Eye candy!

A couple of days ago, I visited one of my favorite places in town, Selvåg garden center.
You can probably see why its a favorite of mine 😀

Off course… being in heaven like this.. I just had to bring a little of it with me home 🙂

I love roses and this container was just waiting for a punch of color

And this yellow one, has been a staple on my patio the last few years. It get super large, and the color pops…
which I kinda need because in a short week or so, the Rhododendron are all done for the year…

I’ve also been looking for a large container, and when I came across this rust colored one, I just couldn’t help myself 🙂

And remember my awesome find last year? It’s the next one on my list.
So stay tuned for my next plant installment 😉

Spring project – One big wooden deck!

B and I have been a couple of busy bees lately (actually, since we came home from England, helping mum out). We’ve been working away at building a 540 square feet (about 50 square meter) wooden deck.

Yep, you heard right.. a itzy bitzy 540 square feet deck… just kidding, in our world this is a big deck!

Last fall, we visited a former colleague of mine, and she happened to mention she’s been wanting (for quite a while now) to extend her current deck, with about 150 – 170 square feet.

We thought that sounded like a fun little spring project, so we kinda threw it out there – “Hey.. we can help you with that!” 🙂

Little did we know at that time, that this tiny little project would take on a life of it own (which I guess things have a habit to do), and morph into a 540 square feet project instead.

That’s a heck of a change, you say, and you would be right 😉

As the story goes, there was a good reason though. There was a bit of discussion on how to add the extension to the old deck, and make it look half decent (the old part was close to 40 years old). So we all decided that, for the deck to look it’s best, we would remove the old deck boards and put down brand new ones. And presto, now we are talking 540.

Turns out it was a good decision, as a few of the old deck boards were in bad shape (some even rotten). It also gave us the opportunity to strengthen the old wooden frame (which had some flaws from earlier builds), and replace areas that had had a little to much wear and tear.

So there you have it… This is where our time has been going the last few weeks (which is why you haven’t seen me on the bloggosphere much).

The project has taken a little while, but thankfully my friend haven’t minded this at all, she’s been happy with any progress we had… I’m super thankful for this, as there was never any pressure on us, and it worked perfectly with me and my need to pace myself (due to my health issues). I wish everyone was as patient as this. 🙂

But slow going or no. Guess what? We are now officially done, new deck, new stairs and everything. And boy does it look good if I say so myself 🙂

Why don’t you take a look for yourself 😉

OLD DECK

ALL TORN UP

BUILDING THE FRAME ADDITION

DECK BOARDS GOING IN

WOOHOO! ALL DONE 🙂

What do you think…? Approved?

Can’t wait to see some flowers on it later this summer… I’m sure we can sneak a visit to check it out, when she has it all decked out (see what I did there 😉 ) with furniture and plants.

Our recycle plant – and a awesome find!

A couple of miles down the road from me, we have a large recycle plant. They will take anything you want/need to get rid off.

One of their best ideas is the “Used goods/Exchange house”.

They have this separate building right before you drive into the recycle plant, where you can bring things like furniture, kitchen items, books, art, sports equipment, music instruments, old sinks… you name it, they will take it, IF it can be useful to other people.

You can not bring trash… if you do, they will direct you to the regular part of the recycle plant, where you can toss your trash for a small fee.

It’s free to leave your stuff at the Exchange house, and it’s free for people to browse all the items they have on display. Should you find something you like! Just stick it in your car.. and drive off.. at no cost to you… all free.

Last week… B and I took a full (as in an overfull) car to the Exchange house, as I figured that some of the items I had been discarding, might be useful to someone else. Last week was my second run, and tomorrow I’m doing it again. That’s three runs just with items from my 21 day declutter challenge 🙂

I love the idea of other people being able to use my old items, the items kinda get a new lease on life 😉

Now.. every time I visit the recycle plant, I always take a peak into the Exchange building, just to see if something useful would pop up, and guess what?

During last week’s trip, I scored big time!!!

I came across a small metal “tub”, which I assume, have most likely been some sort of old drinking trough for horses or something. The tub was pretty grubby looking, but I turned immediately to B and told him “I’m taking this home“.

He looked at me like I was nuts.. and I can’t say I blame him! Here we are, bringing stuff FROM my house to declutter the place… and I want to bring something BACK?

He tried to put up some good arguments, but I was pretty determined. I told him I had the perfect idea for it… HE couldn’t see it.. but it wasn’t really like he had much of a choice.. I was bringing the darn thing home if I had to carry it myself 😉

15 minutes later.. we are at my place, deep knee into cleaning the tub.. scrubbing all the dirt away, getting rid of old attached plasterboard pieces and washing away rust.

And then, I find the perfect spot… and then, I fill it with plants (to check out how it will look, come next spring)… and THEN, he finally gets it 🙂

What do you think? Not a too shabby idea.. right?

I LOVE it!

It’s perfect in my garden.. and in addition to being a different and cool planter box, it’s gonna be great for my yearly barbecue, as a huge icebox, filled with wine, beer and champagne 🙂

I mean, seriously.. what’s not to like 😉

My fellow 21 day declutter challenge bloggers;

Still in the middle of it:
– Melinda, at PurpleSlobinRecovery, on day 11
– Grace, at The CFO MOM Blog, is making some hairy goals for the month of October
– Jen, at The Hidden Hoarder, on day 20, only one more day to go!
– Gilly over at Anything but housework, working on her closet. 11+ bags so far.

done, just like me:
– Barb, at Decluttering The Stuff, 14 days. Total count: 146.
– Liliia at Bring your baby abroad , decluttered her old room, while visiting her mum.

21.17 – Honey! I shook the house!

We’re at day 17 of my 21 day declutter challenge.

Gilly over at Anything but housework, made a comment on my blog, the other day, about wanting to “Open the front door, tip the house up and shake it like a trash can!” I loved that analogy.

So what did I do?

I went ahead and shook the house 😉
(only just a little, mind you, I didn’t particular need to have any “post tornado” tiding up to do… my house is messy enough as it is)…

And would you know it… out rolled a few more possessions…

17 pieces going out-the-door 🙂

1 Small collapsible table
1 Large case
1 PC speaker set, still in it’s box
1 Chair cover
1 Large narrow mirror
3 lamp shades
1 large plant box for indoor or outdoor
1 old sink
1 Samsonite hardcover suitcase

So I had this pretty little plant, well guess what! It got knocked over yesterday and broke.. and I think it’s only fair to get to count this as an item out-the-door! The plant? It’s nicely snuggled into a twin pot, which is how I get to show you how it used to look 😉

so here we are…
1 small blue broken flowerpot
3 purple candle holders… did you see this Melinda? 🙂
1 plant pot trolley
1 large grey flowerpot
=
17 items

I’m being joined in this challenge by:
– Barb, at Decluttering The Stuff, joined for 14 days. Her total count? 146 (so far) 🙂
– Melinda, at PurpleSlobinRecovery, been working on her floor on day 6.
– Grace, at The CFO MOM Blog, had a wonderful weekend, and decluttered some stuff.
– Jen, at The Hidden Hoarder, is on day 16, she is getting closer and closer to 600 items…

2015 – Goals! Oh nooo!

Oh boy!

It’s ridiculous how long I’ve been working on this post… I started it weeks and weeks ago.. and then I completely forgot all about it lurking around in the drafts folder… until I suddenly went.. oh crap.. didn’t I..??? Yeah you guessed it, I suddenly remembered that I had not posted it after all. How the heck could I forget?

And here we are, almost done with February. And I still haven’t given you the update on how I did with my 2015 goals! 😳

How can I make it up to you? Well I guess I could just go ahead and give you that update!

Before I do, I have a teensy-weensy disclaimer!

2015 turned out quite differently than I had anticipated. As some of you know, I had to throw in the towel at work, June 2015 for health reasons. Following that particular decision, a few things happened during the fall, things that was completely outside of my control, which unfortunately, took a toll on my health.

I know, I know.. it’s a poor excuse… But excuse or not, it is an explanation for why I completely flunked on some of my goals, as you will see below.

I did have quite few goals, and even though I flunked a lot, I did accomplish one or two…

So here it is, my (ahem) “quick” update, starting with one of the ones I actually passed 🙂

FINANCIAL GOALS
My overall goal when it comes to my house mortgage, is to pay it down as quick as possible. Every January I pay a lump sum towards the mortgage (a quick explanation of my mortgage). My goal for 2015 was to to save up NOK 60 000,- for my lump sum in January 2016. And I did it. Actually I was a ahead of schedule and had saved my yearly down payment by October. With a little extra savings in November.

I did debate paying down more than my 60 000 this January, but I decided I’d rather invest that extra money in mutual funds, as the interest rate on my mortgage is really low.

With this last payment, I’m down to 1/4th left on my mortgage, only 9 years in 🙂 Do I get a woot, woot?

DECLUTTER
I had a bunch of declutter goals. Just as in 2014 I wanted to shed an item a day. In addition to that, I had a few other “projects” like reading myself out of my bookshelf, watching myself out of my movie collection, and (the big mother of projects) photos!

My declutter goals for 2015:

😀 365 items – 561 items out the door – the big purges are mentioned here, here and here…
100 Movies – 68 movies
😦 Cut physical DVD series collection by 30% – I’ve only gotten rid of one series which probably amounts to all of 1%
34 books – 27 (I ran into too many I wanted to keep)
😦 Photo collection – I never had a proper goal on this as I have thousands of photos, and the idea was to – keep key photos as physical photos, scan the other ones I’d like to have access to, and get rid of the rest. – All I can say…. it IS on the list for 2016 (and 2017… and 2018… and…)

ONLY BUYING NECESSITIES
2014 was a year I focused a lot on only buying necessities ( I want, I want – I want it now!!!), and it served me so well that I continued in 2015. I had some non necessities allowances though;

😀 Books – buy only 10 books/magazines – I bought 6 books (4 of them e-books), no magazines
😀 Flowers and plants – same level of 2014 – I cut about 60% on 2014 results
😦 Eating out – reduce 25% on 2014 results – we have already established that this item is something we struggle with. So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that we flunked this one completely. Here are the statistic:
- we ate out 39% more times than 2014
- average cost per meal was reduced 9,5% – resulting in
- total cost for 2015 was increased with “only” 25,9%

Even though the results are pretty bismol (with the exception of average cost per meal) there is one upside in it all.

You see, both B (my eating out partner in crime) and me stopped working early/mid 2015. B took out an early retirement + was hit by company downsizing, leaving the workforce early spring. And I, well I started the year working only 20% until I left completely in June, when I went out on 100% sick leave.

We have found out in the past, during holidays and such, that we eat out more when we are not working. In lieu of the fact that most of the year have been non working days, for us both, I’m actually surprised that we did not increase our cost by more than 25,9%. So yeah, we gotta look at the bright side of this 😉

❓ I can buy up to 10 non essentials throughout the year – Hmm lets see, I bought:
- 2 lamps at an antique fair – the lamps are going over my dining table (been looking the last 5 years – finally found some I think might be cool.. as soon as I change the wiring 😉 )
- 1 pair of shoes (needed a pair that can work as my one pair only for minimalist travel)
- a few Lush products to test out deodorants and shampoos in solid form (travel)
- a couple of eagle creek super light travel pouches (travel)
- 6 pieces of clothing – 4 replacing worn out items, 1 item filling a hole in my wardrobe, and 1 just because I wanted it…
- 1 frame for a poster (picture finally on the wall after years and years in a roll)
- a set of omaggio vases

Depending on how you want to count these non essentials, it’s either a flunk or pass scenario. If you look at it from a “if every single item counts separately” then, yes I bought more that 10 items. But if “each purchase count as one” (eg lush, lamps, vases..) then I guess I kinda passed? You know what? I’m leaving it to you to decide 😉

ACTIVITY AND EXERCISE
The goal for 2015 was to build up to, by the end of the year: 7 days of activity a week, with 3 of these as real workouts.

Yeah, that didn’t happen (re my disclaimer) – I did pretty good during summer with an average of 6 times a week, but I took a crashing nosedive end of August, resulting in this goal going straight out the window for the rest of the year. So yeah.. a big, big fail 😦

OTHER ACTIVITIES/PROJECTS
As always, I enjoyed my garden as much as possible. In addition I had a few other projects.. mostly helping out family and friends with little things in the house.

I did however have a bit of a larger task, helping a friend who got a new house in 2015. Picture this, a house built in 2000 with interiour like the 1970s! Yeah, non painted pine, red, orange and yucky cream/brown/puke coloured wall… and thats for starters. For her it became quite a renovation project.. so B and me tried to help out as much as my health would allow. You know things like; painting, drawing up the new kitchen, delivering doors to be spray painted, changing door handles, cutting moldings to fit new wardrobes, more painting, installing the wifi, hanging curtain rods, “create” (rather adjust) a couple of ikea kitchen units to fit the space… you know.. all the little things that comes up during move in and renovation 😉 It turned out to be a fun and very social summer as she had lot and lots of friends helping.. oh yeah.. and there was lots and lots of great food, do I need to say more 😉

All in all, it was a great summer season!

This concludes my “How did I do on my 2015 goals”!

About time, you might say! All I can say is.. Yeah, I know 😳

December in a nutshell!

It’s time to get the 2015 stuff out of the way, and first installment in that, is me letting you know how the month of December went!

December was a busy month, as it was filled with treatments, pre Christmas dinners, trip to UK and Christmas off course.

Oh yeah, and my blog turned two on December 16th 🙂 I can’t believe it’s been two years already. The cool thing is that a few of my fellow bloggers started their blogs just around the same time as me, and we are still in touch 😉

OK, now back to the monthly sum-up!

Activities and exercise
I didn’t do much better in December than in November 😦 The first half of December I was still smack in the middle of way too many treatments, until I decided (or rather my body did) that I had enough, and I stopped just about everything a few days before I went to UK. I desperately needed a “time out”! There is actually such a thing as too much!

With the exceptions of a few walks here and there, the normal hustle before Christmas, and dog walking in UK, I didn’t do much.

Declutter
I’m happy to say that on the declutter front, something did happen 🙂 I never got rid of my Dark Angel series as planned, but a bunch of other stuff went out during my version of the Minsgame.

69 items clothing & stuff + 79 CD’s + 80 items in a post Christmas purge = 228 items out-the-door!

Only buying necessities
Eating out – As I told you last month, I have given up! We are way too good at the eating out game! Christmas hustle + a trip to UK, did not help.

I’m curious to see how we did overall, compared to last year… but that’s next posts problem.

Buying non essentials – Well, it was Christmas time after all, and even through I tried really hard to only get the stuff I needed for gifts, I ended up with some of leftover pieces, like a couple of cups I ended up not using for gifts after all and a couple of Christmas cards I was going to bring with me to UK that I forgot

Beside little things like that, the only thing other thing was a HDMI cable for my computer, which makes it possible to connect it to a TV. I needed it to show my mum a video I had come across, a video from when she was in her late teens. So I guess it really was a necessity after all 😉

I bought some plants for decorations, 3 amaryllis, not the normal ones, but double ones and a new type I had never seen before.. really cool… I’m hoping I can make the bulbs survive for next year, they were that cool 🙂

Oh yeah, and I got 3 books! I bought a e-book for my trip, and on my way back from UK, I found a good deal on two books from one of my favourite authors, that I just couldn’t pass up 😉

Garden
I mentioned last month, that I never really got to pack up my garden due to poor weather. It never cleared up enough for me to dry off my garden furniture, so the solution was to bring the furniture inside. Which is where they are still residing, waiting for me to get my act together. The weather forecast this week is cold and clear, so hopefully I can bring them back outside and get them all covered up nicely.

Sad thing! I never got my tulip bulbs into the ground before I left for UK, and now the ground is too cold 😦 Maybe I should find a big pot or something, so that at least I might have a chance for tulips come spring… we’ll see.

Well, that’s it for my December sum-up!

Next? Well, that would probably be how I did overall on my 2015 goals, so stay tuned 😉

September in a nutshell!

It seems I keep dropping the ball on my monthly sum ups, here we are already more than half way into the month of October before you get an update from me 😦

But you know what they say, better late than never… right? So here goes!

Activities and exercise
Having been ill for a long time, and me now being on a 100% sick leave from my company, I ran into a major bump late august (company related), that unfortunately have taken a toll on my health.

So my happy average of 6 times a week (that I had during summer) took a crashing nosedive during the month of September, to where I think I just about squeaked by to an average of about 1,5 a week 😦

Declutter
My decluttering is slowly… sloooooowly picking up again, not quite as much as I hoped, but still, there are a few things that have gone out the door.

I cleaned up some of my medication, and said goodbye to my old vacuum machine. In addition there are a couple of other things that went out the door, that I completely forgot to take take pictures of or even write about. Not really anything big, just some junk, a flowerpot or two, some pieces of clothing ++

Together with the medication and vacuum cleaner, it racked up to about 23 items out-the-door.

Not a lot, but hey.. I’m on my way again 😉

Only buying necessities

I think I’ll change this up a little. Earlier I used to list all my allowance categories, regardless if I bought anything or not. The next months I’m changing that to just mention the categories I’ve spend money in.

Eating out – As most of you know, we seem to struggle with this category month in and month out, so I’m sure it will come as a big surprise (it sure surprised me) that we did “fairly” well during the month of September. we “only” ate out 5 times 🙂 Big shocker, I know!

Now if we can only keep this up for October, we might still have a shot at the overall yearly goal (when it comes to money spent, not the amount of times eaten out.. because that one, we have already failed miserably at).

Buying non essentials – as most years, Christmas sure came early this year too! I think it’s crazy how the businesses start Christmas three months before the real thing. I mean, no wonder people are sick of christmas by the time Christmas actually rolls by.

IKEA tends to be one of the first ones out, and they started to roll out their wrapping papers, ribbons and tree decorations late September. All their good stuff seems to disappear in no time, so if you actually want some, you have to hustle. So guess what 😉

Yep, I got some. I got wrapping paper, ribbons, and a couple of really cool tags (picture below). This time around I went for paper that wasn’t all that typical christmassy. Which means I can use most of it, all year round, for anything that needs to be wrapped. How very “frugal” of me 😉

Financial goals
Interest rates are going down like crazy, which is wonderful for my mortgage, but suck even worse for any money I have in the bank.

I’m thinking, that it’s probably time to “do something”, as the money I have in the bank, won’t be generating much interest after they reduce the rate again, December 1’st.

I haven’t decided yet, between making another extra down payment (like I did in March), or maybe stocks or mutual funds. Hmm, maybe a little of both is the smart way to go. I’ll let you know, when I figure it out 😉

Projects
Well… projects, just like activity, kinda went out the window, except as always I did get to enjoy my garden a little.

Oh yeah, and my stepmom got a small Cinderella Classic Incineration toilet for her allotment cabin. If I ever make or buy an tiny house, this is the system for me, as they have an RV version that doesn’t take a lot of space. Now to the exciting part! Guess who had to install it? Yep, you’ve guessed it 😉

B and me spent a few hours one afternoon. It involved a hole in the roof, some pipes and a few new composite shingles, and then we were done.

There are still a few of bits and bobs left to do at my friends house (the one that recently moved), but we had to put some of that on hold in September. But hey, there are still a few days left of October, so we might have a shot at getting it done this month 😉

Well, I guess that’s it, not much else to tell ya. Better get this out, while there is still a few days left of this month, because before you know it, it will be time for the October update… which, by the way, I promise to be a bit more timely with 🙂

August (and July) in a nutshell!

I’ve done it again! I fumbled the month of July, and here we are, at August’s sum-up. So, once again you will get two months in one post 😉

We’ve had some great days here lately, and as always I’ve been enjoying the heck out of my garden. I’ve also been spending a few days here and there helping a couple of friends with a few things.

So let’s get to it, how am I doing with my goals!

Activities and exercise
My focus is still just being out and about, more than exercise on it’s own. And between picking currants, and other berries. Spending time on my step-mums allotment, planting some plants, tinkering around in my own garden, helping a friend in her new house, walking the streets of London and the streets of my own town, I’m sticking to my average of 6 days a week.

I’m sure I’ll get into some proper workouts at some stage, it’s just not my focus right now as I’m having enough on my plate with me leaving work, and I’ve had a need to do fun things to keep my mind off it all.

Declutter
I’m still pretty much doing nothing about my declutter tasks. As far as I remember, nothing went out during July, and August only wielded 3 pots leaving the house, when I potted my neighbor’s plants. Items out-the-door = 3

So what will September bring? It looks like things might be picking up, I’m slowly but surely getting into decluttering again. Not a lot yet.. but I think I might finally be on the roll again (maybe) 😉

Only buying necessities

Books – nope, none – which is great for my wallet, and I’m not filling my bookshelves either.
Eating out – July we had our trip to England, so we did a bit of eating out during the trip. The rest of that month we didn’t do to bad as we spent a bit of time with a friend of mine, grilling and cooking at her place. The later part of August we are back to really bad, but I’m hoping September will be a better month, as we need to get back into cocking for ourselves.
Flowers and plants – 6, 3 tiny small orchids, 3 outdoor plants, two for me and one for my neighbour
Buying non essentials – I have to admit I did spend a few pounds in London. So what damage did I do?
– 1 pair of ecco shoes, 2 bra’s and a couple of Eagle creek packing cubes.
So why are they non essentials? Well.. I do have plenty of shoes, but I wanted a pair that are good travel shoes and at the same time looks good enough, with nice clothing, so that when I travel, I can get away with this one pair only. My old travel pair, are so worn out that they no longer look good. The bra’s I get at Victoria Secret, and since they don’t have a shop in Norway, and since I’m not traveling to US this year, I figured I should grab a couple, even though I strictly don’t need them… yet! And the packing cubes? I definitely didn’t’ need as I have a bunch from before. It’s just that the new ones are the super, super light type and use next to no space in my luggage.. so I went ahead and got some…

Financial goals
Nothing new really, except, I have been able to save a little extra towards my next mortgage down payment, as I received some stock dividends in August. The money went straight to my saving account 😉 And my interest reduction finally came into play, saving me another few dollars a month on my monthly interest payments… Every little thing counts towards getting that mortgage paid off, and interest saved, is just more money towards that yearly lump sum. How am I doing on that particular goal? Pretty Ok I must say, as I’m a couple of months ahead of schedule 🙂

Projects
As I mention at the top, I’ve been enjoying the garden (as always)!

And I have been working on fixing a couple of areas on my outer garden wall, that had some loose stone. It’s a fiddly process, removing the loose stone, removing the gravel behind, put concrete in the hole and stuff the stone back in. It’s not big stone, so it’s not heavy work, but I have to sit wrapped up as a pretzel doing it (it’s a low garden wall) and my hip only want’s to sit in this position for a very short time. So.. you might say it’s a project in progress… I’m hoping I will get it done this year, but if it spills over to next summer, that’s ok.. the garden wall isn’t going anywhere 😉

What else… hmmm.. I have a friend that moved into a new house a few weeks back, and we (B and me) have been helping her out with a few things, like hanging up stuff on the wall, changing handles on the doors, cutting a piece of molding to fit a cabinet she wanted put in, putting new feet on a piece of furniture.. you know the drill.. all the little things, that is part of moving to a new place 🙂

Guess that is it for August and June!

PS. Tonight is my friends move in party… so if you don’t hear from me for a couple of days.. you know why 😉

June in a nutshell and a garden update!

I’m still playing a bit of the catch up game, getting my posts aligned with the month I’m in, so I’m apologizing up front for the fact that there are two monthly sum ups, right after each other.

This time around I thought I would change it up a little, since I am after all catching up 😉

The garden in a nutshell

I mentioned in my last post, that the plants have been having a hard time this year, figuring out if they really want to bloom or not, and I’m happy to say that June brought some life to them and they finally decided around the middle/end of June that it was time to pop some colour 🙂 The pictures are from June 23rd.

And would you believe it – it took until June 28th, before my first rose sprung!

Now, I don’t mind it being a late bloomer 🙂 As I’m greeted by a heavenly smell every time I open my front door.

Activities, exercise and projects
Now, there is that! Since I told my office the bad news early June, I’ve been out and about as much as possible, to keep my mind off it all. Between walks, mowing my neighbours stamp sized lawn, potting plants, mixing mulch, working in the garden, helping a friend shop for IKEA wardrobe and kitchen items, painting a tiny window frame and mowing the lawn at my step-mums allotment, throw in some more walks, and hanging out a lot with friends, I averaged 6 days a week on my activity scale. This time around none of them were proper workouts, as my focus was just being out.

So what about the normal stuff?

Declutter
I’ve done nil, zilch, zip! Yes I know, me bad, I just didn’t have it in me.

Will I do better in July? Hmm, I don’t think so, it is not looking good so far 😦

Only buying necessities
Back on schedule – except as you see from the allowances below, I still struggle a bit with the eating out!

Books – nope
Eating out – we are back to old habits, probably because I have been out a lot, and we did just as bad as during May.
Flowers and plants – none
Buying non essentials – yes – a thin packable down jacket, perfect for those chilly spring/summer mornings. I have been looking for a jacked like this for a very long time. And now I found it, so….

Financial goals
Nothing to report.

I guess this is it for the June monthly sum-up! Not very exciting I know, I’m sure things will “pick up” again, soon 😉

Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, I will be going to England next week (for a short week). It’s been more than a year since last time, and it’s time! I’ll be visiting my mum for a few days first, before I ramble up to London to hang out with my brother for a day or two. This time around it’s his birthday, and there is no doubt, we gotta celebrate 😉

See you soon…

Spring is finally sprung!

Hi there 🙂

I’m sure some of you are wondering how my packing party is going (as I haven’t written about if for a little while), but I’m going to leave you wondering for just a little spell longer 😉

You see, I’ve been busy, with just about everything but the packing party! We have had some really wonderful weather here the last few weeks (in between a few rainy days) and I’ve been prioritizing the outdoors, rather than the indoors.

Part of my reason for moving towards minimalism is to have more time to spend on the things that gives me energy and joy, and as some of you know, I love, LOVE my garden 🙂 I love getting my hands dirty and seeing the results from my garden work.

So, I thought I would give you a quick look into what I’ve been spending my time on lately;

Garden stuff

I’ve been spending some time mixing up the “perfect” potting soil (800 litres worth), consisting of a mix of what we call “living soil” (which is really warm composted soil/mulch), sand, peat and cow manure compost (great potting soil consisting of cow manure mixed with peat). I mixed a big bunch last year to refill my raised flowerbeds, and the plants have just loved it. So I thought I would mix up a big batch this year also. Especially since I knew my sister and one of my neighbours needed some as well.

After having mixed part of the load above, I took about 300 litres of the stuff, over to my sisters place, to fill up a huge planter box she got from me earlier this year (hmm, guess I really should take a picture of it, to post among my decluttered items).

In addition to doing a bunch of my own stuff in the garden, I’ve been helping out a few of my neighbours as well. Let’s see… I’ve been planting a whole bunch of plants (using my mixed soil), I spent a few days cutting hedges (my part of the hedge took all of 10 minutes…) and I’ve checked the roof and cleaned the gutters, on all 7 units in my town-home (I kinda figured that since I was on the roof anyway…).

So what am I missing? Oh yeah, I’ve unpacked my garden furniture and potted my Begonia bulbs – which I cultivate indoors, it’s still too cold outside, on a good day we are barely into the 50’s (10 C)

If the weather holds, I think I’ll pull out the pressure cleaner and start attacking my white (or not so white) concrete raised flowerbed edges, to clean them up some. My plan is to paint them this year (I think). But as the forecast predict rain starting today, I might hold of on this job for a little while longer… we will see.

Exercise

I love this time a year, when the weather clears up and there are more days you can actually fathom being outdoors 🙂 So I’ve been outside as much as I can. Mostly working away in the garden, but when I haven’t had my fingers burried in soil, I’ve been out taking a lot of good walks. And not to mention all the exercise I’ve gotten from cutting hedges, mixing soil, carry planter boxes, cleaning gutters ++

A few days ago I decided to pull out my Skikes and try them out, for the first time ever. It was hard going (lots of hills here), and not a pretty sight I’m afraid, I looked like Bambi on ice, so after about 1,5 miles I was done in, and threw in the towel on that first try.

The day after my Skike “fiasco” I decided to pull out my Rollerblades instead, to see if I could get my blading balance back before I try Skikes again. A much better idea, if you ask me! It was my first time on them since 2009, so a hint of Bambi here as well 🙂 , but it sure rolled a lot better than the Skikes. A small 2,5 mile trip this time around, but hopefully with practise, I can get back to the 7 mile trips I used to do, when I lived in Houston.

Stuff at home

Believe it or not.. I am still chipping away at my decluttering, as part of my so called “packing party”. I do have a few pieces of items that are going out the door! I just need to get my act together and write about it.. and as you see from my focus above…. well, it hasn’t been hight on my priority list… It will come, I promise. I’m just waiting for that rainy day…

I’m adding a few pictures for you to enjoy, including this years first ladybug 🙂

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