I'm back!!!!

Well, I haven't been gone for that long, and most of you probably haven't missed me yet, but to me it feels like forever. Let me tell you what happened. I had been feeling pretty bad the last few weeks, thinking I was battling a cold that didn't want to break out in full. On Thursday evening, I started feeling crappy again, and in ten minutes time, my belly was hurting so bad tears were running down my face, I just couldn't help it. I told hubby I wanted to lay down a bit, but before making it to the couch, I collapsed! I started rolling over the ground, crawling on the couch, rolling over again, trying to find a position that wouldn't hurt so much, any position I could find ... but there wasn't any to give me some relieve! I moaned, I cried, I screamed, I scared the crap out of my husband and kids. To tell you the truth, I was pretty scared myself. My belly, my stomach, my back, my throat, everything hurt, but the scariest part was that I could hardly breathe. By that time, my hubby had already called the doctor and asked him to come over, but it soon became obvious I wouldn't be able to wait that long. So he tried to get me to move to get me to the emergency, but he couldn't persuade me to move ... at all! He told the kids to go and get my best friend/neighbour, and both of them tried to get me to stand up, but I just kept rolling over the ground, not responding when talked to. I guess by that time hubby was getting quite desperate, because he called 911. The ambulance came quite quickly, I think they were at our place in a matter of minutes, but they weren't allowed to give me anything for the pain, what's that about!!!!???!!! They had to call for back-up, and it took them about 15 minutes to get to me I suppose, all this time leaving me crawling, rolling, gasping for air! But when they finally arrived ... aah, heaven!!! Thank goodness for drugs LOL. The pain stopped immediately, I tell you, they gave me one hell of a wonderdrug! Anyway, to cut a very long story short, I was diagnosed with gallbladder stones. These stones cause paines I wouldn't wish on anyone, not even my worst enemy ... well, maybe ... no, really, not anyone LOL. I gave birth to three kids, without the help of any drugs, and that felt like a breeze compared to this pain! Anyway, they were removed the very next day, and I was able to come home from hospital as early as yesterday! Amazing really when you think of it, isn't it?

I still tire easily, and I have trouble sitting up, that's still pretty painful, but Kurt, my husband, is being a real sweetie and he's doing absolutely everything around the house. He's doing the dishes as we speak. This event has really shown me what wonderful friends and family and what an awesome husband I have, I feel so blessed right now, I can't even put it into words. I've received help from everyone, everyone went out of their way to make it easy for me, my hubby and my kids, and I'm feeling beyond grateful. And I have to say this: Kean, Jenneke, thank you so much for inquiring after me and for worrying about me, you touched my heart (again) and I love you both!

Well, that's all for today, I'm feeling tired again from sitting in the same position, but I'll try and visit some of your blogs later tonight. Glenda, I did receive your comments, I just didn't see them before today) I'll be back tomorrow (or the day after, depends on how I feel ...) to show you some LO's I made with the fabulous Kreatorville Krafts November Kit. If you haven't seen the kit yet, click here. You'll want to have this kit, I promise!

Talk to you later ladies,
Love xxx Peggy

Kreatorville Kraft November Kit sneak peek

My introduction over at Kreatorville Krafts is up!!! Click here to go and check it out... Keandra had some wonderful things to say about me ... I'm still blushing ... I love you too sweetie!!! She asked us to introduce ourselves not by means of an interview, like most sites do, but ... being creative as she is, she asked us to do this on a LO. She had given all the Kreators a sketch to work with ... now let me tell you, if I've learned anything from this experience, it's that I'm not a sketchy kind of girl!!!! I struggled so hard with this, and the LO shown below is actually my third version! Yep, I chucked two LO's (perfectly good papers aaargh) in the bin. But ... I'm really quite pleased with this one.



Normally I have a clear vision in my head of what I want the end result to look like. It doesn't always end up like that, but the vision is usually there LOL. However, with this LO, there was no vision ... I just played around, adding stuff, not really knowing what I was going for. I was all ready to add my own journaling when I asked my family to help me out and say some things that would describe me. My girls said the sweetest things (they're still at that age where they adore me...), but my hubby and son started fooling around, saying all those things I'm not, like skinny, great cook, etc... or highlighting my weaknesses (scrapping addict, internet addict, ...) I was a bit annoyed at first to tell you the truth, but my sense of humour won and pretty soon we were all joking around. This gave me the idea to not take the journaling as serious as I had originally planned. To read the journaling, please click on the image ... you might learn a thing or two you didn't know about me yet, and it might even put a smile on your face...

Now I've been talking a lot about the Kreatorville Krafts November Kit, so it's high time to give you a little sneak peek ... This is one of the LO's I made with the kit.



The only things I used on this LO that weren't in the kit are my embroidery floss, paints and inks. All of the papers, embellies and alphas came with the kit. I'm telling you, this kit is awesome, perfect for girls' LO's, boys' LO's, artistic LO's, clean LO's ... everyone will be able to make something out of this kit! Mark your calendars ladies, the kit will be revealed on the 21st of this month. Don't wait until then to visit the site though, Kean has some RAK's she wants to give away ... Here's the link again.

I made this LO for my best friend. She's been going through some difficult times lately, and when I saw the "One day you will" (by Lady Antebellum) on my friend Lisa's blog, I instantly knew I wanted to use them to make a LO for my friend. You should be able to read the lyrics by clicking on the image.

So, this is turning out to be a huge post again, but I did also want to tell you about a wonderful internet friend of mine, Marit (I'm sure most of you are familiar with her awesome work) who has started a new venture. She will be teaching on line workshops in the future, and because of her blogiversary you have a chance to win some RAKs, but also a spot in her very first workshop!!! Go and leave her some love and you might just be the lucky winner!

I've also received a blog award, you know the one where you have to answer some questions using just one word, but if you've made it this far I'm not gonna try your patience any longer, I'll leave that one for next time!

Love xxx Peggy

KREATORVILLE KRAFTS...

... has gone live!!!!! My sweet friend Keandra, aka the boss lady, tells you all about her awesome new kit club and etsy shop here ... go check it out and give her some love!!! Starting up a new business is a big deal, and she can use all the support we have to give.

I do have a more selfish reason to direct you to the Kreatorville Krafts site ... I already told you I would be creating for her, but I haven't mentioned yet that my youngest daughter Christina will be creating for her as well !!! She's one of the kid kreators (oh yes, we have kid kreators ... how unique is that!!!!), and Keandra (bless her!) just dedicated an entire post to her and her first LO for Kreatorville Krafts. If you want to see the entire LO ... click here! Haha, just trying to make you curious enough to go and visit the Kreatorville Krafts blog. Still, Christina (who's tucked in and sleeping like a baby already) would never forgive me if I didn't put at least some pics on my own blog, so I will give you some sneak peeks just to make my girl happy and to hopefully get you curious enough to click here (well, if you haven't found the link by now ... I give up!!!)


Keandra told me to let her be, to let her do her own thing (yeah, she knows me quite good by now) ... so I did, but I couldn't resist giving her some advice every now and then. She listened, I can say that much ... she listened as I gave her some options, and then she did her own thing LOL. She didn't like the circles on the sketch, so she wanted to make flowers ... so I showed her a few ways to make the flowers. I asked her if she wanted them clean or distressed, inked or not. So she asked me to show her the difference. I made one flower of each, she chose to distress and ink, tossed my example in the bin and started on her own flowers ... without asking me once to show it to her again. I asked her if she didn't think the flowers were too close together (because, well, I thought they were...), she said no, and that was the end of it LOL. Same thing with the journaling ... she was a bit unsure about writing english directly on the paper, so I suggested she'd use strips. She wanted red, not the colour I would have chosen, but again red it was supposed to be LOL. I told her she would get more contrast by inking the strips, and again she asked me to show her the difference. I was pushing her a bit to use black, but again ... red was what she had in mind, and red it was gonna be. She did like the inked strips better, so without thinking about the extra work, she started inking. Oh, and see that part of her name ... she stitched the entire thing! She even puts the floss into the eye of the needle herself! I'm so proud of her ... she's so wonderful to scrap with ... she listenes when I explain different techniques to her, but she has her own mind as well, and wants things done her way. She has a vision in her mind and she stays true to it ... I can direct her in a certain direction, but only if she lets me ... how wonderful strong minded is that for a seven year old. Oh, I should mention ... Christina takes after my side of the family LOL. I should also mention (for the sake of keeping the peace in my family and not let jealousy take over ...) that Chloë as well is working really hard on her LO (though she's not on the team) ... she's actually stitching the entire sketch LOL. That girl shouldn't be scrapping, she should be embroidering LOL. Her birthday's coming up, and I'm planning on buying her her own little embroidery piece ... she'll love that!

Keep checking the Kreatorville Krafts blog ladies, there's much more awesomeness on the way (and Christina would be stoked if she were to get some comments .... begging here ladies, put a smile on my baby's face ... please?) LOL.

Love to you and yours
xxx Peggy

I am me - FP Challenge Prompt 12

This month's challenge over at Forward Progress is about letting go and free ourselves from the expectations of others.

This was a difficult challenge for me. It kept lingering in my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew I'm not there yet ... I'm not free from the expectations of others. My life is filled with expectations ... I expect a lot from my family, my friends, myself, and I know they have certain expectations from me. I really don't know how to go through life without expectations, so why would I expect others to expect nothing from me? The only sense I could make out of this, the only thing I've learned through the years, is to not let it bother me all that much if I don't live up to someone's expectations. With me, what you see is what you get. Expect all from me that you want, but if I can't live up to your expectations, that's your problem, not mine...

So here's my take on the challenge. It's a 9x9 page, the first page for my BOM album.

I had problems putting this into words for a LO, but when I found this "Ralph Waldo Emerson" quote, it knew instantly it said all I wanted to say:

"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I looked someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I and only I could answer. It took me a while and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself."

This album will be all about me (as the name says duh LOL), about my random thoughts and feelings. I'm thinking most of them will be inspired by song lyrics or quotes, as I've never been any good in just putting my thoughts on paper. I've tried started a journal several times, but I've failed miserably each time. I need to be inspired first LOL.

Obviously this is a very plain LO, but I love it, the pic just doesn't do it justice. In future, I'm hoping this album will have the look of an art journal, but for this particular assignment, I wanted the LO to reflect me ... plain and simple, no frills, true to my "what you see is what you get" theme.

I'm hoping some of you will find the time to play along with us this month, you still have two more weeks to submit your entry. Even if you haven't "progressed" in a certain area, you might, like me, find that that's okay too. Life is about evolving, we can't expect to have everything sorted out right now, right? If ever...

Love xxx Peggy