Well Planned Life

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...

A few posts ago, I got a comment from a reader asking me to do a post on how I organize and plan my fun things.   I had to think about this a little because, while I do plan and organize some things, other just kind of fall into place.   So what follows isn’t necessarily a complete list of my “fun things,” but it’s a place to start. As planners, we (or I) tend to plan and organize just about everything.   My family always jokes that if I were ever committed of a crime, they could defend me by showing my planner to the judge and jury and saying “If it’s not in the planner, it didn’t happen.”   This is (sadly, perhaps) true, though only to an extent.   While many things—most things—are planned, some are not.   I guess it depends on what can be constituted as a planned event or something that just happens.   (In those cases, I fill in the event later, for record-keeping purposes; it’s fun to look back and see what I did on any given date.) Things...

It’s no secret that I love fall .   But even though I love it, I’m hesitant to head towards it this year.   We had such a hard, cold, snowy, long winter last year that I wouldn’t be sad if I didn’t see any of it for another three years.   Plus, the summer was not all that hot this year—we had perfect weather (sunny and high-70s/low-80s most days) but it’s not the norm.   Usually we have several days (if not weeks) where the temperature reaches over 90 degrees.   So usually, by the time September rolls around, I am ready and looking forward to the cool, crisp days ahead.   But not this year. To be fair, it’s not fall that I’m not looking forward to; it’s the cold, dark days that follow.   January through March is tough for me.   I’d be happy if our winter lasted from December through the end of January and we’d go right into spring.   But that’s not the climate in which I live. With all of this said, I finally decided that life is too...

If you read this post , you know that we had a lot of household items to take care of this summer.   I was itching to get it all done as quickly as possible, but sometimes you have to take your time and spread out the expenses and the tasks.   Thankfully, we got a good deal of our list completed.   And while we didn’t get everything done, we got to a point where we can pick up again next spring. We cleared out our front garden and planted some new flowers and trees. Our first plant purchase was two dwarf Japanese maples . I have always wanted these little guys because of their beautiful red leaves.   But since we have such a small area to work with, we bought the dwarf variety.   They shouldn’t get too much taller than they are now, but they should fill out nicely, making for a “weeping” look.   Next spring we will plant some low-lying flowers to fill in the dirt better. We also planted a few hostsa plants . These actually c...