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...

A while back, I discussed my routine for meal planning and running errands .   This routine hasn’t changed all that much.   I still plan my meals; I still keep lists of things I want/need to buy; and I still keep a list of the places I need to go each week; I still use Wunderlist to organize my errand running.   (You can read my complete overview of Wunderlist here .)   However, all of these errands—as well as general everyday mail and random other items—create a lot of paper clutter. How do I deal with it all? First, in regards to mail, I sort items each day upon bringing it into the house.   Anything that is for my husband goes into a wire bin on the kitchen counter.   It’s up to him to process his own items.   More often that not, he leaves his mail in the bin.   Each week, when I clean the kitchen, I’ll throw out anything that is no longer relevant (things like supermarket circulars or outdated coupons, etc.).   I will also remo...

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...

I am an organized person by nature.   I don’t have to think too much about how to organize something, whether it be a spot in my house, a collection of items, or a project.   I simply look at what I need to do and a plan just sort of comes to me.   This is not to say, however, that I don’t teak whatever system it is that I have in place should the need arise.   Many times our needs change and/or our system evolves or changes organically simply because those needs change or because something isn’t working for us.   A system can always be a work in progress. I wasn’t always organized.   I remember my mother forcing me to clean my room every once in a while when I was young because it just got so ugly.   I hated those cleaning sessions.   I hated sorting through all of the dolls, all of the dolls’ clothing, the books, the accessories, the whatever.   It was such a process, an event that took the better part of the day to complete.   I ...

Hello! Happy fall!   Happy holidays!   Happy New Year! It has been over three months (!) since my last post , unless you count my Philofaxy guest post , in which case it’s been over two months.   Either way, this is the longest I have ever gone without blogging.   I have both missed it and…not. I have missed the physical and creative aspects of writing, and I’ve missed the interaction with my readers and their comments.   However, I did not miss the stress I often put on myself to get a post published.   Typically, I average a post a week, and since the summer, I have not been able to do even that much.   I decided back then that I wasn’t going to stress over getting a post out just for the sake of doing it.   My mind was tired of forcing a post on a topic that I didn’t have much heart for just to publish something.   See, since I moved into a compact binder (specifically my two VDS binders, one and two ), and having other supp...