2015

So, this is the New Year. Funny, it doesn't feel all that different to the old one. That's the thing about New Years that I don't get. People pin such high expectations on it, endow it with almost magical abilities to transform their lives. But at the end of the day, it's just day, like every other day. The ability to transform our lives lies within us, not in a day.

Anyway, enough of my New Year's bah-humbugging. What have I got planned for 2015? Oo, lots. I started looking at my goals in November. Looked at the ones I missed in 2014, considered why I missed them. Looked at the ones I hit and gave myself a pat on the back, because I think it's important to see what you've achieved more than seeing what you missed. Considered the year ahead and what I want to achieve, and how I plan to do that.

Goal Types
My goal setting process has multiple methods. It's all very well to say, "You should set SMART goals", but some things I want to achieve don't fit the SMART mould. And some things I want to achieve are not goals as such, they're habits I want to develop. My goal setting methods are:

1. Set a specific SMART goal: run a 5km fun run some time after August (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). These goals then get broken down into monthly chunks and then weekly chunks and then daily chunks. Every month I look at my yearly goals, consider what I need to achieve in the month. Then each week I look at that monthly chunk and work out what I need to do this week on a day-by-day basis.

2. Set a "list goal". I have a lot of projects I want to finish, for example a dozen or more quilts. A list goal is to focus on one project every month from the list that I keep with my goals. My lists grow as the year progresses, as new projects are added. Each month I choose the focus from my list, and decide how much I want to achieve, which depends on what stage that focus project is at, and what sort of a month I have ahead of me. Project lists include quilts, other sewing, holiday scrap booking, house renos, garden projects. I also have a list of people to write to (the goal being one per week); friends to catch up with (one per month) and similar activities.

3. Set a "percentage" habit. Habits are tricky goals to set, particularly for perfectionists. We feel if don't hit them 100% of time we're failing and (more often than not) might as well quit. This year I've come up with the percentage target. I want to develop a habit of taking my vitamins every day. The perfectionist me would say 365 out of 365 days is goal achieved, anything less is not. Reality me knows that just isn't going happen. I track every day that I take my vitamins. Each week I record how many days I 'hit'. Over three months I calculate my percentage hit. My habit goals are to hit 25% in the first three months, 50% in the second three months, 75% in the third three months, and 90% in the last three months. This gives a stretch goal, it gives me a target, and it keeps me realistic.

Putting it on Paper
I mind-map my goals. This year, I've gone back to Stephen Covey's concept of 'roles'. I have four roles: artist, community, care-taker, worker.
I have the year in the centre and a branch for each role. Each 'sub-role' is on a smaller branch. Under 'caretaker', for example, I have 'finances', 'spirit', 'body', 'house' and 'garden'. At the end of each sub-role I list my goals, whether SMART, list or habit.
I keep this yearly mind-map in my diary. Once it's created, I scan it and remove the goals at the end of the branches and the year from centre. I print out the remaining basic structure and use it each month to set my targets for the month.

Blank mind-map for ready for monthly targets

In addition to setting goals for the year, I picked up an idea from a fellow quilter a couple of years ago, of assigning a word to the year. The word I've chosen for 2015 is "harmony". I want to develop as a musician, I want to find balance with all my pursuits, not focussing on any to the detriment of others, I want to develop strong, healthy relationships with people who are important to me. Using a tool I found on-line (http://www.wordle.net/create) I created a word cloud (also kept in my diary).

Harmony word cloud

That's a basic overview of my goal setting process. Although, at the end of the day (even New Years Day) I think there's just three things that are important for reaching a goal:
1. Write it down. Research shows if you write it down, you're more likely to hit it.
 2. Review it. If you write it down and ignore it, you won't hit it. Review each month and each week, "What do I need to do in order to achieve this goal?"
And then, the third important step is simply "Do it".

New sewing space - organising bits and bobs

A quick one. I have a new sewing space. Well, I have half a new sewing space. My previous sewing space needed to pack away to become a guest bedroom. I found keeping everything in zip lock bags inside big gift boxes worked well. Each box was labelled - sewing, art, stamping, etc. In my new space I don't have to pack everything away all the time, so I'm taking some time to think about how to organise everything. A lot of the ideas I've got are either stolen from online or based purely on what's on hand that works. This one was stolen.

Hot glue a magnet to the base of small container with a lid - these are 35ml (1.2 oz)

Screw an IKEA strip to the wall, or use a magnetic whiteboard, or a metal sheet, possibly even magnetic paint (but I'm not sure how strong that is).

Fill containers will all those little bits and bobs that lie around the sewing room - press studs, hooks & eyes, thimbles.

If you used a larger sheet, perhaps slightly larger containers, this would work for buttons, beads, and notions that are small and annoying to store. I'm thinking I may eventually move all my beading notions to this system. At the moment they are in trays, but the straight sides make it difficult to get them out.

15 January 2014: Update
Although great in principle, this idea is simply not working. Originally, I used a hot glue gun to attach my magnets to the bottom of my containers. A number of them fell off. In researching, I've found that the heat of the hot glue can also demagnetise the magnet.

I tried double sided tape, a good strong one, but it doesn't stick to the plastic containers reliably. I'm forever giving containers a 'push' to reattach the tape.

I tried PVC glue - again, it doesn't stick to the plastic.

I'm thinking of ditching the magnet idea and using sticky velcro dots. If the velcro stays stuck to the plastic containers, this would have the added advantage of being able to stick a matching dot anywhere on the walls in the sewing room.

This is a good site for info about sticking magnets to various materials: http://aussiemagnets.com.au/knowledgemanager/questions.php?questionid=17

SocialFixer

If, like millions of others, you use Facebook; and if, like sane people everywhere, you avoid using Internet Explorer, then you really should be using SocialFixer. SocialFixer helps to eliminate some of the more annoying aspects of FB. I don't use all the options on offer, I doubt anyone does. The main strength of SocialFixer is it allows you to use FB how you want.

One of the main features I like is the tabbed newsfeed. My newsfeed is so full of shared photos and junk that I miss the actual going ons in my friends' lives. With the use of filters, I can push page updates, group posts, shared photos, and 'stuff' to separate tabs. I can even hide posts I just don't want to see.

The filtering use a code system I haven't used before. I'm familiar with the code needed for Microsoft macros and database programming and I'm familiar with standard Boolean code. I have never used "regular expressions" before. It's taken a bit of trial and error to work out how to filter my FB newsfeed just how I want, so I thought I'd share.


The basics (that I use and as I understand, and I'm open to helpful comments) are:

• use a / to open and close an argument /this is my argument/
• use a | to denote a "or" option /search for this|that/
• use i after the argument to make case irrelevant /search Upper or lower case/i
• .* searches for wildcards i.e. a string of characters of varying lengths and types (I can never remember how to search for an actual fullstop/period, so I don't use them in my filter strings)

My current filters are below. The filter string that I use in shown in blue. I've given some examples of the types of posts it picks up. I've used grey to show text that isn't included the filter, and orange to show text that is picked up by the wildcard (.*)
 
/added .* photo|was tagged in .*'s photo/i  - moves to Photos tab
Jane added 6 photos
Bill added a new photo
Bill added 6 new photos
Bill was tagged in Jane's photos

/shared .*'s photo|shared .*'s status update|likes a photo|.* (shared|likes) a link/i - moves to Shares tab
Jane shared Bill's photo
Jane shared Bill's status update
Bill likes a photo
Bill shared a link
Bill likes a link

One could argue why not simply use /shared .*'s/ or even /shared .*/ rather than including two strings with 'photo' and 'status update'? I have found that sometimes the more definitive string is safer. A friend may post a status update along the lines of "I shared Bill's coffee" or "We shared a coffee", which is not the same as sharing Bill's viral photo.

/added .*|changed .* profile picture|updated .* cover photo/i - moves to "Timeline" tab
Jane added Bill as a friend
Jane changed her profile picture
Jane updated his cover photo


/Group Name|Group Name/i - moves to Groups tab
Simply copy the group name from your list and use in the filter. Be aware of punctuation that requires code to be read as actual punctuation. As I mentioned, I can never remember it, so I just use 'bits' of my group names, to avoid the full stops and the like.

Pages - in the far left column of the filtering tab of SocialFixer, is a list of your friends. At the bottom of this list is a list of your pages. Simply highlight all of them, and move them to a "Pages" tab.

These five filters save me a lot of "argh" moments. My home tab is mainly status updates directly from my friends and not repeated rubbish. I'm sure there are other "standard" posts pushed through by FB; as I find them I add them to my filter strings.

Room (House) Scenting

I  read this idea on http://www.aboutamom.com/2011/09/crock-pot-air-freshener.html and thought I'd give it a try.

Take one slow cooker (crock pot), add 4 or 5 cups of water, 1 tablespoon of bicarb for each cup of water, and a suitable room scent.

One day I will find a bulk supplier of bicarb. I can go through a 500 g box in a day of cleaning.

I chose lavender because I like the smell and it's food friendly - I want to use the cooker for actual cooking later. Other options would be vanilla, cloves, lemon or orange (peel would be good)

Mix everything in the slow cooker, turn it on and leave with the lid off for hours. Apparently the bicarb absorbs odours and the scent floats about the rooms. My lavender scent reached all the way to the other end of the house.

Not the most attractive looking dish! Hoping the white washes out easily.

Postscript: I thought I'd try lemons, but hubby had cleaned out the fridge. The dry old lemons I thought would be perfect were gone . I used an orange, but I really didn't like the aroma and it wasn't as strong as the lavender. I'll keep experimenting, although my slow cooker pot is looking a little worse for wear tonight.

Bathroom cleaning

Bathroom cleaning is a bit like exercise. Not just that it's often hard work and you end up all sweaty and revolting. It's one of those "I don't wanna, but know I feel better afterwards" tasks of life. Our bathroom used to be a bear to clean. The floor was 1970s, dark brown, inchie tiles. No idea what colour the grout was originally. The shower had cracked safety glass that probably didn't look particularly clean the day it was installed. The cubicle was tiled with silicon applied over the top of mouldy grout. Mould will grow through silicon! The basin  was cracked and the vanity was chipboard that left chips all over the floor if you so much as breathed near it. It also had a bathtub, the primary purpose of which was to collect dirt, fur and hair.

Pre-renovation

A couple of years ago we renovated. Oh, bliss. Our new bathroom has an 'all in one' shower cubicle. The walls are lami-panel, the base is moulded, the doors slide so it can be left open to dry out. The basin is a single moulded unit. The splashback is a very large mirror. And the floor, ah, beautiful floor. The floor is red cedar boards.

Post-renovation

This post isn't actually about my lovely, still-new, renovated bathroom. It's about cleaning it.

Somewhere along the way, some years ago I picked up a very simple cleaning tip. It helped in the old shower, makes cleaning the new shower a breeze.

In a spray bottle mix 1 part dish washing detergent (daggy old shampoo you decided you hate would work as well) and 3 parts cheap white vinegar (you could use expensive, but it'd be a waste). I label my spray bottle and somewhere on the bottle there's a 1/4 mark. Spray the shower, leave for an hour or so, scrub with a non scratch cloth, rinse. The vinegar works to break down soap scum and mould; the soap simply holds it in place and works on the ordinary dirt.

Bathroom spray

Do be careful of the fumes when spraying. Yes, vinegar is 'natural', doesn't mean it's harmless. After all, scorpions and red-bellied black snakes are also natural.

One of the issues I've had with the spray (other than the knock-you-out fumes) is that the shower based becomes incredibly slippery while you're scrubbing. I have found a cheap and easy solution - a piece of non-slip matting for under floor rugs. It's non-slip so you don't slide all over the shower while scrubbing, but it's a loose weave, so water flows through it readily.

Anti-slip rug mat

And a few more gratuitous photos of our bathroom. After nearly two years I still love it and think it was one of the best things we've ever done to our house.

Shower cubicle - rounded front design fits nicely in the corner and doesn't need extra floor space to open the door.

Vanity with mirror splashback.

Exams

Well, it's that time of semester again. BUT, the good thing is - this is the final semester. At last. It's only taken 6 1/2 years to get here, but I finally finish uni on 11 June, at 11:30am. That's less than 19 days time. YAY. Needless to say I've been pretty slack about keeping my blog updated, 'cause I've been focussed elsewhere. BUT, still, here's a tip or two.

If you don't like your job - change it. If you think you can't change it - you're wrong. The reality is any one of us can do anything we choose to do. It's also a reality that we have different priorities. If you can pinpoint some of your priorities, you might just be able to change your life.

For example: you hate your job and you think "I can't do anything about it" - what's really guiding that? Is it that you don't want to go without the money while you study? You're scared you'll be no good at what you really want to do ie you just don't want to step out of your comfort zone? Whatever it is, you have to a) identify it and then b) ask yourself is this really a bigger priority for me than what I really want to do (eg change my job).

Now - if changing your job is a bigger priority - get out there and do it. IF on the other hand maintaining your current comfort zone is a bigger priority - then stop whinging about your current job.

When I went back to uni I was the breadwinner for the family. (I couldn't cut it as a stay-at-home mum, so The Man took over.) I had to juggle being a mum, working 40 hours a week (plus the rest) and studying. That meant I had to give things up - reading, movies, sewing, sleeping long hours. But I just didn't want to do what I was doing until I retired.

It's taken 6 1/2 L-O-O-O-N-G years, but I've finally made it. I really enjoy my job, and I'm just starting at the bottom! And now I get back my free time and comfort zone. There were times when I HATED studying. There were even a few times I threw my books across the room (stats!) But in the long run - it's worth it.

Thing is though - only YOU can decide if its worth it. Doesn't matter what it is. Some people want to climb mountains (why?), some people want to make lots of money (ho hum), some people want to put a computer in every household -they all made sacrifices to see their vision come to fruition. If you have a dream; a goal; a desire - call it what you will - decide if you want to make the sacrifices and then go for it.

Tips - Zip Lock bags

I love zip lock bags. My house has boxes of them spread all over the place. I save all the ones that things come packaged in - wee little ones and great big ones. They're great for keeping cotton wool balls and buds dry in the toiletries bag when you're travelling; storing buttons or bits you want to take shopping to match against things. I have two favourite uses for them though, and generally use the biggest ones I can buy.



Use #1 in the sewing room - I store all the bits and pieces of a work in progress in a zip lock bag. If I buy fabric for a particular project I store it with the pattern in a bag so I don't accidently use the fabric for something else. Once I start cutting up zip locks come into their own. So handy.



Use #2 (so different!) in the kitchen - zip lock bags are brilliant for marinading and coating food.



To marinade: make the marinade in the bag (no washing up!), squish it around, add the meat (or whatever), squish around, fold, put in the fridge. Every so often, squish it around again. If you're wary of the seal of the bag - put it on a tray.



To coat: add all the ingredients to your bag, add meat, squish around. I usually blow a little air into the bag, seal, and then toss it about. A lovely coating for chicken - garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and equal quantities of breadcrumbs (or cornmeal or crushed cornflakes) and flour.

Tips - Storage

My study area is surrounded by windows. There's not a lot of space for storage. I solved some of the problem by using bathroom accessories, designed to suction onto tiles or glass. The top photo is a soap rack, that nicely holds my PDA and phone while they're recharging. The stick-on hook helps keep my cords where I need them, instead of all over the floor. The bottom picture is a basket, I guess it's really designed for toothbrushes or razors or so forth. But it makes a jim dandy pen holder.

You do have to be careful, particularly with things with cords, that you can still easily open and shut the window. Make sure to stick your bits and pieces on the sliding half of the window!

And an extra tip - if the suction caps don't work very well (you have no idea how often my phone and PDA ended up on the floor!) put a little bit of vaseline around the outside edge of cap (leave the centre clear). Works a charm.

Tips - Chooks

Oh my goodness - I've lost two days. How does that happen? It can't just be to me that it happens. Other people must lose days, weeks or even months. They do, don't they?

This tip is very simple - own a couple of chooks (chickens to those who might be from parts other than Australia). Couple of good reasons for chooks:

• Our chooks lay one egg each every day. We have four chooks, we have three people. I never buy eggs. Good quality (ie free range) eggs are over $5 a dozen. We do buy laying mash for our chooks, but I get a dozen eggs every three days, and my laying mash costs about $20 every month. You do the maths.
• Chooks eat ANYTHING. The down side of that is you have to protect some areas of your garden. The up side is that, other than chicken and egg scraps, all food scraps go to the chooks.
• Food scraps that go through chickens turn into lovely rich growing material. I'm guessing it's not strictly "soil", but its great in the garden.
• Chooks do not take up a lot of room. We have a 'hutch' with an enclosure around it. The whole area would be three metres square. The chooks are often let out to roam our (fully fenced) yard. We let them out in the afternoon as they tend to lay in the morning, and while Easter egg hunts are fun I don't want to do it every day.

The only real down side is that I haven't worked out what to do with chooks that no longer laying but refuse to conveniently die. Hubby keeps suggesting the cook pot, but I'm too much of a city girl to pluck and gut a chook. Ewwww.

Tips - Caffeine

If you're trying to give up or reduce your caffeine intake try drinking green tea.


Black tea has about 1/2 the caffeine of coffee; and green tea has about 1/3. You can further reduce the caffeine in green tea very easily. Make your tea in a pot or cup, let it sit for about 30 seconds, then pour the water off. Refill and this time drink it.


The only difference between green tea and black tea is that black is fermented and green isn't. Apparently (and I can't remember where I read this) this means that green tea releases its caffeine very quickly, so you end up pouring most of it down the sink. (Or pour it into a container, let it cool, and water your pot plants.)


I add sugar to my green tea (gasp, shock, horror) and depending on the brand of tea I can't tell the difference to black tea.

Tips - Unique Clothes

I love to sew. I actually love to quilt, but I do also do some clothes making. I actually prefer to "embellish" than make however.

Embellishing takes in a range of skills - embroidery, applique, painting, beading. If you've got some sewing skills you can turn a $4 t-shirt into a one-off masterpiece.

Some ideas I've used:

Beads:

• a spray of beads down from one shoulder on a dark shirt (beads are time consuming);
• beads in blue and silver on a very plain black dress, with matching beads on a blue over jacket

Embroidery

• flowers around the collar, cuffs and pocket top of a man's dress shirt;
• a wave of flowers down the front of a bottle green, button up vest - the vine was plain green stem stitch, the flowers were variegated pastel thread
• if you have an embroidery machine you could do all sorts of marvelous things

Buttons

• These days everything seems to come with shell buttons; add some colour - contrasting or complimentary or silver/gold buttons or even fun buttons.

Applique: I've used:

• a spray of green and brown gum leaves on one shoulder of a pink shirt
• a swirl of boxes all in (different) blue fabrics on a blue shirt, and various other abstract ideas
• a lovely mask from a piece of fabric
• The options for applique are really endless. You can choose complimentary colours or contrasting colours, or an array of colours. Decide how you want to wear the item first. If its a black shirt you want to wear with anything you probably don't want a bright red pattern on it.
• I've also used applique to coordinate an outfit. I had a pair of pants that were too short. I added a hem to them, and used the same fabric to applique an abstract image on a shirt. When I wear them together they look like a 'suit'.

If you're going to buy cheap t-shirts it sometimes pay to run a line of ribbon around the inside of the hem and along the shoulders. This helps prevent the shirt from stretching out of shape so quickly. One shirt I actually used bias binding in a darker shade than the shirt, ran it around the hem, the neckline and the sleeve ends as a contrast.

Tips - organising chargers

I haven't used this tip, but I think I might! I think I saw it in a copy of Handyman somewhere, but I couldn't find it on their website.


You will need

• A fishing tackle box - one with a large space in the bottom and a removable tray at the top
• A power board - the bigger the better, 'cause (as I'm sure you've noticed) a lot of rechargers take up two slots :-((
• A label maker of some sort - you can buy little tags from Officeworks (?) for tagging cords (very handy around the 'puter)
• A drill and a small, fine saw

The idea is:

• The power board goes in the bottom of the tackle box
• The cord goes through a slot along one edge (which is why you need a drill and saw)
• The power cords for the appliances come up through the tray (another drill job)
• The appliances (phones, PDAs and who knows what else) sit on the tray
• All the extra cords sit inside the bottom of the tackle box.
• The labels a) help you know what plugs in where and b) stop the cords falling back through the holes into the bottom of the box

The main reason I haven't used this yet is that hubby's PDA sits at the main 'puter; his phone is in the bedroom ('cause he used to work shift work and get calls at all hours); my phone and PDA sit in the study near my laptop. I love the nice, neat, tidy concept though.

Tips - Kids' Art Work

If you've got kids you'll know that they bring home a heap of art work - particularly when they first start school. It's precious, it's special, it's blinking nuisance. We have a clean out of art work every so often.

I have a big scrap book - the sort you get for a dollar at the el-cheapo shop - not the sort you pay big money for at some fancy scrap booking shop. Anything that is super precious goes in the scrap book.

Anything that doesn't warrant a place in the scrap book is photographed. Particularly costumes. My girl has several fancy dress opportunities every year. I love designing the costumes, but the reality is - by the time she needs another "survivor of a cyclone" costume she's probably going to be 10 sizes bigger. So, I photograph them. I do allow her to keep one small article to represent the costume. Her room is decorated with Charlotte's web (the "some pig" one); a couple of magic chair wings and other bits and pieces.

I figure the photos will last a longer than the original piece, and take far less room (stored electronically) than boxes of drawings and egg carton dragons.

Tips - Ice

I like my drinking water at room temperature but I like all my soft drinks (soda, pop, etc) icy cold. We have a separate freezer and have room to store a bag of ice from the supermarket. BF (before freezer) we were limited to the little space above our fridge.

I found that the door shelves of the freezer were pretty darn useless for just about anything. I bought a long, narrow plastic container that squeezed into one shelf. We would empty the ice cube trays into the container, and then refill them. As we used the cubes from the container the water in the trays had a chance to freeze.

We also invested in some Tupperware icecube trays. These trays have lids. The Tupperware sales person went on about putting fruit in them and so forth; but really the biggest advantage is that they stack easily. Now that we have a full freezer the ice cube container sits on top of the trays.

Tips - Family Favourites

Buy a nice note book with a solid, hard cover. Mine is a bit smaller than A4. Write down all your family favourite recipes. (If you're not married - write in it all the favourites from your childhood.)

It saves hunting through recipes books for that recipe each time, enables others to find the recipes easily (makes getting someone else to cook a little easier), and makes a great leaving home present. Well, I'm guessing at that last one. The Girl hasn't quite left home yet ;-)


A recipe journal also makes a lovely gift - engagement, housewarming, etc. I gave one to my sister-in-law for Christmas one year, and explained how I used mine. She loves it.

Tips - Budgetting (2)

When you're making up a budget always round outgoing amounts UP to the nearest $10 and incoming amounts DOWN. Unless you have a lot of self discipline (and are in a really bad spot) budgetting to the exact cent will be impossible to maintain. As soon as a bill is 5cents more than expected your whole budget falls over. Rounding outgoings up and incomings down gives you a little bit of lee way.

Tips - Budgetting

Budgetting is not one of my strong points. Lots of good intentions. Bit of a "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" situation. But, this tip has worked for us in the past.

Add up all your regular bills for 12 months - registration, rates, phone, electricity, school fees. Leave out the day to day stuff - groceries, petrol etc. Divide the amount you come up with by the number of your pay periods (if you get paid weekly divide by 52; monthly divide by 12; etc).

Transfer that amount (automatically is best) to a separate account every pay period. Don't touch the account unless it is to pay one of the bills you included in your calculations. An ING account, or other on-line bank, is probably good 'cause they have high interest and you can't just take money out at an ATM.

Tips - Bills

A quick tip. For bills that come around less frequently than say monthly (registration, rates, etc) - add them to your PDA or computer calendar with a repeat function. Make sure you set them to start reminding you a week or two before the due date. Although the amount might change from bill to bill you won't be caught out by them being quite so unexpected.

Tips - Menu Planning

One of the things I gained from Flylady (http://www.flylady.net/) was an introduction to Leanne Ely. Leanne runs a website called Saving Dinner (http://www.savingdinner.com/).

Leanne writes and sells menus. Not restraurant menus, but every day cooking menus for busy families. The basic deal is: you sign up for a particular menu; every week you receive an email with 6 recipes and a shopping list. The recipes are all very easy, very quick, and mostly wonderful. In 12 months we had maybe 2 or 3 we won't be eating again. Probably about half a dozen dishes are repeated in a 12 month period. Although Leanne is Amercia based she has available menus for the southern hemisphere so produce is fresh and the dishes are suited to the weather (no hot soups in summer).

I saved all my menus, and we're about start our third year using them. Because there are so few repeats we never get bored; and as we've gone through them again I've removed dishes and vegetables we haven't enjoyed and substituted some old favourites.

It is possible to do this at home and not pay someone else to do it. I tried, but being who I am it would take me a whole day every week to plan a menu and shopping list. I even tried using various bits of software. In the end I decided it just wasn't for me, and paid Leanne for her menus. One thing that worked for longer than the others was to write all our favourite dishes on index cards. At the beginning of each week I'd close my eyes and pull out 6 cards - and that's what I'd shop for and cook during the week.

Here's the advantages of having a menu for the week:

• No more looking in the fridge and thinking "what's for dinner"?
• No more going to cook something only find you're missing the vital ingredient
• No more spending too much at the grocery store 'cause you're buying stuff "just in case"
• If the main cook is running late everyone knows what's for dinner and they can start on it

Basically, having a menu planned eliminates the stress of dinner - particularly if all the cooks are also busy people (and who isn't)!

Tips - More on Routines

I intensely dislike housework. You do it, turn around, and it needs doing again. I'm not sure which happens faster - dishes piling up on the counter or nuclear fission. The sad reality of life is, however, that housework has to be done by someone; and really it's not fair to expect hubby to do it after he's worked 15 hours and I've sat around blogging and watching movies for 15 hours. Here's a few things I've learnt:

1. Time those hated activities. Most of them don't take anywhere near as much time as we think they do. Do you know that it takes less than 15 minutes to wash up more dishes than my drying rack and the counter next to it will hold?
2. Drop the perfection mentality. When I wash floors I don't move furniture out of my way unless its furniture that often gets moved. If it normally doesn't get moved who's going to know if I mopped under it or not? I won't ;-)
3. Remember - housework blesses others. If you live by yourself the 'other' might actually be yourself; but if you share a house you will bless those you share with.
4. Routines :-) That's right. Having a routine makes it so much easier to talk yourself into things. Friday mornings is my day for Home Blessing (a Flylady term). Friday I don't shower in the morning; I clean my house and then I shower - 'cause I try to go as fast as possible and I get really hot and sweaty. Here's my routine; takes about an hour (tops).

• Pick up everything that's not where it belongs. I dump it in a big basket and everyone is responsible for retrieving their own stuff.
• Strip and remake the beds every 2nd week; the towels every week; put a load of washing on.
• Spray the shower (see previous post about spray)
• Race (literally) around with the vaccy. See above about moving furniture - it don't happen.
• Then race (literally) around with the mop (see post about vinegar and floors). We have all hardwood floors through the house, so I vaccy and mop the entire house.

Routines - that's just what I do on Friday mornings. I decided not to complain or whinge about it; I just suck it up and do it 'cause its got to be done. And, yes, it does bless my family.