New Zealand - here we come!!!

Hi everybody!  I won't be posting anything crafty for the next few months while my crafty stuff makes it slow and merry way to the other side of the world.  I've been asked by many of you to keep you abreast of my new adventure to emigrate to New Zealand so feel free to either get a cuppa and read on, or move on to some one else's blog with crafty inspiration!

Our work visas to New Zealand eventually turned up last week - and what a relief that was as we had so many things "pencilled in" but wasn't able to confirm until we got them.  On a practical level, we have been so busy confirming and coordinating everything - like sorting out all of our belongings, buying and shipping over my new car, booking our air tickets, having numerous leaving lunches and do's, handing over my workload, going through my work performance appraisal, organising our accommodation in NZ, decorating and selling our house....the list goes on and on!

You know, all of this practice stuff is easy for me - scope it out, plan it and implement it.  It's the project manager in me that can sort this all out and take it in my stride.  What's hard is the emotional stuff.  Let me give you an example.  I had to hand in my work laptop and iPhone on my last day in the office last Thursday.  Now I don't care much for them, but I had handed over 19 years of my work life and I suddenly became overwhelmed.  I stood there in the middle of Hays Galleria at London Bridge blubbering.  Not sophisticated!  I soon got over it and managed to have a fantastic leaving lunch with my besties.  But I admit that since then I've had a few waves of that feeling of being overwhelmed with the thoughts of leaving behind all that is known to me and jumping into an unfamiliar world that is New Zealand.  

I will miss my UK family most of all - mum, dad, my bro, my sister-in-law, my niece, Hollie, and my nephew, Michael.  I love them all so much and feel so lucky that I have such great relationships with each of them.  But at least I will be that bit nearer to my other bro, his wife and my other nephew, William, who live in Hong Kong.  Silver linings, huh?  I'm going to encourage them all to move to NZ too!

The removal team were in today - bar from three months worth of clothes, everything is packed and ready to go tomorrow onto the container.  We won't see them for 3 months.  I will miss my extra large ironing board and super duper steam iron and - most of all - my craft stuff!!  I was feeling sad to think that we won't see this stuff for ages and then we got a phone call at lunchtime from our estate agents telling us our house buyers had pulled out.  Bummer.  And then a few hours later we got another call from them telling us that we had another two offers for the house for the same price.  Brilliant.  I am sure you can tell that we've been on one hell of an emotional roller coaster ride today!

There are lots of other little details that have kept us on our toes and tested my relationship with my [OCD/anal] husband over the past few months, but I won't bore you with them.  Let me just say that you need the patience of an angel and a lot of resilience to stop yourself from SCREAMING!!!  Deep breath...lol!

I don't know when I'll be able to write again here, but it will probably be when we've landed in Auckland, New Zealand some time next week.  I hope you are all well - and certainly less stressed than me right now!

Goodbye to our Poppy

I mentioned in my last post that we had a personal tragedy recently.  I did a short post about it on FB after it happened and I've been meaning to post it here but it's been hard to write about it without crying.  We lost our precious Yellow Labrador, Poppy, on 11 March and she was only 7 years old.

She hadn't been herself since before last Christmas and the vet thought she had a stomach bug.  We always thought she'd eventually get over it as she just seemed a bit poorly and it didn't stop her from doing all of the normal things.

We became really concerned when we picked her up from the kennels when we returned from our Thailand trip in February and she had lost over 3.5 kilos during her stay there.  We managed to get her weight back up a bit, but then she started to become a fussy eater and would barely move.  I won't go into the rest of the gory details of her bodily functions, but she was definitely not right.  The vet still thought it was a stomach infection, but we insisted she was referred to the Royal Veterinary College.

It was there that the oncologist, Stephanie, found Poppy had pancreatic cancer that had slowly spread over the months to her stomach and lungs.  She only had a 13% chance of recovery after months of treatment and then, if successful, would only prolong her life for 4 or 5 months.  We decided to put her to sleep and it was the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my life.

As our first dog, I read up on how to look after the Labrador breed and even dog psychiatry books so we could be the best parents for her.  Steve chose Poppy from a litter of boisterous puppies.  She was the one who was very floppy and couldn't even stand properly!  She was so cute and when we chose her the breeder put a dab of Tippex on her ear to mark her as ours.

She had two hip replacements before she was even three years old and wasn't very happy when we brought her new "sister", Lulu, home!  Poppy loved her walks, being with her "grandparents", going swimming, fetching things thrown to her in the sea, sniffing out old tennis balls, being allowed on the sofa and, most of all, eating as much as she could.  A typical Labrador.

I can't write any more, the tears are free flowing again!  To end on a happy note, here are few photos of her to remind me of the happy memories she has left us.

First snow adventure

A typical sitting pose

Being tolerant of Lulu!

A rare sisterly moment, allowing Lulu to groom her!

Cool dog at Birling Gap, one of our very many happy trips there

Steve and I with our baby

 Goodbye Poppy, we will always remember and love you.

I've got great news!

In fact I've got two pieces of great news!  First up, I got featured over at the Little Red Wagon with my circle shaker card that you can see here.

My second piece of news is even BIGGER!  If you've seen my FB page you'll already know this - I got a job offer to New Zealand for a 12 month secondment!  Once we're over there (we'll be living in Auckland), I'll then be looking for a permanent job.

Most of you will know that I've been trying for years now to get a job so when I got the offer on Thursday, we were over the moon!  Now I've got to get my sh*t together as I start in June - eeek!

Creative Bloggers' Hop

Have you heard of the Creative Bloggers' Hop?  I hadn't until the lovely Pami asked me to join in with it.  And I thought, why not?  It's a great way to get to know more about my many blog friends out there!

So what is it?  It’s a continuous hop every Monday with a host of different inspirational Bloggers taking part.

So without further ado, here are the questions…

1. What am I working on?

Well apart from my usual DT commitments for SugarPea Designs, La-La Land Crafts, Whimsie Doodles and Lili of the Valley, I've got something exciting in the pipeline that I can't share with you yet!  Sorry, but you'll just have to wait until September to find out what it is! 

2. How does my work differ from others in my genre?

Where I seem to differ from most of my stamping friends is that I don't actually enjoy colouring that much – honestly!  I get inspired by the image and how it would look on a card so colouring to me is just something I have to get through before I can get on and create!

3. Why do I write/create what I do?

After leaving school I didn’t do anything creative even though I loved art classes at school.  I was introduced to cardmaking by a work colleague and it piqued my interest.  I thought that it could be a hobby I could take up and be useful at the same time – think of the money I could save by making my own cards!  I know you’re all laughing at that!  Still, I now love creating on a little canvas and get the satisfaction of making things that my family and friends appreciate (or so they tell me!).  I also give cards to a local charity who sell them on in their shop so I don’t have mounds of cards lying around the house!

4. How does your writing/creative process work?

It usually starts with a trigger that gets me excited – it could be a pattern, a stamp or just a theme like “Summer” or “retro”.  I then think about the elements and layout of the card.  I will have a general idea of the final outcome but most of my designs emerge as I’m creating.

Now onto the 3 Bloggers I want to get to know better!

Chrissy

Chrissy is one of the sweetest gals ever!  I love her sweet designs, the little scenes she creates and often recycles items in the most creative way.  I also love reading her posts about her clients’ funny antics!

Mari

I’ve known Mari ever since I can remember blogging!  She has supported me from the start and we have remained constant blogging friends.  I love how Mari is always stretching her style – she goes from cute to vintage in a heartbeat!

Tina

Tina is such a sweetie!  I love her very clean, modern style and wish I was as brave as her on the CAS front!  I'd love to know more about how she approaches the way she comes up with ideas!

I hope you gals join in with the Creative Blog Hop – I would love to know even more about you!

Thanks to anyone who has read this and will be doing my blogging rounds later today.  See you then!

SugarPea Designs DT call!

Hey, great news for you SugarPea Designs fans - we're having a DT call!  I love being on this friendly, supportive team and the best thing is you will get to work with the sweetest stamps!  And all applicants will receive a discount code to the shop just for taking the time to apply so you'll get something out of it!

  

Find all the info on the blog here.  Feel free to ask me any questions about what it's like to be on the team!

Lili of the Valley news!

Because Father’s day is just around the corner Lili of the Valley are having a 3 for 2 offer on all our male related stamps and art pads!

This offer runs from 12 noon (UK time) on Monday 2^nd June until midday on Friday 6^th June.  Keep checking the Ides To Inspire blog as there will be lots of inspiration male cards being showcased.  I'll be posting one later this week too! 

And other exciting news is that Lili of the Valley will be on Create and Craft on Thursday June 5^th at 12 noon so you won't want to miss that!

I'm sick of Blogger!

So, I hate Blogger right now because it's unreliable, I can't upload my photos and my text goes all gobble-de-gook.  Perhaps it's my computer, perhaps not as I see so many others using it having issues.

So - what do you advise?  I'd love to know please!  Leave me a comment and I'll summarise for all to read!!

Thanks so much!

To follow or not to follow - that is the question!

Hi all!  I bet you've all seen the rumours around that blogger friends connect is going to disappear!  So I bet you're worried about losing your friends - I know I am!!

Anyhoo, I've done some research myself and found this link on the official Google website...

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-spring-cleaning-out-of-season.html

It states...

"Google Friend Connect—Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch."

The key word here is 'non-Blogger' - that means the service will be stopped for users of other platforms like Wordpress.  So, if you want to keep friends who are non-Blogger users,  then you can create the Google+ page where you can "add people to circles" - what that looks like, I don't know!!

There is no official confirmation if GFC will disappear altogether for Blogger users, but it does look like Google is going to push users to use the Google+ page.

Until I've received confirmation on what is actually going to happen and for those non-Bloggers who want to follow me, I've added Linky Followers (a free service) on my side bar.  If you follow me on this, then I will return the favour and follow you on your blog too.  Click on the badge below if you want to sign up for the service.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and see you tomorrow with my Make It Monday and Pollycraft Mondays DT posts!