Nightwolf's Den

Frocktober 2012

Yup, I’m going to take part in Frocktober this year.

For those who don’t know, wikifashion defines Frocktober as:

“Frocktober is a festive fundraising initiative aiming to raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF).Through fun – and sometimes quirky – measures, Frocktober is all about:

* Increasing the public’s awareness of ovarian cancer.
* Promoting women’s health and wellbeing.
* 2Celebrating the great diversity of shapes, sizes and colours women come in.

Essentially, Frocktober puts forward a challenge to girls, women and interested men far and wide:

To don a frock for a day, week, fortnight or a full month during October, and get sponsored for it!

So, be it borrowed, second-hand, vintage, home-made, your granny’s or that great dress you’ve just never had the right occasion to wear… get creative, get it on and get frocking with your sponsorships, all of which will be donated to the OCRF.“

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not much of a dress/skirt wearer. I would have worn trousers to my wedding if I was allowed to (glad I didn’t cause I got to buy the most gorgeous Jeannie Nitro dress to wear).

BUT as it’s helping raise funds for OCRF I’ve decided it’s a damn good cause. We’ve had Ovarian Cancer touch our family recently and anything I can do to help raise awareness about it and raise funds to help research is a good thing in my books.
SO I’m slowly collecting some dresses together – buying new ones, checking to see if old ones fit and asking around to see if anyone wants to donate a dress for me to wear.

If you’d like to donate a dress feel free to email me. I’ll have more details closer to October.

20 days to organise?

Can it be done? The Organised Housewife thinks so and during September is challenging us to follow along with the daily prompts and challenges to make our lives more organised. I’ve been reading The Organised Housewife blog for some time now and thought, Why not? And on the upside the site is Australian Winking smile

Anywho, 20 days started on Monday…. well actually it started last week with 5 pre-challenge tasks.

We created a folder to keep all our notes, printables and checklists in one place, created a cleaning kit, created a morning & evening routine and set some goals. All ready to go we started Monday in the kitchen. I have to admit, the kitchen is one area I really struggle to keep clean.
My before and after

So loving having a clean kitchen AND for the first time in ages I’m actually making an effort to keep it clean. Trying to convince hubby to help keep it clean is another matter though.

I missed doing day 2 & 3 cause I wasn’t home so day 4 was three days rolled into one.
We did the Bedroom on day 2
Before & after

The bedroom still isn’t 100% clean. My scrap stuff I’m keeping here is still unorganised but I do have a plan for that.

Day 3 – laundry
Before & after

Another room that still needs work. As soon as the plumber comes and fixes the plumbing we can add the laminex behind everything, put in the new sink, add some new shelving and give it the walls a coat of paint.

Day 4 – Lounge room
Before and After

Day 5 was cleaning floors. We vacuumed and mopped so the floors now look reasonable again. No photos cause I couldn’t b bothered LOL

Another upside to this challenge – I’m more motivated to start my household folder (control journal or whatever you call it). I’ve started a list of all the projects I want to get done room by room. Inspiration from Pinterest. Routines. Important numbers. That sort of thing.

Weekend update – The kitchen is still clean! This is it Sunday evening. We’d had guests for tea but the kitchen is still reasonable not like it would have been before – stuff everywhere

The bedroom seems to be less of a dumping ground AND I’m folding washing and putting it away when it’s dry (instead of dumping it on the bed, then back into the basket or just leaving it in the basket). Laundry is still clean. Lounge room looks like we have a toddler as Miss K loves leaving her toys everywhere but much more manageable now.

Bring on Week 2. I’m loving having a cleaner house and actually managing to keep it slightly more clean and organised.

It’s not too late to join in the 20 day challenge, you can still subscribe

Learn Something New–Week 1

I signed up for Learn Something New over at Shimelle.com last year and just followed along with the prompts & I think I may have even blogged a few. This year I’m blogging daily & posting at the end of each week. No mini album for me cause I know I’ll never finish it. Blogging it is much more doable.

So here we go for 2012

My name is Caroline and today is the first of September 2012. The last big adventure of my life would
probably be falling pregnant and giving birth to my daughter Miss K. I was so unprepared for the whole rollercoaster ride of pregnancy and parenting.

Three people who have been great teachers in my life
* My mum who taught me to be a great mother by supporting me, showing me unconditional love and being there when I need her most.
* My gran who taught me you are never to old to have fun.
* My bestie Lisa who taught me to believe in myself no matter what.

I would really like to move forward in a more organised fashion. I need to get some routines in place to make this happen. AND they have to simple otherwise I won’t follow them for long.

Come into my home and you’ll see I live with someone who can be a bit messy. You’ll also notice we LOVE books.

I’m much more a planner than spontaneous. I have learnt I need lists. I seem to get more done when I have lists. I like to have everything planned before I start a project or hold an event.

I wrote a card to someone special, for no real reason, just to say thank you.

An ‘ordinary’ day for me is up at 8, just pottering around home & playing with Miss K, checking Twitter & Facebook (probably a bit too much), taking lots of photos, surfing the net & watching TV of an evening then to bed about 10.30

So that’s week 1 of Learn Something New. Onto week 2…..

Happy Father’s Dad

RIP

Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012)

Review–Table of Plenty NoNo’s Bars

Can a kids snack be tasty & healthy? You bet it can! A lot of snacks marketed to kids are full of sugar so when I was asked to try Table of Plenty NoNo’s bars I jumped at the chance. The Mini Rice Cakes are super yum & healthy so I was hoping the NoNo’s bars would be the same. They are made of totally natural wholegrains and one bar contains less than 100 calories.

I tried the Berry Blast NoNo’s first and was very pleasantly surprised. These are super yum. Lots of yummy dried pieces of cranberry.

Miss K tried the Cocoa Crush NoNo’s and took a couple of bites then stole my Berry Blast one! The Cocoa Crush ones are not what I expected. They are nice and chocolaty but not too sweet.

So it’s a definite snack that will find it’s way into our trolley (that’s if our local supermarket stocks them)

Table of Plenty NoNo’s are available exclusively in Woolworths. RRP $4.25 per box.

Disclaimer: I received a box of Berry Blast & Cocoa Crush NoNo’s to try. All opinions are my own.

From the Den–What we’re reading

One of the great exhibitors I met at the Digital Parents Conference was Hardie Grant Egmont
I love books and I want to share this love of books with Miss K so jumped at the chance to review a couple of their books.

The first I picked up was

I love Winnie-the-Pooh and so does Miss K so this was a given. It’s now one of her favourite books and she will happily sit down and point out the different things – especially Tigger (which makes Mummy very happy cause I luvs Tigger. And yes I know the Tigger song off by heart LOL). I’d love to get my hands on this one too.

the other book I picked up was

This book is gorgeous! I love the vintage illustrations and how the book uses nursery rhyme characters to illustrate this cute counting book.

What is your favourite book for young children?

What to do when you get stuck

I often get really stuck for what to blog about. Like really stuck. The times when nothing really ‘interesting’ is happening or when I’m feeling a bit blah or when I just have the real cant be bothered.

I decided to take part in the Blogging Olympics this year as I though it would be a great way to motivate myself & give me some post ideas. So far so good (expect I fell behind after day 3….). I posted in the Facebook group about my ‘hurdle’ of blogger block and had some great suggestions back. So I’m sharing some of the suggestions here with you, plus a few others I thought up.

* Post an infographic on a topic that interests you and your readers
* Minette suggested taking a walk and has some great tips to inspire yourself
* Cate suggested Three Sixty Five. I’ve downloaded it and look forward to using it as some inspiration for future posts. (you can read her review on her blog)
* This reminded me of 2 courses I’d taken over at Shimelle.com – Blogging for scrapbookers & Beyond Blogging for Scrapbookers. The original class comes with a Year of blogging prompts – must dig them out again.

How do you beat blogging block?

From the Den–the DPCON12 edition

(oops this has been sitting in my drafts folder for awhile….)

One of my awesome sponsors for Digital Parents Conference was Belkin Australia. They provided me with some great goodies to use while at DPCON12 – a Verve Folio Stand, the ViewLounge, a Stylus and some different screen protectors.

I can’t review the ViewLounge as hubby stole that as soon as I unpacked the box. I’ve told him he can do a review on it. Update – I did pinch it one night so I could read in bed and I have to say the bean bag like bottom to the stand makes bedtime reading on the iPad a lot more comfortable.

I already had a case for my iPad but I was looking forward to trying out the Belkin Verve Folio Stand.

Belkin Verve Folio Stand <br><h4 class=

I loved the design especially the cut out for the camera (I’ve found other cases can cover the lens slightly). The strap to secure the cover is a nice touch and the leather is good quality.

I was also given a Stylus to try.

Belkin Stylus Pen <br><h4 class=

I found using the stylus to be a great help when I felt like drawing (I love doodling in Art Rage). Trying to type with it, not so much but I guess if you kept using it you would get used to it AND it would be a bonus for those with larger fingers Winking smile

Now over to hubby…..

Caroline asked me to write a review for the ViewLounge so here it is. I like it. We play Dungeons and Dragons of a weekend and the ViewLounge has made it easier to read books on our iPads and take up less valuable table space than books.

Belkin ViewLounge <br><h4 class=

Disclaimer: I received 2 Verve Folio Stands, 2 ViewLounges, 2 Stylus and some different screen protectors to use and review. All opinions are my own (& those of my other half – where noted).

Sharing some bloggy love

As I said yesterday in my Things I know post I love the blogging world and one of the things I really love about the blogging world is sharing great bloggers with my blog readers. Today I thought I’d share 5 of my current favs (& in no particular order)

Lizosauraus. Mainly cause she likes cats. I haven’t met her yet but now she lives in Tassie, maybe soon. And we can discuss all things cats and BlogPurr and web designy stuff.

You should pop on over to Sleepless Nights & congratulate her on the birth of her daughter (born today). Another Tassie blogger I’m looking forward to meeting eventually 🙂

I think most bloggers in Australia know (or know of) Magnetoboldtoo We’ve been chatting online for ages & finally met at DPCON12. She is as awesome in real life as she is online.

What can one say about Eden @ Edenland? She rocks and is an inspiration to so many. I also met her @ DPCON12. Eden went to Niger with World Vision and blogged about the food crisis there.

Edenland - you can't outrun your shadow.

and last, but by no means least, Lori (Random Ramblings of a SAHM). One strong and amazing woman who has been thru so much. I would love to have a coffee with her sometime and just be there to give her hugs

So, anyways that’s 5 of my favourite blogs. Who are your favourites?