At the beginning of February I wrote out a little list of goals and it's kind of cool to re-read them and discover I achieved well:
- Make bircher muesli - I used this Apple and Passionfruit Bircher Muesli recipe from Super Food Ideas (linked here at taste.com.au). The kids absolutely loved eating bircher muesli when we were away in January, so much so that Simon chose it repeatedly over pancakes. Neither seemed to love the one I made as much (maybe because there was no berry compote?), but I thought it was fantastic.
- Activate some of my Christmas vouchers - I took a day this month for myself and used two vouchers up in one day. One I spent on a 65 minute reflexology (foot), head, neck and shoulder massage, which was divine. And the other I spent at Spotlight on albums and pockets for this year's Project Life. I got the items on sale which makes it even that much more awesome for me. So grateful that my parents looked after Simon while I had the massage. He was then so worn out that he slept through my Spotlight trip - bonus gift.
- Get to work on my One Little Word (OLW) - I got to work on it but am yet to sit down and do some writing. That's on my to do list for this week. My album is set up and ready to go, I've had my word since before the new year and my symbol fell into place nicely too. Love this journey.
- Walk to school - Done. Admittedly only a couple of times. I can do better.
- Celebrate my parents - We had a weekend breakfast for my Dad and a Friday night pizza party for my Mum. Both were great celebrations. Gifts seemed to easily come from my heart this year. Seeds for Dad and a custom made triangle (history there) for my Mum.
- Continue - that's actually where I ended that one. I'm assuming it was continue to keep up with the dishes. Part of my OLW. It's working and I'm happy where I am on that.
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| Project Life is happening around here. Making it work with my no access to photos for ages routine. |
We are back into the school routine this month, although I can already feel a shift coming. Simon has gone from waking at 6am and later to waking at 5:20am. I feel the need to rise myself at 5am, 8 hours sleep is my goal so my new bedtime would be 9pm. I'm not quite ready for that. I have found this year that my nights are getting longer as I strive towards being organised and maintaining the house to a standard I'm happy with.
I have really loved making more connections with friends this month. It's something I hope to continue as the year goes on. A new year has certainly provided changes as to availabilities and opportunities and I love that. I'm constantly learning about the people who lift me up and others that bring me down and exactly what about them fits into those categories.
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| Safari Elk cushion from Adairs (home decor wish list item) |
The Christmas clean up was not at all inspired this year. It took a long time and there are still one or two little bits that need changing out, namely the frame in Simon's room. The want for home decor has finally, at age 33 hit me. The pieces that will fit into our home jump out at me and that's exciting. But why on Earth do they charge $50 for a cushion?!
I have made the decision to sell my white craft desk. It's huge, awesome and expensive. I love it and I'll probably shed a tear when it leaves but it just doesn't fit in our space. I'm excited about turning the office (with no budget mind you) into a space that works for us. It has for a long time been quite the opposite. I'm eager for the change but it will need to wait until we get Simon's bedroom set as I'll be stealing one of his pieces to make it happen.
Fitting all the necessities into our days is tough. There are home readers and so many other learnings that need to happen. Trying to remain on top of that and focus on what needs to happen and where our time is best spent.
Prioritising my projects. Trying to fit in getting all those unfinished things done - Project Life, December Daily. Making it work. The me/creative time is important for my sanity sake and life balance.
WEATHER
Hot, humid and wet. We did have a cooler spell in there this month, that was probably when I was walking to school. Right now I'm struggling with the humidity. I was super excited to see someone at school sweating more than me. I wasn't sure a person like that existed!
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| They are awesome together and make us so happy. |
Paranoid about Ross River Fever. My older brother has it and it's horrible. Brian's school is rampant with mosquitoes, I can't be there for more than 2 minutes without being attacked. It's surely not fair on the kids.
Exhausted. I've had a few days where doing anything feels like too much. Trying to roll with it.
Simon's nose (I do assure it was better for a couple of months) is back to all it's yucky glory. He wakes me up at night for tissues, and boy I hate that.
WEARING
Shorts and t-shirts. Loving singlets but I never did do those arm exercises, so generally the singlets are for at home. Loving my super old and torn skirt, for at home wear only!
Desperately need to overhaul the kids wardrobes. Taking things from Brian's (his tiny size 3 pj bottoms) and giving them to Simon. It's certainly time for them to move up a size. Size 5 shirts are getting smaller on Brian and size 3 smaller on Simon.
My hair long. My last haircut (which was probably easily 6 months ago) was to keep it long. I wear it up because I struggle with it out (totally not the intention), but I'm recently loving letting my pony tail out and pretending I'm one of those gorgeous ladies with a long flat ironed pony (I'm not).
Finally coming to terms with the fact that I have survived, and enjoyed doing so, in sandals all summer long. I was slightly desperate to try some Birkenstocks (thongs/flip flops) to get me through the summer. I'm happy I held out and didn't though. Forcing myself to wear sandals only was nice. They look nicer, taking them off for kids gym and friend's houses isn't so nice, but generally I enjoyed wearing them. My feet enjoyed the 'not holding on' that you have to subconciously do with thongs.
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| Giving Brian one of my recipe magazines and asking him to choose a balanced dinner for us proved to be a good idea. |
Last night we had a salad that I saw on Pinterest moons ago. I'm pretty big into using more of my Super Food Ideas magazines, pins (from Pinterest) and recipe books this year. I'm also big on serving up a meal that I really didn't need to cook. Settling for a good mix of the two is just perfect.
Simon is my main problem in the meal department. Salads and summery meals are what we should be eating but getting him to eat them is beyond a struggle. He's more of a mush, rice and something, cous cous and something, mashed vegetables and something boy. We'll get there but the interum is a little frustrating. I'm still serving him up salads but he doesn't eat much of them, certainly no lettuce.
Frozen salmon, individually wrapped from the supermarket is big for us this February. It's crazy expensive so when it's on sale I swoop like the rest of Brisbane. Oven baked and served with fresh vegetables, it's simply awesome. And Simon friendly.
Meal planning, a little here, a little there is working wonders. I feel like I'm not over doing it, sometimes I'm surely under doing it (some nights we have nothing on the radar). The crazy mix is working. Last Thursday night we had a feast (a whole lot of little bits) - the kids favourite meal. The goal was to use up the ham (bought too much for sandwiches). So I bought some yummy bread to go along with everything else we had at home. Lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, cheese, olives, pickled onions, fetta filled pepperdew, eggplant relish. Yum!
DRINK
Thanks to Woolies I finally broke down and purchased a plastic Mason jar drink container with straw. It's tacky cool and it was half the price of other places I'd seen it. It barely fits in the car drink holder but with cold water and ice cubes in the morning it lasts in the hot car being sipped as I jump in and out all day long. That double-walled insulation is something to write home about. My family is sick of hearing about how awesome it is.
Organic fresh juiced slushies are beyond awesome. Fresh squeezed 100% juices that don't fit into our grocery budget are coming home with the groceries. Soft drink is happening hardly at all - yay! Starbucks and knock offs aren't really happening - yay! Make your own mocktails from left over can't afford 100% juices, cranberry juice, and lime straight from the freezer is the bomb! I'm working over my reasoning why the kids can't have Mummy's mocktails - let's not get them into the drinking business too early. (For the record they really do get to taste all the time, even my super duper Miss Moneypenny's pina colada mocktail).
FRUIT & VEGETABLES
Watermelon, stone fruits and grapes are high on our list. Banana prices are up a little, if $3.50/kg is up. Blueberries were making into our trolley for treats earlier in the month, not by the end though. Not buying much of oranges (seems to be more imported ones about), strawberries certainly gone (expensive and poor quality). Granny smith apples and pears sometimes coming home with us.
Asian greens seem to be better priced. Buying potatoes, cucumber, broccolli, tomato and carrots, although none seem to be particuarly striking me as in season and cheap. Avocadoes were $3 each yesterday. I need 4-5 of them for our menu this week. Thank goodness for lesser quality, tiny, fruit shop ones. Imported and not ripe though.
And that's February done!
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