You’ve Got Mail

I have had some lovely responses to my recent Show and Tell posts, and I even received a postcard from USA from a bloggy reader/friend following my post about postcards, which was a lovely surprise (Thanks Karen)

The film “You’ve Got Mail” was also on TV last night, so while flicking channels for a short respite from the Olympics I watched it for a moment or two. I do love romantic comedies like that however the draw of the Olympics was too great, and I was soon back, watching some obscure but fascinating sports.

This time, the whole family are enjoying the Olympics – more so than in previous Games. My youngest (soon to be 4) loves every sport that is on, and tries to duplicate them himself. For example, after the mens gymnastics, he started to leap and jump, and walked along a roll of carpet as a beam. This was followed by watching the diving. He proceeded to climb onto a wooden box and asked “How you do spinny over thing mummy?” I assumed he meant a triple summersault, double pike reverse….thingey (!) so I persuaded him to climb down and stick with some safer sports. Fortunately he missed the archery, and I think we should avoid the fencing too.

I tried to recall watching previous Olympics, and my memories associated with them. When they were staged in Greece, 4 years ago, I was 30 plus weeks pregnant, packing up our belongings and about to return to Northern Ireland with 2 kids plus bump, 2 weeks ahead of my husband. On return here, I discovered I also had gestational diabetes, so it was not just the house move and the kids on my own to blame for my exhaustion. Let’s just say – I do not recommend trying this and never plan to do it again myself! So most of the greek Olympics passed me by in a blur of cardboard boxes, masking tape and fond farewells to english friends.

My other significant Olympic memories are from 1984, when I was on a trip to USA with my brother and cousins. the trip coincided with the Los Angeles Olympics. Being teenagers on a tight budget, McDonalds etc were the main source of nutrition (!) while we travelled. McDonalds were doing an Olympic promotion where you were given scratch cards with the possibility of instant wins. We visited so often and won so much, by the end we were giving away our winning cards, as we could not face yet another extra large fries or a BigMac!

I would love to hear if you have any significant Olympic memories to share?

I have two digital layouts to share.

The first is of my “future Olympian”!

I took the photo last week, and converted it to black and white as part of my photographic course.

Then another “heritage” layout, using a photo of my Dad and 3 of this 4 siblings.

I loved this quote by Desmond Tutu

“You don’t choose your family.
They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”

Apart from the background paper, all the elements in this layout come from a Weeds and Wildflowers Freebie which should be available shortly HERE.

If you have yet to try digital scrapbooking, why not download it and give it a go. (You will also need some type of photo editing software, I use PhotoShop Elements 4). You never know, you might like it!!