2018 so far . . .

Once again, I am a few days late with this post but at least it's better than a whole week late like last time though so I've made some progress, which is actually what this post is going to be about, so it all comes around full circle. 

It's been going well so far. Last month was a month of rest and reset. 2017 was a super busy year and I wore myself into the ground and I definitely needed some time to let my body basically heal up. This month has been a working progress on what I want to happen for 2018. I got my Chic Sparrow notebook and I absolutely love it. It's been a huge help with keeping me organized and focused with what needs to be done when I'm out of the house. 

I've been able to finish up a few small projects. I have also added new projects. I got a book about mindfulness and I have a goal to do at least 1 thing from that book a week. I have already finished reading 4 books and I've started reading my 5th book. I'm super excited and proud of myself that I'm already a fourth of a way through my goal for the year and it's only the 2nd month into this year. I'm really hoping that I won't lost momentum and will keep with it so that I might up my goal if I finish a decent amount of time before the year ends. I've already finished a small crochet project along with a large crochet project. I now have no excuses to not be working on my hubby's Mega Man blanket. I really hope that I can at least made good progress on it this and next month. I have even watched a few movies though I have not watched any new movies for my movie challenge. I've not been doing any learning last month or this month, which is really bad on my end but I'm hoping to change that next month. This month is a bit busy with InCoWriMo. This month I have been very excited to say that I have been taking some good Me Time with playing Mass Effect 3. I need to work on being social a bit more though as I have yet to contact any family for the past few weeks. 

There's still time though and with my planners and journals I definitely notice that I'm way more mindful of time and how I'm spending it. I don't feel as overwhelmed about things as I'm more aware of what needs to happen and how I need to make other things happen. I think I was feeling the same way back in 2017 after doing the planning and journaling for the last half of the year and just overestimated how much I thought I could handle. I'm super proud that I did everything but I'm not thrilled that it was at the cost of my health and how instead of jumping into the newness of 2018 I had to still rest up. It's a lesson learned, for now anyway until the next update. 

In case of writing to do . . .

Once again, I'm almost a week late with this blog post. On the plus side, I'm just about caught up on everything and doing my best to ensure that I'm not pushing myself too hard so there is progress.

I have added a new project to my never ending list to bust boredom and expand my horizons. I found InCoWriMo, which is International Correspondence Writing Month. They even have a list of addresses for people who are participating and I'm planning on joining in since back a few months ago I had expressed interest in doing something of this like. I unfortunately missed the actual start of this project but I don't want to miss out on all the fun so I'm putting my own twist on things. Instead of a handwritten letter everyday for the month of February, I'm simply going to do just a letter a week. It's a bit of a more doable goal for me. I have picked 3 international addresses to write and 1 here in the US. I'm hoping this will work out in the long run!

Mindful Time

Oh, I'm a week or so late with this one. I have been using that time as wisely as I am able to, trying to catch up with work. It has been marginally successful but obviously, I'm still not done. I will admit that playing catch up already in just the first few weeks into 2018 has me a bit worried and I'm hoping it won't be a trend that repeats itself too much or be a sign of bad foreshadowing for this year 2018. I'm determined to be positive for the time being though and I'm going with the idea that I'm simply finishing up 2017 karma. Moving into 2018, I have given myself a challenge for this entire year.

I had seen a review on youtube for A Book that Takes its Time, an Unhurried Adventure in Creative Mindfulness created by Flow magazine.

It's supposed to help me be present in the moment and get my creativity to flow and enjoy the little things in life. I thought it would be fun to give it a try and my goal is to read and do an activity from the book at least once a week. It has articles to read, recipes to try, journal cards and small notebooks to fill and other such different things to do.

I'll see how it works out and hopefully, I'll enjoy the journey of the book. It's a pretty trendy thing to do a word of the year and I'm thinking my word of the year might be mindfulness.

Out of 2017 and into the New Year

I was doing so good for a long while about keeping this updated within a day or two at most and this last month was just a fail on more levels than not posting to this blog. The end of year stress got to me.

I caught a stomach bug and I have seriously never been that sick in my entire life in just one night. I had to call out of work the next day, which almost turned into a really bad situation. It took a week to recover and then right on Christmas Day, I was sick again with a very bad cold, which took another week to recover. Having to work in a warehouse, in which the temperature inside is barely tolerable compared to the temperature outside does not help speed up recovery. Any progress on anything was completely halted as I barely had enough energy to enjoy the holiday.

It's 2018 now though so it's a good time to start anew. This month of January will be used as a catch up and recovery and refresh month. I need to get caught up with last month's stuff before I can move onto the current month stuff. I also need to take my time doing so to make sure my body is completely recovered so that it doesn't relapse twice again. The last step is just getting ready for this year and making sure plans are in place to continue to make progress on things around me and on myself.

So, here's to a new year and new beginnings and all that. 

Year end stretch!

It is December. November was such a crazy blur and December does not seem to be much better.

First off, let's recap the last month. My husband and I had our 15 year anniversary. My daughter had her birthday and we did something fun for Veterans Day for my veteran all in one day. My birthday past and it was good. Thanksgiving was amazing and I'm super proud of the dinner I cooked, especially as it was the first Thanksgiving in our house. I also did finish my writing challenge and I am very proud of myself for doing it. I didn't have as much of a problem fulfilling the prompts as I thought I would have and even though there were a few days in which I was very tired, I did each day. We did get to the Holiday Open House at Mount Hope with my cousin and her family and that was so much fun with the carolers.

This month is going just as crazy. I have been working Sundays for a few hours since last month and I'll likely keep getting roped into that. I just finished my Christmas cards and sent them out yesterday. My daughter had her first chorus concert at an old Quaker Meetinghouse and it was really great being in a building that I had driven by it so many times but had never been inside of it before and to hear my kid as part of the chorus was so wonderful for me. I'm so proud of her.

I need to start wrapping up gifts and such. I still need to finish up stocking stuffers. Cookies must be baked so that I can send off boxes before it gets too late into the holiday season. It is just little more than 2 weeks away until Christmas and I know that I will make it there but not without a lot of stress and worry about making sure everything is on time.

In the insanity that is the my end of year, I have found a jewel that I am obsessed with. I am in love with the Anastiasia the musical and I feel it is very fitting for this time of the year.

Day in the life of Vlogger (not me)

I never thought I'd be a vlog watcher but I am now subscribed to a few channels on Youtube and one of them is a vlogger. I didn't start out like that. I've always used youtube to stream music as I like the videos that go along with the music or I want to look at the lyrics as I'm listening to the song. I use it to watch the occasional funny video that has been recommended to me along with movie trailers, movie scenes and such but that's all I ever thought I'd use Youtube for. Obviously, planning as a hobby is a big thing so I've gotten into really watching a few channels on it from putting stickers into an Erin Condren life planner, bullet journal spreads and pen supply hauls. Following the links I found one of those planners who vlogs and now I'm subscribed into watching her talk about her life. It's kind of a nice thing as an introvert to get to know someone without having to worry about replying. It's interesting to see how different people live their lives and that's it from me so here she is.

A balancing act

So obviously I have been obsessed with my planning and notebook system. It's keeping me organized and I have been doing extremely well with getting almost everything I want done. It's also teaching me a lot about myself. It's really made me pay attention to my own habits, what motivates me and made me really aware of how long it actually takes to get certain tasks done. It's also shown me how much more I can get done if I set my mind to it and how important it is to make time for myself. It's even shown me what type of person I am.

I have learned that I am an extroverted introvert. I was aware of the fact that I have a tendency of hermitting myself for a good period of time especially during times when I'm feeling stressed. I wasn't aware of how long these periods would last or how often I would do so. Through keeping track of how much or how little I socialize I realized that I have no problems going days and even weeks without speaking to someone not in my household or from work. Seeing that trend made me realize that even speaking with the few that I speak to everyday I still need an intense amount of alone time before and after. I relish the daytime when my husband and daughter are at work or at school so that I have the entire day to get what I need done on my own. I'm very happy when get home and I greet them both with hugs and kisses at their arrival, then I head to work and I'm happy with chat cheerfully with anyone I see but then I'm more than happy to get home so what when my husband goes to bed I have time to myself to work on whatever I want or just to relax by myself. 

Reading and writing and are intensely solitary actions for me and I get extremely annoyed when I'm interrupted. Listening to music is also an intensely personal thing for me. I like working in my planner and notebooks in my quiet time and even going through paperwork that needs to be done. Once I get my fill of my alone time, I'm more than ready to socialize, talk and laugh about anything and everything. I'm quite well known to not know when to shut up and I'm usually the one with an interested anecdote to share.

The best thing I've learned so far with using my planner and notebooks is that I'm most happy when things are balanced now that I know what sort of balance I need.