3 Months In and Counting

It's been 3 months this weekend since we moved in here.
It's amazing how much can change in that time, and change many times at that!

I finally have a business routine happening - which is the most stressful, when it's not happening.

Homemaking is okay - it has it's ups and downs. We've just added a work table to the loungeroom for the children and hubby and I can already see the benefits. Being a work at home, home education family means we are pretty much all here, all the time. We need to not drive each other crazy LOL.
Well, the loungeroom wasn't getting used much - maybe 30mins a day for TV and once a fortnight when having friends over. Not much considering it's about 25% of our floor space and 50% of our living space!
I believe this addition will help me be more organised but only time will tell. More organised means more than one spotless room at any one time LOL

While I decided more than 7 years ago to home educate, this is our first 'real year' as dd is 6, almost 7 (school year here is same as calender year) so we've been finding out what works and what doesn't. I'm settling in to being happy with our chosen curriculum and knowing what to add and what not to add. I have worked out that my best business time is morning, and so home education is about to be an afternoon thing - we're taking a couple of weeks off at the moment, to prepare business for while we are away.
I feel that we're ready for more consistency once we're done with this break and I look forward to it.

Meal planning & shopping - is wonderful. We are all eating more fresh foods. I do need to sit down and write a meal planning list as there are so many more options that I keep forgetting about. As I type I can smell a chicken roasting in the oven... I am determined to do it myself for $6/chicken instead of $11 when cooked by the supermarket. Roast chicken tonight, chicken pie tomorrow and then chicken n corn soup on Monday.... LOVE roast chook!
The cost of 5mins to do a roast chook for a savings of $5 is like getting paid $60tax free an hour!

Exercise - I need to get back into it. I was walking 3 x a week for a month but with the colder weather, it has dropped off. I need to focus on this.

Water - am drinking lots but need to keep my focus on it as it's easy to stop doing!

Money - we are doing so much better with this, however there is still room for improvement. I need to take a look at next month's finances and work out what cash we need. We're slowly moving to cash shopping etc. This month petrol has been cash and it's working well.

Goals other than mentioned above....
I want to have the kitchen, dining & lounge all tidy asides from what is being used at the time.
This year, maybe for Christmas, maybe sooner? I'd like to buy a sewing machine so I can better care for my family.
Debt. I'd like to halve our debt between now and Christmas.

Hmm... yes.... all is good in the House of Bogwitz :)

Countdown for Queensland

The children are getting very excited as we're preparing for our holiday at the end of July.
We've booked accommodation, organised Dreamworld passes, lined up babysitting for the part Pete and I are at seminar and it's all coming together quite well.
I haven't been to Dreamworld with children before, so there will be a whole bunch of rides we do that I've never bothered with before - like rides in tea cups LOL
A favourite of mine for nearly 20 years is the log ride - I just love that rush at the end :)

The days fly by

We're keeping busy here and they days are just disappearing! They're disappearing in a good way though. There's a fine line. When you're thinking 'Where did that time go?' then I reckon you're not achieving enough! On the other hand, when you look back and think 'that only seems like yesterday' or something else to that effect, ie not alarmed in any way, then you're more likely to be doing things productively!
Thankfully it's the latter for us.
This week I spent a day helping a friend with meals and cleaning. That's a serious % of my available time gone, that would normally be used for other things.
We also had the 3rd of 7 art'n'craft classes for kids here - they're having a ball.
PLUS dh and I are putting big efforts into our business at the moment.
Today is a good example of our craziness at the moment - I have a client appointment this morning, a business to do list of some significance that must be done today, I'm attending a linen party at a friends place this afternoon and then have some girlfriends here this evening for some Anne of Green Gables and foot pampering! All good but pretty packed. oh, and I just remembered... the family has asked for cooked breakfast today and I'd love to take the children to the park!
Thankfully it's not yet 6am so I've time to pull this day off. I'm off to get organised!

We're a bunch of Wusses'!

The heating on at night annoys us as it starts by blowing cold air and then barely gets warm before switching off again - this is because we had it set at just 13 degrees. This as a house temperature is quite fine at night but annoying with the heating functioning the way it does.

So, we cured it. The last 2 nights we just switched it OFF

Can I tell you, it gets mighty cold! Just 1-2 degrees colder makes a huge difference when making the bathroom dash in the morning!

I am reminded though of when I was growing up. We didn't have air conditioning till I was about 13 and then it was reserved for the lounge/dining/kitchen as it was all one room. Heating was pretty much the same! Doors closed so the heat didn't go up to bedrooms or the bathroom.
It was not uncommon either, to arrive home from school to find dad airing the house - in the middle of winter!!! No heating anywhere!

And this was just life as we knew it.

I won't go back to that but from now on the heating will be off at night. Why pay an extra couple if hundred dollars each year just to have a warm bathroom dash in the mornings. When I think about it, that is an obscene waste of our money and it can be put to a more productive use elsewhere.

Winter has Arrived!

Forecast for Tuesday

Cloudy. Isolated showers during the morning, becoming more widespread during the day. The chance of thunderstorms with hail from midday. Possible snow about the nearby hills at night. Winds northwesterly averaging up to 30 km/h increasing to 30 to 40 km/h during the morning then tending west to southwesterly around midday.
City
Showers increasing. Windy.

Food Choices

God has been leading me to less processed foods, reducing additives etc that we eat and increasing fresh food volume in our diet.

We've been talking about it a bit her for the last couple of months and I've come to realise I need to sit down and have a serious planning session to make it work!

Some things are easy - cut out 'diet' products as they have artificial sweeteners in them, and so on.

The trickier thing, since we're so used to eating everything cooked, is to find interesting raw/salad recipes that we can eat without scaring ourselves too much IYKWIM LOL.

There's a few I've come up with - but even searching for vegetarian recipes, most are cooked - and I know some good cooked ones already!

Another thing I am noticing is that most snacks we eat are processed, so when I sit down and plan I need to make a list of snacks that fit our new food choices.

So many products are labeled with 'no artifical colours' etc but still have things in it that you don't want to be eating - there's quite a maze to go through and the food companies don't want to help you, just themselves!

What are you eating that God wants you to eat? How much are you eating that is not fit for His temple?