Item complete - Attend the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse (#7)

After my girlfriends piked on the proposed trip I grabbed a male mate and off we went to Melbourne!  We stayed in a backpackers for two nights and the whole trip including flights and accommodation was under $500.

 Dressed up and ready to go

 Look at all the hats and fascinators - wonder where this train is going?

At the racecourse - we later tried to go back to this stand but didn't have the right ticket.  Should have stayed since we weren't stopped the first time!

All in all it was fun, but I'm not sure I'd go again.  $75 just for general entry is a bit steep (plus the travel costs) and its hard to get a good view.  But we saw some fabulous outfits (full suits of leopard print or fluro lightning strikes, couple dressed as king and queen complete with plastic 'golden goblets' for their requisite bubbly") and while we saw lots of people who were a bit merry, we didn't see anything too messy such as young ladies vomiting on their fancy shoes like you tend to see outside our Doomben races.

And we both managed to sneak in about 350ml spirits each so we only had to buy mixers, which was wonderful given the cost of drinks :)

Item complete - Learn to make cheese (#2)

Hubby and bubby gave me a cheese making kit from Mad Millie for my birthday recently, and he'd been begging me to make halloumi cheese.  So today, that's just what I did!

It was pretty easy - heat milk, incubate for 45 minutes, cut the curd, stir gently, drain curds, press, cut and boil then salt and season.  The whole process takes about 2.5 hours.

I seasoned half with mint and half with chilli.  I think next time I'l use more salt and perhaps season with some lemon zest.

Item complete - #16 Make-over and learn to apply make up

A couple of weeks ago on a Friday after work I did a make up class at one of my favourite cosmetic stores - Gorgeous Cosmetics.  The best thing was the fee was fully redeemable in product.

We went over some colour theory, application of primers, base and powders, contouring the face with bronzers and highlighters, lining and filling lips and a number of different eye shadow looks.  I don't have all the tools and product on hand to re-create the look, and don't have the time to do so on a daily basis anyhow, but I've been able to apply some of the tips a number of times since and got a lot of compliments the following day at a birthday party I attended.

Sadly, no photos from the lesson itself but I may well upload a before and after photo another time when I have a reason to go all out on the make up front.

Item complete - See snow (#28)

We recently returned from a trip to New Zealand where we stayed in Methven and visited Mt Hutt.  THe drive up the mountain was terrifying, but the snow was worth it.  One the second trip up, we experienced snow falling, which was magical (although it made the drive much scarier!)

 My little man in the snow

 Rubbing noses

Hubby and I

Item complete - Eat at a restaurant with a AGFG Chef Hat score (#22)

When I set this item, it was inspired by a similar list on which the author had "Eat at a Michelin Starred restaurant" as an item.  In Australia, we don't have the Michelin guide, we have the Australian Good Food Guide.

Here are all the restaurants in Brisbane with AGFG awards

As it turns out, I've eaten at quite a few of them previously!  A couple have been special nights out for hubby and I (Sono, Cha Cha Char) and a few were for work functions (Restaurant Rapide, Sake, Mario at the Dining Room, Rhubarb Rhubarb, Bretts Wharf).  But I felt that ticking off an item for something done outside this 18 month challenge was cheating, and last night was our 4th wedding anniversary so off we went to Jellyfish Restaurant.

Its a lovely resturant and our waiter (Marc) was fabulous - casual, attentive but not annoying and the food came out super fast.  Hubby had whole baby barra crispy fried with a soy and spring onion sauce and it was amazing.  I was less impressed with my crumbed ocean trout pieces and yoghurt sauce, but the papaya salad we shared was great.  Hubby's dessert of croissant bread and butter pudding with salted almond ice cream and truffle custard was spectacular.  I was so full I didn't have dessert but settled for a nice liqueur.

I have another item ticked off my list too, but have to charge my camera to post about it...

Before photos of the study/craft/junk room (#27)

Here's the before photos of our study/craft/junk room so you can see the magnitude of the task ahead.

In the corner, buried by junk, is a corner piece of our couch.  On top of the basinette is a box with old bedsheets donated by my mother-in-law to my sewing projects.  By the vacuum is an overflowing basket of clothes that need to be mended or sorted into my fabric scraps and button container.

 This is my desk and bookshelf.  There's a large stack of cook books I'm getting rid of next to my desk.

Hubby and his desk.  It seems an avalance of old bags, papers and junk is always about to fall.

Progress report -

• Cleared one box worth of books and random items to go to Lifeline;
• Removed the corner couch and replaced with a free filing cabinet that we were given by Geekling's daycare;
• Filled an old laundry hamper with sheets that can be used for sewing projects and fabric scraps;
• Organised beading supplies and sewing supplies into two boxes for storage;
• Listed Geekling's old basinette and port-a-cot on ebay.  

So far we have a bit more floor space, the space looks more organised but a long way to go!

Tackling our debt (#12)

Time to confess the extent of our personal debt:
Personal loan - $38,800
Credit cards - $8,500 across 3 cards

I'm also going to cheat a little here, as I'm ignoring interest that will be charged on my loan over the next 12 months, and I'm hoping to tackle some of the credit card by rolling it into our home loan before the end of next year.  At least with the credit cards eliminated, we can't keep adding to the debt as we pay it off and end up getting no where.

So, in order to achieve #12 on The List (Get rid of our credit cards and halve our personal debt), I'll have to pay $19,400 towards the personal loan and $8,500 on the credit cards, totalling a whopping $27,900!  At first glance, that's kind of overwhelming.

How on earth will we tackle this?  To start with, I'll break it down into what of these amounts is regular payments we're already making, and what is extra that we need to try to find.

I currently pay $650 a month onto the personal loan.  Over the 18 months of the challenge, I will have paid $11,700 off our personal loan in regular payments alone.  Leaving a deficit of $7,700.  That looks much more manageable!

I am currently paying $160 a month onto a credit card (that was chopped up and thrown away when it arrived) used to purchase an appliance on interest free terms.  The interest free is for only 12 months so I have to ensure I would pay it off in that time, which finishes at the end of this year.  From then on, I will use that $160 a month to add to our personal loan payments, which over 12 months will pay an extra $1920, leaving only $5,780 to pull out of thin air.

I'm still not sure exactly how we're going to come up with that, especially as so many other items on my List will involve spending money rather than saving or making money.  I've heard that the average Australian has between $5000 and $7000 of clutter in their home that can be sold on ebay, the markets or such.  I might look for extra work outside hours.  We might try a savings plan, and put all the money we saved on that loan.  Watch out debt, here I come!