The Only Planner You Will Ever Need

I'm talking about the Passion Planner. It is a beautiful, well-made, planner that keeps me organized, and helps me achieve my goals.

First, let me explain why using a paper planner works for me. The primary reason: I remember things better when I write them down. Another reason is that it's fun to look back and see how you spent your time over the previous year. It's a good tool for evaluating changes you need to make to spend your time better the next year. It's sort of like a journal for me (I have to have a planner with blank note pages in the back for all my poem/story ideas, cool quotes from books/movies/songs/etc.).

The Passion Planner is all of these things and more. And the Passion Planner's focus is to help you achieve your goals.

Last year, I used my Passion Planner to plan my wedding. It was perfect for wedding planning because it has monthly and weekly to-do sections. So I could go through the planner and for each month, write down the wedding-related tasks/projects/errands I needed to accomplish. Then, I broke those up over the weeks within that month. Planning this way helped me feel [a little] less overwhelmed because instead of looking at a to-do list a mile long and not knowing where to start, I only had a few tasks to accomplish within a month and just a couple each week. I wasn't looking at a list that included things that needed to happen first (like "Pick Venues") right along with things that needed to happen last (like "Get Marriage License"). It made the long, long list of things to do much less daunting.

I've tried color-coding things to make it pretty, but carrying around 10 colored pens in my purse is just not practical. So this year I'm sticking with 3 (at least for now): Black for pretty much everything, Red for upcoming bills, and Green for paydays. In addition to wedding planning, I used this planner last year to keep track of each one of our bills, what date it was due, and how much was owed. I'm doing that again this year, but since my main goal is actually paying off debt this year, I'm also probably going to list all our debts on a page in the back and cross them off as we pay them off. 

Another reason I love this planner is that it has To-Do lists (my fave, seriously), and they are divided between Personal and Work, which makes this great for keeping track of personal and work tasks all in one place. I've had separate to-do lists before and it just gets confusing and I forget things. Having everything I need to get done listed in one place ensures that I will actually get things done. 

In addition to monthly layouts (which I don't use a ton), there are weekly layouts with each day broken down into half-hour increments from 6am to 10:30pm, so you can write in anything you have scheduled or anything you want to get done at a certain time. If you schedule it, you're more likely to get it done. The Passion Planner also has a weekly and daily focus section where you can put your most important priorities for the day/week. Mine usually revolve around exercise or eating healthier, but my focus this week is to open our bank accounts (checking and savings) with a new bank and to continue my job search.

Passion Planner also includes a lot of space for reflection. For each week, there is a "Good Things That Happened" section, so you can write down (and look back on) any good things that happened. I love this section because it reminds me to focus on the good things and to find things to be thankful for. There's always at least one thing I can write down even if I've had a really bad week! So far this week under my "Good Things That Happened" section, I have Farmer's Market and Katy Trail (two places I've visited and loved so far this week). 

At the end of each month, there is a Monthly Reflection. It asks questions such as "What was the most memorable part of the past month? Describe it" and "Review your planner for the past month and assess your priorities: Are you happy with how you spent your time? If not, what steps can you take this next month to adjust them?" It's a great time to look back on the past month and really evaluate whether you made progress toward your goal and if not, you can focus on what steps you need to take to make progress next month. 

My Passion Planner has everything I need to achieve my goals this year and I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to achieve a goal or goals this year (or is planning a wedding!). 

Do you use a paper planner or an e-calendar? Which do you prefer?

A Look Back on 2015 and Ringing in the New Year

We ended 2015 in our Dallas apartment--Chris was asleep on the couch and Copper was asleep on the floor. Thankfully, Chris woke up at midnight to give me a kiss so I didn't have to kiss the dog! ;)

This past year certainly had its ups and downs. I got promoted to Copywriter in April and was feeling on top of the world. Then I was laid off in June. I was terribly sick (the sickest I think I've been in a long time, and on the verge of going to the ER several times), and worried about what I would do about health insurance, money, etc. Chris and I talked about just going to the courthouse (several times) to get married so we could both get on insurance through his work, but that turned out to be too expensive. I was angry that I was so close to my wedding and was unemployed. I was angry that I had to consider getting married early just to get health insurance. How romantic. I was angry that my doctor couldn't seem to figure out why I was so sick and eventually just told me to go to the ER (which I could no longer afford).

I was angry about a lot of things. And stressed about a lot of things in 2015 (unemployment and a wedding will do that). Yoga helped. I think my mom and I started going to yoga together in February. Yoga has taught me a lot in the past year. It has taught me how to breathe properly and keep breathing (which has helped my asthma). It has helped me let go of stress and anger (at least for the hour I'm on the mat) and it has helped me focus on my mental and physical health.

Thankfully, I was only unemployed for a couple weeks before I found a job as a teller. Not my dream job, but it showed me what it can be like to work in a happy work environment, which everyone deserves. After working over a year in an extremely toxic and unhappy work environment, this was a much-needed and refreshing change. I wasn't doing what I really wanted to be doing, and I wasn't making much money, but I loved everyone I worked with at the bank. For the first time in a long time, I had coworkers that I didn't mind spending time with outside of work. I enjoyed hearing about their personal lives and telling them about mine. I'm so happy I had the opportunity to work there for the short time that I did. I met some wonderful people and made some wonderful friends.

Just a few of my wonderful coworkers and the wedding gift they gave me! 

2015 was filled with lots of wedding planning and activities: showers, bachelorette party, cneterpiece-making. Planning the wedding itself was stressful and not super fun. But I got to spend that time with family and friends which made it a little less sucky. And in the end, we had a beautiful day and a beautiful wedding, and afterward we went on an incredible, week-long, stress-free honeymoon. That was probably the best week of my life so far, and for sure the best in 2015.

Well this night turned into a hot mess, but it was fun! :)

We got married! And we totally nailed recreating this Pinterest picture! ;)

Best week ever. Best views ever. Best company ever. <3

We got to relax for a while once all the thank-you cards were sent, but not for long because by December we were packing up our house to move to Dallas. We've been here for three weeks now and it's been a little crazy and stressful with the holidays. Now that the holidays are over, I'm hoping we can start getting into a normal routine (and start cooking dinner at home more nights a week than we eat out!).

We are not good at taking family selfies. 

Chris's parents came down to celebrate his birthday with us and drove my car down which we had left in St. Louis. The drive down took them a little longer because of the flooding, but they made it and we had a great time while they were here. We went out to dinner with them once they got here to a place called Village Burger Bar. Chris and I had been wanting to try it and we ended up really enjoying it. They had turkey burgers (yay for me!) and truffle fries, both of which were delicious. Aside from when I tried to squeeze a lime into my water and it squirted everywhere (including at/on Chris's parents), I'd say it was a good time.

For Chris's birthday (New Year's Eve), we attempted to get breakfast at Einstein's Bagels, but they were out of bagels! I thought it was crazy that a bagel place ran out of bagels during breakfast time. So we went and got breakfast tacos instead, which we had also been wanting to try. I didn't really have a "breakfast taco"...I had a chicken taco with no traces of anything breakfast on it (i.e. eggs, cheese, potatoes, etc.), but it was delicious.

After breakfast we came back to our apartment so Chris could open his birthday present from his parents: a Cardinals hoodie and a Cardinals quarter-zip pullover. Our next stop was bowling. We went to this cool bowling alley a few miles away called Bowlounge. It was kind of retro and they had a ton of craft beer. I tried a beer called Blood & Honey and felt like a total badass.

Bowling for Chris's birthday! He's much better than me. :(

I was doing okay during our first game and had been in first place up until the end when Chris and his dad both pulled in front of me leaving me in third place. After that, I pretty much sucked. I think Chris's dad won the first game and Chris won the second. We tried to play a third game, but our balls kept getting stuck in the ball return and although they offered to move us to a different lane, we decided to move on to our next stop: Twin Peaks.

Apparently Twin Peaks is generally just a restaurant similar to Tilted Kilt or Hooters. But the location we went to in Dallas is where it originated, and the owner likes smoking cigars, so that one location has a cigar lounge. Naturally, we went there for Chris to smoke a birthday cigar and to get some food. The food was decent and Chris enjoyed his cigar, so I'm sure we'll end up back there again soon.

We didn't "kick back", but we enjoyed it! 

A little later in the evening we went to dinner at 18th & Vine, a barbecue restaurant near our house (another that was on our list of places to try). Unfortunately, we all wanted fries with our BBQ and they were out. But it forced us to try other things--I got mashed potatoes, Chris got beans, his dad had some sort of mushrooms. We got fried okra as an appetizer and it was delicious. The service and our main courses weren't that great though (especially not for the prices). I liked my chicken well enough (and it was one of the cheapest things on the menu), but I think I was the only one who enjoyed my food.

We left dinner a little disappointed and headed home. We watched one of the bowl games on TV until we took Chris's parents back to their hotel around 10. Chris fell asleep on the couch, Copper fell asleep on the floor, and I watched all the NYE festivities on TV by myself. We went to bed shortly after midnight and even though I was exhausted from such a busy day, I barely slept. I've had quite a few sleepless nights since we got to Dallas. I'm not sure what I need to do to sleep better. I've tried ear plugs (because our bedroom window is above the parking lot so it's noisy and there are constant air planes overhead), but those were uncomfortable and didn't really work. I think I may try a sleep mask next and maybe some sort of music or white noise and see if that helps. I'm also going to try to read and have a cup of hot tea every night before bed and see if that helps as well (that's part of my new year's resolutions which I'll do a separate post on later).

On New Year's Day, we went to the Original Pancake House for breakfast. I was so excited about this because Chris and I used to go to the one in St. Louis and it was amazing. They had a large selection of gluten-free options and the food was always delicious. We were pretty shocked by how different this location was. Their menu in general was much smaller, but they only had one option for gluten free pancakes. I decided to go with regular pancakes instead, but when we got our food, they were burned and not at all fluffy and beautiful and delicious like the ones at the St. Louis location. The portions in general were much smaller than the St. Louis one as well and we had terrible service. I was so disappointed by the experience. There are other area locations, so we might try a different one just to give it one more shot, but if it's as bad as this one was, then we will only go when we're in St. Louis.

After breakfast we hit the road to drive up to Oklahoma to go to the Choctaw Casino. It was an hour and a half drive to get there, but since we couldn't continue our New Year's Day tradition of going to Fast Eddie's, we had to at least go to a casino. It was the biggest casino I've ever been to, and it actually has two casinos in it. Chris and I won $250! He was pretty bummed we didn't win enough to buy a new TV (which I don't think we need), but I'm sure we'll find some other fun ways to spend it. Going to the casino made for a pretty long day because of the drive, but I think we all had a good time. We hung out at the apartment for a while before heading back out to get a late dinner at Tacos y Mas, which is pretty much our favorite taco place.

Chris's parents flew back to St. Louis this morning. It was so nice to have them here for Chris's birthday (and even nicer of them to drive my car down for us) and we're already talking about future trips :)

I hope you all had a fun and safe New Year's. Thank you to everyone who helped me survive 2015, but especially Chris. He has hugged me while I cried about money and insurance, took care of me when I was sick, and managed to make me smile and laugh through my tears. I don't know what I'd do without him. Here's to another wonderful year!

<3 <3 <3

Family picture courtesy of Chris's mom! 

My Experiment

As I mentioned in a previous post, we did a lot of walking on our honeymoon, especially after meals. We’d eat breakfast then head over to the beach. We’d eat lunch or dinner on the board walk and then walk around for a while before heading back to the condo. I felt pretty great the whole time we were down there. Sure, there were a couple times where I probably just ate the wrong thing and I paid for it. But for the most part, I felt good, and that was a really nice change from how I had felt in the months and weeks leading up to the wedding. 

I do think stress plays a pretty large role in my IBS, and wedding planning is about as stressful as it gets (I hope). So I’m a lot less stressed now and I’m sure that’s making a difference in how I’m feeling. But I’m also making an effort to walk after as many meals as possible, even if it’s a short walk. 

Right now, I’m walking after breakfast 2-3 days a week and just about every day after lunch. Walking after lunch is a little tricky because I only get 30 minutes for lunch. So to make sure I have enough time for a decent walk, I only have about 15 minutes to eat. I’ve been averaging close to half a mile each day after lunch. Then, on the days I don’t have yoga, I try to take Copper for a walk after dinner. 

I’m not doing a Whole30 right now. In fact, I’m still kind of ignoring my “sensitivities”. I’ve been eating gluten and dairy almost daily (and yes, sometimes I’m eating way too much of it), and I can honestly say I have felt better in the last month than I have in the past year, even with all the Whole30’s I’ve done. I’m sure if I were doing a Whole30 right now, I might feel even better. But for now, my stomach hurts a lot less and I’m spending less time in the bathroom and that’s a huge deal for me. 

I’m going to continue to eat what I want for the most part and continue walking after as many meals as possible to see if this keeps working for me. So far, I’m very happy with the results!  

The Wedding & Honeymoon

One month ago today we said "I do"! It was a crazy busy weekend, but everything turned out amazing.

The day of started bright and early with some very un-fun stomach issues and terrible allergies (constant sneezing, runny nose, etc.). Not exactly how you want to start your wedding day. Luckily, after a pretty bland breakfast and a lot of immodium, my stomach issues subsided and by the time we got to the hall, I was done sneezing.

We had a beautiful, slightly-chilly, overcast day which explains the allergies. Our pictures really turned out amazing though, and it was better than being over 100 degrees!

Photo by my beautiful sister

My beautiful sister. Taken by our photographer on my sister's phone 

My daddy walking me down the aisle <3 Photo by Amy Rush

My aunts decorated the gazebo for us and it looked so beautiful! Photo by Amy Rush

Yay we're married! Photo by Amy Rush

Cheers! We drank whiskey instead of champagne ;) Photo by Amy Rush

First dance. Photo by Amy Rush

The next day we opened our gifts and then drove 12-ish hours to Pensacola, Florida for our honeymoon. It was a very long and exhausting drive...we didn't get there until around 2am. But man, when we woke up the next morning and looked out our balcony, it was totally worth it:

View of the bay from our balcony.

Another view from our balcony.

Down at the board walk

On the beach <3

We went to the beach every day while we were down there and we took a nap every afternoon. That's the life, my friends. We had such a relaxing week and we're so grateful that we were able to go.

Dinner at Casino Beach Bar & Grille--fish tacos with plantain chips! So delicious! 

Yes, I read Anna Karenina on the beach.

Sunset from our balcony <3

McGuire's is just the best.

I didn't worry too much about my food sensitivities while we were down there--I just wanted to enjoy myself. So I ate gluten and dairy basically whenever I felt like it. And I actually felt pretty good all week long. I think travel has a pretty big affect on my digestion (in a good way!), so that helped too. But more on that later.

Boxties! They were so delicious!

We wrote on a dollar and hung it up, so he had to kiss the moose! Which of course I couldn't get a picture of. :(

Our dollar is now hanging in McGuire's.

So we accidentally ordered crabs instead of crab legs. Those are whole crabs...eyes and all. Creepy. But delicious. Also not worth all the extra work. 

Footprints in the sand <3

I tried oysters for the first time! I won't do raw ones...those totally gross me out. But these were pretty damn good! 

We ate at a restaurant on the beach called Hemingway's. It was awesome (I had red snapper and it was delicious) and they had lots of cool stuff in there and, naturally, I bought a t-shirt from them.

We woke up super early Saturday morning to make the 13-hour drive up to Chicago to see the game on Sunday. Another long drive. We attempted to listen to an audio book, but it made me really sleepy, so we listened to my awesome road trip playlist instead. :)

On our way to the Cards-Cubs game in Chicago!

Oh yeah, we won! The only game the Cards won that weekend and we got to be there to see it!

We can't go to Chicago without stopping for pizza! Giordano's is our absolute favorite! Plus they have chicken sausage so yay for me!

On Monday we made our way back home after driving up to Wisconsin to buy beer (Spotted Cow is delicious guys). I was sad our trip was over. I went an entire week without being stressed, without having constant stomach issues, and without worrying about our financial situation. It was incredible.

While we were on our honeymoon, we did a ton of walking. Pretty much after every meal we did at least a small amount of walking. And I think that, combined with the travel, really helped my digestion. So I've been experimenting with that since I got home. I'll do a full post on that later. 

Since we've been back, we've been busy writing thank you notes, getting our house back in order, and putting away wedding gifts. We've still got a few sitting around that we have to make room for, but we're almost done! Things are starting to get back to normal and it's extremely nice to not have the stress of wedding planning. 

It's good to be back!