Recent LOs

Darn it, I was so busy playing with all the TDC goodies (I'm a guest CT this month) that I completely forgot to post my LOs here!! LOL Anyway, here they are! Better late than never, right?
First my P365+1 LO for the previous week.

Credits

I cannot share last week's LO because I created it with a new release for this week!

Here's a portrait of my friend from work's daughter Mathilde.

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My friend Flo's son, he's adorable! I'm not good at blending but this time it worked well, if I do say so myself!

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 A LO for a shadowing challenge @ TDC:

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 A OLW / scrap-therapy LO using Amanda Heimann's new kit "My Chances":

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 A LO about my BFF's son Tristan, using last week's release by Karen Lewis @ TDC, "Dirty Footprints":

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 A LO for the Girl vs scrap challenge @ One Story Down, using the TDC February collab "A Love Story":

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 And last but not least, a LO about my friends Jacques and Lydie's son Paul, peacefully asleep, using a template for a TDC challenge and a new kit (relased last week) by Wendy Page. Adorable!!

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 Pfew, I've been busy! Now you understand why I forgot to post, right? See you next time!

A few LOs for last week

 Okay, here we go again. This time I am only one day late to my Scrap Sunday post! Yay! LOL

As usual, let's get get started with my weekly P365 LO:

Credits

Then there's a quick and fun LO of my (then really little) little brother. He used to love to shovel when he was 2 or 3 years old and I love that he's so focused that his tongue is peeking out. Now he's twice taller than me and refuse to shovel except if he gets paid... That's life I guess! ;)

Credits 

Talking about little boys getting big, here's a page about my friends' son. I had so much fun doing the background of this page. It took me forever, but the result was worth it, I think!

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That's it for today! I'll probably have more pages this week since I'll be home after our FET (frozen embryo transfer) tomorrow. I'm supposed to relax and take it easy for a couple days, so what could be better than scrapping? Nothing!

Last week's LOs

Wow, this has been quite a crazy week at work computer-wise. For several days we had no mails, no internet, no server and sometimes no computer at all. Talk about frustrating. Maybe that's why I forgot to post my weekly scrap recap on Sunday! Yeah, I know, excuses! ;)

Anyway, better late than never! As usual, I start with last week's P366 LO:

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And now some other pages...
Kira playing:

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 A page about my everyday life for a challenge @ Tell Your Story Every Day:

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 And another one for the same site. Love TYS!

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 The next ones feature some new products by Amanda Heimann... and some older ones as well. First the "Storytelling alpha No2":

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Then "Storytelling alpha No1" and a brand new template set called "Storytelling Layers No.1". Love the big journaling space!

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 And last but not least, a little all-girl-all-summer page just to cheer you up, also featuring Amanda's products.

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 Hope you enjoyed those LOs as much as I enjoyed creating them!

This week's LOs

This week has be very busy... work busy! But I still managed to find / make time to scrap. And even though my resolutions went a bit out of the window, I'm trying to keep up with my goal to post my LOs more regularly. So here we go, here are this week's LOs.

First my P365 LO

Credits.

And then 4 LOs (single pages for days 1 and 3 and a double page for day 2) about our trip to Paris in 2010.

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It was about time to get those memories scrapped, right?

Hope this week won't be as busy, see you soon!

Weekend goals update

As promised, here's how went my various goals for the weekend:

• plan next week's menus and go grocery shopping DONE
• change cat litter NOT DONE
• pick up the house DONE, especially the kitchen 50% DONE
• do one or two (depending on how fast it dries) loads of laundry ONE DONE, it's not dry yet so I have no room to do a second one.
• finish to unpack (just a couple books left) DONE
• clean my desk DONE
• unclutter my unread RSS folder 10 out of 45 DONE, still some work left!
• pamper myself (I desperately need to wax my legs and give myself a good facial) NOT DONE: we ran out of fuel for our central heater, so the bathroom is way too cold for me to stay in there for more than a quick shower! LOL
• take pix for work if the weather gets better DONE

Except for the cold temperatures that stopped me from doing much (I feel like hibernating!), this weekend was pretty good. I had more troubles completing my resolutions, though, but it's all about progress, not perfection, so I will consider myself satisfied with how it went and keep working on the items I missed this time. On this note, I'm off to bed, see you soon!

My LOs this week

Besides my OLW LO (see previous post) I've created a couple LOs this week. This first one is for my P365. At first I tried to go for another template but it didn't work so I went back to last year's design. Don't fix what's not broken, right?

Check the credits here

 I also created a LO of my friends' son trying his first solid foods... with mixed results!

Check the credits here

 And last but not least, a LO to recap my Christmas vacation in Switzerland.

Check the credits here

 I'll try to post my pages more regularly... and to post more regularly on this blog, period! :)

First week in 2012

Well, this first week has been great so far. I truely enjoyed all the fun stuff going on at TDC around OLW and resolutions and PL (even though I'm not participating). Lots of inspiration. The new sister site, Tell Your Story Every Day got launched this week too. I'm really happy about all these new adventures! TDC is definitely my digi-home. I love SSD's new look, but the community there, even if it's sweet and all, is too big for my taste and poor memory. I don't know people that well (or don't remember much about them except for a couple girls) and hence don't feel as comfy as I does @TDC.

But the most exciting part of this week for me was how I kept my OLW in my thoughts all day long, acting on it, following my resolutions for January and (surprise!) enjoying them. My motivation is really high and I don't really see it go down any time soon. *knock on wood* I even created a page to help me remember, and it's already printed (letter size)! Yay!!

Check my gallery for credits.

 I also created a 4x6 monthly reminder:

Credits: Transformation by Dawn by Designs @ TDC, Basic Black Alpha by Melissa Bennett @ SSD, The Alpha Files and shadow actions by Krystal Hartley @ SSD, DJB Merry by Darcy Baldwin @ SSD

It really helped me feel focused on this OLW, and I love it. I also created an excel spreadsheet on my phone to hold myself accountable for my daily resolutions. I give myself a note from 0 to 10 for each of them every night and it gives me my average for the day and also how well it goes for each resolutions during the month. Silly as it is, this kind of geeky (or even nerdy) stats makes me happy! ;)

Since I'm focusing on my body this month, the rest is a bit out of control. I'm trying to relax and just maintain my basic routines, reminding myself that taking care of my house in a deeper way will come in its own time... but it's hard. Even the routines are neglected and my house, desk and digital world is too messy for my comfort level! So, this weekend I'll take some time to

• plan next week's menus and go grocery shopping
• change cat litter
• pick up the house, especially the kitchen
• do one or two (depending on how fast it dries) loads of laundry
• finish to unpack (just a couple books left)
• clean my desk
• unclutter my unread RSS folder
• pamper myself (I desperately need to wax my legs and give myself a good facial) NOT DONE: we ran out of fuel for our central heater, so the bathroom is way too cold for me to stay in there for more than a quick shower! LOL
• take pix for work if the weather gets better

All of that without forgetting my resolutions. Hope I'm not too ambitious! I'll let you know on Sunday night how that went. Until then, enjoy your weekend!

OLW for 2012, monthly themes and January resolutions

Every year, around the end of it, the digiscrapping world is buzzing about OLW. The "One Little Word" was created by Ali Edwards. It's an inspiration to help you, thoughout the year, focus on something important to you. Last year, I picked "Perspective", and though it was great for me I didn't work much on it besides a LO I created in January and that stayed up in my office all year long. This year, I want to act more on it and use it better.

My 2012 OLW is RESPECT. To make this OLW more concrete, I'll use Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project as inspiration and have monthly "themes". These will help me set up little, concrete resolutions. I know that when I set up big goals for the year I set myself up for failure because they are too vague, too overwhelming and hence unattainable. One thing at a time is the key to success.

• January: Respect my body, treat it well, feed it properly, take care of it.
• February: Respect my man and our couple
• March: Respect myself, learn to love myself, qualities and flaws.
• April: Respect the ones I love and our relationships, take better care of them, show the love
• May: Respect people I work with and people I don't really know too
• June: Respect our home, keep it in order, declutter
• July: Respect our possessions and money, take better care of it, find process to do so peacefully
• August: Respect my passions, practice my hobbies, learn new things
• September: Respect my time
• October: Respect the earth and our environement
• November: Respect my values, live accordingly
• December: Respect our need for traditions, create new ones

As Gretchen Rubin did in her book (which I just read during the holidays and LOVED!!), I will start in January by working on "respect my body". First, because, since I will have a FET (frozen embryo transfer) during this month, I don't know if I'll be able to do it later in the year if it works. I expect to be afraid to exercise if I get a positive test. I'll probably be a slightly bit paranoid! LOL And second because respecting my body is the foundation of all the other resolutions I will take. It's not possible to work on improving things and yourself (which might be difficult at time!) if you're always tired, feeling bad, in discomfort, etc.

My resolutions for January are:

• exercise at least 10 minutes every day (walk, video workout, stretching)
• eat at least 2 portions of fruits and 1 of veggies daily
• get at least 7 hours of sleep every night
• eat mindfully and slowly, put down my fork between bites, don't do anything else while eating
• moisturize my body daily

I will create some visual reminders, both for my January resolutions and for my OLW. I'm so excited to get started on this project that I might even not wait until January 1st! LOL

Being sick is no fun!

That cold threw me off and I spent my sunday vegging on the couch, unable to do anything, not even sleep. I'm still very tired today but at least I could go back to work and pretend to be somewhat productive. Things are slowly getting better. Here's what I need to complete before leaving for my trip on Friday:

• Finish wrapping gifts. DONE
• Send Christmas cards (including revisiting the contact list). DONE
• Prepare packing list. DONE
• Pack. DONE
• Check my PPW to make sure that nothing requires action before I come back. DONE
• Wash 2 loads of laundry, hang them to dry. DONE
• Iron the rest of clothing, especially the stuff I need for my trip and the items DBF needs while I'm gone.  DONE
• Prepare other loads of laundry for DBF to wash while I'm gone. DONE
• Enjoy SSD's GGG sale before it's over on December 24th. DONE

Maybe there's more, I'll add as I go.

So much for my plans...

Well, I still crossed a couple things off my list for this week, but then I had to work extra hours and I had no energy to do anything house-related. I think I'm getting a cold so I don't know what I'll be able to do this weekend besides sleeping, but I'll still list what I have or would like to do:
HAVE TO:

• next week's menu, shopping list DONE
• grocery and last gifts shopping DONE
• pick up Christmas cards from printer company DONE
• visit a customer with DBF DONE
• wrap last gifts
• call customer service for the order I haven't gotten yet DONE
• prepare packing list for my trip next week
• 2 loads of laundry

WOULD LIKE TO:

• finish to iron the HUGE pile of remaining clothes
• take naps to get rid of that cold before it gets too bad
• take pix for P365 and scrap them

As usual, I'll let you know how that goes!

This week's plan + some LOs

This week will be busy at work with the town magazine to finish and get printed, the Holiday cards to get ready  and especially the contact list (400 contacts!) to update. Anyway, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do in the house with all that busy-ness at work, so I'll try to keep it light so that I don't set myself up for failure. Here's what I want to do:

• Everyday: morning, midday and evening routines (especially dishes after each meal)
• Monday: get back on track with P365 project + wrap Christmas gifts DONE
• Tuesday: iron while watching Braquo DONE 
• Wednesday: digi-organisation: tag recently purchased kits, RSS reader, etc.
• Thursday: finish digi-organisation
• Friday: plan next week's menus and grocery shopping list

Even though I love having a weekend free of chores and go grocery shopping on Friday night, I'll probably have a couple gifts left to buy in a more distant shop, so I'll have to go there on Saturday.

Oh, and since it's been forever since I shared some LOs, here are a couple of my most recent ones:

I got a couple "Gallery standouts" with this one! Yay!!

As usual, check my gallery for full credits.

Yay, weekend!!

I'm happy it's the weekend! I have the Christmas party from work this Saturday, and even though the music is usally crappy, at least I hope we'll have some good times with my collegues! And maybe see our boss get drunk, who knows! LOL Anyway, I don't plan to do nothing but party this weekend, here's my plan:
Saturday:

• visit DBF's uncle in his elderly home, finish to set up his room DONE!
• finish to wrap Christmas gifts, prepare package for SIL
• change cat litter DONE!
• pamper myself for party DONE!
• iron our clothes for the party and more while watching "Love Actually" (my favorite Christmas movie EVER!) DONE, but while watching a new episode of "The Walking Dead"... Yeah, less romantic and Christmas-y! ;)

Sunday:

• get up late after the party! DONE!
• set up Christmas tree and other decorations DONE!
• proofread town's magazine DONE!
• pix of Christmas charity concert DONE!
• order clothes online DONE!
• create digiscrap calendar for collegue Don't need to anymore

My favorite part is that I didn't forget to add fun stuff in the mix. Love this!!

This week's to do's

Life has been pretty hectic recently, but not as much as it usually is this time of the year. I'll be nice with myself and say it's because I've been more organized and efficient than usual! ;) Anyway, I still have lots to do and here's what I really want to accomplish this week. Well, the rest of it anyway!

• Tuesday: change beddings DONE, pick up kitchen 75% DONE, do a load of laundry DONE and go to bed before 10:30 because I need to get up early tomorrow Mmmm, it's 10:24 and I'm still dressed, so I will probably be a bit late, but not too much... night all!.
• Wednesday: do another load of laundry DONE, start wrapping the 7 Christmas gifts I already have 4 done and plan the ones I don't have yet DONE, start planning my trip to Switzerland for the holidays message sent to the car-sharing potential partner, have to wait for a response.
• Thursday: finish wrapping the Christmas gifts and finish planning for the rest of them DONE for my two best friends and brother, just have to get gifts for my BFF's kids, find the ring and necklace I need to fix (my grandmother's engagement ring, created by my grandfather... I can't believe I misplaced it!!) DARN IT, can't find them back!! Will have to look some more tomorrow, plan next week's menus DONE on Friday.
• Friday: errands: grocery DONE and Christmas gifts DONE shopping, the jewelry store irrelevant since I still couldn't find the jewels I need to fix.

Okaaaaaayyyyy, that's quite a plan, isn't it? Better get to work because it's already 7:45 PM and I got a lot to do! I'll let you know how that goes!

Falling off the wagon... or the horse... or whatever the heck it is!

Well, this weekend didn't go as well as planned. I had absolutely ZERO motivation to accomplish the things I wanted to do. The beginning of this week wasn't much better. I had some not-so-good news on monday morning about our infertility treatement, and feeling sad and helpless about that didn't help my motivation for other things.

Anyway, time to wipe the dust off my knees and get back on the saddle! (BTW, that reminds me that I'd LOVE to ride a horse sometime again! LOL) Tonight I took my friend Anne-Sophie's kids for a walk with my doggie. I was really happy because her 7 years old son was always afraid of Kira but he overcame his fear and was able to take the walk with us today. Still not very comfortable, especially when the dog wasn't on the leash, but still, he didn't run away crying as he used to. This victory and the fact that we spent part of the evening with those kids makes me want to do something again, it re-energizes me.

I won't have much time tomorrow (wednesday) evening because DBF's aunt celebrates her birthday, and I have another exam for our treatement on Thursday morning (not as early as the two previous ones, luckily!) so, instead of trying to do too much and not succeed in anything, I'll focus on getting the house back in shape before the cleaning lady comes on Thursday afternoon. I'll have 2 lunch breaks (tomorrow's and Thursday's) and one evening to do it, which is completely manageable if I start tomorrow already. I'll get back to a more intensive work afterwards, especially if I can finally have some answers about our treatement. Not knowing what to expect is always bad for my mood, my motivation and because I can't plan much I usually don't even try to!

Take care!

Working at it

So, on the beginning of this workweek, I listed right here all the things I planned on doing to get my life back on track. And it worked pretty well, for most domains at least. Yet, I'm not perfect (Pfew, luckily! that would be boring, right?) and I had some issue. Since posting here helps with holding myself accountable, I'll try to keep track more regularly. Soooo...

• weight loss: track food every day: THAT was the domain where I struggled more. I'm definitely not good at keeping track of what I eat, I don't do it right away and when I catch up I always forget the munchies... which is precisely what matters most! 
• wellness: go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night until I get to 10:30: still working at it, I'm going to bed around 11 PM but I can't sleep until 11:30, so I still gotta improve that part.
• routines: practice as much of each routine as I can, but at least do the dishes after each meal: except for Friday, where I was totally unmotivated to do anything because I was very tired (had to get up really early for an exam at the hospital), I did great on that part. Yay!
• freetime: be more picky/mindful about what I watch on TV so that I have time for "better" stuff, like reading and scrapbooking: I barely watched TV all week, so I'd consider this a great success!
• fertility treatement: collect all informations and papers for my exam on Friday: done! I'll have to write a post someday on how I organize my medical stuff for those treatements, 'cause it's working pretty well! ;)
• Goal of the week: preparing Christmas gifts for my family and inlaws: this is 95% done, I'm still waiting on one pic from someone but all the rest is done and even posted to the printing website.

Well, that's it, I'm proud to have been doing really great on some aspects and even though I struggle on some others, I prefer to focus on the successes to build momentum and be stronger to work on the less successful domains! Here's what I'll do this weekend:

• weight loss: track food every day (and, especially if it still doesn't work, try to find out if this is really a good goal for me or if being stubborn is a countereffective thing to do!)
• wellness: go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night until I get to 10:30, and try to relax/not play with my smartphone in bed so that I can sleep faster once I'm there.
• routines: practice as much of each routine as I can, but at least do the dishes after each meal.
• freetime: get updated on my 2 fave websites and get caught up on my project 365 (really behind on that one!)
• housekeeping: fix the little messes we have going on in the house after my no-motivation Friday and clean the cobwebs in our (very high ceiling) living room.
• Goal of the weekend: send pictures to my niece and stalk my other niece for pictures so that I can finish my Christmas gifts.

Once again, I'll let you know on Sunday evening how that went! Until then... take care!

Getting my life back on track... again!

Once again, I'm trying to get back on track with... well, about everything: weight loss, housekeeping, routines, time management, and it goes on and on. I know myself too well to try to do all at once, though, so I've decided to go slowly and take action on one thing at a time. Here are the things I will work on for each domain:

• weight loss: track food every day
• wellness: go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night until I get to 10:30
• routines: practice as much of each routine as I can, but at least do the dishes after each meal
• freetime: be more picky/mindful about what I watch on TV so that I have time for "better" stuff, like reading and scrapbooking
• fertility treatement: collect all informations and papers for my exam on Friday.

I also have decided to work on one other goal each week until 2012 (or until I run out because all my goals are accomplished... yeah, right! LOL). This week, I'll focus on preparing Christmas gifts for my family and inlaws. I'm making digiscrap calendars, and so far I'm doing great: the cover and the first 6 months are done for my inlaws. It'll be much faster for my family after that since it's digital scrapbooking: I'll just have to switch the photos and tadaaaaa! I'll be done! LOVE technology!

On that note, I'm off to accomplish my evening routine. See you next weekend to find out how this week went!

My fave android apps

As you may remember from this post, I now have an Android smartphone and I'm loving it. Being able to have all my PDA's apps + a phone + internet right there, in my pocket... Talk about geekgasm!! LOL Anyway, I thought I'd share my favorite free apps:

• Grocery gadget lite: As a geek, it's against my life rules to shop with a paper grocery list... hence this app. It's not perfect but at least I can sort the items by status (to buy, already bought) or by aisle.
• Chore checklist lite: I use this to record my daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly routines. Good one!
• Astrid to do list: I use this one to keep track of my one-time to do's, like pay taxes, call X, pick Y, check Z.
• SparkPeople's diet and food tracker: to record at least my weight, and ideally my food and exercise too. Recently I had nothing good to track in those last two domains, maybe that's why my weight log has been really scary!

Those were the useful/serious/productivity apps, and now some fun ones:

• All the Angry Birds versions (the original, Rio and Seasons). I've just finished the original one, I'm starting Seasons... Fun but sometimes frustrating too! LOL
• Pixlr-o-matic: the Android version of Instagram, love the vintage feel of those pix. Check this one I just made this afternoon, for example:

October already... how did that happen?

Over the last days or even couple weeks, I've been SHOCKED everytime I see a date somewhere. And with today being the first day of october already, it's even worse. How could time pass so fast? Where have 9 months of this 2011 year gone?

I've been understanding Gretchen Rubin's motto "The days are long but the years are short" WAAAYYYY much better recently, and realizing how incredibly true and powerful this statement is. Now I have to try to enjoy the passing time and all the fun moments and happy events that come and go instead of trying to slow time! Being in the moment, instead of remembering the past (or worse, regretting it!) or anticipating the future (or worse, being afraid of it!) is probably one of the biggest secret of happiness!

Okay, that was me being all philosophical and stuff... What do you think about this topic??

Oils: a new way to clean my face?

You may (or may not) know that I'm a green-geek: I'm always trying to get rid of the chemicals around me, and infertility hasn't help with this desire for "clean environement" I already had. Anyway, I was running out of my traditional make-up remover and rather than buying a "green" product, I decided to try the oil cleaning method. I was inspired by this post and by one of my FB friends that said it worked great for her. It's always different when someone you know, a "real person", tells about something tested in her real life, right?

So, this afternoon I checked my local supermarket and found some castor oil (huile de ricin in French) and some jojoba oil, about 5€ each 5dl bottle. Castor oil is a good basis and then you add another oil. Jojoba is apparently great for oily/acne-prone skin, so hopefully it'll help my hormonally messed up skin get better. Maybe I'll add some tea tree essential oil later on to make the mix (half castor oil, half jojoba so far) even better against acne.

I was so excited to try it that I cleaned my face at 4 pm and I LOVED it. I was afraid my skin would be greasy and not feel "clean", but WOW. It's soft and moisturized, without excess... Just the perfect balance! I couldn't help but touch my cheek and say "Wow, my skin's so soft... like a baby's butt!" LOL

I will finish my traditional cleaning product and switch to this method, but from this first experience it looks like it's gonna be a good one for me. And since it's green and economical, it's all good. Can't wait to try it for a couple weeks and see how it works on the long term!

Have you tried this method? If you did, did you like it? If not, why??

Busy, busy, busy!

Autumn, basically september-december, is always the busiest time of the year for me. This year, it's even crazier than usual. In the coming week, for example, I have to organize the sport and association day on Friday, a trip to Luxembourg on Sunday, the inauguration of the town's high school next Tuesday and finally (at least for the moment) the town carnival next weekend. Pfew!

With all this business, trying to keep some sanity in my home and my life is more necessary than ever. I have a couple tips but I'd love to hear yours! Please share!

Recent LOs

Well, I've been busy recently playing with my new toy phone, but I still found some time to scrap, and here a couple LOs I created in the last weeks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual, check my gallery for full credits.

Technology

Aaaaah, technology!! I have an Android smartphone since a couple weeks and I simply love it!! It's just fascinating to see all we can do from this little device: facebook, internet, music and podcast, games, and even blogging. BTW, I'm posting this from my phone!

This new "toy" was actually the little push I needed to join twitter and re-unite several of my accounts: e-mails, facebook, twitter and blog. It's so much simpler to manage one single network than various ones!!

Taking action

As I planned in my last post, I've spent some time recently writing down each and every little thing that I have/want to do. It was a loooooong list, since I've listed quick immediate tasks as well as long term projects. (I've made the same thing at work, and trust me, this list is even longer.) Good news is: some items are already crossed off! Yay!!


I will now try to work on one quick task and 2 projects (for 15 minutes each) per day, except when I have to work in the evening. Starting today, for example, my two projects are editing Lydie's pictures and practicing my evening routine. And my daily tasks until the weekend will be:

• tuesday: change beddings
• wednesday: new phone's "money back offer"
• thursday: go shopping for some good meat
• friday: ironing

I will see how this goes and I'll let you know!

Who I am...

"I love knowing who I am and more importantly, who I’m not." This sentence got posted recently on Marcia François' blog (a very interesting serie about party planning, check it out if you've got a birthday coming!) and it rang a bell with me.

I think this is the exact reason why so much disorganisation occurs in my life (or anyone's, actually). When we try to pretend we're someone else, or when we don't even know ourselves well enough, we end up with disorganisation and all its ugly friends: clutter, wasted time, bad feelings like guilt and low self-esteem, stress.

Some practical examples of this? Easy, I just have to look at my house and my life:

• My craft closet is full of supplies I'll probably never use because I'm a digiscrapper at heart, not a paper scrapper.
• My closet is full of clothes that don't fit because I gained a lot of weight, but that I keep nonetheless because I hope that one day, when I finally lose this weight, they'll fit again. The fact that they'll then (if that day ever happens) be totally out of style is another question!
• My RSS reader is full of blogs that I follow in hope of being someone I'm not, someone that cooks, that scraps a lot (I have much more inspirational ideas that I'll ever have time to use!), that paper scraps (see above about craft closet), that blogs regularly (see below the date of my last post... yeah, I know!), etc.

Holding on those "someone I'm not" have bad consequences, and yet I can't let go of them. These are not true dreams I have, or things I really want to do/be/have in my life, otherwise I would have taken action on them. For example we really want a baby, and we are doing what's necessary and possible to get pregnant. But being a great cook... mmmm, not so much, since all I keep doing is reading food blogs without doing anything. It all summarize to that: being a doer instead of a thinker, a daydreamer or a reader.

Actually, a little bit of inspiration is great and pushes me to do new things and get out of my comfort zone and grow new (and sometimes unexpected) skills. But too much of it can be overwhelming and depressing rather than uplifting. If you can't take action to bring that inspiration to life, no matter how good the idea is, it'll only bring negative stuff in your life. Right now, what I need in my life isn't more inspiration to grow, it's to create a more solid base to grow from there. You can't build a house without good foundations, and you have to make sure that the first floor is well built before adding another one. That's what I'll try to do in the coming months: secure what I'm doing good, change what's not working and stop wasting my time and energy on trying to pretend I'm someone else.

First step: create a master to do list to make sure that all I have running in circle in my mind is written down and taken care of. I'll do that both at home and at work to keep things where they belong (and because I don't want to think about work when I'm at home!). I'll let you know how that goes! ;)

So much for my plans...

No matter what I planned to do, my body decided otherwise. I don't know if it's a good news after our FET (frozen embryo transfer) or just a sign that I needed my vacation BIG TIME, but I'm exhausted. Seriously, just cleaning the kitchen took me several sessions split on 2 days. Okay, the kitchen was a terrible mess, but still! So I've decided that I'll do what I can when I can, and enjoy some relaxing time and some much needed rest. I still keep my plan in a corner of my brain, and if I feel better in the coming days I'll get back to it. If not, then I'll try to manage the bare essentials and do the rest when I come back from Normandy, during the last ten days of my vacation.

Today's to do's

Let's see how I'm doing with my plan:

• at least 15' in the office (first to clear the desk, then PPW)
• at least 15' on e-mail (26 unread on Thursday morning)
• at least 15' on RSS feeds: DONE (60 unread remaining out of 78)
• at least 15' on my "dowloads" file: DONE (6.3 Go remaining out of 6.52)
• at least one cleaning task (starting with the kitchen, which is a nightmare)
• at least one load of laundry or 15' on ironing: DONE(one load hang up already, second one in the washer)
• clean the dishes right after every meal so that the mess doesn't come back as soon as I clear it!
• get to bet before midnight so that I can "catch up" on some sleep
• scrap one LO (hey, gotta add some fun in there too, right? ;)

Well, hello there! Long time no see, uh?

I know, I know, I've been a bad bad blogger! Life has just be crazy these... days weeks months (had to check when was my last post... yep, months!), first of all because we had a huge event at work to plan: a 5 days long festival that we organized for the first time. Weeks and weeks of planning, 15 hours workdays, and a town magazine to finish in 2 days right after the festival to top it all... Fun times. And as if this wasn't enough, I had a FET (frozen embryo transfer) just after all this craziness. But all in all everything went great, the festival was a huge success, the town magazine is out, we celebrated Bastille Day yesterday evening (despite the pouring rain) and I am now in vacation for 3 whole weeks! YAY!!!

Well, the only thing that went bad during all this was my housekeeping. Our house is a complete mess. So here I am, trying to set up a plan to get things back to normal before leaving to my grandparents next week.

Here's what I'll do daily:

• at least 15' in the office (first to clear the desk, then PPW)
• at least 15' on e-mail (26 unread on Thursday morning)
• at least 15' on RSS feeds (78 unread on Thursday morning)
• at least 15' on my "dowloads" file (6.52 Go on Thursday morning)
• at least one cleaning task (starting with the kitchen, which is a nightmare)
• at least one load of laundry or 15' on ironing
• clean the dishes right after every meal so that the mess doesn't come back as soon as I clear it!
• get to bet before midnight so that I can "catch up" on some sleep
• scrap one LO (hey, gotta add some fun in there too, right? ;)

Looks doable, right? Off to take my breakfast and get started!

Home tour (caution, photo heavy!)

Okay, as Marcia asked to see my home, here's a quick home tour. I took the pix right after I had finished my weekly cleaning, so this is just the best it can look, it's usually much messier!

Here's the view you have when you enter our property. We are very lucky to have a big garden around our home.

Here's the door. I love the roses, especially the white ones that smell soooooo good.

When you enter the house, there's some sort of "roundabout" in the middle from where you can go to the different rooms. There are 5 rooms in the original part of the house (on the right on the picture above): our bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom, another spare room/future kids' room/today's dungeon (it's so messy I couldn't bare to take pix of it! LOL) and the office. Then the living room is in the former garage (on the extreme left on the pic above) that we remodeled about 2 years ago. Okay, let's get in!

Here's the entry way, with the "roundabout" in front and the bathroom's door.

The first room on the right when you enter the house is the office. Here's an overall view

DBF's desk, on the left when you enter the office.

The office's storage, on the right of the room. There's also our indoor bike (which is more often used as a very expensive coat hanger) and our cat's boxes on the floor. Having this cat is like having a toddler, he leaves toys all over the place... ;)

My desk, in front of the door

Here's DBF's closet

And here's mine. Yes, my boyfriend has more clothes than me.

In front of the entrance is our tiny, very narrow bathroom. At least it's easier to clean up! It's so tiny we don't even have a bathtub, only a shower. That might be a problem when we have babies, but we'll figure it out then!

Here's an opposite view of the bathroom. It's one of the only room that doesn't have much built in storage, but it's enough for our needs. Once again, this might change when we have babies.

On the right, in the back of the house when you enter, is the kitchen. It's bright yellow and I love how cheerful this look in the morning. If I'm not awake by the time I get in, I am after that! LOL

This is the cooking/fridge/freezer area. I have a very limited working space so everything is hang up, it frees more surface.

The table and the sink, with our dishwasher. The cat's litter is also in there, because we rarely eat in the kitchen. We move it when we eat there. It's not a perfect spot for it, but it's the "least bad" place for us!

The kitchen's HUGE storage space... love it!

Last but not least, the living room. We have to go down a couple steps from the kitchen to get there.

This is the first part of the room when we get down from the kitchen.

Our "big books" and comics bookcase (the paperback/pocket books are in the office)

The entertainement area. Almost all the storage there is empty. Ain't it fabulous, especially for a packrat like me?

Well, this is it, I hope you enjoyed the visit! Let me know what you think!!