Salutations And Greetings
Salutations And Greetings
Well, here we are. It’s another Wednesday.
It’s time to check in.
I have indeed decided to try to push myself more this month, although it may not be something seen online at the moment.
I pulled out April’s Passion Planner Ambassador activities, as well as what I thought were last month’s since I knew I had not done much with the activities in March—only to find out what I thought were March’s activities were February’s activities.
I have been in this weird funk for so long and so deeply that I basically completely missed March entirely. I could not even be sure I had seen March’s activities. I did not recognize a single one of them.
This is not at all like me.
But, it is what it is.
I will be working on three months’ worth of activities for Passion Planner soon.
This month, I am writing by hand during the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge. Although I have my goal set at 20000 words, I am striving more for getting down the scenes that keep showing up in my head and in my dreams, as well as working out such silly details as an actual cohesive plot, an actual cohesive story, and something I would be willing to share with the rest of the world. Right now, I write things scene by scene.
I did post a short video flip-through of my work on the first day of Camp Nano this month. You can see it here on TikTok, if you are interested.
This story, one I am calling Thalia, is my focus for this month.
Also, despite not paying much attention to my Pash Plan ambassador activities, I have actually watched a few planner videos this month.
I reached a point last month where I could not stand to see one more planning or plan with me video where it was a Bullet Journal artsy set-up or were used another pre-printed planner where stickers and not much else. I mean, I normally watch these videos for the conversation, not for how the person puts down stickers.
I could not handle another person talking about their stash of stickers or washi or anything like that. I did not want to watch someone draw or paint or anything like that.
Let me say, this is all me. It has nothing to do with the beautiful people who keep me company with their wonderful chatting and conversation when I watch the plan with me videos and so on when I am not in this fugue state.
I have kept watching certain planners who discuss planning, usually with their Hobonichi set-ups and what they do, track, and keep up with in their planners. How they use their planners, why they are changing which planner they use, what planner they are moving to and why, why the previous one did not work, that sort of thing. That has been where my brain has been lately.
Throughout March, well, actually beginning in February, I stopped using most of my planning system. The only things I have been using are my two Hobonichi Weeks planners. I have been keeping up with my word count for my writing—or pages when counting things up for Thalia—as well as the weather and dinner in the back of that planner. The other planner is my ‘magic’ planner. I have mostly kept up with Tarot spreads, Moon cycles, prayer requests, and the like in that planner. Other than that, I let everything else slide.
No goal planning. No tracking. No to-do lists. No ‘got it done’ lists. No memory keeping. Nada.
I woke up this past Monday, the first workday of the month, and I was ready to get back into planning and getting things done.
The first thing I did was clean up and clean off my desk in our office. My son has a habit of stacking stuff of his on my desk, as well as using my desktop as space to dry any of his painted artwork. Luckily, this is typically watercolor, so I don’t have to worry too much about him ruining anything of mine.
I love being able to work at my desk without having to dig through anything to get to what I want or need.
Then, I started going through boxes of stuff, in the office and in the living room. The stuff did not begin in boxes. I started cleaning and putting things in boxes to be sorted later.
Later came and the sorted resulted in quite a bit being stacked up on my desk so that I can put it away at some other time, preferably the next day when it wasn’t so close to midnight, or two in the morning.
Which means I have to clean off my desk all over again. No big deal, except that there are so many different things I need to get done.
Anyway, back to my planner stack. I am now using both my Hobonichi Weeks, as well as my A6 Stalogy; this is for collage work and different things inspired by the ALP (Awesome Ladies Project). Along with those, I am also using my memory keeper journal (B6 Stalogy) to keep track of what I have accomplished in a day. I have another A6 notebook, this one by Archer and Olive (from the last subscription box), that I am using at night, before bed, to simply make some mental notes before I go to bed. I am also still using (and never stopped because this is where I track what I am making/my crafts/etc.) my A5 pre-dated 2023 Archer and Olive planner.
I have also been using my written journal, my morning page journal, my diary, or whatever you want to call it a great deal more lately. I recently hit her pages to re-engage with prompts that Jashii Corrin gave out for free before the New Year commenced to help you choose your next journal/planner. She called it Preparing For A New Journal – or at least that is what I have written in both notebooks where I went through these questions.
I am not exactly shocked by how much my answers to these same questions have changed since answering for the first time last December. But then again, I am drilling down more and more to what really works for me, what works the best for me.
But, more about that at some other time.
I am currently [pondering whether to pull out my undated GoGetterGirlCo planner, which still has, I think, two untouched months within its covers—or do I grab that re-dated large Passion Planner that I tried to start using at the beginning of this year. I lean more toward my GGG planner, but as yet, I have not decided.
Since I am working on Thalia, I am cutting back on a lot of things during the day that I need to get done, so making to-do lists hasn’t been necessary for me yet. I know what I must get done on a daily basis and I move on those without making lists.
But I am leaning more toward planning things out more so I can accomplish that much more in a timely manner…but I do not want to buy any new planners unless I must, in order to save money. So, I am using what I have on hand as I move forward. Although I am keeping clear notes on what I plan to buy come November or whenever the 2024 planners are released.
I will say one thing. My new reflection notebook, the Archer and Olive A6, has given me a new appreciation for that size. My ALP/collage journal is an A6 Stalogy.
I originally bought the A6 to keep as a Bullet Journal and/or reflection journal. I meant to write in it. But—I hated writing in it. The grid spacing is off for me. Again, this is not a gripe against Stalogy. I already knew about the grid spacing before I bought the notebook. I simply thought that I could deal with it. I couldn’t. That is how it became my collage and ALP journal.
My A&O A6 reflection journal (no, I have not yet given her a name—yes, I have been using her since the beginning of April) has taught me that I do appreciate the A6 size. I don’t know if the dot grid is the same or different from one notebook size to the other. All I can say is that for me, writing in this notebook makes sense. Writing in it is a relaxing process, which I do appreciate at the time of night I am using it. The dot grid is light enough in color that it doesn’t bother me, that I don’t much notice it. I am now rethinking what size planner I may want and need for next year.
Until next time…
Stay safe.