Credits: Kitschy Digitals Vintage Camera Kit (background paper, Box Brownie, Polaroid frames); Lesley Grainger‘s Birdie ABC Alpha; Doodled Edge from Laurie Anderson – Heaven’s Gate Designs.

We’ve heard the little one saying “peep peep peep peep PEEEEEEP” for over a fortnight  now – but we didn’t want to do anything that might endanger him/her.  Well, S/he has open eyes and is finally big enough to start to stand.  I think you have to be a bird person to truly love the little ones when they’re this ugly/cute!  Bollinger and Dorian, the parent birds, are spending increasing amounts of time out of the nesting box, but both are still on feeding duty.

I’m trying not to get too attached, as it’s still early days, but young Rex is over the most vulnerable phase, we hope.

BTW – Mr Beloved called the chick “Rex” because it was able to make a fierce hissing noise when disturbed – sort of like what baby dinosaurs might have done. (And how much do I love the look of adoration on his face as Mr Beloved holds Rex?!)

We went to the Nice Psychiatrist today, and I feel like I have a little more control over what’s going on.  She listened to my whinging about side effects and gave me the option of changing meds or sticking things out  – she thinks that a lot of the symptoms I’m struggling with are signs that I’m actually getting better.  So – knowing that it really takes at least 6 weeks for new medications  to settle,  I now have an action plan,  possibly at half hour increments, of How To Cope with panic attacks, rage, hunger, etc.  It feels a bit silly filling in the day in such small wedges of time, but apparently I know this makes sense and stops any one problem becoming OVERWHELMING.

And tonight I baked.  It smells sooooo good – let’s hope THIS one makes it out of the tin without any disasters!  It’s the banana variation of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cordon Rose Cream Cheesecake.  Mr Beloved beta beater(!) tested the mix before it went into the tin and pronounced it Good.  It’s been at least 6 years since I made it last  – I had to buy a new springform tin to replace one that didn’t survive the move from Canberra.

I must get to bed: Social Cre8te tomorrow, and we’re celebrating my birthday, so I have to be there (with the cheesecake!)  I should point out that I didn’t HAVE to make my own cake, I just wanted an excuse to bake.  Especially since part of the new regime to cope with the side effects of the medication will be a CARB FREE HOUSE (or as close as we can reasonably manage) – so that I don’t end up the size of a house again.  Lots and lots of veges and vege soup in my future.

BED!

Photos of cake etc tomorrow.

I AM SO DAMN PROUD OF MYSELF!!

Obviously I’d like to thank the Academy Mr Beloved for his patience as I swore and muttered… and more importantly, I’d like to HUG AND KISS AND SQUEEZE (ok, was that too creepy?) the wonderful Liz of Paislee Press, without whom this layout would not have happened.  Not only did she write a comprehensive and clear tutorial on getting started (Layered Templates 101) she also made the “press plate” (the digital template you slot your bits and pieces into) available – all for free.

How cool is that?

Now, I know the protocol: I have to acknowledge all the things I used here, this is not all my own work, obviously! (But it’s a wonderful way to get started.) Usually people seem to do it like this:

Press Plate No. 13 by Paislee Press from Oscraps.com; Background paper from NatashaNaSt Designs Fantasy Minikit (another freebie from Oscraps.com, go buy stuff from them, ok?) and the font is “Euphorigenic” from fontstock.net.

I know I’m not the word’s best photographer – in fact, I may be among the worst -  but I’m trying to get better.  I have nowhere near enough photos to play with. I am itching to get my hands on family photos but that will have to wait til poor Mum and Dad get time!

Also I have nowhere enough bandwidth – sheesh, some of those digital downloads are GINORMOUS.  (Don’t Americans pay for the amount they download or something?  Maaaan, they’d FREAK on our 20 gig per month quota!) I don’t think I’ll be getting any more (even if they are free ones) until I see how much quota we have left at the end of the month…

Tomorrow I’m going to a “social scrap” at the local scrapbooking shop, if I’m up to it.  I’ll be taking my digital page printed out onto a transparency and playing around with real life stuff to enhance it. (This is called “Hybrid” scrapbooking and I think that it’s very cool.  I like to be able to touch stuff, and nice as purely digital designs are, I need to be able to feeeeeeel them.)

Depression – meh.  I have managed to keep busy today and get myself tired.  I’m hoping when I wake up tomorrow things will look brighter – this morning was Not Good.