Messy Life in a Pretty Planner

Oh, new year. You arrive with such fanfare! Plunging necklines and tiny finger foods. Party horns and midnight kisses and champagne toasts. For me, you arrived in a cramped hotel room, watching the ball drop on TV with two of my kids draped across my lap and the other two snoring away on the floor. For my sweet husband, you arrived in a ballroom four floors down from me, with a blast of champagne spray drenching his DJ laptop. Not my favorite New Year’s Eve ever, but it’s all good – at least I wasn’t nursing a hangover on New Year’s Day. And here we are now, on January 14th. Two full weeks into the new year and I still haven’t even made it to the gym! I guess by the time I kick off my slippers and dig out my tennies, the new year’s rush will be over, and I won’t have to wait around for an elliptical. See, things worked out all right after all.

I feel bad, though, that I haven’t written much so far in January, which is what I really wanted to do. I keep finding myself at Target, or in the shower, or driving the kids to school, and thinking, “Ooooh! I am definitely gonna write about that.” And then, later on, when I’m finally in my jammies at the keyboard, whatever it is I wanted to write about just seems lame. So I close my laptop and cuddle up with my hubby to watch yet another episode of Breaking Bad. (We are finally catching up to the rest of the world! Go, us!) 

Essentially my January thus far has gone like this:

• Playing Minecraft
• Watching Breaking Bad episodes
• Trying to keep things running smoothly here at home while my husband works up in the mountains
• Endless 6th grade homework
• Coffee coffee coffee
• Feeling sad that lots of my friends were at CHA
• Laundry laundry laundry
• Chiweenie cuddles/chiweenie tearing up shit from the trash can
• How many days can I wear these jeans before I have to wash them?
• Liking all the things on Instagram #allthethings #doubletap 
• But you’ve always liked enchiladas. You asked for enchiladas! ::flips table::
• Ignoring the Christmas decorations that are still not put away
• Back and forth hilarious picture texts between me and my oldest kid
• Why can’t they just teach you long division instead of this partial quotient crap?

So yeah. Life is good. It’s everyday boring life, punctuated by moments of hilarity and the occasional raised eyebrow. And the thing I’m happiest about TODAY is that for the first time in about two years, I TOTALLY HAVE A WORKING PRINTER! I spent one long evening printing out a fabulously colorful planner for the year, courtesy of Pretty Darn Cute Design, aka designer of this blog. It came out super cute, and now my middle schoolers are bugging me to print customized planners for them to use, too. Print all the things! Here is my darling planner. It makes me happy!

In addition to keeping track of everything going on in our big, busy family, I’m using my planner for my coupons, grocery lists, meal plans, my endless to do list, and even the occasional doodle. Yay for organization.

If you need a beautifully designed free planner/calendar/agenda to keep yourself together, get thee to Pinterest! A quick search yielded SO many, I had trouble picking favorites to share. 

And this is the very best thing that happens in January, at least at our house – Nikki and Lexi’s birthday! We always have lunch with them on their birthday, and here we are in the cafeteria with the girls and their fan club. So much fun. 

Hey, it’s the weekend! Go have some fun!