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2017 Goals

So 2016 has come & gone with quite the fan fare. Of note would be all the famous people leaving this world & moving on to the next. I came across quite a few articles of those people that have passed & by golly I actually recognise some names. I guess it’s just the way of the time as we all get older & our time on this earth just gets shorter.
Enough with the macabre tone. 2017 is here & I’m excited! It’s the year we’re getting married (5 months away now, eeek!) & lots of exciting opportunities career wise. I’ve been given the opportunity to cover a role at work which uses my OT degree more & I get higher duties to complete. I’m hoping it’ll work out with the role & it’ll give me something to put on my resume. I also got into the pool for the same role in the Northern suburbs, though slightly different to what I do now.
Looking back on last year’s goals, I must say I’ve not done too shabbily. Yes, I have used pretty much the same terminology but that’s just me! I’ve managed to slowly work my way to getting fitter, I joined the gym late last year and have started small bits of exercise in an effort to get more active. The learning to invest goal was a little more difficult, I didn’t manage to get into that as my first investment turned out pretty terrible πŸ˜›

 

I also managed to see more of my friends during the year as well and will be following that goal into this year too. I’ve attended and started learning Auslan through work. Made it through the basic 8 week course and wanting to do the intermediate course, but haven’t yet found the time due to work commitments and the acting role. I’ve also indirectly learned some German through Matt, who is learning German. I’ve picked up the basics and can understand bits of the German music he plays in the car.
For this year, I’m keen to get some other goals into place as well. Not resolutions, but goals. I’m the kind of person who is outcome focussed, so hence the goals. It’s about the destination & not the journey for me. Although the journey is also pleasant, my focus is the destination ☺️

 

I’ve got quite a few goals for this year. I’m hoping to completely achieve at least half of them and make a serious dent into the other half. I like to aim big, at least I know I would’ve tried to do lots of things at once. Go big or die trying right?

 

Declutter

My parents and brother currently live with me in my tiny 3 bedroom place and it is starting to feel a little crowded. They’re moving out soon and Matt will be moving in within the next month or so, whenever their house is finished. All of us tend to accumulate stuff and I know I’m guilty of buying heaps of things that I don’t need and just take up room. I’ve made it my goal this year to seriously declutter, sell or donate my junk or extra stuff as I don’t like living out of my room where everything is just crammed in at the moment. I’m making it a point every day to either chuck stuff, put things into a sell/donate pile and recycling items. Once I’ve gather about a car load of stuff, I’m wanting to go to the local swap meet to sell stuff and donate whatever is leftover so that I don’t collect useless junk.

 

Decorate house

I haven’t been able to decorate my house to my taste since moving in, I’m keen to expand my creative side and to make it look all nice and pretty. I’ve got all the stuff needed, the thing that’s not on my side this year is time. Between travelling to and from work daily, the wedding planning, the wedding and going out to see friends, it’s hard to get time to do much more than keep the house neat and tidy. I’ll have to work smart this year for that.

 

Start my side hustle

I’m not making it public yet, but stuff is in the pipeline. Again, time is again not on my side with the amount of things happening this year. I’m keen to get started as this has been a long time coming and I’m itching to start things and be on my way to being my own boss.

 

Get more active

This is kind of a leftover goal from last year, but it’s good. I’m making small changes each day and and looking forward to being more active and being a healthier version of me for my family.

 

Eat more home cooked lunches

With mum & dad moving out and Matt moving in, I’m itching to stretch my culinary muscles and will be trying to make more of an effort to make lunches. This is a 2 part goal as it is to save money for everything this year and to also be a healthier version of me.

 

Plan and go on our honeymoon

We’re thinking of going on an overseas trip maybe at the end of the year or early next year (possibly 3 countries, so there will be heaps of planning involved). We’ve got a few ideas in mind but nothing set in stone yet as money is tight at the moment and we’re saving everything for the wedding at the moment.

 

Take more photos

Ironic that this post does not have photos, but I want to be able to document our lives and have memories of things. With our new Google Pixels, this has been an absolute dream as we’ve been able to capture quite a lot of moments in absolutely brilliant quality. Plus, unlimited storage through Google cause of the phones really helps with this goal πŸ˜‰

 

Blog more

This also ties in with the previous goals, I want to be able to have written down memories of things to look back or have our children look back on and to get to know their parents. Plus, writing has always been my passion, life just got in the way. Or rather, mundane adult responsibilities of paying bills, sleeping and watching TV has gotten in the way of writing. I often have quite a lot of thoughts that I wish I could’ve written down about things that are happening in the world, but sitting down in front of the computer after a long day in front of it at work, just does not seem that appealing sometimes. The whole notion of living my life in front of a screen is not what I want to do.

 

Make more of an effort with my appearance

I’ve been wanting to experiment more with makeup that I got previously and haven’t been bothered trying out. I’m wanting to be more bold and look more presentable, even if its just a bit of eyeliner or mascara so I don’t look so washed out.

 

Save for deposit on another property

This one I must admit is a bit of a long term goal. I’m hoping that we’re able to save money to be able to purchase another property and turn one into an investment property for our retirement or something. I’m a bit of a long term planner and want to be able to secure our financial future so that we don’t have to rely on government pensions or things like that which might not be guaranteed in the future. I want to be able to retire on our terms.

 

I think that’s all for this year’s goals. There are quite a few big ones in there, but I’m hopeful I’ll be able to address most of them. One more goal which I would like for us to be able to achieve this year is to have a great wedding and marriage. Here’s to 2017!

Operation Wedding Ready

The countdown to the big day is going pretty quickly. There’s quite a few things left to do & I really need to get moving in terms of getting it all done in time. It has been a pretty busy few months at work and random things around the house too. My brother and parents are preparing to move out once their place gets built and I’m getting ready to move Matt in & clean up my place prior to that happening.

 

Wedding wise, it’s been pretty slack around here. I’ve tested the recipe for our wedding cake, received some RSVPs eventhough I haven’t sent out Save the Dates and our wedding guest list looks to be expanding still. I’m not too stressed about the whole thing as yet, I’m a bit blase about it to be honest. Oh, and the tailor for the bridesmaids dresses has absconded with the money :’P I could be devastated, but I’m not. Thankfully we found out now, so we’ve still got time to fix it all up.

 

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Did a spot of baking for work’s Melbourne Cup lunch last week. The cake went down a treat, which is great! I really need to get more baking and cooking done, can’t wait to have my kitchen back & get started with practicing my cooking and baking skills.

 

Joined the gym over the weekend, in an effort to get fitter and look better. So far I cancelled out my efforts by eating heaps. The gym really does make my appetite go mental! Will try again this weekend to keep more active and get the sweats on.

 

Been feeling a bit under the weather the past few days, hoping it is just minor bug and will go away soon. I can’t afford to have any more days off. I’ve got some days off in November, will be the first time since I started here a year ago that I’ve had any decent time off. Albeit its only a few days, but it is better than nothing. Work has been pretty busy and I’m trying to keep stress levels to the minimum and get stuff done.

Wedding Planning Update #2

Another month down, another month closer to becoming a Mrs! So far we’ve got 90% of vendors locked in, with only a few more to go. The few things left to do are:

  • Book accommodation for the night before & upgrading to the suite
  • Organise wedding cake
  • Make bouquets. I’ve decided to go fake flowers as real were going to cost around $400 to $500 versus around $150 for fake
  • Confirming makeup artist for myself and bridesmaids if required
  • Make/buy wedding favours
  • Get remainder of jewelry – wedding rings & other accessories. Already sourced some earrings
  • Get the remainder of documents to the celebrant for the Notice of Intended Marriage
  • Confirm guest list
  • Send out save the dates
  • Send out invitations
  • Get sized for wedding dress, alter dress
  • Get possible cheongsam/qipao for tea ceremony

I’m sure there a few things I’ve left out such as the kitchen tea/bridal shower & hen’s night but those are not as pressing at the moment. I’m wanting to get the big ticket items & important things out of the way as early as I can so that we can start populating our calendars with meetings for the run up to the wedding.

The wedding planning has died down a little lately, which is great. We’re hoping to get most of the planning sorted by July this year, so we’ll have the rest of the year to focus on ourselves. We’re also looking at moving in together pretty soon, so that will be quite an effort in itself too. Count down is on! Just over a year to the wedding & we’re looking to be in relatively good shape. Now to work on our wedding bodies πŸ˜‰

Wedding Planning Update

It has been just under 4 months since we’ve gotten engaged & only about 2 months since we started really planning and thinking about the wedding. It actually has been a pretty painless and fun process to be quite honest. To date, we’ve done the following:

  • Picked a date
  • Picked a venue for the ceremony and reception
  • Put a deposit for the venue
  • Picked my bridesmaids & maid of honour
  • Met a celebrant and put a deposit for services
  • Tried on a dress, liked it & put a deposit for it
  • Met a photographer/videographer, liked them & getting ready to decide payment options
  • Arranged meetings for a decorator and DJ
  • Sourced a potential florist
  • Tentatively arranged accommodation for the night before and night of the wedding
  • Spoke to a makeup artist to source quotes
  • Sourced potential bridesmaids and traditional attire online
  • Sources potential custom made rings

I think we’ve done pretty well to have done so many things in such a short amount of time and with relatively little stress. I’m more just so excited about things and wanting it all to happen right now! The best part for all the services I’ve spoken to & organised is that we are getting discounts for every single thing for the wedding! Am hoping that this will continue & we can come under budget for the wedding. So far we are doing pretty good & am watching my spending really closely so that we will make it as close under budget as possible. Winter weddings are most definitely a good way to save some money! I picked out my wedding dress over the weekend, but that is a story for another day! I got the most gorgeous gown for half price & I cannot wait to be a princess on the day!

No Spend Challenge

The wedding date has been locked in & is slowly creeping up on us. One of the biggest things when planning a wedding is the all important budget. We’ve picked an amount that is reasonably small, but big enough for us to have the important things to us. I’ve employed quite a few money saving strategies for the wedding, which is aΒ story for another post. I think, if we hadn’t organised for a winter wedding, the cost would have been easily almost another $2000. Which isn’t a laughing matter at all when you are just starting life out together, every cent and dollar counts!

 

Given that we haven’t quite reached our target savings as of yet, I’ve been employing quite a severe regime to save. One of the things that I will be trying to do is to have a ‘no spend’ challenge. At this point, I’m aiming to try it for at least a month & for as long as I can go in an effort to make everything stretch that little bit further. One of my bridesmaids inspired this as she is doing a ‘no spend’ year. She has been unemployed & they’ve just bought a house & are renovating it, so things are a little tight on their end. The rules of the challenge are that you are allowed to buy groceries and food items, replace things like deodorant, shower gel, make up, undies and essentials, but you are not allowed to buy new things. For example, if I want to go to a party, I have to reuse the clothes I have in my wardrobe & am not allowed to buy anything new.

 

I’ve done a bit of a recon of the items in my room and I feel like I’ve got enough cosmetics to last me a lifetime, face creams, body lotions, clothes and stationery to last me till my grandchildren and heaps of accessories that I can reuse to jazz things up. I will be allowed to buy things like petrol, pay bills (duh!), get foodstuff for home. I will not be allowed to buy new clothes, eat out unless I don’t have a choice and random impulse buys when I visit the shop. And cause we are planning the wedding, we will be allowed to spend for wedding related purposes. It will be interesting to see the results after a month of trying this out. Wish me luck! πŸ™‚

The Proposal

It has been just over 3 months since Matt popped the question & I haven’t blogged about it yet. Work & life has just gotten in the way again. Ironically enough, the wedding planning has also taken up most of my time & weekends are usually spent over at Matt’s place, which doesn’t leave very much time at all to pen thoughts down. I do want to immortalise the moment, so that I can read it in the future & recall the great memories and emotions associated with this πŸ™‚

 

It was a bright, hot sunny Saturday morning on the 9th of January. It wasn’t very much of a special day, all I knew that Matt was going to take us on a drive to somewhere but didn’t say where. I was quite happy to just sit in the car, feeling pretty excited by it all. I must say, it was incredibly hot that day, what a day to pick! Matt drove us up the Kwinana Freeway, I had no idea where we were heading to still but when we got to the CBD & pulled off at the Mounts Bay exit, I instantly knew where we were going. I had an inkling that he was going to pop the question, but I had absolutely no idea where.

 

We then pulled into Fraser’s Avenue & into King’s Park. King’s Park is a bit of a special place to us, it is literally where we first met & had our first kiss. We parked & walked to our special spot, where we had our first kiss. It was quite a bit of a trek and we were both trying to work out where the spot was, we worked up quite a bit of a sweat doing this! Matt kept keeping me on one side of him, as he had the ring in one pocket & he didn’t want me to realise haha! When we got nearer to our special spot, Matt then had a bit of a stomach ache & had to go searching for a toilet (sorry honey!). I ended up waiting on the side of the road & watched while a wedding was being set up nearby. The vendors even asked if we were there for the wedding. Haha, no but we would’ve gone if we were invited!

 

Off we went after that to find the particular bench we had our first kiss on. We had to take a picture to commemorate the moment, just over 4 years after we first met. I still have the picture of when we literally first met each other. I really cherish those memories!

Special bench!

We reminisced a bit about all the memories & things we’ve been through together. It was great just being able to enjoy nature & be in the company of your loved one.

 

Matt then went down on one knee, gave a bit of a speech & popped the question. I of course said yes! Don’t tell anyone, but I did have a bit of a teary moment when he popped the question. The ribbon on the ring box got a bit stuck, but we got it open in the end & I got to wear the ring to be future Mrs-I-Wear-Odd-Sockz!

I said yes!

Ring