Hmmm, I’m sitting here on a Sunday, with too much to do, and too much on my mind. I’ve not been successful in contacting or getting responses back from local employers offering part-time work I might be good at. Part-time jobs are golden around here, and filled quickly - normally by people who are known by other staff members. I’m up against a population of thousands of mothers after those golden little jobs.

Even the local diary and school is against my search. The diary is advertising vacancies, but they’re from 6am - 12 noon, or 6pm to 12 midnight. So who gets my daughter to school at 9am then? Or who picks her up at 5:45pm when the school’s after-school club tosses her out? My husband doesn’t get home until after 6pm, if we’re lucky. And that job insists he’s away in London most weeks, or sometimes in India for a week. 

I know how the other parents do it around here - as they all seem to work. They all have grandparents or siblings living in the village or close by.  Cousins arrive at school with each other, and often are in the same classes. Nanas, grans, grandmas or nannies are here also, lined up with me on several days a week to pick up their grandchildren from school.

I looked into our budget on Friday. We have none. My husband makes enough money to support our mortgage, our bills (unless something goes wrong) and his commuting costs, and that’s it. My own budget for a ridiculous £20 per week spending money isn’t even covered within that. Let alone any presents for Christmas, or any family holidays. We’ve been to the supermarket today, and no matter what budget food we are looking into, we can’t bring that cost down. It’s especially expensive now, as our daughter is going to school and needs “healthy” packed lunches or we can’t afford for her to even have those school cooked dinners - not at £1.85 per day. She’s very good at eating almost anything, thankfully - because she’s getting basically that - anything we can get off the specials aisle.

So, feeling rather worried, I celebrate the fact that the dog walks through the village countryside are really the lifestyle I wanted in the first place, and I and my somewhat poor but little family are getting much healthier. We are healthy, and have fun no matter what. The Autumn sunshine is worth sitting out in, and my daughter gets a lot of joy out of simply collecting acorns. And this cold Sunday afternoon, nothing beats sitting with a cuppa tea and watching a family DVD. How could any of this be wrong?

I’m not sure how to deal with the financial problems. I can no longer afford to maintain this blogsite or Digiscrap Zine, in time or monetary effort, and know that my best hope is concentrating all that free time on expending it on my scrap for hire business to start building that. So it may mean a reconsideration of some time expenditure and hobbies, and even the closure of a website, but despite my worry - life is good isn’t it? And things will pan out somehow.  

Stand Up Week Two - Sweet Shoppe Gallery

Well, the gallery at Sweet Shoppe Designs is brimming this weekend with the contest layouts for week 2 of stand up and scrap. Last minute entries (they have until Midnight on Tuesday) mean the gallery is worth checking back on. Once again, I'm stunned by the layouts found in both the advanced and intermediate galleries. Some great talent there. Go take a look, and leave a comment on your favourites. I can't make my mind up, lol.

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I’ve just been having a lovely read of the comments on the Scrap Smack UK blog. This blog wasn’t really working (in any huge “discussions over UK topics” until “publicised” on UKScrappers  by someone appalled by it, when suddenly we have over 200 comments going onto the latest posts.

And whaddayaknow, but the comments - this time towards the UK Scrapbooking Industry, are just like those found on the Digital Disturbances blog (and replicants) only a couple of weeks ago. Whereas anonymous commenters on the UK blog talk about the UK “Elite” and Digital anonymous commenters talk about the digital so-called “celeb” designers - same thing really. It’s not a UK only thing. Kiwis always called it the Tall Poppy Syndrome long ago.

Like anything, it does serve a purpose. Apparently there is one (probably more) private forums out there - the one which seems an issue for the Scrap Smack UK owner is named Scrap Pad, and it’s invite only. But oh, I seem to have missed another hot potato going down on UKS which somehow caused a migration of people from UKS to Scrap Pad, possibly eroneously, according to some ScrapSmack commentors only. Compare and contrast with the Digishop Talk huge forum, and mass exit to this when opened, from the then huge 2Peas Digital forum. And again - the latest digital forums opened by Gina Miller as Scrapbook Art, where some moved over from Digishop Talk.

Same ol same ol. Some people move on, some stick around, some come back. Personally, I still like UKScrappers. The boards are friendly, despite what some people may suggest on Scrap Smack UK, and I was surprised to find that some of the old names from years back are still quite active. Many others have formed into Design Teams for magazines, which I know is hard work and time-occupying. And they still have part-time and fultime jobs also, to maintain. So whether those people are the “elite” of UK Scrapbooking just because they don’t have time to frequent the boards more often than other duties is easily enough resolved in my own mind. I just appreciate it when I read bits of news and stuff, no matter in what format.

For instance it was through Scrap Smack UK’s comments that I learnt that Kirsty Wiseman is opening a digital store, with tutorials also. News to me, and welcome at that. I, as you must know, enjoy the talent of the two UK K’s, in Kate Hadfield and Kirsty Wiseman. Kirsty has come through with some great ideas over the last couple of years. I appreciate them when I find them.

Via Angie Pedersen's blog (which I feed through my homepage), comes this one -

Shutterfly Digi Scrap Blog

Angie Pedersen's Scrapbooking Industry News: Shutterfly Launches Holiday Digital Scrapbooking Blog

Shutterfly have a Christmas digi blog, focussing on Christmas projects. At the moment you can read up on Kate Teague, Katie Pertiet and others' card making traditions. Some free downloads are available also.

This is quite relevant to me, as I'm currently contemplating the design of my own Christmas card this year, and whether I can manage to get Simon the rather boisterous puppy to wear a Santa hat long enough for a decent portrait shot.

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In Ali Edwards latest newsletter she profiled the cover page of the latest sample album created from CK’s Kit of the Month (they’re selling kits now?). Of course, I had to put it here, because it features my old home country of New Zealand - as a map, and with the advertising logo used for selling New Zealand - “Discover New Zealand”.

 

It always amazes me when I find out that scrapbooking personalities like Ali Edwards, Stacy Julian and the like make trips to teach in New Zealand, (and some European countries have had some nice teaching opportunities from those people also) when they’ve never come to the much bigger U.K. Why is that?