30mm Rings, a Couple of Moves and a Nice Surprise!!!

Wow, wow, wow!!!

That is all I can say. I was hoping my order from Filofax UK would arrive in time for my birthday, but as I ordered on Tuesday and my birthday was on Thursday, I knew that it would be a pretty close call.

But the FedEx lady arrived in the office on Thursday with a parcel for me - there was nothing else it could be, and I have to admit I squealed :o) But... I was supposed to wait until I got home to open my present, even though I wasn't going to be home until 9:30 as I had to work late for monthend close - what could I do? Obviously I could be a proper girl, call my DF and tell him my parcel had arrived and sound sorry for myself that I wouldn't be able to move from my violet Domino until the morning.

Ah yes, the violet Domino, what was I doing in there? Well, the red one, although utterly fabulous and a bit scratched (which isn't a bad thing) had a small problem. The top rings had a little gap so the paper kept catching a bit, which isn't the end of the world but I knew that come monthend I would find it really annoying, so I thought that as I was managing to use the A5 successfully this time, I would slip into the aqua Chameleon for a brief interlude so that she could see that it really had been my problem, not hers when I tried to go back to the A5 before. However, I now see why everyone loves 30mm rings - I am totally in love with them. I tried to put everything in the Chameleons 25mm rings and had to do half in one side then the other half on the other side to get the rings to close with any sense and just wasn't happy with it, so out came the violet Domino - it is a truly beautiful colour :o)

The red Domino - Dominoes are very faithful, if you have Dominoes as backups you can never go wrong

30mm rings!!! They are just the rings to beat all rings!!!

purple Domino - empty as less than 24 hours of use leaves no time for photos of it in use  :o)

Anyway, back to the delivery, clearly DF is not heartless and therefore I could open it and here's what I got...

So beautiful together :o)

I immediately transferred everything into the absolutely stunning, stunning, stunning Ochre Malden with it's wonderful 30mm rings. The colour is sublime, it looks old, loved and just stunning. Oh yes, have I mentioned that it is STUNNING!!!? I can now not believe that I was having such a dilemma over whether to order it or not...

Ochre Malden in all its glory

Lying flat like the dream that it is - so soft & flexible

Did I mention the 30mm rings? - awesome!!!

Along with the (stunning, I can say it again) Malden I received the compact purple Pennybridge, so I just HAD to immediately move everything from my purse into it. It is pretty huge for a purse (I have never had a proper big purse in my life) and this thing seems like a brick. Although I have to admit it was so easy to get my travel card out to show the bus driver when I was on my way home, and now I need to decide what set-up to have in there. I think it will just be a purse with a pen/pencil and a few sheets for reminders on the go as I don't intend carrying my A5 everywhere with me (eg shopping - now that would be like carrying a brick).

I seem to have a bit of a thing for purple - love, love, love the colour of this

Purse and filo all in one - excellent

Plenty of card slots and pockets

Space for coinage

WO1P with notes for now, lined paper and To Do lists behind

Final pic of the day - are you ready for the surprise?

A metal divider!!!

Bless my DF. He knows how much I love my filos and all the bits and pieces that go with that so he made me a trial divider to check if the holes are all lined up perfectly. I can change the colour just by changing the paper that it sits in front of, so I an have a different colour every day if I want to. I am soooo looking forward to having the full set...


Watch this space for the eagerly awaited City Organiser delivery (hopefully it won't arrive too soon as I would like to enjoy the Malden for a few days at least)...

LJx

Birthday Excitement!!!

OK, OK - I know that it's not quite my birthday yet, and my presents probably won't arrive until after my birthday, but I am sooooo excited by what I'm getting that I just had to share.

I was looking at the personal Holbourn as it is so fabulous, but also spied the A5 Ochre Malden which I have really wanted for ages (that beautiful leather, full of character, contrast stitching - love, love, love the Malden). As I am back in an A5 at the moment, I'm not sure I should be buying a new personal...

Also, as I have a discount code for Filofax for responding to their A4 questionnaire I thought it would be wrong not to use it before it runs out at the end of May. I know that is a month away, but there is always the chance that I could forget that I have this code if I don't use it now, no?  :o)

I see that the vintage pink pocket Malden is reduced at the moment, and was very tempted, but then saw the compact purple Pennybridge - could this be the perfect purse/wallet?

I thought that I'd have a quick look on the City Organiser site and saw that they have the A5 Holbourn Zip, and it's reduced. I have never seen this one before - plenty of pockets, 30mm rings, loads of space for notepad and sticker storage - this could be my ultimate filo... but can I really be so cruel as to get the A5 Ochre Malden if I get the Holbourn in the A5. I actually truly believed that I shouldn't order the Malden as I couldn't face the thought of it staying in its box for too long and the Holbourn does seem to have it all - looks, feel, space, and the zip - cram it full of junk!!! No, I mustn't do that, no matter how easy it would be to do so...

Thankfully the illness of thinking that I didn't need to order and extra filo didn't last for too much longer, although it did take me two hours of soul-searching before I finally told myself it was OK to have it all.

I am so looking forward to these new babies arriving and taking pics to show them off in all their glory.

I have also found what could possibly be my new hobby- quilling!!! I had never seen it before (or only forgettable stuff) - but check out this link to see some amazing creations on Pinterest. I managed to find, after months of searching, a company in Switzerland who sell scrapbooking papers and lots of craft supplies without being extortionate and whose website is reasonably simple to navigate. I have now got some basic quilling supplies on the way, and if the worst comes to the worst and I am rubbish at it, then I'm sure the boys will be quite happy to have a play with it all :o)

Moving Back to the A5

Hi all, I am now feeling much more comfortable with my Filofax after suffering a bit of planner fail and the attempted move into my beautiful new A5 Aqua Chameleon.

Please accept my apologies for a very picture heavy post...

My personal Malden was doing a good job for a while (before I wanted to see more than just my daily tasks) and even enabled me to carry my passport and Ausländer Auschweitz everywhere with me (which was handy as it meant I knew where they were at all times - no more hellish search for them when I had to go on a work trip).

I will miss my beautiful Malden

Filofax stickers and donated Moleskine ones peeping out from behind the passport

Week on 2 Pages with To Do list inter-leaved

Annual Planner for Work & Holiday dates

Capture pages

However, it was decided that although I loved the convenience of using the personal size I needed something more, and so it was time to bring in the big guns - A5 style.

To help me in my move to the A5, and as I wanted to continue to have everything in one filo I designed what should have been the perfect 2PPD template for me, with sections for everything that I needed. I would now be able to see each area of my life all on one spread. Undoubtedly this would be the ideal layout for me... if I didn't look at all those sections and just feel overwhelmed by the number of boxes to fill in.

So, back to the drawing board... what are my needs?

Diary - for work and personal appointments/reminders. I know all my work appointments are in Lotus Notes, but I do my planning at home/on the train and prefer to do it on paper, so I need this.

Month to View & Annual Planners - everyone needs to be able to see the longer term, right?

To Do pages - much of my work is task-based and without these my work life would go back to being a complete disaster zone.

Stickers - probably never to be used, but I like to know they are there. One day I will start to use them - I should put that on my list of things to do :o)

101 in 1001 - my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days so that I can review and plan.

Work Hours Log - so I can see if I am achieving my goals to sort out my work/life balance.

Exercise & Food Log - so I can monitor what I eat and how much exercise I do in an attempt to make myself accountable. I intend to include calories burned during exercise too, but need to get a different heart rate monitor to do this as my current one doesn't have this facility on it. Maybe that would make me more determined to get off my butt each day and do it, or work harder when I do...

Motivational Quotes

Project Planning

Addresses

Household Planning (cleaning)

As you may have seen previously I have quite a few inserts already (which has been added to by the recent influx of new filos here and here. So, no more procrastinating about my ideal template, it was time to make use of what I already have...

Starting out with the Red Domino, as I had failed in the Chameleon I couldn't face risking her fragile sensibilities by leaving her open to another failure... and the Domino - 2 huge pen loops, and you never have to feel guilty for trying to force a big pen in there :o)

Business cards, stickers, passport and plenty of extra space. The loose sheets at the front are from the Gretchen Ruben Happiness  Project desktop diary as I have a few days off work and don't want to miss any quotes/tips 

Part of my 101 things in 1001 Days list

Logging my work hours to prove that I am achieving my work/life balance goals from my 101 list

Food & Exercise Log (please don't look too closely - you will see how lazy I have been), courtesy of Lord Dodo. The left hand page has plenty of free space, so this is where I intend to log my motivational quotes, or just ones that make me smile.

Month on 2 pages

Week On 2 Pages with To Do's inter-leaved. I love this format for the WO2P as there is a dividing gap that runs down the centre of the day so I can split between work & personal reminders

Activity planners from Sweden, in theory to use for project planning - we'll see if I manage that one...

Annual Planner stolen straight from the personal. Behind this section I have my addresses. One sheet per letter, but no dividers to split them at the moment, I'm not sure I will as I use them so rarely.

My Indodispensible Data

Card holders and a notepad to use as my capture area

Still a bit of work to do to get my routines in order (including adding a cleaning bit, but I think I may actually use the timetable insert that came with on of the Dominos), but I think I'm getting there. I've been using it every day, so that's an improvement :o)

Ooh - I guess I can cross off the 'write a post re my work Filo' off my 101 list now. It would have been done much sooner with my original A5 setup (which was work only), if I hadn't left it and my laptop on the train... obviously all you Filofax fans out there know where my biggest concerns lay at the time :o)

Although now I have seen Imy's post regarding her pocket filo I am thinking about other options again already...

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 19th April 2012

Hi folks!!!

Sorry I'm not updating weekly as I'd planned, but the good news is that some of the tasks may end up being crossed off sooner than expected.

New released films (DVDs) I'm talking about you :o) I ordered 4 DVDs from Amazon's new releases and they arrived last week, so we watched Happy Feet 2 (not as depressing as the original, but still not that happy...) and Puss in Boots (love the voice of Antonio Banderas as Puss) last weekend.

After reading The Help towards the end of last year, I was really looking forward to watching the film, so settled down to watch it - some weepy parts (but maybe that's just me being a bit weird at the mo). It was a good film, the book was better, but then that's no surprise as it's rare to get a film to pick up the finer details of a book.

Tonight I have a date with my man, the sofa, and Contagion - no doubt by tomorrow morning the cold that Marcus keeps trying to give me will be in full swing and I'll be convinced that I am going to die in the supermarket... update, it is now 5am the morning after, and although I watched the film and thought it was good, it hasn't left me with the feeling that I will ever watch it again, not because it's going to make me paranoid every time I get a cough, but because I just didn't seem to get the feel for many of the characters. Although maybe I should watch it again, maybe I missed something...

Ben also picked up In Time a couple of weekends ago, so we may watch that this weekend, then I think I only have 3 left. War Horse is now out on DVD apparently so I have to get that quick before it is no longer considered new enough to count towards my list, although I nearly cried just watching the trailer for it last night - I am such a wuss!!!

I have started my 3 months of taking supplements with some twice daily vitamin & mineral thing from Beachbody that came with the 10 Minute Trainer programme. Unfortunately I have enough of a problem trying to remember to do anything once a day let alone twice, so I have been pretty rubbish on the one so far (it is now 8pm and I will go and take my two doses for the day shortly).

I am currently on my first of four days off so I shall (attempt) to sort my paperwork, order the prize-winner books off my list (one is ordered from Amazon already for one of the guys from work to bring back for me and another five I can definitely get via Kindle), and be a bit more consistent on my exercise in my endeavours to get ripped abs... although I have lost 18lbs so far, surely there can't be much more hiding them - clearly I just need to make them bigger :o)

I have been logging my working hours since before Christmas to keep a record of how I am doing against my work/life balance targets and am pleased to say that I have been managing pretty well with finishing on time on Mondays and not bringing work home, and only have two more weeks to get through for this one to be completed. I have also managed to finish on time two days a week since March 5th, bringing no work home, and am half way through the three months, only six weeks to go - I am very proud of myself (and my Filofax) for managing to do this.

For the classic films I picked a couple up of DVDs at the airport the last time I was in the UK, only to discover when I got home that Papillon and The Sting were not on my list of classic films to watch, but as they are definitely classics I will just add them to my list (I'm allowed to do that right?). I have also discovered that a friend has Brief Encounter on DVD so I will be adding that to the list and borrowing that shortly.

LJx

More Filofax Dilemas...

Well, it's been a busy week, what with monthend at work, dinner with friends (fabulous fondue), fitting in exercise and generally being life.

I spent a couple of hours last week setting up what seemed to be the perfect FF layout for me, on a wonderfully segmented 2PPD diary format.

As the vote came in for me to move back to an A5 filo I figured I would print the templates out to use from Monday and was very excited to try out these new babies...

2PPD

WO2P

I was so looking forward to finally having a template that could really work for me and every area of my life... so, how have I loved my new set up...?

Er, well... not a lot actually. I have left it on my desk every night except Friday for 2 reasons:

• I can't be bothered to take it home
• I have barely written anything in it

This could be due to it being monthend at work, which although the busiest time of the month, it is totally task based and I have a timetable/checklist for all the monthly procedures (including a separate list for any irregular monthend tasks). Therefore, I have no need to write these tasks into my Filofax.

But I am concerned, is there a more serious problem? Am I just no longer compatible with the A5 as my filo any more...? Have I been spoilt by the luxury of using a personal size for 3 months?

A5 Aqua Chameleon , Personal Crimson Malden

I spent some time yesterday re-reading Christa's post re the Holbourn here, and thinking what a gorgeous rich brown it is (not digging the wine one for some reason, I have no desire for a black filo for some reason, no matter how much more professional it would look compared to some of my others). I am now totally convinced that I need to have a Holbourn in my collection - it has everything, stunning buffalo leather and lots of pockets. Zipped or not, that is now the question...?

I was desperate for the A5 purple Malden, but now I'm not so sure I want the A5, but I don't think I want two personal Maldens. By the way, is it just me or is the picture of the purple Malden on the Filofax UK website really not that nice? All the other pics I have seen have been quite a cheerful purple, but theirs is totally dull and uninspiring.

I haven't given up on the A5 yet though, I have the rest of monthend to get through and then on to all the other stuff, which is where my Filofax comes into it's own - let's see how that goes...

101 List Progress Check - 1st April 2012

A quick update on what's occurring in my list...

Shakespeare - I have read King Lear this week, so that second of my Shakespeare plays is done. This one was another tragedy ... greedy people, a bastard son, people flung out, truths realised, forgiveness sought, but other person dies and therefore much tragedy - a tried and tested formula. I have a historic one next and then 2 comedies.

Prizewinners - I read the first of my 10 prizewinner books last week, Angela's Ashes. It's one of those books that I have seen lots of good reviews for, but never got round to reading before and I am glad it finally happened. It was a very well written memoir, which I love as it's all in the first person and you feel the teller getting older as the book progresses.

Classics - I have started reading the tenth of my 10 classics, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and am enjoying it so far. I am surprised at how much I have liked most of the classics that I have read, so may have to put together a new list of them when this one is finished.

On the exercise front, I am near the end of my second week of the latest Beachbody programme that I have started in my quest for ripped abs. I have started Brazil Butt Lift and intend to do this for 8 weeks before moving onto Rockin' Body for 4 weeks. It will then be time for holidays and I am hoping to start P90X again after that.

My Flylady habits have fallen by the wayside somewhat at the moment, and I have realised that I need to be ruthless and throw things away. First stop in this was attacking the front room and clearing those hot spots (the table and the Kachelofen). I have also been looking into getting a steam cleaner (eg the H2O x5 or a Kärcher) as this may help ease the cleaning burden (once the de-junking is done) and will be cheaper than getting a cleaner.

I have also been checking out new DVD releases to see what is around so I can continue with that challenge. I went onto Amazon (after checking out play.com) and found that it was a lot cheaper to buy through them so Amazon now have an order for 5 DVDs from me (admittedly two of them are more for the boys - Happy Feet 2 and Puss in Boots, but they still count, right?).

I also managed to pick up a couple of classic films off my list while I was at the airport on the way home from the UK the other week following a very exciting conference... :-)

LJx