The weekend to do...

Currently I feel my life is ruled by lists - things to do lists, budget and lists of bills, a list of things to do around the house, a list of items to post on ebay lists lists lists…  Then there are the lists of things I need to do at work like uploading the 3 lists of client groups and contacts onto the database…  And the two lists I wish I was looking at most and not the least would be the list of things I would like to buy and the timetable at the gym…

What I've lacked to tell you is that some of these lists then have sub lists – on my list of things to do there is tidy the house, well this has its own list of specific things that need to get done around the house. 

Some things on the list of things to do make me laugh because this is week 3 or 4 and they are still there (really must start that assignment and paint the hallway, which would actually tick off 5 things over 3 lists…).

Anyway I believe this is called procrastination.  I must leave it there so I can tick off item 1! 

my creative space

My creative space this week should be about pretty paper, buttons, white frames and old pictures but unfortunately its more about the jumbled mess in my head and my growing list of things to do.  I am a list person, I like a list of things to do, I like to write a packing list when I go away, I like to write a shopping list.  I think it’s a flight of fantasy to be organised.  I am in lots of ways a very organised person but on the outside I don’t think it looks that way unfortunately.  I never stick to my shopping list, I always over pack, I am messy but I don’t loose things, I am always over prepared and I have an exceptional knack of pre-empting things happening.  None of those attributes make me a bad person I think they are good attributes, there are just lots of things that I wish I could change.  I want to be tidier, I want to be a minimalist, I want to be fitter, to stop shopping for unnecessary and save more.  Essentially I want to set goals and achieve them.  Baby steps me thinks, above is my weekend list of things to do (colour coded and everything) let’s see if I can get through that and then next week I’ll try for household domination (shouldn’t be hard its between me and the cat). 

...my creative space...

This week is all about the plans swimming around my head... 

2 down 10 to go...

So I have finally finished 2 craft projects!

I could only be bothered using my phone and the quality when the flash is on is rubbish but my glitter shoes are done and on the bookcase (although I need to load a heap of books onto ebay so that they can get off my book case and then the shoes can have their own hole!).  I think they look great although the entire living room is still covered in glitter it doesn't seem to stop appearing, so at least its sparkly! 

And although you might think I am posting about the giant pimple that I created but actually its the seed cowl all finished.  I'm really happy with how it turn out and it looks a lot better than I thought it would.  Now to start and then finish all of the other projects swimming around my head. 

I have been wanting a particular piece of art on the wall above my bed for a long time, and I have decided that I will never find it.  Yesterday I was at my parents place and mum and I went for a wander around the Bondi markets and I saw this picture and fell in love with it.  I bought it and my mum asked where I was going to put it, I said in the bedroom.  Now I have an fabulous idea of what I want whilst I continue to look for the painting I have in mind, I now just need to find a load of old frames, some old pictures and take a few photos of certain things - I am excited and can't wait to start! 

Turns out it was my not so creative space…

At $14 for a ball of wool (which is a lot more than I normally spend on wool as I am never going to win any awards for my knitting) I knew I wanted something really lovely done with the wool that was purchased last week.  So the Debbie Bliss yarn has been shipped off to my mother (who is a much better knitter than I am) with a pattern for a gorgeous cowl created by Julianne Smith.  Thanks Mama!

I am still slowly working on my seed stich cowl I started… oh last year sometime.  I have set myself the task of having it done by the end of May, I’d like it done by the end of the week but I’m not home much this week so that may very well not be a possibility.

So this week my creative space (actually my creative space has been sat on my coffee table for a week now waiting for the second coat, which let me tell you was not the place to have done this project if you wish to complete it might I recommend a lovely space in someone else's backyard!) is a slight variation on the above which is something a friend sent me from this blog she reads.  I have failed to take a photo of mine as yet but they are a bronze / brown colour and will be an ornamental piece on my bookcase.  I'm definitely a shoe gal, I'm just not a glitter shoe kinda gal!

…My Creative Space…

I have been reading various blogging peeps creative spaces for a couple of years now and I think I might join in this week.  Maybe its cause its colder and I want to knit (actually I really want to learn to crochet if I’m at all honest) or maybe it’s as simple as I bought this bee-ute-ful wool at lunch and I’m thinking a seed stitch cowl (which is about as fancy as I can get stitch wise and I’ve never done a cowl that actually works… ). 

Wish my creative space luck as I browse on over at www.ravelry.com and some more luck as I knit on the couch over the weekend.  Lucky I just have the perfect sitting spot, the best at home coffee (nespresso of course and my machine is about 10 years old and still is my fav kitchen appliance), and hours of awesome crap stored up in my Foxtel IQ!

The eyes are powering the imagination…

I have read 2 books and I feel like I am powering thru the reading pile and I am all inspired to tick those 15 books off the list so I have started to read another 3 books – all this week! Maybe I should just try having one book on the go and then when that is done another and reading properly which is how I ended up reading the last 2.  I concentrated on the Mephisto Club and then repicked up Whistleblower (which is the book I was actually reading and not under the knife, it was a two books in one by the same author so an easy mistake to make).

Wicked I just can’t get into it cause I want to picture it as I read it like the stage show and it’s not how I remember the stage show to be, however I will keep on reading just not very often and will be the long book process that I pick up every couple of weeks read a chapter and then put down.  Which I find such a shame cause I LOVED the stage show!

So on the reading list is:

Do You Come Here Often – Alexandra Potter

I am a few pages in and I can tell it’s going to be a quickish easy read.  Here’s hoping.  I have it on the bed side table so that I can encourage myself to read before bed and not watch DVDs in bed – but I’ll write another post about my habit breaking!

The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

Which a chapter in I am quite enjoying, I didn’t think I would so that is a nice surprise.  I almost feel I am slow on the uptake of this book as it was obviously a big hit before (and after) the movie came out and I haven’t even seen that.  Although I think if I had then I wouldn’t bother reading it as one would wreck the other.

The Spare Room – Helen Garner

I bought it last night and I was tossing up between it and another book called Almost French (I was in Dymocks and was doing the 3 for 2 deal, and there are a couple of others I will go back and buy with Almost French another time) and I went with my heart and purchased The Spare Room.  I started it on the bus on the way home and its 195 pages and I am 60 odd in and I don’t want to put it down.  It’s not that it is the best written story, or that it is the most amazing story, it’s more that it is just an easy read, written in the style of writing that I think I would write in (it’s also based in Melbourne a city I love and miss, so I can picture it as well).

Well its Thursday I wonder if I can have at least one of them done by Monday…

One room down 1 to go…

So the painting in the bedroom has now been finished (oh since Easter) but here it is…  

I have now decided to do the rest bit by bit.  Just need to decide on a colour. I did a sample of “Chinx half strength” over the weekend and I think it is too pink.  So back to the drawing board.  The hallway will be done this week with Antique White USA (as soon as I find a free night). 

I have also found the white linen set I would like.  I certainly can not justify spending that much on new linen at present so that will have to wait till a) I save some more pennies and b) Sheridan have a really good sale!  The joys of champagne taste and a beer budget I guess.  

Antique White USA & Warm Neutral = life on the edge!

It's a 5 day weekend in Sydney for Easter and Anzac Day.  Its the perfect weekend to DYI around the house.  So I decided to paint my bedroom. The walls in my house are all a grey white colour and I hate them!  Since I moved into my little unit I have wanted to change them and this is the perfect weekend to start, and as I am doing it myself with the help of my wonderful mother I thought I would start small and with the bedroom.  It should be a sanctuary anyway and somewhere you want to be.  In time I'd also like to change my furniture but first things first right! 

I decided to go totally outrageous with colours and I selected Antique White USA for the main colour and Warm Neutral for the feature wall, very safe, very plain, very me.  I have 5 or so sets of bedlinen in various different combinations of neutral browns, greens or blues.  So the colours I have selected are perfect for my preferred palette.  I'd also really like a white set of linens however I have spent so far 2 years searching for the right one however I haven't yet found it but when I do the walls in my room will be perfect for that too! 

So yesterday Mum and I have relocated 3/4 of my bedroom into my living room (which is driving me crazy but its 3 days and has to happen), sugar soaped the walls and taped all the skirting etc.  Today we did 2 coats of the main colour and tomorrow we will do 2 coats of the feature colour.  I'm excited I can't wait until its done and I can stand back and admire my handiwork.  Its not the job of a professional painter but the work of me and that is pretty exciting!


So before its done here is what it looked like before:

Can't wait to be able to post the after...  Maybe I'll strike it lucky and find the perfect white bedlinen on Monday.

I was all prepared & excited & there was rain...

I was all set to check the first thing off the 30 list last weekend - camping!  


A good friend had asked me a few weeks back if I'd go camping with her and a group of others for her birthday....  "Erm - ok" I say as I knew that I was planning my list of 30 and that I was putting camping on it.  I probably should say that if you know me you would know very well that camping is so NOT my thing.   I've never really been and I was happy this way, I really have no desire to sleep in a canvas room cocooned in a sleeping bag outside in the middle of nowhere - NO DESIRE AT ALL!  Everyone tells me its fun, I'm thinking no no a 5 star resort, cocktails, swimming pools that is fun, sleeping outdoors and cooking on a fire not so much...  So to grow as a person and try things that take me out of my comfort zone camping went on the list.


So I went and bought a tent, a sleeping bag, an esky, I'd even bought a camping pillow and a head torch.  I was set, I was ready, oddly I was excited.  Then the night before it rained, and then it rained some more and as we were about to set off camping got called off.  Thankfully the organisers have postponed the trip and at some stage there will be camping.  But alas I did not have to spend the weekend like this... 

Opps... I'm not good with "the list" already...

Well I am a week overdue in one of the list items, but in my defence last week was a tough week.

Tuesday  I turned 30 which was my scary age. Turns out that turning 30 is pretty good.  I treated myself to a morning at Urban Spa having a hot stone massage and a facial and followed it with an afternoon at the Art of Hair.   Which meant I was preened, relaxed and beautiful for a dinner with the parentals at Spice Temple!  I don’t know which part of my day was the most delicious, but possibly it was the Hot and Fragrant Prawns, nah I think it was defiantly the massage!

Wednesday was the last day working at a company I had been with in 3 different offices over the last 7.5 years.   I thought it was going to be a very emotional day, however it was full of handover and training meetings so there was no time to dwell on the past and get sad as I won’t be returning.  All of which are very good things!  The office sent me off with the most gorgeous bunch of flowers (that I can still smell walking up to my front door) and 3 pandora charms (I’m a lucky girl).  I also had a few last drinks (which saw me strapped to the couch in the foetal position for most of Thursday…  

Saturday I went out with 20 close friends and family for dinner and drinks, I had a great time and got very spoilt.  It was just such a fabulous way to end such an emotional week! 

Challenge Started!

It was a wet windy miserable weekend and there is nothing better than sitting curled up on the couch watching good crap on TV in weather like that.  It struck me as I sat there that it’s the perfect knitting weather, and wanting to do at least 12 crafty something’s in the next 12 months what better time to start…  So a quick fruitless trip down to the storage locker and back-up into the back of the linen press found I had 3 balls of wool, which is where I remembered that I gave all my wool to the lovely goodwill people before I left Melbourne.  I told myself last winter that I could only have something on the needles and a project waiting not 40 odd balls of wool hanging around with no direction of what they would be used for.  So on I cast with 28 stiches and a cowl or scarf (I’m undecided) in seed stich is being created… 

On track to 15 books...

One of the things I want to get done in the list of 30 is to read 15 books - sounds easy over a 12 month period but there are times where I just can't get into reading even though I do enjoy it.  I am currently in the middle or start of 3-4 books and I just can’t get into any of them, one of which surprises me as its my favourite stage production, but I think I just keep thinking “this isn’t how the show went”.  I will none the less continue with trying.  So the first 3 books are:

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

The Mephisto Club - Tess Gerritsen

Under the Knife - Tess Gerritsen

I see a trend with my reading here...

Why am I here again in blogland???

Recently an old family friend was catching up with my parents and he mentioned that he had met a woman who had turned 60 that year and she came up with a list of 60 things she wanted to do in the year she turned 60.  He then gave that challenge to his daughter whom was about to turn 30 and was looking forward to catching up with her to see how she has gone in the challenge.  As I was about 8 weeks off turning 30 myself I thought it was a great idea so here I am 2 weeks out from the big birthday and I’m trying my hardest to come up with a list to complete, lets see how I go...