the amazing adventures of rachy

Just a quick post with some new layouts... well not that new but I havent posted them yet so here goes...

This one is for a challenge at Mystical...


Just a close up of that layout...

Written by Rachy at 10:40 PM 0 comments

"Do you think you are happy with your life right now? Blog about the great things in your life or what you would like to change."

That is the prompt this week at Mystical... so where to start!

Well I am blessed with the most amazing husband... a man who amazes me every day with his love and his devotion. He is an awsome father and I am truely blessed to have found him.

Then there are my kids. wow. Those two little terrors are my reason for getting up every morning. Without them I would be lost. They are so amazing in so many ways and I could ramble on about their wonderfulness for hours. I dont know what I did to deserve to have these two people in my life let alone have them as my children.

I am also greatly blessed to have some awsome friends. Molly, Dea, Chelle, Cazza, Mel... each of these wonderful, amazing, beautiful women bring wonderful positive things to my life. They are all different and unique and to be honest I do not know what I would do without them.

On top of that I am healthy, I am free, I have a home, I have food, clothes etc.

So with all that I am beyond happy.

BUT...
There are some shitty things too... things that have gone on for years and things that have come to a head over the past few months that have caused me to feel not so happy or blessed or lucky.
I have had no contact with my mother for about 8 weeks now. I miss her but right now I can not put myself through what it takes. Its a long story... one that possibly goes back longer than my life... and one its not appropriate to get into in this type of forum. Mum has her own priorities and I havent been one for a long time... she doesnt need me and every day I dont hear from her tells me she doesnt want me either. Same as my brother... he and I are no longer in contact because apparently I know nothing and my feelings and opinions count for nothing. (And well... who wouldnt get it when they were told that?)
And then there is my dad. He and I are probably closer than ever due to the recent circumstances and that is another blessing really but it has come at such a high cost. But dad has his own issues... things beyond his control. But I know he loves me and thats all I need.

So the things I would change...
I would like my mum to see that she has some faults and that good work can be done at home and in the family as well as out in the community. I would like her to realise that not everyone is out to "get" her and there is no need to cut people off at the slightest hint.
My brother I would just like him to grow up finally. Get a life, get a purpose and some stability and cut the friggin apron strings. Maybe then he will realise he doesnt know everything.
My dad... if I could change anything I would make him better... turn him back into the man he was 15 years ago before he became bi-polar.

And for me out of that I would get a mother who loved me and wanted to spend time with me, a brother who treated me with respect and a father who was happy and healthy.
I dont know how to change any of this. Maybe one day I will work it out.

So thats it... yes I am happy and I know how blessed I am but underneath there is some saddness and some shitty stuff that kinda takes the shine off all the good stuff a bit.
Now that was deep wasnt it?
Maybe tomorrow I will manage a more upbeat entry.

Written by Rachy at 10:31 PM 2 comments

My parents did not die,
But God took them away,
I know that I am a grown up,
But I wanted them to stay.

I don't know what I did wrong,
To deserve this awful plight,
I know they are not dead,
But something is not right.

My mother doesn't want to know me,
I guess I deserve that pain,
She must really hate me,
Or else she'd talk to me again.

My father's gone away,
He needed more than I could give,
I want to give him reasons,
Lots of reasons he should live.

My brother thinks I'm selfish,
My feelings count for nothing,
Apparently I've no knowledge,
And he knows everything.

So this is my life right now,
And it makes me want to cry,
Because now I am an orphan,
Even though they did not die.

Written by Rachy at 11:40 AM 0 comments

So tomorrow is Good Friday and the easter long weekend begins.
I would love to be sitting here saying that I am going to be doing loads of fabulous things or going somewhere amazing.
Like I could be here getting ready to fly to bali for the weekend.
Or I could be packing my bags to go to a scrapbooking retreat.
Or I could be packing the car up to take the kids to a gorgeous resort where we could chill out for four days.
Or we could be going to the Easter show.
Or Rod and I could be going on a romantic weekend away somewhere.

BUT... I cant.
So what will we be doing instead?
Well Rod is working on saturday and on sunday the kids are going to their grandmothers for a few hours... but otherwise we have no plans. We will probably end up cleaning the house, doing some gardening and general slothing about.
Sounds fun eh?

Oh well... thats whats happening here!

Written by Rachy at 2:31 PM 0 comments

Things are good... life is pretty good. There are things that still suck but I cant change them and all I can do is get on with life and worry about the stuff I can do something about. So yep... its ALLLLLLLLL good!


Anyway... did this layout for a challenge over at Mystical... we had to use at least four different chipboard shapes. I love how it turned out and guess what... I won the challenge! Woo Hoo! So excited by that coz there were some really awsome entries from the other girls!


And this one was a dare kind of challenge at mystical that was just for me! I got given the challenge of creating a layout with the criteria of a photo larger than a 6x4, use a flourish and make it monochromatic! I was sooooooooooo scared of the monochromatic thing but omg I love how it all came together in the end. How good is that photo? love it!

So thats it for today.

Written by Rachy at 11:06 PM 0 comments

Ive seen these sort of things around the place... love the idea so thought I would create my own!
So this is my ME journal.


This is the cover... had fun using random bits of scrap papers and fabric and lots of glitter!



About the only half decent photo of me ever... and lots of doodles and watercolours.



random pics that I colourised in psp.



My kids... love this page... was really happy with how it turned out.



Roddy... more doodling and water colours as well as a tonne of stickers.


My fave city! All the pictures on that page were taken by me! Would be hard to take a bad pic on that harbour though.

Thats all Ive done so far... its a work in progress. Will show off some more pages when I get them done.

Written by Rachy at 11:02 PM 0 comments

Well its been a while since I posted any of my scrapping. To be honest not alot of scrapping has been done here of late. Its really only the last week or so that I have got back into it.

So here is my latest efforts...


Love this photo of the kids... little buggers are always blaming each other for stuff... so it was a perfect candid shot.



Just love how this turned out. Bright and funky just like our princess!




This is for a challenge on a blog called White With One. The idea is to scrap a layout using only white and one other colour... well this month its green!


This one is for a challenge at Mystical. I am really pleased with this one too.

So thats all the pages Ive done in the last week and a bit. I am hoping to get a few more done this week!

Written by Rachy at 11:52 PM 0 comments

We were given the prompt this week for talking about our names or our kids names for the "Rock your Blog" challenge over at Mystical.

So this got me thinking... what is in a name? What makes us choose certain names and avoid others like the plague?

Ok... so my name... Rachel.
Ive gone through phases where I hated it. Its a fairly popular name I spose particularly for women/girls around my age. I like it better now days than I have in the past. I am not 100% sure what made my parents choose it. I think they just heard it somewhere and liked it (and agreed lol) so that was that.
My friends call me Rachy. I love that. Makes me feel special and loved. And I am more Rachy than I am Rachel.
Now... I could have been Carmen... yep thats right. Im glad I am not. Ive only met one person named Carmen in my life and she was much older than me... older than my parents even. Ive not really got anything against the name... I just dont particularly love it and could not in a million years imagine it as my name. I was always told that Dad liked the opera Carmen... which he does... and thats kinda cool. As a kid I was told thats why he wanted to call me that. BUT Ive been sworn to secrecy but recently my dad has informed me of another reason why he loved that particular name. lol.

Then there is my kids names... Abbee and Jed. I love my kids names. They go well together and I couldnt imagine my kids being known by any other name. Their names suit them to a t.
Abbee was going to be Scarlett at first. A name I still love. Ive always loved Scarlett. (Yep Gone with the Wind... lol) Until one day someone said "Scarlett is a whore's name." OMG I couldnt name a baby with a whores name! Scarlett was off the list. Much to my dismay.
Then it was either going to be Taylah or Maddison... I still dont mind these names but they are EVERYWHERE! Every second girl around Abbee's age is a Taylah or a Maddy. I wanted a name that was going to be uncommon but not weird. (I cant stand those names that look like the parents threw a bunch of letters together and went "oh cool name")
So finally Abbie/Abbi/Abbey came to me. I loved it. It was unusual. And it was still a proper name. Then not long before she was born I was trying to decide which way I was going to spell it... coz there are a few choices lol. And Mum & I wrote out a list off all the different ways of spelling it... and the last on the list mum wrote down was Abbee. Perfect... made the name that little bit more unique. Ive still to see or meet anyone with the name Abbee spelt like that.
Abbee is almost 12 now. Her name still suits her. She gets Abbee, Abbles, Ab's, Abbee-dabby and Ab.

Then there was Jed. Now this name was ALOT harder to come up with. Boys names I find alot harder. There are tonnes of girls names I love... not so many boys names. I had Rod to contend with and get to agree to anything I liked. He veto'd a few of my favourites. Angus, Oscar, Oliver. I veto'd a few of his faves too... Geoff being the main one. (No way I was naming my baby after a manly footy player!)
Then one night we were watching the west wing. At the time it was our most favourite show. The president on that show was named "Jed Bartlett". Suddenly we both looked at each other and went "I like that." And that was it... Jed was Jed from that day on. Funny thing was the following week the presidents wife made her first appearence in the show... and was introduced as "Abbey"... omg we thought that was a sign lmao.
So no my Jed was not named after the Clampett bloke. He was named after a PRESIDENT!

If we had anymore kids I really have no idea what they would end up being called... alot of the names I love I know Rod will knock right on the head. Banjo, Matilda, Lola, Roxy... and there are probably more! One thing I can assure you... any more kids in this house and they will most certainly not be named after manly footy players! lol.

So I hope you all enjoyed my little exploration of my name and my kids names!

Written by Rachy at 2:26 PM 0 comments

So this is a competition over the Mystical Scrapbooks... pop over and check it all out!

So what would I like to achieve this month?
Well so much has been happening here recently. (Anyone who reads this would notice Ive not updated for a while.) I cant really get into the details etc on here... I will say life has been chaos and nothing will ever be the same I think. The past 6 weeks have been a struggle to adapt to new circumstances, keep like normal for the kids and to basically stay as sane as I could. Fun times... NOT.

Anyway... my goals this month are not spectacular. They are not world changing or even life changing really. Simple and basic.
I want to get my scrapping mojo back... after 6 weeks of virtually nothing I have really struggled with the few layouts Ive done this week. I am going to play, create and generally have fun with stuff until it reappears.
I want to get my house in order... atm its a disgrace. Because of everything thats happened Ive had very little energy or even motivation to get things back to the way they were.
I want to stay up to date with everything I need to be doing as far as the kids school, dancing etc goes.
And finally... I want to get my P's. I should have had them well and truely by now. Again because of everything that was happening here I have not been in the right headspace when I have gone for lessons recently. As a result my lessons have been nothing less than awful... and in turn my confidence has suffered big time. So I need to focus and build my confidence back up and get that bloody licence once and for all!

So there you go... nothing exciting but to me its important and hopefully I will achieve it!

Written by Rachy at 9:11 AM 1 comments

How cool did this one turn out?

The challenge was buttons... had to use at least 15 buttons in three different colours and three different sizes. Took a while for the mojo to hit for this one but it was worth the wait.



This one was a sketch challenge... love it... soft and pretty. I was fairly happy with how this one turned out too.


And finally an eclipse mint tin scrapped to be used as (I am thinking) a container for panadol to go in my handbag. Its really pretty cute irl.

So thats it for today...

Written by Rachy at 9:57 PM 0 comments

I have discovered one of the coolest scrapper blogs ever!
Jen Hall's blog is totally worth a look... her work is amazing... so funky and bright and fun!

Still loving Mystical Scrapbooks... lots of funky scrappers hanging out there!

What else funky is there to report???????

Jed's birthday last wednesday was a great day.... he loved his presents, his cake and his whole birthday! Gonna wait til school goes back for his party... we have learnt that it is difficult to organise a party before christmas for after christmas so figured we would try waiting an extra couple of weeks and have it once school went back.

Here are some pics of Jed's big day!



Did a bit of scrapping last night... havent got pics yet though so will do them tomorrow. Need to do a couple more pages for mysticals monthly comps too. Hopefully will find time this week... I also want to get the house a bit more organised before school and dancing goes back. (Clean out wardrobes etc.) So will see how we go. Then theres cards... one of my goals that was part of being more organised was remembering peoples birthdays and actually sending them cards... anyone who knows me knows how hopeless I am when it comes to posting stuff. But part of the goal was that they were all going to be hand made cards... Im sure I can do it... but I need to get started on them! lol. Then there is the all important shopping for school stuff to be done sometime in the next week as well. Arghhhhh I need to lie down just thinking about it all!

So until tomorrow! Cya!

Written by Rachy at 12:04 AM 0 comments

All this stuff... lol. (and right now I also love flickr and this mosaic maker!)
Quick post tonight... its late and Im off to bed!


1. kids, 2. car, 3. fan-ceiling, 4. 80s music, 5. Candles, 6. Spotlight, 7. learning, 8. man, 9. roast dinner, 10. funky fabric, 11. My Camera, 12. presents, 13. Lilly, 14. Coke, 15. kermit, 16. singstar, 17. parents, 18. grease, 19. BBQ, 20. Blogging, 21. shower, 22. brother, 23. doodling, 24. Bling, 25. Summer Heights High, 26. computer, 27. parcel, 28. Robbie, 29. Pink Glitter, 30. girlfriends, 31. Smock Tops, 32. Martha Stewart, 33. music, 34. Paint, 35. Freckles, 36. family

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Written by Rachy at 1:49 AM 0 comments

A total of twelve 12x12 layouts so far this year! Not bad... just under a page a day! I wonder if I can keep it up... a layout a day for a whole year? 365 pages? hmmmmmmm


1. amazes me, 2. drew, 3. love being your mum, 4. walking with you, 5. a walk with dad, 6. disco jed, 7. rainbow, 8. safe, 9. sweet funky cool, 10. creative resolutions, 11. moving on up, 12. happy 2 b me

Written by Rachy at 10:53 PM 0 comments

Two more layouts for challenges at Mystical Scrapbooks!

Love how this one turned out... for once the idea in my head actually worked out ok!



This one we had to use lots of ribbon... lol... see the rainbow... its all ribbon hand stitched! Took a while to do but the effect is sooooooooo worth it.





Ive done two more layouts tonight for the cc at LSBS thats on this weekend... still got a few more layouts I would like to get done before my visitors arrive on sunday! So keeping my fingers crossed that I can get them done!
Will upload tonights work tomorrow after I get pics in good light!
Thats it for tonight!

Written by Rachy at 1:37 AM 0 comments

OK so we all have those times in our lives where crap happens... well this week has been one of those times for us. Its nothing drastic really... our health isnt in jeopardy, we have a roof over our head and so on. It was our car... it pretty much went crazy and the end result was us forking out a fair bit of cash to get it fixed. It was pretty stressful for the past few days... not sure what to do... get it repaired, trade it in, sell it... we had so many people telling us what to do and so much advice coming at us we just really ended up confused. In the end every option we had was going to be a gamble in some way... and I think we have made the best decision we could as far as what we could afford to do and what we knew to do. Some times I guess you just have to hope everything turns out ok and have a little faith in your decision.
This is going to have flow on effects naturally... our plans to get a second car in the near future are now completely out the window. Im not sure that I will be able to get my licence before the kids go back to school... depends on how much thats going to cost. And then when I do get my licence we have one car... making it difficult because Rod works so far away its not fesable for me to drive him to work.
But we have come up with a plan... Rod has decided that he will catch the train to work! So this is a positive because not only does it mean I will get the car to run the kids around etc but his train fare each week is going to be way less than what he is now paying in petrol to get to work every week. On top of that we should save money on petrol as well because I wont be doing as much driving as he does now. (mostly short trips to drop the kids at school or dancing). Then add to that the bus fares we will be saving... hopefully we will at the very worst come out even to what we are now... but I am guessing we will come out better off. (And certainly better off than we would be running 2 cars, paying rego, maitence, insurance etc)
So out of something crappy has something good I think.
And here is hoping that we have had our quota of stress and crap for 2008.
Other than that... I got two layouts done today... the light is too crappy right now for pics so will have to take some tomorrow to show off.
So thats todays entry... Im doing well so far this year... lots of blogging getting done!

Written by Rachy at 1:18 AM 0 comments

As promised... pics of the present I made for Abbee's friend...



Very pink and sparkly!

Written by Rachy at 12:20 AM 1 comments

Did this layout for the cc at Mystical Scrapbooks... the cc there is now over for this month! But there are still a heap of challenges to do.



Then there is LSBS who has their cc on this coming weekend! Plus I believe their monthly challenges will be posted this week soooooo plenty going on for me to get into!

I finished the present for Abbee's friend... havent uploaded the pics yet so will do that later and come back to show that off! (Turned out really nicely if I do say so myself! lol)

Written by Rachy at 5:55 PM 0 comments

Got two more pages done today! Both are for the CC over at Mystical Scrapbooks. Only one more page challenge, a card challenge and a photo challenge left for me to do by midnight tomorrow... should be able to do it!

Uncle Rod & Aunty Rachy with Drew



A very proud cousin Jed and Drew.




Cousins!

Abbee & Jed are quiet pleased to have a cousin finally! Jed even wrote a letter for Drew... it said "Dear Drew. I hope you have fun. I hope you are a good baby. I love you Drew. From Jed" That kid is way cute sometimes!

So now its time for me to go to bed.... need to get alot of stuff done this week... got reletives visiting week after next, got family coming here on sunday for a get together to meet Drew (having it at our place coz its bigger than Bil & Sils place) and got a few scrappy type things I need to work on too (as always lol).

So Goodnight Bloggers!

Written by Rachy at 1:18 AM 0 comments

This is what I did last night for a challenge at Mystical Scrapbooks.

Just a quick post tonight... its really late and Im tired lol.

Exciting event today... Rod's brother & his girlfriend had their first baby early this morning. Rod and I have our first nephew! Very exciting for us to be the aunt and uncle for the first time ever! (biologically anyway lol)

Anyway... I have several projects on the go... hoping to get them done tomorrow and monday, gotta go visit the baby (and his parents lol) tomorrow and alllllllll the usual cooking, cleaning etc. So hopefully I will have time to post some more pics and stuff tomorrow night!

Written by Rachy at 1:11 AM 0 comments

So this is my effort for the first challenge in the We Dare challenge at Mystical Scrapbooks... I was very very very happy with how it turned out.... nice and bright and cheerful!


Looking forward to the next challenge in this series now!

But there are lots more challenges to be done... Ive got a list of about 7 (I think) more challenges for Mystical Scrapbooks, plus they have a cyber crop on this weekend so theres another few challenges! Lots of fun stuff to do... lots of being creative to be done... and basically lots of mess to be made.... AND I LOVE IT!
So thats all for now... might see what else I can create today! If its good I might post it tonight!

Written by Rachy at 3:22 PM 1 comments