose some weight. 5 kgs would be nice as goal number 1. Too big a number to lose and I will lose interest.

Resolution no 2 - dont stress out about the job - its not worth it. Just keep your focus on your holiday to the Cook Islands and the photos yoou are going to take.

With the weight one I have enough to worry about so no more resolutions. Instead enjoy a photograph of the seed pods of a Western Australian Eucalyptus tree after the rain. We have had the driest 2006 on record so to start the new year with a little rain was exciting.

Come back tomorrow as I will have a freebie page for you.