101 List Progress Check - 20th January 2013

Another week with little action - partly due to lack of motivation, and partly due to the smallest boy having full on flu, shivering under the duvet and complaining that he was cold, whilst being ridiculously hot, poor little chap. He still has quite a nasty cough, but is back to his normal, cheeky self, so he's fine :-)

So, what have I achieved this week... erm...

...well, I haven't achieved as such, but have moved a goalpost... it can happen at work, so surely you can do it in your personal life, no?

My three month fabulously frugal no shopping challenge came to a premature end at twelve weeks, which is good enough for me. I had a tough day yesterday (no reason, just my head feeling like it needed a bit of a treat) and had already been considering ending my challenge a week early, and then those wonderful Philofaxy fan enablers worked their magic. By the end of the evening I had bought not one, but two new Filofaxes, and bid on another on eBay, but I was happy and smiling lots - success!!! :o)

Today I have ordered a few more bits and will shortly be ordering a new printer as our one is totally dead, and I need to be able to print at home.

I realised today that technically I have copied all my CDs to iTunes, so can cross another one off the list. No, this isn't because I have finally done the ones that were in the car, but because I have realised that none of the ones in the car are actually mine. Yay!!! Obviously, when they finally make it into the house I will copy them across to, but the actual challenge is done.

Next week I will be in the UK most of the week, so there will be no progress check list, and very little progress, although I will be one step closer to watching 10 musical films, as I *will*, one way or another, be going to see Les Mis at the cinema. I can't wait, and don't worry, I will make sure that I have a huge box of tissues so I don't drown myself...

Before my next progress post I will also be reviewing the outstanding challenges/tasks on my list to see what I mean to achieve through doing each one. I have been prompted to do this by my feelings this week regarding the no shopping challenge. It was something others had done, I had read about and thought "Oh, that's a good idea" - but why? Do I overspend? No. Do I have no understanding of where my money goes? No. Is there something specific I want to save for? No. Do I buy lots of unnecessary rubbish? OK, so this one is a matter of opinion, and yes, I admit that I may have quite a lot of stationery/filofaxes..., but it's really only been the last couple of years that I have been spending on these.

Prior to this I was Miss Anti-Shopping and would go into town with the express intention of buying new clothes, nail varnish, lipstick, shoes, but by the time I left town I had bought nothing, felt a total failure, and decided that I didn't need any of it anyway :-)  I typically hate shopping, but buying these things (or even just looking at them in the shops for hours) has made me actually enjoy shopping, and I am even able to manage to buy clothes too - see, it's my therapy - ha ha ha!!! ;-)

Have a great week :-)

LJx

Aargh!!! Please Just Medicate Me Now!!!

OK - so this is just going to be a rambling post this evening as I am getting myself tied up in knots with this ridiculous OCD of mine.

I was just going to bed to chill out with my Kindle for a bit and get a super early night and had no intention of blogging at all.

Then (as so often does) a few little niggling thoughts came into my head reminding me that there are rather a lot of things that I need to get on with, so I thought I'd do the sensible thing and write them down and try to get myself a bit organised.

I'm figuring I should just have a catch all notebook to keep by me whenever I am using my computer at home to list things such as books to read, films to watch, recipes to try, quotes, Filofax ideas, stationery to try/buy, scrapbooking ideas, etc, etc.

The next thought to pop into my head is my neglected 101 list, I am in need of some motivation as my head has been filled up with work stuff again recently, with all the fun of yearend and a project that I'm working on (coupled with sick people at home).

Then I realised where I was writing all this down... was it in my trusty Filofax? No... and there begins the problem. My personal (as opposed to work) Filofax is currently a beautiful Holborn zip, so why was I not writing in there? Is it because when I'm just jotting down thoughts I write in my big, comfortable (sometimes illegible) style - and as I don't embrace this style generally, maybe I am not correctly equipped (big paper, wide lines... lots of space), or maybe I just want my babies to look gorgeous inside as well as out?

Oh well, my mind wasn't going to dwell on that for too long as I will be going to the UK next week where my Plannerisms planner is waiting for me (in Teal, yum!!!).  Time to think about how I will use each section of this to help me be more organised and calm (ha ha ha!!!). I have a list of what the set up is of the planner, so just need to figure out what will go where, but... and this is a BIG but, where did I write it down?

I have spent the last 10-15 minutes before sitting down here searching to find which notebook I have written it in (I only wrote it three days ago) - I thought it would be my Star Wars Moleskine (blog book and now internet notes from other people's articles), no, maybe one of the notepads in my Flex, no, in the notepad (Oxford Office Book ring bound, lovely paper by the way), no... and I'd already checked my Filofax, I have no idea where it is.

And why can I never find anything I have written down (unless it is already neatly available in my head, or already planned and written neatly into my Filofax)? ...because I can't bring myself to write just any old thing into my Filofax, or any of my nice notebooks, idiot!!!

I think it is now time to deal with this ridiculous OCD behaviour once and for all.

For now, any rough jottings that are required will either go in my Filofax (even thinking about doing that hurts right now) or in my black ring bound Oxford Office Book, until it is full (that idea is less painful, so may actually work). I'm going to try to embrace my larger writing (even in my personal filo, it's not like I keep much in it anyway so I have plenty of ring space).

Right, now I've got that off my chest I'm going to go back to bed, move all the stationery off it (you'd be amazed how much stationery needs to be sprawled across the bed just to use a BIC biro to write in one notepad), and read my Kindle. I am not going to have any more organisey thoughts until at least the morning...

God night all,

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 13th January 2013

Very short today I'm afraid... I've done pretty much nothing other than work and be very lazy.

The other half has been rough (very rough) all week, and now the youngest one seems to be going the same way. I did no exercise whatsoever, however, today I have taken a look at the Les Mills' Combat programme which has arrived from Beachbody and the workout I saw looked amazing. It's a 60 day programme, and it has music that should will keep me motivated - MC Hammer "You Can't Touch This" anyone?

I have made a purchase this week and will write a post about it when it arrives, but as it was bought out of my Christmas money then it's allowed :-)

I have a couple of rolls of washi tape on their way to me from the lovely Alice, at The Wonderful World of Alice. I have sent her a goodie bag of various papers as a thank you, so I am hoping she will love them.

Have a great week guys and gals,

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 6th January 2013

Hi everyone - I hope you've all had a great first week to start your new year.

As for me, it's been hectic (work) and fun (weekend), and I am now barely able to keep my eyes open to type this post, so I apologise now if random words appear (or disappear) and it all makes no sense at all.

I have managed to complete my two weeks of taking my lunch into work with me, and will hopefully be able to start regularly spending less on my lunch each day.

I have completed my challenge to make Filofax dividers in different sizes, as blogged here.

The No Shopping challenge is still going strong, and I am confident that I can do this. There are only three weeks left, and I have some Christmas money to spend, and as that was a present to me for the purpose of me buying something I would like, then  to spend this allowed, no? My fingers are itching to start searching Paperchase and Art Box to see what amazing sale items I can find :o)

Last night I went to see Ben's band (The Real Deal) perform in the final of the Rock Highway competition. It was a fantastic night and there were 10 bands to see (most of which were very good, so the standard was very high). Unfortunately The Real Deal didn't win, but they were still very happy with the night as they performed very well. I got home at 3:30am, hence the inability to think today. I'm still trying to decide whether this counts as having go to see a concert, as it wasn't a traditional concert with a support act and the main act. However, it kicked off at 8:30, finished about 2:30am, and featured ten bands... it was a long night :o)

It's almost time to start on the new fitness regime (quite a traditional thing to do in the new year). I think I'm going to start this coming week by completing my three dance sessions in one week challenge, followed by the four Wii Fit/My Fitness sessions in one week challenge.

Once these two challenges are done I intend to start on my Beachbody workouts again, I just need to plan which programme/hybrid to do. I will be taking a leaf out of Amanda's book, from the blog Paper Pens Ink, and set up an exercise reward chart, and reward myself with stationery. That will achieve two things... Firstly it will be encourage me to be frugal, as it will stop me buying stationery I like just because I want it, and it should give me enough motivation to keep up with the exercise, so I have some chance of getting those ripped abs I promised myself.

I may have to change another of my challenges... I planned to take my boys to see three shows, and took them to The Batman Show last year. I thought they would love to have a family weekend in London, where we could take them to see The Lion King, and Shrek in the West End. Unfortunately I mentioned it to them and they really don't seem to want to go... I may try them with the idea again soon and see if I get a different response (we have time to go away in February in the school holidays), but if they still don't want to see them I will have to think of something else.

Off to get the kids stuff sorted ready for being back to school tomorrow.

Have a great week,

LJx

New Year, New Dividers!!!

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all had a fabulous time.

As for me, with two young boys who don't value sleep that highly, I didn't stay awake to welcome in the new year in, but that meant that I didn't have a hangover on New Year's Day and meant I had some energy for the day itself, to enjoy my time. Yay!!!

With the help of my Silhouette Cameo and the button pressing skills of my little helper I made some basic filofax dividers, using various scrapbooking papers. The templates were easy to pull together (although I may need to alter the A5 ones slightly as the tabs are rather large).

Here are the first attempts, cut from Mariposa paper (quite heavy) which I got from Mayflower1990 on eBay.

A5 6 Divider for Work Setup

Personal 4 Divider for Personal Setup

I chose to do these ones first as these are what I needed for my setups.

When they were finished I showed Marcus (the damaged child) who immediately asked if the personal ones were for him to put in his new Filofax - who could say no to that gorgeous little face?

Cheeky, crazy filofax nut on the left, and my gorgeous
more sensible boy on the right

Using my FF A5 metal hole punch (weird one, see photos) I put holes in the A5 dividers. Unfortunately, having left my Rapesco 6 hole punch at work I had to Marcus' ones with my single hole punch (there is no way he would wait until today, such a patient boy), so they are a touch large, but still fine.

Looks like a standard metal hole punch (the sort
I really struggle to use)

Made in Sweden - this is the front, straight up with no
angled lever handle thing going on

And the back... simple and yet so effective :-)

I didn't put any tape on the tabs of these dividers as they are reasonably sturdy, and to be honest, they're not really here for the long term. However, colour-wise they go beautifully with the Domino Snakes.

My A5

Marcus' personal

Marcus is very proud of his new filo and dividers and he has already started jazzing up his plain dividers. Here is his saltwater crocodile :o)

Next up it was time to try for the three sets from six sheets, as I worked out you can fit an A5, a personal and a pocket divider on one sheet, and now have files that I can use to cut each divider from. File 1 contains divider 1 for A5, personal and pocket, file 2 contains divider 2 for each size, etc.

As these were cut from a much thinned paper I used Scotch tape on the tabs to give them a bit of protection.

A5 and personal - thankfully you can't see the holes on
all the dividers as in my excitement of finishing them
when I got home this evening I punched the personal ones
with the setting on pocket... luckily I did the back 3
first - oops!!!

Pocket size in all their glory

I am quite pleased with my results, and pleased that I can now cross another challenge off my 101 in 1001, although I am sure this is just the beginning. Next stop may be to change the templates to include a pocket on the back.

One last pic as it is cute. Marcus had the offcuts from the first sets of dividers so I came home to this on the table...

Raiding his new pirate stickers and the craft box

What did you do on New Year's Day?

LJx