So here I go again on yet another journey of health, fitness and well-being and hopefully this time I will actually get somewhere.  I have gotten lost so many times that I just end up either back where I started or sometimes, even further back.  :(

It simply isn't good enough.  I am worth more than this.

I have absolutely no excuse.  

I know where I am going drastically wrong.  I know exactly what I should be doing.  I know that I am just not doing it and then I'm surprised at the results!  Seriously...what on earth am I thinking??

A lot has happened this year, my Father-in-Law passed away after a long illness although it was still a bit of a shock as it wasn't expected.  It was a very sad and emotional few months.

I changed job to one that is so much different to what I am used to doing but surprisingly it is turning out to be exactly what I needed.  This has been quite refreshing and terrifying at the same time.  I am so worried about messing it up and losing it...I finally feel as though I have found what I have been looking for (in all the wrong places it seems!) 

LV Agenda PM with BIGGER rings!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my little Agenda that was purchased for my birthday in February 2016 and I am STILL using it daily but...I really hated the tiny rings and it was starting to put a real dampener on using the Agenda.  

I bought an A6 Mulberry and although I have set it up, I cannot really bring myself to put away the LV to use it so it just sits on my desk.

Then, a week or so ago I was watching this video from The Planner Spot where she explains about changing up the rings for some 16mm ones from Gillio.  It seemed so easy and without any damage to the LV so I immediately went to Gillio's website and ordered some.

They arrived within a few days and it took me less than 5 minutes to swap them out and I am now once again smitten with my LV.

I am so happy :)

Look at those rings!!

I am still using the inserts that I modified from the ones downloaded from Philofaxy.com.  I saved the source file and word file and made my edits - changing the month and year to red, adding the lines and changing the font.  I seem to go back to this style every single year so that's what I'm sticking to again for 2019.  My inserts are already done awaiting printing out.

Still using home made inserts :)

The bigger rings mean that the paper now goes right up to the pen loop so you couldn't use side tabs as they would crush but I never use them anyway so it didn't matter.  I only use the filofax acetate ones to mark the end of the calendar and the start of my notes (you can see them in the above pic).  If I really need to mark anything else I would pop a top tab on.

Look at all the space still left!

I put a slimmer pen in there but I will have to go back to my other slim Parker as it keeps falling out now that I've stretched my pen loop out a bit.  Lol I must be one of the few that have ever said that the pen loop on this PM Agenda is too big!!

I can now afford to put so many extra pages in that I really missed having when I had to downsize to this, so now I am looking at putting some more in:

• Monthly spread
• To do/buy
• A few healthy recipes with ingredients
• Notes

I'm sure that I will even be able to fit in some of my favourite photographs including one of my nutty dog...

I am setting up my A5 at the moment and that is going to house my exercise routine, measurement trackers, healthy recipes and all good stuff pertaining to the weight loss/health regime that I am currently researching so I am ready to take 2019 by storm!  I'm not waiting until the New Year to start, I want to see the New Year in looking and feeling a LOT better than I do now!!

Lots of love

VDS A5 Manager as a Journal

After having a muddled few days I decided to get started on my journal in my A5 VDS Manager and as I started pulling it all together it made me wonder why I was actually waiting...it's not like it is dated or anything as I had already decided to just write as and when I felt I needed to offload.

Anyway, I realised that I didn't have notepaper inserts and after rummaging around in my stash of stuff I came across a Kraft A5 Notebook that I got from Sainsbury's for £1.50. Imagine my delight that (a) it was cream in colour, (b) it already had rounded off corners and (c) it is fountain pen ink friendly!!! Why did I not know this earlier???

Oh and just the icing on the cake (d) it has easy tear off pages....!! Woohoo!!

I put a handful in my planner which made the notepad itself quite thin - and ideal for putting in my handbag so that if I need to urgently empty my head (which is more frequent than it should be!) I have my journal pages already with me!!  I have made little templates of where the holes will be punched so I don't get carried away and write in the wrong place, I am very pleased with the outcome and I feel quite positive that this is going to work very well for me.

Indeed it has been a week or so now since I stumbled on this and I am finding that I am writing on the go, penning out thoughts, ideas and musings and even a bit of doodling along the way...once I get home I am hole-punching the pages and popping them in.  The only thing I really need to make sure I do is date the pages!  I have bought a couple more of the notebooks in readiness for them being used.
Another good thing about using A5 is that I can easily shrink down articles or information and put that in too.  With a simple page tab I can easily see where this is or if I end up putting too much of that type of thing in there I will consider a separate section.  The Manager has got HUGE rings so this is never going to be a problem.

Result I think!!

Health & Fitness Planner Set Up

I've been set a challenge by a friend of mine for us both to lose 1 stone between now and the end of January.  

Not only that but he has set us another challenge that starts on 1 January which is 1 full push up and 1 sit up on the 1st, 2 on the 2nd, 3 on 3rd, etc.  Sounds easy at first thought but this will mean 365 of each on 31 December 2017!!

I have weighed myself this morning and logged it into My Fitness Pal.  My fitbit is currently on charge waiting for tomorrow morning when I will get fully into challenge.  

I actually want to lose WAY more than that but baby steps...in fact I want to lose 3 stone by the end of February for my birthday...no pressure!

I now have a use for my A5 Fluorescent Original - Fitness Planner and Log!!

This has already been semi-set up with some printables that I purchased last year from PolkaDotPosiePrint on Etsy, I have never really got around to using them so now is the time.

Gorgeous cover page

Monthly Calendar

Food & Calorie Tracker

Weight Loss Tracker

There are quite a few others in the pack such as a Measurement Tracker, Goals and a Health Journal so you can mix and match and add in as many or as few as you want.  There are loads of matching style inserts for various other things such as a weekly or monthly calendar in various formats that you can also purchase.

I have to say that these inserts are beautifully done and I printed them out on quite heavy paper which made for a very luxurious looking and feeling set, seemed almost a shame to deface them with my data!!  But deface them I will and I am determined that this is not going to be a short term thing.  I am also glad to be starting this journey tomorrow rather than as a resolution on January 1st!

Just a quick look at how beautiful they look in my planner...

These are going to be perfect to set up my Fitness Planner and I am really looking forward to using them for the very intention they were purchased for!  The fabulous thing is that I can just keep printing more as I need them (or if I mess up!) and so I can keep it going until such time that my goals are reached - or even continue as I'd be in the habit of it by then (hopefully).

The plan is that I will write down on a notepad/post it what I am eating daily and stick that in my PM Agenda.  I will then transfer the information over into this one when I get home.  I will also be looking into various menu plans and getting myself organised as far as meals are concerned, both lunches and evening ones.  I think that the way to succeed in this is to be as organised and prepared as possible, and for that I am going to need my planner!!

I will update you in due course!!

2017 Agenda and Journal Planning

With 2017 fast approaching I have found myself thinking about my planners and how I want to use them going forward.

I reached the elusive planner peace with my Louis Vuitton PM Agenda that I got in February and I have not touched another one since, this made it very easy to choose the inserts and I know from trial and error that I prefer the week on two pages.  I was intending on buying the official Louis Vuitton inserts but the 2017 ones that have been brought out, I hate them.  I cannot bring myself to include pages with a silver edge in my agenda that has gold detailing, absolutely not!! Whatever were they thinking???

I picked up a complete set of Paperchase's own floral inserts (A5 pictured) and I have rounded off all the corners and started inserting the information required, birthday's, appointments, etc.  This is now sat, all prepared, in its wrapping to be put into my agenda.  The great thing is that the whole set including the tabbed dividers fits lovely on the tiny rings.  

I do all my planning in my PM as it is with me all the time and to be fair my life isn't that busy or complicated!  It is used really just for appointments and reminders.

My thoughts are really about my A5 planners.  I have two that I really want to use more.  An A5 Fluoro Pink Original that seems to live on my desk and an A5 Van Der Spek Manager Touch Me  in Brown.  I adore the simpleness of the Original and the smell and floppiness of the VDS.  

I have decided to use the VDS as a diary/journal.  I really would like some nice paper that I could use fountain ink on as I seem to have acquired a LOT of fountain/dip pens and a LOT of different inks, although this is working out harder than expected!  I think I'd like plain paper to use with a guide page underneath so that I can doodle or add quotes, etc.  I have already decided that I need the page to be on both sides though so I can add additional pages if I have a lot to say!  Maybe I could just write the date on as I go rather than a specific page per day.  It would be nice to be able to stick things in, photographs or ticket stubs, etc. and become a bit of a scrapbook type affair.  The rings are huge on the VDS so this would make a really good journal as it can hold so much.  

All I would need to decide is how to store the pages once they need to be removed...maybe something like this where I could decorate the outer with the year?  Or decoupage it with photographs of the year?  (I love that idea!)  The box itself could also contain mementos that weren't possible to stick in (like the heart shaped pebble from the beach) with some luggage tags attached giving the details...ooh I'm getting carried away with ideas here!!  How lovely that would be to open up in years to come!!

http://www.paperchase.co.uk/stationery/filing-storage/storage-boxes/kraft-storage-box.html

So what can I use the Original for?  

Planner Update!!

I know it's been a while but I have been having a wonderful time in my new Louis Vuitton PM Agenda since getting it for my birthday in February off my darling hubby.  It was a fabulous experience shopping in the Louis Vuitton store and I had my new agenda hot-stamped with my initials as I knew that once I was moved in I was not going to be moving out ever again!

It has been a pleasure using it, it has totally simplified my usage and the lighter weight of my bag has been brilliant!

My set up has gone back to how it was before I found the Filofax Community as, quite frankly, it worked for years and only became a problem when I started getting obsessed with everyone else's set up and decorations and stickers and colour coding and dividers and......it was endless and stressful!!

I still love the look of these decorated planners but I save that creativeness for my A5 that stays at home.  I love having the creative outlet and spending time prettifying my A5 (which is a beautiful Fluoro pink Original.  I love designing my own inserts and dividers and the A5 is just the place to do it.  I don't plan in my A5.

The duo

So in my agenda is where all my appointments, to-do's, general notes go and a few addresses that I always need while on the go.  To me, the agenda itself is so pretty that it doesn't need anything but a simple efficient system that works for me.  The only stickers I use are fluorescent arrows for important dates.

The agenda opens to sparkliness and my usual dashboard, of course.

A removable flyleaf with a tab and glittery today marks the date
(moved on for privacy purposes!)

Another removable tabbed flyleaf marks the start of the next section

And behind the important annual leave record is just some notepaper.

I am so happy that I have finally managed to get my favourite pen into the ridiculously small pen loop!  It has taken a lot of patience and moving up from a tiny pen barrel size to this one, it is a gold Parker pen but seems a lot slimmer than the usual ones so I'm not sure if it is called something different.  It has a pink refill in :)

I am using normal Filofax week on two pages, I'm not a lover of the paper but it serves its purpose and I had it in.  I wanted to get the Louis Vuitton ones but they are expensive for what they are and I may do next year or maybe the Filofax Cotton Cream ones, I haven't decided yet. 

I am that convinced that this is going to be my forever planner that I've even started selling off the ones I have collected - it isn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be!!  I haven't managed to list my Filofax Deco's yet though....lol

So that's just a quick update from me so until next time, take care xxx

My forever EDC - Absolute planner peace...at last!

This has been one heck of a journey!  There are a few differences this time that I feel will make me want to stick with the one planner for the foreseeable future...important differences.  The main one being that this has been my dream planner forever and I never thought that I would ever get one, I couldn't justify the cost to myself.

But thanks to my wonderful husband - who has probably suffered the whole planner journey with me and therefore the purchase price was not a lot to pay to make me shut up about it! - I have finally got my Louis Vuitton agenda!!  I chose the small ring (pocket) size as that is the one that I need to have with me wherever I go and so needs to fit in ALL my bags, not just the larger ones. 

Matching pair!

Had to get it hotstamped in gold :)

This is probably the smallest bag in my collection and it fits
...with room for a purse, phone and keys!

I was especially excited to also find a pen that fits in that tiny pen loop!!  It came in a pack of three, a white one, shocking pink one and a blue one.  They all have the little 'TAKE NOTE' message.  So cute and they write good too with a twist nib action.

I have said before that I don't really decorate and I don't have lists and lists of things, my planner is my agenda, it tells me where I'm going and when, it tells me what I need to do and when and it is there for me to jot down notes when needed.  It always has been and whenever I have tried to make it more than it is, I've failed.

So stripped back to the bare basics and this is plenty big enough!  I am so in love with this little guy that I really cannot see me using anything else as my every day carry ever again - unless I am lucky enough to get another LV in a different print, but the size will stay the same.

I have other planners that I love but those stay at home as they are A5 size.  I am currently using the fluorescent pink Original on my desk and I adore the huge pop of colour in my otherwise muted office.

It is time to de-stash all the others and all the related things that I have bought and never use.  I crave simplicity in my little office, it is getting far too cluttered with things and it stops me from seeing the things that I really love...if that makes sense.

Until next time, take care xxx