Marcia Francois's Blog, page 53

I finally Konmari’d my nail polish

It surprised me, actually, how difficult it was to tidy my nail polish. Tidy is the word Marie Kondo uses to sort/ declutter/ organise.

Yes, all those bottles spark joy but even I can hear that’s stretching it, just a bit

Make your life easier

I’m mostly an under-buyer. This means that in most cases, I avoid buying something until the existing thing is completely beyond repair.

(We had our old lounge suite for over 20 years!)

My mouse fell to the ground and became temperamental, as in all the right-click functions no longer worked so I had to use the mousepad to do those things.

That’s what made me cave and buy a mouse. A wireless mouse!

I said on Instagram that the whole world should be wireless

I made a list of a few small th...

Let’s talk about toys and kid clutter

When we were on holiday in Pringle Bay, I didn’t have to say once, “go make your beds” and so I
said to them one day, “what’s going on, guys?” and they said this….. wait for it….

It’s easy to make our beds and keep our rooms clean because we only have 1 teddy bear.

(Yes, I’m that mom. They’re allowed one small backpack for activity pads, colouring pencils and a teddy bear)


That was the one thing.

Then we went to visit our friends, the Se7en gang. They’re a family of 10 and so they keep thei...

Using your social media time for your hobbies

Early last month when everyone was posting about goals and words of the year, and new year stuff, I saw this pic linked by, I think Becky Higgins of Project Life fame.

I went to have a read further and I tell you I was shocked and inspired and rapped over the knuckles in all the good ways.

Do you see those 12 albums?

This lady did all of those albums in one year.

Amazing, right?

What’s even more amazing is that she used those bits of time every day when she used to take out her phone and scr...

What I learnt from my R600 mistake

When we were on our holiday last month, we went to the beach for our (as it happens) first photowalk of the year.

Behold the beauty…

It was right when I was taking this set of photos that my battery light began flashing. I carried on taking pictures while I made a mental note to charge the camera once we were back at the house.

OH MY WORD.

And then it hit me – I didn’t pack the charger. Panic!

I used a different bag to pack all my cables and chargers so I didn’t notice that the bag was light...

My favourite kids stationery – part 2

This is part 1.

I loved all the comments on that post – have a read if you like stationery.

But for now, let’s talk about a part 2.

Scissors

Particularly, left-handed scissors. I have a leftie and Staedtler makes these wonderful scissors (or so I’m told). They’re about R15 at CNA when they’re not on sale. I love that they look different to the right-handed ones.

My kids also like to play with craft scissors. I bought this pack of 6 about 5 years ago, and they’re still going strong. These...

Boundaries for working at home

My preference, as I’ve mentioned before, is a nice clear boundary between work and life.

That’s not always possible because the emails pile up if I’ve been out of the office too much, or if I need quiet, concentrated work time to write reports and such.

Which means I then occasionally work at home after supper.

However, I’m the type of person who could work too much once I get started. There’s also the lure of the internet so things might take longer than they need to.

I came up with a great...

It’s Valentine’s week so let’s talk teachers’ gifts

My kids are in Grade 1 this year. Tell me, is it still the done thing to give the teachers a little gift?

We made a few gifts yesterday just in case it is still the done thing because this big school business is something we haven’t remotely figured out yet.

Here are 3 very quick and easy ideas if you do want little gifts for teachers, friends, etc.

Last year we gave each of the teachers a big glass jar full of pink and white marshmallows. I don’t have photos but they were very well received...

My current 5 favourite stationery finds

Today let’s talk about my favourite 5 stationery finds.

I have written about three of these on the blog before but it’s nice to know if someone is still using the thing they recommended two years ago, isn’t it?

Right, let’s get to it:

Pentel 0.7 mm liquid gel pens

I spoke about them here and I included one in each Let’s Do This workshop pack, and the delegates agreed with me – these are indeed the best pens in the world.

I still love them.

Warning – if you use them at work, label your p...

8 interesting talking points in “I know how she does it”

This is part 3; here is part 1 and here is part 2.

Women typically make their lives more difficult than they need by not using their affluence.

In South Africa, I think if you can afford it, most people happily have a domestic worker. I’m not sure many of us have hang-ups about using the money we have to make our lives easier. Agree? Disagree?

I think in cases where we “make our lives more difficult” it’s because of our values coming into play. An example of mine is how I personally made a...