and now you have that earworm (no idea what I’m talking about, check this video, you’re welcome), here’s the next 9 days of my 100 Happy Days (days 19 to 27).
Author: admin
10 things that make me happy
Continuing on with the 100 Happy Days, here the next 10 things that make me happy
So that brings us to 18 days and still going strong. How are you going with your 100 Happy Days?
Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me {review}
Disclaimer: I was given a Touch by We Vibe to review. All opinions are my own.
Seriously, who doesn’t love a bit of RHPS
Today I’m sharing about another great We-Vibe product –the Touch. Like the Thrill, which I reviewed recently, this is a solo toy but it has so many more uses than just a personal pleasure device. We’ll get to that in a moment. First down to all the Touchy details 😉
It’s hand sized at just a smidge over 10cm long and 4.5cm wide.
It’s waterproof so you can use it in the bath or shower for some wet & wild fun 😉
The Touch has up to two hours of play on a single charge and the low-power alert tells you when to recharge. Using your iDevice power plug and the supplied cord, recharging takes around 90 minutes.
There are 8 vibration modes (low, medium, high, ultra, tease, wave, pulse and cha-cha) all controlled with one button at the base of the Touch. It’s also pretty quiet.
Made from body-safe silky soft medical grade silicone, it’s free from phthalates, latex and BPA but, as with all silicone toys, it is recommended that you only use a water based lube. If you want to find out why you shouldn’t use silicone lube with silicone toys, check out this video by lubzilla (probably not suitable for work or around kids as the other suggested videos are of a more adult nature). It’s also easy to clean – just use soap and water.
The Touch is for external use only and comes with a 1 year warranty.
I’ve also found the Touch is great for neck and shoulder massages. The tapered end makes it great for pinpointing sore spots and the rounded side is good for a general massage.
It doesn’t look like a vibrator so you can leave it out on the bedside table without it drawing too many questions (what? I forgot about it and where I’d left it one night). It’s a cute paperweight that doubles as a neck massager 😉
Like the Thrill it also comes with a cute little satin bag to keep it in and keep it dust/fluff/cat hair free. Makes it nice and portable too for traveling.
Would I recommend the Touch by We-Vibe? You bet. It’s a great little hand sized toy with the vibrations of a bigger toy. Oh and it’s purple.
Goodbye March
And another month has gone by. Can you believe it’s nearly April already?!
So this month I achieved a few things.
- I’ve blogged everyday for the whole month thanks to #30Lists
- I’m back up to date with my 2014 Project Life (post coming soon)
- I’ve tried a heap of new recipes.
Anyway it’s 8 days into the 100 Happy Days project. I’m enjoying finding the little things (& big things) that make me happy and make me smile. So for your viewing pleasure 🙂
You can follow along with my pictures by checking out my Instagram account and check out other people’s Happy by following the hashtag #100HappyDays
Baby watch
Could you be happy for 100 days in a row?
I’m inspired. Jodie @ Polka Dot Creative has inspired me to see if I can find something each day for 100 days that makes me happy. Could you be happy for 100 days in a row? It can be anything big or small.
I’ll be sharing my 100 days over on Instagram using the hashtag #100HappyDays and then blogging them once a week.
You can read more over at 100 Happy Days and if it sounds like something for you sign up. Let me know if you do so I can cheer you on 😀
So bring on the next 100 days and bring on the Happy 😀
Scrap Teal You Drop 2014
Ovarian Cancer Australia invites groups and individuals around Australia host an Afternoon Teal® – a summer tea party for a great cause! Raising awareness of the symptoms, risks and impact of ovarian cancer, as well as raise vital funds to support their work in awareness, support, advocacy and research .
For the last two years mum & I have organised an Afternoon Teal® event called Scrap Teal You Drop. This year we organised a full day event and spent a couple of months planning and organising, sourcing donations for our raffles and supplies for our scrapbooking challenges.
We received some AMAZING donations from private individuals meaning those who have no scrapping ‘stash’ to raid had an wonderful selection of papers & embellishments to use. Mum bought some gorgeous teal products from Sawyer’s Place to help create our Teal challenge pack but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Saturday night we set up our space, organised tables and packs for our attendees – a teal ribbon and information about Ovarian Cancer plus a symptom diary.
Sunday morning, the day of our event. Our all dayers and the morning crowd arrived and were welcomed and given a run down of our morning schedule. We had a couple of quick quizzes to warm up the brains and just for a little bit of fun. Then the ladies were shown a demo of some gorgeous handmade cards and an idea for using calico and stamping to make some lovely, individual gift ribbon.
We then had our first challenge of the day – a blind scrap. The ladies were given a list of products and after about 10 minutes sat down so I could read them their steps. Some followed along pretty close, others added their own spin and a few did their own thing.
Lunchtime and a wonderful spread provided by mum and a few others. A group photo was taken once the afternoon group arrived and before our morning group had left
.
Mum shared with us that the day marked 3 years since she had her surgery and was given 18 months to 3 years. In Australia, the overall five year survival rate for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer is approximately 43% so fingers crossed we make it past the 5 years and beyond. This set me off – thanks pregnancy hormones so I had to have a quick teary break before struggling to read the first part of my afternoon speech discussing Ovarian Cancer and the symptoms. So after that slightly teary start to the afternoon our group got stuck into our Teal Challenge. It’s amazing to see how everyone created such a wide variety of pages were created using the same supplies (some seasoned scrappers who joined us added their own supplies) and the majority used the same photo.
Our pack consisted of a white cardstock base, some Sawyer’s Place sticky paper (I love this stuff), flair and washi tape plus some other pattern paper, teal ribbons and a teal ribbon sticker.
We finished of the day with afternoon tea. Lots of yummy goodies including a fruitcake made by mum, a delish mars bar slice and my Teal Ribbon cake, teal ribbon biscuits and teal cupcakes.
I must give a few thanks. To the lovely Ruth from Polly Scrap Kits who, apart from letting me share about Ovarian Cancer on the Polly Scrap site, added some teal products to the February kits (& had a teal add-on kit) AND donated 50c from each kit sold to our fundraising tally. To the local George Town businesses who donated prizes for our minor raffle. To Hawthorn Football Club and Phil Kuruvita who donated prizes for our major raffle which is being drawn at the end of April.
After speaking to Mum today so far our fundraising tally is sitting at $1738! Thank you to all who have donated so far. If you’d like to donate, you still can by going to my GoFundraise page
Soft drinks while pregnant? You bet! {review}
Being pregnant means you should watch what you drink. I had gestational diabetes last pregnancy and really wanted to do whatever I could this time around to reduce my chances of getting GD again this pregnancy.
One of the things I did when I first found out I was pregnant was to stop drinking Coke, well to tell the truth I had to stop because it was making me sick – hello morning sickness!!
Thanks to the morning sickness I was a bit limited to what I could drink without feeling ill – water, sometimes juice, the occasional water cordial. No milk and nothing of the fizzy variety.
Enter the 2nd trimester and the end of morning sickness (yay!!) and I slowly introduced milk back into the diet and was ok. There was a definite craving for something fizzy but the amount of sugar in soft drinks is a bit frightening – 28g per 250ml in lemonade and 27g per 250ml of cola. Before you ask no I don’t do diet drinks or no sugar drinks, for one thing I’m not convinced that fake sugars are good for us and secondly I’m not a huge fan of the taste.
When I was offered the chance to try a low sugar, organic alternative I must say I was extremely curious. BIONADE (pronounced Bee-oh-nah-deh) is a range of organic fermented and carbonated beverages from Germany.
On first glance, you could be fooled into thinking it’s a trendy new post-mix alcoholic drink but no it’s a tasty low sugar drink that looks as good as it tastes.
So what is BIONADE and what makes it different from your average soft drink?
- it’s 100% certified organic
- it’s low in sugar (15.5g per 330ml serve)
- Brewed like beer, but non-alcoholic
- No colourants! No preservatives! No artificial flavours!
- Gluten free. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
There are 4 flavours – ginger & orange, lychee, elderberry and herbs.
First up in my trial was the ginger & orange. Ginger is meant to be pretty good when you feel ill, be it from morning sickness, travel sickness or maybe just feeling a little seedy after a night out. I thought it might taste a little similar to IronBru (it’s a Scottish citrus, slightly gingery, soft drink, often described as “Scotland’s other national drink” (after Scotch whisky) and is the number 1 selling soft drink there closely followed by Coke) but it was more gingery with an nice orange aftertaste. Quite nice. I imagine it would make a good mixer.
I tried the Herb flavour and really wasn’t sure. Don’t think I would drink this one again.
Now I’m not a fan of lychees at all so was pretty hesitant about trying this flavour. Pleasantly surprised! It was sweet and a little tangy. Again it would probably make a good mixer.
I’ve left my favourite til last – Elderberry. It is super yum, sweet, fizzy and very moreish.
Hubby wasn’t taken with any of them but he’s pretty fussy. Miss K loved all of them and they are something I’d be happy to give BIONADE to her as a treat over lemonade or cola.
At this stage BIONADE is available online from http://www.drinks-logistics.com.au/ and selected retailers
And cause I love my readers I have a mixed case of 24 bottles of BIONADE to giveaway to one lucky Nightwolf’s Den reader. Leave us a comment with what you loved to drink when you were pregnant OR what you’d miss drinking if you were pregnant. Entry is open to Australian residents only. Winner will have 1 week to respond once the giveaway is drawn. Giveaway closes 26th March 2014
100 things in 2014
I’ve been doing these lists now for 4 years and I still struggle to get 100 things 😉
This year I’ve broken my list down into 6 sections – Blog (& Social Media), Family, House, Craft, Work and Me. As with previous years bold is started, strike thru is finished & red isn’t done
So here we go
- Increase my social media following
- Go to a blogger meet up in Tassie
- Get more Twitter followers (Jan 1 – 626)
- Get more Facebook followers (Jan 1 – 127)
- Organise my Pinterest boards
Blog everyday for 1 month(March #30Lists)- Learn a new recipe each month. Blog about it.
- Get a ProBlogger event digital pass – looks like this isn’t happening this year 🙁
- Attend more Brand meets Blog Twitter chats #bmbchats
- Use twitter more, especially for my blog
- Sort bookmarks (not really a bloggy one but it does need doing)
- Do the June blogathon
- Create a back up of my blog monthly
- Try something I’ve pinned and blog about it.
- Finish garden beds and start to use them
- Get a garden shed
- Set up a gazebo/outdoor dining area
- Do HabitHacker –Nest
- Get front yard finished
- Finish custom recipe book
- Finish laundry – need to paint
- Finish lounge – need to paint and get curtains
- Finish kitchen – need curtains
- Start our bathroom reno currently getting quotes
- Organise RPG room (aka the garage) so hubby & mates are out there by August
- Re-organise K/bub’s room
- Re-organise our bedroom
- Pull up carpet in lounge/dining room
- Start a garden journal
- Work thru Creating your Goddess Haven e-course
- Redo the pantry
- Sort linens and make less cluttered
- Have a candlelit dinner
- Birth a healthy bub in August
- Tattoo for J
- Family holiday to Qld or Melbourne
- Have parents and in-laws over for dinner more
- Go to the Dawn service
- Get a family photo of me, mum, dad & bro done
- Get a family photo of me, J, K & bub done
- Have a dirty weekend away with hubby
- Put min. $5 a pay into Christmas club account
- Write a letter to Miss K to open on her 18th
- Have a family movie night (complete with popcorn & choc tops)
- Write a letter to bub to open on his/her 18th
- Spend a day at the beach
- Go on a picnic
- Go for a drive somewhere for no reason other than getting out
- Spend a rainy day in PJs watching TV/movies
- See more of Tassie
- Work on family tree
- Go to the Botanical Gardens
- Visit QVMAG
- Get some guinea pigs for K
- Get BAS in on time
- Keep up to date with work accounts
- Get office sorted and start using it!
- Work thru Business Goddess e-course
- Finish work portfolio
- Upgrade laptops
- Make laptop & pc better organised – less double ups of files
- Setup server
- Find an inspirational quote & make it into a piece of artwork
- Finish JYC 2012 & 2013
- Scrapbook with mum more
- Art journal once a week
- Finish wedding scrapbook
- Do #30Lists (started March)
- Organise all my paper scrapbook supplies
- Organise & cull my digital scrapbook supplies
- Scrapbook with others more
- Organise a scrapbook day
- Complete a cross stitch
- Work thru Creative Goddess ecourse
- Project life date one weekend a month
- Do some more classes & finish them
- Do Before your story class
- Create a scrapping binder
- Apply for more design teams
- Get dt work done before it’s due
- Actually DO some of the things I’ve pinned
- Create more pages about me
- Start bub’s PL book
- New tatt for me
- Get my L’s
- Rejoin the biz & life academy
- Raise at least $1000 at Afternoon Teal (we’re up to about $500 so far before the event!)
- Do Frocktober
- Watch sunrise & sunset in the same day
- Write a letter to myself to open in 10 years
- Keep a gratitude journal every day for a month (0/30)
- Do Habit Hacker’s Create
- Get a massage
- Get a manicure
- Make a list of 30 books I want to read & then read those books (0/30)
- Exercise every day for a month (0/30)
- Create a mini Goddess altar
- Meditate more
- Enjoy life
- Live a more spiritual life
2014 Life Workbook
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I use affiliate links to help pay for some of my blogging costs. All opinions are my own.
I had grand plans of getting my Amazing Year workbook all started and ready to post about at the beginning of the year but a little person growing inside me had other ideas and my body decided to give me horrid morning sickness for most of December and January.
Now that I’m in the second trimester I’m starting to feel much, much better and made a Life Book date with myself.
Before we get started on my Lifebook journey, what is the Amazing Year workbook?
The 2014 Create Your Amazing Year workbook & calendar is an incredibly popular & useful tool to help you plan out & make happen your most incredible year in life or business (or both!). Over the last five 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 Create Your Amazing Year in Life and Biz workbooks are filled with dozens of pages of powerful worksheets & a printable calendar to help you create your amazing new year.
I’d already done the closure for 2013.
I love this part of the workbook as it allows me to look back on the previous year and brings closure
I invoked 2014 listing things i want to experience, feel and give to myself. I gave myself permission to do more
I’ve started my list of things for 2014 but struggled at the start to get 100 things. A few are repeats rom last year or things I didn’t get done last year and some are from my 101 things list. I’ve broken my list done into topics to this year – blog (& social media), our house, our family, work, crafts, and me. The list will be posted in a day or two.
I loved having ritual days last year and have decided to make a few changes this year. I’ll continue with the Go to bed early Mondays (get to bed by 10pm), Foodie Friday (trying a new recipe) and Switch off Sundays (no laptop or social media time – this one was hard). In 2014 I’m adding Scrapbook Wednesday (making myself scrapbook at least one day a week) & Art Journal Saturdays (the new Art Journal Caravan prompts are released on a Saturday my time so I spend Saturday evenings working on them).
This year I even made goals for 2014. I’ve never been good at goal setting (or keeping) so I’ll be interested to see how I go. I even created a TO DO LIST BOOK in an old journal
and finally I did my oracle reading for 2014. I used the Earth Magic Oracle cards online single card reading. I picked a card for each month. I really love this card deck and really want to grab the physical cards sometime soon.
So that’s my 2014 Life workbook in a nutshell. I’ve printed it A5 again this year and added it to my Inner B journal so I’ll have it with me at all times.
Do you use the Life workbook? If not, I can highly recommend it