Planner Obsessed

I love my planner, I know that’s not a secret or a surprise. What’s surprising is how long my obsession has been going on. One of the tasks for my January organizing project was to sort my books in the storage room. In one of those boxes I found 10 years of planner pages, 2003 to 2013! TEN years! Oh my! It’s very possible they have been in that box since January 2014. My relationship with planners goes back even further, it started before my oldest was born (she’s 24 now) an I don’t expect it will end anytime soon.

I use my planner as a to do list. When something I want or need to get done is written in the planner there is an 80% it will get done, if it’s written down – well there’s a 98% I’ll forget. In addition to my to do list, I keep track of appointments, activities and birthdays on the monthly calendar page. On the weekly pages I put a reminder when to mail birthday cards, usually a week before the date. The weekly page is also where I keep my to do list, scheduled appointment, food journal, exercise log, and other reminders that may not be something I need to do but something I don’t want to forget.

My planner isn’t just a calendar or an office supply I tote around. It’s my accountability buddy and some days my brain, because I can use all the external memory I can get. How do you keep track of you to do lists? Do you use a planner, bullet journal or blank notebook? What other activities and tasks do you track to achieve your goals? Please share in the comments I love to get new ideas to (hopefully) keep me organized!

January Project Progress

The storage room decluttering project is going to be more of a challenge than I thought. Even after creating empty space on a shelf, there is still A LOT of STUFF in there.

I started with the things we obviously aren’t using, the 3 small coffee makers and the 2 coffee carafes for coffee pots we don’t own any longer. Candle holders were next, I’m just not a candle kinda girl, I dust them more than I light them.

I was surprised I only had two boxes of books – very full boxes but only two. I combined all the children’s books into one box that I placed back on the shelf along with a box containing my Harry Potter collection. A stack of books went into a separate donate box. I still have 2 boxes on the shelf, but now each are only half full and better organized. The next step is to put all the kids keepsake boxes on one shelving unit. They will have to help sort those boxes.

My progress is very slow. I have some empty space to organize things into groups, like photos and toys, in order to sort later and the donation pile is growing, but there is just a lot of stuff. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by this project. I’m trying to be mindful that every step forward is a good one, it’s going to take a while. But it will be worth it!

January Project

My January decluttering project is our (gulp) storage room, aka the black hole of stuff. It is sort of organized, at least, into broad categories but there is A LOT of STUFF. Some of the things are the kids’ keepsakes, vintage dishes from my parents’ house, boxes of photos, and more books.

Some of the thing are going to be easy to part with, like the 3 small coffee makers and the kids’ karate equipment. Some things will be harder to make a decision about, for example the Lazy Susan that is just like the one my grandma had.

Okay, so that does look a little like an ‘eye spy’ picture. I spy with my little eye 2 food processors.

The craft items and Christmas decorations (which fit in fewer bins than I started that project with) have been sorted and downsized. The kids’ things will be an ongoing project and I’ll need their help to sort those boxes. It will definitely be a multi-step process to get this project done.

What does done look like? To get the boxes off the floor and have a walkway again. To get rid of things we don’t use or love. Phase II of this project will be to NOT put things in that storage room just because I can’t decide what to do with them.

From Well Worn to Clean Slate

I’m getting my new calendar ready to use by transferring a few notes, birthdays and what we already have scheduled for next year. I noticed the 2018 calendar is a bit beat up. The cover is bowed and the pages, while still attached, aren’t in the same condition they were in this time last year. They are a little worn around the edges and there are a few coffee stains.

The new calendar has clean white pages and a flat cover, it’s a new beginning. What is or isn’t in 2018’s calendar can’t be added to or changed at this point, it just is. The best I can do is learn from the past year, the good and the bad, move on and hope to do better with the blank slate that is the new year.

Wishing you a 2019 calendar full of dog-eared pages, fulfilled goals and many happy memories!

Word of the year stickers courtesy of Lisa at Lisa’s Ink, Paint and Paper and Cafe Crop

Christmas Memories

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I’m not admitting to anything officially, but I may start listening to Christmas song the day after Halloween and thanks to DVD’s and Netflix Christmas movies aren’t just for December any more. I love getting the old ornaments out and telling the kids they came from my Grandma and showing them their ornaments and telling them when they received (again just in case they forgot since last year). Telling them where the candy cane Santa and the Yule Log came from. I love the memories that tie the past to the present and hopefully will carry on into the future.

One memory I have from Christmas as a kid was the pine incense my mom would burn at Christmas. The incense sticks came in a clear plastic box and the holder looked like a miniature brass candle stick. I can close my eyes even now and smell it. When that was finally burning it was Christmas.

I remember going to the gift shop in town to get more incense sticks. Those sticks got harder and harder to find over the years as scented candles gained popularity. Thankfully there is a candle that’s very close to the original incense. It’s Yankee Candle’s Christmas Wreath. It’s amazing how a simple fragrance can take me back to being 8, 10, 16 and loving the tree, the lights and the music even then.

Don’t ask me what I got for gifts, I only remember a few. But I remember the cookies, wrapping the homemade caramel pieces in wax paper, our tradition Christmas Eve dinner and the new pajamas (so we looked good in the pictures). Carry on the traditions even if they seem simple, like Pillsbury cinnamon roll for breakfast on Christmas morning, those are the memories that last long after the gifts have been out grown.

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Merry Christmas from our home to yours.

Simply Thankful week 4

This last thankfulness post is a little late, by about a week. The thankfullness is on time it’s just the post that’s late. This is what I’m thankfull for…

Thanksgiving with all my kids
Advanced weather forecasting
More one on one time with my kids
Puppy being back home from his “vacation” (aka the kennel)
Quiet after a busy day at work
Christmas music
Streaming Christmas movies

affection appreciation decoration design — Photo by Carl Attard on Pexels.com

I don’t have a project planned for December other than to enjoy my favorite time of the year. The tree is decorated the stockings are hung and a light snow is falling outside. This is my happy place.

Simply Thankful Week 3

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s the holiday when we remember to be thankful for our families, our homes, our health, and the simple things that we can easily take for granted. These are my simple things for this week…

First snow blanketing the trees
Friends who become family
More uncluttered spaces
One-on-one time with my kids
Heated car seats
Birthday cake with the birthday girl

When we have to do without the simple, everyday things is when we realize how much we depend on them. I drove our extra car (aka the teen’s car) to work this week. It doesn’t have some of the things my car has that I take for granted, like the back-up camera and remote start.

It’s also easy to take our loved ones for granted, too. Sometimes they live far away and we just don’t get to see them as much as we’d like. When we do get to see them, we should make the most of that time. Sometimes we don’t get a second chance to tell the people that we love how much they mean to us. Give an extra hug and say an extra “I love you”. Today is a gift, enjoy it.

November Project Update

My November project to sort out the Christmas decorations isn’t going as well as I had hoped it would. I didn’t start as early as I should have. I finally got started on the project…well, uhm, yesterday. At least I didn’t wait until the very last minute.

I started with 8 gray/beige storage bins and some extras that didn’t fit in the bins. After sorting, purging, and repacking, I was able to get the things that came out of the boxes back into 5 not fully packed bins. I was also able to get some of the items that had accumulated on top of the stack into boxes. Three empty boxes, fewer things piled on top (a few things are too big to fit in the bins) and I made $20.00 listing some things for sale on the local buy, sell, trade site.

The next phase of the project is to sort the ornaments. That will have to wait until after Thanksgiving when we put them on the tree. Gift boxes and wrapping paper are the last part of the project. I’m not buying any paper until I’ve used what I have. There are so many cute papers and bows though *sigh*!! It will be hard not to buy anything but I’m not buying any paper or bows. I’ll have to be patient, get my shopping done, and then get more supplies if I need them.

As a bonus while we were pulling out the Christmas boxes, we sorted and organized some of the other things that we had ~~dumped~~ placed in the storage room to put away later. The 3-drawer cart that was emptied during my October decluttering project was put to use to organize some other supplies that had just been stacked up in the family room and we can now store all of them in the storage room. It feels good to have empty containers, a donate pile that keeps growing, and after a trip to shred papers we’ll be able to walk through the family room.

I’m not planning a December decluttering project. In January I plan to finish the storage room. What organizing or simplifying projects are you planning?

Simply Thankful Week 2

This is week two of being simply thankful. This week has been very busy. It has been hard to slow down and notice things to be thankful for. Here are days 8 through 14…

Seeing deer on the way to work
Coffee with a friend
House full of laughing teens
Our Veterans and the freedoms they secure for all of us
Curling up with a blanket and a good book
Pink striped sunset
Flickering fire light on a cold snowy night

I need to remember to slow down this week and enjoy the moment. What are you thankful for this week? Let me know in the comments.

For “Special”

Recently I was sorting my Fiestaware ~~obsession~~ collection and my husband asked why we didn’t use them. We have Corelle dishes for everyday use. The Fiestaware is “for special” occassions. I have enough place settings to have a sit down dinner for more people than I know in real life, so it was a valid question. My answer was “because these are for special.” We all have those “for special” items, maybe it’s dishes, wine glasses, grandma’s necklace or the embroidered towels no one is actually allowed to use.

When is “For a Special Occasion” Day? I checked my calendar, I can find Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Sweetest Day but no “Special Occasion” Day. So I asked Google. On the National Days: The Ultimate List website, I found National Candy Day, National Vanilla Cupcake Day, and Squirrel Appreciation Day but still no “Special Occasion” Day.

So when is it? It never seems to be today. It wasn’t yesterday. What day is special enough to use the good plates? What guest are special enough for the good towels? My Grandma had two smoked gray wine glasses. As a kid I loved those glasses, I think they came from boxes of laundry soap flakes, but I loved them. Grandma didn’t make me wait for special to use them. Any day I asked was special enough to have my favorite mixed drink (Hawaiian Punch and 7-Up on ice) in them. Just being together was special enough. Grandma is no longer with us but those memories are, and the glasses live with me now.

Grandma had the answer, “Special Occasion” Day is today and hopefully tomorrow and the day after that. Tomorrow isn’t promised but we have today with the people we love most. Go ahead, bring out the china and the good towels because everyday is a special occasion.