Sunday 24 February 2013

List 6 - lets get bloggy


This week's topic is blogs we love, but with a catch - 5 that we have followed for a while and 5 that we have recently discovered. Of course Home Life Simplified is right up there - I loved the simplify your life post's last year, I love the listmania posts this year and I love the grateful posts along with the all the inspirational posts.

I used to follow HEAPS of blogs - I would get the new blog posts emailed to me. But as time went on I was getting too many emails and I was finding I was filing them away for another time and not actually reading the majority of them. I've now cut back on the number of blogs I follow and I've forgotten the ones I used to follow and I miss them. I'm looking forward to reading everyone else's posts this week to find some new blogs to follow.

Blogs I love
Quirky Cooking 
Jo's blog is full of amazing thermomix recipes using healthy ingredients. The food is somewhat 'quirky'. From almost raw chocolate to quinoa salad to raw vegan chocolate mousse (which I made tonight and Savannah had 2 bowls and licked out the thermomix bowl). The website is full of amazing dishes! Jo shows how you can use healthy ingredients to make awesome food. Definitely worth following if you have a thermomix (and probably even if you don't as you can still make without a thermomix).

The Organised Housewife
Kat's blog is awesome. Full of tips, advice, help on organising your life. She has all sorts of information from organisation, routines, recipes, challenges and more. It's a great resource. I feel it's more geared towards stay at home Mum's - but I still pick up enough information to make it worthwhile.

Family of killers
I started following Lyndal's blog during the simplify your life challenges from Deb's website in 2012 - and again stuck around. I love how Lyndal's blog is so honest and she writes about important topics. I'm looking forward to following her on the the 12wbt challenge.

Louisa Claire
I started following Louisa's blog when she was Everything is Edible. I love how she writes about topics related to family and is just so honest and open. Nothing is off limits and the photos add to the openness and friendliness.

Colours of Sunset
Aroha's blog was another I found through the simplify your life challenges. Again it's the honesty I love. I love that she writes openly about infertility and weight loss

Blogs I've recently discovered

My Pigeon Pair
I came across My Pigeon Pair when I was looking for Shelf on the Elf ideas last November and have stuck around. Besides Elf on the Shelf ideas I've been enjoying the tot school series as well as the organisation tips.

Cut out the crap
I've been looking into healthier eating and the Cut out the Crap blog fits this to a tee. Collette's books are additive, preservative and dairy free. But the site is more about selling her books - she has recipes, giveaways and insights into her life and food she feeds her family.

Che and Fidel
I found Che and Fidel earlier this year when someone (I think from Mandy from A Little Space like Home) posted about the Project 52 - A portrait a week. I decided straight away to join in (if you have a look at my blog you will see I have Listmania posts and Project 52 posts only). I love this blog as I love seeing all the photos - and I love the link ups so I can see heaps of other people's photos!

Crash Test Mummy
Laney is so open and honest and throws in some fun with the crash tests! It's really interesting to read the outcomes of the challenges! Things like quitting sugar and not spending money.

8/52




                                               "A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."




Hunter: Being silly as he doesn't want me to take his photo. I can see his dinner on his tongue. 

Savannah: Cheesy sandwich for lunch

Linking up with Che and Fidel

Sunday 17 February 2013

List 5 - A day in the life

For list 5 Deb asked us to take a photo every hour and document a day in our life. I nearly didn't do it as I kept forgetting to take photos - so today I set reminders in my calendar to take a photo! Today was Sunday and definitely not a normal day for me!


8am - I had just done my daily challenge exercises - 50 sit ups, 15 push ups, 15 sit ups, 40 second plank



 9am - morning coffee - yum! Love my coffee machine



10am - spent a little time reading my kindle (and I had The Reading Bug out as I have a few friends with kids who are struggling to read so thought I could see if there were any tips - but I didn't get to reading it).



11am - dishes - needed to wash the cupcake wrappers we had used the day before



12 noon - we went to the Outdoor pool family fun day - swimming in the toddler pool

1pm - still at the pool - having lunch - Kim (my sister), Leila (niece), Blake (nephew), Hunter and Savannah



2pm - still at pool - Veggie Man came for a visit and raced the Mayor in the brocollli and spoon race (Veggie Man just won!). Then the kids got to have a brocolli and spoon race. Savannah and Blake decided to join in.

 

3pm - yep still at the pool - swimming again in the little pool.
 4pm - You guessed it - we are still at the pool. We were at the pool today from 11.30am-4.30pm. It was a long, HOT day. We had been on the water slides, the big pool, the middle pool and were now back in the toddler pool.

5pm - I had to duck to the supermarket to pick up some meat.




 6pm- My dinner - leftover stir fry. The kids had melted cheese and sauce sandwiches so Blake and Leila could eat before they went home. Hubby and I had leftovers. This is unusual for us in that we normally eat together and the same meal. It confused the kids a little who at about 7pm were saying what was for dinner, I haven't had dinner yet etc.


7pm (well about 7.15pm) - reading to Savannah - we read a book about a rocket which had noises, and Rob the Robot red planet




8pm - Still reading but this time to Hunter. He read me his reader, then I read 3 chapters of the Magic Faraway Tree. We only have 30 pages until we have finished this book!



It was a hot (38 degrees), long tiring day!


Linking up with Deb at Listmania.

Friday 15 February 2013

7/52




                                                            "A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Hunter: Playground where we went for dinner for Dad's birthday.

Savannah: Overtired, cranky, had just had a melt down. In the park for Daddy's birthday. Calmed her down with cake.


Linking up with Che and Fidel

Sunday 10 February 2013

6/52




"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."


Hunter: Engrossed in his Skylanders Wii game.

Savannah: Having fun in the ball crawl at the Mt Barker family fun day.

Linking up with Che and Fidel

List 4: Jobs!

I've been quite stable with my jobs. I don't like change so I'm not one to move around often!

1. As a kid we lived in the country and I did the usual babysitting. I even had babysitting duties when a new baby was born. Luckily I lived close because I was called down around 4am to come and look after the child whilst they went and had another baby. I was very tired at school that day!!

2. Then we moved to the city when I was 15. I started at Pizza Hut when I was 16 and in Year 11 at school. I started as a kitchen hand washing dishes. Oh the long boring shifts! But I stuck it out and moved up to prep, then pizza maker and gradually shift supervisor. I stayed at Pizza Hut through the end of high school and during my 4 years of university -so 6 years all up. The advantage of Pizza Hut over somewhere like Maccas was the hours were much better. We closed at 10.30pm at night so the latest we worked was to around 11.30pm.

Image from Pizza Hut website
3. Then I graduated from university. I did an honours degree in psychology. I got my first "real" job as a university graduate in market research. I was a Research Assistant then moving onto the title of Researcher when I had more experience and did all kinds of things from proposal writing, questionnaire design, briefing the telephone room, running of statistics and statistically significant differences, report writing, focus groups and giving presentations. I had some great experiences there and learned so much! It was a real buzz early on when I saw the pies we had concept tested for Balfours being sold in the shops! I worked here for 3.5 years.

4. Next I moved onto my current job which I would have been at for 10 years in May. I've had 2 kids whilst working here and have gone from full-time to 3 days per week, up to a 7 day fortnight and now work 4 days per week. I still work in research, in surveys so do similar tasks to when I worked in market research but in one area - the vocational education and training sector. I started as a Research Officer but have moved up to a senior position whilst here. It's a great work place and I feel like I'm settled in for a while!!

Linking up with Deb at Listmania.

Saturday 2 February 2013

5/52





"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."


Hunter: First day of year 1. He was happy to be having the same teacher as last year - Mrs Merchant (with Mrs Johnson on Mondays).

Savannah: Enjoying an Ice-cream on Australia Day public holiday

Linking up with Che and Fidel

Friday 1 February 2013

List 3 - Crushes: Then and Now


Crushes: Then


Jamie - Young Talent Time
This is what did it for me - his very first song - Get out of my dreams, and into my car!