Hey guys, I haven’t been around my little online home lately and I thought I’d do a quick catch up on what’s going on here now that September is just about to end. What the what?? Well, I should have known that October was almost here since a number of stores already have Christmas decor (!) but that’s a whole other post. 😉 Right now, I’m just touching base on what I’ll be working on over the next month in case you want to join me before September ends! 🙂

The kids have been back in school for a month now and I’ve been trying to carve out an hour a day to work on some projects that have been sitting on the back burner for the longest time. Here are a few things I will be tacking this October 2015.

31 Days of Writing

Last year I participated in the 31 Days of writing, which is a challenge to bloggers to post 31 days in a row on one topic. Last year I did 31 Days of Gratitude with photos and (mostly short) posts. It was a good exercise to get me used to writing more, taking more photos and to pause and be thankful for the blessings God has given me or to look at a difficult situation and see the good in it.

The project is difficult enough to challenge me but not so hard that I would fail after the first couple of days.

Are you a blogger? Will you be participating? Even if you aren’t, there are a lot of great topics. Check out the categories and I guarantee you’ll find a blogger talking about a topic that is of interest to you.

31 Days to Love Your Letting

One of the bloggers participating in 31 Days is Lisa from Creativlei.com. I first got to know Lisa though her Periscopes. She is one of those ladies that just has a loving, generous and creative spirit. She does lovely hand lettering (which I’d describe as is a broader and more creative form of calligraphy) and she will be teaching an online class on how to love your own handwriting and learn the basics of hand lettering. The classes are short and can be done in 10 – 15 minutes to it is really doable with my busy schedule.

I’ve been wanting to learn how to hand letter for years but never really took the time and effort to go beyond a few doodles. Well, that changes this months since I signed up for the (free!) class. Lisa will be posting on her blog and doing live Periscopes to answer questions and show you samples of what we’re learning. So what do you think? Shall we learn together?

Work the Plan

Okay, well that covers the more creative side to my personality but I am also working on making the time to be creative. I have found that even though I have a little more free time I also have so much on my plate that I don’t know where to start. I’ll spend too much time on things that are secondary and then forget to do the things that are mandatory. The situation has gotten so much better since I’ve been making big goals and breaking them down in to smaller goals but I am ready to take it a step further and streamline my planning so there is less “busy work” and more progress.

Cue the lovely Mystie Winckler. Mystie has created a new online course called Work the Plan that “is a streamlined productivity class for moms that will walk you through setting up a system with synergy and the habits to keep it going.” The classes are broken down in short videos that walk you through creating a plan (if you don’t already have one) or streamlining your plan to make it more doable. It is a good introductory class before jumping into the more in-depth Simplified Organization course. You can follow the course at your own pace so 15 minutes a day has been doable for me.

Technically the course doen not start until January 2016 BUT you can join early by September 30th (tomorrow!) at a reduced rate. ($32 instead of $49.)

Well, those are the projects I have set up for next month. It should easily fit into one hour a day, unless I do a longer gratitude post.

The month of October  is either going to push me to reach higher than I thought possible or drive me to drown my sorrows in chocolate chip cookies. Here’s to working towards a win! (I just watching Lord of the Ring with my son Andrew, who had never seen it before, and I am pumped to go on this journey and face my own fires of Mordor by putting in the effort to persevere, rather than giving up when it gets too tough. Wish me luck. 🙂

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