Getting More Organized - Friday Focus

 Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Happy Friday! Today we are in the first Friday of February and I wanted to focus on ways that I am working on getting more organized this year with my goals and to dos. Organization has never been my strong suit, but I am constantly trying to work on this goal and feeling like I am becoming more of an organized person. I have been using different methods and feeling a bit more on track lately and doing things daily I want to get done. Below are some tools that have been making getting organized and motivating me to get things done more fun and attainable.

Happy Planner - I have been using this planner for about four years now and really love using it. I found a routine that works for me best by finding a time on Sunday night where I can sit down with my planner and stickers and plan out my week. I then refer to it throughout the week to keep on track with my to dos and goals. I like how I can be creative and have fun with it with the stickers.

Bullet Journal - I have a bullet journal where I write down goals for each month starting January. I do a reflection at the end of the month and see which goals I accomplished. I started drawing out trackers and forget to use them. I want to get better with tracking my habits in the journal each day so I don't forget if I did them and I can hold myself accountable.

Using Google calendar - I schedule all kinds of things on this calendar and use my phone to view the calendar and check my lap top as well to see the weekly layout. I schedule blog posts now that I am posting 3 times each week and I also schedule when to start working on them. I like to put tasks in there as well that I would like to accomplish and like how it says mark as complete in the corner because I like checking things off.

Miracle Morning - I have talked about the Miracle Morning more lately because I am now on day 11 of the Miracle Morning program by Hal Elrod. It really does hold me more accountable to focus on myself right when I wake up. It helps me to make my mental, spiritual, and physical health a priority. I am working on this everyday to get more in tune with myself and live my best life. I can't wait to share with you how my 30 day challenge went at the end of this month and what I notice and what I have accomplished.  I am adding this following comment now as I had a comment and question below about the app. I am using the Miracle Morning app and I purchased it through Apple. I would say the app is worth the money because it holds me accountable to complete the savers daily. As I am doing the morning routine and savers, I check them off an it is satisfying to hear the little sound when it is checking them off. Once you do all the savers there is a congratulations message with confetti. Every day there is a video of someone's story using the app which is so inspiring. I like how to keeps track of how many days in a row you have done the savers. I also like how Hal Elrod will share a special message to you to encourage you at 10 days and I will see if he does again at 20. I love the app and hope that you enjoy it too if you do get it. It is part of my morning routine now and just adds to the special feeling of setting time aside each day for myself and my journey.

Brainstorming ideas - I usually spend some time each month brainstorming and going through a list of possible to dos to remind me of things. Then I write them all in a list in notes on my phone. After I have the list, then I put the thoughts down into my planner to then strategize how to make my thoughts and hopes a reality for the month. I have running list of things I want to do and when I have a thought I like to add to the list so I don't forget.

Thank you for visiting my blog! I know it seems like I have a lot on the go, but all of these strategies used together seem to work for me. I am still working on my combination of resources to work best for me to come up with the ideal solution to accomplish the tasks I want to. I feel like I am working towards creating a routine that I get more done and I would like to hold myself more accountable. What are some of your ways to keep you organized with to-dos and to keep you on track with goals? 

Have a great day!

Happy New Year! Preparation and Reflection for 2021

 Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well.  This morning I did some planning, journaling, reading, and reflecting. I love NewYear's Eve because I use it as a time to think of the past year and what my goals are for the upcoming year. I finished reading Atomic Habits by James Clear today. It is a great book to read to think of the habits I want to continue and start in 2021. I wrote in my Five Minute Journal on what I am grateful for, and my hopes for the day to make it a great one. I planned in my Happy planner and filled in my to do list for today. I reflected on the affirmation card below to get into the mindset today. I also did a 6 minute meditation using the Insight Timer app on my phone. I am enjoying meditation lately and it is helping me to keep calm and focused. Definitely want to meditate daily in the New Year.

I planned in my Happy Planner on Sunday this week for the week ahead. I planned out this week for New Year's spread in my new planner. I have filled most of it in at this point, but here is my before the pen layout for the week.

I love this sticker that says Pop! Clink! & Fizz! I am happy I saved it for this day because it is perfect for New Year's Eve. I add the champagne glasses clinking sticker and some other star stickers as well.

I received some more planner stickers for Christmas as well as the Happy Planner pictured above from my mom. We always gift each other a planner and stickers each year. She got me two sticker packs, one note pack, and the fitness insert.

I got a lot of lovely things for Christmas. Below are a few gifts I received that will help me make this year a great one. I received the One Line A Day journal. Which has five years of space to write a line about your day. It will be great to reflect each year on the year before and to also compare years. I received the oh she glows cookbook. I am excited to try out these plant based recipes and I have two other books of hers and enjoyed them. I received these affirmation cards for women by Casey Weigand from Liam's dad and stepmom and am looking forward to incorporating these into my morning routine in the New Year.  

We were also gifted the ornament that says 2020 The year we almost got married from Liam's step sister. It is so cute and funny and we love it. I got the First Christmas in our New Home 2020 ornament on Etsy from SamanthaAnnAndCo. We love this ornament so much and we love our new home.

I also put together this plant stand from IKEA today. It is the Satsumas brand plant stand. I am happy that I now have a good home for my plants, and they will get a lot more sunlight in the New Year. I am glad I worked on this project today, and that it is now done. Liam also put together the second Malm nightstand. We are making progress in making our house more of a home.

Joining along with As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday.

Thank you for visiting today! This year was at times a difficult one and also a year that we had to slow down, and live in a different way. There were also some really great times had this year. I cherish this year for the special moments we had and mostly buying our first home. I hope that you enjoy your New Year's Eve and have a Happy New Year! I hope that 2021 is a wonderful year for you, and your family. Thank you for visiting my blog this year, I am so grateful for each of you. 

Happy New Year! x

Blogmas Day 21 - Happy Planner Christmas Week Layout

 Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. As some of you may know, I write in The Happy Planner weekly and use it to plan out my weeks. I have loved using the planner for the past three years. I love adding the stickers, and then filling in the to do lists with my tasks and also adding notes to remember. I created a layout last night for this special week of Christmas. I am excited to share it with you. Please join me as I discuss this special layout below.

I added a couple of to-do lists for Monday and Tuesday, because I usually get more done these days at the start of the week. I will also be busy Wednesday as well, but for this week of Christmas, I would like to have most of my to do tasks completed early in the week to enjoy Christmas.

For the end of the week, I just placed the big "Happy Christmas" sticker that takes up a few days. I always enjoy the day before and after Christmas as well because we are celebrating Christmas, so I went ahead and put the sticker to fill all those days. I love how it is so colorful and feels so special. I placed the Santa and "Santa stop here" sticker for Christmas Eve because we all hope Santa fills our stockings and makes our next morning magical. I added the gather sticker because we'll be visiting some family this year and gathering together. I am really looking forward to this part of the week!

I placed this "Merry & Bright" sticker in the corner of the first page which is my quotes or inspiration spot. I just love this sticker in the red and green with the holly. It makes me so happy.

I love this peace on earth sticker it is so pretty with the various colors. I hope there is peace on earth especially at this time of the year.

I just love this cute bicycle with gifts on the back of it. It is adorable.

I used this sticker book called Christmas Joy from Me & My Big Ideas and The Happy Planner. It has a lot of stickers to choose from and I got all the stickers you saw today from this booklet.

This is the planner I used this year. I loved the message "your year to shine".

Thank you for visiting my blog today for Blogmas day 21! I am so excited for this week leading up to Christmas it already feels so special. I had a lot of fun making this layout last night and anticipating the fun week ahead. See you tomorrow for another Blogmas post!

Please click here to read my other posts from Blogmas 2020.

Have a great day!

Happy New Year 2019!

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Happy New Year! Liam and I had our sisters over with their partners last night. We played games, ate lots of chips and appetizers, and of course we watched Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve. It was wonderful welcoming the New Year in great company and having a fun time.

A few decor items I got for our party

Liam and I ringing in the New Year with a party hat

 In knitting, I am still working on a gift for my mom. It got a bit busy and I did not finish knitting her some fingerless mitts. I will be working on these up to the New Year and trying to finish them to gift them to her. For this year, I would like to focus on knitting a shawl. I will search Ravelry for a pattern I like, then purchase the yarn early on in the New Year to get started. I also still have to sew up the seams on the Wool and the Gang Farrah Billie Jean top I finished knitting last year, I will be getting onto that this month.

I received two Happy Planners for Christmas. I got a regular-sized planner and a mini planner and will be using the regular size at home and I will take the mini planner to work with me in my bag. I am excited to use both and see how that goes. I wanted one that was easier to carry with me to record notes and throw into a bag and refer to when I am out and about. I am thinking of using the mini planner for mostly work related notes and reminders to keep me organized and focused and inspired at work and home and the larger one for personal goals and more related to home, blogging, knitting, and other interests of mine. Did you also get a Happy Planner for the New Year?

Two planners this year 

In reading, I am still reading Inner Life of Animals by Peter Wohlleben and also started reading Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty which I received for Christmas. I have been reading it a lot lately and I am so excited to be reading a book that really interests and excites me again. I love those books you just can't put down and it has been awhile since I felt that way. I received a few other books for Christmas that I am excited about reading which I will share with you soon.  I will be really focusing a lot more on reading in the new year and I have a goal to read 15 books in 2019. In 2018, I enjoyed the selection of books I read and was discovering so many amazing books to read and adding them to my to-read list. I will focus more on reading as many as I can in 2019.

I shared with you all my resolutions for 2019 in a blogmas post. I am a big believer in resolutions and have always made them, whether it be choosing a word or a few to focus on for your year ahead, or choosing goals to focus on for the year. I think that it is has a similar power to creating and saying affirmations to ourselves like I am going to have the best year yet because I am going to do all of these wonderful things for myself and others. I like to start the year off with that intention and it usually inspires me throughout the year as I refer back to my list.

Thank you for visiting my blog today! I will be returning to my regular posting schedule of posting entries on knitting and reading updates early in the week(Tuesdays or Wednesdays). I will make an effort to try to post twice each week. I really enjoyed posting more during Blogmas and will make an effort to post more often in the New Year.

Have a great day!

New Year's Resolutions and Getting Back on Track

Hello Friends,

I hope you are all doing well. The past couple days I have been working on getting on track for the new year. My boyfriend and I had a great time at a friend's place on New Year's Eve and welcomed the new year with some great people. I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's Eve night and New Year's day. I took down the ornaments off the Christmas tree yesterday and then we threw out the tree last night.  This is always kind of a bittersweet moment because it is accepting that it is not Christmas anymore, but also a sign of a new year with new possibilities. I still have some Christmas decorations to put away today.

I was happy to do a bit of knitting on the Wool and the Gang Farrah Billie Jean top yesterday and get back into working on my personal knitting projects. Today I will be working on knitting the front piece again and making some more progress. I will also be looking up patterns to use for some new yarn I purchased recently.

Progress on WAG Farrah Billie Jean top

I have been filling out the Q&A a day book and the first question I answered on January 1st was "what is your mission?" I was stumped on that question for awhile then thought of my answer. I flipped through the rest of the questions to see if they were all difficult to answer, but some are also easier to answer such as "what is the last restaurant you went to?". I am really enjoying answering the questions and look forward to seeing how my answers differ from year to year.

I got my planner organized yesterday and today by adding the inserts and filling in what I ate in the fitness insert and my exercise. I am loving the home planner insert, I think it will really come in handy to keep track of cleaning, to-do lists, and my budget. I feel more ready to start the new year now and excited for the possibilities of 2018. Because I just started adding stickers to the page today it is pretty bare and I did not do too much on New Year's day anyway except sleep and relax off the night before.

First page of my new Happy Planner so far

I am still reading Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed and have added a couple more books to the list since Christmas because I can never seem to only read one book at a time haha. I started reading Stuff Every Vegetarian Should Know by Katherine Mcguire and The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur. I was gifted both of these books for Christmas and I was excited to start reading them. I am hoping to finish Wild soon so I can focus more on the books I received for Christmas.

I made a list of my resolutions for the year 2018 and came up with five resolutions to focus on. I had more goals, but these will be my main focus of this year.

1. Get a job - I finished my certificate in December and now it is time to really focus on getting a job.

2. Get in shape and eat healthy - My sister's wedding is coming up this fall and I would like to feel my best for her big day. I did a Tone it Up workout yesterday and it felt great to get back into exercising again.

3. Read 20 books - I would really like to make it to 20 books read this year. I have a few on my to-read list so far and look forward to reading a lot this year.

4. Knit different projects- I would like to challenge myself to trying some new knitting projects this year. Maybe I will check out some Ravelry patterns and try out some new hat and sock patterns. I will also be knitting a tank top this year from the Wool and the Gang Farrah Billie Jean kit.

5. Try cooking new vegetarian and vegan dishes - Since my decision in September 2017 to go vegetarian, I have been experimenting with cooking a lot of vegetarian and vegan meals. I have really enjoyed the food and it would be fun to try some more that we can add to our weekly meal rotation.

What are some of your goals or resolutions for the year?

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On and As Kat Knits for Unwraveled Wednesday. Also linked up with Ginny's Yarn Along on her blog Small Things today (January 7th), because I found out she is back with a monthly Yarn Along post!

Thank you for visiting my blog, if you would like to keep updated on when I post, please follow me through Bloglovin', Google Followers, and you can subscribe by email at the top right of the blog.

Have a great day!

Blogmas: Christmas Market Trip and Happy Planner Christmas Layout

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I have been busy getting ready for Christmas, finishing knitting the stockings, knitting gifts, going to the holiday market, and buying gifts. There are only three days left until Christmas now and time is running out to get all the things done. I went to the Toronto Christmas Market in the Distillery District last night with my boyfriend and my family and my sister's fiance. It was so  nice to see all the lights, look around in the stores, and get good food and drink mulled wine. It was my first time drinking mulled wine last night and I really enjoyed it.

There were so many lit up words around the market this year. They had joy, love, and there was also family which were all very popular spots for photos. I saw a big family huddle under the word for a group picture.

I feel so much joy for this time of year and spending time with those I love

All you need is love

Christmas countdown!

The beautiful tree that is in the center of the market. It was THE selfie spot last night

Liam and I joining along with the many people taking selfies last night

beautiful lights above the market

Naughty or Nice lights display by the bar

Under a giant mistletoe and with my mulled wine!

 We had such a great time going to the market with my family and having dinner at Mill Street Brewery. We always have such a nice time at the market with so much to see and I enjoyed the Christmas lights most of all this year. I can't wait to go back next year!

I planned out my spread in my Happy Planner for this week and the beginning of next week for the around Christmas and to keep organized with the busy schedules. I was excited to use the Christmas and holiday themed stickers from the seasonal Create 365 Happy Planner sticker pack. The photos below are mostly "before the pen" photos, which means they are photos of the sticker layouts before I write in my plans. I will add the details now that I have finished placing the stickers.

December 19th-20th

As you can see from the photo below, I left the remainder of my Christmas shopping to today. I had been planning on finishing earlier but of course that never happens! I still have one or two gifts to buy tomorrow.

December 21st-24th

I really love all of these stickers, the girl and the dog on the sled sticker is so cute. I love the "have yourself a merry little Christmas" sticker as well.

December 25th-27th

I will be getting a new planner for 2018 and I am looking forward to another year of planning in my Happy Planner. I really had a lot of fun this year using the planner. I love the vertical layout because I like the way I can organize my days using the squares in the planner and plan morning, afternoon and evening. 

Tonight I was working on knitting a gift for my boyfriend and got a lot of it done. I am keeping it a secret on the blog since he reads it. I am excited to share the finished project with you after Christmas and share the pattern I used as well. I hope all of your knitting and crochet projects are coming together nicely too! 

Thank you for visiting my blog today. If you would like to keep updated on when I post blog entries, please follow my blog on Bloglovin', Google Followers, and you can also subscribe by email at the top right corner of the blog. 

Have a great day!