Cupcakes and Cadenzas

Firstly I must apologise for this post being posted on a Sunday when it's clearly meant to be a Friday post. Last week just flew past. I spent all day Friday thinking it was only Thursday, and yesterday - once I had convinced myself it wasn't Friday - I was away all day buying some pictures from a gallery and got back much later than expected however, here goes with Filofax Friday Sunday. I thought today I would show you how I have set up my Siena Filofax which I use to organise my personal life. I've been using the Siena for about 7 months now and still love it. As you can see it's stuffed full of bits and pieces that I know I will need and I also put everything in the front that I need to remember to use such as vouchers, tax disc to go on my horse box, cheque book etc. In the card section I keep the cards like loyalty point cards and behind that I keep any gift cards that I have so that they're always with me. Then I have my sticky tags and post it notes

I was recently contact by a friend who had just found out about my 2012 reading challenge. She asked if I would be interested in reading the book that she had recently had published. Of course I jumped at the chance!! This book is a collaboration between Marilyn (Baker) and her friend Sheila (Barclay), hence Barclay Baker, and is a first for both of them. It is aimed at 9-12 year olds and I would say that although 9-12 years old will love it, older children (teenagers) will find it entertaining too. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm no teenager...no...really! The tagline for the book is 'a tale of magic, mystery and mayhem' and that's exactly what you get. The story starts off with the prologue which contains a bit of a shocker and continues to romp along at a great pace. Take three children, a dog, some police officers and man-eating crocodile. Add a scientist, some worried parents and a kidnap victim. Imagine visiting Edinburgh, Dundee and another magical land tha

The gorgeous Bloomsbury Last week I explained how I planned to use three Filofaxes to keep me organised this year but it's now looking as though I might have found a way to incorporate a fourth! Yay!! In the Filofax Germany sale last year, one of the Filofaxes I bought was a personal sized, tomato Bloomsbury. I love this Filofax and have wondered for a while how I could use it. It's a stunning colour (it really is the colour of tomatoes), it's very lightweight and it has the most amazing leather smell although it still doesn't beat my Siena. Sorry Bloomsbury! This year, as you know, I have set myself a reading challenge; if you haven't already read about it you can read about it here .  A lovely lady called Sara commented on my reading challenge and told me that she keeps a record of all the books she has read and liked in two Domino Filofaxes. I think this is a fantastic idea and now I am going to start doing this too. It's a great way to put the Bloomsbur

Do you ever feel stressed out, frustrated and generally annoyed at everyone and everything around you? I certainly do and I'm quite sure that I'm not the only one who feels like that from time to time but is there a way to avoid feeling that or to somehow turn your feelings around? Well...I do believe that meditation is the answer. The only thing is that it's not as easy as it sounds and requires a fair bit of work to get it right. I went into it with my eyes closed - no pun intended - and thought that all you had to was sit quietly, clear your mind of all thoughts and then 15 minutes later everything would be fine again. Have you ever tried to clear your mind of all thoughts? The minute I start concentrating on clearing all thoughts from my mind, every thought I've ever had starts crowding in to my head, all clamouring for attention. I realised what Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty must have gone through when he began to hear everyone's prayers. I suppose it'

One down, only forty nine to go!  My 2012 reading challenge is now officially underway and I have just finished my first book 'Twelve Days of Christmas' by Trisha Ashley. I have to say I really enjoyed reading this book and although it's a Christmas story I would have enjoyed it just as much at any other time of the year. 'Holly Brown is a young widow. It's Christmastime and she's just lost her grandmother who brought her up, as her mother died giving birth to her, at Christmas. A few years ago Holly's husband, Alan, was killed in a tragic accident also around Christmastime and so, understandably, it's not her favourite time of year. As a professional house-sitter Holly is asked to look after a remote house on the Lancashire moors over the Christmas and New Year period and she agrees to do this as she feels it will get her away from all the festivities. She takes with her the journal that her grandmother had written as a young girl. She feels th

As many of you know, I love Filofaxes, and so I thought that I would make Fridays my day for posting about...wait for it...Filofaxes, hence the name 'Filofax Friday'! Because it's the start of a new year I thought today I would do a quick post on how I'm going to use my Filofaxes this year and which ones I will be using. This year, I am going to be running three separate Filofaxes. I usually run two - one personal and one for work - but because I have a new business about to launch I will be using a third organiser to keep me on track with that. As I work from home anyway all I have to do is look at each one first thing every morning and I immediately know where I have to be and what needs to be done. So, the first Filofax I will be using is my personal espresso Siena which I bought last year and I absolutely love. Despite having bought several (yes several) new personal sized Filofaxes last year, the Siena is still my favourite and so I will continue to use it t

So another year has gone and a lovely fresh new year stretches ahead. As I said in yesterday's post I love the start of a new year and the chance to set some new challenges and goals. I also love reading and I probably read about 30 books last year and so I decided to set myself a new blog challenge. I am going to read 50 books in 2012! My sister did point out that 50 is quite a lot (roughly 1 per week) but I feel if a challenge is too easy then it's not worth doing and if I managed 30 last year, then 50 this year should be manageable. I also intend to review each book as I finish it and then post the review on here. I like reading book reviews. They help me to decide whether I will read a book or not and I hope my reviews will help others to decide whether or not they would like to read a particular book. Although the reviews will show up here I will also have a separate page (2012 Reading Challenge) with all the books listed on it and a link to the relevant review. I

So, here we are in 2012 and I would like to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year! I have to say that I love the start of a new year. I always feel as though it's a chance to start again with a clean slate - a chance to have another shot at achieving the things I didn't manage to achieve last year. However, this year I've decided to make slightly different resolutions. Usually I make the same old ones that I'm sure most people make i.e. eating more healthily or getting more exercise or being a better, more tolerant person, etc. etc. This year I've decided to make my resolutions more tangible. I want to be more active where social networking is concerned (Twitter, Facebook and Google+). I want to spend a lot more time working on my blogs (I have to admit that things fell by the wayside last year) and, of course, for those of you who follow this blog you will know that I am in the process of setting up my new paper art business 'Handmade by Yvie&#