Oh yes I know you have eagerly been waiting for this blog post to appear! Hello to these little bundles of cuteness for May!
Miss Dotty says…thank you (and why a gratitude list is great)
10 AprI am a very lucky Miss Dotty. On those grumpy days I will often write a gratitude list to show that actually life isn’t that bad. And little things happen that make me think how lucky I am. There are some people that keep a gratitude journal daily and I think that is such a positive way to go and something I would love to try.
But on to the purpose of this post. Today I want to show my gratitude and thanks to people over the past few weeks.
As some of you who follow me on Twitter may know just before Christmas my lovely Micra was written off as someone drove into the back of my car. I was parked at a red light and they just didn’t stop. I was shaken up and fine and my first thoughts were that the car was a little dented but looked like it would be fixable. So I put a claim in and my insurance company came to do an assessment of the car. A few days later I hadn’t heard anything so I gave them a ring and was told my car had been written off! Thanks for telling me lovelies! To cut a long story short it took weeks and the money I got for my car was not very much. During that time I was very grateful to my wonderful school who were amazingly supportive and my colleague H and Mr Dotty who gave me lifts to work when the hire car went back. But getting a new car meant I had to make some cutbacks money wise so I had to pull in the purse strings and save some money where I could. And here comes my first thank you.
One night after a lovely night out at a friends having dinner I arrived home to find a package waiting for me. A Crafty Creatives box. I had been enjoying their boxes of crafty goodies for a few months and reluctantly had to cancel so I was surprised to see it. When I opened it this was the message I saw taped to the front.
When I cancelled my subscription I joked on Twitter to Claire from Claireabellemakes that I bet the next box would be dots. The lovely Crafty Creatives ladies had obviously seen this tweet and yes the next box was dots! So they very kindly sent me the box as a gift with this little note. Now that is customer care and I want to thank you Crafty Creatives for your loveliness.
I cannot wait to renew my subscription, the boxes are packed with such lovely crafty goodies!
My other notes of thanks are much quicker you will be pleased to know! Firstly to Mum Dotty for this lovely necklace she got me as gift. It is so gorgeous and I will wear it with pride and as a reminder of how fab she is.
Secondly thank you to Claire who got me this card. I loved how she prefaced it with ‘I know it’s not your birthday but…’ Yes you are seeing this right. Dots AND hamsters! There is some debate over whether it is a hamster or guinea pig but the label on the back says hamster and that is what we are going with!
And finally thank you to family and friends, online and off who have listened to me going on about my crochet progress. ‘Yes!’ they must cheer when I post yet another picture of my crochet progress. Not.
Actually this is the finally. Finally thank you to all those people who offered their showers whilst our landlady gets our bathroom refitted. We really appreciate your offers of help.
So thank you for reading this snapshot of why I am grateful and want to say thank you to those around me.
Does anyone keep a gratitude journal or list? Do you have a special notebook? A section in your Filofax? Keep it within your regular journal? Please share in the comments below and feel to leave a link to your own blog posts on the subject!
Take care,
Miss Dotty
x
New Filofax Set Up- Pennybridge A5
2 AprEver since I have been knee high to a donkey I have always been on the quest for two things. The perfect handbag and the perfect organisational system. Over the years I have tried numerous Filofaxes, diaries, Moleskines, online systems and homemade planners. None have worked for long. My drawers are cluttered with half filled out diaries or Filofax inserts and my to do lists are strewn everywhere! However I have used the start of the holidays to start my grand organisation project.
1) Declutter and organise the house.
2) Find a planning system that works!
More on 1 tomorrow (just how do I organise all my craft clutter and teaching stuff?!) but today I want to share how I have set up my A5 Pennybridge. I have always been a fan of Filofaxes and part of my stationery geekiness has me regularly reading Filofax blogs looking for inspiration for the perfect set up. It was whilst reading some blogs that I saw people sharing the gorgeous A5 Holborn Zip. I completely fell in love with it (cue eye rolling from readers lol!) and so I searched around Cambridge (secretly knowing it was a bit above my budget but I wanted to see if it was as lovely in real life) but to no avail. Filofax and planner fans will know I am sure about the search for ‘one’ that will make everything work.
This is the personal sized. Image taken from Filofax UK
Instead of finding that I instead found the Pennybridge A5. Cheaper and purple, it had the zip I wanted so much. The Pennybridge is designed for those with iPads but I have adapted it slightly. So here is the tour! (apologies for the pictures, I still have to use my phone as a camera and the light is rubbish at the moment. Come on Spring!)
On the right is the space to slip your iPad in.
However I have instead used it to house my Moleskine week on a page diary. I love this diary so much and had been using it to record books read but instead thought I could use it as my day to day planner. When I don’t want to take my Filofax out and about I can just take this and still have my appointments with me.
I also have room for a little plastic wallet for stickers and post it notes!
The actual Filofax binder is fully removable so I can slip it out and work without the main binder itself being in the way.
At the front I have a year to view planner so I can see everything at a glance. This is a new way of working for me and I think it is great, why didn’t I do it before!
The actual Filofax diary inserts are now to be used as my to do lists. I used to have my appointments and to do list in one place but my to do lists get so large that everything was becoming confused so now it is separated out.
Then I have separate divided sections for personal stuff, school, WI etc to keep it all organised and in one place. And importantly I can move things about, get rid of things easily which helps in the organisation!
And so that is it so far! I will probably keep tweaking for a while but at the moment I am feeling confident that this can work.
However if an A5 Holborn Zip appeared as if by magic…well it would be love instantly!
Do you use a Filofax? If so what size have you gone for? If not what do you use as a planner? Please share below!
Miss Dotty
x
Miss Dotty doesn’t love…April Hamster
1 Apr
It is monthly hamster time and I am sorry but this month I am not feeling the love for Mr April!
Love Books? World Book Day Plea!
5 Mar
Howdie!
My day job is teaching awesome children and sharing my passion for books. On Thursday it is World Book Day and I am leading a whole school assembly. I have a very quick plea! As part of my assembly I would like to share pictures of people reading books in different places, the stranger the better! You do not have to show your face if you do not want to! If you think you will be able to help please feel free to email me on missdottyuk AT gmail DOT com or tweet me on @PolkaDotty_Me.
Thanks if you are able to help me and the kids out!
Miss Dotty
CamBlogMeet
4 MarIt was with great excitement that I saw a while ago some tweets between Rachel from OhNoRachio and Claire from Claireabellemakes about a blogger meet up in Cambridge. As the weeks went by more and more people said they were coming and finally on Saturday the day had arrived! It was a bright and sunny day as I left to meet up with butterfly_craft beforehand and we made our way to Ta Bouche where the meet up was going to start. Claire arrived and we quickly helped her set out the goody bags. Thank you to all the sponsors for their generosity and you can check out Claire’s blog post here to find out more about the sponsors. I was particularly pleased to add to my dotty collection with a ring from Claire and a cute little bag from Crafty Creatives. (Talking of Crafty Creatives check back later in the week when I share just how awesome Crafty Creatives are!)
(sorry for the blurry image!)
People started arriving and we donned stickers with our names on and got chatting! It was so lovely to meet some new local bloggers and also those that had come from further afield! The staff at Ta Bouche were really friendly and I soon consumed two delicious berry smoothies and this tasty steak and chips with a peppercorn brandy sauce. Yum!
After chatter, photographs and food we went on a walk around Cambridge. A few shops were visited, more pictures taken and we took a quick peek into Trinity College.
As you can see the sun was shining! I left the remaining ladies shortly after but if you check out the #CamBlogMeet hashtag I am sure they will be blogging soon and will share their versions of the day!
Thanks ladies!
Miss Dotty
