Motivated Mum – Page 2

Getting Organised Week Two – Utility Room

I’m still following the A Bowl Full of Lemons #2016abfolchallenge to declutter and tidy my home. Week 2 is the pantry, but as I live in a modern UK home, I don’t have one. My utility room is a continuation of my kitchen, so I thought I’d attack that this week.Again, there is too much stuff cluttering up the place. I did manage to free up one cupboard last week by moving things from here to the kitchen though which was a great starting place.I had some cleaning stuff in this cupboard and laundry bits in another which was also rammed full of other paraphernalia.A simple empty out of both cupboards meant that I could put all the cleaning bits together with the iron, and my baking tins could leave the surfaces and be put away behind closed doors with the batteries and screwdrivers.The other main cupboard had first aid, manuals, BBQ tools and the steamer and toaster which don’t get used very regularly.The BBQ tools were relocated out of the way (don’t think I’ll be needing them in the next few months!), and Mr CG hauled out all the household paperwork from the many cubby holes in the house. Out of date stuff was recycled or shredded and only the current paperwork was kept.A good vacuum of the tumble drier, a hot wash with soda crystals for the washing machine and the job was done.The ironing and washing were tackled the day after this photo and everything is now complete. I just need to find a way of keeping my hangers untangled, so if you have any hints and tips…!

Week three is the dining room, which in our house is also the Craftyguidelets’ craft room. I may need therapy after that!

Getting Organised Week One – Kitchen

I started #2016abfolchallenge on Saturday and the first room was the kitchen. I took pictures around my kitchen and they perfectly illustrate my problem; clutter everywhere, nothing put away and too much stuff.The first job was the cake tin drawer. I thought this was a significant job to start with but one that could be completed successfully and therefore motivate me onwards. 10 loaf tins were reduced to 5, tins I’d bought replacements for or which had seen better days were shipped out. The drawer was cleaned, the contents were put on my Sortly app so I know just how many tins of each size I have, and the contents were put back.So pleased that I got everything back in, plus I added some tins from another cupboard so everything is now in one place.

And the cutlery drawer has gone from chaos to organised.The baking cupboard looks lovely now. I can see what I’ve got and it’s all stored nicely.

The surfaces have been cleared and I’ve re-zoned the areas. The tea and coffee are now near the microwave and fridge and the mixers are closer to where I normally prepare food.I am so pleased with how well I’ve done in week one. Week 2 is the pantry which I don’t have, so I might move onto the utility room next. The laundry room is week 13, but it comes after the playroom/toys which may need more than one week in this house!

Are you having a new year declutter?

Reading Challenge 2016

The Craftyguidelets love to read. My eldest can be in the middle of 3 or 4 books at a time, but still knows exactly what is going on in each. I used to devour books when I commuted into London. But now my commute is from the kitchen to the living room or the office, and my volunteering has expanded, the time I allocate to reading books has reduced considerably.

With a queue of books on my Kindle app and a pile of books in the cupboard, I decided to set myself up on the Goodreads 2016 Reading Challenge. As well as keeping my list short with a realistic target of only 12 books, I thought I’d try and find books from different categories to mix it up a bit.

An unfinished book – Helen Fielding – Mad About the Boy – finished
A new author to me.
A classic read.
A book recommended by a librarian.
A book that’s been adapted into a film.
A celebrity autobiography – Mary Portas – Shop Girl – now reading
A book written by/about a historical figure.
An award winning book.
A children’s book.
A celebrity book club read.
A book I should have read at school rather than just the York Notes.
A Goodreads recommendation.

I am one book in and it’s only 8th January – go me! My little widgety thing at the side of my blog keeps the tally, and hopefully I’ll read more than my target.

Are you doing any reading challenges this year?

Getting Organised

The Christmas decorations are down, the birthday cards are up, the Craftyguidelets are back at school – it must be time to get the house back in order.

There are so many books and websites to trawl through to plan a declutter or instigate a new housework routine. The Fly Lady will have you shining your sink, tidying to bless your house and “getting dressed to lace up shoes” as part of your new routine. Marie Kondo has her KonMari Method which gives you “the life changing magic of tidying up” and seems to have you assessing every item for sparks of joy and thanking them for everything they’ve done for you, before donating them to the local charity shop. Anthea Turner will make you the Perfect Housewife and will have you buying wooden coathangers and folding towels just so. The different lists, methods and techniques are endless.

Everyone has something that clicks with them, and although I haven’t immersed myself in any of the above methods, I have cherry picked a few ideas which work for me. To save the last minute rush in the morning, I now get dressed before going down to breakfast, so even if I’m signing reading records or getting lost in an interesting news article, I’m at least decent for the school run. I have parted with several years of birthday cards and some Craftyguidelet artwork, as although they spark joy, I’d rather have the room for new memories to come. And if you check my airing cupboard, my towels are all folded beautifully!

My house does need a severe declutter though as living in chaos gets me down. My life is so busy I need to be able to find things easily without a whole cupboard of stuff falling down on me. It would also be great for everything to have a home so at Christmas we aren’t stuffing vacuum cleaner parts in the airing cupboard or losing PE kits in the Christmas decoration boxes under the stairs.

I spotted A Bowl Full of Lemons blog when I was sorting out my Bloglovin feed. She’s written a book which is out in the UK in February, and is running a Home Organisation 101 Challenge. It’s a 14 week challenge with a printable checklist and it starts on Saturday this week. Although it looks like she’s into baskets and drawer liners (that ain’t happening in my kitchen!), the basics appeal to me. First week is the kitchen so I’ll be going in to sort through exactly what is stashed away in the drawers. If you don’t hear from me by next week, send in a rescue party. With gin. And chocolate.

Do you have an organisation ‘guru’?

Here’s to 2016

At the beginning of 2015, I resolved not to have any resolutions, not to sign up to any social media obligations like photo-a-day or blog-a-week, not to join in with quilt a month, crochet along etc. and not to heap too much pressure on myself to join in and fit in with the crowd.

To some extent I’ve succeeded in this (especially the not blogging regularly part – oops!) but I’m not quite there.

My aim for 2016 is to get organised. I want to declutter and put systems in place to get my life, head and home in order. I want to complete ‘to do lists’ rather than keep putting things off. I want a crafting area that is inspirational, rather than a pile of work in progress. I want to minimise food waste by planning meals better and shopping smarter. I want to put my health higher up in my priorities.

But for now, I’d like to wish everyone a happy new year and I hope 2016 is everything you want it to be.

Procrastination be gone

Everyone has 24 hours in their day to fill, whether you are Beyonce, the Queen or the greengrocer. You have certain things that you have to do each day such as eat and sleep, certain things that you should do such as exercise, and certain things that you want to do such as play with kittens.At the beginning of last year I bought Leonie Dawson’s Life and Biz Workbook 2014. I wanted to focus my attention on creating an amazing year, and people had said that it was a fabulous planning tool. I didn’t fill in my workbook much, so I thought I’d revisit it this year.

One of the exercises is to fill in a pie chart with how you spend your time and another with how you want to spend your time.My days are so varied, but this is a rough approximation of a typical weekday. I might craft in front of the TV, I might snatch an hour to blog instead of housework, but I don’t dedicate my time to doing enough to make a difference to me. I want a clean and organised house, crafting makes me happy, being prepared for my Guiding responsibilities is important to me, but I don’t make an effort to ditch the procrastination and get on with it. Instead of getting on with my Christmas crafting last year, I organised my Distress ink pads and researched racks to put them on. Very satisfying, something that was nice to have done, but not the urgent task in hand.

This is what I’ve come up with for how I want to spend my day.

I’ve swapped the procrastination for me time, and prioritised my crafting and blogging. I’ve got the TV on as I’m blogging at the moment, but Phil Spencer doesn’t need my full attention.

I need to exercise more. I do about 30 minutes a day during the week but I could and should do more.

I also want to drop some volunteering time. I spend about 4 hours a week at meetings with the Guides and Rainbows, plus the occasional District team meeting or training course, plus my WI commitment. The key word is ‘volunteer’. There is a certain amount of work that has to be done every week, but I need to concentrate on the essentials and know that I don’t have to sort out everyone’s problems as well as my own.

Some days it will happen. Some days it won’t. I know that I’ve probably forgotten things like long baths, reading and shopping, and sometimes my crafting mojo will leave me, but I have to get some focus back in my life.

Is your year still on track?

I’ll do it my way

I have decided that once again there will be no new year’s resolutions (especially not with the amount of alcohol chocolate I have in the house!). There will be no targets, no lists, no must do’s, no swaps, no bucket lists, no giving up, no starting, no using up. I won’t be -a-long-ing with crochet, knitting, quilting, sewing or reading. I won’t do a certain task every day, week, month. I won’t look at someone else and think that I should be like them. I will try and resist doing anything that isn’t essential, compulsory, interesting or downright fun.

I will try and do things My Way*.

*You can thank me later for that ear worm.

That was the year that was ~ 2014

It was a great year for the shop. Craftyguider had it’s best year yet, and I raised a nice sum of money to put into the Guide accounts. I get to meet Theo Paphitis soon to collect my #SBS (Small Business Sunday) award, and I featured in Guiding magazine and the local press. However, I didn’t manage to launch a presence on Etsy, or learn about taking better photos.

I managed to make enough Christmas cards for friends and family, and sold handmade Christmas cards and tags in my shop for the first time. However I didn’t start in July as planned, and had a few late nights before craft fairs frantically making stock.

I handmade a few Christmas and birthday gifts this year, however I didn’t make as many as I’d planned to.

Q and A a Day I kept up to date with my Q&A a day diary (if you count the odd catch up sessions when I missed a couple/few/several days), however the Craftyguidelets didn’t do theirs.

I blogged more than usual, however I didn’t get into a rhythm and get all my ideas off the ground, especially more tutorials.

I worked hard to keep my local Rainbow and Brownie units open and helped to recruit new leaders, however I didn’t manage to get new units to open so that all the girls who want to join, can.

I have completed quite a few magazine kits this year, but not the one a week I wanted to. I have also tackled the magazine mountain and now say to myself that buying more magazines doesn’t make me happy, and the clutter makes me sad when I’m standing at the magazine display in the supermarket. However, the magazine hill is still there.

I haven’t learned how to procrastinate less, I’m still carrying some extra pounds, and the office is a bomb site.

I have learned an important thing this year though. I can’t (and shouldn’t) do everything. I don’t have to fill every available minute in the service of others or dusting the bannisters or attending meetings or making things for the shop. I need to prioritise my girls, my husband, my family and me. All the ‘howevers’ above have occurred because something else came up. A craft session with the Craftyguidelets, making Elsa dresses, going on family holidays, extra time at the park after school, a day out on my own to a craft fair as a customer, not a vendor.

Have a wonderful new year everyone, and I hope 2015 is everything you want it to be.

Louise x

Poppies and Buses

After doing the Books About Town trail around London in the summer, the Craftyguidelets and I decided to sample the Transport for London Bus Sculpture Trail to celebrate the Year of the Bus. As one of the trails started and finished near the Tower of London, we took the chance to take Mr Craftyguider and mother in law with us to see the poppies now that the installation was almost complete.We had seen the poppies in August, but so many more had been added since then. It is such a stunning sight. It really brings home the 888,246 lives lost in WWI and has taught the Craftyguidelets a lot about the scale of casualties of the war.We got there as early as our travelcards allowed us from the sticks but it was so busy, we were advised to get off the train at Aldgate rather than Tower Hill. However, after lunch when we were the other side of the river, we looked back at the Tower and it was swarming with people. Even crossing Tower Bridge was hard due to the volume of people coming the other way.If you can get to see the poppies before it finishes, it is worth the trip. Just try going early!After lunch, we crossed the river to start the bus sculpture trail. The bus models have been painted by well-known and aspiring artists and spread over 3 trails along the river and in the City, around Westminster, and in the Olympic Park. Another trail will also open up before Christmas.Having looked for book benches in the summer, I didn’t find this as exciting. The book benches could be sat on and represented books that were mainly familiar to me and the Craftyguidelets. The buses were each labelled with a big sign saying DO NOT CLIMB.This Orla Kiely design was at least familiar to me.This placement was really great with Tower Bridge directly behind the bus. I wish the weather was as good as that painted on the bus though!This punk bus was outside St Pauls. Not sure of the connection there!This is the Kids Company bus with images of children sleeping on the bus to escape homelessness, and was painted by an ambassador of the charity.And this bus was the last on the trail representing the 24 hour nature of the city and the buses.I don’t think we’ll be back to look for the other buses. However, it was a nice day out and took us round several of the London sights, so it would be a nice guided tour along the river for a visitor in combination with a trip to the Tower.

The Paddington Bear trail starts on 4th November. I’m already excited by this one as there are bears designed by celebrities. I’m a bit disappointed that Bear Grylls has a Scouting bear and Girlguiding doesn’t have one. If we do visit it, I’m dressing the family up in Guiding uniforms and travelling to Heathrow to be photographed with it.

And then there are 300 owls to find in Birmingham next year. Surely Guiding gets first call on that!

Dear September

Where did our time go September? 30 days and it was all over!

You gave me glorious weather (mostly!) and lots of time in the garden appreciating the wonderful flowers still blooming their socks off. Considering that from February to April it looked like a muddy mess, now it’s landscaped and lovely.

My little Leprechaun turned Imp now has her Brownie Gardener badge for the hard work she put in sowing seeds, thinning out, weeding, watering and finally clearing away. Hopefully she’ll help again next Spring, and her grandparents want to hire her for her skills with a seed packet.

I achieved things, September. This pretty dress for Rainbow Craftyguidelet, some cards, some bunting, and even a tutorial for the book bags I made for the Craftyguidelets’ music lessons. Sales have been picking up with Craftyguider following a bit of promo work, and the big push to Christmas starts now. The Christmas shop is now open. I just need to fill it up a bit more!My Guiding life has started again. Guides and Rainbows are back, and once again I am juggling admin, trying to get as many girls as possible off the waiting lists and into units where they can join the fun, and trying to encourage more volunteers to come forward and help this to happen.I have also started Trefoil Guild which is like the WI for Guiding types. It was so lovely just going to a meeting for grown ups, not being asked to do anything, not being responsible for anything, not feeling guilty for not doing more. I just enjoyed the talk on the fabulous work of Guide Dogs and the puppy walkers. Finally something just for me to enjoy!WI planning has started again for our Handmade Christmas Craft Fair on 16th November. I need to get a shifty on for my stall!

But then just like that it was over September. 30 days of full on busyness and then phwoomp! October happened.

Autumn is here and I’ll be joining in with Miss Beatrix’s #BashSAD challenge to banish the blues of the shorter days. I’m also attempting to complete a whole month of the Fat Mum Slim #fmsphotoaday challenge on Instagram. My house is finally gaining some order after a summer of neglect, the kids are settled at school. Let’s do this October!

What was that? Half term at the end of the month? *sticks fingers in ears and pretends not to hear*

What are you up to this month?