Tracking and Planning in 2014

Ah, procrastination. I'd certainly rather write this blog entry than work on the next episode in the serial I'm writing about a Old West Bad Romance. Must submit a thousand words in less than a week (thought I had more time; there goes vacation). The tough part is that I'm just not in writing mode. I'm in housewife mode. Made 16 quarts of beef stock the other day (just before cooking Christmas dinner) and have been polishing surfaces and doing laundry this morning. ANYTHING to avoid writing.

And now this post, which is an excellent distraction. It really is kind of important to get my tracking and planning system for 2014 all set up. Isn't it?

This year I have abjured all expensive Filofaxes and Franklin Covey binders and binder inserts. Instead, I'll be using the Amy Knapp's Family Organizer found at my local Barnes and Noble and also Martha Stewart's vertical weekly inserts, with 12 monthly pages from Day Timers. Martha Stewart's calendar does have monthly pages but they are embedded in the weeks and not tabbed. I needed the Day Timer months with their fronts and backs for goals and plans, so bought them separately.

These together will serve as my tracking and planning system for 2014. I've put the Martha Stewart weeks, the Day Timer months and some loose pages at the front in a small 3 ring binder from Staples (slipped some scrapbook paper in the view pockets for decoration). The loose pages are for my goals and project lists. The Knapp goes in my bag, the binder stays on my desk.

Why this particular system? I find the vertical weeks in the Martha Stewart planner best for accurately planning how much activity can be fit into a finite week. I block off my work hours with Washi tape which helps me see how much time is left for my other projects.

Martha Stewart Vertical Weekly Pages - I track exercise & meditation in those boxes at the bottom

Here's how it all flows. Throughout the week I am writing items onto the shopping list and weekly to be done list in the Knapp, which is with me all the time. 

Amy Knapp's Family Organizer (my personal tabs!)

But at the weekly review, I go to my goals and project lists and pick out the next steps. Those go onto the Knapp weekly list, too. At this point I turn to the vertical weekly pages and spread my weekly list over the day blocks to see if there are too many activities and tasks for the available time, in which case I cut some. Then I write a brief final plan into the Knapp weekly calendar boxes and go to the next step, menu planning. I love how the Knapp meal plan lines up with the weekly calendar so it is easy to see when to adjust your plans for family activities. When the meal plan is done it's easy to add the ingredients to the shopping list.

The vertical weekly pages in the Martha Stewart calendar have two boxes at the bottom. I use the top one to track walking/cycling and the bottom one meditation. Creating these daily habits is one of my goals for 2014.  

Adding major goals to the weekly list keeps me from foundering in minutia. I like cooking but in the larger picture publishing my first three part fiction serial means considerably more!

Improvements

There hasn't been much to blog about recently. There's been so much running around, so much falling into bed exhausted and then never sleeping well and waking exhausted, and racing out the door at the last minute wondering was I ready, did I have everything at hand. However things seem to be changing now that my schedule is normalizing. 

I just put this in the oven for dinner:

Yes, it's a bit sloppy, but heck, I am cooking again!

And I'm healthily hungry again - have stopped subsisting on a steady diet of nibbles - chocolate and celery sticks and nuts and more chocolate - and started to want real meals. Today I've had time to not only prepare and cook dinner, but bake two batches of my dog's favorite biscuits! Yes, things are improving at long last.

While not a particularly good cook - I love rustic food too much to bother with much else - I love finding new (rustic) recipes and making them. Especially when it's this cold outside. 

I am humbled by our interconnectedness,humbled by realizing how my present comfort and bounty is dependent on the actions of others. I wish I could thank the farmer who grew these potatoes, carrots, onions and leeks, and the man who drove the truck who delivered them, and the people who built the truck he used to deliver them, and the people who pumped the gas the truck used to get from one place to the other. It goes on and on, as far back and as wide as I can think about the subject. It's laughable to think that any of us could be "self-sufficient." Not in today's world. 

For many years I registered as a Libertarian. The dream of self-sufficiency dies hard. I believe in hard work and personal responsibility, and still don't like big government, but no longer labor under the illusion that with a cow, 30 chickens and 3 fertile acres I could provide for most of our needs. Maybe if I were in my 20s and intended to raise a large family that kind of dream might still be possible.

If, if, if. Instead, I am blown open with gratitude for the labors of all those unseen others who have collaborated so that I might prepare this small feast for my small family tonight. May God bless every one of them, and all the rest of us, too. 

And I am grateful for the incandescent skies we have been blessed to observe:

In fact one reason I haven't blogged in a few weeks is that all I've had to post were photographs of stupendous sunrises and sunsets, the backdrop to an otherwise frenetic period with many mini-crises and lots of stress.

But! Life is on the upswing. We are very near the Solstice, when the tides of darkness will begin to recede. We are all very tired of night falling so early and personally I am ready to mount a campaign to eliminate Daylight Savings Time as an outmoded and unnecessary burden on the public.

Dinner emerged from the oven well after dark. 

It was good, even though my appetite turned out to be limited. Am beginning to suspect that I have the currently fashionable gluten sensitivity problem. And may have had it for a very long time. Suspect it can be developed just like Syndrome X, which I almost certainly have,too. Along with lactose intolerance which was diagnosed in infancy. 

This dinner was very good for the gluten-sensitive body, but a bowl of noodles at breakfast left my gut feeling pretty uncomfortable all day long. In fact this was the "proof" that I did not want to recognize, as it represents my largest incursion into gluten territory for several weeks. I had so hoped I was fantasizing all this. And the kicker is that it really made it difficult for me to enjoy my gluten-free dinner. 

I work with someone who has been told (by a physician) that it will take 2 years of gluten elimination before it is completely out of his system and doing no more damage to his digestion. This seems a very good motivator for abstinence - if every "mistake" sets your clock back 2 years one might really think twice! But it's very depressing with Christmas coming up, and our extensive baking plans. Thank God at least chocolate is gluten free. And merlot.