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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm quite afraid that I've bitten off more than I might able to chew. I've been on a planning kick, obviously, and it's been going wonderfully well but I may have taken on a bit too much planning this time.
We decided to throw a Halloween party. Right after that is my Hubby's and mine's wedding anniversary. It's a bit more special than usual as it will be our 15th wedding anniversary. Of course, we then jump right into my daughter's birthday with Veteran's Day, which something must be done, as my hubby is a veteran. On a more low key note, my birthday is right after that. Adding another thing to my list is that I've decided it would be a good break for my mother-in-law for me to cook Thanksgiving dinner, which then leads us into the maddening chase of the Christmas season, which also happens to be the busiest time for my job. Major event after major event is happening with hardly a moment to take a breath in between them. I don't think I was quite right in my state of mind to think taking on all these things was the best idea but I am committed to these plans now and will be moving forward.
I have my planners and will keep using them to make sure I have as tight a reign on my time as much as possible so that I may utilize to the best of my ability but to also have time scheduled to simply relax. I am indeed doing a whole lot but it won't do anyone any good if I'm so stressed and tired that I can't get what need to be done. Planners gonna plan, but maybe next time, not so much.
To recap, I have my actual Recollections planner for household and work, a regular notebook that’s sort of like a bullet journal for personal habit tracking and a traveler’s notebook for when I’m running errands out of the house. It’s all been great for getting my life in somewhat of an order—remembering the past, organizing in the present and planning for the future.
I've even added 2 notebooks. I've started calligraphy so I have a notebook to practice the lettering. It's a bit trendy right now but I've always wanted to learn and while I've finally found a niche of time, I figured it was about time. I've also decided to start journaling again. I need to get back into writing, more than just the biweekly blog posts that I've been doing. Challenges are another trendy thing but I thought it might be interesting to try out. I don't normally do prompts but I've had such a difficult time trying to get my mind into the right place to start writing that I thought maybe having a starting point might give a good boost to jump off of. Since next month is November I thought I might go with a gratitude theme, what with Thanksgiving and all. I know that next month is NaNoWriMo and it would make more sense for me to start off with that but as I mentioned my mind isn't in the right frame to jump into writing a novel.
These are the plans so far. I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep up with my journaling challenge and that it won't take me too long to learn calligraphy but I'll take my time and enjoy the process as that is why I do things.
We decided to throw a Halloween party. Right after that is my Hubby's and mine's wedding anniversary. It's a bit more special than usual as it will be our 15th wedding anniversary. Of course, we then jump right into my daughter's birthday with Veteran's Day, which something must be done, as my hubby is a veteran. On a more low key note, my birthday is right after that. Adding another thing to my list is that I've decided it would be a good break for my mother-in-law for me to cook Thanksgiving dinner, which then leads us into the maddening chase of the Christmas season, which also happens to be the busiest time for my job. Major event after major event is happening with hardly a moment to take a breath in between them. I don't think I was quite right in my state of mind to think taking on all these things was the best idea but I am committed to these plans now and will be moving forward.
