The Last Day of the School Holidays

The last official day of the school holidays and I had planned to go into school to continue on from all the work I left strewn out as I tidied and rearranged the furniture yesterday.  But instead I decided to spent it at home, just pottering about.

History says that the last day of school holidays is generally a good day for getting stuff done around the house because I am procrastinating from all the school work I should have done over the break.  Once again it proved true, which was handy because the poor house has been a bit neglected of late.  Yes, one of those items on the to do list is unpack more boxes, because I still haven't finished unpacking everything.  Feeling so sick with morning sickness as I moved out to the country and having problems with dizziness and low blood pressure meant not a lot got done.

Note the school work still isn't done...

I did manage to sneak in a short amount of time doing a bit more knitting though.  This is the beginnings of a baby beanie with ear flaps for my best friend who is due in June.  The pattern is from Patons booklet 8000 and looks very sweet in the picture but I have decided I'm never doing moss stitch in 4ply again, it seems to be taking forever and growing at a very slow rate.  Fingers crossed it actually fits! I'm making it in the 3 month old size so it should do.

I'll head into school tomorrow to finish getting ready for Monday while MR is at work.  It's seeding time out here which means everyone needs/wants tyres changed on their farm equipment and of course, his tyre fitter has just quit.  

No relaxing pottering weekend for him.

2013, the year of ...

Remember the lovely Maxabella's One Word for the Year, way back at the beginning of 2012?

Mine was thrive.

I think there was a bit of thriving.  Certainly as far as my health goes, I am a lot healthier now than I was at the beginning of the year.  And my relationship with MR stayed nice and strong but I don't know if I could apply the word thrive to it...

As far as the other stuff goes though - the garden, the house, my life.  Well, the fruit trees thrived.  Until a storm came and broke two branches off my beloved apricot tree.  It still is growing so that's the main thing but now it is very much up and not very much out.  The lawn is thriving away happily after we got it verdimowed a few months ago and having it so beautiful and green and unblemished at this hot dry time of the year when it is usually looking a bit brown and a bit patchy here and there is very lovely.  I'd show you some photos of the before, during and after but I can't find where I put my camera (yes, yes I know...)  The rest of the garden, not so much.  Still very much a work in progress.  And the house?  Well, apart from the beginnings of a study area there hasn't been much progress happening in there either.  And as to my life?  Well, going back to work was good, but really - it took me a bit of time to get there, much longer than I thought it would. Having my own class again next year will be nice though.  Apart from that, just general recovery stuff but nothing particularly stands out in achievements and thriving-type-business. 

So rather than being disappointed about last year's effort, I'll instead give myself a new word for this year, one of more measurable conquest I think (although I suspect this may set me up for greater failure).

I have run through a few words... create  -  do  -  achieve

I sat for a while trying to think of one word to describe the act of following through before resorting to the thesaurus.  Oh right - finish, complete.  No wonder I couldn't think of the right word, those things are foreign to me.  

And then I sat back and thought about what I really want to achieve.  Yes, I want to create more stuff.  Yes, I want to do more stuff.  Yes, I want to achieve more stuff.  Yes, I really, really, really want to follow through and complete stuff.  But really, want I want (and need) to do, which will encompass all of those things is ORGANISE.

You see, I am terribly unorganised. And I am even worse at FINISHING stuff.  So there are things all over the house in various states of unfinishedness.  I get all excited about a project but the execution of said project becomes too hard basket or not quite how I pictured or else sheer laziness comes into play.

So this year I am going to work at being organised.  It will be hard.  As I mentioned above, there is lots of opportunity for great big whopping amounts of failure because I have yet to have an organised bone in my body in all of my 31 years.  To help me along, I need to outline some specific organisational goals to go alongside the general goal of becoming a more organised person.


- organise the craft room :: I'm seriously tempted to hire some decluttering organisation expert to come and make this beautiful for me.  Is that cheating?  Everytime I try to organise this room I never get beyond getting it a quarter organised (with the help of my very organised sister) before it all turns to shit again.  This is the bane of my household, and MR runs to close the door at the first sign of visitors. For that matter, so do I.

- organise my classroom :: I don't want to have the stress of an unorganised classroom this year.  I am really good at the whole organising lessons and keeping kids work organised but my own stuff?  This year I'd like to be all organised so that if I do fall sick and have to have some time off, the person coming in to replace me can find everything and know where all the kids are up to with ease.

- organise myself :: specifically, some form of regular exercise.  I was good for a few months at the beginning of 2012 but then I got slack.  No more excuses!

- organise my home office and filing system (which is currently non existant) :: no need to say more.

- organise the finances :: So we can go on a holiday over east as well as do a couple of (small or not so small) renovations we want to do to the house and garden.  We finally got a bit of a savings account going in the second half of 2012 so hopefully this will stay on track!

- organise all the unfinished projects into boxes and then work my way through them :: or get rid of them, pull them apart, whatever it takes!

Any other organisational type things will just be an added bonus.


I also aim to...

- submit my picture book manuscript 
- write more often
- do the 5km Run for a Reason (at a quicker speed that 50mins) and raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation
- completely pay off my credit card (at least once)
- go on a holiday on a plane (I don't care where to, just out of WA)


I got 4 out of 10 of my goals and resolutions for 2012, let's see if I can get get a better result for 2013.



Do you have some aims/goals/resolutions/a word for the year?  Big or small, I'd love to hear them!

Looking back : 2012 [ups and downs]

I did a post of this title last year and it was good to go back and read it at times so I thought I'd continue the tradition.

Come Boxing Day, I am all ready for the year to be over and move onto the next one.  I start to get all antsy, reflective-y and planning-ish.  There's a bit of endofyear-itis and a chunk of limbo type feelings and I just want to to be over already. 

Maybe that won't be the case when I have my year.  You know, that elusive year where when you look back everything has (or at least most things have) gone your way and lots of good stuff has happened?  2011 was supposed to be that year.  The move to Perth, move in with the boy in our own house and starting a dream job all sounded like the ingredients for my year.  And then when my body decided to fall apart on me I had no delusions that 2012 was going to be my year.  But I am going to quietly live in hope that 2013 might be.  Very quietly.

Before I get on with the year in review, I've copied my resolutions and goals that I set for this year to see how well shockingly I did.


Resolutions
:: to do my tax on time this year. :: only one month late, we'll call that on time because it's the closest it's ever been!
:: to do a writing course in plot/character/setting development and submit my picture book manuscript to publishing houses :: writing course achieved in character but not the other two.  Wrote a letter for submission of my manuscript but never quite got to sending it.
:: to be open to new opportunities :: not sure what I was thinking of here, I'm usually fairly open to new opportunities but I can't think of anything particularly new that was accepted or turned down
:: to raise money for The Leukaemia Foundation and the Liver Transplant Unit of SCGH :: decided to alternate years on these charities, people only have so much money.  Raised $1700 for Transplant Australia.
:: to somehow become a more tidy and organised person, particularly in organising the final rooms of our home :: major fail!
Goals
:: to exercise at least twice a week (for at least 80% of the year) :: I think I managed this for about 3 months of the year.  Not quite 80%...
:: to recycle more :: fairly good, but I'm sure I can achieve even more next year
:: to at least halve my credit card debt :: actually I'm quite proud of achieving this when I wasn't working for seven months of the year!
:: to join a writer's group and attend regularly :: nope!
:: to do up a joint budget so we can save money and do some renovations to/buy furniture for our home :: no such joint budget, MR is quite against a budget currently due to its adult-like-implications and seeing as I didn't set one up for myself until I was 26 and he is still only 25 I am only making occasional suggestions here.  We did manage a joint savings account though which has been used for a couple of small things so far and hopefully much more next year!

Not too bad actually.  Cutting that credit card debt in half is worth two surely!  Money is something I am not at all good at.



So, to the year that was....

January
I was battling with an unknown origin cough and breathlessness that had been hanging around for a couple of months in January so I didn't get up to a great deal.  I did however go to the Roxette concert with my sister and had a great time singing along to old songs.  My liver turned three months old and I managed to finish off my first granny blanket which now adorns my sister's couch after gifting it to her as a housewarming present.

February
February saw me receive the lovely present of a bronchoscopy for Valentine's Day and a ten day stay in hospital when it was discovered I was growing mushrooms fungi in my lungs.  Charming.  Reason for cough and breathlessness discovered, at least...


March
Yet another hospital stay this month, this time only three days because I had my one year late housewarming party to get ready for and I told the doctors from the get-go there was no way they could have me for longer than that.  This stay was because the fungicides antifungal medication they put me on made my kidneys cross. I got out though and my housewarming party went well and was a very casual and laid back bbq affair.


April
There was a bit of gardening action this month with the planting of our nectarine and white peach trees.  Looking back at the blog I also did a fair bit of crafting and apparently a bit of exercise, well done me!  MR and I had our 5 year anniversary and my liver turned six months old.


May
Biggest thing of this month was doing the Run for Reason (at a walk) and raising $1700 for Transplant Australia.  4kms in 50 minutes, not too bad for a girl who went straight from the event to the hospital to have her 16th day straight of blood tests due to medication issues.  


June
Not much of note apart from some more crafting.  I was quite proud of this present for MR's Mum's 60th 

 
July
My liver turned nine months old and I started back at work at the end of the month.


August
I turned 31 and didn't care.  MR and I went on a holiday to Dunsborough and had a lovely time.  My sister and I went to the Hilltop Hoods concert and it was awesome.  I made a one task a day organise your home calendar which I haven't followed very much since...

found at virtu

September
Nothing of note


October
MR turned 25, what an oldie!
My liver turned 1 year old and I celebrated with high tea with friends (MR was away at work) and family and had a lovely rainbow cake to celebrate (just looked back and realised I never posted about my high tea party on here, woops!)

my cake!

I got it made for me and I was a little bit bummed that the
rainbow was out of order..

My present from my sister, a liver softie!!

November
My best friend got married down south and it was an amazing day.  I found out I'd be moving to a new school and was pleased about deciding to have my own class of kindy kids again, working three days a week next year.


December
Christmas out in the bush with MR's family with my family do's before and after the official day. 



How did you year pan out?  Was it your year?? 
  

     

48, 49, 50!

This year I set myself the goal of reading 50 books.  I reached 50 today!  Here they are in reverse order beginning with most recently read.

I kept track of it all on Goodreads.  Do you use it?  You can find me here if you do!  As you can see, I'm very much a fantasy sort of girl with an occasional divert from that genre in place.

Standouts would be...
A Discovery of Witches / Shadow of Night - Deborah Harkness
Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
The Black Jewels series - Anne Bishop
Cleo: how an uppity cat helped heal a family - Helen Brown (but only if you're ready for a tearjerker)

Are you much of a reader? Do you keep track of how many books you have read?  This is the first year I have done it.

I'm getting ready to start my book list for 2013 so title suggestions are welcome! 



 

Organising your life

I realllllly want MR to make me one of these door tidies for inside our linen cupboard!

So I've been wanting to organise my life for, well, pretty much my whole teenage and adult life.  It just does not come naturally to me.  My sister inherited all the genes in that area and I managed to get all of both Mum and Dad's clutterbug genes, Dad's especially. 

I've been looking at decluttering sites and organising sites, pinning ideas to my 'I need to get organised...' pinterest board (a lot of which seems to revolve around pretty ways to store my ribbon collection...) and generally just making many lists and checking them off - somewhat slowly.  But it is progress.

I've liked the idea of a declutter your home calendar which lists a task to do each day.  I could do that! But all of the ones I have found seem to aimed at the northern hemisphere and just don't suit our seasons!  So I've decided to make my own.  In fact, I started tonight while watching a dreadful movie, continued it while watching the next movie which was only slightly less dreadful and did some more after that while watching some Olympics.  I would say I have got about three quarters of 365 days filled.

Some of the tasks repeat themselves fortnightly, like 'spend twenty minutes in a room that needs attention' and 'clear off the dining room table', some appear monthly like 'sort through and file one stack of paper work' and 'catch up on some ironing or handwashing' whilst some only appear less often like 'go through a craft supply pile' (which in actual fact should probably appear a lot more regularly) and then there's a few that only make their presence known once or twice a year such as 'clean out the gutters' or 'clean the oven'.  I decided to extend my calendar to a Home and Garden organising calendar mainly because gardening is something I am still learning about and I need reminding when it is time to fertilise, prune, plant etc.

Now I must pay credit, a lot of my inspiration has come from this helpful lady and her decluttering calendar.  But now I am asking all you lovely people out there for your ideas.  Not your everyday cleaning jobs like vacuum, washing and so forth, more those things that keep on getting put off or fit more into a declutter and organise category.  Things that you look at and think, gosh when did I last do that?  Or if you are already an organised person, things that you schedule in to your Spring cleaning each year. 

Do you have any tips that work for you?  I have found that the twenty-minute-tidy works quite well for me.  I set the timer on the oven for twenty minutes and then tidy until it goes off.  Sometimes I even set it for a second lot of twenty minutes!*


I'm really looking forward to hearing your ideas!!





  
* I know, I know, even I astound myself sometimes!
 
 

post its + list = bliss

 

As soon as I get home from hospital I am so whipping up one of these.

Total awesomeness.  And a good use for the overabundance of post it notes I have.

Imagine the pleasure of tearing one off once you're finished and screwing it up into a teeny tiny little ball!

And very convenient that once a post it has been there for a while, it might just fall off and get forgotten about you can change the goals so easily and add new ones as you finish one and not have a really huge list that you look at and give up before you've even started it's that long.

 

2012: the year of creativity?

So I deliberately didn't include creativity in my list of New Years Resolutions because that was going to make the list just waaaayy too long.  There's just so much I want to make but I'm just a teeny bit lazy about getting on with it.  Reading other people's blogs with all the crafty stuff they have made inspires me but by the time I finish reading them all I'm ready for bed!  But I do have a few goals this year in the creative stakes.

• WIPs - finish them!
  - in particular... the pink granny blanket that was started over a year ago.
  - the granny squares from when I very first learnt to crochet need to  be turned into something.
  - the granny square scarf needs finishing (noticing a crochet theme here?)
  - finish off my table runner, placemats and coasters set.
  - finish off my cloud mobile I started about three years ago.
  - finish a poor arm and faceless sock meow that has been sitting around for a couple of years

• New Craftiness
  - make some more of my woodland pin cushions, including one for myself!
  - make some more lanyards and open an etsy store to sell them in
  - do some more ceramics work, I would love to make lots more of these coasters, if I can find somewhere I can make use of a workshop with a kiln and access to glazes!
  - make three more Christmas stockings for the rest of my family and MR
  - I would also really like to learn how to make patterns and make some new clothes for me.  I don't often find patterns I like in the shops but have some old clothes that are no longer wearable that I would love to pull apart and make patterns of.
  - make a crochet sleeveless cardi/shrug type thing for myself
  - do a mosaiced house number to hang over our door
  - knit something else (for me this time), now that I have learnt to knit!
  - start a blue crochet ripple blanket (but not until the two other crochet blankets are done) for my couch

Wow, it's a long list.  I suppose I should get off here and get started!

  

Looking forward : 2012 [Planning and goalsetting]

Are you a New Year's Resolutions type of person?  I know I am.  But with a very dubious record of success.  I wonder what percentage of people actually really truly manage all of their resolutions for the year?

So of course, this year is no different in the resolution department, however now the stakes feel a little bit higher.  I now feel as if I am living for two.  No, I am not pregnant to any new readers out there, I had a liver transplant two and a half months ago.  And now I am left with a lingering sense of self improvement being needed, opportunities jumped at, plans to be made and generally just living large and making a difference.  Me, who would happily potter around the house, having quiet time and spending time with MR.

Over the last week I have been compiling a bit of a list in my head.  Resolutions and Goals.  Is there much of a difference?  I did look them up in the dictionary but it didn't really help me work out which in my list is goals and which resolutions.

So we'll just wing it hey?


Resolutions

:: to do my tax on time this year.
:: to do a writing course in plot/character/setting development and submit my picture book manuscript to publishing houses
:: to be open to new opportunities
:: to raise money for The Leukaemia Foundation and the Liver Transplant Unit of SCGH
:: to somehow become a more tidy and organised person, particularly in organising the final rooms of our home

Goals

:: to exercise at least twice a week (for at least 80% of the year)
:: to recycle more
:: to at least halve my credit card debt
:: to join a writer's group and attend regularly
:: to do up a joint budget so we can save money and do some renovations to/buy furniture for our home


No doubt tomorrow I will have thought of 42 more things to add to the list, but it needs to be achievable right?  Undaunting.  Possible.  Surely I should be able to manage all of those things?  I just like to make lists. And there are so many things I could work on right now!

Please feel free to correct me if I have goals under resolutions and likewise.  And I'd love to hear your plans for 2012 as well!