52 Challenges 2015 – Weekly Update 3

First of all, I would like to apologise for this delayed update. My laptop crashed on Sunday and wouldn’t reboot despite all my attempts at safe and repair modes. Luckily the restore option allowed me to back up my data (just in case) and I then had to restore to factory settings. A couple of days and over 200 updates later, I am back and running!  I could have sent an update by writing on my phone but 1) I do not like typing on my phone 2) I had already prepared most of my update and really didn’t fancy starting all over again…  🙂

Now, before I forget, if you celebrated Christmas, I hope you had a nice one! I got inspired by the idea on this website and created my own book-mas tree ( will try and upload other pictures in the next few days):

 Back onto the challenges subject, here are this week’s updates:

1. 52 Week Money Saving Challenge – £7 put aside this week for a total of £28.
2. Read 52 books in 52 weeks – I finished The Returned by Jason Mott. I decided to read this book because I had seen the first season of the French series of the same name. I know another version has been made in the USA but have not seen it therefore cannot comment on it. For anyone who has seen the French version though, well, it is only very loosely based on the novel. The theme is the same: people returning from the dead; but as to the number of “returned” and the plot and everything else, it has nothing to do with the book. So you can read and watch both, you don’t run the risk of having the plot ruined by one or the other (at least with the first season).
3. Declutter 52 items – I put quite a few pages of magazines and of papers I had kept for craft purposes into the recycling bin, but it was kind of random so I have not added this to my list of “achieved” as of yet.
4. 52 Weeks Decluttering My Inbox – spent some time clearing old emails and emptied my inboxes.
5. Watch 52 movies from the “1001” list – I watched 15 movies this week:

Independence Day, always a good laugh.

The adventures of Robin Hood, quite ok considering how many movies / series there have been about it.

Skyfall, a huge surprise for me as I am no fan of James Bond movies, really enjoyed this one.

Back to the future, brought me back to my youth, still very enjoyable.

Jurassic Park, obviously lost the effect of surprise after seeing it quite many times, not as impressive on my old TV as on the big screen, but every time I see it on TV, I can’t help feeling relieved I do not have to watch it again in a cinema full of kids screaming with laughter at the “scary” scenes.

Boyz n the hood, I guess the movie was more or less what I expected it to be and it left me a bit uncomfortable and wondering if this depiction is still considered as current.

The lady vanishes, I’m not sure if I had already seen it or if I saw a movie very similar to it, but I did enjoy it very much.

Muriel’s wedding, still funny but not sure it should be one the 1001 list.

Willy Wonka & the chocolate factory, up to now I had only seen the Tim Burton version, which I find rather annoying, especially the songs, so this was a very welcome watch, much more enjoyable than the recent version!

Unforgiven, an ok movie in my opinion, not the greatest I’ve seen, but still quite good for a cowboy film.

Spartacus, a pretty impressive movie, especially considering when it was filmed. I expected it to be boring but really enjoyed it.

Whisky Galore!, one of my favourites this week. A simple yet incredibly funny movie apparently based on a true story – I shall consider getting it on DVD, can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this film before!

Red River, another cowboy movie, another enjoyable watch! Getting seriously into those oldies!

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, still wonderful, and by doing other things at the same time (staring at a screen hoping it would show something else than an “attempting repair” bar), I did manage not to cry!

Guys and Dolls, quite liked it too, though it took me a bit of time to get into it. It does show its age, but it still a good laugh.

I re-watched Gran Torino, which is not on the 1001 list, and I still think it is a brilliant movie. Another one I should get on DVD! With tissues…

6. 52 Days Without Contacts – three days wearing my glasses this week.
7. 52 Weeks Updating Blog – see this post, despite late due to technical reasons! 🙂
8. 52 Weeks To Drink Water – drank a glass of plain water five days this week!  Woohoo!
9. Try 52 recipes – tried three recipes this week: figs with mozzarella, Parma ham and breadsticks / American-style fluffy pancakes / Smocked haddock with crème fraiche and chives, Puy lentils and citrus broccoli – all were quite good!
10. Finish 52 items in cross-stitch – worked on something I started a year ago, should finish it shortly.

That’s it for last week, folks!

I would already like to wish you all a wonderful and healthy New Year!

Challenge 10 – Finish 52 items in cross-stitch

With this challenge I am definitely way over-ambitious.  I may have to look into working on quite a few small projects!  Who knows, that might give me some birthday or Christmas cards!

As part of this challenge, I will count items that I already started a while back and never finished.  The three that come straight to mind are a present I started over a year ago for the birth of a friend’s baby and never finished, a square I started probably 5 years ago for a charity and a design that I started 11 years ago as a present.  The latter is unlikely to get finished this year still, but it would be nice if I got back onto it.

1. A New Baby kit from Me to You – I finally finished this kit started over a year ago.  I liked doing the cross-stitch part but I honestly hated the back-stitch to make the “fluffiness” of the bear.  The shades are all so similar on the cross-stitch that I found it very difficult to figure out where I was and made mistakes.  Hence me stopping working on it.  I will definitely never try another cross-stitch from this collection.  It is lovely to watch, but hell to make in my opinion.  Despite the mistakes I am still glad I finished it in the end.            

Challenge 9 – Try 52 new recipes

I can imagine that many people would be willing to go for this kind of challenge – trying new recipes can be really exciting for those who love cooking.  As for me, who eats because we have to – although I do enjoy good food, as long as I do not have to be the one cooking it – this is more a way to try and get me to learn how to cook.  In the past couple of years, I have eaten mostly ready meals (and unsurprisingly put on a lot of weight).  I can cook very basic meals, pasta, couscous, salads, vegetables, but they are very basic.  No sauce, no fuss, just plain food.

I am told so often “oh, but you can cook this or that so easily, you just put it in the oven with this and that and it’s so good”.  But it all sounds to me incredibly complicated.  I have never been interested in cooking or really taken the time to try much.  But then again, when you cook only for yourself, it is difficult to find the will to put the effort in (at least for me).  Spending hours cooking a meal I will eat in five minutes does not appeal much to me!  But in an attempt to eat healthier meals, lose weight and save money, I am willing to take up the challenge of trying 52 new recipes within a year.  I hope that I will learn a few tricks and maybe realise that it really is not as difficult as I see it.

I do acknowledge that some of the recipes I will try will sound so simple to most of you may not see them as proper recipes, but if I have to look in a book to get that idea, then to me it is a recipe.  And for me it is about learning what flavours work with what.  And finding that it is possible to cook simple meals that taste good without spending hours on them.

Here are the recipes I have tried:

1. Figs with mozzarella, Parma ham and breadsticks – from 10 minutes to table by Xanthe Clay – 24th Dec 2014
2. American-style fluffy pancakes – from The hairy dieters book 3  by Si King and Dave Myers – 25th Dec 2014
3. Smocked haddock with crème fraîche and chives, Puy lentils and citrus broccoli – from 10 minutes to table by Xanthe Clay – 27th Dec 2014
4. Pasta puttanesca – from The hairy dieters book 3  by Si King and Dave Myers – 4th Jan 2015

52 Challenges 2015 – Weekly Update 2

Here is what I have achieved this past week:

1. 52 Week Money Saving Challenge – £6 put aside this week for a total of £21.
2. Read 52 books in 52 weeks – Finished La Condition Humaine by Malraux.  Was quite disappointed.  I expected something different and… more enlightning from such a pillar of litterature.  But at least I managed to get to the end!  Started both The Returned by Jason Mott (p. 82) and Children of Men by P.D. James (p.90)
3. Declutter 52 items – nothing this week
4. 52 Weeks Decluttering My Inbox – spent some time clearing old emails and emptied my inboxes, except for 2 emails received today that will require a longer reply than I could do today.
5. Watch 52 movies from the “1001” list – I watched 8 movies this week: JFK, Edward Scissorhands, The Hurt Locker, The Lavender Hill Mob, Gunfight at the OK Corral, Rushmore, Good Morning, Vietnam and The Evil Dead.  I enjoyed most of them quite a lot, the exception being The Evil Dead.  I am no fan of this genre and it is the kind of movie that scares me and gives me nightmares.  I suppose this one wasn’t the worst I could see as the special effects are now dated and actually ridiculous and funny in parts, but it made me realise that I may struggle with parts of the list.  And I’ll confess that I did work on other stuff while watching it so I didn’t have to be fully engaged in what was happening on the screen.  The next couple of weeks might be quite busy watching films again as there are TONS of movies from the list programmed over the holiday period!  I did manage to empty most of my tapes (yes, still using a VCR!) so I hope that between taping and watching after work / on my days off, I’ll be able to catch most of them… but there will be some programming conflicts too, so I will have to make some choices there!
6. 52 Days Without Contacts – one day with glasses this week.
7. 52 Weeks Updating Blog – see this post!  🙂
8. 52 Weeks To Drink Water – drank a glass of plain water!

 

Challenge 8 – 52 Weeks To Drink Water

I am VERY bad at drinking water.  I drink water as part of coffee, water with cordial, but I am incredibly bad at drinking just plain water.  At the moment I also have a lot of soft drinks, which is obviously not good for anything, especially not my weight that is just getting worse and worse. So.  My plan is to increase the amount of water I drink very slowly.  I have challenged myself to 100 days without coffee at the beginning of the year and various other ones, but the plan here is to try and implement good habits, not just do it for a period of time and shortly after revert to bad habits and worse. This may look incredibly stupid, but when I said I do not drink plain water, I do really mean it!  Here is my plan for the 52 weeks – note: I do not count any water intake during or shortly after exercising:

1. Drink at least 1 glass of water – achieved 1 day
2. Drink at least 1 glass of water two days – achieved 5 days
3. Drink at least 1 glass of water three five days – achieved 5 days
4. Drink at least 1 glass of water four six days – achieved 7 days
5. Drink at least 1 glass of water five seven days – achieved 2 glasses 7 days
6. Drink at least 1 2 glasses of water six seven days – achieved 1 litre 3 days and 2 glasses 4 days
7. Drink at least 1 2 glasses of water every day – achieved 2 glasses min every day
8. Drink at least 1 2 glasses of water 5 days – 3 glasses 2 days
9. Drink at least 1 glass of water every day

52 Challenges 2015 – Weekly Update 1

As mentioned in my previous post, I will do my best to update this blog weekly.

Here is a summary of what I have achieved this week:

1. 52 Week Money Saving Challenge – £5 put aside this week for a total of £15 – will need to look into where this money will be saved instead of the jar I am using for now!
2. Read 52 books in 52 weeks – being really slow with my current book – La Condition Humaine by Malraux.  I tried to read it a few times over the past couple of years and got stuck around page 30.  I am now at page 232 but still have just over 100 pages to read to finish it.
3. Declutter 52 items – sent the book Artemis Fowl to a fellow reader via the Bookcrossing site
4. 52 Weeks Decluttering My Inbox – my 4 inboxes are empty as of tonight and I have spent some time clearing older mails.
5. Watch 52 movies from the “1001” list – this week I watched Big and Forbidden Planet – and having just re-watched Dead Poets Society, I still can’t figure out why it’s not on the 1001 list whilst The Sound of Music is!
6. 52 Days Without Contacts – wore my glasses two days this week!
7. 52 Weeks Updating Blog – doing it with this update!

 

Challenge 7 – 52 Weeks Updating Blog

As I only just started this blog and I am still starting challenges, it is still exciting to explain what I am trying to achieve and where I want to go.  As time goes by and the challenges are running (or stalling), I know I will find it more difficult to keep on top of this blog.  But I hope that challenging myself to give updates every week will help me be accountable for my failures and hopefully some successes too!

I don’t know if this will bring anything to anyone, but if by chance one person could find some inspiration / motivation through this blog, then it would be worth the effort!  🙂

Challenge 6 – 52 Days Without Contacts

Part of me feels that this is not a real challenge, but at the same time I think it is a necessary one.  I wear contact lenses every day.  I have been needing eye correction since I was 10, that is 29 years now.  But I have always hated wearing glasses.  My parents allowed me to wear contacts from the age of 18 and since then glasses have been what I wear at home only, and actually only for a very short time every day, before my shower in the morning and just before going to bed at night.

Although it is obvious that my eyes could do with some days “resting” from wearing contacts, it is something I had avoided for years.  But I am now trying to be reasonable and will challenge myself to have at least one day per week where I will wear my glasses instead of contacts.  This should be achievable when I spend the weekend at home.  But with some of the other challenges that will start at some point, I may have to be “out” 7 days a week, even if for just a few hours during the weekend.  Which means I will have to plan / decide whether it would be better to be seen with glasses by my colleagues or walk in the rain with glasses…  Dilemma, dilemma!  Let’s try to remember the additional benefit of this: as I am currently on daily contacts, not wearing them once a week will save me almost two months worth of contacts!  😉

For this challenge, despite the title, I will count the number of weeks when I have at least one day off contacts rather than the actual number of days.

 

Challenge 5 – Watch 52 movies of the “1001” list

I picked up the list of “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” in November 2013.  At that point the most recent movie on the list was dated 2012.  I have now updated it with the 2013 movies, giving me a total of 1010 films to see.  When I first took on this list, I decided to start from scratch, i.e. I have not counted any movie seen prior to starting checking the list.  And I have not always updated it either since then, so my current status does not reflect the actual number of movies I have already watched, but these are the rules I set for myself! If anyone is interested in this list or any other one from the series, you can download the list (with a bit of patience) here. As of 12th Dec 2014, I have seen 37 movies out of 1010.  Here are the movies I have watched for this 52 movies challenge:

1. Big (1988)  – watched 13th Dec 2014
2. Forbidden Planet (1956) – watched 14th Dec 2014
3. JFK (1991) – watched 16th Dec 2014
4. Edward Scissorhands (1990) – watched 17th Dec 2014
5. The Hurt Locker (2008) – watched 19th Dec 2014
6. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) – watched 19th Dec 2014
7. Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) – watched 20th Dec 2014
8. Rushmore (1998) – watched 20th Dec 2014
9. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) – watched 20th Dec 2014
10. The Evil Dead (1981) – watched 21st Dec 2014
11. Independence Day (1996) – watched 23rd Dec 2014
12. The adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – watched 24th Dec 2014
13. Skyfall (2012) – watched 24th Dec 2014
14. Back to the future (1985) – watched 25th Dec 2014
15. Jurassic Park (1993) – watched 25th Dec 2014
16. Boyz n the hood (1991) – watched 25th Dec 2014
17. The lady vanishes (1938) – watched 25th Dec 2014
18. Muriel’s wedding (1994) – watched 26th Dec 2014
19. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) – watched 26th Dec 2014
20. Unforgiven (1992) – watched 26th Dec 2014
21. Spartacus (1960) – watched 27th Dec 2014
22. Whisky Galore!  (1949) – watched 27th Dec 2014
23. Red River (1948) – watched 27th Dec 2014
24. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – watched 28th Dec 2014
25. Guys and Dolls (1955) – watched 28th Dec 2014
26. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – watched 1st Jan 2015
27. Forrest Gump (1994) – watched 2nd Jan 2015
28. The Searchers (1956) – watched 3rd Jan 2015
29. Total Recall (1990) – watched 4th Jan 2015
30. Clueless (1995) – watched 10th Jan 2015
31. Beverly Hills Cop (1984) – watched 10th Jan 2015
32. Clerks (1994) – watched 11th Jan 2015
33. Pinocchio (1940) – watched 11th Jan 2015
34. Frenzy (1972) – watched 11th Jan 2015
35. Double Indemnity (1944) – watched 23rd Jan 2015
36. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) – watched 31st Jan 2015
37. The Naked Gun (1988) – watched 1st Feb 2015

Challenge 4 – 52 Weeks Decluttering My Inbox

I currently run with 4 mailboxes on a more or less daily basis:

• 1 old mailbox that is now used on websites where an email address is required but where I suspect that this will lead to spam
• 1 mailbox used for blogs where I wish to receive the updates automatically and where there is no RSS facility
• 2 mailboxes used as main accounts, where I receive email and that I use for orders etc.  I have an old address and a new one, but never made the effort of merging both

I would like to ultimately create two new addresses and stick to these only (new ones to get rid of some of the constant spam).  But before that I want to check the mails I have kept (most of them for a reason, at least at some point).  In order to get some control over volume, I created two folders in each mailbox: one called “2014” and one “Prior” in which I moved all the emails I had in numerous folders.  Here’s the scary bit…  In these 8 folders I have a total of 9196 emails, some dating way back to 2003.  I suspect most of it will go straight into the bin, however it will still be a mammoth task to check all this.  It means checking about 25 emails a day, which should be achievable, but let’s face it, I am unlikely to be willing to do this every day, and that’s not counting the new emails coming in.

So… the plan for the next 52 weeks is to prevent the situation from getting worse rather than emptying my mailboxes.  This means I will commit to emptying my inboxes every week by either answering / actioning / deleting all new emails.  If anything needs to be kept, I will set up folders that clearly indicate a date when the emails need to be reviewed and deleted if not needed any longer.  As for the “2014” and “prior” folders, I shall dedicate an hour every week to look at them and take action as per the above.