Easter renovators! Come one, come all

[HelgatheHairy]

After the brilliant success of our Christmas Countdown Princessing thread I'm starting a new thread to take us to Easter. From 1st Jan it's 108 days so there will be a countdown to this days.

This idea stems from the original princessing threads but has evolved to accommodate all aspects of beautifying, beauty, clothes, diet, exercise etc.

What we like to do is a list of what your planning on doing and working through it.

Links to follow.

OK so now I am not stuck on three hour train journey home can post my list

Exercise more..4 x 45mins a week dancing/Wii jogging zumba, kettle bell side crunches at work plus don't get lifts to/from station and work do the 25minute walk

Drink more water especially at home

Eat better ..get vitamins and stuff from food try not to have junk

Pamper myself more..but at same time get rid of all the half empty bottles in bathroom

Concentrate on purchasing and investigating wardrobe essentials rather than what I call 'kissmequixk' purchases start pinterest board

Get hair cut and eyebrows waxed

Cleanse properly

Exfoliate exfoliate exfoliate

Declutter jewellery and clothes

Get stuff drycleaned/repaired e.g Camel trench coat and Wedding ring

Marking my place for later - have started by doing my nails (OPI tickle my France-y) and am seriously considering a babyliss big hair. Just did massive clothes order (2 keepers so far and a couple more items to come). Just turned 37 and for Christmas I got white sideburns - happy to go grey gracefully I think but do need to up my game elsewhere to compensate. Also have 2st to lose, not sure at this point how serious I am about tackling that though. Will be back later to read whole thread!

Love this!

I will:

Get toned
Be more groomed (clean hair, makeup everyday etc)
Use my new Liz Earle stuff and cleanse everyday
Make time for beautification

Had my colours done before Christmas so have kind of begun the new me!

No prob anuvva muvva hopefully putting it on here will make me stuck to it:))

I'm in!

I worked out I've put on more than half a stone over Christmas, all on my middle . I have actually bought some new work clothes in the sale in the next size up

My plan

1. Eat my 5-a-day and avoid wheat which I know bloats me

1. Drink lots of water

1. Exercise with some sort of DVD till March. Chase up physio re crap tummy muscle separation also.

1. Organise my eyebrow waxing sessions for the year like I do with my hairdresser appointment.

1. Get new specs.

1. Make time to use my BBH/do my nails more.

I'm in! So by Easter I aim to ...
Join slimming world again and lose another stone and a half. I will be 10 stone by easter.
Start couch to 5k again. Use ds's kettle bells mon wed and Fri to tone up my flabby upper arms
Have a pamper night on Sunday. Do hair condition, nails.
Use my new bbh every time I wash my hair. No more Lego head for me.
Get on top of money. Meal plan, shop once a wk only. No more food or money waste
Make more time for dh. Plan a night out once a fortnight.
Make more time for me. Take time once a wk to sew.
No internet until did is in bed each evening.
Make time once a wk to do something with Ds.
Might think of more....

Lovely to see so many faces on here already! Still reading through but there are some great lists.

dili your idea of putting money aside each week for a treat at the end is a brilliant one. I am going to do likewise, but as an added incentive I am going to put in £1 to the treat kitty for every day that I make an effort.

JemimaM glitter nailpolish is the work of the devil! I do love it though

Yay to there being lots of other shredders and 5:2ers - fabulous!

I have wrecked my nails over Christmas. I put on 'hard as wraps' to try and strengthen them, and it made them go all white below the quick and now they are cracked and broken. Won't be using that again!

I have found my list from when I started on the last thread. I am going to modify it a bit to make it more manageable!

Health
-1-2 litres of water each day - seriously need to increase water intake
-No alcohol for 5 days each week, no boozing it up on 'allowed' days
-Take vitamins every day
-One early night each week (minimum)
-Give up one naughty item - chocolate bars at work - never used to do this before!

Fitness/weight
-Shred/6wk6pk/other dvd 5 x per week
-5:2 diet

Face, Body & Hair
-Weekly use of full range of Anew face and eye products
-Use hair oil
-Use hair dryer & straighteners at least once a week
-Defuzz in shower every time
-Full body exfoliate at least once a week
-Full body moisturise at least once a week

De-Frumping
-Continue to dress for the job I want, not the job I have
-Nail varnish at least 5 days a week
-Try out different hair styles
-Try at least one new 'thing' a fortnight

Home Organisation
-Get back to flylady basics (swish & swipe, daily laundry, daily decluttering)

I missed that it was your birthday yesterday Helga!! I hope you had a lovely day of reading and relaxing (p.s. did you get your necklace?)

My washer glass is due to arrive between 11am and noon today (bit precise eh? )so by tomorrow I will have some of my smarter clothes clean and dried to wear...meant to be going to town this morning but still feeling a bit blah & seem to have a dodgy tum so am going to set an alarm for tomorrow instead.

I'll be back later on...dp is on afters so am updating/re-writing lists tonight once I water change the big fish tank.

Hello & welcome to all newcomers too

(I haven't rtft so apologies if I missed anything important)

Need to work on my list!

Losing 5 stone by Easter might be pushing it .......

Belated Happy Birthday Helga!

Braved the scales this morning, 2lb Christmas weight gain. Which is less than I'd expected. Have reset my goals on MFP as my new job is more sedentary than my old one and I need to make sure I'm not eating too much. I haven't logged for months as I was maintaining quite well, but I am going to start again.

I use Pinterest by having two style boards, an "ideas" one where I pin outfits I've seen and like and an "in my wardrobe" one where I try to pin everything that I buy. I then use Polyvore to put different combinations of clothes together as outfits and then pin those. Except that my laptop keeps freezing everytime I try to clip things to Polyvore at the moment, so it isn't working very well. I will have to work it out on my phone instead.

Lucysmam - I once had a delivery scheduled for between 8:10am and 5:25pm. I loved the precision of being totally imprecise

So, my goals:

1. Weight: I have a good 10kg to lose, probably more like 15-20 if I'm honest. I'm alternating between considering the 5:2 or going back to WW or something else altogether. I'm a comfort/boredom eater which doesn't help.

1. Exercise - 4 times a week of "proper" exercise, plus dance class once a week from February and walk as much as possible.

1. Beauty - ok, I really struggle here. So...

- cleanse, tone, moisturise, plus sunscreen. - defuzz in every shower (impossible at moment due to massive insect bites everywhere - putting a razor near my legs would be a disaster!) - my feet need some serious attention, so foot cream every night and scrub/skin removal any night DH is working - eyebrows. Keep them in order and go back for threading as needed

1. Hair - another area of serious work. It looked great for all of 30 minutes today and the frizz took over. I'm committing myself to trying something new once a week (or for a week depending on what I'm trying) and reporting back to you on how it's going

1. House defrumping - I've started looking into Unfuck your habitat ( there's a thread on here about it ) and it seems to be right up my alley (I don't get on with flylady) so shall see if my house can be defrumped along with me

1. And finally ... more water, regular vitamins, less chocolate, less alcohol.

I think that just about covers it. At this rate I may actually be looking half decent for my graduation! (There's nothing in here about clothes, I know. I'm going to add some clothes goals once the weight loss and beauty stuff starts (hopefully) kicking in!

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I had a lovely day and got to have a lovely bath.

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow . My dentist is lovely but still don't like going.

Hi Helga, happy belated birthday! Yep it's my first so I may not be around much while I struggle the first few weeks!

My list when I get to it is:

Carry on with skincare routine (actually the one thing I stick to)

Continue to drink more water/less fizzy drinks

Start to use sunscreen abd eye cream daily

Use my make up, I have lots of lovely stuff which I would keep for good but I need to just use it regularly

Have a post pregnancy wardrobe cull and buy a few more good quality basics

Get back into oiling hair at least twice a week

Get another nano keratin

Some great lists, will nosy through for further inspiration

I have defrumped my house ready for the New Year today . Took down most of the Christmas decorations so that I could clean properly, although the tree, cards and Christmas flowers are still up. Much as I like Christmas there was just too much stuff everywhere. And I am getting really fed up of hoovering up pine needles! I also sorted out my wardrobe and got rid of the clothes that are too big for me in order to make room to store the ones that do properly.

Popped to town and went into Monsoon, where I saw some lovely trousers and a cardi half price in the sale, but I really can't afford to buy any more. I have a pair of boots and a skirt for work yet to be delivered from M&S, but after that my credit card is being hidden in a safe place so that I can't spend on it! I did buy 2 pairs of earrings in there though, total spend £5. I also went to Superdrug and bought some Multivitamins.

All good, but on the bad side I ate pate on toast followed by a mince pie with brandy cream for lunch, and have drunk more lemonade than water. Clearly still some work to do...

Hi all,

Bit more time to chat today, DH asleep on the sofa and pup asleep on my feet.

Going to steal ideas from people above, so apologise for plagiarism now!

Health
-1-2 litres of water each day - seriously need to increase water intake, I was very good when I did ivf last year but hardly drink it all now.
-No alcohol - going to do dry January, then only drink max of two days a week
-Take vitamins every day
-no more than one takeaway a week.

Fitness/weight
-Shred 4 * per week
-PT once a week
-Paleo diet

Face, Body & Hair
-Continue face routine, use up products and only replace with good quality (Hiron recommendations)
-Continue hair product usage.
-Style hair at least once a week.
-Hair treatment at least weekly
-home facial weekly/salon facial once every six weeks.
-eye brow wax monthly, pluck weekly
-other facial hair veet weekly
-lady area wax every 3 weeks
-epilate legs weekly
-gel nails every 2 weeks
-pedicure monthly
-Full body exfoliate every other day.
-Full body moisturise daily.
-weekly teeth whitening.
-floss, mouthwash nightly.

De-Frumping
-Wear matching undies
-wear non slob clothes when DH comes home.
-Continue to wear or throw everything in wardrobe.

Home Organisation
-Washing daily
-at least an hour of housework per day
-finish ensuite.
-finish bedroom
-finish little loo
-make decision on extention or moving

Relationships
-weekly date night
-kiss dh in the morning and when he gets home.
-see a friend weekly.
-text/call all friends weekly.
-see Nan once monthly.
-do something for Sunday lunch each week, friends/family.

• rest tbc.

Blimey Karbea that's a huge list!

Steady progress so far - have eaten to plan today! Also got bargain 2 bras and matching knickers in the M&S sale for £16 and did a bra intervention on a colleague and a random pregnant lady who was looking to get fitted . If you haven't already seen this take a look at the better bra campaign

Shattered after working late so won't manage DVD today.

Yes doesn't mean ill keep to it, not starting anything till jan 1st and most when DH goes back to work.

I'm back in having fallen off again

Will have a rethink of my list - although first is to recover from the nasty cough / laryngitis I've had over Christmas (both DDs also have it which is even worse)

So will crack on when back to health.

Reading other people's lists has reminded me of other stuff I need to add.

My revised list:

• lose the weight that I have put on over Christmas is actually only 2lbs but my jeans are feeling tight and I feel like a sloth
• eat healthily - lean protein, lots of fruit and veg, plenty of water
• cleanse and moisturise properly every day
• keep up "maintenance" with regular appointments for hair, nails, waxing, facials etc.
• not buy any more clothes for at least a month (I have hit the sales quite heavily in preparation for my new job) but find interesting ways of putting the clothes I have together
• exercise (probably walking, swimming and yoga as running has been banned by my GP due to a trapped nerve in my back) at least 3 times a week.
• take vitamins daily.
• date night with DH once a month starting this one on a high with a weekend away at a posh hotel at the beginning of Feb
• keep on top of the housework by doing a little bit every day when I get home from work. Don't let clutter build up!

I am having an evening of reading magazines as both my subscription ones came in the post this morning. I have a subscription to Top Sante and my mum bought me a subscription to Red for Christmas. Lots of articles about turning over a new leaf for 2014 to inspire me! Have also filed and painted my nails with some Rimmel strengthening base coat and slathered on some Lush handcream that I got half price in the sales.

I'm in!

This year I'm going to:

Stop shaving and get full-leg and Brazilian waxes regularly again

Get a consultation for Invisalign or Damon clear braces

Grow my eyebrows thicker

Get right back down to 55kg and stay there! I achieved 55.8 in oct 2013 and haven't weighed self since

Ooh and bike to work 3x pw min and do Bikram every weekend. And drink more water!!!

Ah, Blondie's post reminds me that I want to add the bra thing to my list. You know, actually where one that fits.

First delivery of sale purchases arrived today. 2 dresses, 2 skirts, 2 tops and 3 cardigans. Everything fit except one of the skirts, so sent that back. Pleased at first, but then later on seized by a panic that I don't know what I'm doing and will look ridiculous. It would help if I had a mirror I think. Must buy one.

Have started setting an alarm from tomorrow morning, giving me time to do the planking challenge and get more organised with housework....plus preparing for going back to work.

Also going to nick Karbea's matching knickers thing. Like that one.

Brilliant to see so many people on the thread, some familiar names from the earlier thread and some new ones. Some fantastic ideas on the lists as well as the originals that Helga posted on earlier renovation threads, so apologies now if I pinch any of them! I also reserve the right to add in extra things if I read something somewhere that I think will help me get back to the old me.

Right, finally got some spare time to post my list, so here goes:

On a daily/weekly/monthly basis I will:

• substitute water for tea as much as possible (healthier and I am a total tea-face).
• aim for a healthy well balanced diet for good health and weight loss.
• follow my weight loss diet and if I have a bad day and fall off the wagon, not beat myself up about it, but carry on the next day and keep in mind the 'big picture'.
• vitamins and/or perfectil for hair, nails and teeth.
• style my hair properly each day, wear make-up and perfume and aim for a well groomed appearance as opposed to the hit and miss approach I have now.
• some exercise daily, walking, swimming, dvd or whatever suits as long as I get moving!
• 2 servings of fatty fish per week/5 servings of fruit/veg daily (this is one from original list posted by Helga)
• exfoliate/moisturise/body brush/de-fuzz/maintain eyebrows as required
• floss daily (can't use whiteners as have sensitive teeth since having DCs) and use mouthwash
• regular bedtimes and regular time to get up and ideally, one early night a week
• nail care - my nails are in dreadful condition, so need to get them back into tip-top condition, hopefully Perfectil will help and then I can aim for beautiful neat shapely nails
• beauty salon for treatments - will probably do some as rewards for good weight loss as well as going for eyebrows, eyelash tints, pedicures, manicures, facials etc. I will not feel guilty at spending time and money on myself for a change!
• organise a capsule wardrobe including accessories (jewellery, scarves, hats, gloves) so that I can get ready quickly in the morning and look neat and 'put together' as I know everything will mix and match and will be appropriate for the day ahead. I will not wear the same type of things two days running!!!
• put out my clothes and accessories the night before - I do it for the kids, so why not do it for myself???
• regular haircuts I already do and have recently had hair cut into a flattering style, but possibly salon colouring rather than home colouring (finance permitting!).
• be ruthless when sorting out wardrobe and get rid of clothes and accessories that no longer suit me, are appropriate to my life now or no longer fit me.
• allow myself some mini-treats for achieving a goal, like a nice lipstick or nail polish if I have a good week of weight loss.
• try to be more positive and pro-active about things and get confidence back, which hopefully should increase as I start to look after me for a change instead of everyone else and put my needs last
• accept that some relationships/friendships are toxic and move on, try to surround myself with positive people rather than 'drains' who just want a shoulder to cry on and don't learn from their mistakes
• learn some new make-up techniques as I fear my style may be dated now as I haven't worn make-up regularly for some time, plus as I am now older, need to know some tricks of the trade to enhance or disguise signs of ageing. May book a make-up lesson at the beauty salon or go to one of the make-up counters like Bobbi Brown as I probably need some new make-up too, on thinking about it. Want a good natural looking day-time look and an evening look with minimal effort and items don't have loads of time to get ready.

I also aim to 'princess' the house too - a huge clear out and clean up programme, so will be looking at fly lady and other threads on MN to help. Hopefully there will be extra calories burned up in the process!!

Oops, don't want to enhance signs of ageing, missed a word or two out, as I want to enhance my best features and disguise signs of ageing!!!

Hello I marked my place earlier and am back now - is it ok to join you?

As per my PP I am getting a bit older (37), have gained weight gradually over the last few years and all my clothes are minging.

So I resolve to:

Wear the new stuff I have received/ordered. All from Phase Eight, no idea whether that is acceptable here in S&B (this is not my natural habitat!) but I like it! So far have 2 dresses (may send one back) and 2 tops. Have rediscovered a pair of jeans and a pair of ankle boots I've hardly worn. More tops and jeggings (again no idea if these are ok, but I am thinking in terms of more substantial leggings to wear with knee high boots - please advise!) on way now.

Wear makeup every day. I do usually but I do get lazy give my skin a day off once a week or so. However I look washed out without makeup nowadays so I need to wear it daily. Am currently using BB cream, eyebrow pencil/tint from soap and glory, light brownish (quite subtle and natural) eyeshadow, mascara, blusher and an Une tinted lip balm. This prevents any of my facial features becoming invisible.

Hair - considering splashing out on a BBH - someone please persuade me to go for it! Having recently spotted my first white hair, over Christmas I have suddenly developed white sideburns - think I am ok with that provided I can stick to makeup as described - will review later in 2014!

Weight... well, I need a kick up the bum on this one TBH. First thing I need to do I think is be more active. Will come back to this one later.

StyleOverSubstance your epic post has just appeared whilst I am typing and I now feel I need to consider many other areas too!