Well Planned Life

I am not artistic, at least not the way one might pick up a paintbrush or drawing pencils and create something from scratch.   I can barely draw a stick figure, and that is not an exaggeration; I seriously cannot draw a straight line.   However, just like I can follow a recipe pretty well, I can color inside some pre-determined lines.   (While I can follow a recipe, I am not good at just whipping something up from the leftover ingredients in my refrigerator.   I seem to need guidelines; rules , if you will.) I have liked coloring since I was little, but I never really gave it much thought.   I actually have colored on and off during my adult life, but it never became a habit at all.   When the adult coloring craze came along, well, I got hooked.   In addition to it being fun, there are many reports that it’s good for you , that it promotes mindfulness , and gives you the same (or near) benefits of mediation .   (How true that is, I cannot say...

I just finished reading A Street Cat Named Bob and The World According to Bob .   I loved them both and highly recommend them if you’re looking for something uplifting to read.   (I have yet to read A Gift from Bob , though that will be first on my Christmas reading list come December.) Simply put, Street Cat is a memoir of how James Bowen and Bob found each other and how they saved each other.   Bowen, a recovering addict, finds a stray ginger cat in his apartment building, whom he takes in.   After several days, it becomes apparent that they were meant to find each other.   Their relationship is a unique one—they work on the streets of London together, ride the bus together, find adventure together, and learn to survive and change their lives together.   Daily life isn’t always easy for them, but together they do their best. A story about a cat (or any animal) always draws me in.   However, Bob’s spirit is unlike any I have read about befo...

[Yes, I realize that “awesomer” is not a word, but it works here.] Back in the spring, I read a book for a book discussion that has become my (latest) go-to recommendation for just about everyone.   It is rare that I enjoy a book thoroughly (and by that I mean every aspect of the book—its story, its characters, and its writing) that I recommend it to practically everyone who asks me for a reading suggestion.   This time is was The Secret Keeper by Australian author Kate Morton (no relation to the great Steve Morton that I am aware of). I don’t want to talk about the book too much because I don’t want to give anything away, and there is a lot to give away.   But here are the basics: it’s a historical fiction book/mystery that goes back and forth in time, between the present day, the 1960s, and the 1930s.   (Fear not, however; you will not be lost as to which decade you’re in while reading.)   The story unfolds from Laurel’s perception, and the reade...

This is more of an addendum to last week’s post on organizing my online reading .   A reader asked the question of where/how I save articles that I want to hold on to.   I should have addressed this in that post, but really, I wanted to do a separate post on the online services and apps I use to organize many things, so this post will answer the original question as well as discuss other online organizing solutions. To answer the question of where/how I store articles that I want to hold on to for future reference, I use Evernote for this purpose.   In short, Evernote is a place to create notebooks and keep track of different types of information.   Some people use it to create lists and organize their tasks.   I actually don’t use it this way, though it is effective for such lists.   I use it only for capturing articles I want to be able to access again in the future, though I have made lists within notebooks while planning a trip or two.   (You...

In last week’s post I mentioned that I would go into more detail about how I organize and stay up to date with my online (blog) reading.   Along with just about everything I do, it’s a bit of a process.   But it works for me.   I have written about this before , but since then things have changed a bit.   What follows is the process by which I add new planner-related blogs to my reading list, though there are tons of other blogs I follow as well. First, I start with Philofaxy ’s Web Finds .   This list appears twice a week.   When it shows up in my feed reader, I email it to myself.   When I have time, I go through the post and add any new (or new to me) blogs to my reading list. I am an avid Feedly user.   I used to use Google Reader , and when that dissolved, Feedly was the recommended service.   I started with it and continue with it because of all of feed readers I have tried (and I’ve tried them all), Feedly is the only one th...