Week commencing 8th January 2024

 

It is hard to believe we are already a week into 2024 and I am back doing menu planning and household planning. This is all in an effort to get organised and stay on top of things. Having a written list of things to do helps me stay motivated as I get great pleasure it ticking them off and seeing how much I have accomplished.

So for this week

To Do

I am out Monday, Tuesday and Friday evenings so the list can not be as long as I would normally do if I was staying home in the evening and this is on top of my weekly cleaning.

-Wash all curtains downstairs (as the curtains are so wide and long they can only be done one curtain at a time)

- Declutter bedroom chest of drawers

- Make a note of due dates for insurances, MOT's etc

In my craft basket

I have 3 projects that I am determined to finish this month. The first is an EPP quilt that I have been making in my quilting group for many years. The top is now finished and I just have the quilting and binding to do. 

The second is a jumper I have been knitting. I an definitely a novice when it comes to knitting and reading patterns and I had put this down for a several months after I made a mistake that I could not figure out how. I eventually got to show the pattern and the piece to my Mum who figured out where I had made the mistake so I ended up undoing the piece and starting again.

The final project is a dress that I started last summer then somehow lost interest in (as I did a lot last year). 

I want to get these three completed so that I can concentrate on starting some new projects next month.

On the menu

As the weather has turned colder this week I have decided to make some comfort food recipes whilst sticking to Slimming World (for the majority of the time)

Monday - Beef and black bean chilli

Tuesday - Mac and Cheese Taco Bake

Wednesday- Don-Air Kebab ( a Slimming World recipe for Donner Kebab)

Thursday- Toasties

Friday - Lentil and Bacon Stew

Saturday - Curried Mince beef

Sunday - Cola Chicken

Looking forward to..

The first W.I. and Book Club meetings of the year. There is a speaker from The Christie Hospital at the W.I. meeting and we will be celebrating our 9th birthday. The book I have read for the book club was 'Lessons in Chemistry' by Bonnie Garmuss which I really enjoyed reading even if it wasn't quite as much about cooking as I was expecting. I have also got the TV series with Brie Larson to watch.

I hope you all have a good week.

Deborah

December Plans

 

I have been a bit reluctant to make too many plans for Christmas this year as the majority of them were cancelled last year. We normally do an experience as a family but with Emma and Craig having to work then that isn’t possible. Emma and Matthew are both going to London for a weekend though. Emma is going to an awards ceremony and Matthew is on a school trip.

 Craig and I made an early Christmas visit to Chatsworth House to see it decorated for Christmas and we have a festive afternoon tea booked in a little tea room we visit when we are out walking the dog in that area. There is also a Christmas dinner with one of the Masonic Lodges that Craig is a member of.

 Emma and I have booked to see ‘Six’ on the 21^st (hopefully third time lucky) and she is also going with friends to see ‘Book of Mormon’ on the 10^th.

 My father in law is having a 70^th birthday buffet. Due to an ongoing issue within the family we are not sure if we will be going to that. However, it is the only time Craig’s family will be altogether this month and it would be easier to distribute cards and presents.

 Craig is also thinking about going to the Christmas Markets in Manchester but if I am honest I would rather not as they are much too crowded, too expensive and they are generally selling the same things year after year.

 I will be going to spend an evening in a nearby garden centre with a friend admiring the Christmas displays and eyeing up what to hopefully be able to buy in the sale.

 Craig has several meals booked with the company he works for and I have a few craft sessions to go to this month as well so we are probably busier than we have ever been.

 Christmas Day itself will just be the 4 of us for dinner and then going to my sisters’ house where my parents will be as well.

 I have also got to fit in all the Christmas shopping, decorating and usual Christmas preparations and work full time. To do this I have taken a couple of days off work and plan to get everything done in the one long weekend so I can enjoy the rest of the month.

 

Planners and Planning

 I am quite an organized person by nature and I like to see everything I need easily and find things quickly. Having things written down also frees up my mind and I don’t have to worry about remembering appointments or birthdays. Having some things written down is also easy for reference in the future such as Christmas presents so I don’t duplicate or buy similar the following year. 

I have used planners for many years and keep changing my mind about how I want to use them. For most of the time I was looking for a planner that I could keep everything in and was small enough to carry around in my handbag. I tried different sizes of Filofax, bullet journals and travellers notebooks before realizing that it was going to be an impossible task. I now know that I don’t need to carry all the information I thought I needed around every day. I narrowed it down to just having appointments, to do list, menu plan/shopping list, reminders and a few blank pages in my daily planner and everything else is in planners that stay at home.

Currently I am using a Filofax A4 planner as my home management planner.

This contains all the names and addresses I need for birthdays and Christmas, information sent from school (not that there is much as it is now all emailed, I just print out important ones like School trip and new uniform details), cleaning routines, Christmas planning, information about each room in the house (size, paint colour, curtain sizes) basically information that will be easy to have to hand but doesn't need to be carried around all the time.

Having to go through everything to find information following my Brother-in-Laws death a few years ago also spurred me on to making sure I have account details for all services, banks, insurances etc. in one place so that whoever has to sort these things out when I die will be able to find the information easily

An A5 ring bound planner for more creative ideas and lists.

                                                 

An A5 customized spiral bound planner from personalplanner.com  is my everyday planner. Until recently I was using a Filofax personal size planner but decided that I wanted to see everything on one page which I could not do in the Filofax as the pages were not wide enough.

I had used these planners a few years ago and I liked decorating them but as I was still looking to have everything in one place at the time, I only used it for about a year. I found my old ones when I was clearing out the garage and realised that the style suits my needs (at the moment) so went online and ordered one.

You are able to customize everything from the cover, headers, ruler colour and layout

 In this planner I chose a horizontal layout which I divide into 3 sections. The top section is for appointments or visits which I colour code for each family member.

The middle section relates more to cleaning / to do regarding the house and the bottom section is for reminder and blog posts.

                                            

Also included on the week per page is a to do list, weather tracking, motivational quote and a menu plan. You can chose different things in each section, these were my choices.

There is also a monthly layout on which I record school holidays, birthdays and future events like theatre trips, parties etc.

                                             

At the back of the planner you have again choices to make. I went for lined pages, dot pages and a book and movie tracker.

Another good feature of this planner is you can choose when you want it to start so you are not tied to January or July. I ordered mine to start in April and it will last for 12 months. I will order a new one to start in January if I continue to use it just because I prefer to see a whole year in one place.

I know a lot of people use their phones as planners and calendars and that there are various apps that allow you to do this but for me personally paper is more convenient and easier to use. I have attempted them in the past but did not like them. I much prefer being able to just open up my planner at the right page and see the information right away without having to open an app and going through the menu choices to get to what I want to see and maybe having to open up another app to see related information.

Do you use planners and if so what and how do you use them?