a little of my life

thank you

for all your lovely words. means so much to us :)

and because we are totally biased and think we have the bestest girlies in the world...

and here she is...

say hello to Lily Mae...

Lily - English for 'pure'
Mae - Japanese for 'brightness'

born Wednesday 23rd July - 16:16pm :) a very very fast birth which surprised everyone - we'd expected an early morning Thursday delivery as did the doctors but once she got going she wanted out.

big girl at 8lbs 9ozs (thats 3884 grams)

thanks for everyone's thoughts and well wishes. we're home now but taking a break from the world for a while. ps if i promised i would call or email but you didn't get a call or email from us, its probably because i lost the details when my PC died :( sorry. also i haven't the energy right now to sort out an email with photos but might do at the weekend, so the blog will have to do for now.

all systems go!!

ok - we're off to the hospital so hopefully baby will be here before tomorrow... wish us luck and endurance :)

huge thanks to everyone for being such good friends :)

as for the guessing game, Juli gets a special Prize for being closest and James will get his beers but here is something fun - pick a time slot from now till Friday - and the person to the closest 30 mins will get a special prize!!

time we are due at the hospital 10am MST.... so go and pick a time slot like this...
10 to 10:30 am
10:30 to 11am
11am to 11:30am

etc

i'll take any comments up to the point when poor Ian is left to phones people to let them know baby has arrived :)

onwards to epidurals and dirty nappies!!

becuase she rocks my world!

from yesterday - a good day to sit and do nothing :)

as for baby, i totally get that it will come when it wants to - that bit is fine - I'm just not the best when it comes to having patience with things outside my control! but the main reason i wanted the baby to come on its own is that i am slightly scared of c-sections simply because i do not do well with operations at all and i know the complication my endometrosis will cause with the healing process and the thought of 6 weeks minimum recover just warps my brain. while i know that however the baby comes out, is good for baby- I'd much rather it not be by c-section and the longer this goes on the higher the chances... but at the end of the day a healthy baby is all i want and i know no matter what, the baby will be here by Friday.

i am grateful today for finding an awesome link from Ali Edwards blog to a blog called 'ordinary courage' and this entry about perfectionism that has really struck home today... it also had one of the best lines ever "Perfectionism didn’t lead to results. It led to peanut butter." i can so relate. thanks Ali for the heads up.

thanks :)

we're still waiting but thanks for all the 'encouraging' emails and comments :) about getting baby out - we're tried everything.... i meant everything bare Castor oil and being naked on a trampoline - even though we've had several offers of trampolines! we are resigned to the fact this baby will come on Wednesday after the hospital induction as thats what help we needed with Fay to come out as well even though my waters broke with Fay. so you can all stop waiting for news till Thursday/Friday ... we doubt anything will happen till then.

in a way it odd cos i like having the baby in me but my brain is tired of it now and just wants to get on with day-to-day life... especially as i look back on Fay's birth and at this point Fay was nearly a month old!  I just feel weary and drained.

and after everything it looks like we'll be the last of the due baby to arrive - even my friend who wasn't due to middle of august had her baby on Wednesday... oh well - we never followed any of the rules in life before now so i suppose why start now :)

waiting

and waiting. just want to give a big thanks to Laurie for putting up with me on Wednesday as I went slowly insane... and to our lovely friends A&F who have taken Fay today so i can sleep and get some bits done...

I feel like I am walking in circles but i am glad to know that by this time next week, this baby will be here no matter what so currently thats keeping me sane.

still not sure about the memory maker masters - I've got 10 days - but right now I'm faffing and not doing so we'll see.

rant warning - I bought a Martha Stewart punch with Laurie the other day - its a scallop one and looks very pretty but it wont bloody go through Bazzill card stock - why oh why make a scrapbooking punch that wont work with what is considered the standard card stock in scrapbooking!!!  very peeved about that... so if anyone knows a trick to make it work, let me know otherwise its a bit of a dud purchase for me :(

so i best leave you with some piccies of artwork incase people think all i do is spend my time complaining about everything.

these are some cards i made - I started with one for the lovely Chantel's birthday and kinda ended up with several which have gone to good homes :) its half a riff raff chandelier, painted black and some gems. the stamp is a Inque Boutique one.

and then this is for Treasured as samples for the very awesome 10 Second Studio stuff they got in recently - foil and moulds and just plain fun!! you can sew through it, punch it and all sorts - works awesome with alcohol inks too - i was channelling my inner Lisa!!
 

 

 

The Story does Matter!!

those who know me and my scrapbook insaneness know i go on and on and on about journaling and how the story, the emotions matter when it comes to scrapbooking... well my dear friend Penny has gone and run with a blog just about that very topic because it is also her passion!!

I wish her and her awesome team the best of creative vibes because I so want to play along!!

The Story Matters!

my man!

well Bioware have been showing off Ian's Dragon Age game at E3 and the first write ups about Ian's game is out there on the web and so far people seem to like it - a lot!! I am so proud of Ian for what he does and how he gets his team to do their best. Its been a long road to this point and its been worth every step.

Basically if you like PRG games like Baldour's Gate, you'll probably like Dragon Age. you can check out the write ups *here*  and another one here (but the images that reviewer has used are really old – you can see new screen shots etc here )

for people who don’t know the story about Ian – Ian left school as soon as he could – at 16 and got himself a job - well because he hated school. He’s done a few things but mainly in the record and computer industries… and then I meet him and his dream was to be a computer games artist and work for his dream company Bioware – this was way back in 1998…. So we made a deal – I’d harass him to work on a portfolio and he’d put up with me. And then in 2000, Ian started looking for a position in the industry – only to be told either he was too old (he was 30), didn’t have a degree and no experience but they did think his work was good. We just need someone to take a chance on him. And that chance came with Reflections – they of the Driver games - in Newcastle so 2 days after we got married, we moved to Newcastle (about 600 miles away) and Ian started work 2 days later – we’ve been through a few companies since then and then an opportunity to come to Canada and work for Bioware come our way and we had to jump at the shot. And it worked – and here we are 2 years later – 8 years after starting this journey - with Ian doing his thing and being bloody good at it.

and because some people have asked - Ian is the top Environment artist so basically everything that doesn't move (ie people/animals) is his responsibility - him and his team. so all the buildings, interiors, scenes, horizons etc are all their work. which basically means the whole look of the game and how well it looks is down to them. Bioware games have to be perfect and deeply involving for the players, which is why the game making process is so long - this one has been many many years in development and still has a while to go.

Just to prove that you can make your dreams come true – you just have to believe and then work like hell at getting there.

crappolla!!!

times 2gigs worth :(

my wonderful email backup won't restore which means i have lost a ton of emails and other such stuff and now am completely lost - stupid, stupid me :( i have no idea how to try and fix it as its giving me odd errors but suffice to stay i have had a good cry and feel pretty crap and useless... its about a years worth of emails and such like so anyone's guess to actually number of contacts, emails and attachments i have lost :(

and on top of that i've had to get new skype and msn ids...

so basically if you want me to get in touch, please email me so i can get your email address, or share my new msn/skype details.... (email is under my photo top left of the blog)

crappolla!!

doing a happy dance here...

my wonderful wonderful PC is back up and running - just have to put my photos etc back on it and get my emails to hopefully restore from backup but in the meantime i feel very grateful to Ian for putting up with my grumpiness and fixing everything for me :)

and on the Ian front - there is a new and much better trailer for Dragon Age *here* :) very proud of my man!!

and no progress on baby yet - looks like it will be a hospital induction next week....