It is crunch time for me. The end of the month is one sleepy away, and I still have lots of challenges to finish!! So a quick recap of where I am as of this morning:

1) Get something for free.

This went excellent!! Got free rosebush, free lemon tree, free Bougainvillea cuttings, free Lavender plant, free Acacias.

2) Lose 3 kg - shame, I tried but sadly failed. Luckily the 3kg is not going anywhere, so it is available for me to loose next month.

3) Knit a scarf - Done - photo evidence to follow

4) Make 1 outfit for myself - this must be done by tomorrow night, I am halfway there.

5) Finish a needle project - just about finished - another one for the weekend

6) Recycle something - not even started - I do not think I am going to sleep tonight as I need to finish this one also before Sunday

7) Upcycle a piece of furniture - Yippppeeeee - before I feel like a total failure, this one is done and ticked. Sure - not a masterpiece but at least some effort into a ugly little drawer unit to make it even more ugly!!

After looks a bit worse than before!

From this

8) Fix something broken - not successful. Have handed in a broken radio - but no joy in getting it back yet

9) Get rid of something - success, during the pantry exercise I got rid of a lot (except the bloody 3 kg of challenge 2)

10) Read one story book - Done. A horror called "the piper"

11) Read one book for development - Done. It is called FOOK IT!, and has led to me developing (I did read it for development) a real nice FOOK IT attitude. Has made a big difference in how I act and re-act to stuff. Please try this book - it works!!

12) Bake a Cake Chapter from "Baked and Delicious". DONE!!! I baked/maked 7 different cakes, even a Baked Alaska, and I can now confirm that you can bake Ice-Cream in a very hot oven without it melting all over the inside of your oven.

This was the achievement of the month!!! And some of the reasons why I did not lose the 3kg. The Parmesan Chili hearts should come with a warning - they are completely addictive

Parmesan Chili hearts from the book                         Parmesan Chili and black salt hearts from the Hunts

And then the least exciting bake in the volume was the poppy seed cookies. This challenge posed a bigger challenge - since all the poppy seed in SA is being used to snort by drug addicts, I could not find a single bottle of poppy seed anywhere. Not in the biggest P&P, not in the smartest Woolies food store, not anywhere!! So I innovates and used some pecan nuts instead of poppy seed. By this time of the challenge I could not care less.

And lastly - the ever-popular Pecan Pie. I bartered with the neighbour, she gave me free Pecans and I baked her a pie. And one for my new acquaintance, and one for my family. I had to take the picture quickly, as it disappeared faster than a pe-can in a pe-can't stampede

13) Fix one area in my house - DONE, pantry the only perfect room in my house. Wish I could sleep there every night

14) Fix one area in the garden - yet another challenge to complete on Saturday

15) Fix one area on the plot - uh-uh.

16) Complete one frugal activity - DONE, registered for chronic medication with Discovery

17) Keep to my budget - DONE!

18) Do something for somebody - DONE

19) Work/cook my way through "Fyn Kookkuns" volume 2, - DONE. This was a jol. I made 5 different stews, From Irish stew, to Beef Ragout with celery and walnuts, to Lamb Navarin, to Paprika Goulash. And then the section on vegetable was my favourite activity. Just to make one vegetable dish "Gordon Blue" style creates a kitchen full of dishes, utensils worthy of a 12-course meal. They make you pull the whole vegetable apart, then force you to put ti all together again. Just to make a Filled Cabbage can take up to 3 hours. These girls who wrote the book had too much time on their hands - but the results are worth it. Cabbage, cauliflower and Spinach have never looked so shit but tasted so amazing

 ALL of these dishes to just make a cauliflower with cheese 

 Outside and inside of filled cabbage with home-made tomato sauce. (told you it looks shit but taste fantastic!!)

 






20) Have one dinner party - this is happening tomorrow (with my new acquaintance)

21) Do one herbal focus - DONE, Lavendered out

22) Prepare for 1 long-term goal - DONE! Have secured one additional income stream for when I retire

23) Do 1 step towards short-term goal - DONE, consolidated every last bit of debt, planned payment schedule to ensure they are all paid off by end 2016, and communicated to all the lucky recipients of my hard-earned money on how I plan to pay them

24) Declutter one area of my house - DONE with my pantry project

25) Organise one area in my house - DONE - pantry project again

26) Knit one cushion. NOOOOOOoooooo - this is a HUGE challenge and the second one I know I will not achieve. I have even tried to knit in traffic (promise I only do it when the car stands still) - but no chance of completing it this month.

27) Knit one toy - DONE!! Meet "Meneer Boontjie" aka Mr. Bean

28) Save for my wishlist - DONE!! R500 in R20 notes towards my big-screen TV, R300 in R10 notes towards a personal laptop, and R150 in R5 coins towards a very expensive imported bra.

29) Make one new acquaintance - DONE!

30) Reconnect with an old friend - Done!! Dina, I love and adore you - thanks for not trowing me away due my anti-social and friend-neglect phase

So wish me luck for the weekend (or Saturday to be precise - let see if I can cram it and finish or complete the last 6 challenges) This statement is not valid for the fat, knitted cushion and broken thing challenges!! 

Lovies

Lizette

Life is a day on the beach

I promise you an everlasting holiday if you subscribe to my philosophy. I love the sea, I love holidays and I love life, so it is good for me to merge these 3 and create my own private philosophy. It is not complicated, so please do not expect any Jung-like quality work, just a few simple ideas that assist me with coping on an everyday level.

1) The sea just is what it is. It does not get personal, has no agenda, no secret vendetta against the people who are brave enough to get their feet wet. That is the same with life, it just is. So nothing that happens to me (either good or bad) has hidden meaning, secret messages from anywhere or anyone.

2) The sea makes waves, and so does life. It is just what it does. Some waves are big (like losing your job, getting divorced, etc.) Other waves are small (examples are people cutting you off in traffic, someone being rude at the office, etc). Sometimes there are tsunamis, and I leave it to your imagination as to what can be classified as a tsunami in your own personal life

3) There is no way I can stop the waves, neither can any-one else stop the waves for me. I cannot make them smaller, I cannot wish them away, I cannot always prepare for them. All I can do is accept that they are always going to be there. Even if I decide to go to another beach, there will still be waves. Maybe they are smaller, even tiny, but maybe there are more of them, or the water is dirty, or there are bluebottles in the water - who knows? Waves are non-negotiable.

4) So what can I do? I have quite a few options open to me.
  a)I can just sit on the beach and watch them. I can watch other swimmers getting knocked around,          enjoying the water, being eaten by sharks, whatever. I can choose to be an observer - but at some        time I will need to get wet as it is bloody hot sitting in the sun like this, and it can also get                    extremely boring watching other people the whole time.
b)I can get just my feet wet, standing in the foam-breaking part of the waves - this can be a good coping strategy, but every time a BIG wave comes along, I scream like a girl, pick up my skirts and run back on the beach - scared to face the force of a bigger wave.
 c)I can go into the sea up to my midriff, keeping my head and my arms high in the air to avoid getting any saltwater in my eyes. Every now and then I can give a little jump when a bigger swell pushes against me.I can pretend this is swimming.
 d)I can be brave and go all the way in - that scary but exciting place where you are in so deep your feet does not touch the soft sea sand at the bottom. This option also gives you the opportunity to either take a deep breath and dive under the breaking wave, or alternatively surf it right out to the beach.

So although I cannot control or choose the waves that come my way, I definitely CAN choose how I am going to handle each wave. Some days I will just sit and watch, other days I decide to go in for a real good swim.

And I look forward to the BIG WAVES - you know the ones that push you down to the bottom and you are not sure where is up or down? The ones where you come up for air afterwards and your one boob has escaped your costume - and half the sea sand has made its way into the bottom of your costume. Because this type of wave makes you feel alive, it shares its energy with you, it make you laugh out loud as you float in the temporary calm it left behind. You can hear it crashing on the beach, knocking over all the wimpy feet-wetters, washing away their towels and dissolving the beach-sitter's sandcastles. And you get ready for the next one!!!

I just LOVE the sea - come join me for a swim!!!! The weather is gorgeous.

Lovies
Lizette (on holiday!!!!!)

Houston, we have a problem!!

A BIG problem. it seems that when I chose my challenges, just like friends, I did not expect them to clash! Imagine throwing a party and inviting all your friends at the same time. Seating the dangerous, naughty ones next to the quiet recovering alcoholic one. Mingling the sarcastic, straight-shooting friend with a group of insecure, sensitive souls. Getting your single, sex-starved friend to make salad with your prude, frigid friend's husband.

I knooooowww. It sounds like fun to me but a nightmare to others.

And this is what is happening at my challenge party.

Now I take my challenges very seriously, and will struggle to continue with life as I know it if I happen to miss completing one of them.

So here is where the problem lies:
1) I need to bake about 7 items to complete the "Bake a cake chapter" challenge.
2) I need to lose 3 kg this month
3) I need to read a book for my pleasure (and I have chosen a horror!!!!)

Combining all 3 these challenges at one party is looking for trouble. And trouble is just what I found last night. Early evening I was still on track. The baking track. I made some more jacks - not nutty ones this time but some with raisins and then melted chocolate on top. Please see below the ideal book-quality picture.

It is easy - but I refuse to give you the recipe because of what happened to me last night. The same might happen to you and then you will be glad you never had the recipe.

So as the sun set over a dry and dusty Delmas, I started my next bake - chocolate custards. it is an innocent enough sounding name, but the word "chocolate" should have set off the alarm bells in my head. They came out lovely, closest to the book I think from all my baking adventures.

But then there was a poor little one that did not set properly, and he was all lopsided with a skew little face like mine. I put some cream on him, drizzled some coffee syrup around him, - he still looked sad and disappointed, so  I ate him!! And his cream, and his coffee syrup. The whole lot!

The Banting gods were not happy with me. Not happy at all!.

So I slinked away to my bed to get out from under the chocolate spell, and decided to continue with my horror book. And then inspired by to the horror of the story, I  used the cover of darkness to eat 2 oats and raisins chocolate flapjacks. Just because I was scared, and a boiled egg just would not have the same comforting effect as a cookie.

I had another look at the offending cookie in the light of day, and it does not seem to hold anymore magical powers over me - just an innocent clump of butter, oats, golden syrup, raisins and chocolate.

 

As you can see, I will have to be stricter with my challenges and who I invite to the same party. Let's hold thumbs that I did not boycott/toy-toy away my 3kg loss just for one evening of chocolate-induced insanity.

Lovies
Lizette

When you leave the hairdresser adn DO NOT look like the photo you took with you

Sure most of us have had this experience. You want a change, you want to look gorgeous, you want to look like the picture of the model/celebrity/person in the photo. You have paged through many, many magazines, googled different hairstyles, cut out your favourites, discussed the different option with your loved ones, your friends, your colleagues, your church community as well as the people in the queue at the bank. You are excited, sold half your possessions to afford the make-over, and off you go to some fancy, schmancy hair salon.


And if you happen to enter the salon without any preparation, do not despair, there are plenty of magazines on offer to prepare you for one of the fist questions asked: "So what are we going to do today?" (the other question is always - "What hair-care product do you use?" , followed by a combination of an excellent sales-pitch/hair-care sermon/shit-out session)


And after hours of pain, discomfort, stress, water in your ears, a wet top, a new colour skin on your forehead and blisters on your bum - they swing you around and SH&^$%, you DO NOT look like the picture!! Must say there is usually more success at the back of the head than at the front, and that is why that big mirror they use to show you the area of your make-over you will never see is so powerful.


From the front you just look like the same you with different hair and less money.


I have tried to cover the model's face so I do not get blinded by their flawless beauty, but deep in my heart, there is always this small flicker of hope that I will magically be transformed into resembling at least a hint of the promise presented on paper. ALAS - the same goes for my cooking/baking challenges.




The Baking a Chapter of "Baked and Delicious" are going well, but none of my loving creations resemble the beautiful picture in the book. Following is a written and visual presentation of my efforts.


NUTTY FLAPJACKS - I have now made 2 batches, as they seem to be the best thing I have ever made my family. They are easy, they are inexpensive, they are yummy, and they DO NOT look like the picture.


Step 1: Unpack the following on your table/floor/counter: 175g butter, 125g Demerara sugar, 1 tbsp. golden syrup, 175g porridge oats, 50g rolled oats, 75g dried apple, 75g blanched almonds, swiss-roll pan.

About the rolled oats - no idea what it is, so I just take the normal oats, weigh out 50 grams and roll an empty wine-bottle over them. Or alternatively I take the whole box of oats and roll it over and over until I believe it is now rolled oats.

For the apple and almonds - the recipe is very forgiving so whatever amount you have - it does not seem to matter to the flapjacks - they are "nutty" so seems to go with the flow anyway you take them.


Step 2: Take a cooking pot, put in the butter, sugar and syrup, melt and stir until you have a smooth, dark, yummy combination. Do not be tempted to put your finger in for tasting purposes- it is HOT!!!


Step 3: Take the pot off the stove, put in the oats, rolled or unrolled (total of 225g), chopped up apples and chopped nuts - Mix. Do not be tempted to put your finger in to taste, the oats are still RAW!!


Step 4: Smear butter in pan, squash mixture into pan, press it down with a fork/spatula/hand and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius


Step 5: Take it out of oven - it seems a little loose/non-solid, do not stress, it becomes firmer when it cools. Mark/cut into slices/squares as it is difficult to do it when it is cold. The truth is it is also difficult to do when it is hot.


PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW THEY TASTE AND HOW YOUR TASTE VOLUNTEERS ARE ENJOYING THEM (they are so NOT banting so I can only go on hearsay)

Book version

My version

And then I tried to make Hot-Cross Buns - what a jol!!! I was brewing a weird, yeasty concoction, making a sticky dough, kneading like I was on a TV program, making it double in size, knocking it down, making it raise again - the whole palava!! A LOT of work for what is basically a bun with raisins in it.

Guess who's these are

And then you will know whose these are!!

But it was fun - I even pulled out some techniques from watching Paul Hollywood on Brittian's Best Baker. I would take the poor dough, imagine I hate it and smack it across the table. Picking it up again and slamming it down hard. (The way I am writing this now makes me think of 50 Shades of Grey - promise the dough episode in my kitchen was not kinky at all). The most fun part was when the raisins went flying in all directions every time I slapped/slammed the dough down on the table. The collecting them again and pushing them back into the dough like herding naughty, wilful children into a corner.

I also learned a very interesting fact or non-fact about the hot-cross buns. They date back to pagan times, and the crosses were marked on them to ward off evil spirits and bad luck. I tend to believe this story, as you can see - here is a GOOD spirit munching away on one of these evil-protected buns.

Lastly - I baked a Lime and passion fruit cake. And I was very hopeful that my effort would match the cake picture in the book. It was all on track until I took it out of the oven to cool, and PLOPS!!! 

The middle of the cake was not cooked and left a big blob of runny dough on the tiles below the cooling rack. But a "boer maak n plan" (or in English - a Maplotter makes a Miracle). I cut out the whole offending raw middle and then my cake looked even more horrible than it would have when compared to the perfect example presented in the glossy pages of the book.

But again, everyone says it tastes amazing, so just show you - you do not need the whole cake to eat it.You can have a half cake and eat it!!

Lovies

Lizette

How much NUTMEG do you need?

That is the very difficult question I had to answer this weekend as I tackled my pantry. Before I get to the Nutmeg conundrum, let me recap on my challenges and the road that led to me discovering a hoarder's stash of nutmeg.

1) I've got to fix one area in my house so I am happy and content with it, and it gives me pleasure to be in that specific room.2)  I also have to de-clutter one space in my house, as well as 3) organise something so it makes my life easier.

The pantry offered me the perfect opportunity to do all 3 of the above.

Now when I talk about my pantry, it is not a build-in cupboard, it is not a little corner-turned-pantry, it is a fully-fledged room with sturdy shelves and lots and lots of space. (And because I am me, I love to fill all available space with something, anything, obviously Nutmeg). An empty shelf is almost like an empty loo-roll - enough to send me into a mild panic.

So with the help of a lovely Sunday morning, my miracle worker Sandra, and a blissful ignorance of the amount of work it is going to take, this was my mission on Sunday.

I am not going to bore you with all the things I did, (as I found it very boring myself after the first few minutes of unpacking, cleaning, repacking.....), but the end result was definitely worth it.

It is now a happy place where clean Chutney and Tomato Sauce bottles go (all sticky-necks gone).

It is a place where all my heaters snuggle together until needed again.

It is a place where 7-year old oats and ancient mystery herbs in unmarked holders are no longer welcome.

It is a place where my collection of mixers sit all clean and proud and ready to whisk into action. (and a place where all their different bits and bobs and weird attachments are in one place instead of scattered over the kitchen world like a dysfunctional family)

It is a place of happiness for all the different ingredients, snug and satisfied in their clearly marked recycled ice-cream or whiskey containers. (my hubby used to drink a lot of whiskey, so I have a lot of whiskey bottle tins!!) And let me confess, I used to eat a lot of ice-cream so I also have a lot of empty ice-cream containers.

Weird Sugars include all the dark, mysterious, browny, sticky stuff

I put a happiness painting as well as a vintage table in the pantry, and although it does not look like Martha Steward's pantry - for me it is just perfect.

Blurry after pic - due to low energy and horrible phone

I organised not only the pantry, but also all my baking equipment. I just love baking and seeing other people eat it. It is so nice to follow a recipe (I do not have to think - just do!). There is no pressure at all, since I did not invent the recipe, I am just following instructions and the outcome does not reflect on my capabilities, but on the recipe's creator's abilities. It truly is a win-win activity which relaxes me, makes other people happy and allows me to blame someone else if things go wrong.

Third goal was to declutter - and declutter I did. All went well and was a nice mindless activity, getting rid of the following clutter:
- bottles with the bare minimum of ingredients stuck at the bottom (other people would call them empty bottles)
- little bits of unrecognisable foodstuff
- "Verimark-type" gadgets that looks so promising but ends up being useless
- hundreds of little salt, tomato sauce, vinegar sachets that I was saving from take-away meals for the day we could use them
- quite a few honey and golden syrup containers with some crystallised sweetness (and a few dead ants)

And then there was the Nutmeg.

I found 4 full bottle of Nutmeg between all the dusty spices. I cannot even remember ever using Nutmeg in a recipe? I know it goes into Eggnog, and that is as far as my Nutmeg knowledge goes. Why did I have so much Nutmeg? Did I subconsciously buy it to prepare for a international Nutmeg shortage? Is someone trying to sabotage me by slipping in bottles of Nutmeg when I am not looking? Did I interrupt a local Nutmeg convention? Are the Nutmeg's actually camouflaged Cinnamon (of which I had 3 bottles but at least I know what to do with Cinnamon)

Please could you let em know how many bottle of Nutmeg you can find in your house/pantry/dark corners of spice cupboards ot sticky spice racks? I just do not want to be the only Nutmeg hoarder in the world.

So far the record, I have completed 7 of my 30 challenges, and hope to have at least another 5 done before the weekend.

Thank you for joining me on this adventure, and talk to you later this week

Lovies
Lizette

Weird and Wonderful 70's.

Not too sure how many of you are old enough to brag about surviving the 70's? It truly was an amazing period, and being a teenager in the 70's made it even more weird.

I mean, being a teenager in itself is awkward, with all your bits growing in funny places, hair sprouting in areas you never thought about before, your parents obviously on a sole mission to embarrass you, no-one liking you, too many people liking you, you liking no-one, the list of trauma for a teenager just goes on and on and on....

And to make it worse, as teenagers in the 70's we had to deal with some of the following:

- NO drugs. We had NOTHING to numb, help us cope, make us feel lovely (except for a swig of your parents imported liqueurs every now and then. And as you all know, a little sip of liqueur does not go a long way. At least not to your brain cells, it just lingers on your tongue, between your teeth and then down your gut)

I digress....

- NO Cellphones. We could not SMS, MMS, Whats-up, etc. We had to actually write words with a pen, or pencil (if you though you would want to delete) or coloured pens (if you really liked someone) onto a piece of paper, then fold it into intricate, tiny shapes and deliver it personally, or send a minion to deliver it for you. If you were advanced, you could slip it into a bag or pocket of the recipient. OOOH the excitement to discover a secret note in your school jacket, slowly unfolding it and reading it under your desk.

NO TV or Internet. Not too sure what we did with all that free time, but can remember listening to Springbok Radio, radio stories in the afternoon, visiting friends, stealing toffees at the corner cafe, thinking up excuses for not doing my homework, riding our bicycles, etc.

Hie-hie-hie, the clothes were hysterical. We dressed as if we were in a theme park. I remember white vinyl boots, so white that if a fly shat on it it would leave a mark, so vinyl, it made your calves sweat streams of salty water collecting in the bottom of the boot. And they made these squeaky noises - and oh how I adored them! I felt like I could be in ABBA when I strutted around all squeaky and sweaty.

Not actually me, but wishing it was

And then we had a jean called GAP. They were the biggest bell bottoms you have ever seen in your life. And as you walk these massive bottoms would come swinging past you with every step - but when you stood still, you looked amazing. Nothing to make a girls hips and bums look small like pant bottoms that are 5-times the width of your hips.

Again, not me - just to illustrate my point about above

And to top it all - our parents were weird!! They use to party a lot, and I mean a LOT! House parties and dinner parties were all the rage - which brings me to my one challenge. Hosting a 70's dinner party and cooking my way through a volume of "Fyn Kookkuns" .

I have lost volume 1, so PLEASE, if you can find me another one, I will invite you to a dinner party. Or come and host one at your house. Your choice.

Starting with volume 2 seems to be the logical thing to do until I get a volume 1. (Sorry, my volume 2 looks a bit worse for wear)

Another funny thing about the 70's were the colours! Lots of green and orange, and not just any green. Not like a nice grass-green or lime green. No, the green had to be either avocado colour, a dark, depressing forest green, or some hybrid between gall yellow and sick green. I even remember dressing up in green from head-to-toe. Green shoes, green pants, green jumper. Worse thing, none of these different greens harmonised with each other, but boy, green was the in-thing!

So here is the menu for the first dinner party, and my lucky guests for this memorable event will be my dad, his friend (a girlfriend nogal), my long-suffering husband, my lovely son and his adorable friend (his boyfriend nogal). I told you the 70's were weird!!

See how green everything is - the background, event eh plates and other crockery. Not a very appetising colour I must admit. And the food is also a bit off-colour, but I will give feedback as it might taste better than what it looks.

And just one more thing about the 70's for now - even the vegetables were weird. This picture comes out of volume 2, as they teach us to cook different vegetables. Imagine if these poor specimen ended up in Woolies - they would be left in their pretty wicker baskets to rot as they just do not look like the veggies we are used to now. Especially the red cabbage (it looks very plastic?),the celery (it looks half-dead), the unidentified bulby things in the front, the very dark and dangerous looking green cabbage mutant at the back. Shame.

See you soon

Lovies

Lizette

Two challenges Done!!

Miri in her element

How lucky am I to work for a company that encourages community service, and provide you with the means to do so. 1 October was such a day, when I joined some amazing people  to give back to the Onverwacht Community outside Cullinan. The focus was on the companionship-bond that exists between animals and humans, and in this community specifically between dogs and humans.

So I got to spend time with great people, AND complete a challenge "DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEBODY ELSE" at the same time. A truly great start to Month 1 of my challenge adventure.


While I looked after the doggie patients coming out of sterilization theatre (a lekker caravan set up as a mobile theatre) - the rest of the team joined Dr. Adri and her team of volunteers to drive education regarding pet care in the local community. It was HOT, and it was DUSTY, and it was WINDY - but nothing could stop us from having fun.

 Water bowls were handed out and appreciated by all 2-legged as well as 4-legged creatures.

I am so proud of our team; the 2 wonderful vets who got their hands dirty (and bloody), the foot-soldiers de-worming, vaccinating and de-fleeing, the amazing doctor Adri for running this project, all her volunteers!

And taking some left-over water bowls to a dog-center in Rietkol delivered a great surprise - achieving a second challenge: "GETTING SOMETHING FOR FREE"

Roy and Louisa take in stray dogs and rescues in the area, and are currently looking after 22 dogs. All the furries sleep in the house at night, get lots of love and find a permanent home with this loving couple. They were so kind as to gift me with a wonderful bunch of homegrown roses, as well as a special rose-bush to say thank you.

So yippppeeee - got something for free and better still, my husband of all people planted it in the garden, so I did not even have to pay a gardener to do it.

30 challenges every 30 days

I am a sucker for challenges. I would almost go as far as to say I am a challenge addict! If life does not give me enough challenges, I challenge life to give me a challenge.


So it seems no challenge life can throw at me is challenging enough, driving me to the point where I now challenge myself. This new 3-month blog-writing will be a documentation of my latest craze - 30 challenges in 30 days.


Now the 30 challenges do not relate to one each day, as some days will be challenge-empty, while other days will be challenge-full. I have not set myself any rules except that by the end of each month, all 30 challenges need to be completed.


I chose my challenges like other people choose their friends. There are the nice ones, the ones you just love to be with - they make you happy. This is the biggest bulk of my challenges, as I LIKE to be happy. (as you can see from below, knitting makes me VERY happy!!)
1)  Knit one scarf
2)  Knit a cushion cover
3)  Knit a teddy
4)  Start and finish 1 complete handmade outfit for myself (AND wear it)
5)  Read one fiction book (Something silly, scary, funny or full of suspense)
6)  Bake a cake (Actually, I need to bake all the cakes contained in one volume of the "Baked and Delicious" series)
7)  Do something for somebody
8)  Host one dinner party
9)  Work through a volume of "Fyn Kookkuns" - these are cookbook series from the 70's - when fine dining was something you did at home.
10) Reconnect with an old friend


There are friends you do not enjoy so much, but it is necessary to keep them close to you, just in case they become nicer one day and you need them during a crisis. I only have a few of these challenges.
1)  Lose 3 kg every month
2)  Take a step to bring me closer to my long-term goal (To have alternative and passive income streams)
3)  De-clutter something, anything!!


Then there are the solid, stable, practical friends. The friends who has always been around and you know will always be around till you die. Or they die. Or we all die. (I am on the better side of 50yrs, so the possibility of dying is increasing exponentially!)
1)  Recycle something old into something new
2)  Fix one broken item
3)  Get rid of something I do not need
4)  Keep to my new, strict budget
5)  Take and complete 1 step to reach short-term goal (to have NO debt)


Some of the best friends are the dangerous ones. They scare the living daylights out of you, as they act impulsively, push boundaries, often get you into trouble, but hikes up the adrenaline and make life an adventure.
1)  Get something for free
2)  Complete one big frugal activity
3)  Make one new friend (and no, Facebook does not count)


You also get friends who are such fun to be with in the beginning, then it becomes a chore to continue the relationship. They are demanding, easily hurt if you do not call/see them enough, whiney and needy - shouting for attention when you have other things to do.
1)  Finish one of my many unfinished needlework project lurking around the house
2)  Up-cycle one piece of old furniture into something amazing
3)  Read one non-fiction book for self-development
4)  Organize an area in my house/life
5)  Save towards my wish-list


There are friends that are bigger than life! They are loud, they are intimidating, they achieve so much that they make you feel insignificant and a bit like a failure. But you admire them for their drive, their passion and dedication. They inspire you to strive for the impossible.
1)  Take one room in the house and redecorate the WHOLE room - basically with no budget
2)  Take one area of the garden and make it so beautiful that I would want to be there all day
3)  Take one area of the plot and turn it into a money-making opportunity
4)  Herbal focus - take one herb, learn it, eat it, (or smoke it?), plant it, harvest it, make stuff with it!!


So if you are ready for the challenge, I am MORE than ready. And even if you are not ready or interested, you will be entertained by my adventures and experiments in this 90-day plan. (ps - have already completed 1 challenge, but more about that in my next blog.


Lovies
Lizette