A To Do list for living....

Well, this is an idea I got from a couple of the blogs I happened across. It is really a good way to stop the usual day to day repetativeness and focus on some of the stuff you REALLY want to do in your daily life and its always nice to see things actually getting ticked off the list - it gives you a certain sense of accomplishment I'll come back to this post and edit them as I finish them. I broke them out into categories (copying off the post I found) and it seems to make it a bit less of a daunting list somehow.


So,here they are:

50 Things to Do in 500 Days
Start: April 27th, 2011
Finish: September 7th, 2012

Projects
1. Paint Dining Table and Chairs
2. Sew and repair all items in the sewing basket that have now been waiting over a year!
3. Paint Playroom with Mural
4. Scan old photos and put some on Facebook
5. Put all photos into new albums and only keep the good ones!
6. Finish embroidery on Sparks bag for Freyja
7. Make personalised crossstitch item for both girls in time for christmas 2011

Kids

8. Finish Baby Book for Freyja (now 6 years old)

9. Get Baby Book up to date for Rosie

10. Create Family Tree for kids

11. Finish 1st Year Photos for Rosie

12. Make a Fairy house for the girls in the garden

13. Spend a Mom day with Freyja getting hair done / Nails done without baby coming too.
14. Volunteer for a day (maybe Thanksgiving) with Freyja to teach her how fortunate she is.

Health & Fitness

15. Get weight down below 170 lbs (Was over 200 when I went in to have Rosie)
16. Run a 5K - Signed up for May 8th!

17. Run a 10K - August or November depending on how long it takes to get fitness level up.
18. Incorporate fruit or vegetables into Lunch and Dinner every day for 2 weeks to get into the habit - hopefully then I'll keep doing it. 

19. Don't eat chocolate or ice cream for a month (now this one will be hard!)

20. Get up to running 2 km instead of just walking and alternate running and walking up to 10km

21. Take a Belly Dancing or Pole Dancing class

Family

22. Go on a family vacation (at least twice/yr.)

23. Take a spontaneous weekend trip to somewhere close
24. Get family pictures taken

25. Go on a picnic.
26. Go on a nature trail with kids.

Personal

27. Write in Blog at least once a week.

28. Put together a photo collage for both sets of parents and my grandparents of me, DH and the girls
29. Write a letter to my Dad (He's been waiting a long time for this)

30. Write a short childrens story for the girls

31. Finish reading "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies"
32. Finish the Dragon crossstitch I started when I was 19 (I am now 35 and it will only take a few hours to finish)
33. Get dragon cross stitch framed and put up with pride of place.

34. Take a cooking or painting class.

35. Make a will and set up what would happen to kids in W.C.S.

36. Write a letter or make a video for kids for them to have of me if anything happened.

Finance

37. Save some money for a visit back to the UK next year.

38. Save to RESP's for girls (Now set up finally!)

39. Set up RRSP's for me and DH.
 

Home & Organization
40. Clean oven every 2 weeks so it doesn't get so horrible

41. Set up Chore Chart for me, DH and Freyja so everyone does something to keep on top of things

42. Organize Playroom

43. Organize Office Space and get rid of stuff that really is not needed

44. Organize closet and get rid of big clothes so I can't 'grow' back into them.

45. Go through memory boxes and condense them down before they take over the house.

46. Have a Garden Chore chart for the summer / fall
47. Plant seeds for flowers and veggies and grow garden with Freyja

48. Go through house and get rid of EVERYTHING we don't use  - if you don't ever use it, you don't need it!

Food

49. Get a Box freezer for the basement

50. Create a 2 week meal planner and use it to shop and cook
51. Create a batch of freezer meals
52. Use herbs and veggies from our own garden and MAKE SURE HTEY DON"T DIE!

53. Cut out as much processed food as possible

54. Retrain Freyja to eat without the use of Alphagetti, Chicken Nuggets or Ketchup (again this one may prove impossible)

55. Cook a new recipe each week from one of the many cook books we have.

And thanks very much to the blogger I stole this from....

That was the week that wasn't....

Wasn't productive, wasn't memorable, may as well never have been.

Since my last entry it snowed heavily, preventing my lunch time sojourns, which didn't matter really as I had no lunch times due to the fact that I was at home sick, as was my baby.  We have been hacking and coughing like a couple of old pipe smokers for a week.  My darling hubbie has been sleeping on the couch some nights to allow me to take her into bed and other nights I have been sleeping sitting up on the arm chair / chaise thing we have (called the comfy chair by all who know and love it), holding on to a wriggling 11 month old and hoping to get enough sleep to be fit for work.

We did, however, have a nice Easter meal with friends (cooked by my other half, I am banned from the kitchen except in a cleaning or chopping capacity on these occasions as he loves to cook for guests).  We had a slight issue in that the turkey had decided not to defrost in time (though it was perfectly defrosted as we tucked into our dessert!) but thankfully we also had ham, and as it turned out, enough food to feed about 20 people (there were 4 adults, 2 six-year old kids and a baby - my baby ate more than my 6 yr old as it happens).

This week I feel a bit better and am back to work.  Still sitting up on the chair at night though, which is far from ideal, but the baby is still not well and has become increasingly clingy again, so we are going to have to work on that.

So, now, here I sit at my desk, eating turkey sandwiches (I have had turkey every lunch and dinner for 3 days now!!) and wondering if it was even worth making an entry - I'm sure something happened, but I obviously can't remember and as my mother always told me, if you can't remember it, it can't have been important.  Irritated the hell out of me that.... of course I always say it to my daughter too... yes, I am turning into my mother (You look with your eyes, not your hands; If the wind changes your face will stay like that; Tidy your room or I'm coming in with a garbage bag etc etc).  Lord help my poor future grandchildren if they have to put up with a third generation version....

Anyhow, we are looking forward to the weekend, as we plan our first drive of the year out to the mountains.  One of the great things about living in Calgary is the close proximity to the Rockies, so we are hoping the weather holds for the weekend so we can pack up a lunch, take the baby on her first trip somewhere, and go to Banff (hopefully to the Hot Springs as we have been here 4 years and in all our visits to Banff still have never had a dip in the springs) and then maybe for a lakeside walk.  Not looking like we will camp this year so we will have to enjoy daytrips instead.

The Good, The Bad and the Good looking...

Well, today has been one of nostalgia.  I came into work with an Elvis song in my head, That`s All Right Mamma, to be precise, and the result has been a trip down memory lane courtesy of You Tube.

My mother and my nana both loved Elvis when I was a kid, though I rarely heard my mum listening to him in the time before we moved to Canada - maybe she does now.  So I know quite a catalogue of Elvis songs.  I started this morning with the up tempo early ones and moved on to the slower ones mid morning.  By happy accident, the person who had uploaded the last Elvis one had also uploaded ABC`s `When Smokey Sings`, which has resulted in a trip through my childhood and early teens in 80s England by way of Johnny Hates Jazz and their Shattered Dreams, Mr. Mister and their Broken Wings, with a sojourn into Adam and the Ants, Foreigner and The Smiths.  I do love 80s music.  There were so many talented young people about trying to make it.  In most cases they only became one hit wonders, but they worked hard to even do that.  It seems all the more impressive when you see what a load of crap there is out there at the moment.  And as for Elvis, can you imagine Justin Beiber achieving the same level of sex appeal.  I know he has the screaming girl fan base but they are barely in training bras - I should know - I regularly hear my 6 year old screaming `Justin Beiber!!" - Apparently she is going to marry him, he just doesn't know it yet.  You never know... It worked for Katie Holmes and her childhood dream of marrying Tom Cruise....  Lets just hope the Beibster doesn't take up Scientology!!

Went for another lunchtime walk today and shaved 2 minutes off yesterdays time.  Learned 2 things - 1- eat lunch when you get back, not before the walk, and 2- remember to take off your steel toe cap work shoes and put on the runners.  Though the extra weight I was lugging no doubt did wonders for my calf muscles.
Tomorrow I will do the 2.5km walk again and hopefully will up it to the 3.5km one on Friday.

The extra bonus to all this lunch time exertion is I am more awake in the afternoon at work.  This doesn't matter so much right now as it is so quiet, but come July/August, I will need to be alert for the increase in work and the impending doom of Year End!!  Gah!!!

And then there were none...

Girl Guide cookies that is.  Went out with the girls last night, it got a bit cold and blowy but we persevered for an hour and went along both sides of our new street, and my little Spark managed to sell all but two boxes.  Thankfully, Lee told her that he had hoped she would come back with some as he wanted to buy them.  So, we have sold a total of 8 cases, which equals 96 boxes of cookies and a grand total of $384.00 for the troop.  Not bad for our first year out I think.

And this fundraising has got me to thinking.  I have lost quite a lot of weight since having Rosie, but I am feeling totally unfit.  I wake up every morning aching from head to foot and it lasts all day, so I have decided that I am going to start my path to better health.

Since starting back to work, I am keeping away from the fast food I used to always eat at work and have been preparing salads to bring in.  So far, I am not getting sick of them and today's was like manna from heaven after my first "Lunch Time Exercise"!

I worked out various routes around where I work yesterday varying from the shortest of 2.5km up to 10km.  Today I took my first step and walked the 2.5km route as fast as I could.  As expected, I was out of breath, my heart was beating faster and I got a cramp in my leg for 5 minutes, but I stayed positive, slowed down a little but still walked through it, and sped up as soon as I was able.

It took me 25 minutes to walk 2.5km - 1m per 100m.  Pretty bad I know, but a positive first step.

I have 4 weeks until Rosie's first birthday, which happens to fall on Mother's Day here in Canada, so I have decided to enter the Mother's Day run in Calgary.  I can either do the 5km or the 10km distance so I am going to see how the next couple of weeks go before I register.  I have my sights set on a 10km run in August and another in November too, that way I have goals to help me keep up my momentum.

I was always an unfit kid, always had a sweet tooth and hated exercise, always felt overweight, even when I wasn't.  I learned this behaviour in part from my mother.  She was slim as a kid and a teen, but gained weight in her late teens / early 20s - she had me at 19 so that was no doubt part of it.  I always remember her dieting, being unhappy with her weight, but when she felt down she would eat, especially chocolate and I would eat with her.  Soon it was my coping mechanism too.  She is now in her early 50s and hates the way she looks, but also, due in part to the age she is now at, finds it terribly hard to lose any weight.

Since having Rosie, I have lost weight and stopped binging on sweet things (apart from a slight glitch when I was approaching my return to work) and I want to keep it off and get healthy, both for me and as an example for my 2 girls.  I don't want them to repeat my habits.  I have specifically chosen these 3 runs with that in mind as each event also has a 1km kids run which Freyja could do.  I will have her cheering me on during my run and waiting at the end, then she can do her run and I can hopefully do it with her (if I'm still standing!)

Wish me luck..... I'm gonna need it!

Welcome to Pixie Hollow...

Well the weekend passed well, with a Fairy Tea Party and a visit to the Zoo as planned.

My now 6 year old's birthday party consisted of her and 4 friends gadding about the house in fairy wings and flower crowns and all went pretty much to plan.  Freyja loved the outfit I made for her so much she even insisted on wearing it to the Zoo the following day.  The Tinkerbell cake was a hit for the way it looked, but they were so full from all the veggies, fruit and finally hotdog or burger, that cake was too much and most pieces went pretty much untouched (though her dad and I can testify that it tasted pretty darn good).  Thankfully for my hips, the rest of the cake went into school with her today to share with the class - here's hoping none of it comes home with her.

     

While Saturday was the party, Sunday was her actual birthday, so the morning consisted of present opening.
She got more than she needed as always, and was particularly happy with the surprise present of a fish tank.

Off we went to the Zoo, a place we have been fairly regularly last summer/fall, but not since the baby was old enough to really appreciate it.  Hence, she spent the whole time bolt upright in her stroller, looking like she would bounce right out of it with excitement.  Someone was looking out for us as the weather stayed a balmy 12°C, the hippo's took a swim (which we have never seen in all our visits, they are usually asleep when we go!) and two of the gorillas came out and put on a show of shouting at us and despite the worry that it would become and X-rated show as they got a little close (having a cuddle as Freyja put it), thankfully the crowd must have made them shy and they left it for another time - phew!!

Roll on 1pm and suddenly the fish tank is remembered, so off we go to the pet store (with frequent "are we nearly there yet?" questioning from the back of the van - made 20 minutes feel like forever, and 3 new goldfish were acquired.  Although they are called goldfish, they are gold, black and white and have been named Sponge Bob, Patrick and Mrs Puff - though if it is anything like her hamsters they will get a name change on a weekly basis.

Today, back to work again, same old same old.  After a year away, it feels like it never happened.  I was a bit late as I had to play hairdresser this morning.  Freyja`s school is having a `weird hair day` - not quite sure why.  As her dad was the one getting her ready and putting her on the bus today, it fell to me to get her up and do her hair quickly before I left the house - Lee doesn`t do hair - weird or otherwise!  Several twisted bumps of hair and a load of pink spray later and she was set. 

The pink hairspray will nicely match her Sparks outfit as we hit the streets tonight.  It`s Girl Guide Cookie time!  We got 8 cases of cookies, 12 boxes per case, and between my work and Lee`s work, we have sold 6 of the cases.  The money has to be in tomorrow, and to get an extra badge she has to sell 7 cases, so we are off to woo the neighbours with her cute little face (and weird hair) and if necessary, I will have the baby in tow for added cuteness - anything to sell those cookies.

Happy Monday everyone....

Fairy Wings, Baby Bottles and Things...

Well, this is quite possibly the busiest week and most challenging of my life so far.

Today, is Friday (just to give you a little perspective). 
Last Friday we moved into a new house (and we are still unpacking!). 
On Monday, I returned to work after a year on maternity leave after having my second daughter, the wonderful Lily-Rose (known by those who know her as Rosie, or Red). - hence the Baby Bottles!
Sunday is my older daughter, Freyja's, 6th birthday, and therefore, tomorrow, Saturday, our home turns into Pixie Hollow (see Fairy Wings) for a Fairy Tea Party.  Yes, our home!  The still packed-in-boxes residence afore mentioned!  Aargh!!!

So, it has been an eventful 8 days and will continue to be so for a little while yet...

Between unpacking boxes, dealing with a 5 year old who refuses to listen, having my other half work nights this week, and a baby attached like a limpet because of the house move and the sudden shock of daycare, I have been preparing for "THE PARTY"....  Yes, it does need to be in capitals, because, in the manner of all small girls birthday parties (and some big girls for that matter), it is THE event of the century... at least until next year.

Now, I made a small error in judgement when my eldest turned 2... I made a cake.  Not just any cake either, but a pirate ship..  Of course at age 3, I had to make a better one, hence the castle cake.  This year it is a Tinkerbell cake - not too bad as the figures make the cake centerpiece, but the fairies are sitting on a hill having a tea party.... and a hill has grass.....  I haven't started decorating it yet as I only baked it last night so I could have a long night.

Added to which, I have made fairy wings for both my girls but have yet to finish mine... yes, you read that right, I am going to be wearing fairy wings (can't be queen of the fairies without them).  Also need to get the food tonight, all the fruit and stuff, make the pixie stick wands and the rice krispie star treats, the fondant fancies and set up the table for the make over and crafts..... Oh I am so going to be the tired Queen of the Fairies tomorrow.

The consolation is that I am apparently the bestest Mommy ever and I make the best cakes, fairy wings and crafts ever too....  Maybe not really, but I do to the person who matters.

Blessings to you x