february in pictures

It's been a busy month, and that is for sure! It's already halfway through first term. My goal of punctuality has not been going terribly well. In fact there is a chance that I have actually got worse! I have taken the step of asking my daughter to enforce the same morning rule on me that applies to her. That is, no free choice activities until I am ready. I get too distracted reading my iPad checking what has been happening while I was asleep, and then I leave it too late to make lunch and get in the shower. Next thing I'm freaking out because we are running so late. So if I can get myself ready early, then I can have the privilege of free time. Now I have said it, I have to do it. And hopefully my girl will yell at me if I slip up!!

Back to Chantelle from Fat Mum Slim's February photo-a-day challenge... I have been loving it and I thought I would share some of the things I have discovered:

1. I love that some of my real life friends are playing along. I especially love that my sister and I have connected with the same people on Instagram, just like we do in real life.
2. Sometimes it has made me try something new or make something happen that I have been meaning to do for ages. 
3. It's been pushing me out of my comfort zone.
4. I really enjoy writing and I love the photo as a point of departure for a story.
5. I don't make enough time to proof read and am constantly discovering typos after I push publish!

Are you playing along for March? Let me know if you are so I can check out your interpretation of the challenges.

day 48-60 (february photo-a-day day 16-29) or how did I get so far behind?!?

It doesn't take much for the house of cards to come tumbling down does it? Even when it is something you love doing it can still fall to pieces. A couple of school evening commitments, a busy week at work followed by a work trip away and next thing you know I am 13 days behind in sharing my Fat Mum Slim February photo-a-day pics with you. For some of these days I had planned a bit more of a story to go with them but as things have turned out I think that would be a little excessive, so I will save those stories and extra pics for a different day and for now I apologise for taking so long and giving you so many pics to look at in one go...

Day 60 (february day 29) - something I'm listening to

It's raining it's pouring, the old man is snoring. Well not really, but it is wet and windy and I am feeling annoyed about it. I have just gotten home from five fabulous days in Sydney, where we (Intrinsic) were exhibiting at the Home and Giving Trade Fair. I ate and drank way too much and am now feeling very podgy! I arrived home late last night and have the day off today. After sleeping a little too late this morning I optioned up on one of Andrea at Fox-in-flats' tips for the school run and threw on my gym gear. I did actually plan to go for a run, but I had a princess moment and the rain put me off. Instead I am sitting here on the computer listening to the rain and hoping it will ease off enough for me to actually run.

Day 59 (february day 28) - money

Money... or lack thereof (it's been a big weekend!)

Day 58 (february day 27) - something I ate

What and amazing Lebanese feast at El-Phoenician restaurant in Parramatta! The food was so good, the waiting staff were super friendly and the company was perfect. The only down side was the contribution this made to my current podgy feeling!! (But I still say totally worth it!)

Day 57 (february day 26) - night

Not sure that I nailed this one! It is the view from my lovely hotel room at the Pullman Hotel in Olympic Park with the room reflected in the window. Hmmm.

Day 56 (february day 25) - green

First day of the fair and when I sat down to have some lunch and flick through Instagram I realised that the theme was green and my spinach quiche and spinach and cous cous salad seemed like it would be my best option for the day. 

Day 55 (february day 24) - inside your bathroom cabinet

I left home for the airport at 5:30am so the last thing on my mind was taking photos. By the time I was thinking about the photo-a-day challenge my bathroom cabinet was inside my daggy old toilet bag that I have had for getting close to 20 years!

Day 54 (february day 23) - shoes

I do love shoes, but continuing my time poor theme of the last week, there was no time for staging some gorgeous shot. Instead these are one of my favourite pairs of shoes and are perfect for powering my ride to work.

Day 53 (february day 22) - where I work

My paid work is at the most gorgeous Intrinsic. We create beautiful greeting cards, gifts and stationery to inspire the world. The Intrinsic studios are located off the charming vine covered Chesser Street in Adelaide.

Day 52 (february day 21) - a fave photo of me

A photo of a photo, I want to say how very post-modern. But I know that just dates me as being old enough to remember a world where photos existed only in albums or in frames. And to get a copy meant taking the negative to the photo processing shop. Anyway this is one of my favourite photos of Miss M and me. It was taken by my lovely sister at Pt Vincent, my favourite place. I did have a couple of runners up for fave photo, but I asked Miss M to help me choose, so of course she chose the one of her looking super cute.

Day 51 (february day 20) - handwriting

My hand-writing on top and I think my Nanna's hand-writing on the bottom. I found the recipe tucked inside a very old edition of the Green & Gold Cookbook. I'm glad that I do have some handwritten recipes. I hope that my grandchildren enjoy reading them, like I enjoy reading old family recipes. I'm pretty sure they won't be pouring through my collection of pins on Pinterest, or looking through my bookmarks on my computer filled with nostalgia. There really is something about handwriting that evokes the presence of that person. 

Day 50 (february day 19) - something I hate to do

I hate tidying. This is the dumping ground that is my office. When we have people coming round I do an emergency surfaces tidy and everything lands in the office. I spent day 19 sucking it up and tidying this disaster zone. By the end it was looking pretty good. Not perfect, but a really good start.

Day 49 (february day 18) - drink

It looks like I spend a lot of time sitting around drinking coffee. And maybe I do! Day 18 saw me back in my favourite Saturday spot with a cafe latte and about to make a very late jump onto The Slap bandwagon.

Day 48 (february day 17) - time

It was time to clear this c**p out of my life. I was inspired by Sarah at A Beach Cottage to just get stuck in and do it. She issued a de-clutter challenge and I put up my virtual hand and said I'm in. Unfortunately, my good intentions were also derailed by my busy week. And I am a beach cottage de-clutter fail whale. But that's okay. I did make a good start and got rid of some stuff that had been hanging around for ages. And I even got $16 for the bottles! What I did do on day 17 that was awesome and I am going to continue was to set the timer for one hour and put as much as I could fit in the car boot and then took it straight to the Salvos. And that felt fantastic.

Phew! That was long. Well done and thank you if you're still reading! How has your February? Did you have good intentions de-railed by other commitments?   

day 47 (or feb day 16) - something new

We were at the supermarket in the spreads aisle. I lingered too long and Miss M was bugging me about Nutella. Since I quit sugar, I have just stopped buying stuff that has sugar in it at home. Nutella is one of the things she really misses still. And I have thought about making it quite a few times, but there was always a reason not to try something new and potentially messy and fiddly.

I didn't really have anything for today's theme, I had just been planning on photographing my new groceries (lame, I know). Having a go at making Nutella seemed like a much better plan.

I had bookmarked this home-made nutella recipe ages ago from chez us (I suspect I originally found it on Pinterest - where else!) Oh so this means that this is also another pinterest to real life project... go me!!

It was a little bit fiddly, but over all fairly easy. I made a couple of tweaks to the recipe. I didn't have cocoa nibs, so I just added extra cocoa powder. Next time I would not do that. I used dextrose power instead of sugar, so I needed to add two extra spoons (probably because I used too much cocoa). I used rice bran oil instead of hazelnut oil. I just used regular salt. Hmmm... it sounds significantly different to the original recipe.

I bet the Chez us version is AMAAAZING. Because mine was pretty awesome! Although it was too rich for poor Miss M. I think it is a very grown up version of nutella. I would definitely make it again, just with less cocoa, so hopefully the poor girl likes it. Although she might like it tomorrow, she's like that sometimes with new food.

Have you tried doing anything you have pinned, or are your pinterest boards just dream boards. I'd love to know what you've made. Feel free to leave the link if you like?

day 42-46 (or february day 11-15)

day 46 (or feb day 15) - phone
I wanted to do something interesting. I really do love my iPhone but I couldn't work out how to take a photo of it. Then I started to see the pictures coming up on Instagram of reflection shots. (I don't know why I didn't think of that!) Some were quite clever, like reflections in sunnies and rear-view mirrors. Not just bathroom mirrors. My sub-concious was pondering away on what to do today, and I remembered these earrings. When I was in high school I went on exchange to Chile. I got my ears pierced when I was over there. Mum and Dad would never let me! I then went on an earring purchasing frenzy! Which included these telephone earrings. I think that I used to have them in red and white as well as black. All I could find was this one.

 day 45 (or feb day 14) - heart
We don't celebrate Valentine's Day. I think it comes from a bad first experience in the early days of our relationship. Mr G ordered flowers to be sent to my work, and was expecting to get an excited thank you phone call, or at least some sort of acknowledgement. But the florist stuffed up and forgot to pack the order!! He thought the reason I didn't say thank you was because I was seeing someone else and wasn't sure who the flowers were from! But I just thought he didn't get me anything. Not good!
Clearly we moved past this early hiccup, but we haven't bothered with Valentine's gifts since then.

I got a bit excited in the morning and decided to make the girl a Valentine's themed lunchbox with pink and red food and love heart sandwiches. I also wrote a little Valentine's note for in her lunchbox (like I said I got a bit excited!) Anyway, I picked her up from school, almost bursting with my fabulousness, and as soon as we got in the car I was asking "how was your lunch today?" Her answer a deadpan "good". Hmmm I tried again with, "but was anything especially good?" "Yeah, it was all good" Anyway this went on for a while before I burst and had to ask "What about the love heart bread and the note!!" Finally she remembered and said that she thought it was nice. NICE! Just NICE! I went to all that trouble and the best she could come up with was NICE!

We talked about it again later in the evening, (I wasn't quite ready to let it go!) And it turned out that she did actually really like it all, I was just too eager bugging her with questions as soon as we got in the car. (Note to self: hold back and don't' get too excited about stuff, try to act cool with the girl)

With a theme of hearts there had to be something from Intrinsic. And my kisii stone that I keep on my desk. To round out the heart theme, Miss M got changed out of here school uniform and came out wearing her Melbourne Heart soccer top. Perfect choice and I didn't even ask her to do it. She wasn't happy to be photographed today, so logo only. It's an inexact science with getting permission to use her photo.

day 44 (or feb day 13) - blue

I was full of indecision today. I tried taking the blue sky, which was very exciting to see after the un-summer like weather of last week. But it didn't really say blue to me. I kept looking at the blue foam on the trampoline nets and thinking that I wanted to capture that feeling. Lucky for me Miss M was feeling co-operative and agreed to dress in blue and jump on the trampoline. 

day 43 (or feb day 12) - in my closet

I took a big deep breath and decided to tell it like it is. My real life looks nothing like my Pinterest boards. I am a slob! I have a lovely bid walk-in-robe and I don't even keep it looking nice. With my new Instagram addiction I have found a new blog A Beach Cottage. Sarah is doing a massive declutter at the moment and has called for others to join in. In a moment of craziness I accepted her challenge, so I look forward to this being a before photo in an awesome closet blitz!

day 42 (or feb day 11) - makes me happy
Miss M has a new Saturday morning activity that gives me a blissful hour to waste on The Parade, Norwood. It is conveniently close to the delightful Mary Martin's Bookshop with its lovely little cafe. I sat there this morning loving the peace and quiet. I had brought along a bag of recipe books to read through. I was looking for a vegetarian recipe to make for dinner that night. I found a recipe for mushroom and leek pie that gave me then inspiration to do my own version. It was so yummy. And I had an awesome evening with a people I like a lot and don't see enough of.

day 41 - self portrait (or feb day 10)

Here I am, back in my bathroom photo booth! It is the best spot in the house for me to take a self-portrait. I love Friday, pretty sure that I have already explained why my day off is so awesome here. Anyway, I don't have any school obligations today (YAY!!!!!!!) so I dropped the girl at school and before I came home I took a quick detour to the fabulous Taylor Blend for one of their oh so good coffees. Surprisingly I didn't see anyone I knew there. It tends to be a bit of a after-the-school-drop-off Mum hang out.

Hmmm.... coffee....

Anyway I suspect it is things like buying coffee that explains why I don't have money, rather than the Feng Shui I tried blaming it on yesterday!

So you love coffee so much? Where do you like to get yours from?

day 40 - front door (or feb day 9)

Our front door looks right through to the back of the house and out the back window. I am not sure what a Feng Shui expert would say about it. I suspect it explains why I never have any money. (Because that could not possibly be my fault!!)

day 39 - sun (or feb day 8)

February has been doing some very poor work weather wise. And I will preface this by saying that I am so grateful to not be sweltering through the usual +35ºC heatwave that normally kicks in as school goes back, but it would be nice to see a little sunshine.

Today's photo challenge was sun and I did not see any sun on this day *sad face* so, I decided to make my own sun! While Miss M was doing her homework, I found some joss paper that we'd bought for an old craft project and I cut and pasted my own sun. Of course my girl was inspired by this and had to get in on the act too. It finished up being a pretty fun to do. And a good reminder that I should get the craft stuff out more often.

Have you had something that seemed bad turn out to be good?

day 38 - button (or feb day 7)

I have been feeling a little podgy since the Christmas holidays. (And the scales are backing me up on that!) Even though I have stopped eating sugar, I still put on 4kg over the holidays. I suspect the fabulous support I give to the Australian wine industry that is the cause of my problems!

I had thought that I would try Feb Fast, good thing I didn't get sponsorship, because I only lasted 3 days. I caught up with my sister after school on Friday and, well, she thought that a cheeky glass of bubbles might be good to settle our nerves. And let's be serious, that can only be a good thing! I thought maybe the rule could be that Friday's don't count. But then on Saturday night I was babysitting my nephews and had got the kids all set up to watch a movie after dinner and really started to feel a bit wine o'clock. I fessed up to my hubby about my Friday afternoon bubbles, and he fessed up to beers at the soccer! And we both agreed that if we felt like a glass of red on a Saturday night we absolutely deserved to have one!

Anyway, the point of that long rambley story is that I like a weekend tipple and my new thing is to cut out bread and pasta to try and ditch my xmas pudding. I made hummus on the weekend and have been having that with salad for lunch at work. When I started eating my lunch I remembered that the challenge for today was buttons. And I had button mushrooms in my salad. How good was that!?

Did you put on weight over the holidays? Have you managed to lose it yet? What works for you?

day 37 - dinner (or feb day 6)

Today's challenge was dinner. And it was a big "oops" for me! Miss M and I arrived home from swimming lessons, she was starving and I was in a hurry. I wanted her to do her homework and eat dinner before we had to be back at school at 6:00! I scoffed my leftover quiche with some salad (actually just some lonely lettuce), feeling very proud of myself for having the forethought to have made extra last night. 

Then I remembered that I was supposed to have taken a photo first! Oh well, too late, an empty plate it is. When we got back home my girl was of course still hungry, so we made banana custard for dessert. I think this makes up for the dodgy dinner performance. And I promise to try harder next time.

What do you do to make up for a poor performance, do you make dessert to make amends? Do you give yourself a mental beating or are you forgiving of your flaws?

day 36 - 10:00am (or feb day 5)

10:00am was time for a Sunday morning coffee before going round to my sisters house. I was supposed to have gone for a run, but it was raining and I am not very good at running by myself at the best of times, so it wasn't that hard to stay in my PJs.

I am going to do the Barossa half-marathon again this year. I had said that I would not do it again, because I know how much work it is to train for it. But then our cycling team, room2move, are getting a group to go up and stay the weekend, and, well, it turns out that I am a sucker for a thing! So here goes, back to the training again. Yikes!! But I do love running with friends. I love to chat and catch up with out kids interrupting or listening in. It seems a little extreme to do a half-marathon just to get a private conversation, doesn't it!?!

What lengths do you go to to stop the kids listening in? Or just get some time to yourself?

day 35 - a stranger (or feb day 4)

I had a lovely 45 minutes to waste by myself on Saturday morning on the Parade Norwood, the perfect place to go was Mary Martin's Bookshop for a coffee and to soak up the beautiful books.

I was feeling a bit anxious about today's challenge (a stranger). I don't talk to strangers. I'm too shy. I discussed it with my daughter and she backed me up by saying that if I did talk to a stranger, then they wouldn't be a stranger anymore and then it would be breaking the rules. So I was completely out of my comfort zone today. As I was waiting in line for my latte I switched my phone to silent, so that it wouldn't make the clicking noise and pretended to text while I was actually taking total stalker photo of the young boy serving.

When have you felt out of your comfort zone? What did you to do cope?

day 34 - hands (or feb day 3)

I love Fridays. I work Monday to Thursday and I have Friday as my day off. Don't get me wrong I absolutely love what I do, but it is always nice to have a break. Somehow Friday's aren't really a break though. I have a terrible habit of over-committing. I think one of my old uni lecturers summed me up perfectly when he said that I like to bite off more than I can chew comfortably! I always seem to manage, but there is a whole bag of crazy that goes with it.

Anyway, Friday morning I went along to the first school assemble for the year, then had a meeting with the school principal to go through some stuff for Parents and Friends, then quickly back home, before meeting my mum and sister for lunch.

I love my iPhone and all its organising technology, but sometimes an old school palm-pilot note is the best way to remember stuff.

How do you stay on top of things? Do you use high tech organisers, or are you more old school diaries and address books?

day 33 - words (or feb day 2)

I work for Intrinsic and all of our products have the inspiring words of Adèle Basheer on them. So with the theme for today being words, it could only be the works of Adèle. This is my favourite quote:

You are the star, the dreamer, the creator of your destiny, unfold your wings and weave your magic. Adèle Basheer

Plus it is my beautiful butterfly illustration prettifying the words. And this is my new favourite product. It is our hopes, dreams and wishes journal or our Intrinsic version of a goal journal. I wrote in mine over the Christmas and New Year's holiday and one of my goals was to start a blog. And here I am. How good is that?!!

Did you set any New Year's resolutions? Did you turn them into goals? How are you going with them?

 

day 32 - my view today (or feb day 1)

I should have learnt to read ahead with the photo-a-day challenges. But alas I am still being caught out by my lack of preparedness (hmm... pleased to see that preparedness slipped through the spell check net, I wasn't sure if it was an actual word!) Anyway, the challenge for Jan 30 was nature, and I chose to take a photo of the gorgeous view across the Adelaide Hills from our back yard not thinking that in 3 days time the challenge would be your view!

It felt way too boring to replicate day 30. I wanted to take a photo of my view as I ride into work through the lovely leafy Adelaide suburbs, but I couldn't find a spot to get the right feeling. Instead I have chosen a city montage.

First: I love riding my bike through the beautiful parklands that surround Adelaide. But I feel massively annoyed by the construction that takes over Victoria Park from November to May as they assemble and disassemble the temproary infrastructure for the Clipsal 500 (v8 super car races).

Second: Lovely, lovely Chesser St. There is a really cool looking bike parked right outside our office door. Sadly it is not mine. Mine is safely locked away until home time. (Check out the photos below, Chesser St has become even more awesome with a Splash Adelaide Installation, it's only there for 8 weeks so we have to make the most of it)

Finally: The view through my window at work.

day 30 & 31 (plus catch up from day 3 & 4)

Whoo hoo!! I did it!

I am so proud of myself for seeing through the January photo-a-day challenge. I have previously 'fessed up to my pinterest addiction, and this is the first time I have actually done one of the projects I have pinned onto my I could do this (maybe) board. So that's a pretty cool achievement for me.

I know that the idea that came first was project365, but I still can't remember where I first read about that. I am looking forward to kicking on with the February Challenge

If you are looking for a creative challenge you should play along too. My daughter is even inspired to play along. She has been posting some photos onto my instagram, but she has decided to use her DS to take the photos for Feb. (If we can work out how to get the photos off the DS, I might even share some of her creativity - any tips on photo extraction from a 3DS would be appreciated)

I'm thinking that for Feb I'll post a photo-a-day wrap up once a week, and, because life isn't busy enough I will attempt to try more projects from my I could do this (maybe) pinterest board.

So below are my final photos to wrap up January + the missing ones from day 3 and 4...

day 30 - nature

I was really hoping for a koala to photograph for day 30, but I could only find koala poo. That seemed kind of gross, so I decided to go with our gorgeous view over the Adelaide hills. Only problem is I really should have looked ahead to the Feb challenge, because tomorrow's challenge is your view today. I'm going to have to get creative.

day 31 - me, again

day 4 - letterbox

When I was out scouting for koalas, I remembered that one of the challenges I had missed was letterbox. Nice work me. Only one missing photo now.

day 3 - something I adore

I could have gone with someone from my family, but I'd really done enough of them, and our puppy (he's not really a puppy, he's actually nearly 12 and is really an old man now) hasn't had an appearance yet. And I really do adore him. When he isn't driving me nuts wanting to be let in and let out and in and out and in and out.......