Appointments

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Part of being organised is making and keeping track of appointments.  This week I have appointments for a dental check up, haircut and mammogram on 3 consecutive days.

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I am lucky because Breastscreen and my dentist both send reminders when an appointment is due.  I simply make the appointment and make a note in my electronic calendar at work.

My hair appointments are generally 7 weeks apart and I make the following appointment when I am at the salon.

The dentist and hairdresser both send an SMS reminder the day before the appointment.

My haircut on Thursday was one of 3 that I planned and booked back in February.  I did this as I was calculating the intervals so that I could make sure I had my hair cut just before we leave to go on holidays in July.  I will have it cut 2 days before we leave so that it will last for the whole holiday.

What regular appointments do you make and how do you manage them?  Diary?  Electronic notes?  Some other method?

Meaning of Materialistic

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I read an interesting question online today.

How do you become less materialistic?

The first thing to do is to define the word ‘materialistic’.  I resorted to the dictionary and this is what I came up with.

Materialistic – excessively concerned with physical comforts or the acquisition of wealth and material possessions, rather than with spiritual, intellectual, or cultural values.  

I think that sums it up quite nicely.

So, how is a materialistic attitude determined?  Nature, nurture, genetics, stage of life?

I am sure that at least some of our attitude towards possessions stems from how we were brought up and the attitude of our parents.

Additionally, most of us go through what I would regard as an acquisitive phase during early adulthood as we set up a household which is independent from our childhood home.  During this period there are often children added to the family and along with that comes additional possessions.

At the other end of the scale there are those of us who no longer have children at home and are perhaps already retired or soon to be so.  Many of us are looking to remove clutter from our lives.

However, I think a materialistic attitude is more than simply having lots of stuff.  To me it means that a person places more emphasis on material possessions than values.

I cannot get enough of this video which is brilliant.

Weekend Plans

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My apologies for disappearing for nearly a week.  This week has been a bit of a blur.  On Monday GMan and I made a flying visit to Melbourne to attend the memorial service for a dear friend who died unexpectedly a couple of weeks earlier.  It was an emotional day but I am so glad that we were able to attend.  RIP, Carol.

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The rest of the week has simply been going to work and doing my best to keep my head above water.  A menu plan and meals in the freezer have been most welcome.  Honey soy chicken was on the menu last night.

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Now it is the weekend and this looks like being a full one.  Tomorrow we are going to see Miss O play netball.  It only seems like the other day that she was born and now she is 8 and playing her first season of Saturday morning sport fixtures.

After the netball match, GMan and I are heading off to a computer shop to look for a tablet computer to buy then out to lunch with my mother.

To round off the day we are going to see “The Lady in the Van” starring Maggie Smith.  I am looking forward to this film as she is an excellent actress and I have enjoyed several of her other films.

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What are your plans for the weekend?  I hope it is great.

A Tyre(ing) Week

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Tyres are one of those things that we would find it difficult to live without but we really do not give much attention to them until there is a problem.

For GMan, this week has been all about tyres.  Last week he discovered that the ute had a slow leak in one tyre which became not so slow and the cause was a nail.  After after visit to the local tyre shop, we discovered that it could not be repaired so a new one was ordered and he collected that this morning.  Of course, there is a spare tyre but a replacement was necessary.  The ute is back in business.

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The ute was not the only wheeled device with issues.  We have a metal handcart which came from my parent’s place but we have not used it recently as it needed a new tyre.  That was not high on the list of things to do but GMan did do it this week.  The only tyres available did not match the original so he bought 2 new ones and the handcart is now sporting a very flash pair of whitewall tyres.

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The final project is for later today as GMan needs to pump up the tyres on the mulcher.

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Wheels are great, but like everything else, they require a little maintenance from time to time.

 

A New Toy

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It is not often that I post about something new that I have bought.  More often than not, it is about what I did not need or what I have passed on to someone else.

3 weeks ago GMan and I each bought a Fitbit Flex.  I have heard many people talk about these devices and I must admit that I thought they were a bit of a gimmick but eventually we decided to join the crowd.  I have previously used a pedometer on occasions but find this to be much more accurate and it is easier to wear as it is not dependent on the type of clothing that you are wearing.

This is mine which I wear alongside my wristwatch.

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I think I have only scratched the surface in terms of what I can program it to do but our main focus is to achieve 10,000 steps each day.  I have met my goal for 19 out of 21 days.  On the other 2 days I achieved about 9,000 steps.

We both hold down sedentary office jobs so we actually need to make a conscious decision to get out and about during the day.

There is no digital display on this model but all of the stats are available on the app on my phone.

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There is nothing like the challenge of meeting a goal to motivate you so we feel that these purchases have been well worthwhile.

I am also looking forward to to being able to track how much walking we do when we are overseas on holidays.

An Endless Summer

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Here in Australia we have had a long, hot summer.  There is no other way of describing it.

I found found some statistics from the Bureau of Meteorolgy.  There is no information for April but we all know that the warmer than average trend continued.
December
Second-warmest December mean minimum temperatures on record
Warmest December mean temperatures on record for Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia
Two heatwaves break December records in southeast Australia
Severe bushfire in southern Victoria
December was another very warm month for Australia, the sixth-warmest on record for nationally-averaged mean temperatures. The national mean minimum temperature was the second-warmest on record with an anomaly of +1.24°C, while maximum temperature was the warmest on record for parts of southeast Australia including Victoria (+3.80°C).
January

National mean temperature above average

Maximum and minimum temperatures both above average
January mean temperatures were warmer than average for Australia as a whole (an anomaly of +0.52°C), with all States and the Northern Territory recording warmer than average mean temperatures.
Tasmania recorded its second-warmest January on record.
The Australian mean daily maximum temperature was 0.21
°C above average and the Australian mean daily minimum temperatures was 0.83°C above average
February

Australia’s ninth-warmest February on record

Heat wave in northwestern Queensland results in some daily maximum records broken.

February was a warm month for Australia and the ninth-warmest February on record. The national mean temperature was 0.92°C above the historical average, with the monthly mean maximum temperature 1.43°C above average and the monthly mean minimum temperature 0.41°C above average.

Mean temperatures and mean maxima were above average in all States.
Queensland recorded its fifth-warmest February on record for mean temperatures and equal sixth-warmest for both maximum and minimum temperatures. Tasmania was sixth-warmest for minimum temperatures.
A heat wave in north-western Queensland in the last week of February resulted in a number of records for daily maximum temperatures being broken in this region
March
Mean March temperature for Australia warmest on record.
National mean March minimum temperature warmest on record.
National mean maximum temperature seventh-warmest March on record.
A new record for the warmest March day on record for Australia on the 2nd.

This month was the warmest March on record with a mean temperature anomaly 1.70°C

above the average, exceeding the previous record set in 1986 (+1.67°C). The national mean March minimum temperature anomaly was also the warmest on record at +1.97°C.
The hottest March day recorded in Australia was recorded on the 2nd.  On this day, more than one-third of Australia recorded maximum temperatures in the warmest percentile.
During the month warmer than average maximum and minimum temperatures affected much of the country. New South Wales and Victoria experienced record high mean March temperature anomalies (+2.49 °C and +2.42 °C respectively).
Nationally, the mean March maximum temperature was the seventh-warmest on record (+1.42 °C).
How did you cope with the heat?  Did you enjoy the ‘endless summer’.  Are you looking forward to ever increasing temperatures over the coming years?
Think it won’t happen?  Check out this graphic.
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Climate change is real and it is here right now.  It is time to stop and consider what the future is going to look like.  What is life going to be like for our children and grandchildren?  We are well on our way to leaving them a legacy of an uninhabitable planet.
Check out this page for more information.
What do you think?  How do you feel?
I am interested in your opinion whether you are here in Australia or overseas.

Nothing Matches…….

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……..but at least it is tidy.  The workshop area contains a mish-mash of storage cupboards and shelving.  It does not look particularly pretty but is effective.

Yesterday was the last day of our long weekend and GMan decided to continue his goal of clearing up downstairs.  On Saturday he had swept and water-blasted the open concreted area under the house so yesterday he turned his attention to the workshop area.  I do not have any ‘before’ photos but here are a few shots of the end result.

The dismantled cupboards in the right-hand photo are from our old kitchen (renovated 7 years ago) which were repurposed as temporary storage.  They are now destined to be rubbish as the chipboard is all breaking up and we simply no longer need them.  GMan will cut them into smaller pieces and gradually dispose of them via our regular rubbish collection.

Cupboards and shelves were re-arranged.  Worn-out or useless rubbish were discarded.  Items no longer required were listed on Facebook Buy/Swap/Sell sites.  Bits of wood were cut up for firewood.

The area is by no means decluttered completely but we have got rid of some stuff, made sure similar items are stored together and generally know what we have.

As always, it is a work in progress but it feels good to have taken another step towards keeping only those things that we really need.

What I Wear – 5 Month Update

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I have now completed 5 months of tracking what I wear.

When I tallied up the month and moved across to the new spreadsheet for a new month, I found a couple of interesting insights which I would like to share with you.

See if you can guess what these 7 items have in common?

Dark denim jeans
White 3/4 pants
Checked seersucker skirt

Pink tshirt
Old khaki shorts
Black 3/4 leggings
Old striped rugby top

They are the only pieces that I have worn 10 times or more over the past 5 months.

When I review the pieces that have had more wear it is easy to see why.  I have a small selection of clothes that I wear at home when working in the garden or cleaning, therefore, they end up on high rotation.  The jeans, pants and skirt are probably my favourite ‘bottoms’ and it is interesting that there are no tops in the frequently worn pieces which tells me that I have probably got too many – or at least, that I don’t need any more.

Of the 91 items I have in my wardrobe I have worn 75 of them since I began this project.  Many have been worn just once or twice.  Some of this is due to the weather now starting to become slightly cooler.  However, it is partly because I think I have chosen to wear some things just so that I could say I have worn them.  These are the ones which possibly will not make the cut for next summer.

In any given month I wear around 50% of the clothes in my wardrobe and most of those are only worn once or twice.

The weather is finally starting to become cooler and I am looking forward to wearing some of the clothes that have not seen the light of day since last winter.  More on that next month.

Luxury of a Long Weekend

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Thank you for your kind words after my last post and patience while I collect my thoughts.

This morning I woke and lay in bed contemplating the unusual situation of 3 days at home (it is a long weekend here in Queensland) and no commitments.  That is right – nothing, nobody, nowhere.  We had no plans.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love catching up with family and friends, entertaining and going places but it is such a novelty not to have anything planned.

The weather is cool and humid with showers of rain threatening.

GMan and I began by taking the outdoor table downstairs to clean it in preparation for painting.  Next, we have cleaned all of the concreted area under the house – swept, vacuumed and cleaned with the high-pressure water spray.

After using the outdoor vacuum cleaner GMan discovered that the filter bag was falling to bits.

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I decided that I could make a new one which appears to have been a success.

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Here it is attached to the lid of the vacuum cleaner.

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There are lots of other things we can work on and there will be more about those in upcoming posts.

I hope you are having a safe and relaxing weekend wherever you are.