DIY Planner

Have you ever wanted to make your own planner instead of forking out the money to buy yourself a moleskin, filofax or such? Well, I have. On various occasions. I've made my very own but they were never really inspiring and never really worked any better than what was already offered on the market. I mean, I just duplicated the same old format. I may have changed and personalised the pages but the method of diarising was still the same.

Okay, this may come as such a surprise to you all since I am just a technogeek. I have used a PDA and I have an iPhone but I still really do like the feel of paper and I really wanted one that worked for me not only for inspiration but to keep up with all the various parts of my busy life. I haven't found an App that would work and the PDA, well, that was oh-so-last-decade!

Life at work was getting a little out of hand and I was slowly feeling things slip. Forgetting things and putting my neck out twice in the last month are clear indications that I needed to get in control. At work, I work with the computer diary (which is essential), I also have weekly meetings with a table of sorts to keep up with my team, and I have my trusty A4 notebook which serves as my brain. Yesterday while in a meeting, it occurred to me that I really needed something that worked for me. Something that would allow me to keep up with all the deadlines, keep up with what and where my team was up to as well as enable me to have a good weekly snap shot of things. I figured that someone out there would have been faced with this problem and would have come up with a solution. I did a quick google search and guess what I found?



I was instantly enticed by its catchy line: The best thing in printing since Gutenberg! What a claim. Was it true? So I put it to the test. I searched "weekly planner". Up came a hundred million results. Many interesting. Some quirky. All templates or formats or methods were posted by members who were all aiming to help in your quest to organise your life. I looked through a number of pages and there it was. The one for me. It gave me what I needed from it and more. A weekly planner that I can print out. It not only allows me to keep track of my own deadlines, it also allows me to keep track of my team! Watch out girls, Adelyn is putting on her manager hat!



The depths of this website is amazing. There are planners to help with scene writing and other creative pursuits, medical planners, work life balance planners and lots more! I have only licked the top layer off of this really totally yummy website!

Now, what is really intriguing about this website, other than the hundreds of planner templates offered for free, is the method currently being developed by one of the members called Middle Way Method. It is a totally different creature to the Action Method by Behance I had previously blogged about. The Middle Way Method is not your usual planner. It involves setting goals, visions and personal mission statements. It is a lot more driven. A lot more life management than time management. I'm rather taken by this and will trial this just to see if I have the discipline and drive to do a weekly personal review of where I am, where I want to be and how I will get there. So this is my plan: I'm going to try it for two months. See what I like and don't like about it, make some modifications and see if I can find something that will give me some control back in my life.

I'll keep you informed along the way. I'm off to organise the world!

Extraordinary weekend!!

I've had such a wonderful long weekend. Here in Australia, we celebrated Anzac Day. This day is to remember the lives of those who have fought and are still fighting to ensure that freedom is a way of life.

I didn't attend the dawn service but observed a moment of silence at church.

Anyway, I had a very enjoyable weekend. Here's the synopsis.

Saturday: the usual weekly shopping with the kids. Went craft and cloth shopping at Spotligth with Zach. Made a Zach-size body pillow complete with two covers (both picked out by him). Made two puppet emus for the kids.



Sunday: heard an inspiring message at church. Took kids to the park. Zach cycled and Amelia "cycled" to and from. Zach surprised us and asked if he could sleep in his own room but ended up sleeping with us anyway.

Monday: Khoa surprised us all and took us to AQWA and Jetty's restaurant! Yay and yum! The kids had a blast. made this skirt for Amelia. She didn't runaway this time!!



Best moments of the weekend? Where shall I start?

Hearing Zach and Amelia laugh with glee when we cycled/pushed them really really fast back from the park. Zach behaving beautifully when craft shopping. Zach absolutely adoring his body pillow. The kids playing with their emus. Amelia not wanting to take her new skirt off. Khoa taking us out. Zach asleep in his own room tonight.

Just simply WONDERFUL! Hope you all had a great weekend too.



- ade on the go

Extraordinary mondays - kids *sigh*

I found the best reconstruction of a man's button shirt to a girl's dress recently. It was designed by cheytown and posted on Craftster oh so many years ago in 2007. You just have to look at the genius of the design. It is pure lateral thinking at its best! Front of shirt becomes the back of the dress and the back of the shirt becomes the bodice front! Ingenius!

I wasn't looking for anything in particular but when I saw this. I knew exactly what shirt I was going to recon. Khoa had this blue floral button shirt that had these stains on the sleeve that would not budge. It was the perfect candidate for the shirt to dress trial.

So last night, I set about cutting up the shirt and putting it together. I made a few changes to the design of the dress and found the perfect sash and bow to complete the dress. (Oh Tina, I kept forgetting to ask if I could use that bow/belt thing I found lying around!) It took me a total of 1.5 hours! WOW! That's record time and so very easy!

Front of dress

Back of dress

I couldn't wait for the look on Amelia's face the next morning! She absolutely adores "preetti" dresses. My first recon and what a success! I was elated.

This morning, I showed her the dress, brimming with pride and anticipation. Guess what she said?

"Dada's dress"

I tried to put it on her but she down right refused to try it on and would even run away from me whenever I approached her with it.

*sigh*

Tina, I guess you could have your belt back and the dress can go to someone else. Gina, you interested?

Note to self: Recon a shirt that Amelia does not have a conscious memory of.

*sigh*

Baby Emily...

... the cutest baby on earth!!

I spent the last two weeks rushing home on alternate days to squeeze thunder thighs and the chubbiest cheeks ever. Emily is my almost six month old niece who lives in Sydney with her mommy Gina and her daddy Dan.




Zach and Amelia absolutely adore her and she seems to adore them back too! It was particularly gorgeous to see Amelia being the "big sister". I was pretty surprised that the kids were careful and gentle with her. Boisterous Zach in particular!

We are missing them already and want them to move back here!

Is this copying?

This is too juicy to not post about.

The media is awash with Sam Leach's Wynne winning landscape piece and what looks to be the original piece he "reference" from.

Image taken from ABC news website

What you see on the left is Sam Leach's Proposal for Landscaped Cosmos which recently won the Wynne Prize. On the right is Adam Pynacker's 1660 Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake.

There are quite a few angles on this:

1. Wynne Prize is for a landscape painting of an Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists

2. Sam Leach argues that the paintings are different for the following reasons: it is one fifth of the size, important elements from Pynacker's work is not included, there are stars in the sky and reflected in the lake is an LED grid. (Sorry but I couldn't get a better image online of his work)

3. If Sam Leach has been open about his reference, why was it never cited in the media releases?

For more discussion on this, go here.

So now, what do you think? I'd like to know where you stand on this. Should he have won the Wynne Prize?

Fruit straight from the tree!

What could be better than eating fruit just plucked from the tree? Nothing! Okay, maybe there are better things but in terms of freshness, this can't be beat!


Our longans at home are ready for eating and whenever we feel like it, we walk out the door and there it is! Glorious fruit. Yum!!

The eternal battle

Have I ever told you about my neverending battle with laundry. If I haven't, here's a brief synopsis. I HATE FOLDING LAUNDRY.

Here's a snapshot of the jumble that I am faced with when I throw my arms up in despair and acknowledge that there actually is a MASSIVE pile that I can no longer ignore. I daren't even show you an overview for fear that you turn away in disgust!




You wonder how I ever get to this point? Well, it is easy. I can find a hundred million things better to do than sit in one spot and fold laundry. This passion of mine began at a young age when my main chore at home was to fold the entire family's laundry every week.

I never mean it to always get this way but... *sigh*

if anyone out there has a proven method to fight this battle, I'm all ears.

Extraordinary mondays - Another one done!

Happy Easter to all! I hope you all had a wonderful long weekend. I've had another one full of re-decorating. This time there were lots of painting (not of the canvas kind) which is lots of hard work but look how it all turned out. The living area walls were a pukey yellow with splashes of red. One bedroom was a horrendous shade of blue and the other a purple beyond words! We did keep the red but painted everything else off-white. Before shots ...






... and after shots.

I did do a new painting to adorn one of the walls but it was just a little difficult to capture as it was the wall of the stairwell.


I hope you have enjoyed this little sojourn of mine. I've enjoyed it tremendously and am kinda sad that I'm not in the property development business. I'd love the chance to buy the worst house on the best street and do it up for sale. Wouldn't you? It is almost immediate creative gratification with the added bonus of fiscal success. Anyone need a business partner?