Planners, Planners, Planners...

 In late 2020 I found myself researching bullet journals.  I needed a change, a new creative outlet.  I stumbled into the world of digital, printable, planners and my universe tilted (in a good way!)  I loved it!  There were so many options, different page sizes, layouts, Sunday start, Monday start, and there were (drumroll please...) STICKERS!  Yes, beautifully colored stickers with artwork to fit every style and aesthetic.  I was entranced.  I searched and printed and worked, but never quite found exactly the right fit.  I was puzzled; there are literally thousands of options, probably more and I couldn't find quite the right fit. So, I made my own.  I'm no stranger to Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop - so I embarked on a journey.  I created my first weekly layout and tried it out in Jan 2021.  It was almost right, but not quite.  I hit the drawing board again and birthed the perfect weekly layout for my needs!  I use a 2-page spread of full 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper and the box sizes are very similar to the Big Happy Planner dimensions.  This means, with a little tweaking I can use pre-designed stickers for the Big Happy or Classic Happy Planner to decorate my pages.  (I know what you're thinking...why not just make the boxes exactly the same size and make your life easier?)  Well, if you do a little Google search, you will see that everyone has a different opinion on the size of the boxes.  If you look at stickers to purchase, the boxes are all slightly different sizes.  And, I have never found a sticker pack the I have simply purchased, printed, cut out and stuck down.  I have always changed a bit of the coloring or edited the lettering or something.  So, if I am going to fiddle with them anyway, I might as well have the layout that is just right for me. :)

For me, I like a Monday start and I like to have the "Side Panel" on the far right instead of on the left.  I like to get right into Monday when I look at my planner.  I have set up my weekly pages like this:

I add a small Monthly Calendar to the top right and a Weekly Goals List and Gratitude Box to the lower right in the Side Panel.  I have tweaked the layout a few times, but so far it is working well for me.  Here is a sample of a recent weekly layout:

The stickers shown are based on the beautiful work by DesignLovelyStudio's Apple-solutely Fall Big Happy Planner sticker set (BW163).  I purchased these stickers on Etsy and then added them to my own template in PhotoShop made some changes and printed the pages like this.  From there I add a few additional decorative and functional stickers as I go about my planning and throughout the week.  This brings me great joy to work with such beautiful artwork and colors while also creating some of my own stickers from purchased artwork as well.  I hope you enjoy!

Always Learning

If there is anything certain in the world of parenthood it must be that we as parents are always learning!

My son Leyton is 7 years old and has autism.  He is a relatively happy little boy but very set in his ways.  Once something enters his mind there is no changing it!  Sunday, on our way to church, Leyton was very upset - whining, crying, carrying on.  He did not want to go to church!  My husband and I were "encouraging" him to quiet down and accept that we were indeed going to church.  Finally Leyton cried out "I need POWER, you need to act silly!"

Well, that was most unexpected, but totally hilarious as well.  The wording was a little odd, but very clear in the thoughts Leyton was trying to convey.  He was feeling oppressed and lacking control over his situation.  He needed...power...  And, he was tired of us telling him to stop crying, essentially stop feeling his feelings.  He needed us to stop being controlling so he told us to act silly!  How amazing, that he has that depth of understanding into his own feelings and how miraculous that he found the words to express himself!

We continually underestimate our kids and they never fail to meet that challenge!

Pure and Holy Passion

Do you have one pure and Holy passion?  One magnificent obsession?  One glorious ambition for your life?  I do. :-)

Those opening lines come from one of my favorite songs.  Oh how I once longed for a passion, a purpose for my life and my suffering.  As I shared in my previous post, I am only recently beginning to really LIVE! I have been existing in a fog and shroud of depression for most of my life (I'll be 40 in July). But I was blessed with recovery and have found some great results with nutrition as a basis to clear my mind and get my life back. 

My passion is to help women, especially mom's and those with Special Needs children, to see that there is LIFE out there. So many times we get caught up in simply surviving and getting through the demands of the day that we don't ever get to a place of joyful, vibrant living. I hope to bring simple solutions to women so that they can begin to dream again, hope again, really live again!

Do you tend to just "get through" your day, your week, your life?  Would you like to see life in a new light, hopeful, excited, with confidence and joy?  Leave me a comment here or message me and I'll be glad to share with you some simple steps to start you on a road to really living! 

Eat Your Way To Recovery!

I spent most of my teens and adult life in a fog of depression.  I had created a good life for myself - I had good times, good friends, a great husband, beautiful children!  Yet, I was only existing, not really living.  

Last fall I was taking a yoga class and the instructor, who loves to read and shares snippets of her reading with the class, mentioned a book called Potatoes Not Prozac.  Later that same week my therapist was telling me about a book she was reading...the very same.  It was meant to be.  I left her office, picked up the book and devoured it in a matter of days.  It turns out the haze and melancholy I was experiencing was strongly related to the foods I was eating.  I learned that I am "sugar-sensitive" and there is a simple way to treat it.

If you suffer from depression or just know you could feel better than you do now; if you know you eat the wrong foods or for the wrong reasons; if you feel foggy and lack mental clarity...read this book.  It will change your life.  It did mine!  The author, Kathleen DesMaisons, is an incredible woman with an amazing story of her own.  "Dr. DesMaisons has shown hundreds of thousands of sugar-sensitive people like you that if you change your food, you can change your life. Her program goes beyond symptom relief or behavioral training. It brings about profound, life-changing recovery."

Let me know what you think about the book, if you relate to what Dr. DesMaisons shares on her web page or what I have shared here today.  I have found a life of joy and happiness that I never dreamed possible, let me know if I can help you do the same!

Blessings,

Tammy :-)

To BE LOVED is to BELIEVE

So, I have been making some amazing strides in my life recently and have been thinking back to when everything started to turn around for me.  Back to when the depression began to clear and the haze began to lift.  It was almost a year ago when my whole life began to change...in an instant!  A moment of soul-bearing prayer, being still and listening to God...and then it happened...I FELT LOVE!

I always knew God loved me, he loves everyone, right?  But I never felt it in my heart.  I never felt the warmth and the glow that radiates from within until that day, that miraculous moment that changed everything.

I was downstairs in our living room when my husband turned on his favorite show - Dr. Oz.  Typically I'm not a T.V. watcher, but this gripped my attention and wouldn't let go. Dr. Oz's guest was Dr. Issam Nehmeh.  Dr. Nehmeh is a clasically trained medical doctor, an Anesthesiologist.  But he practices healing in a much different manner, through acupuncture and prayer.  (You can watch parts of the Dr. Oz segment, Is This Man a Faith Healer? on the Dr. Oz website.)

I stood, unmoving, in front of the television as I watched the rest of the segment.  Dr. Nehmeh was very humble and gentle in his mannerisms.  He answered Dr. Oz's questions openly and with ease.  Dr. Nehmeh said anyone could be healed even if they were not a Christian (he is Catholic), not even religious at all.  He said it was all about LOVE.  I can't recall quite how he described it but it was something about God's love through him to the ailing person who...believed...accepted the love.

I was deeply intrigued, but too stunned to commit the details to memory.  Then, so quickly the segment was over and Dr. Oz was moving on.  I wanted more!  I wanted to be healed!  I shouted inside myself "Dr. Nehmeh, I want to be healed of my suffering, my life-long battle with depression and anxiety!"  I turned off the T.V., spun on my heels and knelt at the bench at the foot of my bed.

The whole time as I watched this program, listened to this amazing discussion I was thinking "this could be exactly what I need, what I have been waiting for, praying for."  I've always known  God had the power and the desire to heal me.  I knew He would in His time.  I was certain He was teaching me, molding me, grooming me for something bigger than where I currently was in life.  I just needed to have more faith, listen harder, or just be patient.  But, why couldn't this be what He was waiting for?  Why couldn't today be the day?  Why couldn't now be the time that God reached down from heaven and laid His own hand on me and declared me healed?

I began to pray hard.  I thanked God, I told Him I wanted to be free from my suffering.  All my life I have felt rejected, unloved.  I asked for this to be the day and then told God I would wait, be still and listen.  Send me a miracle, Lord!  Give me a sign!

And He did!

It all happened so quickly, so beautifully.  I was repeating my confession of feeling lost and discarded, trying my hardest to be still and listen, when the most amazing and yet stunningly simple thing happened.  God filled the dark, grey, gloom within my heart with light!  It was a warm, radiant light.  As I knelt there with my hands clasped, my eyes closed I could see the light.  It was bright yellow and white and orange.  It began at the core of me, near my heart and radiated up and through my shoulders.  It evaporated the grey, cloudy gloom in an instant.  The weight I had carried for as long as I can remember was gone.  And, what was left in its place was...LOVE!

"I am LOVED!!  I am loved by the one and only true God, the all powerful creator of the universe.  I am not depressed, I no longer suffer from anxiety, I AM LOVED!"

This became my mantra.  Every time I felt the haze, the anxiety, the sadness creep in I would repeat over and over to myself: "I am not depressed, I am not anxious, [pause] I am loved!"  And, every time I got to the "pause", said the words "I am loved", I felt it!  I actually felt love for the first time.  And it was real.  Not some earth shattering, bolt of lightening, form-shifting change.  I didn't jump up and run through the streets crying Hallelujah!  Yet I knew and I felt that I was truly healed.

The next day I met with my therapist as I did every other week.  It was a glorious time sharing my experience with her, a Godly, praying woman healed by faith as well.  But it would be days before I shared this with my husband.  Still another year would pass before I would progress to a point of living every day free of depression and anxiety; free of medications, free of the haze and the gloom.

And, you are the first to hear my story other than the two of them.  I hope it inspires you to live a better life, to seek the path God has for you and believe strongly that he will set you on that path of LOVE and joy!  I hope you will leave a comment and maybe share your story.  If I can pray for you let me know that as well.

You are loved and you deserve all of the goodness God has in store for you!

Many blessings,

Tammy :-)