October 2016

I have been stepping up my craft game - and by stepping up I mean actually doing some LOL. The other night after Dylan had gone to bed, I stayed up (too late!) to make some dividers for an A5 Love Doki planner I got. I have been thinking of what to do for next year as this year I have been using a happy planner and that cannot be refilled... The original plan was to do a bullet journal, and I figured that when life gets a bit too hectic a bujo may not be used to its full potential - so my personal sized Love Doki got some new WH Smiths inserts as a back up. Just in case. Some people might wonder what on earth I could possibly put in a planner seeing as I'm just a stay at home mum in the week and at the weekend I just work in a shop... But I essentially have a household to run, and a work rota to keep on top of, and believe me - if I have a bad week and I don't fill anything in, then both myself and Dylan can stay in our jammies for a couple of days at home (in my defence, I was also not feeling too good).

I was so pleased with how my dividers came out, some ladies in a planner group I belong to asked where I was selling them lol!



Dylan also decided that he wanted to be Catboy from PJ Masks. He's absolutely Mario mad at the moment, and often tells me that he's Mario and I'm Princess Peach and then we continue what we are doing but I have to refer to him as Mario :) But for a few days I was Night Ninja (with lots of sticky splats!) and he asked if we could make a catboy mask for him and he wanted me to have an Owlette one too, so I picked up enough foam for all 3 PJ Masks just in case he wanted to be Gecko instead - the joys of toddlers!



I ran out of hot glue sticks so only Catboy has been completed, but he loves it, even if he has picked at it and broken it a bit so it needs to be fixed! (Again, joy of toddlers lol!)



We decided to have a fairly quiet day, I was feeling less than great, so we had a PJ day. We built a fort and cuddled up with blankets and cushions in there (my legs were outside the side hole because I couldn't fit in completely) we watched some telly, we read books, we cuddled up and played his DS. Later on that day I remembered I still hadn't seen the Justin Timberlake concert on Netflix so we put it on and danced (I wasn't particularly concerned about bad words during songs) took a short break for bath time and cuddled up on the sofa to finish it off. It was one of my favourite days - one that I know I will look back on and remember fondly :)



It seems to be getting colder, our heating was put on the other week, and something my mum used to do for us when we were little was to get 2 Cadbury mini rolls in a bowl and cover them in custard... YUMMY! The custard would melt the chocolate and was a lovely warming treat. We had no mini rolls - not even the Tesco ones we buy - but I did have some tesco cake bars and they did the trick nicely ;) I have got to make some chocolate crumble/chocolate concrete sometime soon, but today after I got home from work and cooked our tea, both me and Dylan made M&M cookies. ^_^

Autumn is on the way!

There's a long main road near to where I live and the leaves started changing a couple of weeks back. Summer came back and we certainly have been enjoying it :)



There hasn't been much to share lately, and for that I apologise. Dylan is coming on leaps and bounds with his potty training, I'm still looking into cutting down on chemicals in our home, but it seems home made laundry powder isn't one we can use... (1) not that this matters to us as our machine is on its last legs & I'd many years old, but it can apparently void your warranty if you use homemade laundry products. (2) it doesn't get your clothes actually clean. With a toddler, who gets messy, we need things to be clean! It was actually my own PJ bottoms that made me realise it wasn't doing the job it was supposed to, as they are quite long for my short legs and drag the floor and I had gone into the garden wearing them and they were filthy! Only after washing, they were the same. I did another wash but this time with detergent and that did a much better job. I know cutting chemicals out completely is an impossible task, so I know I have to pick my battles, and for now it seems that this isn't one of them.

Otherwise we are just plodding along.

House tour

Can you believe that we have been in the house for 9 months now? Time is flying by! I filmed this house tour months and months ago, so it was about time that I shared it here with everyone.



Yesterday we had the telly sorted in the bedroom, much to Dylan's delight - we had a telly in the bedroom in the flat but it wasn't a huge priority to get one in the house to be fair. The issue we had was that our telly that sat on top of the wardrobe in the flat nicely  was actually too big to be put in the exact same place in the house as the ceilings are surprisingly lower here, and it misses by all of 5mm. So my parents decided when they purchased a new telly for their caravan that they would use it in their spare room (my old bedroom - Stewart's old bedroom has bunk beds in for my nephews sleep overs) and take it out when they needed it and let us have the old telly as it was small enough to fit.

Dylan was up around about 1am I believe so came in with me (yes, he's still up at least once a night if not twice or more). 6.30am he was going: "Mummy wake up! Telly on please, want Tiny Pop!"



We attempted Geocaching, and it didn't go too badly but he absolutely had to have his reigns on. He has a habit of walking/running off, and I couldn't be chasing after him while trying to spot a cache. He did help me find his very first one and quite enjoyed it, when I told him we were going on a treasure hunt he seemed to enjoy it. We have been out looking for munzees as well by telling him we are playing hide and seek. We have hidden a couple of them and found quite a few :)







Waiting for Nanny & Grampy to return home from their holiday







Painting in the garden. Apart from the fact we seem to be having a pretty pants summer as soon as we have some nice and warm sunshine we go out and make the most of it... Right now it is overcast and a little chilly, we are hoping summer makes a return soon!

Our flat tour

Quite overdue, I am going to share the video of our flat. There's the original video when I moved in (if you excuse my awful commentary!) then there's the one I recorded before we moved out... An additional two people and a lot more stuff later!

So here it is when I moved in and we had started doing some work to it (but still a bit to go!)


Here's some pictures of how it was once I was more settled and I had my proper furniture in:



I know that in 2008 Gareth moved in with his stuff and then we had a child whom we bought things for, in a 1 bed flat, was tough, but even so it was still a lot we had.



I have actually vlogged and recorded a video earlier on the other day about my new YouTube channel. My original one is home movies and random bits, so *hopefully* this new one will be about, along with blogging about it, cutting down on chemicals in the home, what I'm doing and using to help my anxiety and be in a better frame of mind (though today I am super exhausted!), decluttering and sorting out our home and so on, so watch this space.

I will also be getting around to a house tour video soon :) That's on my to-do list!

Multitasking at its finest

Scanning and blogging! So bear with me here ;) It has been quite a (long) day with Dylan sleeping in his room until 4.3oam where I then lay awake for 2 hours before getting up and getting cracking on some house work, my UC making me quite poorly, and mishaps such as attaching myself via hook and loop tape (also known as velcro to most of us ha!) to some boards, scaring myself silly going into a completely dark room with a mannequin that was right inside the door - the same one I have mistaken for a customer far too many times than I care to admit.

Hubby is working on some stuff in the spare room and Dylan thankfully went to bed after arguing with me about where he was planning on sleeping. I am sat on the floor with a cushion as I need to access the scanner for my lovely planner pages.

You see apparently that Marie Kondo said something about things coming to you when you most need it. I'm still a little skeptical but have witnessed a couple of such events:

A raffle where I left early from the party. At the time I remember seeing the table of prizes thinking "I don't want any of that clutter around" so didn't hesitate when I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people after losing Dylan a few times that I had enough (thankfully it was a toddler Xmas party and he was safe but still a scary thing watching your child run off in front of your eyes and there is no way you can get to him as there are people blocking your path!)

I was done. I didn't care if I didn't win anything.



Weeks later I received a voucher, as it turns out from that very raffle... For a free cut and blow dry. The previous weekend I had been thinking to myself that I needed a hair cut.



Then we have my latest purchase: A Kikki K wellness planner. I agonised over this one for weeks. I debated about whether I truly needed it, I watched youtube videos about it and figured everything in this planner was just what I needed to get me on track where my regular planner organises my to dos/appointments/etc, but that maybe I should still wait. They had a sale on for 20% off and boy did I hover over that add to cart button. Instead I signed up to the mailing list a couple of days before the end of Jan, where the final day of the sale I received an additional money off coupon code, that by luck I tried it with the already 20% off and got it at a bargain price. But I am scanning the pages in so that I don't have to purchase refills :P  It is gorgeous and most certainly is sparking joy: a year ago on Tuesday I attended my first CBT class which ultimately (we think) helped me get into remission until December with my autoimmune disease. This planner has CBT like parts about it but also addresses other key things. Just reading through it has made me think a lot and I look forward to using it to implement some much needed changes in addition to some other household ones I have in the works. If it helps me make some happy healthy changes to my life then without a doubt it will be worth every penny :)

I do intend on being back with those flat videos. I was also toying with the idea of doing a bit of vlogging but we shall see how that one actually pans out haha!



Not only have I been sick with an awful cold, had my car not starting when I was trying to leave for work and borrowing Gareth's, then had to sort out a puncture for my car, Gareth's car having issues as well and him having my car for the week until we got it back on Thursday... Ive had one poorly little pickle as well. Thankfully colds seem to have shifted. Next plan, remission for me! (please keep fingers crossed!)