101 Progress Check - 17th September 2013

Hiya - is anybody still there?

It's been a bit slow going over the last few months, but I had some news the other day that, while making things a bit tricky initially, may actually free up some of my time in a way that I can work on these challenges (especially with the ones involving my boys).

The boys love going to childcare after lunch club/school, but unfortunately the lady who has them needs to cut back on the number of days that she can have our two - have I mentioned before how Switzerland is really not set up for families where both parents work outside the home (especially if they both work full-time)? It's really not ideal - I won't go into full details here, there's enough for a whole post on this, but let's just say that even though Christopher (my oldest) is now 8 and in his second year at school (after 2 years in Kindergarten class) my oldest boy is still only in school every morning and two afternoons a week.

Thankfully they can still go to the childminder on Mondays and Fridays, so it's only Tuesday - Thursday that we need to deal with. I'm looking at this as an opportunity to see if I can change my working hours. As much as I would love to be able to cut the number of hours I work I doubt that this is possible, however, if I can juggle them around a bit I may be able to work from home 7:30 - 13:30 on Wednesdays so that I can be home for the boys when they get home. This would mean that basically I will have an afternoon each week where I can do things with my boys and catch up on bits around the home, leaving the majority of my weekend free so that I'm not trying to get everything done at the same time - yay!!!

Anyway, back to the progress so far...

On Sunday (after a manic afternoon entertaining small boys for Marcus's 6th birthday party) I thought it would be nice to watch a musical, so I looked down my list (having crossed Fame off the other day as not actually being a musical - I was very disappointed when I realised that it was just a film with a few musical numbers in it - and not a very good one at that). Oklahoma was next on the list, hmmm... a nice bit of Hugh Jackman and Maureen Lipton? Yes, that'll do nicely - until I realised that the version I have isn't that one. OK, so South Pacific... I haven't seen that yet... three minutes of black screen and music before the credits start (yep, old film, so many of the credits are at the beginning), then three minutes of credits before the film starts (starting to lose the will to live now), but then it starts... and I really just couldn't get into it, I was gutted, I was expecting to really love it, but I couldn't seem to understand a lot of what was being sung and it felt quite slow going. I may try it again another day, but not just yet. So what did I do? I watched Hairspray!!! Yes, I have seen it before, but I like it, and it is a musical and by the time I got to that point I really just wanted to watch something that I would definitely like :o)

I started my challenge to drink Rooibos tea every day for two weeks on September 8th, and I'm still going strong. I like Tick Tock rooibos tea, so will have to pick up another box when I'm in the UK for the Philofaxy meet up at the end of the month.

I discovered the other day that, yes, I CAN walk in high heels. I have a pair of heels that I used to wear sometimes for Salsa and they are fairly high, and a bit chunky, but not so chunky that they lose the feeling of walking in high heels. I put them on to see how they would look with a dress that I have, and I managed to walk (like a proper lady and everything, instead of just wobbling around) through the apartment - now all I need to do is get some high heels (not stilettos, I have no need to try to break my ankle) and wear them. I'm not sure yet where I'll actually wear them, but it will happen :-)

Next - a very exciting announcement - on Monday morning at 9am as soon as they went on sale I got some BIFFY CLYRO TICKETS!!! They announced on their Facebook page on Saturday that they were adding a venue in Zurich into their tour schedule on November 18th, and because it's an additional venue it's quite a small venue - perfect!!! Now all I need to do is sort out a baby sitter, which could be fun as it's a Monday night, but I will find a way :o)

I feel that it's time to review the outstanding challenges that I have - it's all very well setting 101 challenges, but during the course of 1001 days, things change, what you thought you would really like to do, you realise you actually aren't that fussed about, you discover new things that you'd rather do instead, you realise that there are other things that are more important than some of the things you had originally planned, or your children aren't actually interested in the things you thought they would be.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks I will be doing some more planning and reviewing and will make some changes to my list. For example - taking the boys to three shows... they've been to the Batman show which they loved, but do they want to go and see two others? No? I've tried The Lion King, Shrek the Musical and a couple of other things I thought they may be interested in, but they don't want to go... so I am thinking that will be changed to "Take the boys to see a show". Others may just not be practical to do in the remaining time, I could just say, "oh well, I didn't do it", but if I do that to one thing it's so easy then to climb onto the slippery slope of not bothering to try to achieve the others - I think it is more sensible, and challenging, to change the challenges to things that are actually do-able.

One thing on the list that may go is "camping" - realistically I can't see it happening this year now, and it is very unlikely to happen in the early part of next year. There is also the issue of the initial layout - is there really any point in buying all the gear, to only use it once? We went to Europapark in May and stayed in a covered wagon (no, nothing like a caravan, more like a tent with a wooden floor and small bunk beds), Ben keeps asking if we can just class that as camping - I'm really doubting that, although we were cold, had to walk across to the toilets in the night, and walk in pyjamas to the shared shower block, so it wasn't totally dissimilar. But... and this I feel may be the main issue, we missed out on the whole "trying to put the tent up, getting stroppy, finally managing to get everyone in, only for it all to collapse during the night" experience...

Anyway, that's me done for now - time to stop waffling :o)

Hope you're all having a great week.

LJx

P.S. Apologies for any spelling errors - I haven't read through this to check it's all OK, and spellcheck isn't working for some reason...

101 Progress Check - February 10th 2013

Woohoo - it's Sunday again, and I have made some progress (not stacks, don't get too excited).

Last Sunday I did actually get round to watch the musical film "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" which I loved. I am sure there are many people out there who wouldn't really go for this, but I loved it :-)

This week I received an email saying that the old gas boiler has been replaced at my house and all the gas stuff has been signed off, so now I have both the gas and electrics signed off - and crossed off the list - result.

My boys have been away and are due home this coming Friday, so Ben and I have had some time to ourselves, and although it would have been the ideal opportunity to go out for dinner or something for our date night, we decided to stay home with a couple of drinks and watch The Expendables. It may not be everyone's cup of tea for a date, but it suits us just fine. It was lovely to watch what we want and have a little drink, without listening out for the boys, or thinking that it is too late to put it on as we have to get up early in the morning - perfect!!! Tonight we watched The Expendables 2, but as we watched that straight after the rugby at about 6pm I won't class that as a date night :o)

I have finally got myself ready to start attacking the abs again. Today I watched Les Mills Combat basics in preparation for beginning the programme tomorrow. 

This week I have also started writing a gratitude journal to go in my happiness binder, but need to get into the habit of doing it everyday. Once I have got this up and running properly I will take some pictures.

Have a great week,

LJx    

101 List Progress Check - February 3rd 2013

Hi All,

I have been an utter failure over the last two weeks, being away and now having a skanky cold which has fuzzed up my little brain and taken away all the energy I have.

I haven't reviewed and updated my whole list as I promised myself I would, and have achieved very little.

I did however keep my promise to myself that I would go and watch Les Mis at the cinema while I was in the UK (Hugh Jackman & Anne Hathaway in one film, who could resist). I have never seen  the stage show, but can tell you the film is amazing. However, if you don't like musicals, don't go and see it and then start whining about the fact that there is too much singing in it. I will tell you now, there are very, very, few spoken lines in the whole of this rather long film. I am so looking forward to it coming out on DVD so I can lie in bed and watch it with tears streaming down my face :o)

O loved it so much that when I got home I downloaded the soundtrack to my iPod, which has apparently done nothing to help me sleep as every time I wake up I seem to have songs from the show going through my head on a loop... oh well, I can think of worse things to keep me awake at night...

You will all be pleased to know that since the end of my No Shopping challenge, my spending skills are back on track and I have lots of new goodies to share with you (as soon as I am feeling well enough to stand up long enough to take lots of photos).  :o)

This afternoon I may chill out and watch one of the musicals that I have recorded, now what do I choose.... Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or Calamity Jane?

Have a great week :-)

LJx

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