My Agenda

Image via Pinterest

I take planners very seriously.  I absolutely have to have a planner to write in.  Hubs and I share a Google Calendar to keep up with appointments, baseball games, meal plans and meetings...but I have to physically write all of that information into my planner in order to keep up with it.  It is almost like when Harry Potter had to go to detention with Professor Umbridge...where he has to write sentences over and over, but the sentence carves into his hand over and over.  Granted, my way is not painful.  The only way I will carve my commitments into my brain is if I write it in a planner! 

 

This year I decided to try out the Lily Pulitzer agenda in the Southern Charm Pattern.  Working in higher education, I have seen many of my students carrying them...especially those in sororities.  These agendas come in sizes small to jumbo. I got the large planner so I had enough room to write out all my commitments and meal plans, but can also put it in my purse.  I have been very content with the planner so far. I really like the hard back, making it super durable and the pages are brightly colored in true Lily fashion. The other great aspect of this planner is that it will get you through a year and a half, beginning in August which is great for higher education professionals like myself.

Another planner I hope to try someday is the planner by Rifle Paper Company.  I am obsessed with their artwork and the layout of their planner is very similar to that of Lily Pulitzer, but has the retro illustrations I cannot get enough of...

 Images via Rifle Paper Company

The Mecca of all planners for me is the Life Planner by Erin Condren.  I had a gift card that allowed me to use one of these a couple of years ago and I absolutely loved everything about it.  I was really hoping to use this planner again this year as they have an hourly layout that I thought would be really conducive to recording breastfeeding logs when Vivian gets here...but the only drawback to these planners is they cost a pretty penny...Try $55 for the basic planner with no bells and whistles.  Granted, I believe they are worth it...I just could not bring myself to spend that kind of money while preparing for baby.

If you are interested in an Erin Condren Life Planner and want $10 off CLICK HERE!

What do you have to use to keep your life together? 

 *This post contains affiliate links

The Friday Five

1. Over the last few weeks I have been whittling down my friends list on Facebook to almost half of what it was before.  I had about 1000 friends on my personal FB page.  Crazy, right!? I still had people on there that I had met one time at a college party my sophomore year at Auburn.  While I am sure they were and are perfectly nice people, I didn't really want to share my life with them.  No offense.  Facebook has a bad habit of making people think they are friends with a thousand people when in reality they are just stalking a thousand people...just sayin...

2. As a child, I loved going to see the Ringling Bros circus.  I actually hated and feared parts of it like the cannons because of how loud and jarring they are...but I fell in love with the huge and majestic elephants.  It wasn't until later in life I learned about the long history of their mistreatment in circus shows.  So I had told myself I would not support Ringling Bros Circus, or any circus, If I could help it. Not until they removed elephants from their act...well that day has come as they have decided to retire them a year and a half early!!  Looking forward to supporting Ringling Bros in the future.

3. I made four new recipes this week, all of which were outstanding and will be on our family's regular meal rotations:

I made Slow Cooker Sloppy Joes using deer meat and they were outstanding.  So good I forgot to take a picture of them.  Bubba ate three sliders in one sitting they were so good.  

Bulletproof Coffee

Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

Chicken Fried Rice

I took a tip from Jenn over at Little Baby Garvin who cooks a bunch of chicken breasts in the crock-pot on Sunday then shreds and freezes them in meal portions so she can get one out as she needs it for each meal.  This worked like a boss for us!  I put 6 large chicken breasts in a slow cooker with a box of chicken broth and a bunch of garlic powder and cooked on high for 3 hours.  I then shredded the chicken and put them in ziploc bags to freeze.  I had enough for meals all week.  I saved the stock I cooked them in and reused it in our Greek Lemon Chicken Soup and it was perfect.

4. Last Friday the wonderful Hubs delivered flowers to me, at work, for an early Valentine's gift.  Not only did he bring me flowers, but he arranged the flowers himself!  Hubs is truly one of the greatest men on earth.

5. Today I am going to see the bestie in Auburn! I will get to love on her sweet son who is about 9 months old.  I am looking forward to seeing their new home as well as getting to traipse around Auburn again.  Planned stops: Chicken Salad Chick!  Meanwhile Bubba and the Hubs are going camping with their besties.

Happy Friday, y'all!  We are so close to being done with February!  Ready to be back in the spring and summer months!  I leave you with a picture of our handsome Bubba.

Linking up with some of my favorite friday blogs!!

Karli /  Jennie / Andrea / Tif / April

Moments in Academic Advising

I have decided I am going to start posting "moments in academic advising" occasionally.  The conversations I have with my students are some interesting ones.  From solemn to poignant to inspiring to just plain funny, I have heard some amazing stories. 

A student of mine came to me and said they needed to pick whatever degree is going to make them a lot of money and their current psychology major was not going to provide that for them, even though they are inspired by the field.

I said "I hear ya, money is pretty awesome.  It buys us a lot of things we want and need.  I want to tell you something, though." 

"Once you can earn enough money to support your family's needs, any money after that is not going to make you any happier.  Whatever job you end up with is a job that you will be at more than you will be with your own child, in the event you chose to procreate one day.  So whatever job you end up with, better be one you love otherwise you will be miserable."

Student stares at me intensely for a moment, silently

"I'm sorry, was that a little too "Come to Jesus" of me?" I asked

Then, the light bulb turned on in that student's mind.  So hot in fact, that it probably shattered.

The student exclaimed "No not at all!  You are so right.  I really needed to hear that!"

We went on to talk about Career Services as a resource to help them hone in on what it is they want to do and how they can apply their degree to their career aspirations.

This student was probably 19 or 20 years old and I can remember very well what I was like at that age.  I probably said the exact same thing that my student did.  Our society has trained us to equate money with happiness and success.  I hope this student remembers my words and goes forth choosing something that could make her happy enough to not cry tears every single morning after dropping her child off in someone else's care on her way to work.  That right there, should be your indicator.



I can confidently say that I am now in a position that makes me extremely happy and inspired.  I get to use my life experiences to possibly change the life of young students.  Most appointments are pretty cut and dry: They just want to know what classes to take for the next semester.  But, every now and then, I am able to give them a new perspective or even change their life in some small way.

It is these moments that truly make my job amazing.

Linking Up with Biana, Molly & Meg