Day Zero Project – The List

The 2013 list:

Start Date March 9, 2013

1. Catch the Ferry
2. Get my L’s
3. Buy a new Mac
4. Hit my 10K Glinda Goal
5. See Before Midnight at the cinema
6. Cook dinner for Luke 5 times
7. Take J to a theme park
8. Go overseas
9. Read 25 books
10. Release 5 bookcrossing books
11. Send 20 letters to friends (3/20)
12. Do yoga
13. Go on an impromptu road-trip
14. Watch 25 movies I’ve never seen before
15. Try to leave J overnight
16. Listen to every song in my iTunes library
17. Find 20 geocaches
18. Organise Noosa to Byron road trip
19. Get a community garden plot
20. Make a new friend
21. Organise a tiny forest event
22. Take J to see the dinosaurs
23. Watch 20 new TED talks (3/20)
24. Get some beauty redefined stickers
25. Take a project unbreakable photo
26. Put up 20 operation beautiful post its
27. Send in a Postsecret postcard
28. Blog weekly for 8 weeks
29. Go camping
30. Drink only water for 1 week
31. Watch a sunrise on the beach
32. Finish designing the NGF website
33. Write 10 reviews for Sam
34. Go op-shopping
35. Swimming lessons for J
36. Survive toilet training
37. Have a conversation with someone in sign language
38. Go to Perth
39. Have lunch with Elena
40. Teach J to ride a bike
41. Get some coordinates accessories made
42. Buy a picnic rug
43. Find J a best buddy
44. Go on a picnic
45. Watch 5 friends “top 5 movies”
46. Read 5 friends favourite book
47. Eat 25 meals outside (2/25)
48. Go foraging with Luke
49. Sign 10 new clients (6/10)
50. Write at least 50,000 words of my novel
51. Get 5 massages
52. Participate in book mooch
53. Get a ‘signature scent’
54. Have a BBQ by the river
55. Live in a house for longer than 12 months
56. Call Rachel
57. Call Amy
58. Call Elena
59. Find a TV series to watch with Luke
60. Write a will
61. Get a toy created from a J picture
62. Take stuff to Vinnies
63. Inspire someone to write a 101/1001 list
64. Update FF 5 times
65. Buy a picnic basket/set
66. Go swimming
67. Win a competition
68. Write a letter to myself 1 year in the future
69. Send email to J
70. Write in the ‘Dear Luke’ book twice
71. Send a message in a bottle
72. Send out a travelling teddy/toy
73. Take J on a train
74. Take J on a boat
75. Take J on a bus
76. Send Kylie a J artwork
77. Get a creative writing contract
78. Get an editing contract
79. Write an ebook for a client
80. Celebrate my business anniversary with cake
81. Give Luke a massage
82. Make flash cards for J
83. Make a virtual puppet show for J
84. Build a blanket fort
85. Try transitioning J into her own bed
86. Dance with Luke
87. Have a Facebook free week
88. Have a technology free 24 hours
89. Go to a festival
90. Paint a picture
91. Write a poem
92. Tweet every day for a month
93. Sleep for 5 hours (if this happens by the end of 1001 days I will cry with happiness!)
94. Keep a minimum of $1000 in our acct for 6 mths
95. Celebrate our anniversary
96. Exchange love letters with Luke
97. J’s first hair cut
98. Put together a photo book for J
99. Let Luke sleep in
100. Have breakfast in bed
101. Write another 101/1001 list

End date: January 5th 2016

 

Day Zero Project – Take 2

Long time followers of this blog will remember that early in 2009 I began my first Day Zero Project. 101 things to do in 1001 days. The list was ambitious and included a lot of adventurous pursuits. It didn’t quite get completed as I had hoped, I only managed to complete 48 of the 101 things (and partially complete about 20 more), but a tough pregnancy and the arrival of our daughter shifted my focus away from the list and day zero came and went without my even realising it.

This new list has been written with my new time/freedom limitations in mind and as a result is much less ambitious than the last, but hopefully that means I will have a higher success rate, even while raising a spirited 2 year old and running a business and working (from home) 50 hours a week – with a husband who also works about 60 hours a week away from home. Time and sleep are both a huge luxury here but hopefully take two of the Day Zero Project will be a success!

A big thank you to Nate for inspiring me to give it a go. If I remember correctly I think I was partial inspiration for her first Day Zero Project list, so it’s a reciprocal inspiration circle, which is quite cool.

I was going to post the list now, but I compiled it on my phone which is currently doing a software backup, so I’ll have to come back and post it later.

 

 

 

Times they are a-changing

It’s been a long time since I updated this blog and things sure have changed since I was last here.

For one, there is a whole new person in the world – In my last post I was 37 weeks pregnant. I was expecting to give birth any day, but didn’t end up going into labour until I was 19 days past my ‘due’ date. On Feb 13th I woke up at 6am with my contractions already started. I spent the day labouring at home and playing scrabble with my mother. At 11.30pm I gave birth to a beautiful little girl in our loungeroom, in an inflatable kiddie pool with fishes on the sides. Juniper was born with just me, her father, my mother and our midwife present. Although our midwife arrived with only 20 minutes to spare! After birthing her, I reached into the water and found a leg, skinny and slimy and warm, and I spun her around in the water until I found her shoulders and then brought her out of the water. She didn’t make a sound, but had her eyes wide open, taking it all in. We sat in the water staring at each other for ten full minutes before anyone even thought to check if she was a boy or a girl.

Juniper is now 5 and a half months old and growing so fast. Every day is a new adventure!

In other news, we said goodbye to our New Zealand home a few months back and are currently living in Sunny QLD, where we are saving up for a caravan. We are embracing our nomad tendencies and expect to be mobile in about a year from now, travelling around Australia, one town at a time. We are looking forward to the adventure, but in the meantime we are enjoying the QLD wintertime, and not at all missing the snowy Queenstown winter.

Life is good, I hope it is for you as well!

 

 

Ever so stylish!

Today the lovely Kel over at Natshukashii awarded me with the Stylish Blogger Award!

Thanks Kel!!

Technically, it was awarded for my Vegan Chickie blog but since I try to keep that one relatively anonymous I thought I would reciprocate here instead! I hope that doesn’t break any rules!

So, the terms of the award are this:

* Thank and link back to the person who gave me this award.
* Share 7 things about myself.
* Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
* Contact those bloggers and tell them about the award.

So, in the spirit of things, 7 things about me:

1. If I could do absolutely anything, I would travel the world (with my soon to be little family of three), writing about our adventures.

2. I am currently 37 weeks pregnant and I’m planning on giving birth right here in our lounge room.

3. Every person in my family, and every one of my best friends lives in a different country to me.
(although technically I count my husband in both of those categories so maybe that isn’t quite a true statement).

4. I read my favourite books over and over and over again.

5. I have been living away from Melbourne now for longer than I was ever living there but I still think of it as home.

6. I am 30 years old and still sometimes get afraid of the dark.

7. Last year I wrote a novel but I’m too afraid to let anyone read it.

And the 15 blogs I think are oh so Fabulous:

1. New Culinary Traditions
2. Blog Of Nathan
3. Donde El Viento Nos Toma
4. Hespera’s Garden
5. Truly Blessed Life
6. Sharnanigans
7. Janet Fraser
8. Hellena Post – Creatrix
9. Yes and Yes
10. Majikfaerie
11. Glooart
12. Diary of a Vegan
13. The Auspicious Squirrel
14. And All That Sazz
15. Living Luscious Lea

 

Canon Photo5 2010 entries

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had signed up for the Canon Photo5 Competition this year but I have to admit that even as I was writing that post I was unconvinced that I would actually get around to submitting photos for all 5 briefs, I do have a tendency to flake out on most of the projects I start after all, but I’m happy to report that I did manage to come up with something for all 5 briefs and even managed to submit them on time. Yay for me. If you want to read the briefs in more detail you can do so HERE.

Here are my submissions for this year.

1. Water Droplet: Canon supplied the water dropper and told us to ‘get up close’ I don’t have a macro lens but I’m quite happy with the results anyway. I photographed droplets on my shower curtain. I especially love the way the weave of the fabric is magnified in each droplet. The colours also kind of remind me of a NIN album cover which is quite cool.

2. The bubblegum portrait. This is probably the shot I am least pleased with. I wasn’t really able to come up with a unique idea for this one and without the assistance of a model I was left with no choice but to do a self portrait.

3. Confetti in Motion: For this shot I had originally planned to have the confetti catching alight as it fell toward the flame but when I was reviewing my shots afterwards this one turned out to be my favourite, I like that the confetti is still falling and the smoke is rising up to meet it.

4. Black and White Smoke: This photo is the one I am most proud of, even though it is probably the least inspired of them all. I’m so happy with the definition of the smoke, but truthfully it does look exactly like just about every other entry, it’s definitely not an original concept but I’m proud of it all the same. I really wanted to get a solid black background, but didn’t have anything suitable to use as a background around the house so I ended up using a black jumper. I probably could have edited the shot to make the background black, but my editing prowess ends with being able to crop so the grainy background stayed, I quite like it though.

5. The final brief was ‘Inspired by Sound’ and instead of sending through a prop they gave us the link to a sound clip. Listen to it HERE. Of course my first instinct was something falling but I figured most people would take that approach so instead I went with an Alice in Wonderland theme and took the shot from the perspective of Alice as she suddenly finds herself unexpectedly shrinking.

All in all it was great fun, I really felt quite challenged by the whole thing and considering I don’t really know anything about photography I’m quite proud of the results. Of course I’m not anywhere near the level of some of the entries that were submitted which is a bit daunting but maybe by next year I’ll not only enter, but actually be good enough to have a shot at becoming a finalist! Here’s hoping anyway.

 

Places I’ve Been

A while ago when I did my 101 places to see before you die post, the lovely Nathan from Blog-of-Nathan asked me to write a list of places I have actually been to. It’s been a long time coming *cough10monthscough* but here it is Nathan! I don’t think I’ll get to 100 but I’ll try and come up with 50 interesting places I’ve been to!

The Daintree Rainforest – Australia (I got married there)
Sentosa Island – Singapore
Ubud – Bali
The Great Barrier Reef – Australia (Scuba Diving – Amazing!)

Bintan Island – Indonesia
Sihanoukville Beaches – Cambodia
Fairy Dell Rainforest – Australia (Our favourite camping destination)
The Plain of Jars – Laos

The Mekong River – Laos, Thailand, Cambodia AND Vietnam – lots of kayaking!
The Buddha Cave Lam Pa Fa – Laos
The Killing Fields – Cambodia
.

Milford Sound – New Zealand
The Fireball Festival – Thailand
Cancun – Mexico
Malolo Island – Fiji
.

The Nullarbor Desert – Australia (our car broke down here)
The Great Ocean Road – Australia
Damnoen Saduak Floating Markets –  Thailand
.

The Big Banana (haha) – Australia
Blue Mountains – Australia
Krabi – Thailand (great Kayaking)
Franz Josef Glacier – New Zealand
.

Luang Prabang – Laos (Mekong River Tubing Pub Crawl!)
Saigon – Vietnam
Waiheke Island – New Zealand
Hill Tribe Villages in Chaing Mai – Thailand
.

Janolan Caves – Australia
Nadi (stranded during a flood/cyclone!) – Fiji
Stinky Rotarua – New Zealand
Angkor Wat – Cambodia
.

Fremantle Markets – Australia
Wonderland Theme Park – Australia (doesn’t exist anymore so it’s worth a mention!)
Adventureland Perth – Australia
Whale Watching in Hervey Bay – Australia
.

Sunrise in Dunedin – New Zealand
Temora – Australia (not a town worth mentioning except I skydived there)
Umphang Mountains – Thailand (we volunteered at a school there)
Khao Sok National Park – Thailand
.

Jutajuk Markets Bangkok – Thailand
Cradle Mountain Tasmania – Australia
Orchard Road – Singapore
Sydney Harbor Bridge – Australia
.

An outward bound course on a strange island I can’t remember the name of – Singapore
The freaky ‘Edge’ platform in the Eureka Tower in Melbourne – Australia
S21 Prisoner Camp – Cambodia
Hopetoun Falls – Australia
.

Easy Riders Motorcycle tour through Rural Vietnam
Floated down the Murrumbidgee River in a Houseboat – Australia
Linh Phuoc Pagoda – Vietnam
The Great Australia Bight – Australia

.
Not nearly as interesting as the 101 places to see before you die since I haven’t been to all that many places but hopefully interesting enough!
.
I have lived in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore so it makes sense that there are a lot of places from those countries. My husband and I also backpacked through South East Asia and spent over 6 months exploring Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in 2005/2006 so we’ve covered a lot of ground there too. I hope to see MANY more places in my time though, if I dream of anything it is spending my life living out of a backpack and exploring the world, now if only I could figure out a way to fund it!
.
One of the things I love about travelling is being able to cross things off my lists of places to see, and one way that I do that (since EVERYWHERE is on my list) is by adding virtual ‘pins’ to my trip advisor travel map.. here is what my map looks like at the moment.
..

Not nearly as ‘pinned’ as I would like, that’s for sure!
What cities are pinned on your map? What places are on your ‘must see’ list?

 

Well Hello Stranger!

So I’ve been MIA since April, but I thought I’d come in and dust off this old blog of mine and see what’s what.

There’s probably too much to write about in detail in one measly little post so here is a dot point rundown of the last 7 months.

• Spent 4 weeks in Australia
• Celebrated my Mum’s 50th
• Watched my Mum get married (and cried)

• Came home to find our town flooded
• Got an eviction notice in the mail (owners returning from OS)
• Had two lovely visitors from Australia en-route to South America

• Found out I was pregnant (Wahoo!)
• Moved house

• Found a homebirth midwife
• Stifled agoraphobic tendencies and went to the homebirth meetings in town
• Grieved the death of my trusty iPod
• Became the fundraising coordinator for the local homebirth group
• Had a photo selected to be in the 2011 Yes and Yes calendar

• Signed up for the Canon EOS Photo 5
• Realised I am not creative enough to do the Canon EOS Photo 5

• Got a new (secondhand) iPod Touch and fell in love
• Survived our first Queenstown winter

• Buoyed by last year’s success – Signed up for NaNoWriMo

• Panicked about NaNoWriMo
• Realised I only have 143 days left in my 101/1001 list and have absolutely no hope of finishing everything (I am 6 months pregnant after all)!!

So, that is the update on me!

 

99 things, another Nikki list

I’m on holidays at the moment, in Brisbane. I’m sunburnt and trying to decide what to order from the breakfast menu that you stick on the door handle.. I love hotels, don’t you? Anyway, I saw this on another blog and thought I’d play:

Just copy and paste these 99 things onto your blog and bold the things you HAVE done… here are mine:

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to DisneyWorld

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise (not an overnight one though)

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theatre

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a cheque

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been a passenger on a motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

 (depends on how famous they have to be!)

92. Joined a book club

93. Got a tattoo

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

How many have you done out of the 99?

 

Challenge 39: The Good Deed

It’s been a while since I’ve done a BlogThis challenge, mainly because it’s been a while since I’ve read through all the things in my Google Reader and FOUND the BlogThis challenge before the challenge had ended! Here is the challenge for this week:

With today being Good Friday what better time than to issue a challenge about all things ‘good’!

So friends, tell us about a good deed you have done for someone or vice-versa. Or how someone elses’ good deed that you have learned about has affected you.. did you learn from it? How did it make you feel?  Was it a disaster? Did it uplift you?

My favourite good deed at the moment is to participate in Operation Beautiful. The mission statement on the website is this:

“The mission of Operation Beautiful is to post anonymous notes in public places for other women to find. The point is that WE ARE ALL BEAUTIFUL”.

I love the idea of giving an unseen woman a little self esteem boost, and reminding her that beauty isn’t about what’s on the outside, I think we all need reminding about that sometimes. So I have made my own little ‘operation beautiful’ kit which I carry around in my bag at all times. It’s a cute little tin that arrived in a care package from a friend a while ago, and inside it I have all my little notes, pre-written and ready to go, and some blu tack for sticking them up. Mostly I post them up on bathroom mirrors but I’ve left a few on car windscreens, or stuck to the soy milk at the supermarket or on a park bench by the lake.

I don’t know if anyone reads them, or if it makes a difference in anyone’s day, but I like to think that it does.

 

Another Photographic Challenge

It’s been a while now since I participated in a sh1ft.org challenge so I thought it was time to pick up my camera and give their latest challenge a go. Might give me something to blog about in my blog brain freeze of late so that there will be something other than dead air around here. Here is the challenge:

Q&A : The Photographic Interview is running during April 2010

To play, take 1 photograph as your answer to each of the questions below. The aim is to get to know you better, through your photographs

Upload to your blog, flickr account or anywhere else on the net, then come back and share your photographic interview.

1. What is your favourite part of your home
2. Your favourite number
3. The place that holds the most memories
4. One thing you wish you could do, but can’t
5. One thing you wish you could do, and can
6. Someone you don’t see alot
7. Your favourite piece of clothing
8. What do you see in your future?

Anyone else want to join me?
I’ll be back over the next few weeks to share my answers.

Until then you can find me guest posting over at Sharnanigans, writing for Vegan Mainstream, or sharing food on my Vegan Food Blog.