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

Then there's our bedroom, on the left of the "roundabout".

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!!

Scrappy news

Okay, even the announcement wasn't public, I hope I can post my big news on my poor neglected blog: I got picked to join Amanda Heimann's CT! I'm so excited!! I already downloaded and played with her fabulous product and I'm feeling so inspired, I can't stop scrapping! Here are the LOs I made so far:

Using Pretty Picnic with Mommyish Designs and Layout Builders #3

Using Fever with Meghan Mullens

Using May Grab Bag (Rainbow Connection and Gray Skies add-on)

Using May Grab bag (Rainbow Connection and Ctrl+Alt+G)

Using Fever with Meghan Mullens

Hey, I told you I was inspired, right? Love it!!! Check out my TDC gallery for more infos!

I'm not a real girl

At least according to all the machist clichés of womanhood: I don't care about shoes. Like, really really don't care. I have a pair of rain boots and two pair of sport shoes (one for inside, one for outside) for the "utilitarian shoes", and 3 pairs of true everyday shoes: leather boots for winter, sneakers for anytime and flats for summer. And that's it! DBF has about the same amount of shoes, which makes it very easy to maintain. Well, in theory, because in reality we usually have more than our pair of the day out in the entryway!

Here's what my shoes look like most of the time:

This is the floor of my jackets' wardrobe, where the shoes not currently in use are stored. Notice my little helper? LOL

And this is the entryway. How welcoming, uh?

 And this is how I would like my shoes to be all the time, or at least how I should put them back every other day:

The entryway with only our pairs of the day, one for DBF and one for me.

The wardrobe's floor. In the boxes are the less used shoes and the more frequently used are stored outside.

Now all I have to do is take pictures of the shoes inside the boxes to find them more quickly and, most of all, maintain this system. My luck, as I said, is that with that few shoes it's very easy to pick up when there's a mess, it takes only 5 minutes!

What's your system to organize your shoes? Do you have any tip for me?

Week one of SYL

Ooooops, I forgot to post here: the first week of my guest blogging for the Simplify Your Life e-course was posted at Marcia's blog! Go have a look and let me know what you think!

Excuses...

We're all the same, we all make excuses. Well, normal people do, at least! And since I'm very very VERY normal, I make them very often. Housekeeping and weight loss are the two areas of my life where it's the worst. BUT, I wanted to share with you that tonight I decided to "just do it" and stop making excuses.

I'm in an association where I can practice Tae Bo twice a week. The problem is, the course on Tuesday is at 7:30 pm, which is too late (I get home too late for watching House MD... don't laugh, this stops me from going!!) and too early at the same time (I don't have time to eat before going, or I'm still digesting when I exercise and I'm feeling bad!). Plus I usually go to the town where the course is with people, which means I can't go at my own rythm (even if it's greener, this still bothers me).

Anyway, instead of spending another Tuesday without exercising because I find excuses for not going to this course, tonight I just grabbed my skates and sport pants and went for a 30 minutes ride. I'm so proud of myself!

"Identify the problem"

One of Gretchen Rubin's Personal commandments is to "identify the problem". I recently followed this advice and it made a huge difference! I had several objects that had no designated spot in my office: my tablet's pen, my headphone, and in my kitchen: my white/magnetic board where the menus and coupons are kept, my dishes gloves and the towel. These items were always lying there, always "on my way", if you know what I mean.

The white board, for example, was on my (very little) working surface, standing against the fridge. It fell regularly, usually when my hands were full and when I couldn't pick it up. The magnets would fall too, usually in the bowls that were on the working area... a true mess!

The white board before. Notice my paper towel and foil roll holder is already vertical...this should have helped me figure out the white board thing!

This was a tiny problem, but a very annoying one, and I had to stop and think to identify it. Once I had figured out what the problem was, it was quickly solved with a couple nooks.

The white board after, on the other side of the fridge.

The dishes area with the towel and the gloves hanging down.

Here's the details of the towel and gloves' nooks. They even are hidden from sight... Just perfect!

Now all those little objects are hung up and have a designated spot to stay. The white board is the first thing we see when we enter the kitchen, which will motivate me to keep it clean and decluttered and will remind DBF to check the menu of the week. The gloves and towel are hung with clips from the Dollar Store. My working surface is free and I (or rather DBF, my personal chef) can cook without having to fear a white board falling on him. Ain't it great?

I did the same thing in my office. I had a rack of nooks that wasn't used anywhere but that I kept "just in case" (yep, I'm THAT kind of girl!). Since I don't need it in our closets, I thought I might as well use it for all those little items. Now even my ruler can hang up there, with a little help from my trusty crop-a-dile.

from left to right: my rulers, tablet's pen, pens and pencils in a container and head phones. The container is from Ikea but I can't find the name anymore!

Do you have some trouble spots like these that you could fix easily once you identify the problem?

How to know if you're doing ok even when the obvious doesn't show

This article on SparkPeople made me think. We all know that losing weight and organising have a lot in common: they both demand persistence, self-discipline, goals-setting techniques and baby steps to succeed. Is this another area where these two journeys are similar? Is there signs that your organisation is improving, or at least maintaining, even when the obvious (the look of your house, basically) isn't saying so? For me, the answer is clearly YES! Here are some signs I've seen even when I had the feeling to be stuck:

1. I'm feeling more peaceful, I don't have the feeling that things are out of control and that a huge wave is right behind me and will drown me anytime soon.
2. Even if things aren't properly put away, I still can find them quickly enough and I can still function. This sign can be dangerous, though, because the frontier is thin between that moment and the "I can't find anything, argggggh!! *hair pulling*" situation!
3. The very basic maintenance is done: dishes are cleared regularly (even if it's not done every day), we have clean clothes and underwear (even if we sometimes have to pick them directly from the drying line), the house is picked up.
4. I have energy and I don't have the feeling that my environement is dragging me down.
5. I don't freak out when friends show up unannounced, I'm comfortable with my house.
6. My house isn't only a house, it feels like a home, a cocoon, a retreat, and I look forward to be there.
7. I don't have "bad surprises", for example bills I forgot to pay or forms I was sure I had send back after filling them.
8. I can relax without feeling guilty and enjoy a good book or movie without a little voice in my head saying "You should be doing this or that, you lazy!"
9. I enjoy organising and getting a little further each time, without falling in the "organising for the sake of it and getting lost in the process rather than focusing on the goal" trap.
10. I see my house differently, I notice things I didn't see anymore, like that pile of clutter here, or that beautiful space there. Suddenly I re-discover my environement with new eyes.

Have you noticed those signs in weight loss or oganisation? And in any other area of your life?

Woohooo, terrific news!

I'm so proud to announce that I'll be guest blogging at Marcia's blog over the next weeks for her Simplify your Life serie! Look, she already posted a little introduction... I feel like a rockstar! LOL

This course looks so interesting, and a simpler life is exactly what I need and aspire to right now. I've already started with the first week and it's so interesting! Can't wait to keep working towards my goal of a simple life!

Interesting firefox add on

After my blog post about pinterest and a recent post by Marcia François, I'm starting to see a trend here: internet can be a HUGE timewaster if we let it be. I was going through some old bookmarks and I stumbled upon this one: leechblock. First, I love the name! Second (and more seriously) the goal of this add-on sounds interesting. From the add-on page:

LeechBlock is a simple productivity tool designed to block those time-wasting sites that can suck the life out of your working day. All you need to do is specify which sites to block and when to block them.

What I find interesting here is that it allows you to block certain pages. I'm thinking Facebook, flickr, pinterest, all those fascinating websites where you can easily spend your day mindlessly browsing. It also allows you to block some pages during certain periods of the day: if you want an extra help to avoid timesucking sites during the day yet with freedom to go there during the evening, it sounds great! I think I'll install it and let you know how it goes!

What do you think? Would such an add-on be useful for you?

Fabulous fundraiser kit for La!

There's a fantastic fundraiser kit on sale since today @ SSD and DSA to help Lauren Grier. Here's the presentation of the kit in the shoppe:

Limited Edition Fundraiser! Lauren Grier is a fun, edgy, uber talented designer here at the Sweet Shoppe, but she shines in so many more ways than that. La is one of the voices that makes our community so open and fun, she is always ready to listen, la is a constant, and she certainly is one of the people that defines us here at SSD. One week ago Lauren fell severely ill and was hospitalized with 3 life-threatening blood clots. Our hearts were broken for her! La works so hard, and struggles each day to be an amazing single mom and designs her heart out as the sole provider for her awesome little son. So our designers, and friends from all over the community have come together to stand behind our la. So we bring you this labor of love, “A Little Help from My Friends.”

This kit HUGE collaborative from nearly 50 designers includes: 85 unique papers. Elements include 2 banners, 26 flowers, 8 labels, 7 borders, 4 flairs, 16 frames, 1 paint splat, 12 wordstrips, 10 stitches, 1 arrow, 4 flourishes, 1 photo corner, 1 tag, 3 chipboard circles, 6 hearts, 2 doodled swirls, 15 ribbons, 3 ricracs, 3 branches, 2 scatters, 2 sequin scatters, 3 strings, 3 butterflies, 1 charm, 9 word art, 7 buttons, 1 staple, 1 stitched circle, 5 journal spots, 1 journal lines, 1 key, 9 leaves, 2 pieces of tape, 4 paint splats, 3 gems, 4 paisleys, 2 doodles, 1 lace, 1 mat. Also includes 4 full alphabets, 2 complete fonts, 1 gorgeous template, and 1 paper stacker, and a coordinating photo action!

Participating designers: Shawna Clingerman, Penny Springmann, Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Misty Cato, Jenn Barrette, Dani Mogstad, Meghan Mullens, Libby Pritchett, Julie Billingsley, Fee Jardine, Eva Kipler, Heather Roselli, Cindy Schneider, Darcy Baldwin, Laura Banasiak, Tracie Stroud, Flergs, Micheline Martin, Crystal Livesay, Jennifer Fox, Valorie Wibbens, Designs by Helly, Jenna Desai, Jacque Larsen, Kaye Winiecki, Becca Bonneville/Tickled Pink Studio, Christy Lyle, Amy Wolff, Lauren Reid, Kate Hadfield, Lyndsay Riches, Captivated Visions, Jamie Seaward, Maaike Amstelveen, Gina Miller, mle Card, Sara Schiller, Juliana Kneipp, Jaclyn Bernardo, Sarah Cornish and Heather Hess.

This special edition kit will only be available through the end of April, so don't miss your chance to get your hands on it, and to make a difference in the lives of this beautiful woman and her son.

Have you read that? 50 designers? Yummy!!! Go to SSD RIGHT NOW and pick it up!!

Lots of new LOs

I've been uploading lots of new LOs to my slidshows (on the right), including all my P365 weekly LOs. This project has been truly fun to do and I really enjoy looking at those recap.

That reminds me of Gretchen Rubin. She emphasize, especially in this month's resolution, how important past happy memories are in being happy or happier now, and this is totally true for me. For example when I look at this page about our last family Christmas party, I feel happier just by seeing all the love and joyful faces of my cousins, uncle and aunts.

Credits: Winter Wonderland by Zoe Pearn @ SSD

Don't you just love reminding yourself of happy times?