Pinterest

Happy Monday :)

It's unusual that I post on a Monday...between Sunday updates and an occasional WIP Wednesday or FO Friday, I don't often post anything else.

I think I've gotten kind of boring like that.

So, today, I'm going to mix it up a teensy bit and talk to you about Pinterest. If you've been living under a rock, Pinterest is......well, it's kind of hard to explain it, actually. It's part organization of all the things you find online, it's part fun, and it's definitely entertaining.

What do I use it for? Mostly things I like.....

In fact, here's the list of my "boards" that I pin to (I have 23):
1. Books
2. Crafty Things
3. Cuteness!
4. Doctor Who
5. Education
6. Finished Objects
7. Funnies & Quotes
8. Genealogy
9. Harry Potter
10. History, yo!
11. Home Decorating
12. Home Organization/Cleaning
13. Journaling
14. Kid Items
15. Kid Room Decor
16. Knitting/Crocheting (other/ideas)
17. Other Geekery
18. Places
19. Recipes
20. Sherlocked
21. sort me
22. Weight Loss
23. Yarn P0rn

You can make up your own boards any way you want, which I really like...I'm actually starting to think I need a separate board for all the Big Bang Theory stuff I've been pinning lately. But that's another issue (right now, it's in Other Geekery).

Today, I'm going to talk to you about my latest obsession, of sorts.......Journaling. Yeah, I'm going to turn into one of those journal nerds. You know the ones, they have a gazillion notebooks (check), binders (check), pads of paper (check), pens (check), more pens (check), sixteen colors of the same type of pen (check), separate notebooks for all things (check, check, check, check....check)....




I've been an office supply snob since I was very small. My grandparents owned an office supply and Norwegian gift shop in my hometown. I have been around all things office since I was out of the womb.

When Husband and I were moving, he learned just how deep my office supply snobbery and obsession actually ran......I had a ton of pens, pencils, erasers, paint, markers, colored pencils, notebooks, folders, binders, paperclips, stickers, post-it notes, binder clips, hole punches, sticky labels, art paper..... I wound up donating a bunch of stuff to my hometown school district when we moved to California. I could not take it all with me and I was not using it and, to be honest, some of it I never would use...but I had to have it.

Now that we're in our own house, I've started amassing a collection of notebooks (not full-sized, more like 8.5x5.5 or A5 size, or thereabouts, sometimes smaller). I buy the graph ones if I can find them and now that I've discovered the dot graph ones, I'm snatching those up, too...but they're a lot more difficult to find.

I thought it was high time to use my notebooks and my love of pens and my need for some sense of normalcy and organization in my life.

Soooooo..............I'm not going to show you my bullet journal right now.

I'm going to show you some pins that inspired my bullet journal :)

Bullet Journal Rehashed (link to the blog post)

I needed something basic to get me started and this was one of the first pins I found on the subject of bullet journaling. This is not my work. This is not my photo (you can see the blog watermark of sorts in the middle of the photo). But this gives a basic idea of what I was looking for.

I went a step further and have color-coded mine. I have "food" type things in a light blue (including the day's menu at the top but also grocery shopping tasks), reading tasks in a dark blue (picking a new book, reading, moving books around, library returns, etc.), super duper OMGDOTHESENAO important things in bright pink (because I dislike pink so my eye is drawn to it on a page of jewel tones), crafty related things in black (which usually is a box for knitting/designing/spinning and a box for doodling/Zentangle), and other daily householdy things in purple (dishes, laundry, going through a box of stuff, cleaning the kids' rooms, etc.). It's not a perfect system but it does work for me.


Another useful pin I found is this relatively simple guide to bullet journaling. Right now, I'm not fully "on board" with it as I use my pseudo bullet journal thingie for daily things. I do have some notes in there, but it's mostly tasks, doctor appointments, and occasionally you'll find doodles in there. I think part of it is because I'm limited by the format I have. I hate wasting money on things so I'm going to use my planner until the end of the year and then I"ll probably move on to something different. We'll see how well it works for now.

Bullet Journal 201 (link to blog)

And then I found the excellent blog noted in the caption above. It takes everything you learn in the guide to bullet journaling and puts it to actual use. This is what the Kate (the blog owner) came up with after spending some time with different journals and formats. This is what she likes for her use. I would love to incorporate some of this but I need to find my own system first, I think. I do love the Long Term Planning section she has (she has six months on a two-page spread with a date for every day and things happening - doctor appointments, due dates for projects, vacations, etc.)......but that's what my phone is for. I also like the weekly schedule (shown above), but it won't work for me as I need more room for my tasks to be written...

I do like the idea, though :)

My Bullet Journal (link to blog)

This last one is interesting. In my head, this is what a "real bullet journal" is supposed to look like. Of course, that's not true...a bullet journal can be any way you want but in my head, this is what I would aspire my bullet journal to emulate. It's a bilingual entry: German and English. Again, she goes through her set-up, which is her set-up. It's what works for her.



So, yes.......bullet journaling......maybe someday I'll show you what mine has become.

Right now, I have at least five notebooks going. One is my daily planner, one has my reading list/thoughts on said books, shopping/random notes notebook (hangs out in my purse mostly), one for my Zentangle doodles, and my knitting designs notebook (which hangs out in my knitting bag).

I have quite enough to be getting on with, don't you think :)