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Facing the rest of the year ahead.

If you’re like me we look at the year ahead and try to put habits in place that will make it easier to handle. My Pintrest boards are getting lots of added ideas. Every thing from recipes to holiday ideas, and don’t forget to update the calendars. I take this time out to both show myself some love, and get organized. Anyone who knows me has seen me go a little OCD when being organized. I try to start with the basics. Holidays, Anniversarys, home and garden, Birthdays and finance, parties, and other projects throuout the year. I start with the basics.

My planner/engagement/brain for the year. I like a full desk size book. Why paper you ask? In the digital world we live in things like smartphone, tablets, smart tv, and even the laptop & desktop give us access to technology at our fingertips. Paper and pen are still my go to medium. I will probably add it to my digital devices, but for my main list I prefer paper. It’s where I start from. If you’ve ever tried updating or creating a note when you were fast asleep you’ll know why I still keep my pen and paper.

I enjoy daily/weekly/monthly views in my planner. It helps me stay on track with both what I need to do today as well as looking ahead in the week or month. There are a lot of free pages available that can be printed however knowing myself, I would probably take a page out and loose it as I become involved in what ever project I’m currently working on. The last several years I’ve turned to Cat Naps.

It is wire bound so I can leave it open atop my desk for quick daily checkins. I have important dates, appointments, moon cycle, holidays, and contact info that I transfer yearly into everyone. I usually purge or make changes as I go. I know your reading this and saying I have all that in my phone. I do too, but the tangible works better to help me stay on track.

As the bills arrive by mail I enter the due dates, and mail by dates. Jot gift ideas as I come across them by person. I often hear people say I wish I had this or that, if appropriate I make a note of it and the name. As my husband and I do not have 9 to 5s it helps track both income and expenses.

My digital lifesaver is a financial program I read about in a top app review… from

I love it!!! There are lots of competition in this area, probably including your regular bank.

Prism is a safe and secure way to not only keep up with but pay my bills as well. “Prism is the easy personal finance app for managing and paying bills. • “Love, love, love this app! For those of you stranded by Mint Bills…..This IS your life preserver ..”

It gives reminders, schedules payments, income and current balances of both bank accounts and credit cards. It saves me a great deal of time, stamps, and energy. Unlike some I don’t have to go between apps to get all the info I need. it does take some time for initial setup but so worth it! Even locks the info on your phone if you left it up. Keeps prying eyes out of your personal information yet with a pin code it can easily be synced to all your devices.

With these two it’s easy to control the chaos in my world. Well time to finish this up because according to my handy book it says I have more to do before hubby gets home from his job. Weeding recipes for collection cookbook to be ready for Mothers Day, Plan Easter Family Gathering, and take some free time to catch up on my to be read pile of books. What do you do to stay on track in your busy life?? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

New Year, New Hopes

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365 New Days, 365 New Chances

As we look forward to the new year, many of us are planning changes in our lives. New Years Resolution are the theme of the day. I am resolving to take better care of my self. Diet, weight loss and more exercise will go toward better health. I’m also going to obsess over organization. I’m following a strict schedule for blog and writing. I am also embarking on rigid physical therapy to regain my mobility.

This will keep me very busy especially when combined with household redesign and organizing. Above all I want a lot less trips to the hospital. I have found lots of tips and tricks and hopefully great suggestions to stay on track. I’m starting with basic rules when setting goals.

• Make the goal acheivable. Unattainable or very hard roads to successfully completing often lead to failure.
• Break larger goals into smaller parts. It will make them more achievable and provide a sense of wellbeing when completed.
• Smaller completed goals encourage embarking on the next. Just like children that sense of accomplishment spurs us to keep going.
• Celebrate Victories even the small ones add up to progress. Rewarding your Victories reinforces your resolve to complete even more.
• Make the reward something you really want. Loss of a few pounds can be rewarded with a favorite dessert, or a glass of wine. Bigger victories need bigger rewards. So keep that in mind when choosing both the goal and reward.

Most of all make it fun. This along with reward upon completion will keep me on track the whole year through. So as we raise our glass of Champagne to toast the arrival of 2018, have your goals, defined and scheduled with rewards defined to spur us to finish.

Video clips from Sex and the City Movie (I do not own any of the music, video, or titles. I make no profit from these items and all belong to thier respective owners.)
Here’s to the fun and accomplishments to be had. What are you striving to achieve in 2018?

More like this?

New Year, New Adventures

New year, new you?

New years resolutions sound easy with weigh loss being #1,   quitting smoking,  these are the most popular ones and ironically the hardest to keep.   

I know people who have made awesome changes in their lives.   The rest of us keep making the same ones. Year after year then promptly fall off the wagon.   Not all of us, who loose our way do so because we’re weak , lacking in will power,  or just do not care.  I am a great example.  All my regular readers know I had a stroke,  burst anursym 4 years ago this April 22nd.   I was truly blessed to not only survive , but only have minimum damage as a result.   I still face challenges that keep me from a regular job,  but I have my whits about me as they say. 

A special thank you to family and friends who have journeyed with us.  It has been a long, winding road.  After the initial injury I’ve had followup brain surgery,  to remove a shunt and tube that were  making me so sick.   Then after learning to walk again my physicality started to decline, with no answers I ended up back in hospital.  

According to the experts a spinal cyst is quite common.   With no other options available through traditional health care I was forced to wait for Medicare.  Government healthcare does not check for these common effects,  they did not MRI my spine till our insistence in the emergency room.   One MRI and 9 hours of spinal cord surgery by my wonderful neurosurgeon,  I  emerged into pain and the ability to wiggle my toes again.   Why am I telling all this?   I want people to know that even with healthcare if you can find it…  Patients need an advocate!   

My new years resolution for the past several years has been too regain my mobility.  Bless my hubby who helps me with all this stuff and is there every step of the way, including when my sunshine dims.  I started outpatient physical therapy and was making good progress. Now I’m waiting to go back.   It’s  like starting over from scratch every time this happens.   I’m fighting to get equipment in my home,   but until such time I am trying to loose extra weight and move as much as possible to keep loosing.    The co-founded care comes from the red tape between Dr. Rx and pre-approval from government run care, then back to my Dr. Then finally Therapy can be scheduled. This wonderful policy cannot be done ahead of time and the average wait I’m getting is 4-6weeks.

Are you still on track to eat right,  drink more water,  exercise more,  and loose some weight.   My “nutritional” advisor wants me to add 400 calories a day and eat every three hours.   Does this work for anyone?   I was keeping my diet under 1500-1800  with no snacks.   I just cannot believe adding 400 more calories will help if I cannot stand to do exesice.   I’m willing to give any non – extreme tips.  If anyone has an idea I’d love to hear it. Do you have a diet that you have used?   I would like to both, pass on knowledge from this experience so women in particular know both the odds and warning signs.

The medical text says 1 in 4 women will suffer a brain aneurysm.  In nursing school 9 years ago it was 1 in 10.  Did you know that a common symptom of high blood pressure, pulse you can hear in your ear,  is a big fat warning of aneurysm?  I had scans for migraine headaches, and in all my regular doctors visits I was never warned.  I even had an aunt die, and nothing was ever said.  I truly hope this will reach women in particular, so they know some of the dangers that silently stalk women. I only learned after how lucky I was despite lots of tries to have children.  Something else we’re not told, if it happens in labor the agonizing choice between mother or child has to be made.  Overweight, and smoking, are also earmarked for having a stroke. 

Ladies I encourage you to ask, both OBGyn, and regular MD about this. Find out you risk.  I truly hope my struggles raise awareness for women, and your families.  1 of 20 is the survival rate, most unable to function above severely brain damaged or vegetable.  The only requirement that divides is to be a woman, or man. As I read over this post it sounds to me like, I’m whining.  If so why does this have to be so hard?  That is what I want answered on Presidents Day.  I hope one day soon I’ll get an answer.  Stay safe, be informed, and hopefully we will getbetter run healthcare system.  I got better care with none! Was one of the afore mentioned your resolution?  Are you stocking with it?  I hope women will add the risk of aneurysm, to the list? I would also say don’t wait, ask your doctor now.  How do you keep yourself on track?  My best is done with a calendar and a good playlist.