Goals

In August I am preparing to celebrate my 29th birthday. It makes me panic a bit. And kind of made me feel like this;

It got me thinking whether I had achieved what I wanted to by this age. I was reading through my old journals the other day and I had written a (very small) list of things that I had wanted to achieve in the future. I was quite chuffed to find I had achieved all of them, except for owning  VW beatle. Ho hum. So I had done well, yes?

However I have to admit this list was not very comprehensive. I strongly feel that if we don't set goals for ourselves in life we will never strive to achieve them. I have LOADS of things I want to do in life before I die. (Some more important than others.) What is the betting I will not achieve many of them.

But I decided to change things. I got preparing a list of things to achieve in the next year and a bit.

I have wimped out of making 30 things however and settled at 20. I like to make things easy for myself :)

I present to you...my 20 before 30 list;

1)      Take Lizzie to a music festival

2)      Try indian food

3)      Drive a VW campervan

4)      More babies

5)      Take up guitar again

6)      Sleep in a lighthouse

7)      Master a sewing machine

8)      Read all the books on my bookshelf

9)      Become an optimist

10)   Go in a hot air balloon

11)   Start visiting the temple regularly

12)   Visit as many national trust places as possible (dare I say all of them?)

13)   Take Lizzie camping

14)   Go on a megabus road trip (for £1!)

15)   Learn how to use a camera (properly)

16)   Go to the Edinburgh fringe festival

17)   Go to Northumberland

18)   Complete my Masters

19)   Start savings account for our trip to Asia

20)   Host an old lady party (? For my 30^th?)

I intend to blog about each of these goals as I cross them off my list.

So you never know. I may reach 30 feeling completely self-fulfilled and like this;

Maybe...

Boxes of memories

As children, both myself and Ryan had memory boxes with childhood and teenage memorabilia stashed inside. We still have them and add to them all the time. It's nice to go through them sometimes and have a walk down memory lane. I must add that Ryan as a hoarder, has a LOT more stuff in his memory box(es) than I do. And he HATES me touching any of his stuff. The times he has 'rescued' clothing items from black bin liners is ridiculous. I must add however that these clothing items do have holes in and paint on. But to Ryan they are precious.

I on the other hand, like to keep certain sentimental things. The rubbish I throw away. I am very cut throat when it comes to getting rid of stuff. I am constantly trying to go through Lizzie's mound of toys and give some to charity. She HATES it. It could be broken. It could be the most boring toy in the world that she has never played with. But if mummy tries to take it away we have tantrums toddler stylee. If I were a character in toy story I would be the bad guy.

But anyway, back to the memory boxes. I decided to sort them out today. I had a lttle helper;

Who also broke one of daddy's tapes from his missionary box (oopsie.)

Here are some examples of the things we have kept;

Train ticket from our first date :)

A dedicated book from my mum when I was nine. Makes me cry every time I read it.

I made Ryan a '52 reasons why I love you' using a pack of playing cards. He then made me one back!

Letters from my baby brother when I was at uni. He is currently on a mission. We had this weird thing going on where we would send each-other hair from various people. Gross, I know :)

First letters from my husband :)

Cute little songs my husband writes for me.

Lots of gig tickets. I have thrown SO many away. From now on I am going to keep them all and wallpaper a room with them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Lizzie was born I decided to make her a memory box too. I got into scrapbooking! Man, I feel old!

So what do you all have in your memory boxes??

Trash and treasure

I love car boots and jumble sales. I am a self-confessed bargain-seeker. I get this from my granny. She used to take me as a kid every Saturday and we would fill my grandad's car with other people's junk that we called treasure. Most of her house is kitted out with these bargains. And it looks good.

Ryan made me laugh when he said he has never seen granny move so fast as when she is at a car boot.

Especially with kids, you can save a fortune. Lizzie loves car boots because she can choose as many toys as she wants. At 10 pence each you can't grumble :)

Take our dressser for example. When we moved in it was tired and sad. So I spruced it up a bit with some paint and some pretty things from my treasure stash. 

Ta da!!! By the way the chandelier was also from the car booty for £2! Good, eh?

Guilty Pleasures

I have a confession to make that many mums may look down on. Lizzie is a dummy user and whoarder. She likes to have 3 at once (one in her mouth, two in her hands.) She would have one all day if she had her own way. Dummies. Best things in the world.

So, have you judged me? I am well aware that some parent's don't advocate the use of dummies; that it affects their development etc. But I figured if she only has them at night, what's a little comfort to get to sleep?

I was thinking that we all have our guilty pleasures in life. Things that we know we shouldn't really do; but we do them anyway because it feels good. I eat chocolate. I'm not talking a little innocent bar. I can polish off a beastly sized bar in a couple of days. I sometimes skip the housework on a day off and spend hours on pinterest. I like to book holidays. And then spend hours planning every last detail. I sometimes look at posh houses on rightmove and dream of our cottage in Yorkshire. Coveting? Maybe. Pleasure? Yes.

And of course there is my bargain obsession. Car boots. But should I feel guily about that? Maybe, when I frantically wake everyone up at 6am on their day off to get there early so I don't miss my bargains.

We all have our guilty pleasures. And I think, (in moderation), why not?

An Ode to Dummies. By Lizzie Abbott

Dummies, you are awesome

You go in my mouth and make everything fine

I like to have you 3 at a time

Let us never part