Project Playlist

Music is an important factor in your mood, it can be relaxing, energising or inspiring. Throughout this project I have been adding songs to a playlist on YouTube that I named ‘You can do it! Do what you’ve always dreamed about!’ to help get us through the low days.

One of the tasks on my Day Zero 101 list was to get the playlist up to 101 inspirational songs , which I’ve finally done – with Ryan’s help of course. See Day Zero blog post for what the project is about and my full to-do list.

It is an eclectic mix of music for sure, from Rock, Pop, Garage, Dance, Happy Hardcore, New Age and even some Classical movie themes. I must say now though that for some reason I’ve never been a fan of the film Rocky, so there’s no Eye of the Tiger in this list I'm afraid if you were hoping for it!

See below for the YouTube link and list of tracks, put it on while you work on your current project and see what happens for you – there is nearly 7 hours of inspiration in there! All of these songs have either taught us a lesson, helped us get back up and carry on when we were down, or just remind us of a happy time and deal an awesome mood so I hope they help you too. J 

Leave a comment here on the blog if you discover any that you like - it would be nice to know we've helped someone out somehow!

1. This Time - The Verve
2. Bornslippy - Underworld
3. What a Wonderful World - Eva Cassidy
4. You're Free - Yomanda
5. Chariots of Fire - Vangelis
6. Follow Me - Uncle Kracker
7. Beautiful Day - U2
8. Tubthumping - Chumbawamba
9. True Colours - Eva Cassidy
10. Tonight, Tonight - The Smashing Pumpkins
11. Today - The Smashing Pumpkins
12. Perfect -  The Smashing Pumpkins 
13. The Mission theme - Ennio Moricone
14. Lucky You - The Lightning Seeds
15. The Last of the Mohicans music - Trevor Jones & Randy Edelman
16. Everything Will Be All Right - The Killers
17. Wherever You Will Go - The Calling
18. That's What Makes the World Go Round - Sword in the Stone song
19. Thank You - Alanis Morisette
20. Devotion - Sy & Demo
21. Open Your Eyes - Snow Patrol
22. This Isn't Everything You Are - Snow Patrol
23. Raindrops & Sunshowers - The Smashing Pumpkins
24. If It Makes You Happy - Sheryl Crow
25. She's a Rebel - Greenday
26. I'm Raving - Scooter
27. Yeha Noha (Wishes of Happiness & Prosperity) - Sacred Spirit
28. I Want to Break Free - Queen
29. We Are The Champions - Queen
30. Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
31. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
32. Twenty Years - Placebo 
33. Running Up That Hill - Placebo
34. Passive Aggressive - Placebo
35. Battle for the Sun - Placebo
36. Between Angels and Insects - Papa Roach
37. Fukin' Perfect - Pink
38. Heaven is a Halfpipe - OPM
39. I Don't Wanna Be - Gavin Degraw (One Tree Hill)
40. Good Life - One Republic
41. Wonderwall - Oasis
42. Always Love - Nada Surf
43. Uprising - Muse
44. Time Is Running Out - Muse
45. Invincible - Muse
46. Feeling Good - Muse
47. We Are All Made of Stars - Moby
48. Lift Me Up - Moby
49. I'll Bring You Flowers - Sweet Female Attitude
50. The Voyager - Mike Oldfield
51. Beat It - Michael Jackson 
52. Breaking The Habit - Linkin Park
53. The One - Limp Bizkit
54. Stronger - Kanye West
55. I can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash
56. Imagine - John Lennon
57. The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
58. Dirt Off Your Shoulder - Jay Z
59. You Can Do It - Ice Cube
60. Singing In The Rain - Gene Kelly
61. Warning - Green Day 
62. Minority - Greenday
63. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Greenday
64. Now We Are Free - Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard (Gladiator)
65. Dreams - Gabrielle
66. Break Out - Foo Fighters
67. Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
68. Tender - Feeder
69. Tell All Your Friends - Feeder
70. Seven Days In The Sun -  Feeder 
71. Just a Day -  Feeder 
72. Forget About Tomorrow -  Feeder 
73. Buck Rogers -  Feeder 
74. Comfort in Sound -  Feeder 
75. Reverance - Failthless
76. Mass Destruction - Faithless
77. Over The Rainbow - Eva Cassidy 
78. Long Long Journey - Enya
79. Wild Child - Enya
80. Return To Innocence - Enigma
81. Lose Yourself - Eminem
82. Don't Stop - Fleetwood Mac
83. I'm No Angel - Dido
84. One Way or Another - Blondie (Coyote Ugly)
85. Colours of the Wind - Pocahontas song
86. We Made It - Busta Rhymes & Linkin Park
87. Another Green World - Brian Eno 
88. 'Freedom' The Execution Bannoburn - James Horner (Braveheart)
89. Born This Way - Lady Gaga
90. Born Free - Matt Monro
91. It's My Life - Bon Jovi
92. Song 2 - Blur
93. Coffee & TV - Blur
94. Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head - BJ Thomas
95. Bare Necessities - The Jungle Book
96. Pure Shores - All Saints
97. You Learn - Alanis Morisette
98. Hand in my Pocket -  Alanis Morisette
99. Everything -  Alanis Morisette
100. Try Again - Aaliyah 
101. Everyday Is a Winding Road - Sheryl Crow

Flooring, floods and filters

Wow, I can't actually believe that my last post was about the Jubilee weekend! Sorry everyone :-/

I've been so busy recently but, unfortunately for Waki, with almost everything but the refurb! The main reason is that I've had the last 3 weekends completely hijacked by major local events where I have been volunteering for St John Ambulance, and my last day off work was used for doing the Swan hotels chalk boards again, though I have thoroughly enjoyed it all.

The fresh water tank in place under the sofa

So what have we done since the last post...?

We now have nice new vinyl flooring in the living area, which extends under the sofa and meant that the water tank could go back into place - though we still need to get ourselves a nice new filler pipe as the old one is definitely past it!

Wickes Beech wood-effect vinyl flooring

Ryan completed this task, glueing it all down with some particularly messy flooring adhesive which meant that we had to go over it with a scouring sponge and degreaser to clean it off - a job that still needs repeating a few more times!

We decided on the planks of vinyl from Wickes as they were well priced and should be slightly quieter and warmer to walk on than laminate (they're also easier to cut and there were several bolts in the floor to fit around). We chose to run them widthways to maximise the look of the floor space which I think works well, see below.

The water heater is under a cupboard under the kitchen area

The pump with the water filter attached

Ryan also managed to fix the existing water heater which wasn't working when we bought Waki. That saves us some expense for sure which is great news! Apparently the previous owner had tried to use it when it was frozen and it hadn't worked since so we didn't hold much hope for it, but Ryan took it apart and reconnected it with the gas bottle in the garden and it worked fine! It actually gets really hot, very quickly and now we can't wait to get the bathroom sorted out to use the shower too.


He then reconnected the pump and sink so we can actually use the tap too! We bought a water filter from Go Outdoors to freshen the flavour - though we also intend on using the Aquapure disinfectant tablets in the tank to stop any bacteria growth and a water filter jug as an extra taste improvement measure for drinking from. 


It was a nerve racking moment in using the sink for the first time since it was put back together as I could just imagine it not going into the waste tank for some reason and flooding the place (because that's generally our luck!) but it was fine so well done Ryan - you can now add plumbing experience to your list of talents! We did however have a bit of a flood moment earlier on when the residual water in the pump pipes went everywhere so not entirely smooth sailing, but then it did help clean the floor! :)

One last area of rot and mess!

When I had a few free hours I managed to cut out the kitchen cupboard openings so we can access the whole space easily. They just had one small door per cupboard which made it a nightmare to reach anything at the end, so we will have a set of double opening doors on either for full easy access.

We now just need to reline the one above the hob as it was a bit rotten inside like everything has been, and make some nice doors and then we'll be able to begin stowing things away. We want to line the cupboards in a plastic sheeting the same as for the kitchen walls so we need to go shopping again!

Road Trip!

It was my Mums birthday at the weekend (Happy Birthday Mum!) and we decided we would join them in their caravan up Skegness to celebrate, and thought it would be a good road test for Waki. Also with a deadline to work to it helped make us push extra hard to get lots done so we could enjoy at least a degree of comfort on the trip. So when we decided with only a couple of weeks to go we cracked on and somehow managed to achieve in only a handful of spare days what had taken us many weeks before!

The floor panels under the sofa

We have completely replaced the battens and plywood for the drivers side wall, got it lined with the foil blanket and foam sandwich, filled the rough edges and even wallpapered AND painted! We also done the kitchen wall and window, didn't have the time to get it papered and painted like the rest but it does look a lot better than it did! Ryan mended the blinds and got them back up so we have some privacy in the living room again, and has replaced the plywood on the floor under the sofa area where the water tank had previously leaked and ruined it.

We also bought ourselves a gas powered blown air heater, but Ryan can explain that gadget in full detail in it's own post once it's properly fitted!

The bedroom area with our taped up front window!

Whilst Ryan was at work on Saturday I got to clearing out all of the stuff that we didn't need for the trip, and I got the ceiling in the bed area clad with the pine tongue and groove so we now have a lovely clean new ceiling to look at. It also means that we don't keep getting gritty bits of foam in the bed which feel as nice as the notorious bed toast crumbs and were just as difficult to brush out!


The sofa is now repaired and back in place too which took us until nearly midnight on Saturday night and some of Sunday morning, but with a good clean up Waki was as presentable as she's been in a long while and ship shape for the journey.

So on we went via the A1, on which she made excellent speed (so much so that Ryan had to keep backing off to a comfortable 60mph!) and then headed on up to the flat expanse of Lincolnshire farming country. After previous bad experiences in the Clio with accidentally ending up in the centre of Peterborough we figured it would be awkward at the very least with Waki so chose the Spalding route instead. The trouble is all road signs literally disappeared as soon as we turned into the place, (which I think is a ploy to try and get people lost so they stop for directions and cream teas!) and we ended up causing a little bit of mayhem in the old stone-cobbled town centre! It's great though how because of our size everyone sees us coming a mile away and suddenly becomes super polite and flashes us through all of the tight gaps, perhaps that will change once we get the paintwork done!

We stayed at Cottage Farm campsite in Addlethorpe which was a in pleasant and and quite peaceful area outside of Skegness. At least it was peaceful whilst we were there, there's a Banger Racing and Stock Car track just up the road and it can sometimes be heard from the site or the racers parties can be noisy but there was nothing on whilst we were there. We had some rain showers overnight but I slept better than I had to date and there were no leaks by morning either so the night was a success!

It was nice to be able to just wake up feeling good and put the kettle on like home. We hadn't had time to get the water tank cleaned out and re-fitted, and we need to fix the water heater yet too, so we just used bottled water for drinking. We also used Ryans 'camel pack' water carrier, which has a drinking tube and a stopper like a tap, suspended over a bowl in the sink for washing up. The trip to the toilet blocks and showering on a freezing tile floor for 20p wasn't particularly fun though, so can't wait for our own toilet and hot water!

We went home via Peterborough as my Stepdad assured us that the previous bad part of the road that messed us up last time had been fixed, and it was a much smoother journey though we met the rain again nearer home. We had taken out AA breakdown cover for the journey just in case, as none of our mechanic friends would be able to tow something of our size, but thankfully it wasn't needed. Not wanting to give up the holiday feeling we ate Fish & Chips for dinner in Waki and I then had a normal busy evening at St John Ambulance to attend. Better get back to work then... :)

Wallpaper

After the clean up operation I was able to get some wallpaper up, which I must say has now massively improved the feel of the place! Instead of rough looking old patchwork plywood and filler is now a smooth expanse of white paper at last. 

I've helped wallpaper many times before but never done it on my own nor in such a small space, so according to The Waki Way tradition it was a ridiculously awkward and long job but I got there in the end! I'm very pleased I chose paste-the-wall paper as there is no way I could have used a pasting table inside, and the bad weather and narrow doorway would have made pasting outside near impossible too.

We also got a tester pot of a cream paint that we liked so I applied it around the windows. This means that we can now put the blinds back on for evening privacy and insulation without needing to take them down again/or mask up for painting. They are so fragile I'm surprised they survived being taken down the first time, and we really don't have the money to buy a new set to fit so must look after them! 

So we just have a patch at the back end still to do where the wardrobe will be, (we found another rotten batten which requires the side luggage hatch door to be taken out first) and once the other side window etc has been replaced we can repeat the process there and all will be fresh and smooth! 

Day Zero Project

A good friend at work (and author of the blog DoesBeccaLove?) introduced me to the Day Zero Project the other day. It's a website where basically you write a list of 101 things to achieve in 1001 days, which I've found is actually pretty hard in itself!

This kind of project is perfect for me as I'm a list maker by nature and usually have to plan everything I do in as much detail as possible. When you write something on a to do list there is no shirking it, once it's written it becomes real and acknowledged and must be completed.

I know I could cheat and set myself loads of easy tasks like 'do the washing' or 'cook dinner' but I'm always pretty tough on myself so my list had to include things that are challenging for me - the point is that in completing each task you get a real sense of accomplishment! So below is my 101 list (well up to 85 things so far!), you are welcome to read through it and I hope you feel inspired to start your own list and follow your dreams :)

http://dayzeroproject.com/user/sarahhamer

Good Luck x