Time to reveal the meaning of my long name!!

I started with OW being the Outside Walker and other names got added - so here is the full meaning:

OW - outside walker
MoBHG - member of the Botha's Hill Gang
TPGC - Teacha's Pet Gate Crasher
MFV - Most Frequent Visitor on Doing Life
DLA - Doing Life's Aassistant (from 27 Jan)
DLEWotN - Doing Life's Eye Witness on the Net

With regards the last one, I was looking on a site and saw a layout that I knew was Desire's, but it had someone else's name on it. I "reported" it to Desire, and shortly thereafter got an e-mail from her giving me the extra title.

So, there you have it!

The person closest to guessing all the titles was Libby (aka the Teacha's Pet). Well done - some of your guesses were quite appropriate too!!

All revealed signing off.....

I have been tagged

Yip, Desire got me!

So here are 7 random facts about me:

1. I have a great sense of humour and see the funny side (to Dereck's horror) of other people's misfortunes. Not deliberately, but just see the funnier side to a situation

2. I love the colour mauve or some people would say purple. It just does something for me.

3. I love to organise / create things - so need some gifts wrapped, little goodies made - just call me!! Probably why I enjoy scrapbooking so much

4. I love a good party and with the right people around could go on all night!

5. I enjoy our family get togethers as we always have such a laugh. Someone always tries to get one of us to do something wierd and then everyone else tries too - like holding your hands together and then walking through them - try it, you would also be killing yourself laughing!!!!!

6. I enjoy being with my friends and always have a great time with them. Some really awesome memories in this department.

7. I try not to rely on other people to do things for me (sometimes it is beyond my control). I have learnt over the years that if you want something done - get on and do it. Something my dad wrote in my autograph book - love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe.

Tagger signing off .......

Some {B}log Fun

Just because...

Pick your birthday month:
January: I kicked
February: I loved
March: I karate chopped
April: I licked
May: I jumped on
June: I smelled
July: I did the Macarena With
August: I had lunch with
September: I danced with
October: I sang to
November: I yelled at
December: I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1: a birdbath
2: a monster
3: a phone
4: a fork
5: a snowman
6: a gangster
7: my cell phone
8: my dog
9: my best friends' boyfriend
10: my neighbor
11: my science teacher
12: a banana
13: a fireman
14: a stuffed animal
15: a goat
16: a pickle
17: your mom
18: a spoon
19: a smurf
20: a baseball bat
21: a ninja
22: Chuck Norris
23: a noodle
24: a squirrel
25: a football player
26: my sister
27: my brother
28: an ipod
29: a surfer
30: a llama
31: a photographer

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White: because I'm cool like that
Black: because that's how I roll.
Pink: because I'm NOT crazy.
Red: because the voices told me to .
Blue: because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green: because I think I need some serious help.
Purple: because I'm AWESOME!
Gray: because Big Bird said so and he's my leader.
Yellow: because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange: because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown: because I can.
Other: because I'm a Ninja!
None: because I can 't control myself.

What's yours??

Mine is: I smelled a goat because I am NOT crazy ...

Go post on your Blog, so I can read yours...makes for a good laugh!

Not crazy signing off ......

Leanne's 21st Birthday

Well, I can't believe that my baby girl is all grown up and has actually turned 21. I can still vividly remember planning and having my 21st and it was fun. I am a member of PDAC (athletics club) so was able to book the clubhouse for the party. We arranged a lamb and pork on spit with a noddle salad and a green salad with cocktail rolls. The food was great and it was thanks to the staff of Le Ouma Spit Braais who did the cooking.

2 years ago at one of my scrapping lessons, I decided that I wanted to do an album for Leanne to give to her on her 21 st. I wanted it to have all her photos including some of her great great family. So, now the trick was to do this without her knowing about it so that it could be a surprise. That was really difficult and every spare moment that she was not around, I would sneak into her room to pull out her photo albums to see what photos I could get copied, scanned and then printed. She refused to let me have any of her photos as she said that I would just cut them all up - including her school group photos!! How wrong she was! Anyway, I was slowly getting there, and her more recent photos, I managed to very diplomatically say that I needed her help in chosing some as I wanted to do a page for my album in memory of certain of her achievements - she fell for it and happily selected photos for the page. Nedless to say, she often didn't see the finished product!! how sneaky is that, hey.

Normally at a 21st, there is a collage of the person from when they were a baby to current events, and Dereck managed to scan the photos from the scrapbook album (as they had all been used and weren't in the album Leanne thought they would be!) and printed them in colour onto paper. I them cut them out and made a collage. Leanne wasn't too impressed that we couldn't even use photos!! On night of her party, after we had done the speech, I called her over and said that there was a present she just had to open there and then. I gave her this huge present which was 3 albums which she duly opened. Her face and comments were priceless and it was all worth the effort in putting the albums together. She was totally shocked and even expressed surprise at some of the photos I had managed to get.

Leanne is a real Winnie the Pooh fan and the theme of her party was just that. She received a lovely bouquet of flowers with a Winnie the Pooh sitting in it from Jemma, Zippa & Izzy (the dogs).

Dessert for the evening was a chocolate fountain with meringues, donuts, finger biscuits,wafers and marshmallows for dunking. Wow, this was really yummy. The chocolate came from Ariba chocolates and I was told was the absolute best. They were quite correct!!

Sticking with the Winnie the Pooh tradition, the 21st cake had his picture on it. This came from Milky Lane and was really tasty being half vanilla and half chocolate.

As Leanne doesn't drink champagne, we celebrated with a shooter of Apple Sours.

Once we got home it was just after 12, so Leanne started opening her presents. She received quite a bit of money which will help with some things she needs for her overseas trip.

Dereck and I decided to give her some money in the form of a voucher, to go towards purchasing a laptop once she is in the UK. I didn't want to just give her an envelope, so Dereck and I made an A4 voucher and had it laminated. I found a box at work and then a large rock in the garden which I put in the box to make it feel heavy and then the voucher on the top. What a surprise she got when she opened it as the voucher stuck to the lid of the box and all she saw was the rock!!!! Her face showed shock until she was the laminated piece of paper and as she read it, you could see how happy she was.

All in all a great evening and another milestone in my life having been reached. I will be photographing her album and will post the layouts on the blog as soon as I can, so please be patient.

Proud mom signing off .........

Mothers Day

Ok, I know that I am really late with updating my blog, but there has just been so much going on which you will hear about shortly. Firstly, on Mother's day after I came home from the Pavilion 15km race, our sausage dog Jemma came into my room with a present tucked in her collar. Then Izzy and Zippa came through with presents tucked in their collars. 3 slabs of chocolate - my favourite. I also got a box of whispers from Dereck. Then Grant came through with a present for me. A big box of nougat - my absolute favourite. Then he came through again with another present - 2 slabs of nougat. Then he came through again with yet another present - a packet of pink nougat. Wow, I can really indulge!!

Dereck gave Grant some money and sent him off to the shops to buy ingredients for breakfast, which he and Lauren cooked. Rolls with bacon and scrambled egg with cheese. While we were eating, Leanne woke up and surprised me with these lovely Gebera's. Since using them at a work function, I have really come to like them and they are one of my favourite flowers. I also received a lovely pink fragranced teddy, who has a spot on my scrapbooking desk under my lamp. Sorry I didn't get to photograph the teddy.

I had a really wonderful day and realised how special my children, Leanne and Grant are.

Spoilt mom signing off ....

A new hairstyle???

Liesel (my sister), Warren, Debbie, Luke and Rebekah (my brother and his family) came round for left overs yesterday and also to wish Leanne happy birthday - her birthday was on 20 May. A bit later on my other brother, Malcolm, Carol, Byron and Cassandra came round as well as my mom and dad. My mom brought the left over merangues and we brought out the left over chocolate and did sme dunking!! It was still good.

While we were all sitting in the lounge chatting and watching a bit of TV, Cassandra, Byron and Leanne decided that I needed my hair re-arranged. Leanne put gel in it and started giving me a mohawk, but then she decided that she needed to put something else in it. She went off to her room and came back with something else. I had no idea what she was doing except that I must have looked really funny as Byron and Cassandra were chuckling like mad!! Once Leanne was finished she went and fetched her mirror from her room and showed me my hair - shock of shocks she had put blue gel in my hair!!! I could not believe what I was seeing!


I have washed my hair twice and it still has some blue streaks in it. Either the people at work were being polite or they did not notice my blue streaks, as I surely knew they were there! The things we have to do to keep children amused!!!

Blue haired mom signing off ....

Guess the meaning of my signing off title

When I first started reading Desire 's "Doing Life" (desiref.blogspot.com) blog, I started signing off as Michelle, the Outside Walker. Then a few other initials crept in until it looked like this:

The OW who is a MoBHG is the MFV, the DLA and the DLEWotN.

So many scrappers I know have asked me what this all stands for. So .... before I just happily tell you, lets see if any of you can guess what the letter stand for.

I will reveal all on the 26 May 2007.

Michelle with the looooong name signing off ...

Comments from {C}andice Greenway on my layout

Wow, this is quite an honour to get comments like this.

"Well, it was definitely worth the wait!! Your LO is to die for. Great colour choice ;o) I have to compliment you on the way you`ve arranged all your photos on this double page spread - WOW! You`ve achieved great balance by putting your focal photo top left & balancing it with your booklet bottom right - very well designed indeed. Everything just fits so well - you`ve done it perfectly! Love the way you`ve added tabs from the patterned paper you used for your booklet throughout the LO - great repetition! I also see that you -re-coloured- some of the 7G stickers to make them mauve, did you use ink or chalk? Your handwritten journaling is the perfect finishing touch to an all-round gorgeous LO! Thank you so much :o)
Message posted on 14 May 2007"

Feeling proud signing off ........

{C}andice layout complete

Well, well - with the help of "Tha Teacha" (aka Desire) who very kindly took the picture ofmy pages today, whilst I was having a scrapbook lesson, I am now able to upload my {C}andice layout.

I had a lot of fun creating this page and a lot of memories were relived! Here is the inside of my booklet:

I am doing the Pavilion 15km race tomorrow morning - starting at 06h00, so once I have uploaded these pictures to Designers Notes, I will be off to get some energy sleep.

Sleep deprived signing off ...

{C}andice's Layout complete

Well what do you know, I have actually completed my {C}andice Greenway layout of my top 10 favourite photographs. It was very difficult to choose 10 photos as I have so many special ones - all my photos have some meaning, which is why I took them in the first place.

Anyway, I still need to master the art of taking photos of my pages, and as I have not had success in uploading them, unfortunately you will have to wait another day before you see my pages.

Sorry about that.

Night owl signing off...

Inspired Scrapper

Well, it is now 12:38 and I am still up. And you ask WHY? I decided that I was going to get started on my Candice Greenway layout. This is a layout which I purchased on Designers Notes and have put off doing it for a while. I had all my photos and paper ready and tonight was the night!!! I have completed the page and just need to finish off with a few embellishments and do my journalling. I can't believe how much fun I have had having to fiddle around to make the photos fit in the space available. Anyway, it was a good challenge and I had a lot of fun.

Watch this space for the finished product.

Off to get some beauty sleep ...

Walker Revived

When the alarm rang at 04h30 this morning, I was in good spirits. Dereck and I had decided to do the 10km Checkout Verulam walking race. The last time I walked was 2 weeks ago when I did a 30km racewalk along a 2km length of NMR avenue and due to the camber, got really serious bliters on the side of each heel. These were really sore, and have only just recovered.

We met up with Sharon, Jeanine, Reg, Charmaine, George, Little Dave and Antoinette. We all started off slowly as at the 2km mark Charmaine would have achieved her "silver" (805km) on the 1000km challenge and we had champagne to celebrate with.

Once we had our "slug" of champagne, I decided that I wanted to walk faster. I reached 5km in 40 minutes, having made up some time and then at the 8km mark realised that the marking were wrong. I finished comfortably in 1h22:33, with George beating me by 3 seconds! It was a great race for me. At the finish we received a goodie bag, a t shirt, some fruit and there was also tea, coffee and cake available.

Once home, I decided to get my black and white photo of me taken so that I could make a start on my "Candice Greenway" layout that I recently purchased. I went the Pavilion and had it printed and also found some plain purple ribbon which I needed. Once home I started getting things ready, but then my mom-in-law and Lesley (Dereck's sister from Holland) arrived.

It was good to catch up on the news of the family and we ended up ordering pizza from Scooters for supper and watched a bit of the movie "Borat".

Now I am off to get started on my layout.

Revived walker signing off ...

New Blogger on the Block

Well here it is finally. I have often thought of setting up a Blogspot and thoroughly enjoy reading Desire's blog. She has been egging me on to set up my own, and .... now it is done!

My daughter, Leanne, who turns 21 on 20 May is able to apply for an Ancestral visa and once obtained is planning on going to London in the first week of June for about 5 years. Boy am I going to miss her!! So, this prompted me to get my blog set up so that we can keep in contact and I can post photos to let her see what is going on back home in Pinetown, South Africa.

Over the last few weeks, I have been forced to learn how to upload photos, download photos and scan photos, so I thought the next step should be the Blog.

So ... I hope you enjoy my "Life Experiences".

New blogger signing off ....