Things I love about this weekend besides my new planner

My new planner is here!  My new planner is here!  I'm SOMEBODY now!! (Insert dancing emoji).

It came this week and I'm already sufficiently obsessed with it.  It's probably my favorite one ever.  I know I've said that before, but well, just look at how adorable...

And I had to splurge on the optional sticker pack because, just... 

yep.

Call me old school (go ahead say it, punk!)  (just kidding).  But I have to have a paper planner.  I've tried the electronic calendar on my phone and ipad, but I found it more complicated and takes more time and energy than just pulling out my planner, whipping it open and writing it down like a human.  It's worth carrying around in my purse.

Schedules, goals, to-do lists, notes and pockets for stuff...it's not just a planner, 

it's a way of life, people.  

I filled in the goal page during my coffee shop therapy time yesterday and now I feel inspired.
How often do we really write down things like this?  We think them, but there is something about writing things out on paper and looking at it often that increases my focus and gets me motivated to make it happen.

I could have kept going with the list, but these are what came out of me spontaneously yesterday, which I find is the best way to write goals.  Listen to your heart, whatever comes spilling out first without overthinking it.

Other things I love about this weekend:

Rainy days and cuddles on the couch
Steaks on the grill by the dubs
A husband who does the laundry every weekend
Fresh baked cookies (even if it is frozen fundraiser cookie dough, still good)
Coffee dates with my girl, and my sis-in-law
Conversations with my boy who was actually home for much of the weekend
Sunday afternoon naps :)
Lazy dogs

It's time

I tried. 

Since April I have tried to like my iPad calendar instead of a paper planner.  I really did.  But it just didn't take, because...

I LOVE PLANNERS!!!

It's time I just accept the fact that I need to have a paper planner for all the rest of my days.  So today I ordered my new baby and it will be here on Tuesday :)  Happy days are (almost) here again and all feels right with the world.

Some things and why I am up blogging at 4:30am

So my new planner came in January like I said it would!!  I LOVE IT!!  It's so colorful!

...and useful!

 

and well...

I'm not using it anymore.

*Sigh*

I know, I feel like a loser about it too.  But the reason is that it weighs like 8 pounds and I wasn't expecting that when I ordered it.   Isn't it just ADORABLE, tho?!  I love everything about it because I got to design it myself and pick the cover and the pages and layout and it cost like 50 bucks, so I really REALLY tried to deal with it. I lugged it around for several weeks and tried to pretend that I was ok with the weight of it, but eventually it just got the best of me.

Ok, so it's not quite 8 lbs, but it is almost 2 lbs and that is just too much when I'm already carrying around my Chromebook, purse, lunch bag, coffee mug, water bottle, iPad and various notebooks/journals every single day wherever I go.  Something needed to go.  So I got a new, less bulky wallet and purse, and decided to leave my ginormous planner at home.  I've been using the digital calendar on my iPad instead and although I have loudly sung the praises of a paper planner, I have to say I am liking the digital calendar a bit. No, it's not paper, I will just have to get my writing and doodling outlet via another venue.  I have come to appreciate it , especially for things that repeat and I don't have to keep writing them over and over like youth group, baseball practices, voice lessons, Wednesday night mom's group...oh, and birthdays! Another thing is being able to add cute little emoji's :)  They make me happy.

Looking back on my first blog entry for this year, I realize I am making some progress on the things I wanted to focus on.  I have started attending a mom's group at our church, which I haven't done for some time.  Not consistently anyway.  We are going to a new church now, which was a difficult transition especially for me.  I am very loyal and look at church as a family.   Vince and I started feeling the tug to leave our old church a couple years ago.  I denied it for a long time because that was the church I had been part of for 16 years and YOU JUST DON'T LEAVE FAMILY!!  I raised my babies there, saw them both saved and baptized there. I made some very close friendships over the years.  It was the church where Mr. W and I were married. I learned to play piano and served on the worship team for 8 years.  I went to countless bible studies, led some women's ministry groups, had many talks and laughs and shed many tears inside those walls.  I laid things on the altar, and buried my mom, and we saw people come and go.  I didn't want to be a "leaver".  I wanted to stay, but our kids had started going to the youth group at our new church a couple years prior and they were really growing and thriving.  For a while we tried taking them to youth group on Wednesdays at the new church and attending Sunday services at the old, but after many discussions Vince and I decided last fall that having one foot in each church was leaving us not fully engaged in either.  So we made the leap.  It was hard, but it has been a blessing. Both churches are wonderful, but this is where we need to be now and we finally have a peace about it.

As far as the other goals I set at the beginning of this year, I have begun to sit at my piano again, which feels amazing.  My Canon 40D has been dusted off and resurrected and I've decided shall now be referred to as "Big Mama" 'cause, think about it.  And now here I am...writing.  I started this blog post last night when my view was this:

And now it's 4:30am and I am on my couch in my robe wide awake.  Not really doing a good job of trusting and surrendering and believing for good things.  I'm stressed.  Top on my list of things I'm stressed about: my firstborn is officially deployed.  Out of the country.  And I can't contact him.  At least not right now.  I have no idea how he is feeling, what he is doing, how he is being treated. Is he scared or homesick or in danger? Would he tell me if he was any of those things even if I could talk to him?  No, but still.  A mom knows when we hear their voice.  No matter how much they try to hide it, we know.

My mom did.  In the last moments I had with her when she could still communicate, she told me it was ok to cry.  I told her I know, and I had been crying but I was hiding it.  I'll never forget when she looked up at me from her hospital bed and said "you can't hide it from your mother".  She was right.  As much as I have said that my mom didn't understand me, she could always tell when I was sad.  And she always wanted to help. Even though her helping didn't help sometimes, deep down I knew that she cared, and that she hurt when I hurt.

But now my mom isn't here.  I can't call her, but honestly I wouldn't if I could because she would be even more worried than me.  She never knew that Nicolas was being deployed.  He found out right around the time she was in the hospital and I told him not to tell her.  She didn't need to be worried with it.  I'm not sure what we know about earthly things when we are in Heaven, but if she does know where he is, I have no doubt she is praying for him and it gives me comfort to know her prayers don't have far to travel to the throne.

What I'm asking God for in 2017

I love new beginnings!  It's almost a new year, and you know what that means...a new planner! Have I mentioned I'm getting a new planner? And a new journal too...both filled with crisp, bright white blank pages just waiting for ideas and plans and goals and prayers to make their way from my mind and heart onto paper. I love writing, I love everything about it. I don't mind typing out my thoughts like I do on this blog, but there is something about holding paper in my hands, turning actual pages, and writing out my life and thoughts in my own handwriting on sheets of real paper spread out before me. I find it refreshing and inspiring.  I may have mentioned that my 2017 planner is on it's way (I ended up ordering a different one than the one I had last year and wrote about here).  I'm just a wee bit excited about it.

It's New Year's Eve and as I am sitting on the couch reclining next to my husband, half paying attention to the black & white movie he's watching, I am contemplating the new year.  I'm wondering what 2017 has in store for us and praying that it is mostly good things.  I know that if God allows trials into my life, that He will have a purpose in it, and I pray that I remember that when they come.  Even so, I am asking God to bless this year. For myself, my husband, and our kids.  Here is what I'm asking Him for, for all of us...

Deeper Faith

Unconditional Trust

Complete Surrender.

A new year means a chance to start over.  

Refocus. 

Prioritize.  

And for me, this new year means resurrecting old passions that have gone stale, like writing, playing piano, photography, women's ministry, time with friends, believing for good things.  It is surprising to me that I have let these passions fall by the wayside, but what's even more surprising is that I haven't really even missed them.  But there is an emptiness that remains in their absence that is becoming obvious to me now and I'm beginning to long for them again. Especially the believing for good things.  I've gone kind of numb to that. Not cynical exactly, I just haven't been expecting good things to happen and I don't like that feeling.  That's not who I want to be, and it's certainly not who God wants me to be.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

So, it's a great time for a new year to happen!  My hope is renewed and I just know that 2017 is going to be a great year because God is good,  my husband started blogging again, and my new planner will be here in a couple weeks! Cha!

Things I am obsessed with right now, including but not limited to my planner

Vince and I watched our first Hallmark Christmas movie last night and I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIES.  It was so good!  Cheesey and sweet and made me think about Christmas and love and cozy blankets and good feels.  Hallmark Christmas movies might now be the only thing I want to watch until January.  Well, except for "This is Us"...which is SO MUCH AWESOME!!!  Oh, and of course, "Criminal Minds".  Ok, fine...also "Married at First Sight" even though the last three seasons have been disappointing and somewhat annoying.  Only the first season was really good (I binge watched the entire first season on Netflix all in one single day, it was that good). but I keep watching each season because I can't NOT watch it.

And in much more exciting news about my life...I have ordered my new 2017 planner!!!  It is important that my people know how obsessed I am with my planner.   I am literally in love with it.  I look at it multiple times a day, and write all my lists and plans and important things in it.  Every year I get super excited when it's time to start looking for one for the next year, which for me starts sometime around August.  I have been on the search for the perfect planner for years now, and it's not easy to find.  Much like the most perfect purse, it is important to find the just right planner.  It has to have a cute font, large squares for every day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays (why do calendar people think that we have less going on on the weekends?)  Well, after years of searching and trying different ones, last year I found it.  The perfect planner...

They are called "Bloom Daily Planners" and I love everything about them...the fonts, the size, the colors, the layout...everything.  

As I said, I ordered my 2017 one this week and when it comes I will hug it and hold it up to my cheek and sit down and admire it and fill in all the birthdays and anniversaries and anything else I know about for next year.

Pentatonix singing "Jolene" at the CMA Awards this week was pretty awesome.

Now I might need to break out the Christmas music because.......Pentatonix!