Savings Challenge

While reflecting on the past year and looking towards the future, it's come to me that I really could achieve more with my life and do more of the things that I want to do, if I was a bit more organised and mindful of my spending.  I suppose this is true for all of us. As I've ruminated over this for the past little while I've come up with some reasons for saving to be meaningful to me and hopefully to motivate me into making changes.While paying off the house early should be a huge motivator for me, I'm afraid it's not.  Don't get me wrong, it would be nice but it's not something that lights a fire in me to make changes.


Specific things that are motivating me to save

Travel.  I am ALWAYS highly motivated to save money to travel.  It is a sad addiction I am afraid.  In this area there are a few specific things I'd like to start putting money away for.
1. A family holiday with my nephews and niece to the USA and Disneyland.  This will take place in 4 or 5 years time so the youngest among them is big enough to enjoy the rides. This gives me time to save for it. Starting to save for this trip now means that I have to find less each week or month to put towards the trip and I give compound interest time to be my friend.
2. Kathrine (our Danish 'daughter'), has invited us to her academic graduation in July and I realise if I'd been more careful over the past couple of years it would have been possible to go.  Disappointment is a motivator here and I don't want to be in the position where she may one day invite us to her wedding and we're unable to go.
3. Another trip back to the UK to see Liz (at some stage).

Around the home.
Other than some general repairs and ongoing maintenance, we are going to need to replace the roofing over the back deck and greenhouse.  It's in an increasingly deteriorating state of being and one day soon our hand will be forced.  It's a very large area so is not going to be a cheap exercise.

Other.
Our car is getting on in age and kilometres so we've started a slow look for a new one.  As we're not in a hurry we're taking our time, doing a bit of research and weighing up our options.  Not an inexpensive endeavour either in the grand scheme of things.

So, how am I going to get myself into the best position to meet these challenges and goals?

1.  Grocery challenge.
2. Gift Savings Challenge
3. General savings challenge.

I'll write more about these in subsequent posts.  Want to come along for the ride?  Where could you use your money better and what would you do with it?

Home alone

Today is Australia Day so J has the day off. We headed out to look at new cars, have lunch and just pootle around a bit. Of course we left Jessica and Sophie home alone. This is not something they experience frequently as one of us is usually here most of the time. This is what we came home to.....



Hmmm. That soil should be in the garden.




They have dug a not insignificant tunnel in between the pots and to a considerable depth. I am yet to locate missing plants that were once in the pots.




Both covered in stinky, sticky mud. We've had many, many inches of rain in the past week and the soil is waterlogged and smells swampy.




Jessica's face of contrition.
Grrrr.
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Finished

It's not a great photo due to lack of photographic skill on my part and a terribly wet day with rubbish light. After quite a journey both on canvas and within myself my final piece is ready to be handed in. I'm thinking of calling it "Everyday Abundance" as it represents to me the simple, easily accessible things that surround us and enrich our lives. A favourite pot and flowers; cheerful lemons in a lovely blue bowl; jars of gleaming jam; and a view over gardens and farmland to treasured mountains beyond.

Edited to include cropped and better quality photo.



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Why my mail is still in my mailbox

Today is wet and dull, the kind of day where you are tempted to snuggle up lazily with a good book and joyfully listen to the rain on the roof.  One of my favourite sounds.  During a storm earlier today we lost power.  The resulting darkness put an end to my painting efforts and to any thought of reading so I decided to head out during a lull in the rain to collect the mail.  I almost made it..... This is what was between me and our mailbox.

Can you see my protagonist hidden at the bottom right of the image? Having trouble?  I'll help you then with a close up.

It's a carpet snake eating some large rat sized creature.  Could be a bandicoot or small possum.  Wasn't able to see properly.  He was right where I had to walk (the first photo was taken from on the road), so I left him to his lunch and headed back inside.  I wonder if it's my piddley friend from my previous post.

You have got to be kidding me....

Oh my, I had an interesting, bizarre, gross thing occur today.  After a busy morning going to the gym, doing chores and preparing for the pest man I finally sat down to have a cup of tea.  Suddenly I heard water running in the wall behind me.  WHAT?  There are no pipes in this wall.  Am I going crazy? I jumped up and moved the couch away from the wall to see water pooling on the floor as it ran out from the wall.  WHAT?  Ok, no plumbing, too far away from the air-conditioner pipes to be them..... Sniff said liquid, no smell.  Wipe it up thinking.....this may just be snake pee.  Do snakes pee so loudly that you can hear it run like a tap?  Hmmm.  The running water stopped, I cleaned it up and kept it in my mind while I got on with my day.  The pest man arrived to spray the house and I told him about it so he and his offsider grabbed their ladder and set off up the manhole to investigate.  There they found Cedric the Carpet Python (snake) sound asleep across the top of the wall cavity. All 2 meters plus of him.  Don't mind him in the roof eating rats or mice but peeing down my wall and out onto my floor is stretching the friendship and a bit gross actually.

Progress of a painting

As I promised yesterday I've taken a new photo to share the progress of my final assessment piece. I still have much to do: building up multiple layers of paint, changing the colours of some of my background greens, adding another fern to the right side of the canvas and painting in the paddocks of pineapples and our local red earth on the right also. I need to adjust the colour of the window edge, it's currently dark brown and is not working. I am also unhappy with the colours on the bowl they simply aren't 'right' and you can't see the subtle changes in colour between the darker interior of the bowl and the exterior. Still need to put the highlights in but need to resolve my colour issues first. This style of painting requires solid colour blocks with no discernible brushstrokes. What do you think? Do you gain a sense of looking out of a window into the distance? What do you see as the focal point, the thing that draws your eye back continually? Does the painting encourage your eye to move around the canvas and keep returning to the focal point?




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Progress Report

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you've all enjoyed a happy holiday period. Ours was lovely with Christmas day spent here with my family and Boxing Day spent with Jeff's aunt, uncle and family on the Redcliffe Peninsula. Nephew J has been extremely keen to get the Christmas lights up, so to grant his wish I spent a day before Christmas doing this...



Sorting through boxes of lights and attachments passed on to me by an uncle. There are still two more boxes to sort. It provided some excitement for Nephew J when he got to switch the lights on as the sun set.







In between Christmas, outings and visitors I've managed to work on a secret but quite large project and make a start on my final painting.



I drew the image directly onto the canvas, ruling up all my perspective lines for the pot, bowl and jars and then deleting them once I had the ellipses drawn in properly. Just to break the ice I put down a layer of red on my pot.



As the painting progressed, I decided to do away with the curtains on either side of the canvas. I wanted the feel of looking out a window with a broad view. The curtains made the image feel confined and I'm pleased with the alteration. I put about 6 hours in on it today but unfortunately ran out of light so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how it is progressing.

Once again, I'm finding that I really don't like my art until it's at least 70% finished. I've been full of questions and self doubt and find the only thing to do is just keep going and work out the answers to my questions on the canvas. I'll be back tomorrow with further update photos. See you then.