So we have come to the end of July (actually we're waaay past that now!)…. I would love to say that I finished everything on my list, but sadly, I did not! In fact the last week of this challenge is a bit of a let down - I really hoped I'd get more done :(
In any case, here is the round up….
1. Go on a date night with Boofy
2. Cook something with an ingredient I've never used before
3. Use the massage/ pedi/ facial voucher Boofy bought me for Xmas
4. Write a letter to Alex about how funny he is at this age and put it away in his box of treasures
5. Spend a day totally unplugged from the internet
6. Organise the cupboard in the spare room
7. Cull Alex's toys (soooo overdue!)
8. Plant out the vege garden
9. Do something special with Alex, just the two of us
10. Complete some new sewing projects
11. Have a movie night at home with my 2 favourite boys
12. Read a book
13. Put on a BBQ brekky for our friends Julie & Tony and their kids
14. Go and see my Grandma
15. Go op-shopping in my local area
16. Revamp an op shop find
17. Clean up my desk at work and make it look a bit nicer (at the moment, it's just depressing!)
18. Look after Julie & Tony's kids for a day so they can have some kid-free time
19. Try a project I've seen in Blogland
20. Try a project I've seen on Pinterest
21. Organise and send out invites for Alex's Baptism (in August)
22. Redecorate the area where my random cupboards are
23. Finish off the cabinet of Nanna's treasures (as started in this post)
24. Go out for dinner as a family
25. Take Alex to mini golf
26. Write a long letter to Jo Jo
27. Hang painting in the laundry
28. Go and see the new Harry Potter movie
29. Bake some savoury muffins to take in for my work mates
30. Print and frame a free printable from the internet (there are so many to choose from)
In the end I got just over half of my list done…. It’s not as much as I hoped, but I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t had this list to keep me going, I wouldn’t have even achieved that! And in my defence… I did have pneumonia this month J
So update on the last things to be crossed off the list….
9. Do something special with Alex, just the two of usThe answer to this one is not special in that it’s not something we usually do (because it has been done before, lots of times!) but special in that it is special time between Alex and me that I will always remember and will yearn for in 10 years when he doesn’t want to know me! Lol…
Last Sunday morning when Alex woke at 4.50am (I know!), I broke one of my own rules… but just barely! Boofy was in the spare room, doing time for snoring, so I had the king bed to myself. Our rule is that Alex does not come into our bed before 5am… but it was nearly 5, and there was no way he was going back to sleep (I’d already tried tricking him by saying it was the middle of the night once!) so I scooped him up and in he came. We snuggled in bed for about 10 mins – I tried to go back to sleep, hoping he would follow my lead… he decided tickling me was more fun! So in the end, I gave in and put the TV on, and we watched Springtime With Roo, snuggled together nice and cosy in bed :)
When the movie was over (the Winnie the Pooh ones only go for an hour or so) I asked him what he would like for brekky and he said “Let’s make scrambled eggs Mummy – can we?” So I said “sure!” We got out all the stuff, made the scrambled eggs and toast together (getting him to press the microwave buttons is great for practising his number recognition!) and we set the table, opened up the blind to let the sunshine in and ate our eggies together looking out to the front garden. When we were done I sipped my mug of tea, Alex sipped his mug of milk, and sang along to the radio together. Until 5 mins later when Alex got bored and I heard the inevitable “please leave the table?” *sigh* It was all over – but... we did the same thing again today :)
15. Go op shopping in my local area
This one was just a chance thing actually! Last week Boofy and I got our tax done. Boofy attended the appointment and took all our documentation in, as I was still at work – so all I needed to do was swing by on my way home, sign the tax return and we were done! After signing and walking back to my car, I noticed I was wandering right past the local Salvos (well, only a tiny detour!)
I wandered around and didn’t really see much of interest… until a little desk caught my eye! It was sooo cute – a bit banged up, but good bones. I stared at it and thought about how it would look painted white with a pretty chair in front of it, or painted dark grey in Alex’s future room…. I liked what I saw! It had a $30 label on it… I may have mentioned once or twice that we’re being very tight on the budget at the moment, so with this in mind, I walked away.
When I got home, I told Boofy about it and said really, its only $30 and how much would it cost us to buy Alex a desk one day (especially one small enough to fit in his bedroom)? Boofy agreed (kind of… but good enough for me!) so I got on the phone, told the lady I wanted it and would be back the following day – she agreed to hold it for me until then.
Next day I went back and paid my money, but it wouldn’t fit in my car. The lady said it was fine to leave there (since I’d paid for it) and Boofy went back with his hatchback the next day and collected it – so here it is!!
I’m in love with it. I can see it all done up in Alex’s room, he with books sprawled all over it.... but it is very cute and a great little space saver, so maybe I could do it up all pretty for Mum’s future place when she moves up here one day…. secretly I want to keep it for myself! (oops, that’s not a secret anymore is it?!)
For now it lives in the garage as there is not much point doing any work to it until I’ve decided what its purpose will be – but I’m glad I snapped it up, it makes me swoon with possibility every time I walk in there!
23. Finish off the cabinet of Nanna’s treasures
I’m almost cheating with this one because actually, I finished most of this back in February… its just taken me this long to finish off the last little bits and get around to blogging about it!
You see back in February, I was really keen to get Nanna’s things out of storage and into the cabinet…. So what would be the perfect day to do that? You guessed it – they day you are having visitors over for lunch!! My stepbrother Adrian, his wife Amber, my nephew Elijah and Amber’s brother Dion were heading over for lunch. I’d prepared most of it (a super easy, super tasty oven baked chicken dish – I promise I will share the recipe here one of these days) and it was sizzling away in the oven…. So I trundled out to the garage and selected some boxes of Nanna’s things (and other random items we hadn’t unpacked since moving in).
When I started unpacking, I noticed that all of the silverware was tarnished, and the glasses and dishes I unpacked were filthy… bugger! It couldn’t go into the cabinet like that – so out came the Silvo! Pretty soon my bench looked like this… (note: I'd already polished the big coffee pot when I took these photos!)
I know – with less than 2 hours until guests were due to arrive – what was I thinking? So I polished like I’d never polished before, washed every single plate, tea cup and ornament (really I did – by hand – every single one!), threw open the cabinet doors and in it all went!
It’s was all a bit thrown together, so my mission was just to tidy it up a bit. So a bit of tweaking, this is how it looks now:
And a couple of close ups... this is the family coffee pot. I had never seen this before until Nanna moved and gave it to me - it was not something she had on display, but I think its gorgeous!
And these are the tea cups of Nanna's that I lusted after since before I even knew lust was a word! Nanna had these displayed in pride of place, and as a little girl I was so drawn to these delicate treasures with their little flowers on the handles... Very occasionally Nanna would let me drink from them - I was so careful I almost didn't breathe the whole time! They meant a lot to her too :)
And this is not one of Nanna's treasures, but one of mine. My sista Nadine (my brother's wife) gave me these some years ago - they are little Willow Tree carvings and the tag reads:
Sisters by Heart
Celebrating a treasured friendship of sharing and understanding.
I’m happy that its all together in the cupboard, and I think it looks neat enough, I’m just not sure it’s interesting enough. But oh well, its done for now. I think in the future I may back those cupboards with some interesting paper or something though… you never know…. So watch this space!
So that’s it, the whole box and dice on the July list! How did you guys go? I hope you accomplished more than I did! Lol….
I have moved on from my list, and now I have a new goal. Alex’s Baptism is on Sunday 28th August and there will be a party afterwards, so I am using it as an excuse to try to get as much done as possible before then, so the house looks super slick! We’ll have lots of relatives around who haven’t seen the house in ages, so I want it to look its absolute best.
I’ve already been taking advantage of the sunshine to get outside and get busy, so stay tuned for an update (and a couple of before and afters) on what’s been happening there! I've actually been so busy completing projects lately, that I haven't had time to post about them... a nice position to be in for a change!
Bye for now :)
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