… and these Thy gifts …

I’ve got 759 in my inbox now. That may not be a big deal to anyone, but I haven’t seen the bottom of my e-mail inbox in YEARS. Getting closer.

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Boy, I feel like a new person. The past few weeks have been filled with changes for me and the family. Not major changes that are visible to anyone looking in, but more internal.

We just got back from a week in Cape G where Dad had to work. Carschooling and hotelschooling was an adventure, as usual. Though we started out on a bad note with Yena contracting a fever the night before we left, by Monday she was back to her happy self (and up to her usual tricks).

I wrote more than a week ago about my new planning system. While researching that I came across the GTD system, which somehow never hit my radar since it came out in ‘02. Being away from the business world for so long, I had not really kept up with productivity/organizing systems since Franklin-Covey & 7 Habits — I saw no reason to once I became a homeschooling mom; the Church, the Bible and First Things First were my compass! Though GTD on the surface didn’t seem like my type of book these days — I tend to go now for Catholic-written material like The Authentic Catholic Woman and A Mother’s Rule of Life — I saw some blog posts and articles on GTD that intrigued me enough to check out the book. I’m so glad I did! The past week was spent reading the book and applying what I could with the material I brought with me to the hotel. Circa helped, of course !

Though I won’t be using GTD as my sole guide anytime soon, there is quite a lot there that could apply to the homeschooling lifestyle. David Allen himself realizes we homeschoolers are a potential market. I’ve begun making notes to compile, sorta like a “GTD for homeschoolers” — for myself, as well as the kids. Will share

GTD is a bottom-up system, as opposed to Franklin Covey and other top-down, mission-statement type productivity systems. I will always be a top-down person, I suppose — just the whole “look at the big picture”, “why am I here, Lord” kind of thinking — that’s me (now, anyway; I wasn’t years ago). But as David Allen succinctly puts it, while you need that kind of top-down thinking, it still doesn’t tell you what you should do with the 3000+ e-mail messages in your inbox.

Even my dh, who is 100X more organized than I am, I think will benefit from this perspective. Actually, I think *his organization* could use it, more than he can. They’re constantly having meeting after meeting and I know how dh feels about those.

So I’ve got my e-mail inbox down to 1700 (yay me!) and carving away a bit at a time, daily. I’ve also put together a plan to go through my in-blackhole (the house) COMPLETELY this month and get it organized GTD-style.

The bad part about this is I picked a *great time* to get started on this new system: just when I was 20 books-and-2-file-cabinets away from stamping END on my organize-the-study-and-curriculum-project which I wrote about before. That’s also the good part; I now see clearly all the disconnects within my system. Almost everything that GTD teaches I’m ALREADY DOING or have tried in the past — I’ve got the tickler file (43 folders), which I’ve used off and on. I’ve got the boxes/drawers dedicated to each major project. I’ve got a great working calendar. I’ve got lists and lists and lists. I’m a master at collecting data and information and ideas and filing them away.

The biggest flaws in my system would be repaired by what to me are the two pillars of the GTD system: the Next-Action philosophy and the Weekly Review. Though to some degree this is how I’ve been running my life, I need to take it to the next level and do these things on a more regular basis. I always have long lists of next-actions, but I often miss on follow-up and follow-through; projects are simply set aside when important/urgent stuff surfaces, and not picked up again until the next lull in our always-busy existence.

I’ve also known for a while that I overcommit. I have way, way, WAAAAAAY too many projects that will obviously not get all finished in this lifetime. Because most of them are family-related, I tend to look at them as being on the same level of importance, and just work on them randomly, figuring that eventually all of them will get done. To some extent, this has worked for me/us; but I also have a lot of guilt/disappointment/doubt over the ones that DON’T get finished, even when those things won’t make a difference when I’m gone. There were just some things, as I was looking over my list and discussing it with dh the past week, that HAD to be crossed off the list as something I shouldn’t spend time on any longer.

One of those was the gig at b5media’s Noodles and Rice. At the time I applied it seemed like a great thing — passion and money together — I’ve always been a firm believer in “Do what you love, the money will follow”, and that has been true of my b5media experience. However, key in all this is the LOVE, and though I *love* food and writing about food, what’s always bothered me about it was the fact that I loved OTHER THINGS (and people) more: much much more than I loved writing about Asian food. And though I’m sure there’s always money to be made in doing the things we love, when you know what you love MORE, and who/what you love MOST, the money ultimately becomes a non-issue. Which is what the saying really means, I just forgot about that somewhere along the way. I do have to say the experience was a great one. I tried to work for two other networks and with one of them I ended up withdrawing my application (didn’t like the way they operated) — at the other one I only lasted a few months. The b5 people are/were always top notch, esp. my former channel editor Christina. And of course, Shai who started us at AboutWeblogs before the merger. (Disclaimer: if they ever get a homeschooling blog off the ground, though, you can bet I’ll be one of the first to apply. Hey, it’s what we live and breathe everyday!)

I’ve had to cross out a couple of other things from the list — promises I’ve made to people asking for help but now have to renege on — never a good thing, but better than having them rely on me and me being unable to deliver.

Some family items on the now/soon list:

The gardening project, which was put aside for several reasons including work, is back at the top of the list this year. We really want 2008 to be the year when we harvest 90% of our produce from our garden, and that’s not going to become a reality unless we devote the time to it.

There are a couple of house remodeling projects that are calling to be accomplished — partly because of allergies, partly because WE JUST WANT TO (I’m so excited about dh and I working on a project together!). With Ikea coming to the area in 2008, it’s a great time!

There’s also the family website, which the kids have been asking to do for a while… no, not a blog… well, maybe a blog will be incorporated into it at some point…. we’re still just brainstorming at this point and digging through out our old notes and ideas…

There’s going back to sewing and knitting…. dresses for Yena that I haven’t made, rosaries and scapulars to be put together…. there’s the basement to declutter and organize and finish, in preparation for Aisa going to college in a couple of years…

There’s the cookbook, which I thought I lost when our hard drive crashed… it’s more like 3 different cookbooks now, for three different markets (muhahaha, more like my friends/relatives who prefer traditional Pinoy, then there’s the healthy-conscious ones, and the allergic ones). No idea if I’ll ever want to try and publish it as I had originally planned, but I need to get it DONE at least for the kids!

There’s oil painting which I haven’t done in years… and I’ve let my piano skills go so bad that I’m stumbling over the simplest pieces now. Bad example for the kids whom I’m teaching — gotta remedy that!

And then there’s the volunteer work that we’re not doing enough of… church and organization commitments that have to be re-evaluated in light of recent events…

Oh and the list goes on….. the kids have made lists in the past of things they want to do, learn, accomplish — but now I’d like to see them attack these lists GTD style, with Mom right alongside them.

All of that said…. I don’t think GTD will be a PERFECT fit for the homeschooling lifestyle — at least not ours anyway. Much of GTD is still directed towards the corporate executive who deals with clients and budgets and sales calls in their waking hours. You won’t find suggestions for what to do when you’re determining your Next Action and here comes the toddler needing to have his nose wiped, or a diaper change. Or what to do when your five year old needs a hug and a read-aloud book, while you’re in the middle of doing your weekly review (if you were doing it 100% GTD that five-year-old won’t be there beside you anyway). Or when your teen needs a 3-hour dialogue on her life and what she’s thinking — there’s just no way you can work on your “Calls” list when that happens. There’s no adjustment advice for when you’re “@errands” and your kid throws up so you have to turn around and go home. Or what to do about sick days.

There are pointers, yes, like how to achieve zen as you give yourself permission to — let’s say, run outside through the sprinklers with your kids instead of working on Project #375. It’s why I’m thankful I read through the book — at first glance all it appeared to be was a flowchart and “the willpower and the discipline to go to the next action” — but there are tiny gems here and there in the book that speak to the Catholic homeschooling mom in me that believes God first, family next, everything else falls into place. What I think GTD means to me is that I can focus most of all on “God first, family next” when my mental and physical inbox isn’t littered with actionables and non-actionables all jumbled up together, when I’ve quieted my mind and my being enough that I’ve put the non-essentials where they belong.

So all in all…. it was a good week. Values and goals clarified, focus back, moving forward.

Things are most definitely looking up.

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Okay, we got all the components today and made up our planners. Hooray!!

I’m putting a list here of everything that we purchased and where, and then I’ll go into the details, etc.

• Levenger Punch — the most expensive item in the bunch, but if we get several years’ use out of it, should be worth it.
• an Ambi folio — As you can see, this isn’t part of the Circa line. That’s because the folio is meant to hold pads instead of Circa notebooks. However, I sooo wanted a red jacket and couldn’t see myself parting with $70-95+ just for one. Grab this now because I have a feeling they’re discontinuing it. I almost bought either the celery or the grapemist Circa folio because those were on sale. I’m so glad now I waited several days before purchasing because I stumbled upon the Ambi on the site.
• Circa refills — I just got a couple of packs (on sale) of the ones I knew I would put to good use
• the Circa pagefinder
• Rollabind Discs from Marco Paper. These guys are professionals! I called in my order Monday and the discs came today. They don’t have an online ordering system in place yet, but service IS fast. I’m so pleased.

That’s it! I was planning to get the nice eco-friendly discs from Myndology but they don’t sell them separately. Jason, the owner, did offer to throw in some if/when I place an order, but obviously I can’t ask him to give me a bunch for all our needs. So this one will have to wait — what we may end up doing is ordering Myndology books for the boys and Yena while Aisa and I DIY our own — and then using the punch and Rollabind discs to bind the littles’ stuff at the end of the year. We’ll also use the discs for making their scrapbooks, etc.

So here’s what I have now:

Those are the different-sized discs available from Rollabind/Marco Paper. I use the smallest one for my “notebook” that fits into my folio. I made my planner page (the one with the blue background on the right) using Open Office’s Draw program (it’s free!).

Since the Ambi folio is meant to hold pads instead of notebooks, I made a poly folder thingie the size of the cut for the pad, and attached it with masking tape to the last piece of paper (scrap) on my notebook. The poly folder then goes in there like a pad would, but it helps keep my Circa notebook in place. I love my Ambi but I do have one little quibble — it does not have a pen loop! Why that is, I have no idea. I’ll have to develop a mini-hack for that one.

The agenda printout on the left is from Google calendar. I needed to tweak a few things to make Google calendar work for me. As mentioned in an earlier post, I’m trying to get the liturgical year calendar so that it prints out along with my stuff. I added several pre-made calendars into my Google calendar, but I’m still trying to find the right solution for our needs. I just started my own liturgical year calendar which you can view here:

It’s got only a bit of information right now — I plan to update it every couple of weeks or so. Let me know if you’d like to work on it with me:) — it’s shareable to Google account users. The spreadsheet I mentioned in the other post is also shareable — will post that at the end of the month.

To print from Google calendar to any size paper — go to the day’s date, click on “Agenda” then “Print”. This will open up a new window. Adjust your settings; I check off “descriptions” and nothing else. Press “Print” — this will bring up the printing dialogue — click on Properties and adjust your paper settings there. Mine is set for 5.5″ width and 8.25″ length. Google calendar will tell you if your schedule will print on one or more pages, so you can adjust your font (Google only has normal, small, smaller, big, bigger — normal usually works for me unless I’ve got a lot of items then I choose small).

Here’s my planner page in pdf format. Here’s what it looks like up-close:

Since I’ve already got appointments and fixed-time items like lesson plans and field trips on the Google calendar, I opted to place only my essentials on my planner page. Any journal-type writing will be on a separate Circa/DIY page to be inserted onto the right spot when needed. I also have (see first photo) a list of prayer requests on an index card that I can move from day to day so I don’t have to rewrite, I also don’t lose the list, and I’m also able to track answer to prayers (yeah!).

The hearts on the bottom right of my planner page represent each family member — they picked their colors — as a reminder to me to give each one some personal time that day.

The water tracker and fruit/veggie tracker is for me to check off — I’m really bad with this sometimes so I need the visual reminder.

What I love about my Circa system so far: the ability to mix-and-match any size paper. Since the hole-punch isn’t like Franklin’s, I can have small (Compact), medium (Classic) and large (Monarch) pages in one compilation without having to worry about proprietary hole spacing, etc.

What I don’t like about it: cutting the paper, which I’m doing right now with the ol’ scissors! The DIY folks have this trimmer to suggest, but I’ll have to wait for my budget allocation .

So there you have it. Hope that helps!!

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ETA: There are links and credits I need to include here, but Dad needs to de-stress so we’re going out — I’ll edit later.

A month or so ago, I started on a Saints spreadsheet project. It started out with wanting to document/automate the saint books we have around the house, as a way to make liturgical planning easier. It’s also part of my resolution not to waste the resources we have by forgetting to use them on the appropriate dates.

Basically the spreadsheet is arranged by date and includes a list of books about the saint of the day, or the feast day, or the season, etc. Like Jenn, an ideal resource for me would include everything including ideas for crafts, pictures of the saint, books for adults as well as little ones, etc.

I got tremendous help from Anne’s document, Martha’s, Sonya Romen’s, Cay’s Catholic Mosaic and my own resources here at home and some that I found at the library. The spreadsheet is well on its way and you can download the unfinished product here. I *am* looking for volunteers to help out in case you’re interested — please leave a comment or email me at stefoodie AT gmail DOT com.

Since I’m the type of person that can get bogged down with details, and get so involved in a project to the inclusion of everything else, I decided that the 31st would be a great deadline for this project — it needs to be marked FINISHED. I’m also the type of person who tends to complicate things — but I’m thinking once I get over the hump with this, it will make things SIMPLE and EASY for me and the kids… Heh… until the next project of course.

However, today, I’ve been hit with some new thoughts. (I should say, as usual.) Since I’ve been using Google Calendar to schedule our lessons (note to self: write a post on that one of these days), it would be of great help to have the liturgical year and each day’s corresponding activities incorporated into the calendar so I don’t have to go checking back and forth on different sites. BTW, my favorites are Catholic Culture, Women for Faith and Family, Domestic Church, CatholicMom.com, and a couple of others which I forget now.

The best way to do this, or at least the easiest I’ve found anyway, is to import iCal data into Google calendar. I did find some Roman Catholic liturgical calendars all ready for sharing and importing at iCalshare.com — just search for Catholic or religious or liturgical and you’ll find several. I tried it out and it works perfectly, as can be seen in the following screenshot.

The next step now is to convert the spreadsheet data I already have into iCal format, so it can be imported into Google calendar. I can then always have it in front of me, either in my planner as printed out pages from Google, or on this blog. One of my goals always has been that my kids can come to my blog and actually do some of their lessons here, and that’s why I’ve made art slideshows, have music playing, etc. It just hasn’t happened yet the way I want it to happen.

I’ve run into several snags. Tried the ods-to-csv-to-iCal route — didn’t work. Found RomCal, a software that some people have used to generate the iCal calendars they share at iCalshare — downloaded it, but so far can’t get it to work. Trying to find a way now to export to xhtml, but I think I need to understand what xslt is first. There’s also a Wordpress plugin that may work, but not for this exact purpose, so that lies somewhere on the horizon. One day. Found this hCalendar creator, but don’t understand it enough to use it yet. There *is* software that converts from iCal to html, xls, etc., so here I am thinking SURELY there’s something out there that will do the reverse!

I *know* there’s a solution out there, I just haven’t found it yet!

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Ha. Decluttering is so much fun. I actually sold enough books on Amazon to have enough cash to click on “Checkout” at Levenger. I got some refill paper on sale, THE desk punch (to make all of our own DIY forms and tabs and covers — yay!!!) — and I got the red Ambi folio which was on sale *and* the Circa jacket, also on sale — I’m hoping the Ambi folio will actually work with the Circa notebook. If not I’m keeping the Circa jacket and sending back the Ambi. I got a pagefinder too:)

Yena and I went paper-”window”-shopping last night on the ‘net and found lots of fun scrapbook-type papers, which would be great to use for forms. Tonight I found tabs through links the forums at DIY. Aisa’s planning to make her own. I’m just waiting to hear now from Myndology on whether their bio/bare discs can be purchased separately.

I put stuff up on sale again today — about 8 books from our Math shelf, plus our box of wooden Cuisenaire Rods. Aisa’s old stuff from Angelicum went *just like that*. And I even sold our copy of The Well-Trained Mind. Heh. I think this is the third time I’ve bought and sold one. Time to stop.

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This new adventure started over the weekend, as I searched for fountain pens for me and the kids (leaning towards Lamy Safari right now and/or Pelikano Jr.) — and a new notebook/planner/journal/not sure exactly what…. my current Moleskine is almost gone. I went back to Franklin last year after two years of Palm. The Palm was too small, too cold, too mechanical…. the Franklin too bulky, not flexible enough. I just tore out pages from 12 notebooks I’ve used off and on over the years and stuck all of them in a 3-ring binder… so when I was browsing at Levenger, Circa jumped out at me, yelling “Here I am!!!”

A bunch of Levenger Circa items are in my shopping cart right now, and as always I’m taking time to do some research first before plunking down all that money.

A video of how it works — wmv file from Levenger

Forum discussion on Circa and other systems

There’s this whole other world of GTD folks (should I be surprised I’m not the only one obsessed about these things?). I was mostly perusing their talks on combining analog/digital organizational systems, etc. which is what I’ve been trying to do for quite some time — no real success yet. It’s funny when I come across something from the periphery, it’s like the Venn diagrams of my world intersecting.

The other day I was at the Fountain Pen Network forum looking for what brand to buy for the kids. I don’t know why it surprised me to find that a large group of people can be collectively passionate about pens. Paco’s a pen lover so now I’m understanding him a bit more. I never was obsessed although I did go through a phase in college where I spent hours deciding on the perfect tech pen. It must have been Vienne’s influence — she used a tech pen to take her notes and I was impressed with the fineness of the point and how clean her notes always looked; hence my disappointment when I found “my engineer” and he doesn’t use tech pens in his daily life. Hee. Anyway, going back to planners and such…

What I don’t like about Moleskines: it’s so limiting. No calendars, no planning pages, no blanks, just lines, lines, lines….They don’t even make their Storyboard notebook in large size. What I want is one of those sketch-and-write books, but not the kiddie ones.

What I don’t like about Franklin Covey: the guilt associated with not using every page of their refills. Of course, I could just go with a customized FC, get their planning tabs and calendars and go with a bunch of blanks…. however, I’ve always gone with the Classic size, and a Monarch would be too large for me and therefore too bulky to carry everywhere I go, and I’ve tried the compact but it was too small…. I suppose a customized Monarch can work too, but that would mean another binder. I thought I’d love forever my Classic purse that can be a clutch or a shoulder bag and holds everything, but it kills my shoulder when I’m out shopping. Which is why I think the Circa is a much better system — large, small, medium, everything can fit together in the end.

a review of Levenger Circa

Thinking that the DIY-Circa route would be the one to take here…. maybe with some Rollabind things thrown in there…

The possibilities! My to do lists, in small, my notes and project plans, in the bigger sizes, I can have everything together — the saints project, the sewing project, the room-by-room project, all in one place, and then separated out later into their own folders and rings…. small scrapbooks/lapbooks/research reports, curriculum and lesson plans, even recipes, etc….

Levenger/Rollabind comments/comparisons/ideas

The Rollabind connection

Make Your Own from DIY Planner - the folks over there are definitely *my* kind of people!

This review/overview says everything!

Very thorough review here, with suggestions on DIYing, etc.

the Myndology version — hmmmm…. maybe for Aisa, or Yena… or wait…. eco-friendly wood discs! would look mighty fine with leather…

And here’s the perfect how-to for little ol’ me! Setting Up a Circa System, D*I*Y Planner Style (can actually ignore all the other links and focus on this one — it answers all my questions)

Levenger Outlet on eBay, which currently doesn’t have any of the things I need

Whoa! Rollabind on sale

Levenger Circa at Flickr

DIYPlanner Group’s Circa photos

Peeked at CIAK. Nah.

Okay, so besides Levenger Circa, Rollabind, Myndology, there’s also ADOC.

And yet I haven’t stopped looking at Exaclair’s brands — most of which are available through The Daily Planner

I’m putting this decision off until tonight, or maybe even tomorrow. Gotta mull some more.

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Thank you for all of your prayers!!

DH seems to be almost completely healed, he just saw the dr. again today, the wound has closed up quite a bit more, and dr. has instructed him to cancel all 3 appointments with the surgeons tomorrow. We are ecstatic and jumping for joy.

DH is suffering from bursitis on his left knee though, so we’d appreciate some prayers if you’re so inclined, but that’s PEANUTS compared to facing another surgery!!!!

Praise be to God Almighty and thank you, Mama Mary!!!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!!

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There is no better time to learn this lesson than while seated as a passenger in the back of the van, while your 16-yo student driver is behind the steering wheel and Dad is coaching.

What I need is some duct tape to keep my mouth shut. Go ahead and give me a brace as well, to keep my foot from stepping on my very own invisible brakes.

Three Hail Marys and meditating on the Most Holy Name really helps though, if there are any of you who have been in this position.

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Just placed orders tonight with Value Seeds and Gourmet Seed International — there are a bunch of 99 cent/packet seeds!!! I’ll try some summer-sowing next week, despite the drought — but I’ll save half the seeds for winter sowing. I’ve also placed my garlic order for some hardnecks to grow this fall. Hurry — they run out quickly!

I’ve also worked a bit on updating the Mary Garden spreadsheet, which is now a Google spreadsheet you can view here. If you’re interested in co-editing it with me, just lmk. Still tinkering with it — may offer it as xls and pdf when it’s completed.

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This week we have been listening to Children’s Corner — a favorite is Golliwogg’s Cakewalk.

Besides what Classics for Kids offers, some other interesting things I came across when I was looking for more information about this piece:

Golliwog’s Cakewalk by Charles T. Downey

from answers.com

Sheetmusic can be downloaded here

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