Friday Round Up - Art and Life.

Instead of just Friday pages, I thought I would change it up, and do a Friday Round Up, tidbits from our week, more mine than ours I guess, as I am the one behind the camera all the time!
the 6:30 wake ups have been KILLING me!

 

barely awake, but trying hard! I have a goal to reach by Christmas, and maybe just maybe I will make it. 

 

trying to keep up with my daily writing, knowing it is helping me, get ideas out of my mind and onto my paper. and my planner, the brains of life hehe.

working on art for a dear friend of mine, just the base layers so far, soon they will have more on them! little canvas board filled with original art.

a page from a journal swap I am in, where each month I sent a journal page to a woman in the group, this page's theme was 'black and white' I struggled very much with this, till something clicked and before I knew it, I was finishing it up!

working on homework for Jane's class JOYnal, a dancing flower fairy! she is still very much a work in progress, but I am at least liking how she is turning out!

every afternoon, I pick this little man up, and he makes my heart sing, telling me all the things he did that day, asking me way too many questions and generally being adorable.

so how was your friday?
xx Courtney

What Helps Me Shrink..Pink Finsbury Personal Size

If you read my little nook, you know that I'm on this epic journey to lose literally half myself in weight. Now it has been a year since I started this journey, but the last few weeks, I decided I needed a tool to help me stay on track, keep focused and remind myself of my achievements, because when your goal is so huge...you forget to celebrate the little milestones...and they are the MOST important.

So I ordered a pink personal Finsbury because deed down we both know I'm a girly girl lol, and I wanted something very different from  my brown leather beauties. Because I'm not as precious with this one as my gillio, she has a charm and a very laid back feel to her.

She is holding some of the overflow from my malden, since my gillio is a wallet, some of my 'decorating' loves got the chop!

some washi tape, some flags some see through tabs and some post its. Nothing too fancy but we have pockets may aswell use them! Not that I decorate my health one she has a purpose but hey I'm an artist, I need colour with me. Even if its just to look at.

under my fly leaf is just a reminder to myself, being a total emotional eater I need to stay on point...I also have a lucky bear pen loop attached to my fly leaf in hot pink, which holds a coleto 4 barrel pen.
the finsbury came with 2014 inserts...and because I wanted to use it straight away, I had a set of 2013/2014 dodo inserts which I was keen on for my personal...but decided to throw them in here for my food tracking each day. A blank pages for notes, and general things I need to remind myself.

I move these with my weeks as reminders...they are progress photos and also under the quote, is one of my starting photos at my biggest, my costco ID photo...to keep myself in check...these really do help...they make me accountable...to remind myself that I dont want to go back to where I was...it was killing me.

I print out my weekly workouts from my trainer and best friend, and a blank page for tracking times if I am asked to track how long I do something for each round, these pages go between my week as I use them daily, the finsbury is usually stuffed into to treadmill so she stays open, she is a workhorse so like I said I'm not precious with her.

this is how I use the dodo pad in her, I put all the foods down for that day, usually my weight but since I am currently not weighing myself, that is absent from my current week, I put my food into a phone app to make sure I am on track cal wise and below my carb and sugar levels, I also put how many cals I've burnt in my workouts. This is more for my sense of achievement than anything else, I like to see my progress, I like to know that I am staying on track.

 Using my new StudioL2E plan it stamps, I also track my weeks worth of water intake, not being a natural water drinking lover this is sooo helpful! I hope that once I see it visually I will make MORE of an effort to get to that 8 glasses.
So there you have it, I dont have any other sections in this filofax, I am thinking of a meal planner section...so I can track our fave paleo meals and things like that...but for now, I am totally focused on just keeping it my health and fitness planner, and she works well.

Maybe I'll do another post talking about the big girl at the bottom of the pile....

hope you found this helpful!
see you soon
xx Courtney

What Keeps Me Together.

I am a woman of routine, as much as that drives me crazy its the truth. I hold myself together by doing things a certain way. As silly as that sounds, when you are juggling 50 million things, being a mum to two kids that are developing into their own personalities, being a loving fiance, planning a wedding for 60+ people, changing my lifestyle and losing weight, whilst fighting depression and trying to make a name for myself Art wise...something has to be there in place so that I don't lose the plot.

Now I've posted about my beautiful Malden in one of my latest posts, This is my new love, one that my darling fiance purchased for me, and it is just delightful to live in. It is handmade in Italy by many many talented craftsman and its second to none. A Gillio Medium dark Brown Compagna. She is holding my life together, keeping me 90% sane!

I never thought such a simple thing, could help me get so many aspect of my life in check. It's like My one woman show book.

I use a week on two pages, and have toyed with the idea of a week on one page with a notes page opposite, maybe next year I will trial that. I get our lives down in this book, from bills, to school things to remember, daycare days, letters I need to write to penpals, our weekend plans and so on. Using  highlighting stickers to make important things jump out at me.

I make my planner my own, with little drawings, stickers, bright tape and coloured pens, it helps me feel like I am in charge of my life, not the other way around.

My daily routine was an idea from a fantastic video by Joy over at enjoyette @youtube if you haven't seen her, do watch her filofax vids. they are some of the best I've seen.

I can move my tags around if my day is different, and I should have taken a new shot of this page, because now my work outs are at the crack of dawn lol and my blogging is later on in the day...I've got these post it flags on a hambly screen print dashboard - all my dividers are dashboards now.
Another idea from joy was context boards...which I quickly adopted into my own planner

they get checked off once they are done...the errands one has been replaced a few times already once all the jobs are done, a new board is put on. It's awesome, I love this idea.
Major daily things that MUST get done go into the weekily board.

my planner is where I go to remind myself of little important things...

it is where I store things that I know will make me smile when I flick to them

I don't just use mine as a planning tool, I also use my Gillio as a wallet...it is working so far, but I see another pocket sized Gillio in my horizon.
Some people may think its silly, or archaic, but for me...pen to paper is how I get through life be it art or writing...so paper planning is the only thing that makes sense to me...even if I am a digital girl in so many other areas of life, it will never be part of my planning life.

 I will do a more updated set up video soon, so keep an eye on that if that is something you would enjoy.
maybe paper planing is something that youre missing in  your life...
It keeps me together, it makes me happy...and I collect things that make me happy.

I will be more present within the walls of my little blog nook...enjoy your evening, and thankyou for reading.

xx Courtney