The joy of being organised

I braved the humid heat today and went to Red Dot to try and find some mini shelf things and cheap buckets. Our bathroom drawers were getting a bit grotty and were becoming a dumping ground (try to find a bobby pin? None. Looking for something else? LOADS of bobby pins EVERYWHERE! The A has stepped on a few)

Anyway, now it looks awesome and I even bought a mini swing bin for about $4!



Brushes and sponge. Mascara, eyeliners and lipsticks in the drawer thing.




Eyes and face stuff in the 1st drawer




Hair and nail stuff in the 2nd

And on the counter....

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Awkward and Awesome Thursday!

Shoes from Wittner

Awkward

* This happened a while ago (re before Christmas) The radio news was on in the car and they were talking about a cat burglar that had escaped custody. Queue me: 'Oh wow, why would you want to steal cats? Don't most people steal pedigree dogs?' Queue The A laughing his butt off at me. Apparently they are called cat burglars cause they can climb buildings. He thought it was cute, I felt dumb.

* Splashing in the sea at Esperance and flashing The A after diving into a wave. My one piece was a tad too big for me (yay). But at least the family we went camping with were behind me and the rest of the beach was deserted. The A didn't seem to mind too much ;)

Awesome

* Going to Harbour Town and snagging the above wedges at 70% off. I also got the last in my size that another girl was trying on but rejected. Booyah!

* Herbal tea. It's just awesome.

* Watching French tourists in the cheese section at IGA. They look so lost and confused the poor things. Searching for something they will never find and looking quizzically at the 'Tasty' cheese. (I still don't know what 'Tasty' is. Cheddar? Mystery. The A just looks at me confused when I ask him and says 'It's just 'Tasty', and I don't think it could be classified into a type of hard cheese' hmmmm)

*How clean and organised the house feels after a whole weekend of cleaning and throwing junk away.

* The A's new job IN PERTH. It's awesome. He comes home at night! The ironing of nice shirts isn't so fun though.

Mind-Dump Tuesday

* Went for lunch in the city with The A today. We had to make it quick as he only had 40 mins before he had to go back for a meeting. We went to Cheeky Sparrow which the waiter dude told us had only been open for 6 months. It's down the same alley as Tiger Tiger. We shared the Vegetarian antipasto plate, and me not being able to resist Dukkah I ended up having 2 slices of bread (hand slap for naughtiness) but it also had pickled green tomatoes, olives and roasted capsicum. Yumminess! Again no picture as we were there for a short lunch and I wanted to chat to my husband not ignore him and take photos :p

* Nike stores here are crap. Jim Kidd had more recent Nike stuff than the actual Nike store. Boo! Nike, boo!

* We are doing the Dukan, just so you know.

* I have a fitness tumblr

* I sat opposite a Heath Ledger look-a-like on the train home. A tad ironic considering he was from Perth.

* I should go defrost the chicken.... hang on

* Okay done..... Kikki-K is a dangerous shop, but so great for New Years organisation.

France November 2011

Picture heavy post coming up!

In November, I went across to France to visit my parents. I had such a great time and as it hadn't gotten too cold yet I still got to see the Autumnal leaves! It wasn't warm though so I still managed to have a few fires in the evening and a big bonfire.

Lots of walks:

Lots of OLD buildings (my mum translated a book on churches which is why we went to a few):

And all the other stuff that made it so relaxing:

End of year travels

This year for Christmas we decided to take a mini road trip to the south of this big state. In total we (The A) drove 3000 km, from Perth to Albany and Esperance and back again. Phew!

We camped in National Parks most of the time but at New Years in Albany we had to go for a caravan park as all the surrounding National Parks were full.

If you are going to go that way here are some tips:

We thought Albany looked better in grey weather.

You should get to Denmark and take a drive, lots of wineries and crafty places.

Esperance has a wonderful bakery full of fresh sandwich rolls, pies and yummy sweet things. I tried to take a picture inside but every time we were there it was packed!

Esperance also has the biggest junk filled museum we have ever seen. They must accept everything that gets donated cause in the Anzac 'area' there was a collection of little china frogs from the 80's.

Take bug spray. Lots of mosquitos and march flies. And if you stop and camp in the Fitzgerald National Park (which is a 'Biosphere') expect LOTS of spiders and to get dirty as the dirt is black there.

The Amity Brig reconstruction in Albany is worth looking at and isn't expensive.

Make sure it's hot, cause the Southern Ocean is flippin' cold! But definitely go to the beaches as they are voted the best in Australia and the sand is so fine it squeaks when you walk on it!

What do you do when your husband is in the rainforest of PNG, for a whole week with no communication?

1) Eat chocolate cake at stupid times

2) Go to your knitting group and watch someone with their new spinning wheel

3) Buy very adult books

4) Drink a glass of wine at night because it's cold without another person in the house and it's the only thing that warms you up

5) Get a job (woohoo!!)

6) Finish all the paperwork of the second stage of your visa (how do you describe your commitment to one another without sounding like a total sap?)

7) Go to homeware sales and buy new pillows and sheets that aren't beige (god I'm sick of beige!!)

8) Get in your cats face

9) Knit

10) Do loads of laundry but ignore the dishes

Fingers crossed

This is the remains of my breakfast:

Yes, I had chocolate mudcake for breakfast. I'm currently overexcited about an opportunity that *fingers crossed* turns out well. But I can't say what it is as I don't want to jinx it.

It's still early, as we had to get up at 4am for The A to get to the airport in time. Thankfully he's only away until Friday. And that's it, all my news in three small paragraphs!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday!

Awkward:

- a cold sore that isn't a cold sore. Just my body being awkward.

- singing along with my music in the bus (well at least I'm not sharing bad rap music on speakers *coughstupidteenagerscough*)

- explaining to the bank teller lady why I need to pay the Australian Federal Police money. No I am not a criminal!

- realising that I was looking at the wrong side of my tape measure. Black is inches, RED is cm! IDIOT!

- having dishes to do

Awesome:

- The A came back on Tuesday night, and even though he had to go to a meeting in Brigadoon (no Gene Kelly in this one) at 7:30am on Wednesday morning. He's still here and that is just fine by me!

- making tomato, apple and chilli chutney. Chilies thanks to our chilli bush/tree (?)

- sorting through yarn and fabric stash. I have a lot of yellow fabric...

- watching the video for the new iOS5 for iPhone, iPad etc can't wait.

The budget and saving

This January, The A changed jobs. He had previously been paid monthly, but with this new one he is now paid weekly. This threw me through a loop as in Europe and with all my jobs I had been paid monthly. Trying to wrap my head around the whole weekly thing has been hard, and as a result we have had to change the way we budget, especially as I am still out of work!

Talking about money is hard and in the past used to stress me out. But we sat down and honestly went through what we thought we spent on different things for the year. We then tried out an accruement style of budget. For example we put $60 for buying books every month, on a 31 day month we accrued $1.93 a day to go towards books, only buying something once we had accrued the amount we wanted to spend. It seemed like a great system (originally from That Wife Blog) but it just didn't work for us.

We want to save money every month so we ended up streamlining our budget to the bare essentials.

We reduced the amount spent on groceries only by a little, with the added lifestyle change of eating out less and cooking more at home, as well as reducing our meat intake. Added to that we decided to buy our meat from a butcher (just up the road... convenient!), and not shopping at Woolworths but at the local Veg shop and IGA. Changing venue has actually made our shopping cheaper! Toiletries and house cleaning supplies are included in this.

This system has actually made me think more about what we have for dinner, making me plan and look through all the cookbooks that The A and everyone else has given me over the years. Our vow not to eat out as much as before has made it necessary to make dinners and other meals that bit more exciting. It also means we are BOTH less likely to put stuff into the trolley that we don't need or are not on the list!

Our 'other' sections have been smooshed into a 'weekend' section. We each get $50 to get whatever we want, including anything I eat or drink at knitting, books, make-up and clothing etc. We also have included a $20 that we can spend with each other, usually a bottle of wine!

So far it's worked but it took a while to find something that does. Do you have a budget, and how sis you decide upon it?