Erin Condren Life Planner 2013-2014

Its here!! Its here!!

When I was on the search for a great planner for my 2013-2014 work and school year I came across ErinCondren.com and I fell in love. But I also had a hard time finding a good review on her life planners.

Her website made them look amazing and irresistible of course, but I wanted to see what people who used them really thought.... I came across a few blogs and reviews but not a lot of pictures of information showing me what was inside the planner. So now that I have mine, I thought I'd share! :)

Just an early warning..there will be lots and lot of pictures in this post! From front to back!

With the planner came some customized labels and gift labels.

And two $10 gift cards for future purchases! :)

Here is it, inside that pretty pink paper!!

Tada! There are LOTS of different covers to pick from. I thought I'd put a few picture on the cover with people and animals that make me smile. It'll be nice to look at everyday as this planner will go everywhere with me and get a lot of use in my crazy busy life.

They have these bands at target to keep everything together-they also had cute ones available when ordering your planner, but I already had a few so I skipped it.

A couple of pages in there is a sections for birthdays and anniversaries..Honestly, I will probably never use these pages. ha I will probably take advantage of this space to keep track what lesson plans to take out with me to my visits on that day. This would actually be a great way to do so, instead of using 100 sticky notes.

The two page spread of the month. Nice and roomy!

Also a nice roomy two page spread of each week! 

This is one of the two main things that I have to have in my planner. Its hard to find great planners with these pages in them. But between school and work I have to have a weekly break down. Last year I didn't have this in my planner and I lived off of large note cards each week to keep track of homework to do lists!

Each day is broken down by morning, day and night! There is also a space below for meal planning, lists, to dos, thoughts, etc. With a to do list space on the side next to Monday, I use this bottom space for meal planning each day!

After the monthly planning there is lined notebook paper AND doodle paper. There's a pretty good chunk of paper in there. This is great space for meeting notes and there is plenty of it too!

A few pages for important numbers and information. I'd think most people probably wouldn't use this space-but it is useful for my job.

 AND a four pages of customizable stickers. I have two pages of stickers with text on them and two pages of blank stickers. The colors match my color coding system too. :) haha

The second thing that I really needed and wanted in a planner was a pouch to store pens. In the pouch there were a few more customized labels, note cards, etc. I took this pouch and placed my pens in it.

Also, before the pouch is a two sided folder to store lose paper. :)

The laminated tabs! :)

The back page of the planner, I didn't add any pictures to the back.

Well, so far, still loving this thing! :)

Karah

Day 21! Dang you, Dr. Oz!

Dang you, Dr. Oz!!

Ok, so I love the Dr. Oz show. He always has great information to share and always practical but he always makes me want to jump online and buy about 100,000 things!

 With eating clean I am always buying fresh produce and racing to eat it all up before it goes bad. I also have a lot more that needs to be stored in the fridge now and I want to pull my hair out when Andrew puts things in the fridge. He is always putting things in the wrong spot!! :) Not that he can read my mind and know where the "right spot" for anything is... ha But I am always rearranging. Weird..I know..But I like to know what I do have, what were low on and what we need when I am meal planning.

So, after the fridge looked like a tornado hit it, I tried my best to get things organized again.

Much better...But..not good enough! 

I was watching Dr. Oz. this morning as well and he had a woman on his show talking about ways to keep fresh produce fresh for longer! She suggested these BPA free green food storage containers! I did a little research and found that I need to be using all BPA free anyways. I thought I would give it a try.

I ordered a set and hopefully it well help keep things organized and fresh longer!

These are what I went with!

In doing some research I had also come across these gostaks, also BPA free! I have been following many different people who are eating clean and meal prep each week. They all seem to suggest using things like this to help stay organized. I bought a set and will see if I like it. I am hoping that it will cut down on two sometimes three lunch boxes that It takes me to pack my days worth of meals!

So today is DAY 21!!!!  That's right, only 3 days left of this challenge!

I know that it will be a little more work, but I am going to continue with my clean eating. I just don't see any reason not to. I have really learned a lot with this challenge and I am loving the results. I might let myself have a cheat day here and there where I allow myself to have things like wine, beer or a slightly less healthy meal when dinning out, but probably will try to stay away from that more often then not. Like once a month! The goal here is to continue working towards a healthy weight, not maintain my weight loss so far. 

The other day I was reading a post from Mama Laughlin: Suck it up Buttercup and even though I am not allowing myself to slack off while on this challenge, it reminded me just how important it is to not slack off when you have goals in mind, even after the challenge ends in 3 days.

"You can't half-ass weight loss. That's called maintenance, and it will get you nowhere."

 -Mama Laughlin

I just have to remember that eventually I will get there. Eventually I will be able to enter the maintenance phase. But that isn't now, not today, not tomorrow, not even on the day after day 24! 

Honestly, It probably won't even be that day until after the new year! But that is OK with me because I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I can do this! Who wants to put that crappy food in their body anyways.. haha Right?? Yeah...I'd like to say NOT ME, but I'd only be half ass saying it. Sometimes I do want a BIG SLICE of pizza or a big bowl of something cheesy... haha But then I just try to find an all natural way of eating something like that...

Like this morning...I was really wanting some pancakes! Some yummy, hot and buttery pan cakes!

However, I wasn't willing to blow my challenge on pan cakes.

So I jumped on pinterest and looked around for something I could eat.

Just tossed 1/4 cup of oats, splash of organic vanilla soy milk and almost a whole banana into my little blender. Then I poured a pancake onto a skillet at low heat. This made about 4 small pancakes. I put a little all natural peanut butter on top wit the remaining bananas. It was really good!

Just two of the pancakes were pretty filling so I shared with Bailey! ;)

He doesn't really get much table food anymore so he was pretty happy! We are trying to cut down his weight also. For health reasons! :)

Here are a couple other things I've made this past week!

Turkey meatballs and couscous with onions and mushrooms on the side! So good!!

Spaghetti squash with onions, tomatoes and mushrooms! We also ended up added some left over meatballs to this which was really good too! I was surprisingly very full before even getting half way into this!

From here on out, I will be trying really hard to find some crock pot clean eating meals as my 3 day work week will go back to being a 6 sometimes 7 day work week of 14 hour work days! So if you have any ideas or recipes you would like to share PLEASE do!!

Karah

SMASH what?

Organizing, DIYers, SMASH books and staying busy. 

What a fun weekend it has been! Now back to Monday, a whole new week!

 

I am always looking for something new to organize around here and I never have any problem finding something to work on. Actually, I've got a pretty long to do list that I can work on during my short breaks between semesters!

I spent some time cleaning up the craft room last week and noticed that I needed to find somewhere for my hundred of sticker organizers to live.

 I was running out of space-I either needed to reorganize the closet in that room or find one place to store all of these stickers-stickers that I use for scrap booking and have been gathering for as long as I can remember!

I decided to no tackle that closet and to create a sticker binder instead. I have a couple of hanging file folder boxes and these little organizers full of stickers and scrap paper.

I took everything out and sorted by themes, placed in page protectors, stuck a sticky note with a label on each and placed them in a binder! Fast and easy to find and to do! I made a separate binder just for lettering stickers. I have a lot more of these and use them more often then the rest!

TA DA!!

Whenever I spend time in the craft room I get that itch to do something with all of my crafty things I love. You name it, I probably have it. Between painting, drawing and everything else I love to do, I have plenty of things to get it done! I even find Andrew in there looking for supplies when he is building his airplanes. 

He has his own space in the basement where he buildings things like remote controlled planes and cars.  We go out to the park a few times a week and he will fly one of his planes that he has been working on and then we will do our long walks! Here is one of his latest projects. 

Anyways, one of my favorite things to do is to climb in my bed, turn on a good show and surround myself with pens, markers, pencils, water colors, scissors, glue, washi tape, stickers and all of that fun stuff. I will find a book and start drawing,painting, jotting things down or doodling. Its a good way to spend my me time. :)

Little did I know that these books that I have been doing all of these things in for as far back as I can remember, like the middle school years, are now being marketed and sold in stores as SMASHbooks.Whoever came up with the thought to sell this idea in stores was a genius. Go them! 

When I hit the stores to grab some organizing supplies I was also on the look out for a new doodling book. I have hundreds of them from the past years.  I came across these SMASH books, which I have seen in the past but was not sure what they were. I jumped on pinterest and found some boards where people have shared their SMASH books. There is a whole world of these books that I didn't even know about. These look like fun so I grabbed one and thought Id try it out. Its kinda nice to already have a book put together for you and I just got started making it my own. I went with the "Pretty Pink" styled book!

Its a good relaxing way to get things on paper. Now, if they could just make everything water proof so I could do this in a nice bubble bath with a  bottle glass of wine that would be even better! ;)

Today is my last day of  summer break before going back to work at PAT and I only have two weeks until classes and my practicum start! Ahhh!!!  Its a bit overwhelming to think that starting this month I will not only be babysitting, but Ill be starting my work as a hospice social worker, back to being an educator AND back to being a student. Yikes.

However, before all that crazy stuff begins we have one last project to finish around here. FINALLY getting my DIY headboard completed! :) The boards are stained and ready to be put in place-as soon as Andrew is ready to put them there that is. Maybe this evening!

Here is a sneak peak! Look at my cute handy man at work! 

Ok, now back to my day of doing NOTHING, as it will be my last for at least a few months! 

Karah

DIY Preschool Educational Games!

Getting ready for the new school year!! 

At the end of each year we have to pack up our classrooms and all of our fun stuff goes into storage. Yeah...yeah..I get it..They need to paint the walls, work on the floors and so on over the summers but MAN...what a pain this process is!! 

But now we are at that time of the year where we got UNPACK everything AGAIN! This is also not a fun process. However, it is fun to get reorganized and have a fresh start. We will be back in the classroom on Monday and will be creating new centers, games, activities and so much more!

Here are some things that we have put together over the past couple of years... 

DIY games for preschoolers!

I hate hearing that children don't have any educational games around the house because it costs too much..Well here are some things that you can do on your own. You can pick up things from the dollar store, print pictures online or even draw them your self. We picked up a lot of these materials at teacher stores, target, dollar store..etc!

This color car game is a great game for those young preschoolers learning their colors and even learning their numbers! You just need to make a road, pick some colors and a car for each color! This book has about 5 cars and different colors in it and the first page of this book says, Who's in first? Here comes brown. Driving fast, he better slow down. You can have the child look for the brown car or look for the brown car with the number 1 on it! The second page goes on to say the same using different colors...

 

 Ten Little Daisies is a great game for your older preschoolers! Counting backwards from 10. You need 10 flowers and as you turn the page it takes one away, allowing you to count the remaining daisies on the pages that are left. 

Ten little daisies playing in a meadow, 2 walk off and now there are...Let you child count how many flowers are left and finish the story!

 A couple of Christmas books that we have made also! Five Little Gingerbread and Five Little Snowmen.

Color Match! Like the others, super easy to make on your own! You can crumble up some color paper if you do not have any pompoms around. But I took some colored pompoms, a close pin and colored spots on the spider! Let your child pick up the pompoms with the close pin and match them with the correct colors on the spider! Great game for working those fine motor skills that your kiddo will need to write their name and so much more! I like to store a lot of my games in these awesome zip bags!

You can find cards like these in the dollar section in the summer months before the start of the school year!

Again I used some clothes pins, wrote out a letter on each one to match with the letters below the pictures on the cards!

Here are a few other games we have made up! We took the 5 Little Monkeys book and put some monkeys in a tree for the kids pull off as we read the story! Just used a little Velcro tape! An ABC book where you can match the ABC's with the cup cakes by putting the cherry on top!

A couple of counting books! Both books go up to 10. These books are great for helping kids to recognize their numbers. You pull the paw print or popcorn pieces off at the bottom corners, again WE LOVE VELCRO TAPE, and lay them out for the kid to see. Let them count the number of sticks on each page and find that number on the pieces, matching them up!

 

 Here are some great things that I just picked up and target in the dollar section to make up some games for this school year! I also picked up some great books at Deals. All for just $1! You can't beat it! I laminate books that I find and use them with dry erase markers with all of my kiddos that I work with so I can use them over and over again!

 

I am also always on the hunt for great games that I can print up and make in the home with the kids I see too! I plan for my visits and pull from a collection of activity add on's. Last couple of years I have tried a few different ways of organizing these...My first year I tried to boxes that I found at target. I can use hanging file folders in these and move them around with me. My collection got too big and It became difficult to bend down under my desk to dig out hand outs and add on's!

Last year I used a folder organizer on my desk. It was just too much!!

Over the past couple of days I spend a few hours organizing all of my add on's/activities sheets in 3 inch binders! Each labeled and contains different things like actives for ABC's, numbers, colors, rhyming, classifying, matching, early cutting skills, early writing skills, animal sounds, etc.

I think I can place these next to my desk and grab a binder as I need something, find the hand out and grab a copy! Let's hope this is easier than the past two years!

And look!!!!! I found these cute pens while I was on a hunt for organization supplies!!

I think these will go just nicely with my NEW ERIN CONDREN LIFE PLANNER!!!!! I think I have another week before this bad boy will arrive in the mail. I am going crazy waiting. I love all things organization and her stuff is amaze-balls! (Yes, I love Giuliana Rancic too!)

If you haven't seen these awesome life planners then you are missing out. It took me hours to pick out my planner! You can see them here at www.erincondren.com!

Well, that is all I've got for now. I have about 100 other games that I might add here and there. But wanted to share how easy it is to make some great educational games for your kiddos!! :) I'll be sure to post the great things we make up in the next couple of weeks!

Karah