Project Life

I'm attempting to get my Project Life stuff organized. I bought this art bin off of Amazon for about $20 and the journaling cards fit perfectly in the slots. The first slot houses my new honey edition, the second has the cobalt edition and the third has colored card stock and scrapbook pages that I've punched out. The slots are long enough to hold all the journaling cards from a set so you could fit four entire sets in here!

The last slot has the larger title cards. I don't use those very often so the slot is overcrowded. I think I am going to buy a second container to hold larger cards, journaling pens, stickers, and the random colored cards. Then this container can be completely dedicated to my nice sets of journaling cards :)

January Book Review

One of my biggest New Year's Resolutions is to read more! Between full time class, full time work and my internship I literally had no down time for any fun books, or "brain-candy" as my mom likes to call them! I got off to a good start in January with five books and I'm down two more this month!

Click the book title to go to the Amazon page for each book.

The Never List
This book is pretty grim; it follows a woman seeking the truth about the man who abducted her, her mission to ensure he stays in jail and her journey to find peace after the death of her best friend. It was a fast-paced read and you can probably guess the end about halfway through but there were a few fun twists.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood

This was an unusual choice for me. I am a very spiritual person but have never identified with any particular religion. When my cousin suggested this I was reluctant to get a copy, worried that it would be a couple hundred pages of someone pushing their beliefs on me. However, I turned out to be very happily wrong! This book is funny! It's the perfect balance between the history of Judaism and Christianity, modern day religion, current events and problems and the authors own journey to find herself and her faith.

The Husband's Secret
This is the first book that I read this year and I could not put it down! There really isn't a lot I can say without giving something away but I loved every second of it. I love the concept that everything happens for a reason. That all of our choices have consequences; both good and bad. 

The Memory of Running

This one took me awhile to get into. At first the main character annoyed me but I soon feel in love with him and the eclectic cast of characters he meets throughout his quest. It's the story of a man riding cross country on a bike after learning about he deaths of his parents and sister. Although we may not all have been through that particular trauma, I think most people can relate to his journey to find himself and come to terms with his life.  

The Snow Garden

Last up but not least, this was another dark and twisty book. I didn't see the end of this one coming though so I gets some brownie points! It's all about three college students who stumble into a murder case and fall into a world of, for all lack of a better term, sexual deviance. The characters are all broken and vulnerable but I didn't connect with them the same way I did with characters in the other books. 

Stay tuned for my February book review. Hopefully I'll get better at summing them up :)

  

Arc Planner

Hello all! I am a bit of a freak about organization and have been obsessing for months over finding the right planner. For the past couple months I have been using Erin Condren's Life Planner. It is an amazing pre-bound planner...so colorful and fun. I always get bored with planners though. I see cool printables on-line or new organizing templets that I want to try but with a pre-bound planner I can't adjust, add-on or play around!

So what is a girl to do? I have tried using a 3-ring binder as a planner but it is too bulky. Then a couple days ago I stumbled upon the Arc system by Staples and fell in love. I haven't had much time to really use it so far but I am loving it. Here is a sneak peak:

I bought the red binder cover because it came with weekly/monthly pages inside already and I knew it may take me awhile to find a calendar I like better.

Here is the inside cover. I have color coding stickers on the inside pocket and bigger sticky notes for various planning endeavors! On the right is a 4x6 printout of a quote from "We Bought A Zoo". If you haven't seen that movie go watch it!

Before the monthly calendar I have by monthly tending list (seriously, check out powersheets by Lara Casey, they're amazing) folded in half so that it fits and is easy to review.

Next up is the monthly view where I keep track of big events, birthdays, work schedule, etc. 

In the weekly view I outline my workout schedule, work schedule, goals that need to be accomplished, etc. 

The next tab "shopping" holds my menu for the week. I made a sticky note grid so that I can easily move dinners around if my schedule changes. The grid paper I used though is kind of flimsy so I'll probably end up using the graph paper to get everything lined up and even and then trace it onto thicker paper. This tab also houses my gift shopping list! That way I can keep track of ideas as I find them. 

I have an "Information" tab that holds my boy's school schedule and a password keepr

In the "Memories" section I have a small chart I made to keep track of things that happen so that I can journal about them later (both in my personal journal and scrapbooks). 

Lastly I have a "Home" section with my cleaning checklist and projects that need to be completed. 

Lastly, I keep some extra little notes and papers in here. 

It is still pretty basic. I definitely want to find prettier and nicer charts to use but we'll get there!