Planner Week #27, 2014

June is dairy month here in Ontario Canada but I never made a special page for the event. This week I did so.

The picture of the calf is Violet. Isn't she sweet! The Sterling Butter is cut from a local promotion magazine telling the history of the butter factory in a near by town.Green gingham washi tape down the hole row, some polka dot in yellow across the top and stickers of flowers on top of the washi tape. A few summery stickers.

I did all my writing in green pen this week.

It was a real crazy week. Glad it's over.

Little Farmgirls

Every July I take pictures of my younger bunch of children, since the older ones as all at work now. It was a cool breezy day today and the baby was not at all cooperative, but a few of the 100 or so pictures I took turned our sort of okay!

All wearing dresses I smocked. The four year old in a blue batiste with a farm yard scene from Creative Smocking ( Australian) magazine. The baby is in a rose floral print, fabric sent to me from a girlfriend in England. It is a few rows of smocking in roses and green. The six year old is in a teal tiny gingham with sheep smocked on the bodice. Very fitting for these sheep/ cattle farmgirls.

She had cut her own bangs a few weeks ago!

Project Life Tabs for Planner

Project Life has no life up here where I live. Proof is in the pudding the store can't sell the stuff.
 I was in a scrapbooking store yesterday and spied all the Project Life by Becky Higgins on 70% off. The real deal too because they all had stickers, not a card up front stating a sale.
No the store was getting rid of this stuff.

I spied these and thought they were neat. Top or bottom tabs for my planner. Tabs with white labels.

12 plastic, a nice weight dividers. 2 red, 2 orange, 2 peach, 2 yellow, 2 teal and 2 grey.
They are for a full size binder, but a girl can always crop and re-punch holes to find her planner!

Cost to me $1.99 Can.

Strawberry Jam

Twelve Batches of jam have been made this week in 38C temperatures.

That is 48 x 500 mL jars. I am taking a break and getting back at it Friday.

Planner Week #26

I did things a little different this past week as it was strawberry season here on the farm I decided to do a full background of strawberries and add to the backdrop. The first day I just wrote my long lists of have to do's, but couldn't really see them so the remains of the week I used posting pages.

I copied this girl from Pinterest and coloured her.

Kind of reminds me of my 6 year old.

Lots of canning.

Sometimes Life is Just Crazy

Its that time of year again when I could be up 24 hours a day and the work would never be done. Hay is sitting in the field drying before bailing. Garden needs weeding.There is sewing by the machine needing made up before summer passes. And I spend the sunny days in the kitchen sweating as I can.

Last years apples from the cold cellar made into applesauce for baking.

Did this last night after 9pm.

38 jars.

picked 12 Litres of strawberries this morning after barn chores, to make jam.

My hens are working overtime too!

This mornings collection.

Blessings M"Lynn

Need Days Like This

We had a really terrible storm come through yesterday. I lost some chickens, and today is overcast and yucky out. And I am feeling so happy. I needed a day to do something that didn't require pulling weeds, cutting grass, maintaining animals, and I got it. A day to do what I just feel like doing,what I want to do. Problem is, I now feel like I wasted it.

ideas of what I wanted

I spend a lot of time ( other then cooking) going onto Pintest and looking for A5 printables for my Franklin Covey planner. I have to say I found lots of things but not at all what I had in mind. So I decided to begin changing over from my Day Runner to the Franklin Covey Planner a section at a time. I have to say at first it was really easy.

I had seen on a You-tube video how you should have a front and back plastic board to your planner, a plain dashboard sort to speak of. This is to keep your pages from always sliding to the back of the rings when you close is. So I dug out my Smashboard acrylic tabs and cut the tabs off and put one at the front and back of the binder.

 Then I moved my Day Runner pages over, which was super easy as they have the right amount of holes for the Franklin Covey.

 

The Martha Stewart top loader plastic protectors with flaps also had the right amount of holes. I loaded them with tabs I use a lot.

 My creative pages however needed the extra hole punched in them. After a bit of hole punching my hands got pretty sore. I laminate all the picture cards, and the plastic laminate was hard to get through.

I found this at My Great Challenge

And I laminated it and put it between my week decorated pages. I thought I would use erasable pen on it or sticky note for each category. I'll see how it goes. I might not even like it.

I made all new tab sections because I now have more room on the rings and had ideas for some different categories then I had before.Most of my day was spent redesigning a food log and blood pressure log for my Health section. I now have it all completed and will show it another day. But I printed off 26 weeks worth to get me into 2015. That is what took the time.

Other then that I canned 40 lbs of apples today!

Blessings M'Lynn

A Change UP

This is my Day Runner Planner.
I would LOVE a Filofax but if you were to ask anyone in Canada what one was ,you kind of get that funny look!!
Just not popular here.Can't even find them.
People like apps.

This is my Day Runner which literately goes everywhere with me. I really love it and it contains everything I need to care for four generations at one. It cost me less then $20.00 and up to now has served me really well. We are now at the half way mark of the year and I am not sure I could jam one more piece of paper in this planner.

A few weeks ago I saw that the planner/ calander row in Walmart was having a facelift. (Wonder why I even ventured down this way?)

Last week while there for something totally unrelated, I happened to go in this area again.You know school isn't even out here in Canada and they are already getting read for September back to school/ calendar stuff. Weird!

What I came across was this Frankin Covey Planner. Not pretty colours like Filofax, but real leather and for $20.00! I hummed and hawed about it for 15 minutes and then thought the next year ones will be more expensive. So I bought it, before really looking at it.

When I got it home I compared the two. The Day Runner ( vinyl )is the top one and the Franklin Covey( leather) is on the bottom. Right now there is more in my Day Runner. I was pleased and thought I will get the Franklin Covey ready for 2015, just the way I would like it. That was when I really noticed the difference.

The rings on the Day Runner are 3/4 of an inch ( no wonder I am running out of room)

The Frankin Covey are 1 5/8 inch. Tons more room!

 

The Day Runner, has five slots and a big sleeve in the back.

The Franklin Covey have seven slots and a big sleeve and a zippered extendable pouch and yet a full length pocket under that.

The Franklin Covey also came with a lot of extra tab pages, and extra note pages. The back has two sleeves to put papers. I need to carry Power of Attorney papers with me all the time and this will be super handy. What I found totally  not necessary was the whole Franklin Covey program that is in the planner.I will be totally recycling all those pages.

I have gone on You-tube and found ideas for Franklin Covey Planners. There is going to be changes in this girls planning life.

Blessings M'Lynn

A Day in My Life Journals

I am fanatical about organization here on the farm. A type of OCD I know ,but this morning I thought this is getting out of hand! I have a binder, journal, planner for everything and it is starting to get to be too much.My planner ( Day Runner) was suppose to relieve all this but I guess old ways are hard to break.

This is a daily usage:
Bottom pink binder is my Household binder. I have owned this for 29 years and it holds all the daily information about the house, except the budget which is a different binder.
The colourful quilt design one is my diary. I have had one since I was a teenager. As life when on and my children where born it became the farm journal.
The red case is my planner for 2014. It was suppose to relieve all these books!
The small paper one is my blood pressure readings.
The top little pink on it my calorie intake ( health journal)

My Household binder is like many you see on line.
This is  an old program. Just looks new now that the internet is around and everyone has it. I have used this system since my eldest now 29 was around. Back then it held everything from budgeting, to plant in the garden. I used it for groceries, and meal planning to vet trips.
Now 29 years later and 8 children later it gets used a lot less. In fact I am thinking of simplifying my life totally of it. Reason being? Everything is pretty much done on computers now. The farm is totally computerized and the back-up is on a stick or in a file. Gardening has its roots planted and the fields don't change much year to year. I school through different avenues now as 29 years ago schooling was difficult to find in Canada. In total my life is routine now and has changed direction.

Inside the household binder. Erasable plastic pages and places to put sticky pages.

My journal/farm log will have to stay. It tells me when the roof was put on, when the calf Violet was born, when my children first began to walk, my father's death, and mom-in-laws hospitalization. It also expresses my feelings over issues. And trips we had made, hospitality we have embarked on. News paper clippings, magazine pictures I liked, things I wanted to incorporate on the farm........

 

When I die the kids will fight over who gets theses books. There are about 40 of them so far!

My Day Runner: Is the book I show the pages on each week. I am really loving it, and carry it everywhere with me. However expect some changes in the next few weeks in this area, because there isn't enough room on the rings of this planner to do what I want it to do.

Blood Pressure Booklet: I got this at a heart specialist office. I was there for Mum but these were free so I picked up one. I really like seeing my progress. I have an app on my phone but it doesn't give me the trill seeing it visually on paper. I hope to find something on the internet that is comparable to this booklet to be able to put in my planner.

Weight Journal: years ago after child number 6, I thought I was done!! And out of frustration joined Weight Watchers, because I was not happy with myself. I really enjoyed going. It was something just for me ( mom's will get that) I lost 56 lbs and was totally thrilled.
Then two more little ones came along..................Then my eldest daughter threw a bomb at us when she was 19 and  my self worth went through the toilet and my weight went back up.
This past winter I went back but couldn't stand the leader. She was a whinny person, who was phoney toward those accomplishing great strides.I left because of her. Since I was driving 64 km to be there I wanted bang for my visit and I wasn't getting it. Went three times and came out feeling worst then when I went in. So I was in Chapters one day in March, and these little diaries were on for $3.00 and I got one for this reason. I have lost 18 lbs on my own. I have 12 more to go. I am hoping for 12lbs by my anniversary in August but am happy to just be healthy now.

So these are my journals of each day.

How about you. Do you use more then one each day?

Blessings M'Lynn

Planner Week #25

I have been incredibly busy here on the farm, and on rainy days in my sewing studio. I had decided this week to use sewing and quilting as my theme for my planner.

 The floral country quilt style is from Martha Stewart and I purchased it from Micheals. It was a clearance item with many quilt like themes in the package. The green and blue gingham washi tape was a three roll package  I found at Dollarama. It appears to be heavier then normal washi tape. The bird cage washi tape I found at Dollar tree in small rolls. The rose stickers I use to check off that I have taken my medication come with postage stamps.

I did some stamping with stamps I bought at Frogs Whiskers Ink. a few years back. One is a frame, and one is an old sewing machine.

I also used this little piggy magnetic book mark this week to hold fabric swatches from dresses I am sewing up right now to wear in Guyana come winter. I have been doing a lot of sewing for myself at night. In the daytime we are gardening and haying season is upon us. The work just doesn't end.

Blessings M'Lynn

Journal Pencil Case

I finished my journal pencil case last night.

pencil case

Its nothing fancy, and totally used up fabric and zipper I had at home. I also attached a metal clasp with a handle and key ring to the zipper.

inside fabric choice.

 

My cellphone holder and accessory bag.

All in turquoise.

Making Choices

I bought this Latch Journal Turquoise last week for our Missionary trip to Guyana in now November/December. It just keeps getting closer! I am allowed but one 30 lb suit case and one purse sized take on luggage, so I am going to have to be very selective about what personal items I wish to pack. That said I will need pens/pencils/markers and glue to come with me for my journal. NO option here.

So I thought to make a small pencil case  to match the journal. I went through my quilting scrap box and came up with these selections.

 This print I used to make my cable case for my cell phone, and a traveling case for my cellphone.

 Not me.

 Too blue

I have decided I do not like the second and third choice. But that perhaps I will go with the last two. The second print being the lining.
I will figure it all out today.