00goddess

 I think I need to tweak my morning routine. Right now my morning routine goes like this:

mask (this means a hydrating face mask, which I don't do if I am not in a hurry or don't feel like it.)
morn pgs
sunscreen
wash coffee pot
meditate
qigong

TBH I don't always get these in. Last week I meditated and did qigong every day though and it was so awesome! I have noticed that I have a tendency to put off meditation and qigong, but when I do them I feel great. So of course I need to prioritize those more.

I also need to do more reading. I really love reading, so naturally I think of it as an enjoyable activity that I should therefore not do until "everything else" is done. But that's stupid, especially since there's a lot of reading I need to do for work. Usually by the time "everything else" is done, it's late, I am tired, and won't be able to retain anything I read. So I think I am going to add reading to my morning routine: read for an hour.  If I read first thing instead of last thing, I can get my reading done when I am still awake and alert, but I will finish early enough in the day to still get other work done.

So that will be my new morning routine: all of the above plus read for an hour.

One of the big problems with doing my whole morning routine is that if I feel like I am in a hurry, I skip steps. But self-care is important and most of these things are self-care.

I will start the new routine on Monday and see how it goes. Next week, the morning routine is my top priority. I can do this!

I think I am way out of practice at planning. Last week I planned on Sunday and my plan made sense, but once Monday ad Tuesday came around I realized I hadn't prioritized wisely, and I hadn't even planned for some things. (Like scrubbing the mountain of pots or cleaning up and organizing my desk, which was absolutely necessary before I could do the classwork I planned to do.) I just wasn't considering ALL the things.

I found this video last week and I have watched it like 3 times so far. It really helped me to see how I can get more out of my planner and planning.
- I am adopting a monthly system wherein at the beginning of the month I assign tasks to each week. I think that might help me get more use out of my planner monthly pages.
- Next week I think I am going to plan M-W on Sunday, then plan Th-Su on Wednesday. my life and days seem unpredictable lately so maybe this will help me to get a handle on things.
- I think I am going to assign myself a max of two major tasks every day, one of which will be a coaching lesson, and the other will be a major housework task. Those will be my "big two" for every day, the most important tasks of that day.
- Basically, I need really dedicate myself to planning and give it more of my time each week. This weekend I am going to focus on getting all of my annual and first quarter planning done- I've realized that until that is done I am kind of lacking direction and priorities.


We've done really well sticking with our meal plan.

We are pretty broke right now -we took out a $4k loan to do the home repairs and the yard. F quoted us I think $3260, we paid him $1630 and from day 1 he was trying to do less work. He didn't finish a single thing. So when we ended up paying R, the next guy, $2600 to finish the yard up and build the fence. He initially wanted $3k but I told him it was outside of our budget, and he came down on the price. Our account dipped below $1000 early last week, which hasn't happened in a long time. Fortunately B was paid on Thursday and his employer pre-emptively reimbursed him for his hotel expenses; he is gone on a business trip and had to make his own hotel arrangements.

I meant to make my planner in early January, but the workers unexpectedly moved inside, which put a crick in my plans. I ended up taking January off entirely- while they were working indoors, I couldn't get to the printer at all, and couldn't get to my desk easily. (I have since moved the printer into my room, which makes more sense, B has been piling more and more stuff onto the maker's rack and the printer was getting kind of buried imo.)

So late last week I started working. First I needed to figure out printing- we bought a new printer last year, and it has auto-duplexing, but it turns out that the auto-duplexing only works with legal or letter-sized papers. Grrr. So I figured out how to duplex on my own, did some test runs, etc. I also did a few tests on paper sizes, to see if I could get away with a smaller piece of paper, then decided to just go with the size as-made (Adobe says document is sized at 6.9" x 9.84", but the hardback I bought was 6.75"X9.75" and that was the size I printed last year, so that is how I cut my paper this year.) The last few days I have been cutting my paper, and that's when I discovered that the guillotine paper cutter I bought is a little defective- the measurement tape isn't lined up with the top measurement bar! Argh. In the immortal words of T-Bone: "Such predicaments, I must forge ahead!"

( making my disc-bound planner )

This post isn't really a purse-dump. I just think the phrase "dump your purse" is funny and weird.

I started using a planner this year and I like it. I don't think I want to try switching to a different planner right now, I like the one I have and don't want to spend the time looking for a better one. The only thing I really strongly dislike about it is that it's large (7x10) and I can't carry it in my purse. Not only because of the dimensions, but because it's thick and heavy. I think I am going to buy a pdf version and try printing/binding it in quarters, that would work. In fact now I think I am going to get a disk system, take the whole thing to a print shop, and see what they can do for me. If they can make it the right size and make the sides line up that would work very well.

Anyway, this got me thinking about what I carry in my purse- can I carry less of anything? I didn't used to carry a purse. I had a laptop bag that I carried to classes, (back when I was taking lots of core academics I had a rolling back pack) and I had a wallet that I carried otherwise. In my teens and 20s I carried small purses or small backpacks, enough for a book and a wallet, lip balm, and whatever I needed to take to work. (Although I was often homeless, I usually had a place to store my things and a place to shower, so I didn't need to carry everything with me.) I always hated large purses. When I started to crochet seriously, in 2015, I started carrying a purse (and even bought myself one; ostensibly it was a "gift" from my ex but I ended up putting it on my CC, with him saying he would pay me back for it hah which never happened, of course.) And I have found that having a purse is pretty handy, actually. But I don't want to carry a huge one.

So here is what I usually carry in the purse that I carry around with myself when I go to appointments and etc.

( What's in my purse? )