101 Progress Check - May 20th 2013

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay in the update, and apologies in advance about my lack of posts in the next couple of weeks too.

I am off to the UK tomorrow and then again the following week so will be achieving pretty much nothing in the way of my 101 challenges.

However, here is a brief update of what I have done over the last couple of weeks.

Family weekend away - check :-) We went to Europa Park in Germany for the weekend and stayed in a covered waggon (which the boys were very excited about).

Boys with sweet snack...

With Euromaus and prizes/presents

Our covered waggon

I decided to do my 3 sessions of Just Dance/Dance on Broadway in one week this week, I´d switched both for Zumba and Dance central instead as I have no idea where the other two games are, but managed one session and have neither the time or inclination to fit the other two sessions in before my flight tomorrow, so this is on hold again.

This and the Wii Fit/My Fitness challenge will both be on hold now until after our summer holiday as I intend to do a random hybrid of Beachbody workouts in the run up to going away.

But there is one challenge that is in the process of being planned for July - we are finally getting round to getting married (only 5 years later than originally planned). We ordered our rings two weeks ago, about a week after finally deciding we were going to do it in July) and so now have quite a lot to get organised in the next couple of months. But the one thing that we do know is that we will be going to Las Vegas - so that should make organisation at least a bit easier, no?

Have a great couple of weeks,

LJx

More Swapping and a New Family Member

Can I just say how much I love the Philofaxy community - there are now three splinter groups set up on FB, one for bags (there seem to be many people in the group who love their bags too, so Steve has set up a group to go with his Bagsey blog), one for washi tape appreciation (which seems to cover all the prettiness that people put in their filos, not just washi tape), and the fabulous Swap Sell Source Stationery where people can look to do swaps, find out where to get various stationery/filofaxes from and potentially sell some of their stationery that they no longer need to friends within the group.

It was on this last group that I spied that the wonderful Stephanie was looking for a personal ochre Malden and had a green Kate Spade planner that she was willing to swap for one. Did I have a personal ochre Malden, yep, did I like the look of the green Kate Spade planner, big, big, big yes!!! I have seems the one that Imy bought with her to the Philofaxy meetup in London and it was gorgeous, but the main thing to consider was could I cope with the fact that it has gold rings... that did take a bit of thinking about as I have a bit of an aversion to gold generally. I have a maroon Panama which has never been used (and probably never will be), mainly because it has gold rings. Being the Filofax traitor that I am I decided to go with the swap and was so excited when it arrived - OK, so it was actually the day after it arrived as I was expecting a knock on the door from the postwoman and I only discovered by checking the tracker when Stephanie messaged it to me that it had actually been delivered the day before. I sprinted down the stairs and out of the house, down to the bottom of the path, to my postbox and saw a package sat there (it had been there all the previous day and night poor thing, but it forgave me).

Check it out...

Badly angled shot, it isn't stumpy at all...

 Lots of pics inside, as it has the cutest inserts...

Inside front

Notes & Doodles

To Do

More To Do

Birthdays

Restaurants

Addresses

Inside rear

So my Malden family was sad to see it's middle ochre buddy leave, but they have welcomed the new Kate Spade with love and open clasps.

But what made the pain of their beloved friend leave, was the arrival of their new aunty...

Not to worry guys, aunty Rose is here :-)

As lovely on the inside as on the outside

I haven't taken a stack of photos of the new Malden addition as she wanted to get to her family as quickly as possible and fuss over them like a mother hen.

Thank you so much to the lovely Christa for selling me this gorgeous Malden - I had missed out on one on eBay a couple of weeks previously, so was very pleased when this one came up for sale :o)

LJx

101 Progress Check - May 5th 2013

Hi Guys,

Firstly I apologise for the lack of 101 updates over the last couple of weekends, I had to go to the UK for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, and last weekend I just really didn't feel like doing an update, although I had actually achieved stuff.

I took the boys on a family day out (minus Ben as he was away, but I'm still counting it as it was a success). We went to the wilderness park near Zurich, which the boys love so much and as the weather was lovely we saw a lot of the animals - even the foxes were out and showing off :-) The boys were most impressed by the frogs and the huge blobs of frogspawn though.

I had a few days off work and was mainly lazy (and felt guilty for being so, what is that about? even I know that I deserve some lazy days), but I spent a bit of time one afternoon doing my very first attempts at scrapbooking, using some photos of my chaps. As these were first attempts there is nothing ambitious in there, but I am happy with how they turned out, now I just need to buy a 12 x 12 binder to store them in.

Last weekend I tried out digital scrapbooking using a trial of Corel Paintshop, and it was going quite well, but I got a bit stroppy trying to get the photos to do what I wanted (I have very little patience, and I was already tired, so it probably wasn't the best time to try it). I also downloaded a trial of Photoshop Elements 11 (it turns out we already have version 9 as standard on our home pc which I was totally unaware of), which I tried out last night, and here is what I produced using the freebie that came from The Digichick via the special freebie for April on their Facebook page.

I'm not accomplished enough to get the photos to fit to the shapes properly yet, but I am very happy with the layout and even though it is quite flowery, the boys are impressed too :o)

So "Scrapbook 3 photos of my boys" - done :o)

On the fitness side of things I am very pleased to report that I have completed my Les Mills Combat programme and am happy with the results - I am still not putting up any before and after photos though as I would feel like an idiot. However, if I manage to carry on with the next programmes as planned then I may be looking my best ever by my 40th birthday and may post some then :o)

I was supposed to be getting my "3 sessions of Just Dance or Dance on Broadway in one week" challenge done this week, but as I can't actually find either of the games I'm a bit stuffed on this one. I should probably have swapped and done my "4 sessions on My Fitness in one week" instead, but got far too grumpy to do anything else when I couldn't find my dance ones. I was really in the mood to get started on the dance one and jump round the room like a loon, but it just wasn't to be. Today I need to get off my butt (before it starts to expand again) and get on the "My Fitness" challenge as I really want to get this and the dance one out of the way so I can get myself going on my next Beachbody programme.. which to choose, that will be the next question.

On the organisational side of my challenges I also have things to report. Before I do this though I have a confession to make - over the last 3 weeks I have barely used my Plannerisms planner for my household routines, this isn't because the planner doesn't work for me, but because I have been ridiculously lazy/distracted, so it's time to give myself a kick up the butt and get back on it.

However, I have managed to set up an events planner Filofax (using my lovely A5 antique rose Finchley) - at this stage it is pretty basic and I haven't taken any photos as I will be tweaking and prettifying it, but as far as the challenge of setting it up goes, it is done.

After my initial failed attempt at moving my Christmas planning stuff from my Dodo Book of Christmas to the A5 events planner, I decided that there must be a way, and there was - it's not perfect due to the size differences, but I bit the bullet and cut down the inserts to size (losing one year of Christmas card list functionality, which I can live with) and re-writing everything. So now all my Christmas planning is in my events planner Filofax :o)

I have also been doing lots of planning for one of the other challenges on my list, but I will let you know about that one a bit nearer the completion date... ;o)

I won't be posting an update next Sunday as I will be away completing another of my challenges "A Family Weekend Away", we are leaving for Europapark on Friday, and coming back on Sunday (which is Mother's Day here, so I will mainly be having a fun time and eating nice food).

Have a great week,

LJx