Meal Plan Monday!

As part of our new healthy attitude in our home, our meals will start to hopefully reflect that also, here is our meal plan for the week...


Monday:
Baked Hoki with Vegetables (carrots, peas, corn, zucchini, potato and squash) 


Tuesday:
Beef Stroganoff with Rice


Wednesday:
Steak and Salad 


Thursday:
Tuna Pasta Bake with Salad. 


Friday:
*Birthday Party* 


Saturday:
Spaghetti Bolognaise with pork mince. 


Sunday:
Roast Chicken with roast vegetables.. 

A Deep Thought.. A turning point..

Tonight I had planned on writing all about my exciting trip to IKEA to downsize some of my bulkier furniture in an effort to make more space before the littlest man starts to crawl! (Ill have to write about that next time)

Instead I find myself motivated by a post that Jen from Lovely Living wrote this evening and she thought it was crazy to be blogging at 11:15.. it must be insane to be blogging at quart to 2!  However, her blog post was discussing the recent sad events that the King family have faced with the recent passing of both Lisa King's son and husband.. I read of this story last week myself, and whilst I don't know this family personally, I have in the past read their blog and it bought up a lot of emotion, over the big 'What If's?' in life.. What If we aren't here tomorrow? it's a thought I would really not rather bear, however, when faced with other's stories such as these, it is a real possibility for any one of us and that is scary.. 

Jen's post focused on one's own accountability for one's health, how very true.. I too in the past have put little focus on my health.. overweight for the past 8 years to varying degree's, i'm at my heaviest now since the birth of Charlie and for the past 6 months although uncomfortable I haven't really done anything about the weight creeping up.. I find it easier to blame my PCOS, more recent sedentary lifestyle and fact that I am extremely 'time poor' of late juggling the 5 kids, house, work etc.. than actually facing up to the fact that I NEED to do something pro-active about it.  

My friend emailed me the other day, she signed up for the Channel 10's  '1 Million Kilo Challenge' she added me to her 'team' (although I honestly never got the email) however, I was like 'Yeah right, lets put that one on the back burner like I have time for that...' in hindsight, how terrible.. how can one not have time for one's own health?? 

I don't think it is all to do with weight loss though, I must say.. I think to have a healthy life you have to be healthy in every single way.. mentally, spiritually, physically so working on all of those aspects of my life are going to also be on my agenda. And not just for myself, but for my Husband too, because if I feel like I have no time, I guarantee he must feel like he doesn't have a nano-second to spare, but we need to make the time.. for the sake of our family and of course for ourselves.  

I think its terrible that it often takes somebody else's loss to motivate many and inspire many to do the right thing.. because it really is so hard to knowing the 'What If' can happen as it clearly did in this instance, I guess all of us who are now motivated to change are fortunate that we can learn from this and do something about it.. then stories that are told, such as Lisa King's are not in vain.. 

As all my blog readers are my witness, this is a turning point for me.. 

Online Garage Sales..

My name is Danielle and I haven't Online Garage Sale'd for the past 2 hours..

Online Garage Sales have been my latest addiction. In the past on a Friday night I always 'plan' to get up early on Saturday and hit the local garage sales to find some much unneeded  needed BARGAINS!! However alas I rarely ever make it before people start pulling their wheelie bins in and any I do attend post 11am have more trash than treasure. 

Enter, the online garage sale.. Now I can browse at my own leisure, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day (no, I'm not quite that addicted!) and only go and pick up things that I actually want need.  I must say I have bought some gorgeous bargains along the way, from baby toys, to home wares and even clothing. 

Another advantage of the online garage sales is being able to sell unwanted clutter of one's own, for FREE. I just take a piccy with my iPhone and upload it from there, its very easy and is a great way to move your unwanted items fast.. rather than the more traditional methods such as EBay which can result in lengthy auctions and at times ridiculous seller's fee's.  Although I think whatever I have sold, I have spent.. but at least I'm not out of pocket so it's a win/win situation! 

Some of the sites can get pretty 'catty' so if your willing to put up with odd whiner or two you are bound to find something that tickles your fancy.  Here are my hints and tips;

• Join multiple sites, but only sell on one or two popular ones or else you will forget where your listings are!  Ask people to 'tag' you in their response to your ad, this will ensure you get a Facebook notification.  If you don't have luck with your ad on those pages, try some different ones in a few days time to see where your items sell best.
• Be accurate and honest in your listings.. don't say the item is in good condition, if it isn't or don't say it's new, if it's not. it will come back to bite you on the bum. 
• Ask questions! If you are buying an item, don't be afraid to ask as many questions as you need to.. but to help you secure the item, write SOLD - pending the following questions;  that way, if your first to write SOLD it is usually the pages policy that you have won that item.  
• Don't complain publicly on the page.. it will only make you look like a whiner and no one wants to buy from a whinger. Explain your grievances to your Admin in a rational fashion, they often have a system by which 'problem' users are banned from the site after a series of warnings.. so don't just sit and stew on it, if you have been wronged, speak up.
• Arrange to meet buyers and sellers in a neutral location for your safety.
• Have fun! buy some bargains, offload some items you no longer need to give others the opportunity of a bargain and enjoy! 

So yes, there you have it some tips I hope you find helpful when tackling the world of Online Garage Sales.. 

Blog Drafts..

Dont think Iv forgotten about my blog since Iv had such a looooong absence. I went in to edit my most recent post and noticed I have 10 blog posts that I had yet to complete.. pretty much about all of those events I wrote about in my catch up.. tomorrow I will finish some of them and post them up.. :) I will declutter my drafts folder! ... 

The Catch Up..

Well what can I say, Happy Father's Day, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all wrapped into one.. 

Hubby and his Kid Pyramid on Father's Day.. 

Mr Serious turns 8.. 

New car for our expanding family..

Happy 2nd Wedding Anniversary to US.. Bad bad picture, thanks to a short child taking it.. LOL

 

Happy 10th Birthday crazy girl.. 

Merry Christmas..

To name just a few and since then we've had hubby's birthday, my birthday and next comes back to school.. So its been a jam packed few months of craziness and busy-ness. Looking forward to school heading back tomorrow and getting into a 'routine' again (somewhat)...

Welcome back to Wishful Whimsy 2012! 

Infant Weight Watchers... *rolls eyes*

As many of my readers may know I had a baby 12 weeks ago, a gorgeous little man who is the light of mine and hubby's life, born 7lb 13oz, the little guy was smaller than we expected as we were told to expect a 9lb or 10lb, needless to say we had a wardrobe full of 000 clothing that didn't initially fit, having to opt for the 0000 clothes first of all instead.. I didn't buy too many, thankfully because the little fella grew super quickly into his 000 wardrobe in no time at all (2 weeks later) and now he is moving into the 00 clothes! I already have 2 bag fulls of clothes that he has outgrown!

 My point though, isn't that I wasted money on lots of clothes (I have no problem with that at all.. I enjoy every minute of clothes shopping..  ) What concerns me of late, is the amount of people who feel its OK to comment on my babies size.. like he is a supermodel or something.. "Ooh he's a little chubby" "Look at those rolls" (although I for the life of me, can't see rolls.. ) or even "What a big boy".  Yes, he is quite tall and certainly doesn't have numerous rolls so I think he looks 100% adorable and 100% healthy!  My elder son grew in the same fashion and by 5 months he was a size 0.. now he is a super skinny 6 year old, I don't think he has an obese bone in his whole body..

I sometimes feel like asking these infant Jenny Craig activists if they think I should send bub to the gym, perhaps a calorie controlled diet? Cut out the carbs perhaps.. LOL. He drinks bottles for goodness sakes.. he is hardly down at McDonald's every day binge eating. It just amazes me how people think it's OK to make such comments.. I hardly think they'd like it if I pointed out their second chin, fat ass or the couple of extra kilo's they gain here and there.. so why do they think its OK to tell a baby they are fat?  

Just my random observation for the day.. :) 

Computer Woes...

 Ever since I was 12 I have had a computer with access to the Internet, so this week when I found myself 'computerless' with 2 broken laptops I really felt quite 'disconnected'. A feeling I haven't experienced since I didn't pay my Internet bill in uni and lost my Internet connection for a week! However, in this crazy day of technology, my despair didn't last too long upon realising I had 2 'retired' desktops, 1 dinosauric laptop hidden in the back of the linen cupboard and of course my IPhone to fall back on! How insane does that seem? We had so much technology in the home, we just simply take it for granted and forget it is even there.. and because things are worth so little these days, it wasn't worth selling either the desktops or the retired laptop when we no longer needed them, so they just sat there (and did what unused computers do).  

So my laptop went off to the shop with what I presumed would be a virus, however, the issue turned out to be a broken hard drive.. Thankfully, even though my warranty expired 3 weeks ago, Acer have been lovely enough to honour the repairs.. So after a week in the shop, I am out of pocket $150 for the computer shops labour, diagnosis and backup and will now still be without my computer for another 7-10 working days whilst Acer receive and repair the problem.. on the bright side, I saved $160. 

I didn't realise computer illness's were contagious, but Hubby's computer is doing something very similar, and still being under warranty, it too is off for repairs through the rental scheme it was purchased through.. 

In the meantime I chose to use the dinosauric laptop of days gone by, it is 10 times larger than I remember, 100 times slower, makes noises that computers shouldn't make and the 'd' key is missing, but we are getting along just fine. 

I think after the laptops come back I'm going to take some time to clear out the 2 desktops and the clunker of a laptop and re home them to someone who needs 1 computer in their life.. :)