Word of the Week January

If you've been reading around here for awhile than you probably already know about my 2017 system of 'Words of the Week'. If you're new around here I'll get you up to speed. Instead of choosing One Little Word for the year, I chose 52 words. One for every week of the year. When I decided to use this strategy I didn't really know what it was going to look like and even a month in it's still evolving.

I choose my word (from this list) on Saturday or Sunday. I don't have any particular strategy for choosing a word. I pick whatever one happens to be speaking to me or a word that I think might relate to the week ahead. Then I search for a quote to go along with that word. It's a simple way of reflecting on the words and figuring out how I want to focus on it for that week.

I write my word and quote in the sidebar of my planner so that I see it everyday. 

For the first week of the year I choose the word abide and a quote that reminded me that when things are confusing and uncertain faith remains. And abiding in that faith that things will improve or work out the way they are supposed to is the best way for me to handle the unknown. It ended up being good motivation to take a few leaps and trust where I felt God was leading me. It was a good way to start the year. 

Thanks to some of those leaps I chose flow as my word for the second week of the year. As in, go with the flow. Little did I know that just when I thought I had a plan for how things were going to go I was an offered an interview with an organization that I had applied for weeks ago and wasn't expecting to hear anything from. And so plans sort of changed but I went with the flow. It was the perfect word for the week and even though I didn't have any particular reason to choose it 'flow' was exactly the thing I need to focus on that week. 

Last week I chose spark. I thought it would be a fun word for my birthday week because I associate sparks with candles and the beginning of something. It ended up being the word I connected with the least. I'm not sure if it was because I had other things going on that week but I wasn't feeling it. Possibly one of the best things about this Word of the Week strategy is the ability to let go of a word when you're not connecting to it the way you had hoped.

This week I'm embracing joy. This was a very conscious choice because I'm expecting to hear back about that job interview this week. And regardless of the outcome I want to choose joy. There's not a lot of excitement happening in my life right now and it's impossible to make plans when I'm never entirely sure if there will be an interview (or a job) around the corner. So my focus is choosing to find joy in all circumstances. Just because the situation may not be joyful, doesn't mean there's not joy in there somewhere. 

Originally I had thought about making a 6x8 album to document my words but I realized that wasn't something I wanted to commit to doing all year. So for now my words are documented in my planner and in my journal. I'm not really creating any rules around my words, I might continue to choose a quote for the week but I might not. My only requirement for myself is to choose a word for the week. So far I haven't wanted to carry on a word from one week to the next but I'm not ruling out the possibility of that happening. 

If you chose a word for the year are you sticking with it or has the initial enthusiasm wore off?

Happy One Month, Happy Planner!

I decided in the fall that I was going to give MAMBI's The Happy Planner a try for 2017.  I've been using my Happy Planner for a full month now so I thought it was time for a little update. My two biggest concerns were the vertical layout (although, they are available in horizontal) and the disc bound system. I can officially declare that I am in love with vertical planning! I'm not sold on the disc bound system though, I'm indifferent about it and still worry about it holding up over the course of the year. I didn't realize when I bought this particular planner that it was undated, which I don't particularly enjoy, but I did buy a set of Heidi Swapp numbers meant for her memory planners and used them in my Happy Planner so I made it work. Speaking of stickers...

I don't have any interest spending $30 a week on stickers to decorate my planner, it's just not going to happen. I did purchase four of the Happy Planner Value Sticker Books because with coupons they are pretty affordable. I probably spent about $45 on all four sticker books and after using them for almost a month I've hardly made a dent in them. I was tempted to pick up the 'Faith' sicker book as well but it is really similar and contains a lot of duplicates when compared to the 'Quote' book. I did order some gas pump, birthday and Canada Day stickers from Etsy because they aren't included in any of the books but I don't have any plans to order more Etsy stickers anytime soon. 

I use my planner for daily to do's, paying bills, appointments/meetings and for recording three thankful thoughts each day. I  decorate my planner but it's still incredibly functional. 

My first attempt was very clearly a first attempt. I wasn't sure how I wanted to use the boxes if I wanted to go all out in terms of decorating or if I wanted to keep things mostly pen. 

 Week two was actually the first week of 2017 and I got a better feel for how I wanted to use the boxes but was still working out what I wanted to keep track of and how I was going to go about documenting things. 

I didn't start to feel like I was getting into the groove of things until week three. 

And week four was also noticeably improved. I'm not going to win any awards but I'm also not trying to. I need my planner to be a place where I can keep track of life things, Guide things and interviews. With any luck eventually I will also get to use to keep track of work things but that's a different topic. 

My life doesn't work in a way that I can sit down on Sunday evening and plan out the whole week. Last week for example I ended up with an interview, lunch with my grandma and some e-mails about Guiding paperwork. I do start my week on Sunday though. I choose my Word of the Week (more on that soon!) and record anything I know will happen. I stick in a few decorative stickers and checklists and go from there. 

This is how my week looked last night:

Are you experimenting with a new planning system this year? So far I think I made a good choice, but there's still lots of 2017 left! 

**Incase you're wondering, I wasn't compensated in any way, shape or form for this post. MAMBI has never heard of me and probably doesn't really care what I think of their products. 

Monday's Matter #2

My weekend looked a lot like everyone else weekend. I finished up the last of my Christmas shopping and had lunch with mom. I spent Saturday night working on a service project for church and on Sunday we put up the Christmas tree and went to bed at a reasonable time. Since none of that is particularly noteworthy I'm going to go ahead and continue with the Monday's Matter tradition.

1. Let's start off with some of my favourite blog posts lately. Rachel wrote about The Importance of Feeding People Well and had me nodding along in agreement as I read. Alyssa shared how she made A Simpler 2016 and really motivated me to start thinking about what changes I'm going to make in 2017. Louise wrote about Comparing Apples to Oranges and it was a reminder that one of my worst habits lately has been comparing what's happening with me to what's happening with everyone else.

2. I'm working on creating my 52x52 List for 2017 but for whatever reason it's not nearly as easy as it was last year. I have a grand total of 10 things on my list right now...so that's going to need some work. I think I'm struggling with it this year because everything seems so unknown. I don't know where I'll be or any other details of the upcoming year. Last year I at least had an outline. This year I've got nothing.

3. Every so often Stuff Mom Never Told You does an episode that really shifts my mind into over drive. Lately they've done two in particular that have left me with lots to think about like this one on Adoption. And this one about working in the non-profit world was one part comforting (it's not just my experience!) and one part frustrating (why is this okay?). 

4. I've been really into grilled cheese lately. I'm not entirely sure where this new found love came from because typically I am totally over grilled cheese and sick of eating them all time time. This is a true testament for the food situation at camp this past summer, it's like I have a quota of grilled cheese per year and I'm just trying to make up for lost time. 

5. I started the process of setting up my Happy Planner for 2017 and it turns out it's more of a challenge than I was anticipating. I love the idea of vertical layout, but I'm not sold yet. I'm hoping it's a learning curve and once I get adjusted I'll be planning like the best of them. That's an exaggeration, there's no way I'm going to start spending $20/week on planner sticker kits. 

6. This is the quote I'm working on keeping in my mind this week:

Pinterest

It's a busy (this is going to me my non-word for 2017, I've started cringing every time I see it written)  full week with a lot of family and friends and commitments. And I'm going to work on not letting all of that over shadow the reason we're celebrating. Doing my best to be patient with others (and myself), showing love and being gentle in the days to come. 

Friday Facts of Life

{one}

It's no secret that 2016 was not a good year for reading for me. I set out to read 52 books this year and  just finished my 8th. I'm attributing part of this to the fact that last December I got a new phone and never got around to downloading the OverDrive app, which is what I had been using to access ebooks from my library. Earlier this week I re-downloaded the app and I've already finished one book with a dozen waiting in my queue. Here's to many more hours spent reading actual literature and not browsing Reddit.

{two}

Via MAMBI

Me & My Big Ideas released a whole bunch of new sticker books for the Happy Planner this week and I'm itching to get my hands on at least two of them. I already have two and I am kind of in love with them. They are the perfect blend of practical and cute, I'm eagerly awaiting the week of December 26 when I can start using my 2017 planner. I am having some regrets about my choice of Happy Planner, I'm thinking I should have held out and went with the coil bound Erin Condren knockoffs by Recollections? (I love the look of the ECs but in order to get one from there to here I'd need to spend about $100 and there's no way I'm spending that kind of money on a stack of paper.) But what's done is done and I'm sure I can work with what I've got for the year.

{three}

I didn't hear anything this week about making it through to the second round of interviews...so I'm not really sure how to interpret that one. It seems strange that I wouldn't get an e-mail indicating it was a no thanks...but they also indicated they were planning on doing second round interviews on Friday (today)...so I'm really shrugging my shoulders on that one. There is another posting for a job that isn't camp related, but is much more closer to home and sort of in line with my skills. And maybe that will be the ticket? Ugh.

{four}

I've been debating about choosing One Little Word for 2017. I know I won't be officially signing up for Ali Edward's class this year, I don't need to spend $40 to chose a word. I wasn't overly interested in the community and I would be fine with using the same monthly prompts from this year. The words that have been rolling around in my head are 'Still', 'Calm', 'Whole' and 'Spark'. I'm not feeling particularly passionate about any of them though. In years past I've chosen Love,  Brave & Rise. Do you choose a word for the year? If so what do you do with it?

{five}

It started snowing on Sunday and hasn't stopped all week. It's -20 out with the wind and it's not even winter yet. This is not a Friday favourite, but it does seem to be a fact of life.

{six}

In the spirit of 'out with the old, in with the new' I've been cleaning up my blog routine. I've gone through and deleted a bunch of draft posts because let's be real I was never going to finish that 'Friday Five' from 2013. I've also been cleaning up my Blog Feed, unfollowing some folks who I never read anymore or who haven't blogged in more than a year. Which, side note, am I the only one who feels sad and immense curiosity when bloggers who I followed for years stop blogging? There are about half a dozen that I just can't bare to 'unfollow' because I still have hope they'll reappear one day and I don't want to miss that. It also means I've made room for some new bloggers. So who are you following that I need to check out? I would love to find some single, late twenty somethings like myself but I'm as long as every post it's trying to sell me something or tell me how to build my blog followers I'm open to any suggestions.

Linking up here and here. 

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