101 Progress Check - February 17th 2013

Hello :o)

I have done very little towards my 101 this week.

I still haven't reviewed the list to see what's outstanding and what things I no longer actually want to achieve.

However, the one thing I have done is start the Les Mills Combat programme through Beachbody, and despite the fact that it's tougher than it looks I am a full seven days into the sixty day programme and am feeling very pleased with myself.

I'm making no promises to myself about what I'm going to do towards my 101 things this week as I am concentrating on the fitness first and anything else is a bonus.

Have a great week,

LJx

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 - 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

101 List Progress Check - 28th October 2012

So - what have I managed to do this week?

Well, I finished "The Sea" by John Banville - another book that although I enjoyed reading it, I found it quite disjointed (lots of flipping from one time to another) and although I can follow what is going on, it's not a style of writing I particularly like so I'm guessing I probably won't read this one again. I have just ordered "Wolf Hall" for my Kindle as it is the final prizewinner book on my list and am kinda wishing I'd read the reviews before doing so, or at least not read them after I'd ordered it... I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to find this particularly hard-going. It sounds that there are quite a lot of grammar issues, which are likely to totally do my head in. Fingers crossed I won't get too frustrated as I will insist on completing the book even if I don't enjoy it... Happily I don't have to start it immediately as I am currently reading "Glory Bus" by Richard Laymon. I try to read at least one book in between my "challenge" ones to keep me sane... I'm not sure that's working out so well... oops!!!

My exercise hasn't gone too well this week and therefore my abs are totally in hiding. I really need to give myself a big kick up the butt and get on with it!!!

One that I forgot to include in my post last week was my purchasing of a posh/designer handbag. Technically it could be said that it's not a handbag, as it is a manbag. However, surely a manbag is just a handbag for a man... I was looking for a proper handbag (girly and everything), but spied this fantastic thick brown leather Fossil manbag and was immediately seduced... The first thing I checked was of course if I could fit my A5 Kendal in there (I checked that at the shop before I bought it) - it wasn't easy to get in, but it is a chunky thing, although it's not a bag to put your A5 in if you don't want it getting scratched by the zip - that's one chunky zip too...

I have started on my quest to get all my Christmas cards and presents sorted by the end of November. I have ordered some of the presents I need to get already, have found what I'm getting for the boys for their main presents, and will be sorting out nieces and nephews on-line during November. I was hoping to order cards from the UK to come across with my mum, but really can't find anything worth ordering, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and see what I can find over here this year. The intention is to get them and write them all out before Mum goes back to the UK so she can take them back to post for me. :o)

I have also been doing my Christmas planning in my Dodopad, so it's all going well at the moment.

I am still considering doing the Fabulously Frugal challenge from November 1st, although I'm not sure yet. I need to write my declaration and list my exceptions, or a detailed declaration. For example, I could choose to eliminate all spending on stationery items and not specify anything else, or I could plan to be frugal on everything and list only the exceptions . I think I may be going to the UK at the end of January for a family get together, obviously flights etc will cost money, but I won't exclude myself from going just because I am having a frugal 3 months. Likewise, I don't intend to cancel Christmas, just stop spending as much on myself :o)    And that sounds like I usually buy myself Christmas presents... that's just weird...

I have half of number 92 on my list completed - all the electrics have been signed off in our house in the UK, so that's one less thing to worry about, just the gas to get done and then I can cross that task off.

The fitting of the new shower has also finally happened, and there is no need to re-do the whole bathroom at this stage, so that one can now be crossed off - yay!!! The extra good news about this is that if I stay with Dave again at any point, I now know that I shouldn't get scalded in the mornings by a temperamental shower that hates me. Yay!!!

There is one other item that is currently in the pipeline and which I will be able to mark off as complete when I do my progress check on November 11th, but you'll just have to be patient to see what that one is - in fact, I am so excited about this one that it may get it's own miniature post on the day that it is done :o)

Have a great week,

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 21st October 2012

Well, I don't seem to be making a huge amount of progress in my 101 in 1001 at the moment. I'm feeling a bit lacklustre about the whole thing for some reason - more planning required methinks!!!

So what's happened this week?

I've started reading The Sea by John Banville, I haven't got that far in it yet as I haven't done any reading the last couple of nights, but am planning on going to bed reasonably early with my Kindle tonight :o)

I did some more exercise this week, although still haven't managed to get into a routine yet. I did Tummy Tuck from the Brazil Butt Lift programme on Wednesday morning (my ribs felt like I'd been in a fight from Thursday afternoon until Saturday morning, and still feel a bit bruised now), and yesterday I did Kenpo X from the P90X programme which is great!!! If I can get into doing at least three workouts a week (even if I only do 30 minutes) then the abs should begin to do something...

Transferring my CD's to iTunes - well, I had Friday off work so thought if I switched on the pc then I could just swap CD's each time I walked past... using this method I managed a grand total of zero CD's, as I didn't actually get round to even turning the pc on - useless!!! I guess I just wasn't designed for multi-tasking :o(

I am aiming to get all the Christmas cards and presents sorted by the end of this year , so I've pulled out my Dodo Book of Christmas with all my lists from last year ready to go. I'll also be using this to plan everything else for Christmas - food, what to get, cooking plans etc.

Yesterday we I spent too much money and think that, as well as wanting to complete a Frugal is Fabulous 3 months challenge, I am beginning to need to. Despite previously being a total anti-shopper (I could go into town knowing what I needed to find, and by the end of my shopping trip I would be grumpy and would have decided that I didn't really need anything on the list anyway), I am now a bit of a shopaholic, it is time for intervention...  Thankfully my DF has taken over the anti-shopping mantel. So I think I need to make the decision regarding when to start my fabulously frugal challenge, I will be going back to Caribbean Princess' blog to check out the rules and tips.

The question is, do I start my challenge next month, or should I wait until after Christmas? I will still be allowed to by things for Christmas and I will need to work out exactly what my official declaration will be, and what is excluded (eg buying Christmas cards and presents for people).

Have  a fab week.

LJx

101 List Progress Check - October 14th 2012

It's that time of the week again - what progress have I made this week?

Prizewinner books - this week I read Amsterdam by Ian McEwan. I thought I'd have a quick check of the reviews on Amazon to see what to expect and was very wary when I saw that it only had 2.5 stars (many of the lower marks appeared to Ian McEwan fans who compared this book negatively to his previous books). However, I read it cover to cover in a couple of days, and it didn't feel like a chore at all. If that's Ian McEwan at his worst, then I'm definitely going to check out some of his other books :o)

Music - CDs to iTunes. I decided to get a few of these done on Friday evening, and had forgotten how quick and easy it is to do this. I'm going to do a few each day and hopefully it won't be too onerous and won't take too long to complete.

I've just ordered a tape to MP3 converter from Amazon ready to transfer my tapes to iTunes - that's going to take some time, but at least it means that I'll be able to listen to all my old music again.

Ripped abs - I'm finding it hard to get started on this one again. I did the P90X 2 Core workout on Sunday (which nearly killed me) and the Brazil Butt Lift Cardio Axe workout on Tuesday. P90X Chest & Back was planned for Thursday, but I ended up pulling an all-nighter at work on Thursday (it's been a long time since I've had to work through to the early hours of the morning - and boy did it knock me for six!!!). Unfortunately this scuppered my chances of getting a workout in on Friday or Saturday as well. However, I'm feeling a bit more alive today, so am planning on doing P90X Shoulders & Arms later today (that's going to hurt tomorrow as I've done no upper body work in ages...).

That's it for this week. Catch you next time. Have a fab week.

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 7th October 2012

Hello!!!

It´s time for another update...

OK - so the prizewinner book "Paddy Clarke ha Ha Ha!!!" by Roddy Doyle did grow on me. I found the style of writing quite off-putting at first, but as the character gets older you notice the changes and it is very cleverly done.

Ripped abs - hmmm, well today I have started again and taken my Day 0 photos ready for comparison. Thankfully the work I did earlier in the year, despite only being for a short time, wasn´t all wasted - I lost 11 kilos at the time, and have only put 1 back on, so hopefully the exercise will be able to tone me up reasonably quickly. I did my first workout today which was X2 Core from the Beachbody P90X2 programme - it nearly killed me, but that´s a good sign right? Anyway, I think I´ll leave the P90X2 to Ben and stick mainly to P90X myself - with maybe a bit of Brazil Butt Lift thrown in for good measure. The main question though is do I do the full 90 day programme (exercising six days a week) or do I just try for three workouts a week...?

Scrapbooking - nope I still haven´t actually done any yet, but I have discovered Jessops photo books, which I can use to have my photos printed into books for posterity - how did I not know about these? I love looking at old photos, but since going digital I hardly ever print any out at all, but with this I can upload photos, design all my layouts, add text, borders etc. It´s not quite scrapbooking, but to be fair, it´s not a million miles away from digital scrapbooking. I may make up a few books and then save physical scrapbooking projects to be done for special occasions.

I also had a proper look into the world of digital scrapbooking and found the app ScrapPad for the iPad. Unfortunately I don´t have any photos on my iPad yet to be able to create any meaningful pages, but it is so simple to do and there is a pretty good selection of backgrounds and borders. My two boys also had great fun playing with the app and creating pages, just using the backgrounds, borders, embellishments and stickers that are in the app. For only 3 pounds it has a good selection, and you can get more kits for around 99p each, although you don´t need to. I´m going to be looking to see if I can get this app for the MacBook as well, who knows, I may even be able to print some pages out to go in my filos or on my desk at work.

Hope you all have a great week.

LJx

101 List Progress Check - August 13th

Sorry!!! I have got behind (seems to be my general state of being at the moment). Work seems to be getting a bit hectic again with project work, and I have just got my boys back from the UK and the started kindergarten and school today. Tonight they are back to normal, not going to sleep and getting out of bed every ten minutes because daddy's not here to give them a talking to - joy!!!

So, here is the lowdown on my 101.

Prizewinner books - I have now completed The Color Purple and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is definitely one I would read again in the future.

Classic films - I finally got round to watching the rest of Taxi Driver. The ending is not quite what I was expecting (although, to be fair, I'm not sure what I was actually expecting), but was done in proper bullet fest mode :o)

Supplements - still ploughing through these babies... yum!!!

Ripped abs - OK, so I have totally fallen off the wagon with this one (mainly thanks to my dad and his feeder personality - and my obvious lack of willpower). I have now put back on five of the eleven kilos that I lost. However, today Ben came home with one of these body fat scale things and apparently I have a body fat percentage of 38%. Having since looked on the internet and discovered that in most guidelines this puts me in the 'obese' category I have decided that:

                 a)       the scales don't work; or

                 b)       38% isn't actually obese (although that sounds pretty high...); and

                 c)       I really need to get back on the healthy eating and get some sort of exercise routine

                           re-established (stopping recording that in my filo was a bad move - I lost all
                           accountability)  

                 No-one needs to worry that I am suffering from any illusions as to my size, I know I am not huge and have no intention of trying to lose three stone or anything drastic as that would make me officially underweight and in danger of malnutrition. Just for info, I currently weigh 59kg (approximately 9st 2lb), and am 5'6".

Seeing Jessica Ennis in team GB has also helped my motivation - she is stunning, and those abs? Utter perfection.

Skincare routine - four weeks done, and I have kept it up since I finished (apart from one evening), so there is hope for me :o)

Finish work on time with no work to take home 2 days a week for 3 months - I have finally got round to checking my work log (I have been monitoring as I am trying very hard to leave work on time every day, apart from monthend, and have been doing pretty well). I have discovered that I completed this particular challenge quite early in June, and have further success regarding the third of my working hours challenges.


Work very late for 2 nights at monthend, and 2 'normal' late nights per month with no work to take home for 2 months - I managed this for March, April and May, but it messed up by one extra proper late night in June due to some project work, but as the challenge was only for two months then it's all good - yay!!! In fact, the last few monthends haven't even needed 2 very late nights, just the one for the close itself - double yay!!!

And the final work one...? As above, but with hours back in the form of working from home on Fridays with an early finish... Well - for the monthend close nights I have been having the hours back in  the form of time off, I don't do that with the standard late nights though as I don't see a need to. When this challenge was set my working hours were excessive to say the least and I really didn't think that the working hours challenges were going to be achieved so early in the 1001 days, and that these hours have now pretty much become the 'norm' for me is pretty amazing.

I am happy therefore to say that all my working hours challenges have been met, and as much as everyone likes to laugh at my Filofax collection and how much I love them and praise them, it is pretty much entirely down to the use of them for work that I have been able to achieve this more balanced work/life thing. Go team Filofax!!!

Ooh - almost forgot!!! I successfully completed my two weeks of being nice. The last day was a bit of a struggle, so I just had to remember how much effort I had already put in, and that I didn't want to have to do the first 13 days all over again just for one mindless comment :o)

Have a good week,

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 18th February 2012

Hi all, sorry I'm not keeping this as up together as I'd planned to and have been writing the bare minimum for the updates - P90X is keeping me pretty busy and seems to be taking up so much of my head space too that I'm just not having the time or inclination to think about anything else - even my poor Filofaxes are beginning to feel neglected. So at least the ripped abs challenge is still currently on :o)

Another fairly short run down of where I'm at as I started to write this a week ago, got sidetracked by a workout and an afternoon out and have to work out shortly and then it will be time to finish getting packed to go to London for a course as I have to leave in the morning.

I now have one classic book left to read as I have finished The Great Gatsby since my last update, which is a book I'd heard quite a lot about as the year above me at school read it for their English A-Level, whereas we got Sergeant Musgrave's Dance or something like that... I wish we'd been given the Great Gatsby, it was a good book and I couldn't put it down.

I have also started on the Shakespeare plays, with the first being King John. It has been many years since I read any Shakespeare and it took a while to get into it and work out what the hell was going on, but I seemed to get the hang of it towards the end. I'm not sure if this is a challenge that I am going to be enjoying or not yet.

I was doing so well with drinking my water the week before last. Monday to Thursday I drank 1.5 litres each day at work and then drank more during and after my workouts, but then Friday came and I just wasn't thirsty. I couldn't drink that much no matter how hard I tried. And as for weekends - I have no hope. When I'm at work it's not to bad as I grab a 1.5 litre bottle out of the cupboard in the morning and it is there, right in front of me all day as a reminder, but Saturdays and Sundays I am lucky if I remember to have a drink at all before lunchtime. I have no idea how to get over this - I have never been one for having a good fluid intake (apart from in the past on Friday & Saturday nights, but that's not quite the same thing). Will try again this week and see how I get on...

Eating my 5 a day is getting there - I think I am probably doing it most days as part of my following the P90X nutrition guide as well as doing the exercise, but I must start to log this properly somewhere so that I can be sure of what I am achieving.

I need to set up some kind of proper schedule in my beloved Filofax so that I can schedule everything in and log it all properly. I have proved I can do this to my benefit with my work stuff, hence I am now up to date with my work and am almost down to my planned 42 hour week. To assist in my organisational skills I will be spending a little of my airport time planning tomorrow, and will be visiting the Paperchase store on Tottenham Court Road to browse the various inserts, pens, stickers, tabs and all the other stationery - it's nothing to do with the fact that I am obsessed with stationery and FF inserts at all!!!

As I have to be in London next week, I think I should aim to complete another of my challenges - to see two West End musicals. I am planning on getting tickets to We Will Rock You and Rock of Ages. I may even be tempted to go and see Shrek the Musical while I am there as well.

I should also be able to watch a couple of new to DVD releases as the person who I am going on the course with has a Love Film subscription - it's all going on this week!!!

Wish me luck,

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 14th January 2012

Woohoo - doing well this week!!!

On Sunday we had a visitor and I actually cooked - and nobody died (either of shock or food poisoning). Thank you Jamie Oliver for a lovely chicken pie recipe - and I never would have thought of cooking peas with lettuce, but it was surprisingly good, so that's task 59 done, and 1 out of 6 for task 60 (6 new recipes).

P90X is going well so far (that is of course if you class being barely able to walk for the last two days as going well - I am currently walking like John Wayne and can only walk down stairs if I walk sideways like a crab...). But I'm hanging in there, and DF and I are both following the nutrition plan as well as the exercise plan, although I only managed 30 minutes of the 90 minute yoga session today.

I have to admit that I'm not sure I can manage the full 90 day course as it is a minimum of an hour of exercise a day, which I struggle to fit in when I get home from work, and as my youngest son has a habit of waking up before 5am, by the time I get home I am pretty well done in for the day. I did consider trying to fit it in before I go to work, but I'm pretty sure that the neighbours downstairs wouldn't appreciate it if I were to start exercising at 4:45am each day :o)

I'm planning on sticking it out as long as I can with the full programme, and if I can't keep it up then I will at least get the Tony Horton 10 minute trainer set so that I can make sure I am doing something everyday and doing some of the P90X sessions on days when I have a bit more time available.

That's all for now,

Have a good week.

LJx