Tag: curation

life curation

Welcome 2019!

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Welcome 2019!

I love New Year’s Day! It’s my favorite holiday because it’s symbolic of new beginnings and innumerable opportunities. There’s nothing quite as exciting as looking out and seeing a limitless horizon: that’s what every New Year’s Day feels like to me.

I’m filling in the first few weeks of January in my new planner, starting my organization challenge, and catching up with friends today. I hope you take the time to envision all of the fantastic things you want to experience in 2019 and then set your intention to have a year that exceeds your wildest dreams.

Thanks for an incredible 2018, and I can’t wait to journey through 2019 with you all! Take care, and I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

life curation

Goodbye 2018 …

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Happy Monday, friends! It’s New Year’s Eve, and we are closing the books on 2018. Did you get everything you wanted? Did you see some dreams come true? Did you get answers to some of your burning questions? Are you reflecting back on the year with appreciation?

Here’s a truth you may not hear too often: it doesn’t matter whether things worked out exactly as you hoped. All that matters is that you lived to see another day, and every day offers an opportunity to “reset”. Life is the gift, and everything else is icing.

Goodbye 2018

I took off from posting for the past couple of days: my first blogging “break” ever. Inspiration led me to stop pushing myself so hard and to take a break to regroup and think carefully about how I want to enter 2019. I needed that space to clear my mind.

This past weekend led me to the difficult decision to cease doing weekend blog posts. While I love writing and have no problem doing it daily, I feel that having the weekend will give me more time to enjoy my journey and perfect my writing craft. Not to mention, the time off really gave me an energy boost: I look forward to feeling that way more frequently.

I’m going to get back to working on my vision board and I’ll be back tomorrow. Have a great evening, and I’ll talk with you all soon!

life curation

Need Help Developing Your Vision for 2019?

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Happy Sunday, friends! I spent most of today resting as I’ve had really low energy, but I’m feeling a little refreshed so I wanted to make sure that I get this post done before I get tied up in chores and other activities this evening.

I recently came across a great resource for anyone working on their personal vision statement. You know, having a personal vision statement can do wonders for giving you a “compass” for your behaviors: the right vision statement can help you to stay focused as you work toward accomplishing your goals.

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Kelley Rosano is a coach, astrologer, and author that has developed some great materials to support anyone trying to create a more successful future. Her Personal Vision guide has some great questions to help you reveal what really matters to you and what vision is most aligned with your personal desires, strengths and calling.

I’m working through the questions little by little throughout the next week. I’ve already gained so much clarity from this exercise! I’m glad that I found it before the end of the year. I can’t wait to share my vision statement with you all in a few days.

I advise you to check out the Personal Vision guide as well as the other offerings on her Free Resource page. Also, if you’re interested in her services, you can always contact her directly. I love that she has generously provided so many great materials that can be used to get a head start on a productive and successful year!

That’s all for this Sunday: I’ll catch up with you all tomorrow. Enjoy your evening!

fitness · life curation

2019 Planning – Health and Wellness

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Welcome, Monday! You’ve been gone for a few days but we’re all somewhat glad to see your return!

As I plan for the upcoming year, I’m reviewing the planner I bought a few weeks ago and starting to think seriously about what goals I’m pursuing in the upcoming year. My challenge is to balance my ambition with a little bit of realism. I don’t want to set my goals too high and then end up missing the mark.

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So, I’m taking my time to consider some major areas of my life and set realistic goals that are attainable but still require me to “stretch” a bit. Since I’ve been talking about improving my health since the summer, I figured I’d start with this area.

For 2019, my health and wellness goals are as follows:

  • Learn to swim
  • Take at least 3 dancing/fitness courses that I’ve never taken before
  • Achieve my goal weight
  • Start working with a naturopathic doctor

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My overall goal is improved health and more energy. I know that I can achieve it if I do the work and stay committed. I won’t write a tonabout my health journey – the blog will be taking a more focused turn in the new year – but I will post periodic updates so that you all can keep me accountable.

I’ll have more posts over the next two weeks about my 2019 planning. Look out for those, and I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

life curation

Making Space Challenge: End of the Year Updates

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Happy, happy Saturday! I figured I’d make this last post about the Making Space challenge before the end of the year, because it’ll be 2019 before you know it.

I’m still doing my thing with the challenge. It’s a little easier to “make space” in December because I have more time at home (due to the holidays). When I’m enjoying “down” time, I always start clearing out things and tidying up. That may defeat the purpose of taking time off, but I enjoy it, so that’s that.

However, I also tend to clear out a lot of clutter (in the form of magazines) during this time. Since I create a vision board every New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day, I need images to paste on it. So, a few weeks before NYE, I start ripping up my magazines, putting the images I plan to use in a folder and throwing out the magazine when I’m done. I also will rip out any articles that I’ve been meaning to read: I challenge myself to read them all before the end of December.

Sometimes I read the articles, sometimes I miss my December deadline. It’s the intention that matters though, right? I always intend to do it, and eventually, the articles get read because ripped out pages don’t age well and I get tired of them holding valuable space in my file cabinet.

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So for the challenge, I’ve been working through no less than 3 magazines a day. At the rate that I’m going, I will have gotten rid of at least 50 magazines by the end of the year. That’s going to create massive space in my magazine bins, and I can start using those containers for something else (yay!)

Are you all making space before the end of the year? Please let me know in the comments below, and if you’re so inclined, take a pic of how you’re making space and use the hashtag #makingspacechallenge or #makingspace so I can see what you’re up to.

Have a great day, and I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

life curation

Writing Out My Bucket List

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After a few weeks of feeling uninspired and restless, I finally started getting back to my “normal”. I’m not 100% back but I’m on my way. As part of my recent burst of inspiration, I started writing out my bucket list.

checklistNow, I’ve done this before (multiple times, actually). But funny enough, I can’t find any of my old copies. I take that as a sign that I need new dreams. NO surprise there: I’ve already accomplished a lot of what I’ve wanted to do (as I mentioned in a previous post).

So I’m starting all over again. And I needed some ideas to help get my creativity flowing. I found this great list on Celestine Chua’s website that has 101 things everyone should try. She also makes this fabulous list available as a free PDF so you can get a printable version if you’d like. Between this list, Write It Down Make It Happen, and this incredible book I’ll be reviewing soon (more about that later), I expect to be absolutely unstoppable next year.

To our continued success! I hope your Monday is happy, productive and everything else you want it to be. Take care, and talk to you all tomorrow!

life curation · Uncategorized

I Got a New Planner!

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Happy Friday! Let’s just take a moment to smile and rejoice as we made it to the end of another week.

A few days ago, I knew I had to embark upon my annual exercise of selecting a new planner. I hate to wait until after January 1st to buy one, because the selection isn’t as good AND I have a slightly compulsive behavior where I must fill in the first day of my calendar/planner: filling a calendar retroactively just won’t suffice.

So I buy these sorts of things in December. Last year, I was gifted a 2017/2018 planner and it was absolutely perfect: seriously, it’s exactly what I would have purchased for myself. This year, I’m buying my own and I needed to find one that met my practical needs and aesthetic preferences.

My planner had to:

  • Be pretty
  • Have lined spaces for daily entries
  • Include a space for weekly/monthly goals
  • Have convenient at-a-glance calendars for this year and next year
  • Lots of space for notes at the back of the planner
  • Less than $30

I was delighted to find this beauty at Target for a little under $13. It’s perfect: pale pink with gold lettering, and generously sized.

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I am already enjoying it so much. The first few pages of the planner have spaces for fleshing out your vision for the year, as well as milestone goals that you want to accomplish in different areas of your life. Talk about comprehensive!

This planner is by Day Designer and I highly recommend it. It’s beautiful and meets all of my requirements. I love it!

life curation

NaNoWriMo Week 3 Updates: When Your Writing Mojo Has Stopped

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Happy Thursday, loves!

I’ve spent the past 7 days doing everything but writing. Yes, you heard me right: I’ve typed ZERO words this week. I feel a little nervous about hitting my goal of 50k words, but I’m respecting my creative cycles and remaining optimistic about reaching my goal before the end of the month.

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So what does that mean? I need to average at least 4500 words a day until November 30th. That’s a LOT of writing, but I’m up to the challenge. I’m determined to get to 50K!

Pray for me, y’all lol! Seriously though, if you can send some creative vibes my way, that would be great. I’ll do my part and type, type, type: even if I don’t have an idea where exactly I want the story to go. I’ll have made some major progress by my next update: I can feel it!

life curation · reading list

2019 Planning – For The Sake of Writing

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Today, I’m babysitting a few of my favorite munchkins, so today’s post will have to be a brief one. They’re keeping me busy today LOL!

I’m making my 2019 plans and I realized that I really want to do a writer’s workshop/retreat. I haven’t ever done anything like that before, so I’m eager to give it a whirl. I think my writing would benefit from a vacation/trip dedicated to it. I know that my writing is better when I am in a different environment, so a retreat seems like a natural choice.

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I did a quick search on Google and found this list of 37 (yes, 37!) writers retreats that occurred in 2018. I figure that these will be the same in 2019 as well; at very minimum, most of these retreats are probably recurring. I also found this list with 8 more retreats (I only saw one retreat that was a duplicate from the list of 37). The 40+ retreats on these lists have a lot of options at different price points, and all of them are centered around creating better writers.

If any of you’ve done one of the retreats listed, please tell me all about it in the comments below! Also, if you know of a different retreat that isn’t on either of the lists, PLEASE tell me all about it! I’m still deciding which one would be best for me, and I could use some input for anyone that knows more about them.

Enjoy your Sunday (I know that I am!) and I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

life curation

Making Space Challenge Updates

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It’s been a few weeks since my last update on my Making Space challenge. So, here ya go!

I’m continuing to pare down my belongings and make room. I have a mini-project ahead of me that I’ll be working on for the next week or so. I have to store my porcelain doll collection to clear out my living room and make space for new decor. I’ll be boxing up my dolls (after I clean them and wrap them in acid free paper) and that will take a bit of time to do properly. I’ve already gotten my wrapping paper and I’ll be ordering my compressed air (for blowing out the dust that may have settled on the dolls) later today. I’m aiming to pack two dolls a day starting on Monday. That should translate to me being done in a little under 3 weeks.

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Not my doll, but isn’t she cute?

I also switched my wardrobe over from summer clothes to winter clothes a couple of weeks ago. Now that all of those clothes are hanging or folded in my dresser drawers, I can look at the items, one by one, and see which items fit my current style preferences. When I first switched the clothes over, I only saw one or two pieces that I felt needed to be retired (those went promptly into a charity giveaway bag). However, I can apply a more critical eye over the next few weeks, especially during my long holiday weekends (since I have a few coming up).

As far as “making space” internally, I’ve been happily saying “no” to anything that doesn’t bring me delight. This has been surprising for people in my life that are used to me saying “yes” without question, but by opting out of different obligations, I’ve had more time to care for myself and reserve my energy for the things that really matter. That has done a world of good for improving my low mood over the past few weeks.

Intentionally making space has been a good idea for another reason: I have to upgrade some things in my life and by getting rid of the things that don’t serve me, I have more time and other resources to devote to getting the things that will serve me best right now. This has been a great decision: I’m glad I did it! I love the changes that have come from choosing to #makespace!