digidesigned byWilma

A word to the filesharers out there ....

You SUCK! You suck big time!I know very well you couldn't give a toss what everyone else - and in particular people who put up their freebies for other people to enjoy - thinks of you and of your file sharing.

It's pretty amazing how my recent Valentine blogtrain freebie was up on several file sharing sites (mostly Russian, Turkish or other areas in that region) within a couple of hours of me posting it. The reason for downloading a freebie (a FREEBIE for goodness sake - it's free to download from my blog) and uploading it elsewhere for download escapes me. And I mean totally. You probably get points or something for every time someone else downloads the file you stole from me. Yep ... you stole it. My freebies are MINE to share, not yours.

I offer my freebies for those lovely digiscrappers out there for them to use it in their personal LO's. I specifically ask them to not share these freebies, or upload them elsewhere, but instead to direct anyone who would also like those freebies to my blog. I even mention in my TOU that when the download is no longer available, that just sending me a mail will usually result in me sending you the download link, even if the freebie can no longer be downloaded from my blog. You're not only stealing my freebies, you're also stealing traffic to my site. But I know you couldn't give a toss.

What bothers me even more, is that you spoil it for the many many honest people out there because I will no longer make freebies available on my blog. I'll find another way to share them with the people who genuinely appreciate them. I know this will in no way guarantee that my freebies will no longer be shared, but I'll have the pleasure to send download links personally to people who ask and thank them while I'm at it!

Again, you suck! And you suck BIG TIME!

The Dreaded Phonecall ...

We had just sent off the last of the summer guests to the airport the day before and were looking forward to at least a week of nothingness when the dreaded phonecall came last Thursday .... my mother-in-law had passed away that morning at age 92 from Alzheimers and various complications. It was not that we weren't expecting the call as she was very ill but when it came it was still a shock.

Aidan was playing in a golf tournament, so I went up to the club to meet him to make sure he'd not be by himself when he'd open his mobile and see his sisters' calls. It was an awful moment for him and I was happy to be there. It's one of those moments you are reminded what those wedding vows were all about.

Then we had to try to find flights out to Ireland which wasn't all that easy: there are only direct flights from Geneva to Belfast during the ski season, when they're sure to load up the planes. The one direct flight to Dublin was full so we ended up flying out to Liverpool that evening, stay there overnight and we took an 8 a.m. flight out to Belfast.

The mass and funeral were on Saturday, followed by a good Irish send-off. We spent the rest of our time over there with family, reminiscing and drinking whiskey.

My Mother-in-law Winnie was a typical Irish mum, she adored her boys and her boys adored her back.  We daughters-in-law would jokingly say that we were tolerated but never accepted :-) It was heartbreaking to see how she sort of faded away over the last couples of years. She used to be such a beautiful and stylish woman.  

When she turned 90, I took pictures of her at the party in the care home and I'm glad I did. They're our last pictures where she still has a glimmer of recognition in her eyes and a faint smile.

Here's to my mother-in-law, Winnie!

Old Friends and Fireworks ...

We had the rare pleasure of an old friend stopping by tonight ... we got to know him (and his wife) what seems way back, here in Geneva. We forged a friendship, one of the kind that will last throughout the years, even if you lose sight of each other. We had tremendous fun together here, saw their first child in the first couple of years, became godfather to their second boy and then they moved away to the US. The friendship remained, though. We've been visiting there on several occasions, meeting their lovely newborn girl, seeing how the boys grew. They've visited us on several occasions ... it's been great every time and we have great memories.

Some of the best memories though, are of the one evening stopovers that our friend makes whenever on business back here in Europe. Tonight was such a night. It was such great fun! It's so nice to see these guys bonding again ... to catch up on all the news about the kids, talking about their past and upcoming golf outings, planning trips to the US, planning trips to Europe ... there 's the barbecuing, the wine .. in fact, we all got a bit tipsy.

But the best bit tonight was to see these two grownups turn into kids all over again when they discovered the fireworks I had bought today (you can only get fireworks here in Switzerland at this time of year ... 1 August is the national holiday ... we buy it and then stash it until New Year's Eve). Of course I should have put it away safely ...

Half of it is gone now and I'll have to go back and buy some more tomorrow :-)

The boys had a great time ...  (and I'm planning a trip to the US, yay!).

Hello Mac, Goodbye Mac ...

Got a rather excited call from my dear sis last night .... she had received her new iMac. Being the proud owner of one too, I participated in her joy! Although I've been a Mac user sort of like forever, a new Mac in the family will still make me smile for at least a day or three :-)

My darling niece is a happy camper also, judging from the fact she did not really have time to talk to me last night :-) ... she gets all the hand-me-downs.

Her very first iMac was my old indigo blue iMac G3, the second generation of the new revolutionary iMac. I remember well the excitement when the first multicolored iMacs came out. Before it landed on my nieces desk, it sat in my kitchen in Switzerland and served as the "little computer" while the "big one" sat on my desk in Holland. It was a fun little thing but once I got back to Switzerland on a permanent basis, it quickly became clear that this entry level model would not suit my purposes. If I remember well, it didn't even have a cd burner.

I replaced the indigo with the "sunflower" iMac, my favorite of all times. It still sat in the kitchen while the G4 had its own room upstairs :-).  I thought and still think that it was a gorgeous computer. I didn't like it when this one was replaced by the white flat ones, which I thought were not elegant at all.
Eventually my "sunflower iMac" moved to my niece's desk when I replaced my G4 desktop with a G5 tower and a PowerBook. The indigo iMac went to a friend of my niece and if I heard well, it's still functioning there!

Now my sis has the latest aluminium iMac G5, her older white flat screen iMac will move to my niece's desk and the little sunflower will disappear. I think I'm going to want it back :-)

(so I can put it next to the other redundant Macs I can't say goodbye to .....)

Fresh Start - Blog Overhaul, Scrapladies and a New Shop

I decided to give my blog a new name and a visual overhaul .... macscrapper.typepad.com becomes digidesignedbywilma.typepad.com. I thought it would be more fitting with my designer activities and easier to track. Hope you like! It was quite a bit of fun playing around with the advanced templates and CSS in Typepad and I learned. I'll be playing around with it more no doubt!

The Scrapladies owners had some very sad news recently ... they're closing up shop per the end of October. We designers were given the option to either go straight away or to stay with them until the end. I opted to stay with them ... they're real great people over there and I'll be really sad when they do shut down. Well ... you never know, perhaps the tide will change and they'll stay in business! Cross your fingers.

Recently I also joined the design team in a new shop: Digiridoo Scraps. It looks quite promising and I felt at home there straight away. More news on that shop later.

I better go back to updating my blog now :-) ... tons to import from the Macscrapper blog. That'll be relatively easy I guess, but I fear I'll have to deal with quite a few broken links ... bleeeech!

Freebie: St. Patrick's Day 2009

Hi all .... I'm seeing green :-) ... It's St. Patrick's Day again soon. We'll be home in Switzerland, rather than in Ireland, but the tricolor will be up and we'll be having friends over for dinner. No traditional Irish Stew this year. Instead, I'll be tackling some recipes by Irish chef Kevin Dundon, with probably his Loin of Bacon with an Irish Mist Glaze as the main dish. Or the Cider Glazed Salmon ... I'm not sure yet. I tried the salmon a couple of weeks ago and since, hubby has been requesting it several times.

For the St. Patrick's Day celebrating scrappers among you, here's a couple of freebies for you: for the scrap-it-yourselvers among you, a St. Paddy Minikit and for the scrappers in a hurry, a St. Paddy QuickPage made from this mini kit (it's in the same colors/style as last year's one - which you can still download here). (Sorry! Link expired).

The mini kit contains 3 papers, 3 frames, a page border, a stitching, 2 shamrock decorations (with and without shadow), a glitter patch and 6 words (not all shown on preview).

Whether you prefer the QuickPage or the Mini Kit, I hope you'll have fun with them! and of course ...

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY!

 

Freebie: Sinterklaas

 

6 December is the birthday of St. Nicholas or "Sinterklaas" as he's known in Holland. It's the big gift giving event there, bigger than Christmas (although giving gifts at Christmas is starting to be more popular). Like Christmas Eve, the big night for the St. Nicholas celebration is 5 December, "pakjesavond" (gift giving evening). 

There's a whole tradition around St. Nicholas in Holland, from his arrival by boat at some Dutch harbour, to putting your shoe in front of the fireplace (central heating caused some problems with that haha), singing Sinterklaas songs, Zwarte Piet (or Black Peter, his assistant), special candy and a whole lot more. It's great fun!If you want to know more about all the traditions around Sinterklaas, Wikipedia has a fairly good overview. 

A traditional piece of candy for Sinterklaas is the chocolate letter ... here's my Sinterklaas gift to you: a milk chocolate alpha + numbers. Hope you'll enjoy it! It's sure more calorie-friendly than the real stuff!

Click HERE to download, or click on the image. (Sorry, link expired).

Detailed image below, the preview doesn't really do justice to the detail on the letters. 

 

How Quickly Things Can Change ...

My goodness ... time flies! But I wasn't really having fun. Just after I got back from the bimonthly family visit to Holland in May, I got a phone call that my auntie had had a serious stroke, so I packed my bags again and drove back. She was in a pretty bad state and I am not even sure that she knew I was there. She passed away the next day, quietly and peacefully. I had talked to her on the phone the week before and all was well (i.e. she didn't have time to talk to me as she was too busy pottering around ....). And just weeks before that we had been out shopping for new clothes as she had put on quite a bit of weight since she moved into the care home. How quickly things can change!

Here she is (left) on her 87th birthday with her eldest sister, my last-remaining auntie ... you can tell they were having a good time! They were giggling like little girls ... :-) I'll miss you Beppie!

Not Enough Time (Again) ...

Here we go again ... not enough time! Sometimes I really DO wonder how I ever found the time to have a fulltime job .. or may be it's that my rhythm has become slower :-).

Anyways ... we were just hit by the first of the spring visitors wave ... after just having recuperated from the Christmas wave! Sounds like I'm moaning, but I'm really loving it! Mid February our teacher friends from Belfast came over for their spring break for the third time in a row. Sounds like we've got a tradition going! The weather was wonderful and we went to visit Gruyeres.

(photo credit: http://sanbra.kaywa.ch/)

Hadn't been there since ... can't even remember! Obviously we HAD to have a cheesy lunch in a lovely little chalet type restaurant (oddly called ... Le Chalet haha). Add the snowy mountain tops, the meringues with Gruyeres double cream ... quintessential Switzerland for you!

The last week of February The Princess and her dad came over for their spring break. Unfortunately, the weather for them was NOT good, as they wanted to to ski and there'd been far too much sun. They helped me out clearing the garden though! We had a wonderful week, Princess was lovely and we did plenty of auntie-niece thingies.

And now we're preparing for the next lot ... :-) Life is great!

Anyways ... we were just hit by the first of the spring visitors wave ... after just having recuperated from the Christmas wave! Sounds like I'm moaning, but I'm really loving it! Mid February our teacher friends from Belfast came over for their spring break for the third time in a row. Sounds like we've got a tradition going! The weather was wonderful and we went to visit Gruyeres.

(photo credit: http://sanbra.kaywa.ch/)

Hadn't been there since ... can't even remember! Obviously we HAD to have a cheesy lunch in a lovely little chalet type restaurant (oddly called ... Le Chalet haha). Add the snowy mountain tops, the meringues with Gruyeres double cream ... quintessential Switzerland for you!

The last week of February The Princess and her dad came over for their spring break. Unfortunately, the weather for them was NOT good, as they wanted to to ski and there'd been far too much sun. They helped me out clearing the garden though! We had a wonderful week, Princess was lovely and we did plenty of auntie-niece thingies.

And now we're preparing for the next lot ... :-) Life is great!

Happy Birthday Auntie! (and a Freebie ...)

My auntie celebrates her 87th birthday on Sunday. She's always been my favorite auntie and as a kid I spent a lot of time at her house. She doesn't have children so the nieces always got spoilt rotten :-) (I'm sure my own niece is nodding her head approvingly now!).

Auntie's been suffering from Alzheimers ... we noticed it first the last time she spent time with us in Switzerland, 3 years ago. I started to travel back and forth to Holland every 2 months to visit her and to deal with admin stuff.

Last year it became impossible for her to continue living in her own house and I found her a great place to stay. It's set up small scale, with 6 persons sharing a lovely living room and she also has a room to herself. The group do their own cooking, have outings, etc. She's utterly happy there and it's very reassuring for me she's safe. It's not always easy to be a caretaker when you live 530 miles down the road!

Anyways ... off to pack a case and fly to Holland tomorrow (birthday cake here I come!).

To celebrate her birthday and to share the happiness, here's a freebie for you! You'll get the above QuickPage (minus the photos of course) and, as separate .png files, the "Love" and the heart embellishments. Download it here. (Sorry, link expired).

Credits: the QuickPage is based on a sketch by Mary Anne Walters, as seen in the French edition of Scrapbook Inspirations, December 2007. The font I used for the "Love" elements is Pleasantly Plump by James Fordyce.

Auntie's been suffering from Alzheimers ... we noticed it first the last time she spent time with us in Switzerland, 3 years ago. I started to travel back and forth to Holland every 2 months to visit her and to deal with admin stuff.

Last year it became impossible for her to continue living in her own house and I found her a great place to stay. It's set up small scale, with 6 persons sharing a lovely living room and she also has a room to herself. The group do their own cooking, have outings, etc. She's utterly happy there and it's very reassuring for me she's safe. It's not always easy to be a caretaker when you live 530 miles down the road!

Anyways ... off to pack a case and fly to Holland tomorrow (birthday cake here I come!).

To celebrate her birthday and to share the happiness, here's a freebie for you! You'll get the above QuickPage (minus the photos of course) and, as separate .png files, the "Love" and the heart embellishments. Download it here. (Sorry, link expired).

Credits: the QuickPage is based on a sketch by Mary Anne Walters, as seen in the French edition of Scrapbook Inspirations, December 2007. The font I used for the "Love" elements is Pleasantly Plump by James Fordyce.