A Look Into Our Notebooks – Week 3 of 2021

Each Monday I share the previous week’s spread from my notebook. It’s a good way to stay accountable to keeping a notebook and to stay honest about how I’m using my time. Last week was full of knitting – which is a pretty nice way to live during these bleak winter days!

GREEN | Writing Time
I’m still showing up for my morning pages and am working to incorporate some blogging time into the afternoon. That time has to be flexible given all of my other responsibilities throughout the day and isn’t as dependable as writing in the early morning, but I’m enjoying this shift in my routine.

ORANGE | Healthy Stuff
Part of the reason I’m shifting my writing time to the afternoon is because I’m trying to work in early morning bike rides. It feels really good to close the exercise ring on my Apple Watch early in the day and to know that I’ve made a choice to take care of my body right away. I’ve always wanted to be an early morning exerciser but have lacked the motivation to get out of bed for it. But because I get up early to write in my journal every morning, it seems like a natural shift right now. I used my exercise bike 4 times last week – a personal best! In other exercise news: I did 4 sessions of Yoga with Adriene this week and meditated every day. Another successful week in this category!

PURPLE | Blackberry Bluff School
We’re still struggling to show up at the table, but I’m getting back into the habit of dangling a science experiment as a motivator to get the work done. We’re getting there!

PINK | Reading Time
My reading time is still quite low, so thank goodness for audiobooks while I’m on the bike in the morning and taking Colton back and forth to his center. But I did start a book on my Kindle late in the week that’s held my attention, so I’m getting in some “traditional” reading as well.

YELLOW | Stitching Time
This week I worked on my Stay At Home Round Robin project, finished binding my Scrappy Crossroads quilt, finished pulling the paper templates from my Scrumptious Hexies quilt, and have been knitting a pair of socks. Stitching is still my go-to evening activity and, as usual, I’m looking for a little balance. I want to do more quilting, but it’s hard to find the motivation to get to work in the basement when I can sink into the couch and just knit in the evenings. So I’m going with the flow and doing what feels good – and trying to still my heart when it starts to remind me that I’m not doing enough.

BLUE | Outside Time
I followed through on my new plan to capture outside time twice last week. We stayed inside on Wednesday because of the Inauguration Ceremony and then I completely fell off the wagon. Of course, we did better this weekend (despite the frigid wind chills), but I’m disappointed that I didn’t stick with the afternoon playtime during the school week because it was much warmer then. This week will be better!

OTHER TRACKING:

WATER: still 100% compliance on at least 64 ounces of water a day. Thankfully I’ve done well in this category for 3 weeks!

WEATHER: Still tracking a small snapshot of the weather (whether it was sunny, cloudy, snowy, etc) as well as the low/high temps each day. I’m also including this in my 5 Year Journal, which currently includes the weather conditions from 2019, 2020, and now 2021 — so it’s a pretty awesome thing to read every day!!

COVID: Tracking the number of cases in my state in the gray bar at the top of the page. I don’t want to dwell on those numbers right now, but it’s going to be quite the memory one day. I’m transferring these numbers over to my 5 Year Journal as well.

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We’re moving into the 4th week of the year! I’m thankful for this practice of keeping a notebook because I’d forget so much without it. For example: when I sat down to write this post, I’d completely forgotten that I finished my Scrappy Crossroads quilt and pulled the paper templates from my other quilting project… and was so pleased to discover that I had done more sewing/quilting than I’d thought. It’s encouraging.

Here’s to a week full of the things we love!