So it's only been three days since Pete left and i've spent the last six months only seeing him at weekends anyway so this is nothing unusual. Does feel a bi strange though, I guess it's the KNOWING that he's away until mid July that gets me. I know things will ease off next week once a routine kicks in again (as much as anything in this house is routine) but over a bank holiday and half term where it's peeing down with rain and the kids aren't exactly on their best behaviour it's a bit of a hair tearer......and is it gospel that it will piss down on bank holidays.....just wondering?

So at least with pete out the picture I can scrap to my hearts content. I've done three layouts so far since Friday and completed a minibook for Freya to record her deepest darkest secrets (which at 10 years old is usually.....'mums on my case again cos my room is messy!'. I just thought that with the pyschotherapist sessions about to end, she may like a little book to record her feelings in so we can discuss them afterwards. I think she's going to miss the sessions. She's come to terms with all the stuff about her dad moving abroad but she still has so many questions that I can't answer for her.

Things always start going wrong when Pete is away, day one the toilet started to overflow....only ever does it when he's not here and I've flooded the bathroom twice because of that thing.....once even going through the ceiling. I'm a dab hand with the plunger now though so fingers crossed it won't rear it's ugly head again.

Then tonight the worst of all....ugly hairy massive black spider in the living room. Well as i won't go within 10 feet of one and it was crawling up the curtains, I decided that the only way to tackle it was to stand from afar and spray whatever household aerosols I had at it. One tin of Glade Vanilla and half an aerosol of spray starch later, the bloody thing was still crawling and when it moved and i jumped i couldn't find the damned thing. Now I don't know if it's alive or dead so i'm trying to get drunk enough to re-enter the living room in the vain hope that if I then do see it or it jumps at me with it's blood sucking fangs, I just won't care!

Still not got to mass. Was going to go this weekend but as Pete has disappeared that's out of the question. Going to see if someone will look after the little squibs for me next Sunday instead. I really have to go and Pete even offered to go again once he came back. I don't want to take the kids until I feel comfortable going again and that may take a few months yet.

So seeing as Freya is doing an Indiana Jones night in prep for going to see the new film on Friday...(can't wait....he may be ancient but Dr Jones can enter my temple of Doom anytime!) the ickles are watching Spongebob Movie and that leaves me free to do a little scrapping. XXX

Very sad today.

With Pete supposedly rejoining the submarine in 3 weeks time, I was really looking forward to half term next week as he was having a weeks leave. Then he got a call yesterday whilst working in dockyard to say, 'go home and get your stuff ready because you're either sailing tonight or tomorrow'. Wow, what a bombshell that was. I really hate how they can do this with no warning whatsoever. It didn't give us anytime to say proper goodbyes, to prepapre the kids for daddy going away. He didn't even get to see his son Robert. Totally pissed off with being a Naval wife at the moment. Don't even know for sure if they've sailed so just waiting to see what happens tonight. So what follows is two months of scrapping to get my head around it all!

Hate to sound like a killjoy but.....

...can we have some thunder and lightening please? I am sweltering at the moment and it must surely be too early for the 'change'! I love the weather to be hot when i'm out, but when i'm stuck in with a thousand and one things to do this house is unbearable! Even with a fan in every main room and an air con unit in the playroom I feel like i'm melting!

Been a busy week sorting the house out. As it turns out, Pete won't be back at sea til early next month, away for six weeks, home for about four and then away for three months. So other than a couple nights back in Gosport he'll be home evenings for the next few weeks which will make a nice change. I can't even remember the last time that happened!

I have had a lot of work on the last week and tomorrow have four jobs, another on Saturday and another on Sunday so I'm hoping to get some relief by doing some scrapping this weekend. Of course if the weather stays like this I may just have to get my lard arse into a pair of shorts and brave the beach with the kids instead!

Yippee!

Last month I won a prize draw that i'd entered. I got some cute fluffy toys in the shape (believe it or not) of certain bacteria. Sounds odd but they were so cool, you can see a full list of the ones they do here. Well this morning, I had another package out of the blue and it seems like I've won another draw.....and these are even cooler. It's a set from Relax Kids and I won a full meditation CD, a box of 52 'Mood Cards' and personality reward stickers. They are fantastic and couldn't have come at a better time!

I'm having a few issues with all the girls at the moment. Freya is obviously having a tough time with her dad moving away and is still having problems getting to sleep, plus the pre hormones are kicking in and making her a bit of a moody cow at times! Emily is starting to whinge and moan at the slightest thing and has become really clingy of her dad, possibly because she knows he's about to go to sea again. It's not only causing her to be a bit aggressive towards Natasha whilst fighting for attention, but she's also not doing as she's told which drives me up the wall! This is then having a knock on effect on Tash as she just copies everything her big sister does and if she's told 'No'.........well what does a two year old do but of course have a tantrum. So there is very little harmony in the house at the moment and the last three weeks have been a nightmare. I think a little meditation may go a long way. Thing is, I know that when they play up, I get stressed, when i get stressed, they get worse ...... so unless I take a deep breath and calm down, they won't either. So I think all the girls (including Mummy) may be in for a little meditation and relaxation session this weekend.

The cards are great. The idea is you take out one at the start of each day and think about it for a minute. What the card means, what it's asking you to do.....and then during the day if you feel upset or angry, you think back to your card. So today's card (which will only apply to me today as there's noone else here til 3.30!) is this one!

And that can only mean one thing........SCRAPPING!

The Sun is shining!

But i've still put the heating on. It's a glorious day out there but where is the heat, can we at least turn it up a little please? Still absolutely knackered and I'm thinking of having a sleep after the girls go to nursery tomorrow for a catch up, just depends on how much housework I get done today I suppose.

Was a busy day yesterday though scrapping wise. I didn't have time over the weekend to take part in the Cyber Crop over at UKS so I printed the classes off on Sunday night and began sifting through them to see what grabbed my fancy. I really wanted to do Cleo's class because I enjoyed doing her classes at Scrap Camp last year. Mine is a little different, partly due to a cock up on my part and partly because after struggling with the instructions for the mini book I was rapidly losing the will to live. No idea why but I have this inbuilt inability to follow folding instructions from a piece of paper. Can't get my head around it at all. Visualisation isn't my strong point as my scores on Wii Brain Academy testify!

Having done Cleo's classes before, the technique of 'cheeseholing' is nothing new to me.......great phrase that isn't it...cheeseholing, still makes me giggle now. I used some Piggy Tales papers which I think were the Ba Ba Black Sheep range. These are great papers and of course the super dooper talented Tracie is on their DT too which makes me think they're even more super!

The second class I did was Gerties . I can't say that I'm familiar with her work but I did enjoy this class and after looking out her rather funky looking blog (I just can't resist anything that has a photo of Frank Gallagher on it) I'm definately going to make myself more familiar with the rest of her work as it looks really good. For my interpretation I used 7 Gypsies papers which have been gathering dust forever. I had a really good clear out last night and can't believe the stuff I have and have had ever since I started crafting 18 months ago.

So i'm hoping to do a little more scrapping this afternoon. Depends if the kids will let me.