{Create} Washi tape leaves

So the lovely Mandy sent me a lovely notecard and a little gift a few months ago (I know! BEHIND on blogging pics).

She said she saw these, thought they would be good with washi tape and sent me a pack. I love it (that she thought of me in Target and the leaves).

I actually needed the creative jumpstart because I did them that very evening, and that kicked off my washi tape notecards craze.

wearing my 2nd favourite colour, Sienna (Beaute - Clicks brand)

What have you created lately? 
Do you get random things for people? I do.

I think I need to set a little target again this year. Maybe 25 random gifts for people? I obviously won't blog it but I'll tell you in my monthly goals round-up how I'm doing. 

I think for the year I've done 4 so far. 

38 random acts of kindness

It's here - the big 38.

I must say, I feel about half that age although with a full 38 years of wisdom (ha!) and experience.

I did 29 gifts last year after being inspired by Dee (if you're still reading, HI!!!) and loved it so much I decided to make it a bit more regular.

So I've been doing at least 4, most months more, random acts of kindness every month over the last year and it has been fabulous.

Fabulous!

It's made me pay attention very well when people talk (or blog) to see if there's something I can do to bless them (eg our PA told me her word of the year was Hope and I was out shopping and saw a hope mug so bought it for her. Well, she was so touched. I love it!) and it honestly takes your mind off your troubles when your thought every week is, "hmmm, how can I show kindness to someone this week?"

Not that it always works so if I've not been kind to you (or you) in some way, I do apologise. But I have tried, and tried hard.

This year I want to do things a little bit differently but I'll write some more tonight when I post my 38 things list.

So let's get to it.

Please post in the comments and link yourself up, or if you write a post, then link up that post.

Let the games begin.


Thank you for helping me spread some kindness in the world for two weeks. It's not too late to do something nice for someone.

A few things

my kids love brushing their teeth

1. Well, I had a lovely 4-hour date with D today - I called it my birthday lunch. We went to a lunch with Jeffrey Deaver (do you know who he is? If not, he wrote the book that the movie The Bone Collector was based on)

It was at a very swish 5* hotel in the northern parts of Jhb and I ran intoTHREE people I know. I mean, really! One I work with - his wife was like, "so how do you know my husband????" and the other two I used to work with at a previous company so now we're just FB friends.

The author had a great Q & A and I connected well with all three ladies at our table.

Fresh from my travels, I felt absolutely No Shame in taking tons of pics. I feel like a bit of a freak at first and then I almost assume the role of Paparazzi and just go for it :)

I just love how she does this.

2. So the situation I spoke about yesterday escalated about ten times today. At one point we had 5 pees in about 1.5 hours. The child now has to wipe up the pee but still thinks cleaning is a huge adventure. We eventually resorted to bribing with M&Ms and had ONE success after that. It looks like we're starting the whole process again...

3. I finished the birthday party pics and all my July pics yesterday. I figured I'm on a roll, might as well get to it. Of course this means I have about 100 unread items in my Google Reader. By the way, I  "marked all as read" TWICE in my inspiration folder (otherwise called the folder I pin from) while I was away.

Now I just need to blog it all and get it on here. Cat took some pics too and uploaded them to dropbox but oh my soul, I just downloaded 4 tonight and decided there has got to be a better way because I'm going grey(er) downloading them pic by pic. Cat, can I please EFT you some money to put on a disc and send to me?

4. This Pinterest post is my favourite of the week - there are so many bits of genius in there. Don't read if you're drinking coffee - I nearly spat mine out right at my desk on Friday. Oh, how I love Claudia's writing. Claudia, you are on my list of bloggers to meet (in a non-stalker way)!!!


Last but not least, please put your link in my random act of kindness link tomorrow.

So how was your weekend?

What are you looking forward to this week? 

Well, for me that would be my long weekend. Thursday is women's day in South Africa and I've taken Friday off. As I said to my colleague, it's almost a sin to NOT take the Friday off, right?

And then I'm having a few friends over for a little lunch on Saturday. Yes, I'm mad. When we were in Charlotte, MandyR told me I'm too busy and I 100% agree. I'll slow down... after Saturday ;)

Next week's my birthday

On Monday next week I celebrate my birthday.

And I thought it would be really cool to ask you for a gift :)

What if each of us did just ONE random act of kindness for a stranger over the next two weeks?

It doesn't have to be monetary (although if that's how you're led, go for it); it can be anything - a phone call to someone, a lovely note, spending time with someone to encourage them, etc, etc.

Please don't get steeped in indecision because you'll procrastinate and this will pass you by.

So let me know if you're in and I'll next week I'll do a post and you can all post in the comments what you did.

How does that sound? Are you in?

PS I'm hoping that 38 people will participate ;)

I love long weekends but apparently not cooking!

First, I would LOVE to hear what you think about this.

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Because of the long weekend (and from my jaunt around the internet, we South Africans are BLESSED to have the Monday off too - free leave!), today feels very much like a Sunday.

Except I'm feeling very very lazy, and have no desire whatsoever to meal plan or pack my work bag, etc.

So here's some random thoughts about long weekends:


I love having time to read.

I've been saving up a book on my Kindle to read when I have lots of free time, like on this weekend. OH! If you've never read a Dorothy Koomson, you really should. (Shayne, especially you!) (Shayne and I have very similar taste in books) I've read about 4 and every single one of them is REALLY good. I was glued to my Kindle last night for 2.5 hours and carried on this afternoon while the kids napped. The minute my computer time is over I'm getting stuck into my book again :)

Besides this one, I'm making good headway into my non-fiction book for the month, read another NF and finished another novel. LOVELY!


I had time to create

I finished my canvas craft - it is up and makes me smile every time I pass it. Everyone else couldn't give a hoot but I don't care.


I had time to do stuff I never get a chance to do

I decluttered and organised 7 of the 10 shelves in our study/ guest bedroom. The other 3 belong to D and I'm not allowed to "organise him" :)

I packaged my random acts of kindness gifts for the month.

By the way, here's a fantastic post on ideas to encourage the awesome people in your life. I love this lady.

I napped and slept late

The kids are doing this cute thing these days where they wake up and then chit-chat with one another, laugh and giggle for a good 30 mins. As a result, they don't come look for us. It's bliss and verrrrry cute to listen in.

Only thing is.. because of all the napping and reading I didn't do any cooking except for some pasta yesterday. I'm actually really uninspired by food at the moment - will write more during the week.

We got out

We went to gym, lunch with friends, church and the zoo today. TONS of pics to follow.

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Anyway, Easter baskets!

I grew up gettting either a big Easter egg or a set of smaller ones. None of these Easter baskets and truth be told I never heard about Easter baskets til I got on the blogs.

What was your tradition growing up?

Well, you know me, any excuse for a little celebration so I bought stuffed Easter bunnies in 2010, did baskets last year and of course, this year.

Here's where I show you how frugal I am :

I used the same baskets from last year, I used the same bunnies from 2010 (I took them away about a month later so they're "new" to the kids; they will mysteriously disappear again in a few weeks time) and I just bought a few extra things:

1. pencils
2. miniature mug and bunny
3. chocolate bunny (we changed our mind at the last minute and took these out in favour of verrrrry small eggs)
4. plastic cars

these little mugs were a HIT - the kids have already had tea in them three times

Next year I actually want to use smaller buckets so I don't feel pressure to fill those things.

However, it was worth it because D said I'm a good mummy (!) and the children (unprompted) said, "thank you Mummy for the lovely baskets" after they'd unpacked and looked at everything. The good manners kill me - I love it!

How was your weekend?

PS Do you know what The Boy said to me tonight? "Mummy, there's no chicken in the pasta!" He's TWO!
PPS Say a prayer for me at 1 tomorrow as I have an interview.... :) and don't even know if I want the job, or if I'm going for it for the wrong reasons. Gah!

Lovely surprises in the mail!

This post is so long overdue I had yet another happy envelope from MandyE after these two.

I won't show you pics of that one as it contained lots of lovely address labels and I know I shouldn't plaster my address all over the internet :)

Here's the story with the first parcel.

Mandy wrote to me and asked me very nicely if I'd received anything in the mail.

I hadn't.

BTW, if you ever send me something, you only have to wait a few hours (at most) before hearing from me because I will say thank you immediately. I must confess that when Kendra was in the hospital it took me about 2 - 3 days to get through my thank-you emails.

Turns out her girls sent my kids a birthday present last year in June.

It never arrived but instead got back to her about 4 - 5 months later.

We love it - 4 lovely books - and the girls made them cards too.

And then I got another package in the mail. I swear the girls in the office are jealous.

A most gorgeous pic, a holiday card in time for Valentine's Day :) and such a special bookmark.

How cute are my words of the year from last year and this year?! LOVE!!!

Mandy wasn't sure if I still use bookmarks because of the Kindle but YES, I do - I still have 3 shelves of books, 1 of those completely unread :)

I love my bookmark and all our lovely gifts.

When did you last get a lovely surprise in the mail?

PS the kids have been going through this annoying stage where they don't want to "perform" for me anymore - no more entertaining me with the camera (you saw the other pics last week with their hands over their eyes...) or saying nicely "thank you for the books" on video. I'm working on it, Mandy :)

This week's me time

I actually had a fantastic week of me time.

1. On Wednesday morning I checked my diary, saw that I only had my first meeting at 12 and decided to take some time off to go run some errands.

Well, in the space of 1 hour 15 minutes I attended to 5 errands in one shopping centre. Unheard of with kids in tow.

It was bliss.

Christmas music playing, beautiful decorations, not many people (!).

I only got to work at 10:50.

I got some books for Caren's kids that she wanted to get for her friend's kids. Well, I even had time to go browse around the bookstore and found similar.

I phoned Caren and she says, "why are you not at work?" or something similar.

But really, sometimes you just need a time-out for your sanity.

And of course when I got to the office I was super-productive so it didn't feel like I'd even had that time away.


2. Then, Hayley and I finally met up on Wednesday night and it was great.

I was late because the kids were a bit crazy. My fault, as I thought I could arrive at 6:10, quickly change into jeans and then rush out 10 minutes later.

No sirree.

They wanted to chat, hug, etc. which in the grand scheme of things is totally fine with me.

Hayley was very gracious when I eventually pitched.

You're all dying to know what I thought of her, right?

She was open, honest, positive, shared freely and of course, passionate about Jhb and South Africa, everything I imagined and then some.

I really enjoyed myself and we've decided we need to do this supper date thing more often. Hopefully next time she'll also eat (I was starving and tucked into my scrambled eggs - that Mugg and Bean makes DELICIOUS scrambled eggs)!

I also have a client near where she works so if things work out time-wise, we'll try to meet up in the CBD and walk somewhere. I can't wait!

3. Yesterday I took a half day (I know, you're wondering if I got any work done this week!) and went to get my hair re-Brazilianised.

The hairdresser and I hit it off and we chatted so much I stayed about 10 minutes longer showing her pictures of my kids, etc.

She said she'll do my hair again at the Groupon rate if I come back so I'm totally taking her up on that.

We finished very early - 1 hr 15 minutes - and so I decided to go back to the mall to finish up some shopping for a Christmas gift I have to buy. We each pick a name and buy that person a gift. I got the new boss!

I ran into TWO people I knew and was really glad my hair at least looked decent :)

4. But my main news is this - I bought a new camera! I walked in, spent about 5 minutes looking and handed over my (debit) card.

Somehow (and this annoys me) I felt I had to justify why I was making such a huge purchase so quickly and I muttered something to the guy about having previously done my research. Ugh!

By the way, I do realise I was emotionally spending (this was my first day in over 6 years of not reporting to my boss) but this is something on my list - I just got it a month earlier.

Oh, it's a Canon EOS1100D - twin lenses. Something like that. I've taken a few pics and love the feel of the camera in my hand but I know squat so I'm not getting good pics yet. I really need to read the manual.

5. I'd been waiting for 5 parcels in the mail - 4 purchases and 1 from Jess. One arrived yesterday, one arrived this morning and Jess's one arrived this afternoon. (Hopefully my moo stuff and my photo book will arrive early next week)

Of course I squealed.

I am overwhelmed by her generosity to me and the kids. The kids' things are in their rooms - Connor got a bow tie and Kendra got a headband. And she wrote me the loveliest card too :)

What a blessing you are, Jess!

 I honestly love everything - everything! - but I love this most of all. When I sent Jess a thank-you email, I told her I'd had something yellow on my "to buy" list for months and now I have it. Yellow just screams summer, doesn't it.

I already wore it tonight :)

Then I took it off with my rings...

and here's where I realise I've been reading Katelyn James too much. She always puts the wedding rings in unusual places :)

look - the background is suitably blurry and I haven't even read the manual yet.

So that's me - a very full week of me time and I am sufficiently recharged. We have nothing but church on for this weekend and I couldn't be more glad about that.


How was your me time this week?

PS all pics taken with the new camera

Bulbs and budgets

This gorgeous flower is one of the lovely get well soon gifts I received. This was from my friend, Nat. Isn't it beautiful?


The best part of the gift was the note I got on how not to stuff it up and kill it too soon :) I love that Nat knows I am USELESS with plants and gave me the most detailed note to keep it alive. Yes, it's going in my "things I love" mini book.

This is my study - in the background can you see my goals (I highlight as I get through them), inspirational printables, photos, etc.

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I did the (long overdue) budget last night and found out the following things:

1. I procrastinate with this task almost like I do with the photos. The only thing that forced me to do it was my wallet bulging with receipts.
2. It's very, very satisfying to scrunch up receipts and TOSS!
3. I really do hate spreadsheets but once it's all done, I do love analysing the data.
4. I justify spending money on books for the kids because books are educational. However, we spend far too much money at CUM books and I will have to put myself on a spending fast from now until that week between Christmas and New Year when prices are slashed. 
5.  
6. I'm also not applying my organising and decluttering rules in this area of our lives. I asked Kendra to go get all the books she doesn't read any more and she brought me one. Poor Polly Cat has been banished to the donate pile!
7. We have spent just under R46 917 on the babies' expenses from Jan - Oct. This is wonderful - last year this time we'd spent R51753. We won't talk about 2009 - I'm still in denial about that spending... I'm looking forward to spending even less next year (our last year of minimal expenses due to no pre-school and only seeing the doc again when they're 3).
8. We spent R5846 on Nutren Jr since Feb, more than we spent on formula the whole of last year... and I haven't even been giving them the full recommended dose per day. We see the paediatric nutritionist tomorrow for (hopefully) our last appt - let's hope the kids have grown enough to satisfy her.
9. R5300 for nappies is scary! That's more than half the price of a holiday for one adult to Thailand (around R8000 - just over $1000)! Speaking of which, we've been discussing the accommodation for the Jan beach holiday and I said to D that we should stay for 7 - 10 days and HE said, "that's a holiday to Thailand" and suddenly I really want to go to Thailand. Why is travelling in South Africa so expensive?! (and it's really not but when you think that you can fly off into the sunset, then suddenly things look different...)
10. On the very bright side, the amount for medical for the whole year is only R1065. That's the lowest category. Just to clarify, this is for medical expenses not paid for by our medical aid - either the doctor charges above medical aid rates or we have now exhausted our savings for the year. Again on the bright side, this year we made it until Sept. (In 2009 we made it until Feb before running out of savings because of all those appointments and scans, in 2010 we made it until Aug and this year a month longer)

I think I'm going to have to stop keeping track of the babies' expenses next year just so I stop obsessing ... but it's so much fun to look back and see how far we've come.


Do you track your spending? Yes/ no? Why? Why not?

Tell me one thing you've learnt about managing your money.
PS if you have any questions, ask away in the comments and I'll answer.

PPS I decided to return those sandals. I just don't love them and for that price, there needs to be some love :)

My beloved Kindle cover

Remember way back when I had that giveaway for the beach bag?

Well, dear sweet Mandy who sponsored the giveaway decided to make me a Kindle cover at the same time.

She posted it mid-July and after a month of nothing arriving here, we both decided it had to be lost. Mandy was quite upset since the button she used is from her grandmother's stash - I feel very privileged to have been the recipient of it.

She then made ANOTHER one and, of course, then the parcel arrived.

When I got to my desk (and I'e said before there is NOTHING quite like walking to your desk and finding lovely parcels there) and saw a box from Maryland, I thought it was the second one.

So imagine my surprise when it was the original box just verrrrry late.

And since that arrived I've been using my lovely Kindle cover daily.

When Kendra saw it, she pronounced it "pretty!" and I totally agree.

It's very pretty but still understated and simple, just my style.

Long story but Rachel who won the giveaway decided to gift her prize to me too and so I ended up with a beach bag too! I am so blessed.

The beach bag is ginormous and if we ever get that holiday booked (actually D did lots of research last night so we're getting there), I'll be putting it to good use. It's also very well made and totally twin-proof. As in, my two decided to play with it and thankfully, it is still intact.

 

Yes, I took a lot of pics of this thing. I do like the way my close-up pics turn out, even on a point-and-shoot camera :)

If you want Mandy to make you one for Christmas, contact her through her blog and I'm sure she'll be able to help you. I'm not sure what she's decided to charge for them though.

What do you think? Do you love it? 

Much better than the boring black thing I had before, don't you think? I even tried to jazz that one up with some hot pink fabric tape :)

Creating and ... a challenge to 5 of you

So I'm happily putzing around in my study (thanks for the word, Heather) and I happen to glance at my computer.

10:30!

Seriously, where has the time gone today?

Then again, this is what I've been up to:

1. Took Kendra shopping with me to get the last of the Santa's Shoebox items. We both had TONS of fun and I got not one but two parenting compliments from a fellow shopper and a person working there. Why? Because I was all 1, 2, 3ing in the store. I didn't even get to 2 and she was back in line. D says he would have died a silent death if he had to discipline in public. I said, "that's why you've got me, Baby. I have no shame" :)

2. While the kids napped, I had SO MUCH fun assembling the shoeboxes. My colleague gave me a fantastic idea. She said she didn't feel like wrapping a shoebox so she bought pretty boxes which are more durable and will be nice keepsakes for the girls (she chose teenage girls). So I looked through my stash of organising things and found 3 bright boxes which I've now used. I even got a chance to do some more washi tape therapy on one of them. If these two year olds are anything like my kids, they would just rip the tape off so I wasn't about to waste my time on the other boxes.

3. Connor spiked a bit of a fever this afternoon so stayed home with me while D and Kendra went grocery shopping. This boy is very sweet when he's a bit under the weather - still wants to be around me (quality time child) even if only to lie on the couch while I tidy up. We had a wonderful time eating, reading, playing on my bed, so much so that the minute I heard D come through the front door with Kendra, I fell asleep for one glorious hour.

4. We bathed (he'd fed the kids) them, put them to bed and I had a sudden burst of energy so I cooked TWO meals from my newly-revised recipes to try file. We had one for supper which is a keeper, except I used maize pasta instead of wheat pasta and it wasn't as good, but I taste the potential :)

Tomorrow I'm baking - I have apple bars (new recipe) pinned and I think I'm going to do some pumpkin muffins (old recipe) too.

5. And then I came to the study to get it tidied up but I got sidetracked googling fish paste because of a comment on my FB status. Do you eat fish paste (Peck's Anchovette)?

6. I've also made 4 washi tape notebooks (I'll share pics on Thursday 27th when we have our virtual craft day) and a 5th is calling my name. The thing with these things is once I start, I can't stop.

So I was thinking...

I'm going to challenge five of you to something.

I'm going to send you something in the mail - it will be the same stuff to everyone - and I want you to make something with the something I'll send (nice and vague!).

And then if you want, you can do the same to 5 of your readers, or back to me (make it easy!!!!)

Trust me - this will be small (I'll have to think because I want it to fit in a normal envelope so it whizzes across the kilometres quickly). It will also be EASY-PEASY :) but I just thought it will be nice to see different interpretations from all of us different people. Or maybe I'm just curious?


So MandyE, Mandy, Jess, Andrea and Shayne.... are you game?

(totally random - but if you don't want in, comment and I'll pick someone else from the comments :))


Otherwise, how was your Saturday?


Did you make something yummy to eat? Share in the comments.