One step forward, two steps back

I’ve been spending too much money again. I bought a laptop. Okay, it was the cheapest, most basic laptop I could find, but this is actually a step forward. I bought it so I can type in the mornings without getting out of bed. Which I know sounds lazy, but it is cold at the moment, and I have been struggling to get up. I know if I have to get up, get dressed, turn the computer on and have it make the horrific sound it usually makes when I turn it on when it is cold, and then sit there shivering for half and hour while I type, I probably won’t. With the laptop I can just have it sitting by the side of my bed roll over and grab it and I am ready to go, plus I can be all toasty and warm as I work. It seems to be working too, I have just passed 12500 words.

So all was going well, and I was feeling quite positive and that I could start to get back on track, and then my sewing machine broke. It wasn’t a spectacular break it just refuses to make a decent stitch and gets all loopy at the back. Have tried cleaning it, oiling it, changing the needle and it just keeps getting worse, and now the tension dial is stuck and won’t go below four. So, it is going to have to go to the sewing machine person for a service, and I am going to have to hand quilt the quilt for England. I actually prefer hand quilting but I just did a calendar count and it is only ten weeks til my big trip. I will just have to sit down in front of the TV and just sew for the next little while. I figure I can handle that.

Places I’ve never been before #17. This is the view from Peaks Crossing. It is a small town about 20km from Ipswich. They have the occaisional car boot sale/antiques fair, out the back of the antiques shop and not much else, but a spectacular view of Peak Mountain.

 

Frugality and lack of motivation

I have an old, much used technique for getting started on things when I am really feeling unmotivated. I line up all my projects in a row, and I make myself do 5 minutes on each of them in rotation. Usually after a couple of rounds at 5 minutes each, one of them captures  my attention and off I go. It didn’t work this morning. I think I got through one round before I got distracted by a plate of brownies and season 2 of Sherlock on DVD. So…I haven’t got a lot done today, except for making this coaster.

The other thing I have been struggling with is frugality. I am trying to save money for my holiday but I keep going out and spending. While what I buy is usually useful, like new clothes, it is probably stuff that I don’t really need to buy right now. I have been thinking about wrapping my bank cards in a picture of my holiday destination as a deterrent, but I don’t know that it would work. Usually by the time I get my card out I have already made the decision to buy. If I’m already queued up at the check out I’m not likely to go put everything back.

Does anyone have any tips for being frugal?

 

Lazy

I meant to blog yesterday, but I did pretty much nothing all day. I was so lazy. I didn’t clean my house, or mow my lawn, or do any quilting. I didn’t ring my parents – which was really bad because it was mother’s day.

It was nice, except I spent too much money. The one thing I did do was go to the shops and buy DVDs. 

It was nice in a way to completely remove the pressure to do anything, but by about 2 o’clock in the afternoon I was going a little nuts. Sometimes I need to remind myself in the midst of all the 20 million things to do, that I am not a do nothing kind of person. The reason I have 20 million things to do is because I actually want to do things.

And… because it would be a pretty boring blog with out a picture, here is a photo of my knitting.

Lots of new places

This weekend has been all about visiting new places. I have managed three. Yesterday was the Ipswich Antiques Centre, then a Punjabi restaurant on Limestone St. Today I went to the Denmark Hill Conservation Park.

The Antiques centre is lovely, it’s in a beautiful old (by Brisbane standards) building. They had lots of lovely furniture. If you had lots of money and space you could go to town. With my impending holiday in mind, I restrained myself and only bought 2 matching glass vases from the $5 table.

The restaurant was nice. Nicely flavoured curry, not too hot.

Denmark Hill Conservation Park only has a few short walks, but there is lots else there as well. You can climb to the top of the water tower, and there is a cool display of fossils.

So I am now up to 16 new places visited.

I am doing quite well with most of my other goals. Weighed in today and I have now lost 10 kgs. Still loads more to go, but getting there.

I have been sewing, too. Mostly unpicking and re-sewing. I took the borders back off the quilt I finished last week and put in an extra thin border, between the blocks and the outer border. Of course with the extra mini border the old bits of border no longer fitted, so I had to go buy more fabric.

The novel, is going very slowly. I have lots of ideas for the bits I need to write next but I have just been letting my self get distracted by other things. Tomorrow is a public holiday, so I might have to spend some time catching up.

Lovely old light in front of the antique centre

Quarry pond at Denmark Hill

Very impressive drinking fountain right next to Denmark Hill

View from the top of the water tower

Fossil – I think this one is an ammonite

…and this one a trilobyte – but it could just be a bug.

This is a fossilised grasshopper wing.

I can’t believe how well preserved this dragonfly is

This one isn’t so clear, but close up it looks like a fish with a beak

This is the quilt before I added the extra border..

…and this is it after.