Do You BuJo?

At the beginning of the summer I heard through some friends about the bullet journal (BuJo), and hosted a class at our house to find out more.  I have been a fully digital girl for a long time and rely heavily on it for my calendar and address book but at heart I am still a list maker, and note taker, and like to be able to quickly refer back to something long since completed.  As I have downloaded any number of apps for this purpose, I have yet to come across one that does exactly what I would like.  I have taken to using two separate notebooks at work for our weekly meeting notes, and find that when I need to jot something down, since life is so digital, I either have sticky notes everywhere or will jot a note down in one of two places on my phone, both mediums have the problem of being out of sight, out of mind.

Enter the bullet journal, one place for everything.  Though a major component of it is also to house your calendar, I do not use it for that function, except to highlight a special event on a given day, like a birthday or anniversary.  More importantly, I use it to house notes on particular projects, party plans, school related stuff, random business cards that I want to hang onto and weekly to-do lists, goals and menu plans....yes, I am even trying to menu plan!  Though I may not be sticking to it entirely in this season of garden bounty, it is nice that my ideas for the week are there to look back on.

I also enjoy that I have made it part art journal too.  I can doodle and decorate.  On busy summer days when there are an impossible number of to-dos running through the ongoing list in my head, I am happy that I have a place to find everything.  There is something about having a little bit of analog in this ever digital life that is grounding.

#100HappyDays :: Day 87

After a busy week of work and then afternoons running errands and hanging out with Sidney, yesterday afternoon was perfect for some down time.  I sorted and and organized a stack of papers that have been piling up, while wrapped up on the couch re-watching episodes of the X-Files.  Sid (and I) are anxiously anticipating the re-boot that will be out early next year, she is not sure how she is going to adjust to Scully having long blond hair!  Isn't it funny how characters in both books and digital form become imprinted on our minds?   I also spent some time playing with my camera while contemplating catching the blue moon.  During the height of multiple photography projects several years ago, I was able to dial in some beautiful moon shots, which sadly have eluded me since.  I can not for the life of me duplicate the settings that I used then, and of course did not write them down, thinking oh, how easy, no brainer.....yep, right!  That is something that apparently did not imprint on my mind :)    Overall, an afternoon of finding happy moments in simple tasks.

The Great Sort Begins

Well it's day 4 of the new year and we have taken a small step toward completing one of our winter projects. I'd say that's a pretty good jump start on the year! Operation tool consolidation and arranging has officially begun. The basement has been emptied of the clutter and bits and pieces and they're making their way to the barn for the big lay out and organization.

As we began the pick up and find this morning, Brian said he was frustrated because it seems we just partially moved in. His big love and creative outlet has been his wood shop and since we moved in, we have only partially unpacked some stuff, just waiting for the other house to sell and then get the rest of it moved and set up.

Now, we are at a disadvantage since so many of his main power tools were badly damaged in last years flood. They have been moved here since we had to vacate the rest of the other house for repairs, but everything just sits in a kind of limbo and disarray. So now we begin to clear out, organize, and re-enter talks with the insurance company, with the hopes of gaining some guidance on how to fix this (we've attempted ad nausea to get bids but there are no dealers anywhere in our area).

The tools will come in oh so handy as we continue to build our life on our little farmstead. We've got a list of projects a mile long that they will be useful for. In going with the theme I presented yesterday, this year will not only be a great year as we continue on our adventure, it will also be the year that we move on and try not to start every sentence with "when the other house sells..."