caffeine low & what luggage!!?

I am feeling exceptionally tired at the moment. I think I am on a caffeine and sugar low after my hardcore latte this morning. I don't normally drink too much caffeine and I'm now feeling like I've not slept for a few days if not a week!

Isn't that the opposite effect to what is supposed to happen?

This evening we had planned to pop grocery shopping, and to go into the travel agents where we booked out honeymoon to see about changing one of the hotels and to check the baggage allowance... now I know this is a long way off, but I know I need new luggage (I have a lovely blue and brown old styled case, which now has a hole in it thanks to the lovely staff of Ryanair) so I was planning on finding appropriate luggage that will not tempt me to go over the allowance and therefore mean we would get stung with extra charges!

I refuse to have ugly luggage though. I don't know why, we go on holiday once a year at most nowadays (oh, the days when we first met, both working at a travel agents meaning we were holidaying multiple times a year!) the rest of the time it sits up in the loft, holding seasonal clothes or a spare duvet.

But there is just something luxurious about attractive luggage, it makes me happy. It makes the holiday feel that little bit more special. Like I am a little bit more special.
It still has to be a wheely case, my arms would not take kindly to actually having to carry all my things, and I don't think D would be too pleased either (he's bound to be the one who'd end up carrying it)
I don't want a hard case, they are too heavy, and take up valuable weight which could be used for extra heels or make up, or other various pretty things.
But it needs to be study enough to protect anything breakable
Nothing too garish, but nothing too plain or boring either.

My current luggage, now complete with a hole, is a lovely pale turquoise faux leather with brown buckles on it. Not dissimilar to this

Which can be found here, but at $196 is just a touch out of my budget, and they do not accept international orders. Blast!

My current case is just right for a long weekend/week in Europe (a week if I sneak a few bits into D's case!) but for our honeymoon, Vegas and then Mexico, 12 days in total... its just not quite going to manage it.

Hopefully I shall be lucky and find something perfect somewhere in a winter sale!

Best laid plans

So the plan to sort the front room this weekend did not turn out as planned. Instead Saturday, while D is at football, I decided I wanted to make a start on the spare room... the most cluttered, messy and the official dumping room of the house.
the first few minutes started well, then i decided I wanted to move the desk in front of the window. A couple of hours later I seem to be trapped in the corner of the room, stuff all over the floor.
I'm sat on a chair, completely worn out (not sure moving furniture on my own constitutes as 'taking it easy' as instructed my my doctor!) looking despairingly at the disaster I have caused, I decide there is only one cause of action... Go to bed until D gets home and rope him into helping me sort it all out. Poor chap!

Anyway, D gets home to find me curled up on the bed, after he had clambered over the boxes etc on the landing (I had to move them somewhere to get out the spare room)
he helps me get all the junk in some sort of order, and the plans for the front room Sunday go out the window and we finish the spare room.

I am please to say its done! apart from 2 small boxes we have cleared the spare room. Yes it still needs redecorating, yes I broke some plaster off the wall when removing a shelf, and yes my craft stuff still could do with a thorough sort through. But in general, its done. its clear. I have a desk which I can use (and I did, to sew a new cushion for the desk chair) a floor you can see and a sofa bed, that should anyone want to stop over, can actually be folded out so they have somewhere to sleep!

and it only took a day and a half, for the worst room in the house (not including the loft... thats another kettle of fish entirely!) so the rest of the rooms should take a day at most. Which is a very encouraging thought. at this rate we might actually have a more peaceful, relaxing, workable house by Xmas!

Wonderful. x

Plans moving into action.

We have decided and agreed that this weekend we shall set Sunday aside to blitz the front room. Everything off the shelves and it will ALL be sorted and either put back properly, or thrown out, or possibly sold.

I don't think it'll take a full day, but I don't want to pressure myself into cramming it all into half a day and then get myself stressed over it. That would be the opposite result to what we are trying to achieve.

We know we need some more storage in the front room, but this way we can evaluate what needs to be brought before buying it and realising it was not at all needed and we have wasted yet more money on something we do not need.

Going through each of the rooms like this, one every week or so means the house should be much more relaxing and manageable by Xmas. Ready for all the redecorating in the new year.

We have also decided that, money dependant of course, we shall get someone in to fit the new kitchen when we get it done, the main bulk of it all anyway! it'll save so much time and hassle! Plus if D has time off to fit said kitchen, he will not be bringing in any money (being self employed and all) so really it shouldn't 'cost' much more to get someone in to do it all for us.

I am not looking forward to being kitchenless, it will be a nightmare, everything will be a mess. The thought of it does not fill me with joy. But the thought of a new kitchen, with doors that are not falling off, and a cooker that actually has the dials etc still on it... and the possibility of a dishwasher! a dishwasher, oh how wonderful it will be to come home and cook and not have to drag ourselves back up to was the dishes. After just 3 years of living together it feels quite decadent wanting a dishwasher, but the whole point of this is to make living in our house more enjoyable.

It is no longer a stop gap house to just get on the market. Its our Home. It has to be while we are in negative equity! so instead of sulking that we are not, any time soon, going to be getting our beautiful old project house, somewhere in the country, ideally near a river or some other source of water surrounded by nature, with beautiful exposed brick and white washed walls, old leather sofas and a veggy patch. Instead of sulking, we are making this house feel like home again.

And the process all starts this Sunday!

Monday Musings

Technically I have had this particular blog set up for a while. But I have never actually used it.

So again I'm giving blogging a go, to have somewhere to empty my head of all the things that tend to whoosh round it on a regular basis.

I'm not really sure how to start, so many things I want to do/try/buy/make. It overwhelms me at times and I end up going to bed with a cup of tea to try and stop my head whooshing.

First on the list of things that I'd like to do... and this really should be done first, it to ransack the house, clear it out of all things unnecessary... which is a lot of things. And all accumulated over such a small space of time.

I am hoping clearing the clutter and the unneeded/unused bits and bobs it will make everything else easier, because wherever I am I wont be hunting for the things I need, or looking at something from the corner of my eye, and the voice in the back of my head telling me 'I really ought to sort that out'

But when its cold and dull and grey, mainly all I want to do is curl up in bed with a cup of tea, close my eyes and pretend its all gone away. ping. just like that!