Well Planned Life

If you haven't already seen it, as part of the Philofaxy All Stars Blog Tour , today's post is over at Zeitgeist of Zoe .  While you're there, please check out Zoe's posts - she has TONS of tips and tricks (and planner angst) to share with you.  Plus, her wit and humor are out of this world. Enjoy!

I don’t ever set reading challenges for myself.  Although I love to read and always have a book with me, I find that because I’m so busy, I don’t get to read in big blocks of time.  Therefore, it can take me a long time to finish a book, so it’s pointless for me to put pressure on myself to finish any specific number of books in a predetermined amount of time.  Plus, then the reading becomes all about finishing the book rather than enjoying it.  However, since I love autumn and like to indulge in autumn things, I found myself particularly inspired by this post from Emilia Lives Life , though I’m not so much saying “goodbye to summer” as I’m saying hello to autumn. As I read Emilia’s post, I thought, “Yes, I should indulge in some school-type books to get in the autumn mood.”  Looking at her list, the only one I have read Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep (in fact, she is one of my favorite authors because of this book).  I love it for the boarding school aspe...

Yesterday we had the second New York City Philofaxy Meet Up, only a few months after thefirst one . My day started with a train ride to New York from Long Island.  Once there, my husband and I walked around for a while, just enjoying the beautiful weather that was bestowed on the wonderful day.  Just one block before Sam Flax (our meet up point and the Filofax retailer), we stopped at Barnes and Noble for a rest, a latte and a treat.  During this time, I experienced two fun things: 1.  A conversation between an employee and a customer – “Are you looking for something like At-a-Glance or something more like a Filofax ?”  I had to contain myself from jumping up and inviting this unsuspecting woman for a day she’d never forget.  I don’t know what the customer said because I was too busy relaying this first statement to my husband. 2.  A guy sat at the table next to us and I noticed that he was toting a Timbuk2 messenger bag, the same br...

I am starting a new series on this blog: Things I Love.  It will cover just about anything, but the point is to highlight things I love and cannot live without.  I don’t know how often this series will be posted, but the posts will be tagged as “Things I Love.”  The series does not include the topics that already have their own tag on the blog, such as planners , bags , yoga , knitting , etc.  The posts will be more random. So, without further ado, here is the first post in the series. One of the things I truly cannot live without is coffee.  YUM!  First, let me say that I love hot drinks in general, whether it is coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or apple cider.  I just find hot drinks so soothing and comforting.  There really is something to putting on a pot of coffee or tea to drink your blues away, nothing like holding that warm mug in your cold hands, and definitely nothing like breathing in the hot vapors of whatever is your drin...

Today we have a very special post.  We have approached the ten-year anniversary of September 11 .  No one can forget where they were when they heard the news.  My own story is nothing special—I was not directly affected by the day—I personally knew no one who was killed, nor was I near New York City that day.  I do remember first hearing about it on the radio as I was going about my morning, heading out to the bakery to pick up a few “goodies” for my dad and a colleague of his.  I also remember first hearing the phrase “terror attack” while in the bakery.  I rushed home to tell my father what was happening, and together we watched the events unfold on television, just looking at each other with nothing to say but reading everything in the other’s eyes.  My mother was teaching that day, and for anyone in a school, they were on lock-down—no one in, no one out.  Teachers did not know what was happening, as they were not allowed to watch the news be...

Awhile ago I talked about my knitting binder . Since then I’ve been working on a few projects, but many of them still aren’t finished. (This tends to happen when I have more than one project going at a time.) However, I did finish a blanket for my niece, and since Caribbean Princess asked if I would share my projects, I thought it might be time to do that. This is what the blanket looks like: You can see the detail of the pattern better in this photo: The color is a bit off here - the true color is more like the one above. Ideally, it would have been a baby blanket. But since I didn’t learn to knit until she was three and I didn’t start the blanket right away, by the time I finally completed it, she was six. Ah well, she could use it for her dolls instead, I thought. But she came up with a better idea—she put it over her pillow and uses it to sleep on. It’s more of a pillow cover than a blanket. It’s fine though since it’s being used and she loves it. That’s all ...