It's A Snow Day! (Without The Snow)

(© Grace Lee, www.cutecolors.com)

I've felt here, there and everywhere over the last couple of days, which explains my lack of posts. Why is it that a day begun with five 'must do' errands usually ends with ten new ones? :)

The pace is gearing up this week. My father-in-law could be dropping in for a short visit tomorrow (and if not tomorrow, then Monday), I have a Clean Up Day planned for Saturday, a classmate of Master J's and his mother over for an afternoon playing (and coffee for the grown ups) on Sunday and an uncle-in-law popping in for a visit either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Phew!

Tomorrow all three of The Piglets have the day off from school. Tomorrow marks the opening day of my city's Royal Show (kind of like a massive fair, with sideshows, rides, animals, demonstrations in the main arena, fireworks, the whole shebang - and opening weekend usually brings in crowds of up to 100,000 a day if the weather is warm, and the full 9 days usually go well in excess of a million). It's big enough that most schools pick a day during the 9 days of the Show and designate it as a school closure day, hopefully in order that students go on that day rather than having 100 kids away on any of the other given days of that week. Boofah and Miss Moo's school has chosen Opening Day as their closure day, and Master J's school's day is Monday, but co-incidentally, Master J also has a regular ol' student free day tomorrow as well (making it a four day weekend for him, lucky thing). Unfortunately, Hubs is working tomorrow and Monday so we won't be going to The Show on those days (we'd avoid it anyway, Opening Day is chaos with the crowds) but we may still give the kids the day off school on another of the days or even go after school (it is open until 9pm each night). But we haven't yet decided if we'll go at all this year - retrospectively, having a Financial Spring Clean during September perhaps wasn't the best idea, LOL. Ticket prices for our family of five usually sit around $45 and that's before the rides and showbags. We never overspend when we do go, and we take our own food and drinks in, but even so, entry, one ride apiece (our limit - stops the fights!) and parking easily costs us $60. There's a lot of free entertainment to be had for that, but still - this is supposed to be a 'careful' month, so we'll see. The kids have their own spending money for the first time this year via pocket money, so each of them have a little bit extra that they're allowed to spend as they see fit, if we do decide to go.

But anyhow, that leaves us with a bonus day at home tomorrow. I had originally been planning to take all three kids out for the day on the bus, catch a movie in the cinema, have lunch and so on. We may only have two days in the school year where all three (two different schools) are off on the same day, so we've always tried to do something special. For obvious reasons though, an expensive day like this is out. So we're probably staying at home for the day. Daddy will be getting ready for afternoon shift around 1:30pm.

I need your input. What sorts of activities could I plan to make the day special tomorrow, without spending a lot of money? I have some ideas but would love some more, so leave a comment. Within walking distance we have a small library and a small shopping centre, so I was thinking at the very least an hour picking out new books, with maybe a Subway cookie as a treat (3 for $2). If we do that on opening (10am), we can come home and have a Cinema-at-Home Day with (free) DVDs picked up while we were there. We've done this before, with a blanket spread on the loungeroom floor and microwave popcorn (eating anywhere other than the (tiled) family room/kitchen is a total no-no, so this is strangely exciting to them all on its own, LOL).

Then Saturday sees us doing a big household clean up. The kids tend to grumble about things like this, so I'm trying to come up with ways to enlist their help but to put a positive spin on it. My kids are generally pretty good with their daily chores (they have charts on the fridge) but not so good with the 'special clean ups' - we're working on it. I'm thinking of printing out a list of 'extra' chores and the 'price' per chore in ticks. A certain number of ticks can be exchanged for a certain extra special reward - like 10 ticks for extra computer time, 20 to stay up an extra half hour at bedtime, and so on. It wouldn't be a system for every day (simple 'this is what you're responsible for as a member of the family' chore charts work better for us) but it might be useful to have on hand for the Clean Up Days. Toward the end of Saturday, Master J (and probably the other two as well) and I are going to bake a couple of things for his friend's visit the next day.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Cheers,
Lizzie

How High Is Your Mountain?

(© Grace Lee, www.cutecolors.com)

One of the things not immediately apparent from this blog is that I am a procrastinator from way back, most noticeably when it comes to study. I study a well-respected writing course externally, posting in my assignments each week and setting my own schedule. When I first began this course four years ago, it was the only way I was able to do it - I had three small children. Over the years, I've had fits and spurts of creativity but (thankfully) have managed to complete everything at around an A- average. It took me a whole year to realise that anything under an A wasn't an indication of failure, LOL, but since then I've been content with simply handing things in and passing.

This year though, I've struggled. The lack of in-classroom accountability has truly come around to nip me in the rear and I've been behind (like several assignments behind) for most of the year. I have several 'needed to be done yesterday' type of deadlines hanging over my head at the moment and it has become apparent in recent weeks how badly that flows on to all the other parts of my life at home.

I thought I would easily be able to 'switch off' when it came time to sit down and study. Not so. The many distractions at home far outweigh the ability to study in my pyjamas, unfortunately! So I've been jumping on the bus to the library a lot lately, but in doing so I'm neglecting all of my responsibilities within the home. Even when I study at home, I feel so guilty that I'm not doing laundry, or prepping for dinner, or working on the embroidery I started great-guns three weeks ago and haven't picked up since. When I put aside catch-up study time in favour or housework, I feel worse knowing my missed deadlines are getting further and further away. When I pick up the books, the house suffers.

I'll be glad come December 1st. Sigh.

My course, all four stressful years of it, finally wraps up in the last week of November. And while I've loved the creative side (a little glimpse into a world beyond home and family, but potentially still a job I can do from home later), the scheduling has just about killed me. Especially this year.

But this morning, some good news. I sat down and ran up a study calendar for the months of September, October and November. I plugged in posting dates for all my assignments (self-made, given the real deadlines are long gone!) and was surprised to find that the biggest stumbling block was a particularly niggly thorn-in-my-side assignment carried over from last semester. Two solid days of effort (albeit tear-inducing, hair-ripping, exhaustion-producing effort) will see that sent on its merry way. Eight other assignments are what I term 'fluff' assignments - half the workload of a regular assignment. And there's one really big project that I need to chase up more information on. But according to the study calendar I made up this morning, I'll have finished all but this really big project by early October. Leaving two solid months to devote to it.

Sometimes we get so stressed out about a particularly daunting task that we fail to see the end result. Sure, the next month will be hard, scheduling-wise. But not impossible. I made my bed, and now I have to lie in it, LOL! But my point is that I had been putting off launching into all of this catch-up work because the mountain seemed insurmountable. I wasn't snowed under. I was just allowing my heart rule over my head.

Is there something that you have been putting off lately? I bet its not as bad as you think!

Cheers,
Lizzie

Marriage Monday ~ September 3 (Mentoring)

Christine over at Fruit in Season asked us to share stories about our mentors.

Most mothers serve as mentors to their daughters by default. At least that's the way it should go. And yet it wasn't until after my mother passed away (May 2006) that I actually understood a little of the sacrifices she made to ensure that we, her kids, at least had few concerns to worry about.

I'm the youngest of four, with my next oldest sibling a sizeable 7 years in front. Hence being the baby of the family afforded me certain allowances and 'luxuries' that the older three went without. For starters, by the time I'd hit my teenage years I was the only one left living at home. And while money never fell from the sky, there was certainly a lot more of it around than when the older three were at home. Three less mouths to feed probably helped on that score!

But my mother sacrificed her whole life - figuratively and literally - for her children. She grew old before her time due to many, many back-breaking hours spent in factories and on assembly lines. She was a homemaker when we could afford for her to stay at home, but more often than not, she didn't choose to work - she had to work. I never remember her having a dream solely for herself. She never had a 'career' as such. Work was a means to an end. I think a little bit of her spirit crushed with each passing year of hard work outside of the home - yes, necessary work to fill our bellies - but she never complained to us. At one point, my father was earning a slightly-icky but nonetheless honest and proud living from shooting rabbits and selling the meat to a butchering company. Wild rabbits are vermin in Australia, and when you think about it, it was the perfect example of resourcefulness - seeing an opportunity, applying a skill (Dad is an expert marksman and an ex-soldier), and reaping the benefits. As a teenager, however, I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with anything remotely associated with my father's source of income - but believe it or not, this afforded the three of us a reasonable income for a year or two.

Dad would go out each night, shoot and return home with a ute filled with dead rabbits. He had a rack that he placed them on, and (this is kind of gross, sorry!) the blood would drip down into the tray of his ute.

It was my mother's job to get up there each morning, on her hands and knees, and scrub away the congealed blood, fur and (ick) 'tissue'. This not only had to be done for sanitary reasons, but this was also our only car. Can you imagine? I never wanted to be seen anywhere near The Blood Truck (not my phrase! LOL). The smell permeated the air around it like a cloud, and even when it was clean (and bleached), you would often catch a whiff of 'death'. I was a teenager and it was mortifying. Of course I never realised at the time how noble the effort was on my father's part - the food I ate every night was paid for with the very thing I was so ashamed of, and I kick myself to this day for my attitude.

But think about Mum for a moment. Would you scrub blood at 7am, even knowing you'd smell faintly of butchered meat for the rest of the day, no matter how hard you scrubbed yourself clean afterwards? I know I wouldn't have at the time. But this was the legacy my mother left me:

Sometimes, there are jobs that you just have to do.

My parents separated when I was about 21, briefly reconcilled, and separated again two years later, this time for good. The divorce was finalised a mere four weeks before my mother passed away, at the age of 55. During the years of their marriage, us kids knew of upsets and arguments, but mostly we thought that since they were still together after 20+ years then they were pretty much immune to marital disaster - after all, twenty years affords you the skills needed to let it 'wash off your back', right? Nuh-uh!

Since her death I have often thought of my mother in an entirely new light - a light which I wish shone stronger when she was alive, in order that I could tell her. Though it wasn't obvious a lot of the time, I really was soaking it all in Mum :)

My inlaws have been married for 32 years and still going strong. Yes, they are the couple I look to for guidance on marriage, not the least of which is because FIL and Hubs share such striking personality traits as hating to spend money and working too hard, LOL! They really are cut from the same cloth, those two. The inlaws are good country stock, no airs and graces, and MIL is Super Craft Woman :P She's always on hand to instruct me on my fledgling attempts at whatever craft catches my fancy that month.

I watch couples all around me going through the hardships of divorce and it just makes me want to cleave to Hubs even harder, despite everything I find infuriating about him, LOL. I just have to ask myself whether there is anything I wouldn't do for him. And the answer is always the same.

I'd happily clean up congealed blood, LOL.

Cheers,
Lizzie

Menu Plan Monday ~ September 3

Gosh, planning meals around a new healthy eating plan is hard work! Normally I just follow my standard formula to come up with a menu plan and it is so simple to just plug meals in. I may have to rejig everything come next week, but for this week, here's what's on the menu (Hubs is on afternoons this week, so its just me and the kids):

Monday ~ Spaghetti Bolognaise (portion controlled for me, especially the pasta!)
Tuesday ~ Fish & Chips (this is 'easy' food - boxed frozen fish. A crumbed variety for the kids and plain for me, served with potato balls (kids), microwaved spud (me) and vegies or salad)
Wednesday ~ Beef Fajitas (I'll turn mine into a Fajita Salad of sorts)
Thursday ~ Sweet Corn & Chicken Soup (Asian-style stirfried vegies)
Friday ~ Beef Stirfry (noodles for the kids, just meat-n-veg for me)
Saturday ~ Baked Fish & Vegetables (if I can get some nice fresh fish on the day, with noodles) OR Individual Frittatas (I just discovered a killer Frittata recipe last week...awesome)
Sunday ~ Marinated Steak (microwaved spuds, vegies)

Great news on the grocery shopping front though. Hubs had to return a DVD to Blockbuster this morning and two shops down in the strip there is a fruit and vegetable shop. So, armed with my shopping list, I breezed in and out and spent just $25 for TONS of fresh produce. The same things (if I could even get them, and that's debatable!) in the supermarket where I do my weekly shopping would have easily cost me $40-$45. The incredibly frustrating part about that though, is that I don't drive, plus we're a one-car family, plus my bus route doesn't swing by this particular strip of shops (unlike most other errands I need to do) - so getting there each week would be difficult. But I'm just content to have saved money today, and as often as I can have darling Hubs drive me for a big stock up :)

The rest of the grocery spending today was lower than normal too, which was nice. I already know why - the vegetables were lower for a start, but also there was a lot less junk in my cart due to the 'healthy eating' thing. Normally there'd be a few packets of snackfood for the kids as well, and though I did spend a little on snackfood yesterday, September's Financial Spring Clean will see that figure drop dramatically here on out as I bake more. Oh, and I spent a large chunk of money on meat this week, but still came out smiling. I'm tracking all of this (and all the other expenses) on my trusty Household Expenses Tally Sheet.

The money that I mentioned earlier this week came through even earlier than we were told, bringing our bank balance around to a healthier figure, LOL. We're about to start paying an additional $150 per fortnight toward the home loan again - we did this for quite a while in the beginning but various large expenses took a large chunk out of our bank balance last year and we've been struggling to maintain a 'buffer zone' ever since. Thankfully with the money coming in this week, we're just about there. Of course, having said that, we have several medium sized expenses on top of the bills that really need to be taken care of, so this feeling of 'abundance' remains fleeting!

I'm An Organizing Junkie has loads of other Menu Plan Monday participants :)

Cheers,
Lizzie

Smart Habits Saturday ~ September 1

This week I have a really, really simple habit to work on.

I'm about to undertake a new 'healthy eating plan' (hereafter known as 'diet', although I personally hate that word) and this week is all about prepping for that. I've got a menu plan to rejig and an exercise plan to put into place. I want to get going with the daily walking again. At one point I was walking 4+ kms (2 ½ miles) a day! I know. My feet hurt just thinking about it! But I have to do something about getting fit again.

I bought a diet book yesterday. Now, before anyone mentions the fact that diets don't work, I already know, LOL. But the book (the CSIRO's Total Wellbeing Diet Book 2 for the Aussies playing along) was discounted so I thought 'why not?' I read through it and was okay with the theory, so that will be the plan I'll loosely follow. They also have a downloadable checklist from their website which I've printed and put up on the fridge, which makes it easier - no calorie counting (we'll see how that goes...I'm normally a 'calorie counter' kind of gal), you just tick off the food units as you go through the day. The only niggly bit was the lower carb level than I'm used to, even during phases where I've dieted - 1 x 40g (about 1 ½ oz) bowl of cereal and 2 x 35g (about 1 ¼ oz ea) slices of bread per day on the basic plan. Ordinarily this would be what would turn me right off any healthy eating plan (I've always subscribed to the 4-5 serves of carbs a day theory, and this is 2-3) BUT three things stand out. The plan gives you the option of having 9 'indulgences' per week...one extra per day during the week and two per day on weekends. 'Indulgences' are anything up to 450 kjs (about 110 cal) per item - so technically that can mean a small piece of chocolate, or a glass of wine, or (I guess) an extra slice or two of bread. Second, their suggested sources of carbs can be changed - different breads, potatoes, rice, pasta etc (as long as it is portion controlled). And third, God knows that carbs are part of the reason I'm in the boat I am, so some restrictions (however painful!) are probably a good thing.

The plan is big on the 'good' foods - 3 serves dairy, 2 ½ serves vegetables/salad (a serve is 1 cup cooked vegies), 2 serves fruit, and plenty of lean protein - they suggest 4 meals a week of red meat, two of fish, and one of either chicken, pork or 'other'. It will take some getting used to at first, given that most of the dinner meals I serve up have some form of carb attached, but I'm determined.

I weigh in Monday morning. I may or may not include measurements, LOL.

In other news, I've set up (and have already begun filling in) a record of expenses for the September Financial Spring Clean (well it is Spring here!). In another few weeks I'll be able to draw some really useful conclusions from the records. I've way simplified it. I have ONE document to record everything now. The trick will be to remember to keep receipts and write down the expenses we've incurred that didn't come with a receipt.

Off I go!

For more Smart Habits Saturday posts, head over to The Lazy Organizer :)

Cheers,
Lizzie