I am an emotional pack rat. I keep everything! This was highlighted as Jeremy and I packed up some things from our bonus room and I had three boxes of cards. Do I need three boxes of cards? No! Have I looked at the cards? No! Would I be freer if I got rid of the cards? Yes! What will I do? I have no idea. My hope is to go through the cards, keep the last or extra special ones from the people I love in my life and get rid of the rest. We’ll see how this works out.

I know Kon Mari is pretty hip right now and I understand why. I actually want to be a minimalist, but I do love memories and beautiful things around me. Those two desires aren’t mutually exclusive, but if not intentional, cannot co-exist. My desire to rid my home of too much stuff comes from the fact I have accumulated way too much and I haven’t moved in over 20 years. Jeremy and I will be moving soon and the need to purge is looming over me. Do I really want to haul this junk to our new place? No! So that tells me, I have to get rid of what I don’t find to be beautiful or useful (Thank you William Morris for these wise words). My tastes have changed and sending old decor to other happy homes has been easy. It’s the emotional items that are more difficult to remove from my physical environment. I don’t want to get rid of all of them, but I think in the keeping of all of them it has added stress. And there is the fear of every hoarder, what if I need it some day? What if I regret parting with it, it’s not replaceable. For items I can purchase again because answering the question of which causes more stress-the cost of storage or the cost of replacement is easy. It’s the emotional items that is hard.

So as I travel this journey and as we move to a new home, I’ll keep you posted. This won’t be a quick process as my son is just a sophomore in high school. We have no intentions of moving for at least a year because he will graduate from his current high school. However we have know that we would move to another county when he graduates. In adult years, two years are a blink of an eye.

I can’t believe its been so long since I’ve posted. I could write a lengthy apology full of excuses, but I won’t. I’ll just say, life got in the way. I will be publishing a few posts as blog posts from thoughts I’ve shared on FB. I’m only doing this because some of my friends asked me to. I may also change the direction of my blog, but probably not significantly. Actually it may need a title change more. We’ll see. However, I am going through some life changes and I plan to post about those changes in hopes it may help someone else.

I decided to try #onebookjuly2015 this year.  Since I’ve been evaluating what it is I really need in planning, I thought this would be perfect to minimize my system to my needs (with awareness of my wants).  I decided to give up my Filofax Malden for July, which I whined about for a good two weeks.  Now, I am learning to live in one book, at least for planning (at home).

So my Malden sat on my shelf and I am using a pocket traveler’s notebook (Field Notes, Moleskine Pocket, 3.5×5.5″ inserts). The beautiful thing about the pocket size is I do use it as a wallet and it is my every day carry (EDC).

This is a 12 pocket card insert that I use for my wallet.

I have four notebooks in my traveler’s notebook (TN) and a 12 pocket card insert.  The first book is my lists book.  This is a more permanent book of lists and references I want to carry with me.  My second book is my monthly book.  I make one book for each month, which includes a day per page (DO1P) and pages at the front for special events to occur that month, month goals, and notes pertaining to that specific month.  My third insert is a Field Notes (FN) notebook that I change out each month too.  This book I use for the listersgottalist (www.listersgottalist.com) and journaling.  My final notebook is an 18 month calendar I made using the monthly calendar from BohoCottage on Etsy.  The front of the calendar I tipped in my month lists that I made and a three year calendar from DIYfish (www.diyfishblogs.com)  The back of the 18 month calendar I tipped in the DIYfish monthly chart.

Hobonichi Style insert that I made

Card pocket attached to inside cover

Monthly Calendar using BohoCottage printable inserts from Etsy

Monthly Lists

I’ve given up my Malden and been using my EDC as my main planner.  So how do I feel about this with July sliding into a close?  This has forced me to look at what I need to see to keep my brain organized and the info I need on paper instead of in my head.  I use two versions of a monthly calendar, a weekly calendar, and a daily calendar.  I hate repetition, which is why I considered #onebookjuly2015 in the first place.  The monthly list I use as a glance at what life will look like for the year (what are busy times and what are slow times).  The months are necessary because when I plan call or events, I need to see what days work best.  The weekly calendar I use to see my week at a time. The daily calendar isn’t to plan, but to record what I want to accomplish, what I have to do, and how the day actually happens.  I was able to incorporate what I was missing from my Malden into my EDC, so I am able to do everything in one book.  The Malden will now become more of a reference book that stays at home rather than planning.  While my inserts stay mostly the same, I do change the cover of my EDC based on mood or circumstances.

Chic Sparrow Creme Brûlée

Chic Sparrow Mr. Darcy

A while back I wrote a post about the paper monster in my life. I wrote about the filing system I purchased (http://www.amazon.com/FreedomFiler-Home-Filing-Kit-Size/dp/B00F5VUJIC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437317693&sr=8-1&keywords=freedom+filer+filing+system). Well, I’ve used this system for three years now and it has allowed me to get the paper under control. 

So, if paper makes such significant clutter for me, it is interesting that all my hobbies include paper (reading, journals, scrapbooking, planning, doodling, etc.). After accepting the fact that my Erin Condren Life Planner was too large for me, I’ve been on a search for the perfect system for this point in my life. Ring-bound planners have worked for me for years, but I didn’t want to return to the A5 size as that is still too big for me to carry. For a planner to really work, it has to be carried at all times. So, I got the personal size planner from three manufacturers. For my journaling I also purchased multiple traveler’s notebooks in a variety of sizes and leathers this year. Messing up my home system wasn’t enough, I also changed my work system. I am also participating in #onebookjuly2015. All of this chaos in my planning has allowed me to learn exactly what I love. I’ve been forced to examine my style and the way I think and I think the dividends will be huge. 

I now have my paper foe under control and learning to make paper a good friend. This is the start of many blog posts sharing all I’ve learned. 

To say I’ve been bitten by the traveler’s notebook bug doesn’t accurately describe the relationship I’ve developed with these notebooks in the last few months.  I hate to describe my love for my notebooks as a relationship, but it is.  With each piece I add, remove, change, each notebook becomes a little piece of me that can be held.

I didn’t know a lot about the Midori.  I saw it on Amazon over a year ago and I continued to debate the purchase.  I love writing and I love journals, but something about the Midori kept tugging at my heart.  So this winter, I finally took the plunge and got my first traveler’s notebook, a Midori passport and I was immediately in love.

So now I had this awesome new notebook, so I wanted to learn what more I could do with it.  So I watched YouTube videos, TONS of YouTube videos.  I learned and I joined Facebook groups.  I acquired four more traveler’s notebooks and I learned some more.  One day while watching videos I saw a video that really struck my heart.  I LOVE documenting life, both with pictures and words.  I scrapbook and I love Project Life, but I am terrible about completing albums now that my son is active in school and sports.  I have a way of recording notes for when I go back to document events, but I didn’t have a way of documenting my everyday life.  I want my son to remember what his childhood was like and who his parents were.

So back to the YouTube video that changed my life.  Retrow Tures did a video about using a Field Notes traveler’s notebook to not only document her travels, but she talked about her tagline for her photography business, “Document life as it happens”.  This was new to me, as a scrapbooker I’ve heard this expressed many ways.  For some reason, when she said it, my world stopped and I knew what I needed to do.  I need to use my traveler’s notebook to document each day, the little moments that get missed in the bigger albums.

A dear friend of mine made a gorgeous traveler’s notebook for me and in this notebook I keep an insert of blank pages.  We go to a baseball game, I immediately tape in the memorabilia and write a note.  I don’t care about the layout, colors, matching, I just care about getting that moment recorded.  Later I may print a picture and put it with my memorabilia, but I don’t stress about that.  No more putting ticket stubs and wristbands in a box to scrap later, I use them right now.  If it isn’t flat and won’t fit, I take a picture and put the picture in my journal.  This has changed my life, I now record my life as it happens.  I experience joy as I look back to see what was accomplished and the memories we have acquired.

So I thank Retrow Tures for speaking in a way that allowed me to change my behavior.  If you love documenting your life or want to document her life, I strongly encourage you to search her out on YouTube.  Her videos are short, but very well done.

Documenting the day and the memories when it happens.

Link to Retrow Tures video on YouTube

This post will be short and without pictures. It is a quick post about my current idea that will lead to my future posts. Stay tuned!

I love paper and I love technology. What is a conflicted girl to do? Part takes up so much space, and I hate clutter. Technology is efficient and space-saving, but I can’t pass it on to Curtis. So, I use both, some times in duplication, and sometimes very differently.

September and October have been exceptionally busy months for me. I had a day trip to Chicago, but no other scheduled trips. My busyness came from appointments for my son and mother.

As much as I love technology, I still use a paper planner. I’ve used the Erin Condren Life Planner for 10 months now and I liked it well enough that I ordered a new one for next year. I love the monthly calendar. This is a quick view of my life and very important when doing the call schedule at work. The week pages, those are where I record daily life and To Do’s. I tend to do batching when I work on my Project Life albums, so this is where the planner is particularly helpful. I had been using Oh Life!, but unfortunately as of this month, this service is no longer available. I’ve started using the Day One app, but it hasn’t become a habit yet. That is where my planner has become important. My planner is a habit.

I am typically an organized person, at least that is what people say. I would say I am a neat person that requires things to be written down to be accomplished. For example, I had a parent-teacher conference scheduled for my son. I totally blew the conference. Why? Because I had not written it in my planner. If I don’t write it down, it doesn’t exist. I always had a good memory and a planner was a cute tool to doodle in when I was bored. Now that I have more responsibilities in various aspects of my life, it is essential.

I am grateful that I’ve developed the habit of using a planner. I developed this habit when I was in high school and I’ve used it since. I tried getting rid of the paper and going solely digital, but that just didn’t work for me. I found that I was printing my schedule off so I could see it, and that defeated the purpose of a digital calendar.

This month, Studio Calico has offered a class by Marcy Penner called “Agenda” The class was good and I learned a couple of tips. Though not as earth shattering for me, I would recommend this for people that need to organize their schedule, but they do not have a system. The hardest part of organizing, finding the system that works. This is true if you are organizing appointments, notes, or toys.

As many of us do, I have a stressful job. My job consumes much of my time, much of my thoughts, and a lot of my heart. A year ago April, I was burned out, emotionally fatigue on the verge of emotional death. I attended many sessions about compassion fatigue at many seminars that I attended. Last April, one of the speakers did not just talk about how to fix compassion fatigue. She did not speak on what compassion fatigue was. What she really talked about, what compassion fatigue did. While the emotional exhaustion was affecting me at work, I was concerned the effect it was having on my life and my family.

I knew I had compassion fatigue, for there was no doubt. Why did this speaker touch me? I think because as I heard her speak, I felt that it could have been me giving the same story at that front of the room. In that moment, I didn’t want to be that speaker. I don’t want to be that woman. So, I decided to do something that felt incredibly selfish and I was going to take care of me. Professionally, I take care of other people. That is what I do and I am really good at it. Unfortunately, when I got home, I wasn’t able to take care of my family. I didn’t have any serious health conditions, but if I continued my lifestyle of self-neglect, within five years I am sure I would.

The new me, a three step approach: Say no, exercise, and Bible Study. I like to help people, it is why I chose the profession that I chose. Saying no is not easy for me, but I’ve been practicing that for two years and I’m getting a lot better. I slip now and then, but I need to remember that I am choosing what is important. Because I can do “everything” doesn’t mean I should, so I don’t. Exercise, difficult for me because years of self-neglect had left me in poor physical shape. I will never be thin. I haven’t been thin since I was five years old. I look at my family, and I realize that genetically, I was not made to be thin. But despite my extra curves, I can still be healthy. So I started going to the gym on a regular basis. The transformation that occurred there can be its own post, but regular exercise is a must for a healthy mental state for me. Bible Study. Really, that is all that needs stated. However, I need to expand. I do not cognitively remember not believing in God. About five years ago I was faced with the question “Do you believe God?” I don’t think I did. So through this Bible Study I have gotten to know who God is. I am passionate about this God of love. When you learn who God is and what He does and continues to do, I am shocked people don’t want to experience this. Though like most people, until I took the time to study the Bible, study in community with others about the Bible, and through the guidance of an excellent teacher, I have finally learned WHO God is. I used to think the Old Testament was irrelevant since I believed in Jesus. The Old Testament was just history to me. While studying the New Testament, we had to look back at the Old Testament. In these years of Bible Study, what have I learned? God always was and always will be. Over 2000 years later, people have not changed an God has not changed. We have the same struggles today that the people of the church experienced 2000 years ago. God is still with us and He guides us.

I am a control freak with OCD. I cannot begin to say how difficult this makes life when trying to be a follower of Jesus. Those precious moments that I am able to put myself aside and let go of perfection, I get to experience peace, real peace. It is a state of being that is addictive. It is an experience that I wish for all of humanity. I think our world today would be a very different world if everyone had a taste of this peace. I am not an adrenaline junky, I haven’t been drunk, and I haven’t tried drugs. But I imagine the state of peace would be so addictive that no one would consider those self-destructive escapes from reality.

Last year was not an easy year for me. As a matter of fact it is the most difficult year I have experienced in my life. The what doesn’t matter. I will say I experienced a fear like I’ve never experienced. I experienced hurt like I didn’t think was possible. I experienced anger that threatened to consume. This was not one episode. Nope, this was an entire year. So how does a person near emotional death experiencing significant emotional trauma get out of bed in the morning? God!

God is the reason I am alive today to tell this story. However, if I had not started the work through regular exercise, saying “No!”, and learning who God was, I would not be here as a living testimony. Am I 100%? Nope. Is that okay? Yep. I take each day at a time and I thank God for each one. My boys are my priority and I’ve decided my actions need to reflect my priorities. If my actions don’t reflect my priorities, then my statements mean nothing. I still exercise, though I am not able to get to the gym as frequently as I like. I have set a goal for myself of 10,000 steps a day. If I have to walk circles around my table to accomplish this goal, so be it. Do I still see taking care of myself as selfish. Nope. I have to take care of my temple before I can take care of others. So mind, body, and spirt is my first job. Loving my family and taking care of my patients come after I have taken care of me. I haven’t asked my family, or my patients if I am doing a better job of taking care of them. I do know my perception has changed, and that has changed everything.

So while living life and recording memories is the goal of my life, I would not have a happy life to share without taking care of me. My ultimate goal, when people look at me that see Jesus. I don’t want to do what Jesus did. I want to do what Danyel does while being the hands and feet of Jesus on Earth.