crafty mum in changing places

Little helpers on the journey

Hello there dear followers! Today I'd love to introduce to you some of my little helpers on my journey. Or should I better say secret weapons? 

Some of you asked me about how to manage three children and en ever moving household and stay sane or how I am taking some of my pictures and the like. So here are some links to people and Apps and homepages that help me on a daily basis.

I am a follower of these blogs that help me during my everyday struggle, journey, path through life:

• simple mom
• The Happiness Project
• Zen habits
• Be more with less
• Fly Lady

To record the daily happenings for later use in my project life or to remember when scrapbooking or editing photos on the computer I have been using this smart app called Day One recently:

The good thing about it is that you can set reminders throughout the day and it will just signal you from time to time that it is time to write in your journal. That is such a good thing because we know: we have all these plans but during the hassle of the everyday we tend to forget!

You can also perfectly print them out (I take a screenshot now and then) and add them to my journaling for the ongoing Project Life Album.

To help me get fit and reach my goals concerning better health and moving more I also have some helpers on the list:

• NTC Nike Training Club: This is perfect for me because I am sort of a loner and not a person who likes going to a gym. With this one I can be totally flexible and use the training intervalls whenever I have time.

This is such a great App and I love that the workout is shown in photos and you can see how much you accomplished already plus you can add your own music from your iTunes playlists.

• move more eat well with Cathy Zielske: I can combine training and healthier eating habits with scrapbooking. Who would have thought that even exists!?

An then there are the Photograpy Apps that help me a lot:

Isn't it amazing what you can do with photos without an expensive camera and equipment or enormous photography skills?

So this is part of what me keeps going every day - netwise. I did not mention any of these great blogs where I get endless inspiration about food, travel, interior decoration and life. You are following them anyhow and that could easily get redundant if I would also start it. This should be purely every day life "gear" apart from the decorative interior design world. And I did not mention books and people you can actually touch and feel - this will be another post. I just let you go here so you can explore for yourself and find out if any of them could be useful for you as well. And I maybe have forgotten some or will encounter more useful ones. I will keep track and tell you later - promised. One good thing about posting something here is also public accountability, isn't it? It helps me a lot not to get sidetracked all the time - which is so easy in the www....

See you later! Yvonne

 

 

Training for the Olympics

Living in Korea you cannot refrain from doing some sort of winter sports. I am not a huge fan of skiing . In fact I never tried and never wanted to. At first it was a matter of money for me and then I somehow disliked the whole thing that comes with it: I am neither a "we-are-all-together-in-one-tiny-hut-and-have-fun-type", nor I liked the reports of the Apres-ski-tales I was told during my time at University. Remember: I am more of a loner and a caouch potato and more into a tea time with friends or a walk than a ski outing. And my husband who practically learned walking on skis gave it up a few years ago due to the frenzy around it in the ski resorts. He keeps telling me it is not like it was in his youth. There obviously was more romanticism to it back then... So issue closed because we have been living in Mexico and the northern part of Germany for the last years. But here it is all about winter sports. it was like this and is even more due to the upcoming Olympics in Korea. 

As a child I loved ice skating. not the dancing pirouett-thing but just skating and skating for kilometers in one direction from one small village to the other in the northern part of Germany where the small rivers are frozen. That is just so wonderful. 

Here in Seoul there are two big ice rings in the middle of the city, in front of the City Hall, surrounded by the city lights and opposite a temple. That is stunning and we wanted to give it a try. We chose the evening with all its magic coming from the city lights around us.

 

So the children were on ice skates for the first time in their life and me for the first time since 28 years!!! it was a bit of a challenge but it finally worked out and we loved it. The glittering city lights, lot of young Korean couples or lovers in the rink and K-Pop yelling out loud from the speakers: so much fun!

The children were very courageous and they are learning so fast at this age. And even minus 12 degrees did not harm us.

Upon arrival at home we luckily had some pumkin soup prepared from my "soup archive" (more about that over the week end) and markus and I had the famour risoniotto I mentioned yesterday. What a treat! it is so worth trying. I had afaint idea of how it could taste but one cannot imagine the feast for the taste buds in your mouth when hitting upon these rice-shaped pasta in tangy creamy mushroom sauce..... You should give it a try!

Needless to say the children fell asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow!

I was also done but was still pondering on something I saw around lunchtime today: I went to Uniqlo to get some warm undergarments for winter for the children and me and hit upon the collaboration between Uniqulo and olra Kiely. It shouted SPRING and I wasn't in Spring mood but I think I should treat myself to one of these beauties:

 

I am torn between the orange range and the green range. Sigh....

Any hints?

Off to picking up the children from school. I will take Pauline today to a birthday party in a dog cafe ( a cafe where you can play with dogs). For people who would love to have a pet but cannot have one for some reason. This will be great for the girls. 

Over the week end I will post some links about my daily little helpers and tell you about my soup archive!

Have a great end of the week!

Yvonne