This Week in My Erin Condren Life Planner

I know when I hit August my life picks up speed again. My summer days, slow-moving and restful, are coming to a close. Football two-a-days and marching band practice begin in earnest. In fact, as of Monday we only have 24 days of summer left before school begins.

The first half of my week so far.

The second half of my week.

I hope everyone has a beautiful week. It looks like we might finally get some rain in Vermilion this week. I hope so. My flowers and yard need it. 

Shops tagged on Instagram. 

If you would like to purchase your own Erin Condren Life Planner here is my code for $10 off your first purchase.

Hugs,

HopeAnn

A Stroll Around Vermilion

Before it got too hot today,  I strolled through Vermilion in order to get my steps in on my Fitbit. I actually achieved just over 8,000 steps. Here are some photos I snapped along my way. Well, mostly views from the bridge. 

We have volunteers who water all of the flowers and plants around town. Aren't they beautiful along the bridge?

Looking south on the Vermilion River, you can see some of the marinas that dot the riverbank.

I just love the shadow of the bridge as I look north. The rooftop in the distance to the right is Quaker Steak and Lube. The restaurant boasts a nice patio where people can dine while looking out at the boats traveling up and down the river. Boaters can dock at the restaurant.

With all of the sailboats in a row, it looks like a coastal town that you might find in Main. Some visitors have even said that Vermilion reminds them of Cape Cod.

Vermilion also has paddle boards and kayaks for rent if you're up for an adventure on the river or even the lake.

 I walked from the bridge down River Road to the Vermilion High School. My son Michael plays the bass drum in the marching band. This week the kids are attending band camp. The kids looked hot and shortly after I arrived received a welcome water break and some shade.

Walking is such good exercise. Do you ever have a difficult time getting started? I do. But once I get going and look at everything around me, I really do enjoy it.

Hugs,

HopeAnn

Totally Forgot to Plan

Good morning! While my coffee was perking away in my Keurig, I glanced down at my planner only to notice that I was still on last week's spread. Yikes! I forgot to plan for this week. I usually work on my planner on Sundays to get it ready for the next week. I was so busy working on my new crochet bag that I forgot to plan. The pattern for the bag is from Lucy at Attic 24. I'll post some pics when I have it finished. I've just got to attach the handles and add the flowers. 

Back to my original post. Here is this week's spread. The stickers are from Sweet Kawaii Design, and Just Scrap It Stickers. 

Crocheted Market Bag

I've been spending some of my summer days sitting on my back porch crocheting. It's so relaxing and it keeps me from stuffing food in my mouth. This market bag is a pattern that I found here. The yarn is Lang Yarns that I purchased in Switzerland while on vacation.

My New Erin Condren Life Planner

Hello Friends!

It's almost the new year and with it comes New Year's resolutions. Once again, I've decided to get more organized with my life. So, I jumped in with both feet and purchased my first Erin Condren Life Planner. WOOT! I could hardly contain my excitement when it arrived at my door. Sorry I'm not including the unpacking, which so many planner people do. I'm still a newbie to the planning world. I was able to customize it with my name, choice of colors, and the quote. I wish the colors would pop more in this picture. The colors are robin egg blue and choral, in case your curious.

Now you may remember, I was using a Filofax. The reason I originally went with Filofax was because it could fit in my purse, which made it nice to carry around with me. Plus, I could refill the pages year after year. Good on the pocketbook and good for the environment. However, I didn't like the daily spread and having to print out and cut all of my pages. I know I could have purchased the pages, but I was trying to save money. Remember? I hated it! The planner that is. It became a chore. As a result, I stopped using it. Oh and also because the clasp melted one summer day and I couldn't fix it. ERGH!

So why the change? After all, the Erin Condren Life Planner isn't cheap. Plus it's quite a bit larger and won't fit so neatly in my purse. My friend used the planner this past year, and I was so jealous. I loved the pop of bright colors. I loved the uplifting quote on the cover. I loved the monthly tabs. I loved the monthly calendar at the beginning of each section. I loved how each month had its own color scheme. I loved how there was room to write. I loved the stickers. But, I didn't love the vertical spread.

As it so happens, Erin Condren listened to her customers, who didn't care for the vertical design, and created a horizontal spread for the Life Planner. YEAH! That sealed the deal for me. My planner came with the month of November and December, so I had some time to practice before the new year. I'm still practicing. I haven't been a planner girl since I was in school. Ahem. Long time ago.

This is the first layout I'm willing comfortable to share. It's not perfect, but it works for me. I'm still figuring out what I need to write down each week to help me stay on top of things. When it comes to decorating, I'm still a newbie there too. There are so many people our there in the planner world who have beautiful decorated planners. Do you know how many "Plan With Me" videos I've watched? My hubby thinks I'm obsessed. With that said, I've decided to keep my planner functional and simple.

Each day has the weather marked at the top. It helps me plan what to wear for the day. My "To Do" list for each day is in the box to the right. Aren't the cute heart check boxes cute? So are the washing machine stickers. The washing machines remind me which load of laundry to complete for the day. I find if I do one load a day it's easier to keep up with, especially in the summer when I'm hanging clothes on the line to dry. Since it was Christmas week I included a countdown to Christmas using snowflake stickers. I'll post links below to the Etsy shops where I purchased the stickers.

Isabella has been keeping me company on the couch while I work write in my planner and write this blog post.

Here is this week's spread. Not a whole lot going on this week. I'm on Christmas break. Ah! I've so needed some time off to spend with family. I think my students were also looking forward to some time off. They've been working so hard this year. I hope they come back refreshed and ready to dive back in.

Well here's hoping that my Erin Condren Life Planner helps me stay motivated to keep planning and following through with those plans to help keep my life a little more organized. Do you use a planner? If so which one works best for you? I'd love to hear from you.

Happy New Year!

Blessings and Hugs,
HopeAnn

P.S. My mom gave me a new purse for Christmas that my Erin Condren Life Planner fits in perfectly. Problem solved.

Links to Etsy shops:
Rory's Sweet Addictions weather stickers, heart check boxes, snowmen, weekend and half boxes

Planner Press washing machines

My holiday stickers came from Meijer's

Disclaimer: I am in no way advertising for Erin Condren or any of the shops on Etsy. I'm just sharing the love.

Sunday Drive

It was such a beautiful day this past Sunday that Matt and I decided to go for a Sunday drive. We used to go quite often with my grandparents. PaPa would point the Caddy in the direction of the lake and off we'd go. MomMom would pack sandwiches and drinks to eat at her favorite spot across from Cedar Point. I miss those drives with my grandparents.

Today, however, we left PaPa's Caddy at home and went for our Sunday drive on our bikes. With a beautiful breeze coming off the water, it was nice and cool. Thank you polar vortex. We drove into the country for a ways before heading to Sherod Park. It's a beautiful park right on the water. We like to go down to the small beach to look for beach glass.

If you look way off to the horizon maybe you can just make out the sailboats. There were so many, but my camera on my phone can't zoom in that close.

After we parked our bikes against the tree we walked out to the beach. There were people swimming to the right so naturally we went to the left. There's a tiny stream of water we jumped across before getting to the other side of the beach.

The beach was made up of piles and piles of shells. That's why most people swim on the other side where there's more sand. I like to hear the crunch crunch of shells beneath my sandals.

Trees get washed ashore here.

I love how this beach is pretty much untouched.

It looks like someone tried to have a bonfire with this one.

This would make a lovely spot to rest in the shade and look out at the water.

Doesn't it look like it's pointing out to the water? The roots were the only thing left from the rest of the tree.

Matt and I miss having our boat. We'd be out there for sure if we still had it.

I just love, love, love the panoramic feature on my phone!

On our walk back to the bikes we stopped to admire the milkweed. Matt thinks we should plant some in our flower garden. Butterflies love it. When I was a little girl I would pull out the silky seeds from the pods and toss them in the air to watch them fly away.

Once we arrived at home I just couldn't go back in the house so I brought out my beach blanket and sat down on the grass to weave in the ends of my ripple blanket. I've been working on this one since Christmas break. It fits my queen size bed. All I have yet to do is crochet the border.


What a beautiful day. Thanks for sharing it with me.

Hugs,
HopeAnn

Snow Days

We have has some serious snow and bone chilling cold this month. Last Friday made it snow day number 6 for our school. We were right in the middle of exams that we had to push back because of all of the snow days added onto our Christmas break. Many fellow teachers and friends have predicted that we'll have at least one snow day this next week. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm ready to get back to a normal routine.

We've been keeping our feeders filled. Our squirrel pals not only eat all of their corn, but also eat the peanuts for the blue jays. We're going through seed and corn like crazy. We enjoy watching all of the activity in our backyard.

Our cat Sebastien has also enjoyed watching the birds and squirrels. He runs from the front living room window to the back porch windows. When he's not bird-watching I can find Sebastien sitting next to Bella in front of the heating vents.

I purchased new curtains for the living room. They really seem to brighten the space and help keep out the cold draft from the windows.

Our Amarilis bloomed in the kitchen. It's so pretty and pink. I wish it would last longer.

We found 10 rolls of film. We got them developed and were so happy with the photos. Of course the majority of them were of Michael. This was from Christmas. He loved his new big boy undies. I'm happy to say he figured out that the undies go under the pants not over them.

I was so excited when my yarn was finally delivered from Deramores. Just look at all of those juicy colors.

And my new crochet book arrived from amazon. Woot!

I immediately put the yarn to good use. My ripply blanket is well under way. It brightens my day and makes me happy as I work each new ripply row of color. The blanket has 227 stitches per row and I'm using 17 colors, four rows for each color. The colors look like waves rolling onto the beach.

No snowy day would be complete without some chocolate chip cookies. Of course the best way to eat them is to dunk them in milk. Yum!

What have you been doing to keep busy during these wintery snowy days?

Keep warm!

Hugs,

HopeAnn

Some Hooky Projects: Ripples, hearts, and snowflakes

Over Christmas break I began working on a ripply blanket for my cousin's new baby. She's having a girl and naming her Elsie. Her due date was just moved up by two weeks. I better get hooking to finish it on time. I love the bright colors. The yarn I used was Caron SImply Soft Watermelon, Soft Blue, and Sunshine. This is actually the first ripple blanket that I've made. Well I did make a round ripple for my cousin's daughter Claire. For this ripply blanket I used Lucy's pattern found here. Lucy's pattern is so easy to follow.

Another tiny project I began over our extended Christmas break was a snowflake garland. Our break was extended due to the "polar vortex." The temperatures in my neck of the woods dropped to nine below with wind chills -20ish. The roads were an icy mess because it had rained most of the day on Sunday and then the cold set in and froze everything. Plus it began to snow, and snow, and snow. We were off from school an additional four days. I made three different snowflakes for my garland. You can find the patterns here, here, and here. I worked this garland up in an afternoon.

Yesterday I decided to make some hearts to decorate for Valentine's day. I realized that I really go all out for Christmas, but when it comes to other holidays I don't decorate nearly as much. The hearts are going to be used to make two different decorations. I'll be stringing the hearts on a garland like the snowflakes to hang from my hutch.

The second way I'm using the hearts is to crochet two together and then stuff them with batting. I'll hang these ornaments around the house. You can find the pattern for the hearts here.

Finally I made some granny square hearts to place under some of my candy dishes. The pattern for these hearts can be found here.

I hope you can use some of these patterns in your own home.

Hugs,

HopeAnn

Honey and Cinnamon

I found this post on FaceBook this morning. I thought it quite interesting and decided to share it with you. Enjoy.




Post by Donna Hayes.

Christmas Treasures Bring Fond Memories

My MomMom and PaPa loved the Christmas season. This Christmas was the first one without either of my grandparents. It was tough at times and yet filled with bittersweet memories. These are some of the ornaments and Christmas decor that we brought home from my grandparents to decorate for the Christmas season. Enjoy.

This is our version of Elf on the Shelf. He's been
with our family a long time.

PaPa's star. It was one of the originals from the
gift shop, Switzer's Holiday House.

Santa in his sled.

Golden bell.

Crystal Angel

Crystal Tree

Crystal Nativity

Glass Teardrop

One of our favorite places to visit when we vacationed
in Myrtle Beach, Pawley's Island.

PaPa made these Christmas Caroling mice in his wood shop.

Mr. and Mrs. Clause with their little helper. PaPa made these
cutouts as well.

MomMom's goose, who I've named Penelope, wears her
caroling ensemble while sitting in the snow
by the back porch.

Rudolph, another of PaPa's creations,
 lights the way to our front door.

Mr. Snowman stands guard in the middle
of the garage doors.
PaPa made him from a telephone pole.

Hugs,

HopeAnn