An Easter treat

This year, my family has decided to skip the whole Easter shenanigans.  I've bought eggs for my students, some nice quality chocolate for my Education Assistants and a Ferrero Rocher bunny each for myself and MR because I totally got sucked in walking past them in Coles as we are both big Ferrero fans.  Apart from that, no chocolate needed. 

So I decided to treat myself to some bulbs. 

some of my selections

I am a slightly strange flower lover.  I very rarely have flowers in the house but I love them in the garden.  I admit I do quite like them inside as well but I really cannot stand the smell of most flowers.  In fact, lavender is the only flower I can think of that I like the scent of.  Smelly flowers in the house make me wrinkle my nose and hold my breath when walking past them and they always manage to permeate the whole house too. 

So give me some snowdrops, tulips and daffodils outside in Spring and I am one happy girl.  I also added a batch of ranunculus and grape hyacinth bulbs to my order, new bulbs I haven't grown before.

Right now, my garden is looking S H I T.   Apart from the lawn, which is looking green and lush and SUPERB.  MR is very proud of his lawn at the moment.  We had it vertimowed at the end of last year and it was so totally worth it.  Particularly seeing as MR has been mowing it regularly, fertilising it well and getting rid of the horrible infestation of lawn beetles we had last month.  So yes, apart from the lawn, the dreadful garden needs some major attention.  Out the front, heaps of things have randomly died.  Things that were there before we moved in as well as things we've planted since.  Most likely it is due to lack of fertilising, manuring and mulching because well, we haven't done any. 

I'm still in the learning phase of gardening and to be honest, the idea of digging the soil, digging through fertiliser and then spreading mulch sounds like way too much hard work for my poor fatigued self so it just doesn't happen. 

The purchase of the bulbs has inspired me though.  At least to get a small section of the garden sorted and bulb filled.  That is something I can manage.  And also hopefully, now that it is a bit cooler and MR has gone back onto a shift with 2 weeks off rather than 6 days, I might be able to talk him into doing a bit of garden type things with for me. 

Happily, some of the plants that died are ones I didn't like and wanted removed so my plan of removing them and then transplanting all our agapanthus into those spots (which is a lovely spot in between four hedges type tree/shrub thingos* along our front half wall, so that the flowers will drape prettily over the wall - in my head they do anyhow.. ) can be put into place.

And this is where I need your help...  what else should I be making a list of for MR to do at this time of the year?  I'm sure some of you out there are garden gurus who can help me out with what is needed in Autumn for gardens and fruit trees.  Well, I'm hoping so anyhow!





  

* just incase you thought I was tricking and am actually some form of good gardener, here's proof it is very much not the case

Falling by the wayside

A lot of things have been neglected in my world of late.  The blog, the kitchen, the tidiness of the house, friends and poor MR.

In fact, the only thing that hasn't been neglected has been my bed.  No more are the nights awake until 2 or 3am.  Now I am in bed and asleep by 11 most nights.  Sometimes even 10 or 9pm!  Unheard of, I know.  There has also been afternoon napping which hasn't at all affected my night time sleeping.

Starting back at work has been partly to blame, we're up to Week 8 of an 11 week term and Term 1 with Kindy kids is pretty full on.  I must admit though, I've got a really lovely group who are pretty independent and self sufficient for 3 and 4 year olds.  Three days of work a week is Most Definitely enough for me though, even with having a three day weekend and a day off on Tuesday I'm finding that if I do too much on the weekend I barely cope for the week.

Along with that I've had a week in hospital with a particularly nasty tummy bug back in Week 2 of term and I had Monday off this week with another one which was thankfully only a smidgeon as bad and managed to go away by itself. 

In much better and fun news, there has also been two weddings in the last two weekends.  MR's brother last weekend and the one before than his cousin (which also included a quick weekend holiday to Dunsborough for the event).  They have most definitely contributed to all the aforementioned neglected-ness.

Possibly the biggest culprit, although it is very hard to measure, is the increase of my Leukaemia medication five weeks ago.  It wasn't working as well as it should be and seeing as I was only on half of the recommended dose due to some issues with medication interactions and differing heart rhythms on ECG checks, they decided to put it up a bit higher.  I'm now on an almost 3/4 dose - 70mg of the recommended 100mg.  It's interesting how (in my mind anyhow), when I say I'm tired it somehow seems more lazy and slack than if I was to say I suffer from fatigue as a side effect from medication.  "Tired" is such a hard thing to measure.  I know that I am more tired than I was last year however, as I wasn't working this is not a good comparison.  I also know I wasn't this tired when I wasn't ill and was working full time and playing netball on weekends so therefore in my books that becomes "fatigue". 

After having a big sook the other night about how slack I have been at doing anything at all around the house lately and how everything is messy, how I am practically existing on fish fingers and a bit of salad for dinner when MR is away and when he is home he is in charge of all kitchen duties, how I am possibly the worst girlfriend ever and how MR should move on to happier and healthier pastures, I realised I needed to get over myself and sort my shit out.

I decided to reinstate my Twenty Minute Tidy sessions.  Once each day I do work and twice on days I don't will give me 2 hours and 40 minutes per week in which to tidy, clean and organise the house and garden.  My big goal right now is to do a bit more than than on the Easter weekend and get the house tidied up enough that I can get a new cleaner (our last one finished late last year), which will then decrease my stressing over a dirty house at least, if not a messy unorganised one. 

I've had two sessions so far.  The oven timer goes on for 20 minutes and off I go to work until it beeps.  After it beeps I dismiss all feelings of guilt over the state of the house and my lack of housewife skills.  I've unpacked and put away my case from my Dunsborough weekend a fortnight ago, picked up and put away all the clothes and other associated crap dumped on the bedroom floor, tidied out one drawer of my tallboy and tidied up and cleaned the bathroom basin.  Not bad for 40 minutes.  Today being a non work day, I'm doing 40 minutes - most likely in two 20 minute sessions.  I'm feeling better about it all already. 

Now I just need to work out some really quick and easy meals that do not involve fish fingers...

Sunday Snippets

sorting through my school things

enjoying a picnic and and outdoor movie with MR

tomatoes from our self sown tomato plant

a thirsty meow

a big stack of creative books from the library

a helpful (so she thinks) meow

enjoying goodies from my Christmas stocking

more snippets over at Tinniegirl's

Getting my craft on

There's been a bit of creative productivity happening at my place this last week.

I've finished of a WIP from last Winter, this plaited cotton knit scarf...

There has also been an initiation to quilting when Sarah came over yesterday a sewing day and helped me plan my fabrics and design.  I spent the whole time cutting fabrics but managed to get it all laid out and ready to start sewing...

And check out the yummy lunch we had in between all our crafting - chicken pot pies by Sarah and a rocket, orange and pomegranate salad by me.

Last night while slothing on the couch watching the cricket, I whipped a my first Woollies for Tassie crochet square.  I'm sure you've all heard about it by now, but there is an appeal for 20cm knit or crochet squares for blankets for those families who have lost their homes in the Tasmanian bush fires.  This one is 8/9ths of a pattern from Spincushions crochet along which I'm contemplating belatedly joining in with!

Finally, I've been making some file covers and box labels for all my themes for school this year - everything will look a lot prettier soon!

I'm loving this bit of productivity, I know all too soon school will start back and I will certainly not have the time or energy to be getting so much done that isn't school related, particularly for the first month or two. 

 

Working on a WIP

I decided, given my plan to be organised and finish stuff this year, that I'd best start off my creative year with the finishing off of a WIP. Particularly seeing as I have a couple of other projects that are about to be started in the next couple of days.

I plaited together what I've got so far and I think I like!

This project was started back in September. I saw a scarf on display at the Margaret River Wool Company and thought I might have a go at it myself. They had kits but I thought, it's a scarf, no need for a kit! Basically it is 3 balls of yarn, knit into long skinny scarves and then plaited together. It looked great hanging in the mannequin! However, it came to an abrupt halt after finishing colours one and two and ended up with two different lengths. Goodness knows why! (Perhaps i should have bought the kit after all!) I put it aside in a huff and then it got too hot anyway.

I've come back to it after some advice from MR's Mum who suggested a) it doesn't matter if they are different lengths b) she can help me to fix them to all be the same or c) I could add some tassels on the short one. I think I'm about halfway through the ball of peacock blue now, thanks to part 1 & 2 of the LOTR DVDs the past few nights and hopefully it'll almost be finished after part 3 tonight.

Happy New Year!

Look at the beautiful full rainbow I saw at sunset on the 30th December, one day early to farewell the old year and two to bring in the new one.  But I'll forgive Mother Nature, she can put on displays like this above my house anytime!  It was during the smallest of sun showers I've ever experienced, the pavement was pretty much dry the second after the rain drops hit the ground.  This was my first go at using the panorama feature on my iphone, simply because I couldn't fit it all in with one shot.  I was already standing on the road to take this and the Meow thought this meant it was okay for her to come and roll around on the road too.  That's my house at the end of the rainbow there on the right.  Does that mean a big pot of gold coming our way for 2013? Wouldn't that be lovely.

May 2013 bring you many moments of joy, plenty of good fortune and much healthiness!

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!

Pinterest is an enabler.

It really is.

It's like a having six demanding small children in regards to the levels of multitasking skills necessary.

And like giving coffee to an insomniac.  At 2am.

Here I am having a computer day (because it's too hot to do anything else productive (even though it is now well into the night/early morning and not hot at all)), setting up my new blog and TPT store (more on this soon), purchasing clipart to create things to sell, creating about three different teaching packages for me to use (and hopefully sell) all at once until I get to the point where I need a particular picture to complete it and then heading off to search for more clipart to buy on etsy.

And then along comes a great idea so I pin it to pinterest.  And then I have a quick look and see six other things I want to make/find out more about so off I go to to get started on all of those. 

I've also got two half written blog posts on the go, not including this one, a picture I'm editing in ribbet for one of the blog posts, three different finder windows open as I sort through my new clipart purchases as they are emailed to me and file them accordingly, font book open to look at the new font package I just purchased, a word document and a powerpoint document, plus what feels like 37 tabs in firefox (but is probably more like 15) on the go.

And then I find another great idea on a blog I am flicking through, pin in and the cycle starts again.


It could go on for days if I didn't need to sleep.  (Sometime soon...  ish.)




I'm sure this is not just me...  right?!


   

Getting ready for 2013

Continuing along with my current theme of I'm ready for this year to be over, I bought a nice calendar for next year to put on the wall.  Normally I go to the shopping centre and choose a pretty one from one of the numerous stands in the middle of the malls, usually one with photos of trees or waterfalls.  I never write on them though and often forget to change the month until it's already a week (or more) into it.  I really just use it to look at the date when I'm on my mobile planning something and can't use my iphone calendar.

So I thought this year I might go a pretty design on page style calendar.  I did have a look at the teatowel calendar designs on spoonflower but none grabbed me enough to buy one so then I turned to etsy.  And ended up with this one from once upon a paper.

Isn't it lovely?  The water colour dot on each month is the date of the full moon.  I figure that once the year is over, I can trim the calendar part off and have a lovely new piece of artwork too.


Next on the list is a diary.  I'm quite particular in what I want from a diary and I haven't found one that perfectly suits me yet.  Each year I try a different type.  This year I'm going to try this one from Delfonics.  I've just ordered it from Notemaker.

It's a weekly one (which I like because it's not too heavy like daily ones) with the week on one side and a lined page on the other for notes, similar to the moleskine style I think.  This one though has monthly views at the front of the diary which I don't think the moleskine ones do (I was originally looking at them).  I googled what the german writing means and it (apparently) says A story, a life.  And the small writing under that says a quote which means "For the lucky, the clock does not strike." which is apparently similar to our quote of "Time flies when you're having fun."



Do you have a diary that you like to get the same format of each year?  Or are you still hunting for that elusive perfect one like me?

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??