Author: Caroline

2016 List–half way check in

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Midwinter here in Australia and it’s time for an update of my List of 100 things from my 2016 Life workbook.

As with previous years bold is started, strike thru is finished & red isn’t done

Blog/Social Media

1. Increase my social media following (see 2-4)
2. Increase Facebook followers (Jan 1 – 152   Dec 31 – )
3. Increase Pinterest followers (Jan 1 – 665   Dec 31 – )
4. Increase Instagram followers (Jan 1 – 283   Dec 31 – )
5. Organise Pinterest boards better
6. Learn a new recipe each month and blog it
7. Continue In the Den Kitchen
8. Create a monthly blog backup
9. Try something I’ve pinned and blog the results
10. Start a new blog series
11. Start my YIAH recipe blog
12. Sort bookmarks
13. Blog everyday for 1 month
14. Blog emails to zero
15. Be more active in Facebook groups that spark joy
16. Cull email lists
17. Cull Facebook groups

House & Garden

18. Weed garden beds.
19. Work out what vegies to plant and then plant them
20. Start a Garden Journal.
21. Get a garden shed
22. Finally get gazebo up
23. Do Declutter 365 (& maybe blog my progress – you can read them here)
24. Finish custom recipe books – Thermomix Favourites and non-Thermomix recipes
25. Donate/sell remaining recipe books I don’t use
26. Paint laundry
27. Get laminate up in laundry
28. Get dryer up on laundry wall
29. Get new laundry sink
30. Laundry storage
31. Get floors polished
32. Organise office (I finally have a plan!)
33. Organise garage
34. Work through (& complete) Creating your Goddess Haven e-course (started then stopped. want to restart again)
35. Re-tidy the pantry. Toss or donate stuff we don’t use
36. Sort linens.
37. Redo my herb garden

Family

38. Do something special for 10 year anniversary in November
39. Family holiday – Melbourne or Queensland
40. Have my parents over for dinner
41. Have in-laws over for dinner
42. Get an updated family photo
43. Work on family tree
44. Organise some play dates for the girls
45. Write a letter to Miss K to open on her 18th
46. Write a letter to Miss A to open on her 18th
47. Watch a documentary every month

Things to do

48. Anzac Day dawn service
49. Have a family movie night (complete with popcorn & choc tops)
50. Spend a day at the beach
51. Go on a picnic
52. Go for a drive somewhere for no reason other than getting out
53. Spend a rainy day in PJs watching TV/movies
54. See more of Tassie
55. Go to Botanical gardens
56. Visit QVMAG
57. Go to MONA
58. Cirque du Soleil

Work & Finances

59. Money into Christmas club (starting balance – $0; June – $126)
60. Put $5 a pay into girls’ accounts
61. Get BAS in on time
62. Keep work accounts up to date
63. Work through the Business Goddess e-course
64. Upgrade RAM & Hard drives in laptops
65. Sort EHDs and make sure there’s no duplicates
66. Work on better backups of important files
67. Work email to zero

Scrapbook/Craft

68. Find an inspirational quote and make it into a piece of art
69. Finish JYC 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
70. Scrapbook with mum more
71. Finish wedding scrapbook
72. Do #30Lists (March, September, December)
73. Organise all my paper scrapbook supplies
74. Scrapbook with others more
75. Backup digital Project Life supplies
76. Start a cross stitch
77. Project Life date at least once a week – PUT IN PLANNER!
78. Do some more classes & make sure I finish them
79. Apply for Scrappy Canary design team
80. Create a scrapping binder
81. Organise craft group days

For me

82. Do something different for Afternoon Teal
83. Do Frocktober
84. Write a letter to myself to open on my 40th
85. Keep a gratitude journal for 30 days
86. Get a massage
87. Make a list of 30 books I want to read & then read those books (2/30) 
88. Burn to CD/DVD stuff I don’t need on my PC all the time
89. Sort & cull movie folder
90. Deadpool
91. Create a mini Goddess altar
92. Personal email inbox to zero
93. Get to bed earlier
94. Drink more water
95. No more screens in bed
96. Rejoin the shining life & biz academy when renewal due
97. Cook more with the thermomix
98. Renew Thermofun membership
99. Journal every day
100. Enjoy life

100 Happy Days – Month 2

Opps I forgot to post my second month of my 100 Happy Days. So here are the next 30 days 🙂

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33. The simple things – hot chocolate, marshmallows and scrapbooking; 34. Our first pumpkin; 35. A selfie I like; 36. Happy mail; 37. Esther Grace; 38. Donut cupcakes; 39. Birds in the rain; 40. Playing with Hex bugs; 41. Soccer training; 42. Devil sausages & rice, cooked by Miss K; 43. Sunrise; 44. Early Mother’s Day delivery for a friend’s mother in law; 45. One of my Mother’s Day pressies, illustrated by Miss K; 46. Mother’s Day flowers; 47. An orange tabby drawn by Miss K.

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48. Miss K reading her school reader; 49. All ready to go; 50. Cupcakes; 51. Hand in hand after soccer; 52. Choc Raspberry brownies; 53. Cross Country; 54.Tidy again (but not for long); 55. In The Examiner talking about Ovarian cancer and our 1000 ribbon challenge; 56. Happy mail from Miss K’s teacher; 57. More ginger kitty cats; 58. Snapchatting; 59. Love how Miss k’s friends are happy to play with Miss A; 60. Tatty scones!; 61. Love this idea for a card; 62. Soccer training.

38 days to go.

My Declutter 365 journey – May check in

May was all about paper work. Our home binder is slowly filling up now and we have better systems in place to deal with all the paper clutter that comes into the house.

We got rid of our home phone a few years ago but I decided to make a message centre to put in our ‘family command centre’. Much easier to remember something I have to let hubby know if he’s out & forgets his mobile.

Bills – we have 2 major bills – rent for our business laptops and our internet/mobiles. Both get taken out on a certain day each month. Any incidental bills are filed into the appropriate folder and made not of in our budget. Due dates are added to the calendar. This system seems to be working ok for us.

I created a ‘family command centre’ in the kitchen under our whiteboard (& in between the Soda Stream and water filter). Notes and invites go on the cork board. This week’s menu is on the whiteboard. Our month calendar is underneath. Our family/home binder sits on the trolley underneath that along with my file for bills/mail that needs actioning (& our hand vac)

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Next we moved onto tax items and receipts. Since we run our own small business I keep all our receipts in a lidded plastic box in the office and then after we have been to our accountant, I scan it or file it. At the end of the financial year I shred or burn any receipts we no longer need to keep. Anything that needs to be kept, including the previous years tax return info is kept in lidded file box, arranged by financial year

Our filing system is pretty simple – 2 files for each member of the family. One for important stuff I know we may need to access and one for papers that I want to keep but aren’t super important. The rest of our papers are sorted by what they are – sports, business, house etc Have used this month as a good excuse to go through and sort/shred our filing cabinets.

Challenge 21 was super easy – we rarely get magazines and any newspapers we get are piled in a bag and stored to help start our wood fire in winter. Catalogues get read then binned.

Challenge 22 looked at passwords, warranties and manuals. Since that finishes in June I’ll be back next month with how we are going.

Kitchen update – a bit messy but nothing a quick tidy wouldn’t fix. It’s finally sinking in how easy it is to keep the kitchen cleanish. Still trying to get the rest of the house on board.

Currently #9

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WEATHER: raining and windy. That above is the rain radar for today

EATING:   homemade beef pies and hopefully some homemade slices shortly

DRINKING : Hot chocolate or coke

LOVING :  the weather for the past few days – glorious winter sunshine

READING : uni notes

ANTICIPATING : the next GoT episode

LISTENING TO : MUSIC :  a bit of everything  PODCAST :  Pocket Talk, Simple Scrapper member podcast

WATCHING : AFL, what ever is on TV, GoT

PLANNING : blog posts, uni assignments, organising my scrap stuff

LOOKING FORWARD TO : the rain stopping (even though we need it)

CREATING : Awesome Ladies Project layouts,  Project Life

NEED TO FINISH : Miss K’s & Miss A’s 2015 PL albums – just the journaling to go

WISHING : the rain would stop so I can hang washing outside 

MAIN GOAL : get 2015 PL done and in albums

What are you “CURRENTLY” doing?

1000 ribbons for Ovarian Cancer

Each year, in Australia, approximately 1000 women will die from Ovarian Cancer.  It’s important that you #KnowAskAct

Know – There is no screening test for Ovarian Cancer so it is important to know the symptoms and know your family history. The four most commonly symptoms associated with Ovarian Cancer are

  • abdominal or pelvic pain
  • increased abdominal size or persistent abdominal bloating
  • the need to urinate often or urgently
  • feeling full after eating a small amount

Ask – Ask family members if there is a family history, on both your mother and father’s sides, of ovarian or breast cancer. “Almost 20 per cent of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer carry one or both of the BRCA mutations. Women carrying the BRCA1 gene mutation have up to a 59 per cent increased risk of developing the disease and those carrying the BRCA2 mutation up to an 18 per cent increase. Find out more about the genetic risks of ovarian cancer here.”*

Act – If you find out there is a family history of ovarian cancer  talk to your GP about assessing your risk. “It’s important to note that women who test positive for the BRCA gene mutation will not necessarily develop ovarian cancer, but  will have an increased risk of developing the disease later in life.”*

Of the 1,480 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in Australia every year only 43% will survive five years post-diagnosis. Ovarian Cancer Australia works to raise awareness, provide support, advocate on behalf of women living with the disease, facilitate high-impact research and empower women to #KnowAskAct.

This year marks Mum’s 5 years. As part of our annual fundraising efforts, Mum & I undertook the task of creating a wall of teal ribbons. The goal was to sell teal ribbons for a gold coin donation and people could attach them to our ‘wall’ which was situated at the Hillwood Coffee Shop (if you are in Tassie, and in the Tamar Valley, go check them out. The food is delicious!)

We started the week before our Afternoon Teal event and slowly the ribbons started adding up.

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It wasn’t long and we had well over 200 ribbons, then 300, then 500. then 1000! Last count was 1055!!

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A huge thank you to all who donated and are now hopefully more aware of Ovarian Cancer and have shared this awareness with others.

* From Ovarian Cancer Australia

Monday Musing

Why are our politicians payed so damn much? And why do they need all the perks they get while in office and after?

It really irks me that they can come out and say oh lets cut this, let’s cut that, we need to save money (but support big business and screw over the little people – they don’t say this but it usually happens). I would (probably) vote for the one pollie with the balls to stand up and say ‘hey why don’t we cut or freeze our wages, let’s get rid of some of our perks. Let’s actually help the people who need our help. Let’s tax those who can afford it. When we retire we should go on the same pension as everyone else or fund our own retirement with super we build up while in office.’

I know I’m dreaming but t would be nice

My Declutter 365 journey – April check in

April started in the Garage. This is totally hubby’s domain, I’m not touching it because I would throw the majority out LOL so the first few days of April were spent catching up with March, as were the days dedicated to the attic. Oh how I would love an attic!

We then moved onto Contact Information. Our Family Folder now has all this information and it’s up-to-date.

Finally April ended with mail. I’ve now created a mail station where all the new bills are housed.

A nice easy month really and I’m looking starting May with no backlog of previous months 🙂