I Love This Poem by Rumi

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
-Fred Rogers

Accessories for My Filofax from the Container Store

I picked up some useful items from the Container Store today for my Filofaxes.  Here they are:

 Some sticky notes from Moleskine.  I couldn't resist these.

 Calendar stickers too!

And finally some little magnet markers.  These are very strong, magnetically speaking.

A Little Gift for My Son - A Filofax, Malden in Ochre

My son is leaving for University at the end of August and I thought that he would love his very own Filofax.   Soooooo - I purchased him a Malden Personal Size in Ochre.  I also purchased him the Chicago map insert.  He'll be needing that because his school is right Downtown Chicago.  I'll feel better when I know he knows his way around.  He was very excited to receive it.  Of course, I had to get my hands on it.  I helped him set it up.

I loved the smell, the supple feel of the leather and the "dated" look that this Malden had, and since it was on sale, I had to buy one for myself in Vintage Pink (should arrive tomorrow). I haven't seen this color in person and can't really get a good look from anywhere online, I hope I like it. 

I am restricting myself at this point from buying anymore binders.  I just started with Filofax around the middle of June and now I have 5 binders.  I figured out a use for 4 so the 5th one will be a challenge, but I WILL find a use for it. 

Today's My Birthday!

My boys took me to Chicago for an Architectural tour on the Chicago river.  We drove to the city, about an hour away, and parked at Navy Pier, $21 for the day to park there, woof!  Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed our cruise on the river, it lasted about an hour.  I had no idea that someone could talk about buildings for that long.  It was very informative and interesting.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.  My boys bought me our boarding photo that the photographer took before we got on the boat.  I thought that was very sweet.

After our cruise, we walked a few blocks to see the Centennial Fountain, it spurts a stream across the river every hour on the hour for about 10 minutes.  We saw the fountain on our River Cruise or else we wouldn't have even known it was there.  We wanted to go to the fountain to see it spurt off.   There was and Irish Pub Restaurant very near the fountain so we decided to have lunch on their patio.  It was a perfect day that I will remember for a very long time.  I loved every minute of it.

CUL8R

Organized the Filofax Way!

Ok, I think I've got it figured out.  I finally know exactly what to use all my Filos for.  I was carrying around my A5 in my purse for a week or so and really loved having it with me all day, BUT, it was weighing me down.  So that's when I pulled the Personal Cuban back out of my closet.  I had to develop a plan so that I could use all my Filos.  Here's the plan I came up with:

Mini:  (Purple Domino) to keep on the end table, in my living room, next to me as I read, surf the net or watch TV, to jot down things that I want to remember, like quotes, addresses, thoughts and/or ideas that hit me, etc...

Pocket:  (Raspberry Chameleon) Will live in my purse, obviously, because I'm using this one as my wallet with sections for shopping lists, budgeting, frequent shopping cards, etc...

Personal:  (Chili Cuban)  This one will live in my purse, and I will track my work hours, birthdays, appointments, special outings, dates, vacations, etc...  It will be my main activity calendar, with a notes section, a prayer list section and a section called 4A5, which will be used to jot down items that I want to transfer to my A5.


A5:  (Aqua Chameleon) This one will live on my desk/table.  It will contain my long and short term goals, projects with project breakdowns, books read, daily and weekly to-do's, things to remember and keep track of  internet classes.  Oh yeah, and this will be my meal planner as well.  Pfew!

I'm very excited now that I have a workable plan so that I can use all my little beauties in a very organized way.  Maybe after using them for a little while I'll do an updated video of how it's going.   I'm tired, and I'm off to dreamland now after getting my Filos set up the way that they'll be used.  Thanks for checking in. Ta Ta For Now!

This is from my July 8th Delivery from Filofax!  My favorite kind of package!

FILOFAX DELIVERY TOMORROW!

Ok, I did it again!  I couldn't help myself!  I bought another Filofax, after watching this video on YouTube.  I purchased the Raspberry Chameleon Pocket to use as a wallet.  I'm going to be so stinkin' organized.  It was on sale, so there, it's justified!

It's arriving tomorrow morning, oh wait, actually it's this morning.  I'll have to share with you all what I ordered.  I'm very excited!

Oh and thanks to Philofaxy for finding my blog posts on Filofaxes and putting them up on the Web Finds, what a sweet surprise!  Now I really feel special!!!  :0)

Motivated to Organize

First off, I wanted to share with you all how I started feeling the need to get organized.  I'm sure there are many factors involved, but here is one definite reason:  FEELING UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY CLOSED IN BY STUFF!

My innate need to collect pretty things for over 25 years has put me in a claustrophobic predicament.  I piled those things in closets, drawers, cupboards and cabinets. It didn't help that I volunteered at a Thrift Shop and brought home lots *(and LOTS) of "couldn't pass up" stuff.  Beautiful things!! 

After many years of doing this, our home became stuffed full to the brink.  I couldn't stand it anymore.  I would go shopping and come home and there would be no place to put anything.  All the "prime real estate" in our home was taken.  My counters were never clear, always covered.  It drove me nuts!!!  I guess you could say that that was my major breaking point. I totally started to feel closed in, claustrophobic.

I decided I wanted to be free, uncluttered, I wanted a home for everything, and if I couldn't find a home for it, I had to part with it.  I wanted to know what I had and where it was!   Why was I keeping all this stuff!?

For Inspiration I started checking out YouTube for direction in organizing and boy did I find the uploads on that subject. I heard it mentioned in one of the videos that for something to take up valuable "real estate" in the home it should be really needed, used, or admired.  I took that to heart and started looking around for things to Purge.  (I call it "blessing others", because I donated it all to Good Will and/or Amvets)  Purging is now a process that I will continue regularly.  I think that if I ever had to move it would take me forever to pack all this stuff.  In other words, it would be way too much work.

Afterward, I find that my home has never been this organized before.  My husband and I are sort of beginning a new chapter in our lives with both of our sons leaving this fall.  One son is serving in the Army and my other son leaves for University this August.  We'll be entering that time clean and fresh, with everything in it's place.  It's a really great feeling!  To be in control of your stuff and not let your stuff be in control of you.  Because the less you have the more time you have to play.  My goal is to play alot!

Next up, purging and organizing my craft room!

Some of my favorite YouTube Vids on Organizing are:
  Malitose79 (short and sweet)
  HomeOrganizing (the ultimate organizer)
  Dolt on a Dime
  Clutterdiet
  and any Filofax vids

What's In My Filofax Mini

Here's a quick tour of what's inside my Domino Mini Filofax.  I love purple!

I made the divider indexes from card stock scrapbook paper.  I love butterflies!  I have the month on two pages as my calendar and then each section has plain paper after them.  The same paper that came with the Domino.  My named indexes are Calendar, Personal, Home, Family, Other and Blogs with two indexes yet to have names.  I have it sitting on my end table in my living room so that I can jot down things I want to remember from things I find on the internet or hear on television or pick up from a magazine or a book. 

Re-thinking this Filofax thing

I was browsing the Filofax website and noticed that the Chameleon A5 in Aqua was marked off 50% last week.  Well, I couldn't resist and I bought one.  I mean, come on, it was half off!!!

When I originally bought my first Filofax on Ebay, I bought the Raspberry Finsbury in A5.  The seller contacted me and told me that that one was out of stock and would take a little longer to get.  I didn't want to wait longer, so I looked back in their store and found a Cuban Personal in Chilli and asked them to swap them out.  They obliged and a few days later the Cuban came and I really like it alot.  I set it up and started using it.  It fit in my purse nicely.

A couple days later I received the Domino Mini in purple, I ordered this one because it was on sale and thought I would use it as a food journal.  But now that I have it I set it up with some homemade index dividers made from Scrapbook paper.  I got the month at a glance calendar pages and I labeled my dividers Personal, Home, Family, Other and Blogs.  I plan to keep it on my end table in my living room to jot down things I want to remember from TV, books or from my laptop.

Now with 3 Filofaxes I had to decide between the A5 and the Personal.  I chose the A5.  I put the Cuban away in its box and plan to use it later sometime, or sell it.  I moved into my A5 and I love it.  I'll give a tour after I become comfortable with its workings.  Right now it's trial and error.

Here's a pic of my beauty's:

I couldn't resist the ColorClick pen I got on Amazon right here. It actually works pretty well.  I bought a sampler of different multi-ink pens and really didn't expect much from this one, but I really like it alot.  I mean, come on, 10 colors in one pen!  It's a little chunky to use, but fun to change the colors.  The pages I write on look so pretty and colorful.  

Make Your Own Chalkboard Labels!

I am shocked at how expensive all the Chalkboard Labels that I've found are.  I found a much less alternative to those labels that they sell at office supply stores.  Here's what I did, I bought Black contact paper  and some Chalk Markers  from amazon.com.  Then on my Cricut I cut out pretty decorative labels.  I cut the scraps into rectangles.  I literally have hundreds and hundreds of chalkboard labels now.  How nice everything will look with those vivid labels on them.  Yeah!   

Filofax

I'm totally getting into this organizing thing.  I have always been gaga over stationary, pens, office supplies and the like for as long as I could remember.  I also love organizers.

Before my iPhone, I had a couple pocket pc's, until they both crashed and were useless. Before that I used organizers.  I remember a pretty red vinyl quilted one, that I got at Target.  I had designed my own divider pages for it and made the organizer my own. And, before that one I had a black, leather like, one that I also enjoyed.  Also with that I kept a 6 x 9 binder that I tracked my short and long term goals, any projects and to do lists.  That was fun to keep.   

I miss my organizers! I like my iPhone, BUT, I also love to write, notes, goals and to-do lists and stuff like that. You know "mind processes".  Hehehe!  Since I love to write and record things I thought it would be fun to get involved with an organizer again.

Sooooo, I decided I would get a Filofax this time.  I found lots of YouTube videos and lots of blogs about them.  I liked what I saw.  So, I purchased one on Ebay and can't wait for it to come.  It's a Cuban Personal.

This Domino mini was on sale on the Filofax website, 30% off.  I bought it for tracking my projects and to-do lists or who knows maybe I'll change my mind and use it for something else.  It will easily fit in my purse.

Click here to see what I'm talking about.