THURSDAY 8TH JANUARY - TUESDAY 13TH JANUARY


Wow, time can slip away like water, eh? So time for an update.

Life has been ticking away quite nicely. No big ups but no big downs which is as much of a win as you can expect sometimes.

Still no wins for Janaury which is starting to make me a bit antsy - add that to 2 days without the laptop due to a nasty virus (that I'm not exactly sure I've quite eradicated yet) and I am getting competition woes. I know I need to ride it out - it would be good to write an I WON! post on here though.

It's put a dint in my film watching as well. But there are some lovely ones to report.

Thursday it was Concussion - a drama about a woman who gets hit on the head with a ball and starts to question how fulfilling her life is. And, as you do, she ends up a lesbian call girl. There are several reasons why I didn't like this film - primarily it hado to do with how lesbian sex is portrayed. Dykes don't kiss with tongues? Really? We made such leaps with how lesbian sexuality is portrayed in The L Word that it is disappointing to see sanitised gay sex in a film again. It was ok in an arthouse type of way but not high up my list

In stark contract Frank was a blast of feel good, slightly crazy, very moving movie goodness. Michael Fassbender managed to instil so much life into the character of Frank even though he spends the entire movie wearing a masive heid. The music was convincing and I fell a little bit more in love with Maggie Gyllenhaal. And as many, many people before me have said 'I Love You All' - classic indie fabulosity. Yes, that is a word and yes, I did just use it.

Saturday was a rewatch of The Other Boleyn Girl - not a massive fan of Natalie Portman but loved her intense crazed portrayal of Anne Boleyn. Plus you've got to love the Cumberbatch in tights, it's the rules.

Sunday was owned lock, stock and barrel by American Hustle. It had been on my list of 'oh really must get around to watching that' and so glad I finally did. The 5 lead actors nailed it, so much so that it's hard to pick an outstanding performance. Even Bradley Cooper was ok and no one ever said he was multi dimensional. Christian Bale and Amy Adams deserve all the superlatives. And Jennifer Lawrence? Let me leave you with the stand out clip from her

 

 

 

So time for the totals

Dogs 6/8 (the weather is determined to scupper me - hailstones don't go down well)

Kitchen 8/8

Sealed Pot 6/8

Films 6

BFT 7/7

Recycling 1/1

VSP 1/1 (plus a £60 online scratchcard win - boom!) 

 

Not bad going all in all.

 

 



WEDNESDAY 7TH JANUARY

So, an up and downy day and some additions to the Big Fat List of the Year.

Where to start?

The dogs did not get walked. The rain was torrential and it was cold and dark and it would have been a thoroughly unenjoyable process. I'm dealing with the realisation that I need to walk them more if I want their behaviour to improve - but they are so challenging to walk I don't want to. I can't just slip the lead on and pop out for 10 minutes, there is a big palaver. Which again leads me back to them needing a firm hand and some consistent dog training. I've been avoiding this or at the very best playing at training them. When I try I feel like a failure but not doing it makes me feel like a failure as well. It's on the list of Things I Know I Really Must Address.

And onto additions to the list


9. BFT GROUP

I run a butch-femme-trans group on Facebook. For groups to flourish they need someone feeding them things to talk about and kicking off conversations. I've decided I will post something every single day to try and inject some life in the group. And so I did.


10. MAKE £1000 BY SELLING YOUR STUFF

Another one of the amazing challenges on Money Saving Expert's forums - here. The idea is to liquidise your assets (or sell your junk) to clear your house and make some money. Now £1000 in a year is a tall order as I have sold most of my big ticket items already. But doing a challenge keeps you focused for the long haul - and again it's about taking tiny bites to eat a ruddy huge cake.



11. NO SPEND DAYS

If you make your lunch and have done your shopping then why are you still spending money? This one is a way of making you think about how, why and when you chose to make purchases. I'm not on the thread but there is a group on MSE that does this. For me, this is about not deciding I can't be bothered to bring a packed lunch, using the salad in my fridge, just being a little more conscious.


4. VIRTUAL POT CHALLENGE - UPDATE

I'm now running this challenge - see here. If that doesn't keep me focused then nothing will.



And onto movies - number 8 on my list. Last night I finished off 2 movies I was half way through.
The Place Beyond The Pines is a story you think is going to go one way, is going to be one thing - but it wrong foots you at every turn. It's about fathers and sons and crime and cops. It unfolds in a series of chapters and seems to avoid the storyline cliches or expectations that come with it. Thoughtful and engaging. Recommended.
By contract Elysium is all about the cliches - there are no surprises in this story of an Earth gone bad and a rich elite living in space. However, that doesn't mean it is a bad film, just that it is suffering by comparison with some of the films I've watched recently. SFX were great. It was ok. If you're a blockbustery Matt Damony like to know where you're going type of filmwatcher then you'll probably enjoy it.

All quiet on the competition front. Only a week into January though, no eed to start panicing just yet.


Dogs 1/2
Kitchen 2/2
Pot 2/2
BFT 1/1
Films - 2
NSD - 1

Not bad Nixy, not bad at all.

TUESDAY 6TH JANUARY

Today was a good day. Accomplished everything on the daily task list. And had a huge haul for the Christmas pot.

The Sealed Pot Challenge runs on the Money Saving Expert forums. If you're at all interested in looking at your finances then I can't recommend this site enough. In one of the sub forums, Debt Free Wannabe, there are a number of fun, financial challenges you can take part in. The sealed pot challenge is for people to save for Christmas, or whatever falls at the back end of your year, and the idea is that you put money in a pot and then ignore it. Captain Obvious is obvious, eh?

The way mine works is I try to feed the pot every day. Anything under a pound coin gets put in the pot. If I have a No Spend Day (NSD) then I feed the pot with a shiny pound coin from my purse. The idea is by the time Christmas rolls around you have a wodge of cash saved that you wouldn't have saved under normal circumstances.

When The Nipper (my 20 year old son who is in his final year at University) lived at home he threw all his change in an old binoculars case. Never cashed it in, wasn't ever bothered about it. So I offered to buy it off him. Last night I counted it and added over £52 to the pot! It 'cost' me £40 transferred into the Nipper's bank account - however, that's £40 I wouldn't have saved this month if it was in crinkly ten pound notes. I doubt the pot will ever have such a day again. Monsieur Pot is satiated right now.

I started watching 'Place Beyond the Pines' but it got to midnight and I still had 40 minutes to go - review to come when I watch the rest of it.

Not a sausage on the comping front. I've changed how I comp splightly and am going for fewer comps entered but really only entering for the ones I want. This will mean my number of wins will go down - I'm going to need to learn some patience.

Dogs 1/1
Kitchen 1/1
Pot 1/1

THE BIG FAT LIST OF THE YEAR

......and the reasoning behind it....



I'm going to run you through all the small things I'm monitoring this year. Invisible person potentially reading this - very probably you will read some of these and go 'Say what?'. Having mentioned a couple of them to the people I work with I've had laughter, puzzlement and a little derision. That's ok, I'm not doing this for them. And I'm not doing this for you either, mythical internet person. Small things regularly monitored lead to bigger things. Honest, they do. I'll be banging on about that at some point.

So here is my big fat list of the year 2015.

1. WALK THE DOGS

I have 2 pugs, Reggie and Gertie - more on them later. And they are simultaneously the joy and bane of my life. Mainly down to the fact I am a Bad Dog Mother (TM) and can't train them. If you're under the impression pugs are fat, slug like creatures who are no bother I'm here to tell you - HA! I work all day and often it is cold, wet and dark by the time I get home. They don't get walked, their behaviour gets worse and all of us are miserable. I will try to walk the dogs every day. Daily score.


2. CLEAN THE KITCHEN

I'm not a tidy person. I'd go so far to say I am a lazy, sloven who would sit on her arse all day if she could get away with it. But, clean tidy spaces make me happy. How do I deal with wanting a clean tidy house but not wanting to put the effort into creating that? I could get a cleaner but I'm too thrifty (some would say tight!) for that. So my pledge for 2015 is I will try to make sure my kitchen is tidy and clean when i go to bed every night. This is slightly Flylady of me (Google it) but it's a start. I know when I keep it clean it makes waking up every morning a little easier. Daily score.


3. FEED THE POT

Christmas costs much, yes? Never enough money (if you're like me) to pay for it. The Sealed Pot challenge - explained in greater depth later - is run on MoneySavingExpert.com forums. Daily score.


4. THE VIRTUAL POT CHALLENGE

This happens on a Sunday and is linked to no. 3 - I'll fill you in when we get there. Weekly score


5. SUNDAY PURSE TIP

Again, tied closely to no.3 - and I'll do a post about it. Weekly score


6. RECYCLING

I regularly miss the bin men and on a fortnightly collection this is a pain in the rear end. And most time when I do get the wheely bin out I forget (can't be bothered) to get the recycling boxes out as well. See, i told you I was lazy. Fornightly score.


7. DOCUMENT MY COMPETITION LIFE

One of the things that takes a chunk of my time is comping. I'm hoping along the way to address some of the misconceptions about compers and share with you what a year in comping looks like. This translates to - sharing when I've won something - yip yip! Posting pictures of my winnings - yip yip yip! Moaning when I've not won - sad face. Ad hoc score - the higher this one gets over the year the happier I will be.


8. A YEAR OF FILMS

Because I comp and I have pugs I spend a lot of time on the sofa with my laptop on my knee and the telly on in the background - why not combine that with watching movies? Good movies hopefully, I'm sure some rotten ones will sneak in.



So here's how the scoring works. If I do something I get a point. And over the year those points should add up - hopefully leading me to see that I'm not a series of disasters but a conglomeration of small wins. I really do believe that when you get in a rut you need to start praising the small wins and through that your self esteem will come back and you'll move onto bigger and better things.

None of these are challenging in and of themselves. But that's not to say they don't have worth. All will make me feel better in their own tiny ways. We're aiming for a cumulative effect here people.


And be warned - there will be various other bits and bobs lobbed at this space as and when. It really is a dib dab of most everything.

Introductions

My name is Nixy. And this is my personal blog for, well, a dib dab, spit spot of lots of little things I have going on in my life.

I've been meaning to blog for years but queries always got in the way.
1. Who wants to listen to my inane wittering?
2. Is there one subject I can concentrate on?
3. Do I have the stamina to keep it up?

New Year 2015 has just driven through town and left me......pensive. In previous years I have had lofty ambitions. I will be this. I will lose that. I will stop this. I AM going to be a different person.

But this year has been different. After much thought I've christened it the year of living small. And by that I don't mean not living well. I think it's about small habit changes maybe adding up to big things, or at the very least a positive change in direction.

Autumn seems to be a time of sadness for me. My birthday generally signals a time of mental meltdown and I fight this be trying to create a 'perfect' Christmas that leaves me bleak on the inside. Maybe, maybe small changes will be more effective. It's about learning to celebrate my small victories and not berating myself for the countless small defeats.

The plan for this blog is to keep me on track. No, that's wrong. It's for me to record my small victories. That's all. I can't imagine anyone else being interested but who knows...... I may lure some people on

Stay with me and I'll tell you how I plan on instigating some small changes and habits in my life.