Monthly Archives: January 2012

Make a list Monday 003

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Hello readers! I seem to have made it to week three. :) Yes, there’s a pat on the back for me. I’ve had a busy week this last week. Several work functions and a really busy time at work so I have been a bit lacklustre on the blog posts. However, I still posted more than once in a week which for me is great! I must now try to stop my little progress reports like this as I am sure they aren’t so exciting for you to read – so on to the topic at hand.

This week’s list is all about the places I want to go to in America on our way home when we make the move. I decided to make this list now since I’m feeling a bit down about our budgeting/saving at the moment and feeling like it is all too hard. Part of me just thinks – sod it. Lets just have a ball here and travel as much as we can here in Europe and USA can wait…but I have thought we would do this for so long now it would feel a shame to change at the last minute. So here we go:

New York with side trips to: Washington DC & Boston,

Chicago (maybe???),

Denver, Colorado because my Mum’s good friend lives there,

LA – as a starting point to drive the loop up past Vegas, Yosemite National Park etc, up to San Francisco and back down the Pacific Highway to LA to fly home to NZ

There are so many more places we could visit but those are the ones I, well we, want to visit. How does all that sound? What do you think we should do? Focus on travels in Europe like Greece, Spain and Portugal that we haven’t seen yet as well as Ireland and Wales etc or should we keep going with our knuckle down and work our butts off to get to do our America travels????

Yummy!

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I went down to the supermarket today to grab a few bits and pieces but ended up coming out with trolley full of food! I try to buy something nice on the day I get the shopping in like fresh fish or similar as it has a shorter shelf life. Tonight was salmon time! I thought I would share with you the dinner I made since it was a random find online and both Dave and I loved it!

I googled salmon fillet recipes and came up with this: http://www.salmonrecipes.net/sour-cream-rub-for-salmon

It was really quick and easy to cook and tasted delicious! Give it a try…

P.S. What do you think of the photo editing? Let me know if you know of any good courses I might do! :) (I know only a few tricks and use them again and again!)

Make a list Monday – 002

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I’ve made it to week two and last week must have had a record number of blog posts! I’ve been giving myself a big pat on the back. Expecially because I have worked 6 hours unpaid overtime this weekend and instead of mooching and falling asleep on the couch I have got out the lap top and here I am! Busy writing Monday’s post in advance and hopefully a few spares for the busy days this week.

Last weeks list was pretty mundane but I did manage to do most of the tasks. I did have a wonderful lie in and really the only thing we didn’t do was take in a packed lunch…which would have saved us the stress of half running all across London to get back to Pret where my cash card, travel card and NZ driver’s licence was residing in a rubbish bin! But it made for a good story so there we go.

This week’s list is something to help me keep accountable. I have a few unfinished projects in my crafting that I want to get finished in a timely manner…some are even from 2010! I thought that if I share them with you now I can keep you updated on my progress and since today is my day off this week I can get a good head start. So here we go:

1. 52 Cards – a challenge from Scrappin’ Patch from back in NZ. This was about using a pack of jumbo cards to journal/scrap the year in weekly highlights and each week has a different theme/material/colour etc to use. I have done up to April sometime I think so my mission today is to decide each weeks photo and plan the cards then get crafting! Timeframe: Completion by end of February.

2. Travel Journal – I prepped all the pages and journalled in a scrap diary while we travelled around Europe in May 2010. I haven’t even finished the Hong Kong pages (which was our stop over on the flight over) so I need to use the journalling I have along with the ‘keepsakes’ to get this completed.
Timeframe: Completion by end of March.

3. Shimelle Classes – There are a few of these, I have started but not finished: ‘Love your Pictures, Love your Pages’, ‘Journal Your Christmas 2010′, ‘Blogging for Scrapbookers’, ‘True Stories’, ‘Explore’, ‘Pretty Paper Party’, and finally – ‘JYC 2011′! So just a few…oh, and should I mention I have also bought but not started Something from Almost Nothing and chose to skip 2011′s Learn Something New Everyday. I’m giving myself a round of applause for completing LSNED 2010. Haha. To find out more about these classes and see why it really is ok to go at your own pace check out Shimelle’s blog where she also runs free challenges, giveaways and lots more fun stuff!
Timeframe: Completion in time for September’s LSNED class which will be my first Shimelle class back in NZ (eepppppp…how exciting)

4. Secret craft present for my bestie -  This is in progress but top secret so I can’t share much detail – however I do want to have this finished so I can post it over soon!
Timeframe: Completion by end of May

Now I have a huge box full of over 1000 photos and lots to print since then but I don’t want to feel too overwhelmed or set myself too many goals so I am planning to use that box of photos as my ‘break box’. I plan to use it to break off the monotony should I start to loose motivation in completing any of the tasks above.

My question now is will you help me?! Will you follow my progress and help me keep my goals in mind? I am looking forward to showing you my progress along the way as well as the photos of victory when I complete these projects! Wish me luck – I think I have written this list on almost every notepad in the house, but since it now lives here in cyberspace it is REAL!

What are your current projects on the go? I would love to know.

Monopoly Photo Walk

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It should only take a few hours right? Guess that depends on how many hours is a few! With about 3 hours on Monday and 6 hours on Tuesday it was a much, much bigger mission than we expected. Pretty glad we didn’t think to turn it into a pub crawl – I have no idea how you would make it through a pub crawl…

We used a route we found on the internet (which I would share but I’m not sure I can do that without breaching some sort of copyright. Just google search it and it comes up on the first page) and that started us at Park Lane. Starting at the top!

After a few hours of walking and taking photos we got to Piccadilly Circus I realised my card wallet with quite a few cards etc had ended up in the rubbish in the cafe we had lunch at…so we speed walked back all the way up to Marble Arch and had to get them searching through the rubbish to find it! Eventually they did though so all the stress and exercise paid off. Thank goodness!

We decided that as it was getting dark we would head over to Victoria to the theatre where we had booked to see, go home and get up early the next morning to get it finished.

It was about 10.30/11am when we got into town on Tuesday where we picked up where we left off and tried to pick up the pace. We were aiming to finish the photos and get to Greenwich, Britain at War Museum and/or Britain Museum…let’s just say that was wishful thinking! At 4.30pm we were at Liverpool Street with just four places left. All the Museums closed at 5pm so we had given up all hope of getting to the museums and were just hoping to get good enough photos without tripods.

That London gets dark at 3pm ish in winter time has to be the most frustrating and depressing part of winter. I can handle cold, snow and even wet and windy…but so many hours of dark is just so hard!!!

We just managed to get our final shots of Marylebone and get on the train home by 17.56pm…It was both a rewarding yet full on experience and although I wouldn’t try to undertake it again in any shape or form I am pleased I have done it and hope you enjoy the little snippets throughtout this post.

Hope you are all having a lovely week and I would love to hear any stories you may have of any Monopoly Board photo walks/pub crawls etc!

25 by 25

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I was sat on the train a week ago and my phone battery had died. I had a journey of about 45 mins still ahead of me so out came the trusty notebook and the brain started firing up.

As I told you all yesterday I am a list girl and I enjoyed letting my brain roam free to think of different lists in an effort to keep myself occupied and pass the time.

One of those lists I wrote was all the countries I have visited. My next thought was about how I could use this information. I hadn’t set any goals or resolutions this year so I decided that I will make this list of countries grow to at least 25 by the time I turn 25 this September.

It’s a bit of a scary thought, turning 25. It sounds so adult, so far away from my teens. Yet I still feel so young and immature at times! I am the middle child in my family so can’t claim to be the baby there but ever since I left school I have been the youngest in my work place (or second youngest). Of course that made complete sense when

I was 18 and went from school to a job in the bank but now, 6 years on, I am still the youngest in my office at Flight Centre U.K. I guess the reason it seems so intimidating is that a lot of my friends married and/or had kids in the last 6 years and while Dave and I are engaged and planning our wedding I do sometimes feel so juvenile.

I realise how silly this sounds as I type it because we chose to move here to the U.K. to do all this travelling and life “living” while we could be selfish with our time and money. Had we stayed home we probably would be married and in a house/saving for it by now. I don’t regret the choice we made so I am going to stop beating myself up and enjoy where I am right now – no matter what age!

The list of countries I have been to so far are:

1. New Zealand (The obvious one – I was born and raised here, and will always call it home!)

2. Australia (The mecca for all Kiwi’s who want to travel short-haul)

3. East Timor (An amazing school trip in 2005 – ask me about this some other time)

4. Brunei (My first overseas holiday without parents/teachers present)

5. Malaysia (A couple of quick visits while in Brunei with friends)

6. Hong Kong (Our stop over destination on route to London)

7. England (Our current home away from home)

8. France (This begins the list of countries we visited on our Topdeck Tour – European
Getaway: I will post a review of this trip in the future)

9. Switzerland (we visited here again last year with Mum and Dad)

10. Monaco

11. Italy (we also visited here with Mum and Dad)

12. Austria

13. Czech Republic

14. Germany (Also visited for Christmas 2011)

15. Netherlands

16. Belgium

17. Scotland (went to the Royal Military Tattoo – wonderful experience)

18. Morocco (Dave’s 25th birthday present from me)

19. Croatia (Dave’s birthday present for me)

We have a trip booked for early February to Norway and Sweden so that will take the list to 21. So just four countries to travel to before September. This should be do-able – in fact we have pretty much got that all sorted already! We are going to travel around Turkey on an Intrepid trip in May (for Dave’s birthday) and before we travel home we will visit Wales and Ireland. That leaves just one country…which will be USA on our way back home!

I will write about my progress and possibly even up the anti to 30 by 25 if we get as much travel in as we would like!!!

I’d love to hear if any of you have set yourselves any challenges like this – please do share.

Make a list Monday – 001

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Today I introduce you to a new feature on ‘In this life’. Make an list Monday!!! (Just in case you can’t read the title and put two and two together – oh, that’s just me? Sorry!)

I am a list girl in my heart of hearts and I often find myself making little lists of various tasks/goals/to do’s etc. I decided that since sometimes I need to be kept accountable to those lists and sometimes they are just never-ending, that if I share them with you that will help me to both achieve them and not to make them too long and boring!

Today’s list is all about what I need/want to get done today – I have the day off work and a friend from NZ is here staying with us. So without further ado, list #001

– Enjoy a nice lie in,
– Breakfast,
– Sort Washing,
– Pack lunch to save pennies (we’ll see how this goes…),
– Print off Monopoly Board walk instructions

– Check out how to use Rochelle’s camera
– Photograph all the Monopoly Board places (SO excited for this one – been wanting to do this for forever! Ok, forever is a slight exageration but it has been a long time coming),
– Remember tickets for the show

– Dinner and show with Rochelle

And that’s a wrap, some of those things are pretty boring. Some things are pretty self explanatory. But it is a start. Now I have started this series I intend to keep finding new ways to write more interesting lists and to hopefully be more successful in crossing those pesky little things off. :)

Guess who’s back? Tell a friend!

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Hi everyone!

It has been a long break since I last wrote and there are multiple reasons for this absence but I wont bore you with all of them. Suffice it to say I was busy, unmotivated and multiple features in the background of my blogging platform were broken.

After a few nights of effort and using the fantastic skills of my fiance we have hopefully *knocks on wood* fixed it! Hooray!!!!

One of my fav self-portraits of 2011

While the blog has been having a break I have been inspired by other blogs out in cyberspace and I have come up with a game plan. I have lots of ideas for posts which include keeping you all in the loop with our travels, our wedding plans and our general escapades here in London as well as making the most of a few weekly/monthly features to keep the blogging regular. With this in mind…and without sharing too much of what is to come, welcome you back to my blog – In this life!

Oh and while I have your attention – I am hoping you can now comment here so if you can and have read this please let me know if there is anything you would like to hear more about/any old posts/styles you enjoyed in the past etc…basically anything I might be missing that you want to know about. :)

Thank you and goodnight!