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.

my crazy life (or running late again)

You can tell schools back. All my good intentions have gone out the window as the after school activities and Parents and Friends Assiciation responsibilities kick in. I had hoped to have my February photo-a-day pics up today, but after my mammoth day it is just not going to happen!

I'm typing this on my iPad and I can't work out how to post photos from here. (if anyone does know how to do it, could you please tell me?) I can't be bothered to go to the computer right now, just to post photos.

Miss M had art class straight after school (which is great because it means I can stay at work a little longer) I'm illustrating new cards at the moment, and I was a bit too in the zone and I left work late, which meant I was late to get Miss M and she wasn't happy. Then we were off to her basketball. I organised for one of the other mums to take her back to their house, because I had to go back to school for acquaintance night. I'm president of our P&F association (slightly crazy I know) and I had to talk to the year level groups of parents, encouraging them to be part of P&F, and talking up how fun it is!

Then I had to rush off to my basketball. (which we lost, again)

So here I am watching that movie with Sandra Bullock and the cute boy whose name I can't remember where she's a Canadian about to be deported, making excuses for not doing something I don't even have to do. I AM crazy.

So anyway, I promise to put up photos tomorrow.

happy 40th anniversary Mum & Dad

Love is knowing someone completely and totally and still loving them, in spite of the things that make your head explode.

My mum and dad celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary last weekend and their love and relationship is an inspiration. Neither of them are perfect. And they certainly drive each other crazy from time to time, but when you hear the concern in Dad's voice as he talks about Mum's health or see the look on Mum's face as Dad spins her round on the dance floor, in those moments you are seeing true love in its most beautiful and most enduring form.

They wanted to celebrate this milestone with just us, their immediate family, so we joined my sister's family and Mum and Dad at the Ventnor Hotel in Port Vincent for dinner. We had actually all been at Pt Vincent for the Australia Day weekend, so it wasn't like it was so special to all be catching up, but it was special to not have to cook dinner or do the dishes!

My sister, Roxy, and I wanted to add a little something special to the evening, and, even though I actually make greeting cards for a living, I had forgotten to get a card from work, so my daughter (Miss M) and I wandered off to the local shops to see what we could buy to decorate the table and make a card with. I was hoping for some love heart confetti, but no luck. Instead we bought some love heart stickers, regular confetti, red and gold card, and some valentines cards to cut up. (Thank goodness it's nearly Valentines Day!)

We brought our loot home and Miss M got stuck into making a card. She has such an Intrinsic heart, the poem she wrote on the front of the card is so special. Roxy's boys also wanted to get in on the action and both drew beautiful pictures for Mum and Dad.

I got to work on the table decorations, and cut up love hearts out of the left over paper. I wrote little messages on the back of the hearts, which Mum really liked. I also cut up the valentines cards and cut the letters Newton loves Sue out of card.

Miss M and I went down to the pub early to decorate the table and to make sure the drinks were all on the table ready for when the guests of honour arrived. They absolutely loved it.

We had a great meal and as we were finishing our dinner, the weather started to change and we watched the clouds rolling across the gulf, and then the water crashing over the jetty. We had no choice but to walk home in the wind and the misty rain. It was still quite warm though and the weather had quite a magical quality to it. Miss M loved the wind and rain and danced out on the balcony when we got home like a water sprite.

Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad xx

Have you reached a milestone celebration recently, how do you like to commemorate your special life events, do you like to decorate up a storm and have lots and lots of people, or do you like to keep it quiet with just close family or your besties?