I have been enjoying the slower pace the past few days and not forcing myself to get up and go to the gym or work on a giant list of To Dos. Though I do also enjoy being productive and being on top of things. Both have their place and the art of balancing them has been on my mind a lot the last couple of days. There are just so many parts and pieces that make up a life, aren't there? And only limited quantities of energy, motivation, time, and money.
It may be cliche, but this time of year is when I get in that mode to really think about and reevaluate my life, my priorities, and the direction I want to take in the new year and I've been taking a few solid steps toward preparing to jump into the new year with both feet. I am finishing up my final prompt for the OLW workshop I participated in this year (and starting to get excited for the process next year) and am pretty sure I have decided on my new Word for next year (that will get it's own blog post in a few days). I sat down with Kaitlyn this morning and we revised and reprinted the Before Screens list for the kids (we haven't used the lists at all since the move and I've been having such a hard time keeping Tyler on track and self directed lately. Hoping this alleviates some of the frustration and constant nagging) and have them hanging up ready to be used. I have a few other things/ideas for interactions with the kiddos that are percolating in my head. I even found homes for most of the new things we all got for Christmas and the clutter piles are nearly all gone.
I also picked up a weekly planner - something I haven't used in years. I have a number of reasons for doing so. First of all, I haven't been on the ball about putting things on my Google calendar and I'm hoping that having it all just in a hard copy will be easier for keeping track of appointments and schedules. I know, right? Old School. But the bigger reason for purchasing a planner was for memory keeping/scrapbooking purposes. My intention for the last few years has been to put together some kind of December Daily album (I know - lots of inspiration from Ali Edwards lately. We must have similar personalities/tastes or something ;) ) but I am never fully set up enough to do it as I go along, so this year I printed off a weekly calendar for December - you know the ones with a bunch of lines under each day of the week so you can take notes - and have been using it to keep track of some of the things I want to remember from each day. I've seen that kind of idea before - using a calendar to write down one memory every day during your baby's first year and so on - and a light finally went off. Those little squares on a calendar are not nearly enough room to write down a story from the day or any sort of detail but the idea of keeping it all in one place, in something that is easy to pick up and use, is a solid one. So. My plan for this year is to write down everything I want to remember in the weekly planner - funny quotes from the kids, details about daily life, stories of big events, etc. Much easier than scrolling through Facebook posts, emails, and blog posts trying to figure out what happened during week ____ when trying to put together my layouts/albums. Right now I'm thinking I'm pretty brilliant, but the true test will be a couple months into it to see if I have been following through on writing everything down on a regular basis.
Now I just need to finalize a few fun plans for New Years Eve (ack - someone tell me I'm not the only one that staying up until midnight doesn't appeal to! lol) and I think I'm all set to head into 2015. Are you?
