Goodbye 2017

The last week of the year for me is always a time of reflection on the year itself and a time to get organized for the next year. As I wrote on the forum I moderate for, in numerology 2017 was a year to break away from our comfort zones, and leap headfirst into new roles and circumstances, with plenty of challenges and opportunities, trailblazing and finding new directions. Well it certainly describes my year.

Happy moment with my sister waiting in line for the opening of the Kaiser Store.

 I am back home, from a fortnight in Sydney with all the family. John put in a new kitchen for our daughter, and helped make new garden beds for our 2nd. son. We spent time with all 8 grandchildren at once, skyped with our youngest daughter in America. Had 20 plus people for Christmas Lunch, went and saw Star Wars at the cinema, a family boxing day tradition. Celebrated our youngest son's birthday on the 27th Dec.  Not surprisingly  I have come back tired, not used to all the noise and going ons.

One big mess, typical of all the gardens

The garden is a mess, having rained several times followed by heat, but I am just leaving it till I regain a bit of strength. Next year it is undergoing a complete change.
I also have to still start organizing my garden to do list and vegetables to grow next year, hopefully a start date of March depends on how we go changing the garden.

Yellow flower is parsnips going to seed never had that happen before, white is perpetual leeks.

My planner this year is going to be the Happy Planner style. Even though I completely designed up planner pages for the forum I am not going to go with it. I have stickers, and left over pages to use up on this bigger style so downloaded a weekly one to print and have now put it all together. I am still sticking with my favorite organizing chart by weeks here 52 weeks to an Organized Home   that I have done now for 4 years.

Chose an undated one, and bit bigger than A5

 2018 will be a year of projects to finish, both the house, garden, and craft as I get older I am now looking at easier, and while I am still able get us there. Declutter is a big one, paying off the mortgage, a new car as mine is now 15 years old, and that is  just to start with. Hoping your plans for 2018 are coming together as well.

Happy New Year Everyone, and Happy Birthday to my Sister, it is on New Years Day, love you lots.


  Till Next Time.

An Odd Week and New Roses

I have been thrown out of kilter this week, but haven't a clue why? Was it because Monday was the Queens Birthday holiday and I didn't go to Embroidery class. Tuesday was messed up, and I didn't go to community garden as had to join a new bank account with a fellow "gardener" and that took forever. Plus spending a lot of computer time trying to get the funding programme together, which is now finished thankfully and just have to apply to Chuffed for approval.

Maybe it's because Wednesday was Hospital infusion day, or that it has been heavily raining most of the week, because Friday was  a 5 load wash day, due  to us going away the weekend before, is still on the line 2 days later, still partially wet.

Picked another driveway pumpkin.

Don't get me wrong the week wasn't a dead loss. Made 2 tracksuits for the twins and finished off a cardigan for Miss V. It was their 4th birthday yesterday.  Visited mum, and washed and cut her hair, which she puts up a fight with when the nurses do it. Made sourdough bread successfully, still learning.  John managed to mulch the prunings left over from last week, so the area looks a little cleaner.

We had to leave most of it for a nice day to clean up, today is sunny but not going out to the garden have quite a bit to do in the house instead.

From the mulberry tree will use to re-do my little twig fences.

Pruned to half their size. What a mess!

Looking forward to making this a strawberry bed.

Yellow Climbing Rose moved last month has come to life. So glad.

Good news is the 5 bare root  Roses arrived and I have managed to plant 3 of them. I chose 3 from Brindabella range as good for high humidity areas, yellow, and 2 red, a climbing Peace Rose and an Old soft pink English  Rose that I will really have to keep my eye on.

Pink David Austin  -Chaucer.

Red Brindabella and a Pink Miniature Rose

Yellow Brindabella

The climbing snow peas on the bicycle wheel frame are just about finished so I started some new pea seeds in T.Rolls and squared them up to fit in the meat tray. So easy and quick to do and great for those plants that take off like legumes. Plant the pot and all. Good for most seeds really, have done tomato, cucumber, zucchini, silver beet in them as well.

Squash down both sides and cut up edge.

Fold bottom over.

Planted Green Snow Peas.

Better to pull our now so new ones can come on.

Today I am going to get my planner up to date. Write out yet another to do list. Plan for visitors in July,  rescue the washing, and hopefully feel like I am in control again. Hope your week was a good one.

Till next time stay safe.

Planner Time 2017 - Something New

This year I decided to make my own planner. Nothing new really I suppose,  as I have made several, but I wanted one for my everyday planner. Something that fitted in lots and lots of sections. The filofax cover is great but it is limited to how much you can fit in. I had seen lots of photos, blogs and videos on The Happy Planner and decided to give it a go.

Arc Disc Punch

I already have an ARC punch which is used for discbound books and journals which was supposed to able to be integrated with the Happy Planner disc system, so it was just a case of ordering some of the very large discs that the Happy Planner people have, along with a small kit of undated pages that also included 6 tabbed insert pages, which is what I really wanted, to get the idea of size. I also wanted to make my own cover as well. This is probably what started me off on the crafting planner journey.

I downloaded a new 2017 planner from Perfectly Organized at Etsy. I also downloaded Goal Setting Inserts from Organise with Katie, as this year I really want to finish some large goals.

New Daily Pages

If you are keeping up with me you know that I do scrapbooking and I wanted to have a go at a mixed media cover for my journal. This took a bit of organizing as I had to get some thin cardboard for the cover and to cut out bits and pieces for it. In the end I sent away for some A5 cardboard,  and cut out pieces that revolved around time.

 My word for the year is" Remember". Definitely fitting, to remember to keep going on the goals and not give up halfway.

I have only just finished the cover this week and decided to get the professional leather look cover to keep it all together, in a bright yellow from yet again the Happy Planner supplier, Scrapboutique in Qld. Decided that in yellow I would be able to see the book amongst everything else scattered about. My filofax cover is Red, which I will probably use for something else.

New "Won't Get Lost" Cover

Inside Navy and White Striped

The first problem I came across is the different size holes from the ARC  compared to the size in the HP inserts. The Arc are much smaller in the length of the cut, it still works but you have to be careful turning the pages and pulling them in and out. I can live with it.

 Smaller discs in the ARC range are fine but they do not have the really big size I needed to hold all the sections. They are known as Expander Discs, and are 45mm or 1.75 inches across, 9 in a packet in all sorts of colours.
 

Gold Discs.

The new yellow cover helps a lot in keeping all this together. The temptation to get a HP hole punch is great but I am trying not to as I already own 2 filofax punches, the ARC punch, 2 hole and a single hole punch, plus you can add a binding machine which also makes booklets. Yep addicted.


So here it is, my very own mixed  media cover.

First Time Mixed Media

 It is in my planner now and up and running. Still to get a few things for the cover pockets like stickers.Also like the pen holder on the side. I am looking forward to using it every day. How is your planner going?

2017 Planner

Till next time.