Hello everyone and a Happy New Year! One of the luxuries of being a blogger is that I could choose what holidays to take off over Christmas, which is why you haven’t had any new posts since the 23rd December. Although Michael is on leave until the 8th January I have decided that it is time to crack on with bringing you up to date.
I hope you all had a great Christmas if you celebrate it. For my fellow chronic pain copers, I hope your spoons were plentiful and for the crafters out there I hope your craft spaces were restocked with craft stash gifts. I received some new Spectrum Noir Pens and some adult colouring books as well as a pink dust cover for my Silhouette Cameo within the papercrafting category. Of course, when new items enter your space it often paves the way for old ones to leave and that is the subject of today’s Midweek Minimise post. If you have just arrived here you can catch up with the whole series here.
Colouring Mediums
One of the first things I have organised is my Spectrum Noir Pens. The Spectrum Sparkle Metallics selection I got from my sister in law was brand new to me so I have primed them, coloured them in on my colour chart and put them on the shelves. My Sparkle colour chart is now complete – yayFrom my brother, I received the Spectrum Noir standard collection Darks set. Organising these involved picking up where I left off in the Colouring Mediums post, I went through and weeded out all the old first generation markers and replaced them with the new second generation ones after filing in the colour chart. Although they are on their way out there is the chance that someone could make some use out of the ones I have cleared out so I will no doubt list them on a site and see what happens.
Kitchen Goodies
As we have had a small amount of disposable money to play with over the holidays, we have treated ourselves to a few items to make life easier. So technically this was not a Christmas gift but has none the less entered the house over the festive period. The item I am talking about it a Kenwood MultiOne. The reason for this purchase is that I really enjoy baking but the cheaper stand mixer I have simply didn’t mix all the ingredients in the bowl (something of an importance for a stand MIXER!) Kenwood have a great reputation so I have high hopes that I will really enjoy using this machine when I can. Although we could have got a stand mixer by Kenwood cheaper we decided to go with this one to get (to quote Michael) more bang for your buck. The fact that it has functions like Grinding Meat means he can use it for meal prep too. Not only can I get rid of the old stand mixer but also the food processor and blender too so there will now be one machine with one plug and assorted accessories to use with it. The kitchen cupboards are thanking me already. Here is the before shot and I’ll show you the after one once I have completed organising the cupboard:
Notebooks
This one technically doesn’t involve minimising anything but it will remove the need for future purchases. One of my gifts from Michael was the Rocket Everlast Notebook and some Pilot Frixion Pens: this gift is right up my street because it bridges the gap between the written word and digital text perfectly. These are available from Amazon (affiliate link) and although it may seem expensive for a notebook it is basically the last one you need to buy (until it finally wears out and gets tatty if and whenever that may be) you write on the pages with Pilot Frixion Pens a black one is included in the pack but of course I wanted to have pretty colours which are also on offer at 40% off on Amazon (affiliate link) then you can choose to save the text to various digital repositories like Evernote, Google Drive, Email etc all you need is a smartphone with a camera and the app takes care of lining it up and just saving the page.
Once you have saved the text (if you want to) you simply use a damp cloth (provided) to wipe it off and you have a new page ready to go again. I do wish these had been invented when I was at High School and University… I also received a pink Frixion rubber because the pens can also be used on paper and rubbed out so I like to use them for crosswords when I am chilling out and want to get wordy rather than colouring in. Not only will it allow me to save things to Evernote etc but when I think of the amount of paper I usually go through writing down temporary things I need to remember within a day that I then discard it is going to help me save the planet too! Can you tell how excited I am about this present? I just had a small giddy moment when I realised it is an Everlast Rocket book and the manufacturer of the pens is Pilot is that a total coincidence, probably not but it pleased me thinking that I was piloting a rocket!
My Workspace
The final change to share is somewhat epic really and it is my desk set up. These were all purchases rather than Christmas presents but I have a whole new desk setup and technology. You may remember from a previous post, things looked a little like this:
Well her is the after shot of my desk:
So to go through the changes:
In the before shot, there is my old Windows Laptop in the foreground under the edge of the monitor with my Android tablet and kindle on top.
Now there is a MacBook Pro on a stand to the right of the external monitor and there is a new Windows Gaming Desktop under the desk.
The monitor is stood on a monitor stand, this one from Amazon if you are interested (affiliate links) I have swapped out the old large keyboard and mouse for these much prettier ones, and I’ve added this circular responsive Mouse Mat on top of my old one that way I get the benefit of the wrist support with the now improved surface. I have used the following Switch Box to change the keyboard and mouse from the MacBook Pro to the PC at the touch of a button and this switcher to swap the monitor from one to the other in the same way.
Underneath the stand is my new Rocket Book and I can simply swap it and the keyboard around if I want to write. The Kindle fits on the shelf with my new Ipad, Michael upgraded his iPad Air to an iPad Pro 12.9 so I got his old Ipad as my Android Tablet was not playing very nicely anymore. My daily tablet box fits on the shelf nicely along with my new Zoella Lipbalms ( a stocking filler) I think it is fair to say that with my new tech and my organised desk I mean business as an entrepreneur. I just need to keep the spoons in plentiful supply and the flare-ups at arm’s length, then I will be ready for all that 2018 can throw at me!
Why not take the new year as a good opportunity to declutter your life too, I would love to see what you have been doing, just tag me in on any of these social media sites.
Next week I will be talking about how I have been drowning in paperwork and what I have done about it.
Until next time,
Gentle Hugs,
Susan
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