Making a list.

There’s been a fair amount of head scratching and pondering going on at the homestead these last couple of weeks as we move into the last quarter of hubs’ full time work and ease into retirement.  There’s been meetings, phone calls, discussions, paperwork, more meetings.  It’s been an education, that is for sure.  I think it is good? It is a bit scary.

So, we have been doing a fair amount of “taking stock” and making lists.  Doing a little “what’s that?” as we go through some boxes in the attic. It’s not been all drudgery…we did make some post retirement travel plans this week, and spent some great family times, caught a Broadway show.  We bought a “new” car and one of these days, we’ll hit the road in it.

I like making plans for the future.  I have always liked looking at my budget, making lists, crossing things off the list.  I am one of “those”.  I have little notebooks for all my wondering mind thoughts, questions and plans.  I think you are either a list maker or not.  Hubs seems to be able to keep everything in his head…I like to see it written down.  And if I can use a highlighter, well, that’s even better. I also like spreadsheets and I am one of those people who fill in my little lines and boxes with color because I am also a color person although to look at my wardrobe you might not think it.  I am a bit heavy in to grey these days.  Except in my spreadsheets.

I am not always known for following the rules.  I have jumped out of the car while in the student pick up lane to run inside rather than wait.  I have had more than 12 items in the express checkout line, snuck in to a private lounge.   Just this morning I had nachos for breakfast.  But, I also try to follow the rules that keep me and mine safe and secure.  Like, wear your seat belt, sit down, arms and legs inside at all times, three meals a day, moisturize and drink lots of water.  And oh yeah, make a retirement spending plan.

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Journal Journey Part 2

Alright, so, I’m going to share some pages of my journal.  Don’t pay attention to the mistakes and the smears…that’s all part of it being okay.  Trying not to be too perfect as our days change, plans change, weather changes….all of that.  Just cross it out and make a new entry.

If you have looked online at some of the recommendations for journaling, you will see that they really get into doodles and design.  Now, I am a doodler from way back so have a bit of that incorporated but not a lot.   I expect that to follow, honestly, as soon as I get over the frugality issue I have with “ruining pages”.  Right now I also use titles on the pages, which, quite frankly is a waste of time as it is obvious what those pages are…but, you know, start big then whittle it down.  I’ve already whittled down many things to make it more functional for me, but, you get to do what you want.  Some people like charts and graphs, others like simple lists.  

I recently saw a new doctor and she changed a few things, wants to change some other stuff and introduced a new practice for me to monitor blood sugar.  She spoke quickly, had a beautiful European accent that took me a minute, and covered both what she wanted to change and what she was actually changing in the same sentence.  Because she also asked me a lot of “Why did they do that?” and “When was that change?” I knew I needed to write it all down as soon as she walks out of the room.  I also copied it into my new journal as soon as I got home.  Next time, I will take the journal with me to avoid having to do twice, but, because I think it may come up when I see my family doctor in March, I wanted to be able to reference it and be fairly confident I have the correct information.  There’s benefit to using an index you create along the way, too. So, number your pages!  

Finally, today the last thing I want to share, and I am not posting a picture here as it is a little more personal, is the word or brain dump.  I read an article recently that we all wake up with a jumble of  words in our heads, brain tangles, swirling around, interrupting our day, guiding our thoughts and can be stumbling blocks. The article suggested we write these words down, dump them on to paper, as soon as we wake up, or shortly thereafter, to get a clean slate.  I have thoughts that pop in to my head all the time and I think “Oh, I’m going to need to call them” or “I need to check on that” and poof, they are gone within an hour.  I use the word dump in two ways:  when I wake up, to untangle my overnight brain and throughout the day as thoughts or ideas pop up.  Now, for me, this can be a crazy doodle-filled page or pages…I simply leave the journal out and open, with a pen or pens nearby.  These pages would make little sense to someone who happened across it.  I am training myself to “write that down” instead of “filing it away for later”.  My files are full, people.  Follow up has always been a weak spot for me and it’s in direct conflict with being intentional.  (Interestingly, word dumping is a both a positive and negative term in writing a novel, for example.  Some use a brain dump for outlines and ideas - good. Actual writing which results in too much information at one time - bad.)  Your brain dump can be a list, or just explosions on a page, complete sentences or just one word.  It’s yours, do what you want, but,  get those ideas and thoughts out there! 

It really is all you, for you, by you.  One of my favorite things has been drawing out my calendar pages every month, so I like having a journal with blank pages.  Others might prefer to have formats already laid out for them; there are plenty of those out there, too.  I heard that Michaels has recently designated a new section of journaling aids…haven’t checked it out personally, but, I will. 

My March calendar looks different than my February because I separated the weekends out.  There's room for a task list, too, or reminders or menu ideas..whatever I want. 

I use both a monthly layout and a weekly.  I do not anticipate having this entire task list once I get my routine down but getting on top of my "shtuff" is what started the whole journal journey to begin with.  

             

This is a pretty rough page or two and is where I started.  I had gifts to return to stores, to mail and seldom purchased items to pick up (like double A batteries and floodlight bulbs).  I also was super bored with what I had been cooking so dumped all my recent meals and ideas.  Found out I really wasn't cooking the same three dishes over and over again like it seemed, but I was cooking similar things.  Time to shake things up. 

A continuation of my winter meal ideas and also a listed overview of the month of February.  This is the page I am not sure I will keep doing going forward.  And you can also see my haphazard doodles.  You also don't need all this color but you know me.  I'm a color junkie.  

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