Friday finds 100513

So I posted a few weeks ago about Hyperbole and a Half. Well yesterday the newest post went up- Depression Part Two. 

If you have ever, or never, experienced depression then you need to read this post. In Allie's usual way it is endearing and funny but it is also so unblinkingly honest and describes so accurately what it is like to be comsumed by the black dog. My heart pounded as I read it. The post reached maximum possible comments (five thousand) within hours and the FB post that linked to the blog post currently has 32,000 likes and three and a half thousand comments. It clearly resonates with a lot of people. 

And while on the topic of fish (there are fish in the Hyperbole And A Half post) this article made me sad. There is a species of fish that is extinct in the wild and just three male specimens are known to exist in captivity. London Zoo is hoping that a private 'collector' might have a female somewhere in the world so they can establish a breeding program otherwise this fish will be extinct within a few years. They don't hold out much hope though and to be honest, with only one female- wouldn't that cause problems too?

And for a laugh, the British BIB (best in blogging) nominees have been released and I have enjoyed discovering some great new blogs. This post was very funny and relate able. 

Laura xx

Powerful poetry

This is pretty amazing. The combination of words, images and music- magic stuff.

 

keep the engine ticking over...

One thing I can definitely say about working from home is that although every job has good days and bad days, they seem more extreme from home than an office. Maybe it's because at work, I can only control my workplace whereas at home I can factor in the laundry I did or didn't do and the parenting I did or didn't do.

Today has been a weird day, though. I'm not sure whether to chalk it up to a win or not. Sure, I didn't complete most of my to-do list. But there were good reasons, things that got ticked off a list I didn't even know I had going. 

I got my eldest off to school, first day back from school holidays. Then I went to the Dr and got my prescriptions refilled. He wasn't very well-versed on thyroid-issues, he rattled off phrases that sounded like he read a recent article in a medical journal. Made me appreciate *my* doctor all the more (but he is expensive and hard to get in to and I just wanted my scripts refilled). 

Then my Dad dropped round and spent some lovely time with Ashley and me. He also checked over my car for me and patiently showed me for the thousandth time what I should be doing. I have a problem with some things sticking in my brain- namely poker rules and car maintenance. No matter how many times I try and learn them, they slide straight back out of my brain. But useless facts stick there like they're superglued- hey, did you know that gin is basically juniper-infused vodka? I do. And will never forget it no matter how hard I try. 

I actually took pics this time as my Dad explained things. The next (desperation) step is to video him. Or tattoo the steps on my forearm!

There was more, too. The kitten pooped in the loungeroom (tiled floors, thank goodness!!) and I had to clean that up. I prepped dinner early so it's ready to go. I ate a really healthy lunch. I drank no energy drinks and only had one coffee. And I kept on top of all the incoming and urgent work things- just didn't attend to the non-urgent things. 

I guess if I had written my to-do list differently, I'd feel differently about it. I don't mean a silly "wake up, be awesome, eat breakfast, brush teeth, high-five yourself" kind of list. But a list that included all the unexpected cleaning (hello? weetbix for breakfast? surely I HAD to expect THAT mess!) and none of the "it doesnt matter anyway" stuff. 

Last night I texted a friend, someone I admire for many things including her ability to keep on keeping on and who works+studies for home and asked for her advice. Her advice was simply that when you can't achieve everything (and let's face it, when can we? I am super-energetic today and still didnt manage it) just focus on the most important 80%. And you know what, she is so right! Don't sweat the small stuff, even if the small stuff is sitting on your couch waiting to be folded and put away and giving you stink-eye. 

I'm still not very good at this work-from-home-mum thing. But I'm learning every day. Learning how to work from home successfully and learning a lot about myself too. 

And besides which, sometimes there is beauty in the mess. Technically, this table in the playroom and "cleaning the playroom" is on my "to do" list. But look at that perfect vignette of childhood. Barbie's bare bottom, a duplo block and some of the sweetest self-directed art/craft projects. That's a half-finished popstick tree, a 'man' puppet and... some sort of eyeball trail. It can wait. ;o)

Laura xx

Two things off my procrastination list

{via}

I had such a great Sunday. I slept in until 8:30am then pottered around making breakfast for myself and the youngest kiddo (the Mister was at work) then got stuck into my "to do" list. One of the most satisfying jobs I ticked off was also one of the smallest. We have wooden chairs and a tiled floor which means we sometimes get that horrid screeching sound when someone scoots their chair in or out. So while I was mopping and had all the chairs up anyway, I put those little felt thingies on the bottom of the chair legs.

I had bought them from Ikea weeks ago. They come with twelve little circles and four big circles per packet- enough for a table and four chairs. But we have a huge table that seats twelve (although we only have ten chairs) so I needed three packets. Luckily they are super cheap, maybe $2 or $3 a packet. 

So while the chairs were flipped up, I popped the little circles on the chair legs. I can't tell you how good it is to not have to hear- or brace yourself to hear- that screech.

 I don't know why I didn't do it sooner. 

Well actually, I do know why.

 It's the reason why most of us end up overwhelmed if we lose sight of our goal of efficiency and organisation. It's because little jobs get overlooked for bigger jobs but then the little jobs pile up. In my case, I knew this was a five minute job so I kept telling myself that since it will only take five minutes, I will easily find five minutes later on as right now I am super busy with X,Y or Z. It's why kitchen benches become loaded with junk (I'll just put this down to unload the dishwasher, I'll move it later) and why "to do" lists say "fertilise lawn, clean windows, swap out winter clothes for summer clothes" but never "put a working pen by the phone, put out new box of tissues, grab that toy out from between couch cushions". It would be silly to take longer to write something than do something. But for some reason, many of us still like to take longer to mentally file something than do something. I've overcome that in many instances (I tend not to dump things on the kitchen bench anymore- high five!!) but not when it comes to little projects like this. 

So with my new-found sense of productivity and general awesomeness, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I took the larger circles that were left and used some to protect the wall in my craft room from the edges of my tables and desktop shelf.

Not only that, I'm determined to tackle more things as they come up instead of waiting until I am in some magical parallel universe where I have nothing at all to do.

Laura xx 

Friday finds- Saturday edition

Umm, errr, oops!

Got a bit distracted yesterday and forgot to post my Friday Finds post. School holidays are almost over and Bella is spending the weekend down near the beach with her great-grandmother. Shopping is sooo much quicker and easier with only one child, even if that child is the cheeky 3 year old! I was back by 10am and ready to process the pays and payslips. If I can keep up this pace, I'll have a stellar weekend and cross off everything on my to-do list (fingers crossed!).

• One thing I miss about working in an office is all the funny emails that get circulated. This blog posts them so I can still get my 'fix' of lame funnies!

• This post from Claire Chadwick. Ladies, get your overdue pap smear booked in!

• A big topic this week has been the proposed medicare levy increase to fund the NDIS (national disability insurance scheme). I loved this article for it's clear discussion of the facts and important points surrounding the issue. It is written by a lecturer in economics whose daughter has a disability.

• And this recipe for chocolate tacos is actually from two weeks ago but with Cinco De Mayo tomorrow, it could be very timely.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Laura xx

organising flash cards- dolch words

Both of my girls love books, my eldest especially. As a toddler she used to choose the dictionary as her bedtime story. No joke. Sometimes we could talk her into a picture book, sometimes not. She started learning sight words pretty early and so last year I printed and laminated a set of Dolch word flash cards. You can see that and the link to the printable in this post here. Wow, I've had this blog for almost a year! I kept them in a little pouch and they tended to get forgotten or lost or crumpled. Plus I had only done the Pre-Primer level words. So I decided to bite the bullet, print and laminate the whole set and store them on jumprings which you can find in scrapbooking and office supply stores. 

This time I laminated the cards on a rolling laminator which meant just constantly feeding the cards in. So when it came time to cut them out, they weren't aligned and I opted to use scissors instead of a guillotine to cut them out. I holepunched the corners using a holepunch upside down so I could see what I was doing and align the holes. I used a pre-punched card as a guide to keep the holes consistent. 

And I just realised that I never ended up posting my toyroom clean/purge/re-organise last year but on one of the bookshelves we have a box of flashcards and the flashcards live in there unless they are being used or taken in the car. 

Laura xx

Storybird love

I am in love. With a website. Not pinterest, not picmonkey. 

Storybird. 

This free website has hundreds, thousands of beautiful illustrations which are turned into stories (by users) and published online. You need a membership (free or paid) to comment or publish but can browse and read for free. If you are artistically gifted you can even submit your own artwork. 

There are so many different styles of art, so many topics and age-ranges to browse for stories. It's easy to lose an hour in here. 

It's also pretty easy to navigate. Creating a story reminds me of making a Powerpoint presentation. You add new 'pages' which can be seen along the bottom. If you click on a page, it shows up larger in the main area. You drag images onto the page and by positioning them differently, Storybird guesses where you want the text area to be (top, bottom, left, right, half a page, small strip). Then you type your text in and move to the next page. You can easily go back and edit. 

As I mentioned yesterday, Bella is realllllly into books and stories so she loves this. It only requires minimal supervision and spelling assistance from me. 

Membership basically allows you to pretty up your account and also print for free (free membership requires you to purchase your own stories for printing)

And there is even a 'poetry' section where you can add a few words to a single picture instead of writing a whole story, leading to beautiful creations such as below, which can also be 'shared' across numerous social sites (facebook, pinterest, blogs etc).