I think it was about this time 2 years ago that I posted about a bunch of baby showers that I had planned that year… Well, guess what? This year was the next round of babies, I guess, so I planned 3 more baby showers this year. I figured I would share some of what I planned in case you are looking for some inspiration or just like snooping on how other people plan parties… Plus I have something extra at the end… Can you guess?
Random Fun
Hello Again!
I’m not exactly sure how I got here… But I seem to be deep in to my third month of life chaos and craziness, and I’m just barely keeping up with my regular life necessities, so the blog has had to take a backseat.
Unfortunately, with all this chaos, a bunch of things have joined the blog in the backseat… Like my health and fitness goals, my plan to have monthly challenges and report on them, and keeping track of anything at all relating to my goals for 2017… I’d like to change that, so I’m going to try and focus on that in the next little while here, and will hopefully get my sh*t together enough to actually post about it too!
In the meantime, I thought I’d share a little about my new found pastime! (I know it seems counter intuitive that I would start something new when I can’t keep up with my current commitments, but whatever… Don’t judge…)
Hawaiian Trip Journal in my BuJo
Well, I’m back from my vacation, and it really was a holiday. I didn’t bring a laptop, and I didn’t check email, or keep up on my blog, so it has definitely been a bit of catch-up now that I am back… The number of emails in my collection of inboxes was quite high! I’m still working on getting back to the normal routine, so I don’t have any real content to share with you today…
Instead, I thought I’d share a couple images of my bullet journal that I used as a travel journal for my trip. I’m pretty proud of my doodles, so I’m going to share… I “should” be back to normal by Thursday and will hopefully have something more exciting for you. Until then, “Aloha!”
Travel Prep in my Bullet Journal
I never seem to get ahead of the game… every time I think I’m finally getting a handle on being organized, something comes up, or I say yes to one too many things…
Anyway, the latest thing that snuck up on me (other than missing a Tuesday blog post, shhhh) was our spring break vacation. I am currently typing this on my phone while I wait for our flight to Hawaii. (I know, I know, it’s not good to tell the interweb where we are going and when, but we have housesitters in our house, so it’s not abandoned, and that’s all the details you are getting… )
In order to help me get organized, I made a couple spreads in my bullet journal. The first was just the trip details for planning purposes.
This is where I put down the pertinent information about our flights, accommodation and car rental. It made it easy to check on and share with those that needed to have that info.
The second spread that really helped me get sorted and not stress out was my packing list.
I’m sure that I ended up over packing for this trip, but at least with the list I knew I wasn’t going to forget anything important. Or, at least I haven’t discovered that I’ve forgotten anything yet…
Anyway, I probably won’t do another post while I’m on holidays, but will rest up and get lots of good ideas for when I return. Enjoy your spring break!
Merry Christmas!
I know this is off my “regular” schedule, but I wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!
Happy Holidays!
P.S. If you are bored of your family and need a quick break, you should go fill out the survey that Maggie over at Northern Expenditures is working on. Not sure what the final product will be, but she’s given us (the readership on the interweb) a challenge to get 500 participants by the time she gets back on January 9th. Want to help out? I did the survey and it was really quick! Go here: Money Moose Survey
If I had a Million Dollars…
Last week, Sarah and Scott over at Couple of Sense wrote a post titled “What Would You Do With A Million Dollars?” Their post went down the rabbit hole of how a million dollars isn’t really that much these days… and then discussed what they would want as their cash number to be able to quit work and buy a house… But you can go read that post and see what they discussed…
Anyway, it got the wheels turning in my head about what I would do with a million dollars and what a random million would do to my finances… So I decided to play a little game…
Let’s say that I was somehow given $1,000,000. Straight up, no tax implications or whatever (it keeps my game simple). What would I do with it and how would it help me retire? I have once done a post where I basically discovered that at my current rate I will basically never retire… But maybe a $1,000,000 boost will help me?
Minimalist Honeymoon Packing
Recently, Anne Lene over at Minimalist Sometimes did a post about her one bag only packing for a 3 week trip to Houston. It got me thinking about doing a similar post about our 3 week honeymoon.
For our honeymoon, my husband and I wanted to use trains and public transit (with quite a bit of walking in between) for most of our travel, so we decided to try to pack as minimalist as possible. We each brought only a carry-on roll-y suitcase and a small backpack.
Packing for 3 weeks of travel in a small suitcase was a little tough, mostly because of the time of year we were traveling. March and April are transition months for weather in the north-western area of Europe where we were traveling. Some mornings at the beginning of the trip we would get up and there would be remnants of frost on the ground… And by the end of our trip, my husband was in shorts and a t-shirt and was plenty warm. (As you’ll see a bit later, I didn’t bring shorts, so this wasn’t an option for me…)
When I was packing, I also wanted to make sure that I packed for all the possible activities that we might be doing. We didn’t go to Europe with a set itinerary planned out, so we had no idea what we might end up doing. As such, I ended up with a lot of things that I packed “just in case we spend a day or two doing this…” or “we might go to something fancy and need to dress up…” And I didn’t want to look totally out of place in fashionable Paris… not that I ever claim to be fashionable, but thought it best to try and look a little nicer than if I was backpacking through the woods in rural BC.
Oh, and the last thing I wanted to avoid was having to do laundry all the time. It was vacation time, and so I wanted enough clothing that I could get away with only one or two required laundry stops. We ended up only doing one major laundry wash (while staying with family in Belgium) and then did a couple “hand wash in the sink and hang in the bathroom overnight to dry” type cleanings for a few key items.
So, with all that in mind, how did I do? Did I pack too much? Did I use everything I took? Would I do something different “next time”? (I don’t anticipate another honeymoon, but you get the idea…) Let’s go over everything in detail… Continue reading
My Fill-the-Bucket List
Last year I did a post about gratitude where I tried to think about all the awesome things and experiences that I’m so lucky to have in my life. Recently (or maybe a few months back now…), Maggie at Northern Expenditure did a post about making a “fill-the-bucket” list, instead of a tradition bucket list. Rather than concentrate on what you haven’t done and want to do, it’s a way to look back on all the awesome experiences that you’ve already had. My gratitude post and a “fill-the-bucket” list are both similar exercises, but I thought I’d try Maggie’s list too.
Now, me personally, I’ve never made a real “bucket list”, but I know that my bucket is already pretty full, I just need to dig a few things out of the ol’ memory banks to share… I noticed that a lot of the other posts on this topic are heavily weighted with travel based experiences… It shows that this community really values travel… And I’ve been lucky enough to do quite a bit of traveling so far in my lifetime. It’s hard to pick only a few to share… But I’ve limited my list to only 7 things… Continue reading
April 2016 Financial Update
It’s official! I’ve been using YNAB for a year! This is exciting for me because I now have enough stored data to be able to compare annually! (Yes, total NERD ALERT!!!) Anyway, going forward, I’ll be able to say “last year we spent blah blah blah in this category in this month, so this year we have improved and saved blah blah blah…” Yup, exciting stuff!
Blogging Break…
So, you may or may not have noticed, but I sort of lost the regular posting schedule that I was on… Turns out that I had a little bit too much on my plate, and something had to give… And it was blogging… So, sorry about that…
And now I am heading on my long delayed honeymoon. Yes, our wedding was in August and we are just now heading on our honeymoon… So, I don’t exactly plan to be blogging while I am away, but you never know. I also realize it is totally not recommended to tell the big bad interweb that you are going on vacation, but we have housesitters taking care of our place and our cats, and it’s not like we are going to be out of touch or not able to check in on things…
Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Easter and I will get back to a regular routine when I am back from vacation.
Cheers!
All-Round Better Me 