Life and stuff

Disclaimer – this post contains affiliate links

So I had another blog where I started to blog about my spirituality and things related to that. In all honesty I haven’t kept it up – I am so bad at maintaining more than one blog at a time LOL

What’s a girl to do? Bring that side of my life onto this blog of course. On of my resolutions for 2013 is to have a more spiritual thing in my life and since this blog is about my life, well it’s got a home here too.

I’ll be posting in a couple of days about one awesome resource I’ve been using for the last 2 years (this is my third year) and that is Leonie Dawson’s Goddess Workbook & Yearly Planner. This year it comes in 2 flavours – personal AND business.

The 2013 Create Your Incredible Year workbook, planner & calendar is an incredibly popular & useful tool to help you plan out & make happen your most incredible year in life or busines (or both!). Over the last four years, thousands of women have used this workbook with the most amazing results. It’s the best planning tool available to help you make your year your most exceptional yet!

Used by entrepreneurs, artists, mamas, creatives, coaches, teachers and women of all ages, the Creating Your Incredible Year workbooks are filled with dozens of pages of powerful worksheets & a printable calendar to help you create your amazing new year.

On the go at Christmas

Disclaimer – I received a sample of the four Smooze Fruit Ice flavours. All opinions are my own.

Most people are super busy at Christmas time and parents probably more so. When you’re on the go things like breakfast can be a super quick affair.

For something quick you can make and take try a super quick and healthy smoothie. Smooze Fruit Ice are a healthy base to have in the cupboard or freezer..

There are for flavours to choose from – Coconut & Mango, Coconut & Pineapple, Coconut & Pink Guava and Simply Coconut.

I tried the Coconut & Mango flavour, mixed with some crushed ice and some Fanta. Delish! So refreshing, and apart from the Fanta, pretty healthy. I can see that going down a treat with a dash of vodka or some fizzy wine (I’m not a wine drinker so have no idea when it comes to wine)

Looks pretty good yes?

I’m planning on trying the following out tomorrow for a slightly tropical breakfast
1 x Frozen Coconut & Pink Guava Smooze Fruit Ice
1 shot of apple juice
a handful of ice, crushed

I’m sure I’ll chuck a picture up on Instagram when it’s made – that’s if I don’t drink it first

Smoothies are also a great idea for fussy eaters. Most kids love a milkshake and you can hide pretty much anything in it 😉

The following were all found on Pinterest and might give you some other breakfast smoothie ideas

Strawberry Oatmeal Breakfast Smoothie

Breakfast Smoothies

Almond Breeze Breakfast Smoothie

What’s your favourite go to for a quick breakfast?

Christmas 2012 – Our tree

Wow December 1. Where has the year gone? (It’s now Dec 10 – where is December going LOL?)

It’s tree day in our house. Miss K loves ‘helping’ to decorate the tree and this year she decorated 2 trees in one day.

This year we’ve gone a bit more selective – I’m being more selective as to what ornaments are going on the tree. More silver and purple, less tacky. Plus hubby’s decorations (he’s decided we need another tree just for his Star Wars decorations). Plus Miss K’s number decorations.

In 2012 our new ornaments include:


Silver Reindeer	#3 Frame	#3 (coming soon)

Tardis	Red Dalek	Tie Fighter

Mini Death Star	Mini Star Destroyer	Original Series Cylon

	‘dancing’ bear

Do you have a tree theme? Certain colour schemes? Any special ornaments or new ornaments for 2012?

Summer storms

So today I was going to have a post for you all about Xmas trees and link to a heap of cute stuff on Pinterest but last night we had a wicked thunderstorm and instead of writing that post (and getting lost in Pinterest for a couple of hours) I spent a couple of hours trying to photograph lightning!

Now I don’t own a dslr or any fancy camera equipment. I have a Sony quick shot point and shoot and my iPhone. The Sony has absconded most likely into miss K’s bedroom as, even at not-quite-3 she loves taking photos and will often steal the Sony or just run round taking pics on her iPhone (yes she has an iPhone – it’s basically an iPod touch now as the antenna is bung and it has no sim). But I digress.

So I was left with my phone. Now the iPhone4s has a pretty decent camera for a phone and I tried to get some still shots just using the camera but alas I’m to slow.

Switch to camera mode and I managed to capture some awesome claps of thunder and a few bolts of lightning. Sadly most of the really clear bolts happened after I finished shooting 

I put a call out on twitter hoping one of the photo types might have an answer to how to get stills from video and while I waited I also did a bit of searching on Google. One app that came up a few times was StillShot (iTunes)

Grabbed it and had a play around and managed to grab these shots out of the first 2 videos I took. A bit blurry but pretty happy with that.

I did some more searching cause I thought well there might be some tips out there on shooting lightning with an iPhone and one of the first things that came up was an app called iLightningCam (iTunes) the only thing I managed to capture with it though was street lights. Next time there is lightning though I’ll be a bit better prepped and will try shooting from somewhere a little different – like undercover outside not inside where I kept getting reflection from the glass.

Christmas 2012–Getting organised

Up until recently I was so unorganised around Christmas time. I’d leave things til the last minute and would panic buy on the pay before Christmas. I’ve even been known to be doing shopping on Christmas Eve! Then, about 3 years ago I decided enough was enough and did some searching on the internet to become a bit more organised over the holiday period.

One of the first sites I came across was Organized Christmas. I already used the Organized Scrapbooks site for their printables so decided to check out the site. They, at the time, had two choices for holiday organisation – Christmas Countdown and the Holiday Grand Plan. I went with the Christmas Countdown. It’s a 6 week workshop starting in October and finishing on the 1st December, designed so you’re organised and can relax and enjoy the holiday season come December. Each week is assigned a theme – get organised, reality check, gifts & giving, get cooking, decorating and celebrating. And there’s the printables to help you stay organised and less stressed.

The first year I followed along a bit half heartedly but the following year I followed every step and was ready for Christmas (minus a few small gifts) by the end of November. A huge bonus as I was a new mum. Last year I followed along again, a lot more loosely, picking and choosing what worked for our family.

This year I’ve decided to check out some other systems to see if I can find something that is really me.

I’d seen The Organised Housewife’s Christmas Planner last year about half way through doing the Christmas Countdown. I bought it last week and have printed it out and added it to my Inner B organiser (thanks to Tina for the awesome idea of adding extra sections to my organiser).

I’m loving supporting an Australian mum and I love how this planner isn’t centered around American holidays (sorry to all my US readers but I really don’t need to know about celebrating Thanksgiving lol)

There are lots of great checklists and planners and the graphics are too cute. It’s actually making the planning process more fun. A couple of planners that aren’t relevant for me this year but may be useful later.

If you want to know how to put your Christmas Planner together you can always check out this post. And you can buy your own copy of The Organised Housewife’s Christmas Planner here for $14.95 (Australian dollars)

The boring bit – I’m doing a series on Christmas (again) this year. You can follow all my posts here

Welcome to Christmas 2012

Can you believe it’s nearly that time of year again?

I’m doing my bit of Christmas sharing again this year on the blog. We’ll look at getting organised, scrapbooking your Christmas (if that’s your thing), trimming the tree, what’s on Pinterest that I’m loving, ideas for wrapping all your goodies and more.

The blog is getting a bit of a make over too. As you can see it’s starting to look a bit festive Winking smile

I’ll be back later to share some tips for getting organised this holiday season.

Mind the dust

I’m working on my Christmas theme for 2012 😉

2012 US Election

Image source: news.com.au

Well today was the US election. Normally I really don’t care about US politics but this time around I’ve found myself drawn to following what happens overseas.

I even put this on Twitter last night

This US election campaign has been interesting. There’s been some rather dodgy statements made and some statements that may have helped win the election.

Anywho Obama won and will serve as the US President for the next 4 years. The better man won, in my opinion. It will now be interesting to see where the US goes and how it will affect the rest of the world.

Coming to an end

I’m a little sad Frocktober has come to an end but looking forward to getting back into jeans when it’s a little cold. I’m super happy I’ve managed to raise $746 of my $1000 goal. You can still donate for another couple of weeks so yay!

Over the weekend, I held an afternoon tea to raise some more funds. Everyone who came frocked up & those that didn’t were ‘fined’. We had a great time, ate yummy food and played some fun games. There was a lucky door prize and a raffle.

I’d like to take a quick moment to thank those who donated items to the raffle:
* Pooki’s
* Amcal George Town
* my Mum (who donated heaps)

onto the final dresses……


Day 22 Dress by Luca & Marc Leggings by Target	Day 23 Dress by Rivers Tshirt by Target	Day 24 Dress by Mia Rose Shirt by Target

Day 25 Dress by Rivers Tshirt by Mavi	Day 26 * Wedding dress by Jeanie Nitro, Silver dress by ?, Purple dress by ?	Day 27 Dress by Hess Tshirt by Hess Leggings by Target

Day 28 Dress by Rivers Shirt by Target	Day 29 Dress by Millers Shirt by Millers	Day 30 Dress by Rivers

Day 31 Dress by Mia Rose	and a final message	and the reason why I did Frocktober (love you Mum!)

* Day 26 I forgot to take a photo of the dress actually wore BUT you get photos of my in my wedding dress (that doesn’t fit me anymore *sad face*), the silver dress & purple dress were worn by my grandmothers to my parent’s wedding.

You can see all my daily frocks on Photobucket.
You can sponsor me here until the end of November

October 2012 Photo a Day

I’m stoked. Not only did I wear 31 dresses last month (more on that tomorrow) I also managed to take all 31 photos in FatMumSlim’s Photo-a-day challenge. It’s the first time since I started doing these challenges that I‘ve managed to complete the whole month.

The prompts

and my 31 photos (click to enlarge)

(collage created using Project 365 Pro)

I’m looking forward to this month and loving the prompts so far. You can play along by checking out the November list or just follow along by checking out the hashtag #fmsphotoaday on Instagram (You can follow me on Instagram by searching for nightwolfs_den)