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i havent blogged in months but i definatley found something to blog about...
This lucky girl, April, has got to have the sweetest man ever!! Now I love my man and he's great, but he's the type of guy to complain that i take too long to get ready (when he takes longer, really!) and that i wear and spend too much on make up. Now back to April. She had been looking around for the Urban Decay Naked palette and couldnt find it anywhere, at a reasonable price. Can anyone?? So on a recent business trip her partner went on, he saw some Urban Decay in duty free, no Naked palettes but he did go to the effort of looking up the colours in the palette on his phone and bought her 5 single, full sized eyeshadows that come in the Naked palette... now if that isn't the sweetest thing ever, i dont know what is!
Not only is this girl lucky, but generous! She is currently holding a give away on her youtube channel, AprilAthena7, and the prize is HUGE!! Here's just a sneak peak of what you can win..
I suggest you follow her blog, subscribe to her on youtube & find yourself a man like hers! haha
here's the link to her blogpost regarding her giveaway and here is the link to the video of her September favourites + the big Giveaway
hopefully i can get back into the swing of blogging, i forgot how much i enjoy it!
I never really got that phrase (click here if you have no idea what I'm talking about..). I always thought that if you had money everything else would be fine. Our current financial statement is one of 'no money'. Were basically living off social security payments which cover necessities (barely) and not much else. this post is not one of complaint. it is not a post seeking charity. It is simply a post highlighting to POSITIVES this situation.
yes POSITIVES!
when my husband got accepted into university we were both over the moon because he had been trying to get into uni for a long time. Discussions began on when he would stop working before uni started & neither of us even flinched at the thought of him not working. Ive been a stay at home mother for almost 4 years now. we both agreed that is what we wanted for our children, so we were used to living on a single income. Now we are living on no income (basically) and its tough but its actually changed our lives for the better in my opinion.
1) life has slowed down... by that i mean we aren't always off rushing to go out to the movies or make dinner reservations. we aren't always rushing out to make it to the shopping centre and circling the car park to find parking to then buy things that we don't really need. We spend a lot of time at home where things are calm. Home has always been important to me and its my favourite place to be. Its where we have our most fun. Its where we feel the most comfortable.
2) Were spending more carefully. With less money going around being conservative and making a budget and sticking to it is vital. I find that when we were comfortable and money was not an issue, it was just that, not an issue. My husband and i never talked about how much the bills were, how much the groceries cost this week, how much to spend on things like fixing the car, birthday presents and eating out. Because i was basically the one in charge of the budget and how we spent our money i would hold both ATM cards and if he needed anything he was take some cash or his ATM card. Now whenever either one of us is going to or has spent any money we tell each other just so we both know where we are, financially. Its not romantic at all and it almost feels business like but i think its an important conversation that we weren't having before. We used to have fights over money because neither of us knew where the money was going and what it was being spent on. Now that there's a constant dialogue fights about money don't occur.
3) Creativity is a must. Ive always considered myself to be a creative person, but when you don't have a lot of money to spend on whatever you would like, imagination and creativity are very helpful. My creativity has expanded from painting canvases & crochet (my weapons of choice) to meal planning, reusing & up-cycling things around to house, ways to entertain the children for free, how to clean the house for basically nothing & other ways to save money. I feel like i haven't been this creative in my life ever!
4) An appreciation for everything. every little thing. We cant afford to buy new things or travel to far away destinations which forces us to look at what we have now and love it. Of course an appreciation for each other has always been there. An appreciation for our families is inevitable. But now i appreciated things like dish washing liquid, laundry powder, my massive arts & craft box accumulated since i was in high school which has come in handy now that i have 2 creative little angels. I appreciate all my shoes, i really don't need this many but I'm grateful that i have them all. I appreciate all the gifts from baby showers and birthdays which were too big at the time but now fit perfectly. I appreciate the fact that i have less than 20 dinner plates. who need more than 20? i hardly ever entertain.
5) Cleaning occurs more often & with less complaint. Along the lines of appreciation and due to the fact that we spend a lot of time at home, i try to make it as comfortable as possible. i try to keep it organised so there isn't any "where is my other sock?" "where is my school bag?" "can you find my phone!??" yelling conversations going on as were are heading out the door. De-cluttering was the first step so once there was less stuff in the house, there's less stuff to pick up & put away and cleaning is easier.
there are obviously a lot more positives but for now i must be off, time to tackle the dishes & the pile of laundry just crying out to me.
by Annie ProlouxJust finished this book after slowly reading this book on & off over many months. The main reasons i picked this book to read is1) my year 12 English teacher recommended it & high school was a long time ago but for some reason i always felt the need to take her advice.2) it got turned into a movie, so there must be a decent story there. mind you i don't watch the movie adaptation of novels but i always go out to read the novel. 3) i found it at the markets, it just seemed like a sign.So the story is basically about Quoyle, a man/widower with two children who hasn't had it easy. Moving back to a small fishing town where his ancestors & family were originally from, how can there not be a story. I'd love to tell u what happens in the story but not a lot goes on but a lot happens. Does that make sense? There just seems to be this mysterious vibe throughout the book like so many things are going on and you want to know what happens next. For me personally, I'm a sucker for a protagonist who get kicked when he's down. I just want to know that he's going to make it and be OK. This book didn't change my perception on life, it didn't make me cry, it didn't really create any world shifting reactions in me. I just let me breathe. Breathing is good.The next book i am currently reading is Beloved by Toni Morrison. I'm in the first 20 pages and this book doesn't let me breathe. Its a 'heavy' book. not literally but its not a 'light' read. gosh i hope I'm making sense. This is the kind of book i cant even read at night, just because I'm so freaked about ghosts and anything haunting. I ha vent read enough to know exactly what the story is about but i will be proud of myself when i finish this book. I have a feeling this one will stick with me, in a good way hopefully.
