First Quarter Review

I have been doing a lot of blog reading lately, a selection of house renovations, books, sewing and a couple of baking ones.  I've noticed that quite a few of these have been doing first quarter reviews of the targets they set themselves for the year, and I thought that this would be a nice way to keep a check on my own progress.  So I decided to pinch the idea :)

So here are the resolutions that I set myself at the beginning of the year and where I'm up to or not up to as the case may be!

1. Take part in Water Wipeout.

Yay I have registered for this (a good start to reviewing my list).  It takes place in mid June, so I will let you know how I get on.

2. Do more running.

This ones not quite so good.  I started off with good intentions in January and then the man flu and laryngitis struck :( I did complete my first 10k of the year during the Bank Holiday weekend, it was hard going due to my lack of training, but I'm so glad I had a go :)  I'm back at running club now, just need to keep it up, my next outing is Race for Life 10k at Delamere Forest in May.

3. Put up my house planning board.

Done :)

4. Increase my core strength (should help my running).

I did buy a balance board earlier this year, I've been on it a few times but find it hard.  Balance isn't one of my strengths!  I'm about to give Boot Camp sessions ago, they are being organised by my running club, hopefully this will help.  I need to do something to build my strength for Water Wipeout.

5. Do more things that take my fancy.

This one is going well I went to a vintage fair earlier this year with my Mum & Dad and has a great time, have been to the Oxford Literary Festival for a talk and book signing by Diana Gabaldon, she wrote my favorite series of books - The Outlander series - this day was awesome and thanks to my Dad for driving a 4 hour round trip to have coffee and cake in the library and then queue for 2 hours in the cold for a book signing that he didn't have a book for (Mum and I had a great time) :)  Mr A and I went to the Home Building and Renovation Show at the NEC a couple of weeks ago, it was great to be able to pick the brains of people to see what would be required for some of ideas.  The outstanding item from the day was wireless speakers!  We have also been to a number of gigs so far this year, some big and some small, some outstanding, some great, some mainly focused on coughing and blowing my nose! and some not so good - Steel Panther - just saying!

6. Do a photo a day photo diary

I think this is going the best of everything that I challenged myself too. I'm currently on photo 108/365!  I originally wanted to use this to improve my photo taking skills, but it has ended up being more of a daily photo diary, but I don't mind as I like being able to see what I have been up to - check me out on Instagram (netty_armstrong).

7. Make my Vogue 1419 coat pattern.

Ooops - so far epic fail!!  I haven't even cut my pattern out yet - must try harder!

8. Finish unpacking the boxes!!

Also another epic fail, but in my defense it was on the to do list for my time off in Februry - cue man flu, laryngitis and lots of sleep!

9. Loose weight, we've got three weddings to go to this year and it would be good to look at the photos and think, I look nice!

Hopefully getting on to item 2 a bit more should help this.

10. Put up my year wall planner, I need this to stop me loosing my mind and so I know what's going on.

Yay, although I think it needs up dating!

11. Dress up more when we go out. I have a surprising number of dresses and tops, but never seem to wear them. I need to make more of an effort.

I trying!

12. Refurbish the Living Room

We have sorted most of the big decisions, there are a few things that we need to look into, but there is still plenty of time till the end of the year.

13. Refurbish the Master Bedroom

We have brought the paint (three different colours and a special little tin of magic), curtains complete with a separate black out lining (what can I say, I like my sleep), curtain pole and funky bedside lamps.  But you will need to wait for the details!

14. Get to grips with the washing pile!

This is endless as most women will know!  Hopefully as the weekends brighten up, I should be able to get more through the machines and dry outside.

15. Do a tour of the house on my blog ;)

Part 1 The Long Awaited Ground Floor Tour! is done and Part 2 the first floor is to follow soon!

16. Read for at least 1 hour a week.

This has been a bit hit and miss, it has probably evened out as when I have been reading its been for a couple of hours so should hopefully make up for the weeks I've missed.  I've also just started reading before I go to bed at The Hut, I always find this a dangerous balance as I'm good at convincing myself that I can't sleep if I'm enjoying a book!  On the plus side, I think it's helping me sleep better!

Currently reading:

Home Book - Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon

This is my third time reading, the latest book - Book 8 Written In My Own Hearts Blood - has just come out so I'm re-reading the series

Hut Book - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I had heard a lot of good things about this book and am really enjoying it, it's surprisingly funny!

17. Do more on my family tree.

Ooops!

18. Make a patchwork quilt.
I have two quilts in mind, the first is a quilt made up of band tshirts to add a little bit of funky to our current TV watching blankets.  I have a design that I like and just need to have a look through our tshirts to see which can be donated towards it, I already have one only 35 left to go!

The second is from Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine and it is made up of their Block of the Month's.  I have all the back issues that I need now, but I think I might do the tshirt one first.

Well that's my first review done!

If there's anybody out there, bye for now!

Netty :)

Work Done So Far & The Vogue 1419 Pattern

Although we haven't started the main renovation yet (we are thinking about ideas, I promise!), we have done some things around the house & garden.

The first thing we tackled was the fruit trees in the garden. When we viewed the house back in February we were aware that there were a lot of trees, but didn't realise just how many of these were fruit. So this summer the garden was starting to look like a raid in the Tesco fruit aisle!  There are currently two pear trees, one of which the pears grow so high there was no hope in hell of us managing to reach them.  There’s a greengage tree, but unfortunately the squirrels are rather fond of these so we didn’t get a look in!  Apple tree wise we have a selection of both eating and cooking apple trees, and there are seven of these in total two of which didn’t fruit this year.  So as you can imagine it was like apple wonderland.

We have some friends, Rob and Sarah, who have started there own business (The Kitchen Swanscoe) making juices, jams and biscuits (the fudge is amazing).  So we asked if they wanted to come and help us collect the apples in return of some of them, as there was just no way that we could use / store them all.  By a random coincidence they had just started an initiative called The Random Apple Company.

So on the last Bank Holiday Monday in May August (I appear to be losing my mind and track of time!!), they appeared all ready to go to pick some apples and pears.  We decided to start with the largest tree (which was a fantastic idea as we were totally knackered after this!!).  The first thing was to pick up all the apples from the ground and put the rotten ones in a spare water butt that had been left with the house, this was to stop us picking up the same ones all the time.  Due to the size of our largest apple tree (estimated at 150 years old), we couldn’t shake it by pushing and could reach to ‘poke’ the apples.  So Mr A and Rob from The Random Apple Company tried to get higher into the tree using a ladder….

…. This didn’t fully work, so Mr A gamely climbed into the tree and started to ‘ride’ the tree, which worked much better and it started to rain apples!

It was a most productive day’s work and we got as much as possible off the trees, there’s still a lot left that didn’t want to fall off.  So I’m still going out at the weekends to collect the rotten fruit and am still trying to pass apples on to anyone and everyone that I know!!

So the photos below show the outcome of the day in relation to apples and pears, the first is the volume of rotten fruit we managed to collect from the ground…..

…. and finally the fruit (and Rob) in the trailer waiting to go to back to The Random Apple Company base.

In other non-renovation related news, my little sister has encouraged me to take part in a sewalong for the Vogue 1419 Coat!

I am a total beginner when it comes to sewing (I can do minor repairs) but am so very taken with the style of the coat I’m going to give it ago, so we shall see how I get on.  I’ll never keep up with the sewalong but hopefully I will manage to get it finished.  Although time could be a massive issue - work, travel, Hybrid 9 band stuff, house renovation, normal day-to-day house related stuff and running (I did the Chester half marathon this year and am hoping to do another next year)!!  The way I see if, if you’re not maxed out to the edge, then you’re not doing life properly!

If there’s anybody out there, bye for now!

Netty J

P.S. Hello to my first follower on BlogLovin you made my day on Thursday! J

P.P.S.  We took the stud wall in the music room out this weekend, but more on that later!