Well Planned Life

Sorry for the radio silence here at WPL.  I have been away for the last week and only just returned last night.  Obviously, it will take me a while to add comments to the posts I missed and reply to one blogging tag - but get to them I will!  Thanks for your patience and look for a few posts about my trip soon!

For those of you who have read the latest Philofaxy Web Finds , you are familiar with the Huffington Post article on being a prisoner of technology .  Before I go on, let me say that this article resonated with me a great deal.  Too often I have felt the same way that author Honig seems to feel—that as a society, we rely too heavily on being connected to the online world, every day, all day.  As Americans, we don’t know how to shut off the technology, to take a (real) break from work and all that is demanded upon us each and every day.  So many other cultures know how to do this, and they do it well.  They work just as hard as anyone, but they also know how to turn it off and let go of it for a while.  Do we really accomplish more by working more hours, or do we simply put ourselves in harm’s way by pushing the envelope and the length of the working day?  In my opinion (and possibly backed by some research), we are an unhealthier society because of the amount of work we do.  So m

If you’re not familiar with the US television network CNBC , I highly advise you to take a look.  Aside from headline news programs, they often have wonderful news documentary-type programs.  My husband and I have seen many great shows and learned quite a bit: “ The PixarStory ,” “ As Seen on TV ,” “ The eBay Effect ,” “ The Facebook Obsession ,” “ Inside the Mind of Google ,” “ The Oprah Effect ,” “ Supermarkets Inc. ,” and others. The latest show is “ The Coffee Addiction .”  This is one of the better news programs we have seen.  The show goes behind the scenes of the coffee industry, discussing not only America’s obsession with coffee (the US is the most caffeine-addicted country in the world), but also inside Starbucks , Green Mountain Coffee , and other coffee companies.  But what’s really great about this show is how they also go behind the scenes of how coffee is made, from the farmers who grow it to the process by which the beans are cleaned and prepared for public consum

Please check out the Filofax Competition as posted on Philofaxy (as well as individual related blogs).  I have to think hard about what Filofax memory I'd like to include...

Now that it is officially fall, I can discuss my two fall bags, as well as a new bag find. The contents of my bag are still the same as last time . My fall weekend bag is VeraBradley ’s Tie Tote (no longer being produced) in the Medallion (retired) pattern:   The dark red/maroon color reminds me of fall, which is how this bag became the season’s choice. Inside, there is one long zipped pocket, and on the other side, two smaller open pockets.  I use one for my cell phone and one for my iPod Touch: For work, I’m using my brown Coach tote bag.  This was my very first Coach bag, and so I will probably never part with it: The inside is much the same as the Vera Bradley bag above—one long zipped pocket and two smaller pockets on the other side. I thought I was all set for the fall as far as bags go.  But if you recall from the post mentioned above, I had bought an L.L.Bean Signature suede tote bag that I loved but could not keep

As part of the Philofaxy All Stars Blog Tour , the lovely Imy has written a guest post for me: My dream day would be as follows I would wake up in a huge bed with my boyfriend (no I don’t want Brad Pitt, just my normal boyfriend) then go over to my beautiful white French make up table and put my make up. After doing my make up I would walk in to my huge walk in wardrobe and probably create an outfit out of Vivienne Westwood and All Saints clothing, pick up my Mulberry Alexa and stuff her full! I would then walk downstairs where my PA would great me and tell me all the appointments in my Filofax (which I would of written in), as I would be owning Filofax, and would be the person to choose what designs get made competitions and everything. I would have a meeting first with the leather company as we would be designing the Barbie Filofax, it would be so beautiful, would be some really soft smooth Barbie pink leather, it would look lovely when aged and would not get colour transfer. W

Thank you for bearing with me through this little change.  (I feel like I've lost something - strange how that happened for something so small.) All of the content on my original blog is still accessible through the new URL.  However, if any of you have linked to it from your own blog, those links will no longer work.  If you would LIKE to update those links, feel free to email me and I will provide the new direct link.  However, I do not EXPECT anyone to do this.  I will gradually be updating my own links (within posts) over time. Thanks for being such loyal readers of Life Well Planned/Well Planned Life.

Just a small housekeeping issue: It seems that there is a company out there who has trademarked the phrase "Life Well Planned."  While my blog was born before the trademark was established, and though I've been told that nothing could come of this issue because of that fact, I am changing the name of my blog simply for my own peace of mind. The new name will be Well Planned Life and the URL will now be WellPlannedLife.blogspot.com .  I will make this change later this evening in the hopes that my readers will take note of the change.  If you view my posts through a feed reader, you will need to update the link. From what I can tell, I will not lose any content by making the change, however I don't know if links to my blog will still work. Check back here later to get the new link.  Thank you for your understanding and for reading.

Autumn (or fall, as it’s commonly referred to here in the States) is my favorite time of year.  I am not alone .  Many people have commented that the start of the school year, rather than the start of a new year, feels more like a beginning to them, like a fresh start, than the first day of a new year.  I suppose this is true for me too.  I can remember shopping for new school clothes and supplies when I was young, the feeling of going back to school and meeting up with friends I hadn’t seen in a couple of months, and settling into a new routine. Now that I’m no longer in school, I don’t have the school things to look forward to.  But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to look forward to.  I look forward to buying new planner inserts and setting them up—the cool, clean, crisp pages are a sign of things to come; they hold the promise of great adventures yet to be experienced; my days are blank, just waiting to be written to my own personal history.  I also look forward

It’s been almost three weeks since starting my fallreading challenge .  I’m actually further along than I thought I would be at this point.  I have finished my first book, College Girl by Patricia Weitz .  This wasn’t a difficult read, nor was it overly exciting, but I enjoyed it.  It’s about Natalie’s journey through her last two years at college—how she abandons her studies for a guy that doesn’t treat her well, how she deals with her brother’s suicide and her horrible family, how she faces her lack of self-confidence, and how she learns to move on in life.  The story isn’t so much about the things she does, but how her emotions and way of thinking changes throughout the book.  Though it was a good story, I did feel that her journey could have been described in a little more detail.  The reader gets a sense of her inner turmoil, and though we get a sense of how deep that turmoil goes, we don’t get to really delve into the specifics of it—the reader doesn’t feel it, or at lea