101 Progress Check - July 28th 2013

Hi Guys!!!

I'm back and ready to party!!! I've had a fab couple of weeks off work, starting with a family holiday to Centerparcs at Longleat, and then a wonderful trip to the US with my man.

So, let's see what's been achieved shall we - like you don't already know...  lol x

Well, my Plannerisms planner has totally fallen by the wayside at the moment as I use it to log food, exercise, cleaning etc, all of which has been completely ignored as far as routines go aver the last few weeks, but I will be pulling that one back into the fold shortly.

While I was at Centerparcs I went to the spa for an Elemis facial (amazing), and while I was there I had threading done on my eyebrows and upper lip as they apparently don't do waxing for these areas there... ouch!!! At least waxing is just a quick rip and it's done :-)

After Centerparcs Ben and I headed off to Vegas, arriving in the middle of a thunderstorm, flooded roads etc. We stayed at the Vdara hotel, and loved it - we had an amazing view of the Bellagio fountains from the huge window outside the door to our suite (we got upgraded - yay!!!). There is no casino at the Vdara, so it's not as manic as other hotels, but you can go into the others anyway - there is a short walkway that takes you straight from the Vdara to the Bellagio. When we woke up on our first morning there was no sign whatsoever of the rain the previous night - it was bone dry, purely because it's damn hot!!!

I'm not going to go through everything we did while we were there, but there are some amazing things to see and do in Vegas - many of the hotels are just beautiful inside (Venetian - wow!!!), there is great food (check out the Peppermill for breakfast - near The Riviera), and spectacular shows (we went to Mystere by Cirque du Soleil). We had a lot to do so didn't catch any others, but will definitely make a point of seeing more next time we go.

I'll let the photos say the rest as I cross items off my list:

Go to Vegas - check

Get married - check

Have a manicure - check

Obviously there had to be a Filofax present to represent the rest of the family :-)

Have a great week,

LJx

101 Progress Check - 30th June 2013

Hi Guys,

Well, this is probably going to be my last post for a while. Next weekend will be my last weekend before I go on holiday, and I still have a fair bit to do (and will probably be getting the stuff ready for packing sorted out).

I realised today (after reading Angela´s blog here) that I have one year left of my 101 in 1001 days challenge left, and looking at my list I still have quite a lot to achieve.

However, when I get back from holiday I will be able to cross off at least things off my list as I am off to Vegas to get married - woohoo!!! All my amazing organisational skills (ha ha ha!!! says the girl who ordered her dress less than three weeks ago, with an expected delivery date approximately four days before we are due to leave the country). But I have to say, the service from Light in the Box was fantastic, and the dress arrived twelve days after I placed the order - job done!!!

We had a total palaver with the only thing I did organise in plenty of time - the rings... We ordered then at the beginning of May and were told they would be ready in three weeks, and when I called them four weeks later to find out where they were I was told that they take three weeks so should be there in the next two weeks??? Needless to say I thought this was a rather strange response, but when you´re doing your best to deal with something like this in a language you´re not totally comfortable with it´s not easy. I left it another couple of weeks and called again (on a Friday afternoon), at which point the woman did say that they seemed to be taking a long time and that she would call them and call me right back... so I sat at my desk all afternoon on tenterhooks and... Nada... not  a bloody thing.
I tried again on the Monday to discover they were closed, and again on the Tuesday morning when another woman said she would call them and get right back to me. She was true to her word and called me back, only to tell me that the order had been lost due to a "technical error" - and asked when I needed the rings for. I said July 12th, and she asked if I´d be able to pick them up on July 11th... not really my idea of fun, waiting until literally the last minute so there would be no time to sort something else out if there was a problem, so we agreed on July 9th. But today I checked my work email and there was the mail I wanted to see - the rings are now ready for collection.

This little adventure has taught me one thing... don´t try to organise stuff too far in advance, someone or something else will only scupper it for you and add extra stress. Actually, it has taught me two things - the jewellers need a Filofax to keep track of when they are expecting items in for their customers so they can follow up on items that are late :o)

Apart from the big things like dress, rings and booking the flights/hotel I hadn´t done anything until last weekend (when I sorted out my Filofax to make my list). I have now done almost everything important(apart from shoes - as I have to call the store tomorrow to see if they have the shoes I want in stock, if not I will have to try for some others as these ones take 10-15 working days to deliver, and will be married by then). Hair and makeup ideas I guess will be next, but if I run out of time I can always shave my head and wear a headscarf :o)

Catch you all later, have a great few weeks,

LJx

101 Progress Check - 23rd June 2013

Firstly, may I just say I am very, very sorry - I have been absolutely shockingly rubbish at keeping up with my blog recently (I haven't even been reading the blogs that I follow), life seems to have just taken over at the moment.

However, I do have some progress to report :o)

Firstly, although I haven't been spending time teaching Christopher to read in English, because he is learning to read at school (in German) he is becoming more interested in reading English too. The last two nights he has been reading to Marcus at bedtime (which is so cute to hear), and is doing really well. I think he will be happy to spend some time with me soon to learn some of the rules so that he is more easily able to read words that he doesn't recognise.

We had a family day out last weekend, which was totally unplanned. We took the boys to NONAM (Northern Native American Museum) in Zurich for a look round with a couple of our friends in the morning and the boys joined in the children's workshop, so it was a couple of hours later by the time we left. Then we went to the park to have Bratwurst for lunch in the sunshine. The boys love the Chinese Garden at Tiefenbrunnen so we ended up going there for a while, before heading into town to get ice cream from the Mövenpick shop. By the time we got home it was almost time for dinner and we'd all had a great day - result!!!

And now the big stuff... wedding plans!!! Rings were ordered at the beginning of May (they were due to be ready 3 weeks later, but are now expected to be ready July 9th... not overly impressed, but as long as we can collect them before we leave I'm not too bothered), the dress was ordered last week and I've received an email saying it should be delivered tomorrow (I can't wait to try it on), and the flights and hotel were all booked via Expedia last week as well.

There is still quite a lot to do and less than three weeks left to do it all, but I'm sure it'll all get done. I finally got round to finding out what I need to do and now have a list, so I can actually start getting it done. Here are my outstanding tasks:
                       - get Ben's suit and shoes
                       - order clothes and shoes for Vegas (I seem to have no shorts, swimsuits, sandals etc)
                       - choose and buy wedding accessories (shoes, hair stuff/tiara etc)
                       - complete ESTA (otherwise we won't be able to get into the US)
                       - decide what to do re hair (colour, cut, have it put up...?) and makeup. I'm thinking I
                         may need to get someone to hair and makeup for me.
                       - book the wedding (decide on date and which package)
                       - pick up the rings
                       - cake (we probably don't need one, but they have fabulous wedding cakes there)
                       - pre-register for marriage license (we don't need to, but it saves time when you get there

Time to get moving :o)

Have a great week,

LJx

101 Progress Check - 2nd June 2013

Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish!!! Yes, I typed the title for this post yesterday and didn´t remember to actually write it - shocking memory!!!

Although I should look on the bright side, it´s made the post a bit longer :o)

As mentioned in my previous post, I wasn´t going to be getting much (if anything) of my 101 done in the last couple of weeks as I had to go to a conference in the UK, and then back to the UK again the following week for non-work stuff.

However, the first UK trip wasn´t without it´s benefits - I found a dress for my wedding!!! Or so I thought until the following weekend when my fabulous man just happened to spy a shop that stocks Italian suits. He tried on a fabulous suit and now I think he´s going to have to have it as he looks absolutely gorgeous in it - although I´ll have to make sure he doesn´t wear it for too long before the wedding, otherwise someone else may snap him up :o)

I still haven´t actually booked anything relating to the wedding yet, yes I know, so many Filofaxes and still completely unorganised about any of my personal stuff - ha ha ha!!!

So as far as my 101 goes I will be getting married, this will be achieved, it´s just that it may end up being a bit of a last minute thing :-D

Have a great week,

LJx 

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