arts and crafts, house and home, How To, humor, self-help, Writing Stuff

People, Plots & Planners

Without organization…

I. AM. LOST.

I truly admire those who can wander around through life without plans, schedules, organizers, alerts, banners, and alarms to get them through the day. Now don’t get me wrong. My Sundays are pretty unplanned.

FiveStar
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However; I must confess, I’ve LITERALLY scheduled burrito Sundays, movie binging, and couch potato-ing into my google calendar. For Sundays.

So… you’re still scheduled.

Uhmmm…. yeah. Ya got me.

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It’s possible I do have a problem. You do. Because yes, that may still be in the realm of being scheduled. I guess. *shrugs and shuffles feet against the floor

BAM! BUSTED!

Right. Anyway, moving on to my currently “scheduled” post…

LET’S GET THE BOOKS (AND OUR LIVES) ORGANIZED!

Have you heard of bullet journaling? It’s an overview of your month, followed by a tracker for your daily tasks you want done, followed by a list of other things you may want to do; but may or may not have time to get to. Which, you can push to the next month God-willing. This may sound complicated. But I promise it’s not.

I’ve come up with a simplistic version that has proven to work well for me. I don’t spend too much time creating the BUJO (short acronym thats super cute for bullet journal!), I keep it’s design simple, page count to a few pages (never more than FOUR), and I color code each task and check mark for easy eye-catching satisfaction!

200.gifSo, grab your markers, crayons, and stickers!

Mine are all items I already have on-hand. I don’t buy anything new except maybe the stickers. Which, if you know my obsession with Dollar Tree, you’ll completely understand… I find all my cute stickers and die-cut designs from, YEP. You guessed it!

DOLLAR TREE!

*insert bells and whistles here. **with streamers, sound makers and celebratory cheers

If I can get it at Dollar Tree, I do. She totally does.

I do not feel the need to hit the stationary store or the big box retailers of

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office confectionary to over spend. NO THANKS. Additionally, with the over saturation of “how much can we buy” instead of saving what we have and using a limited financially ambitious creative resource to accomplish the same thing someone else wasted their money on…. Why would you want to over pay?!

Seriously. Anyone?

Of course not!

So, here we go! Let’s plan. Let’s get organized. Let’s save moula. Let’s BUJO.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial on planning your own bullet journal to plot your month.

Speaking of plotting. I’ve barely mentioned it. But, I imagine that with

need a journal to start your bujo? click image to shop!

planning comes plotting and therefore; plotting is planning…? Or planning is a plot?

What the hell are you saying?

Who knows.

And so, the plot thickens.

healthy and beauty, house and home, humor, self-help, Uncategorized

Special Delivery! Or not…

What is it with two-day Prime delivery now available, that when we actually do have to wait a bit longer for something we are impatiently throwing stones at our mailboxes.

You don’t do that? Hm-mm… Just me then.

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I’m always about keeping money in my pocket as opposed to spending it. I have not always been that way; but as I get older, I get pinching those pennies to a whole new level.

I constantly find new ways to DIY it which almost ALWAYS saves me a fraction of what I’m paying someone else to do and more often than not, upon figuring it out myself, I tend to do a better job of it and no one is the wiser.

don’t mean to brag; but…

Unless you brag about it.

Yeah, I do that.

Anyway, I ordered some really cute spring nail polish (gel) in January.

It’s March.

Exactly, and it’s still not freaking here.

It would be one thing if I ordered it off the Wish App. Girls, you feel me on that one?

shop til you drop, baby!

If you’re not familiar, the Wish app is a shopping app where you buy direct from overseas – for waaaaayyyyy cheaper than we can buy in the states. While this is a pretty cool app and from time to time I have had to delete the damn thing to control my impulse shopping; I have generally not had any issues with it.

Friends, family and the like that I have passed along this sweet app to have not always had the same experience as I have had. The clothes don’t fit right, the packages never arrived, customer service never responded to me, etc. You get the idea. Yeah, don’t download the app? No. That’s not what I’m saying, pay attention.

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I, on the other hand, have had good experiences with the clothes (they run two times smaller than American sizes), most of my packages arrived safe and sound (and even earlier than expected), and when there was a customer service issue, they responded quickly and in some cases returned my money for a damaged item, or non-received item, etc.

delivery status update, please.

Great experiences! Like you said. Right.

Now, I tell you the background story on the Wish App because if I was waiting for over two months for an item, it is to be expected. My expectations are in line with how the Wish App works.

Well, I ordered nail polish (gel) from the Wish App, and it NEVER arrived. Customer service was great, they refunded my moula and so I decided to buy from Amazon. I LOVE Amazon. By the way. LOVE!! Plus, I figured it’d get to me within a reasonable amount of time. Compared to… you know, never.

So when I ordered a set of cute trendy spring colors gel nail polish, I didn’t anticipate waiting longer than a week, maybe even two! IWhich is why I chose to order from our beloved Prime account in the first place. I wasn’t going to leave it to chance. Heaven forbid I get a letter from customs thinking I’m trying to smuggle in contraband beauty products!

I’ve been waiting for months. Literally.

Let Me Break It Down…

tik-tok… just a waitin’ fool

JAN 30TH: I’m waiting, so I swipe a nude/glitter polish on my nails and I lay in loathing.

JAN 31ST: I hate this color.

FEB 13TH: Still waiting…. I pop off my nails a few weeks. Do some outdoorsy hiking crap, get dirty. No worry on the nails even though they look like all holy hell and my girlfriends frown when they see I’ve still NOT re-polished and primed.

FEB 20TH: Still waning. I mean, waiting. No… waning. I’m definitely waning, or maybe it’s whining.

FEB 21ST: Either way, I’m still waiting. And now nail biting.

Simpli-Home.com

MAR 7TH: Focus on my 2-a-day’s at the gym, catch up on some reading, cleaning and organizing my space.

MAR 14TH: Decide to give my short, natural nails a swipe of white polish. I feel cute, trendy and rockin’. For about a day. Re-organizing my space. Again.

Put it here. Move that there…. la-di-dah

MAR 25TH: St. Paddy’s Day has come and gone. Still waiting. Peeled off that white-off, paper mate, look which was no longer working for me. Decide to check the delivery tracking. APRIL 9TH?!! Delivery expected by April – freaking – 9th!

APR 2ND: Stares out the window, looking for the stork to bring newborn nail polish colors to my doorstep. Wonders if they had to make the formulas from scratch upon receiving my order. And also, why didn’t I notice the delivery expectation date when ordering?

So, as of this post, it still has not arrived. And, since the delivery expected date said the ninth, it’s likely I won’t see these little bottles of nail beauty for another week.

MORAL OF THE STORY

CHECK THE DELIVERY DATE WHEN ORDERING.

*hence, read the fine print!

EVEN on AMAZON.

EVEN when it’s TWO. DAY. PRIME.

house and home, humor, self-help, Writing Stuff

Stationary Shopping: Restriction Mode

FiveStar

I have officially been put on journal and stationary purchasing restriction. *sigh

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE stationary, thank you notes, decorative or personalized letter pages, envelopes, journal writing books, and even sketch pads. Oh, criminy.

I know.

As if I don’t have enough clutter circling around my desk. *whispers… but there’s still room in the blank notebook bin!

Trees in the forest are quivering as I write this, I know. I’m a monster. Terrible person. Hush.

There is just something about putting a pen to the page that just feels nice. Cathartic. Meditative, even.

And with Camp NaNoWriMo just around the corner, let’s face it, how can I possibly be expected to refrain from buying more highlighters and stickers?! It’s a nightmare I tell ya. A nightmare.

I truly think that it’s the little things we should consider finding joy in and for me its staaaaaa-tionnnnn-aaaaaary! Echos. Echos. Echos. Did you hear the echoing voice calling out?

Visitors Coverage

Oh, dear Lord… *slaps forehead

Did I lose you at Camp NaNoWriMo? Well, if you recall, I did an annual writing event last year – for the first time – called NaNoWriMo. An acronym that stands for National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, writers from all over attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days. While I have written books with as much verbiage; I had not done so within a month. So, I thought I’d add a fun challenge to my writing by joining in on the fun!

Watch me track my progress and see how I did in the video below!

Now that spring is upon us, daylight saving’s time has switched back, and I’m overcome with an aching to wear tank tops again… It’s also time for Camp NaNoWriMo. Another writing event that I will be attending. 

Again, for the first time.  

The goal in this event?  I’ve given myself a 30,000 count of words to attain. If you watch the video above, you’ll see why… 

If I can accomplish this smaller goal, then I will be able to add an additional goal for a quieter project that I am keeping under wraps until it’s release. It’s a non-fiction and that’s all I’ll be able to spill on that. 

Takeya USA

Camp NaNoWriMo will be the same duration as the NaNo event in November; except that Camp NaNo occurs in April. If you are a writer, or aspiring writer, add me as a writing buddy.

We can help motivate each other! 

I surely won’t need any stationary, as most of my writing is done on my computer. But, I simply cannot help myself when I see those adorable, blank notebooks that I clearly MUST add to my collection! No, you must not.

As I prepare to begin my writer’s retreat, I am besought with the urge to visit Ross, and Target for a few more blank books. No, you’re not. To creatively organize my month with colored markers and marvelous stickers of station. Hearts, moons, stars and rainbows. All unnecessary.

Oh. I’m doing it.

You’re on restriction.

Tattle tale. I’m doing it, so there.

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Oh! And never forget the glitter…