Having a Plan & Sticking To It

Happy New Year lovely readers!

I hope the first few days have been good to you. Have you set some juicy goals? What steps have you taken to work towards your goals so far? I’ve been anticipating these first week of January for quite some time now as I’m starting school on Wednesday! I can’t believe that it’s actually happening. I will be doing a post on Wednesday about my scholarly preparations. It would be easy if I were just starting school, but instead I’m also:

• Training my replacement at my office job during a very busy time in the office (my last day is January 15-yay!)
• Beginning rehearsals for my new show. Read through is on Tuesday, followed by rehearsals on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday
• Leading 6 Weight Watchers meetings

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

I’ve been a bit of a stress case to say the least. It’s been challenging to wrap my brain around it and to ensure that I don’t fall apart I’ve reunited with an old friend: my Time.Mine planner I bought one last year on one of my excursions to Buffalo and absolutely fell in love. I used it daily to keep track of my life. I listed appointments, meetings, budget info, rehearsals, dinner dates, blog ideas and whatever else I needed. I loved all the space for me to write, the full sized monthly calendars and the fact that it was normal paper and not glossy so that I could use pretty pens. When the new year was approaching, I tried to find a new TimeMine, but realized that they weren’t available in Canada. I searched other stores looking for a comparable day timer and was unable to find one that could compare to my previous love and I was not about to settle!  After tweeting to the TimeMine folks about my inability to find one in Canada, they offered to send one to me – score!! I was thrilled when I got it in the mail. I’ve already defaced my planner with details of school, rehearsals, WW meetings and work info. It’s such a great way for me to keep track of my life and I would definitely be lost without it! I’ve tried using online day timers, but I really like having a hard copy and find that I used it more.

Knowing that things were going to be really busy this week, I made a comprehensive meal plan, and dragged Joey out in yesterday’s snow to do a big grocery shop. I’ve just taken to doing my grocery list and meal plans in excel now that we have a home printer (to print schoolwork – yaaaaaaay!) I made a master list (similar to the ones Meghan gave us in her cooking classes) and then a new file for the week. Here is the menu for this week:

Clean Eating Minestrone soup w/ quinoaBaked falafels w/ kugel and asparagus
Squash chickpea lentil stew
Warm rice & lentil salad
Marinated tofu salad
Curried chickpeas, cauliflower & spinachGoing with some old favourites, simple salads and a slow cooker recipe. Many of these recipes will make lots of leftovers giving me things to stock up my freezer with as well as pack for lunches. I made the minestrone soup for supper last night and it was amazing. I used zucchini and omitted and fennel. It’s one of those soups that gets better with every bite and I really liked the white beans and the quinoa. Tonight I’m going to be making some muffins and pick up a few snacky things at a different bulk store, and then I feel like I’ll be set for the week. It’s such a relief for me when my food is taken care of!

My last couple strategies include getting enough sleep and taking some time for myself. I’ve been getting into the habit of getting up early in the morning to do my morning pages, and so far I’m 4 days in and it’s a lovely way to start my day. Amid everything I am committing to working out twice this week. I already had one awesome workout yesterday with Kate. We went to BodyFlow and Zumba together and it was awesome! I can absolutely make it to the gym one more time this week, so it will feel great to accomplish that goal.

I’ve been waiting patiently for school and my show to begin and with a plan and some great tools in my pocket – I feel ready. EEEEEEEEEEEE – I’m a teensy, tiny bit excited… can you tell?

What does your plan for the first full week of January look like? Am I the only person who is totally crazy about what type of planner they have?