Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 10

Writing Notes and Logistical Nightmares

The planner I've been decorating with vellum had one huge selling feature--the 368 blank pages in the back. As I blogged previously, I wasn't sure what to do with them, but hey, I'd figure it out.

But the one thing I told myself was never, ever put any book notes in this planner/notebook combo. Never.

Not only is it impossible to pull pages out and put them with the book they belong to, it also has a time limit because of the 2024 dating.

So what did I do?

That's right. I put book notes in there. Not just for the Paladin League, but also other ideas that came to me. I put in book title ideas and character names in there. I did writing classes and made notes in the back of the planner. I did other author marketing-type classes (like what your website needs), and put those notes in there, too.

Now here we are. Nearly at the end of 2024 and I have notes in this book that I don't want to lose.

The answer for the Paladin League notes was simple. I have notebooks for this series. I'll just move the notes over there. It's the ideas that might be nothing that I'm not sure what to do with.

This required a consultation with my friends. After much back and forth, an idea was hatched. I would move the writing story idea notes to their own notebook, and to insure it didn't get lost in my office, I would keep it on the shelf directly above my computer.

I also have a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine and I have heaps of adhesive vinyl. I will make a title for the spine of the new notebook and the front cover saying that this is the idea book. Hopefully, these two steps will keep it from getting lost.

And then I needed to move a notebook (blank) from the spot of honor over my computer. There wasn't a good place to put it, so I thought I'll just slip it in my bottom desk drawer. And I found four notebooks with writing notes in them. These are the notebooks that I used to carry in my tote bag all the time and they are also the reason I swore never to put book notes in the 2024 planner.

I didn't actually forget about their existence, but I sure hadn't thought about them in years.

I do remember going through and pulling out all the notes for books I'd finished. I keep finished books in files in my lateral filing cabinet. But as I flipped through, I found notes for books I started, but never finished. Many were for proposals to publishers that my agent pitched (and they didn't sell). Others were for ideas I'd like to write, but never got around to.

Some of these have notebooks already (the ones that went to proposal), and I'll move them over to the right place. The rest will have to be added to the ideas notebook.

How long will it take before I start to feel like a medieval scribe? I am not looking forward to this. Note to self: Do not do this again. Ever.

The Doorknob Dilemma

Believe it or not, I'm not talking about planners or journals today! I bet you're relieved. :-)

A couple of weeks ago, the doorknob fell off my bedroom door. I looked at it, and in my uneducated opinion, it was broken. It seemed as if the metal below the screws had sheared off.

I did try to fix it following advice I received, but it couldn't be fixed because I was right. The metal was broken and there was no way to repair that.

Um, I should maybe mention that despite the fact I had links to videos and text messages explaining what to look for, that I let it sit untouched for about eight days. Yeah. I just didn't feel like dealing with it and I thought it might be hard.

The repairs I tried were not difficult. They just didn't work.

It was time to order a new doorknob.

I looked at Amazon because getting in and out of Home Depot is a bitch where I live, but I also went online and searched Home Depot. They had a brand of doorknob called Kwikset and it was cheaper than what the 'Zon's algorithm had shown me, so I did a search for that brand and looked for a doorknob that bore a resemblance to what I already had.

Next day delivery please. This is a weekend project!

The delivery gods were smiling on me because my doorknob showed up before 1pm! That's super early for Amazon to be in my neighborhood.

The installation gods were smiling on me, too, because I somehow managed to buy the exact doorknob that was on every door in my house. EXACT!

I did have to watch some video on how to install, but overall, it was an easy job. (Thank you, Mr. Blaney!)

My backset came in pieces, and I maybe forgot to put one of them on before I fastened it into the door, but the door opens, closes, and latches correctly, so I'm not going to worry about it.

This was an easy job and I'm glad I could do it myself. Handy Patti for the win!

Decor Disasters

Sorry for the planner talk two posts in a row. It's October, which is close enough to 2025 for it to be planner season and I'm excited.

I'm sharing more from my 2024 planner although I'm going to embarrass myself because my work is clearly amateurish. I'm learning and I hope to improve as I do this a few more times.

Because I enjoy vellum images, I decided to add some to the blank pages in my soon-to-be-expired planner. I tried pasting them down, taping in tip-ins on the inner edge, the outer edge, and the bottom edge, and it was a mixed bag.

Some of it kind of turned out okay. Most of it didn't end up looking very good at all. And I have more vellum to try out as I desperately try to fill up pages.

The crazy thing is that a lot of people who use this planner create daily pages on these blank pages (368 of them, perfect for a year's worth) and I never thought of it. Argh!

Next year, I will use the blank pages to journal one page a day and won't have this problem.

I started with a tip-in. For those unfamiliar, that means the page is only attached on one side and it opens out to show the page below. I fastened this one to the spine side. And somehow, I cut the vellum too short for the book. I had it laid right over the page while I cut with the scissors, so I don't know how it happened, but otherwise it pasted in well and works as expected. I'm giving myself a B+.

The vellum on these two pages is pasted down on the left, and a tip-in on the right. This one is pasted down at the bottom edge.

This one? Well, the left page has very little room left to write and it's narrow at the top before widening out. The tip-in on the right is a mess. I ended up just folding the vellum at the tape line in order to write. This one is probably a D.

I had a small piece of vellum left over from this design and I just pasted it down on the top of the next page. Nothing special. Grade is a C.

New day, new design for the vellum. The picture above this paragraph is the tip-in from the front view. The picture below is with the tip-in paged over to expose the notebook page below.

On the plus side, this page was cut much closer to the right size than the previous version. The negative? I taped it down too far onto the writing page and it pulls it, which I don't like. I did better the first time I tried this. C-.

There was a little problem with the glue here. I tried to rub it off, but as you can see on the left-hand side, I wasn't successful at getting it off. I also managed to crinkle the pages, and I didn't get the vellum on the right-hand side glued down correctly. I ended up taking a scissors to trim off the excess. F. Maybe an F-.

The final two pictures are the same page. This is a tip-in I fastened to the outer edge of the page. This also got into epic fail territory. I managed to crinkle the page badly, the tape isn't folded over the page well, pulling on the other side, and it's horrible. Another F-

I'm hoping I get better at this because I really do enjoy the idea, and the vellum looks so cool when it's done even halfway correctly. 

I have eight more pages of vellum design printed. If I can't figure it out in that number, I might have to give it up.

Scribble, Scribble, Scribble

The first image is a picture of my 2024 weekly planner when it was brand new. I'm not a weekly planner girl. It doesn't work with my brain because I see things listed in the week and think the day they're assigned doesn't matter. I can do them whenever. That means I don't do them at all.

No matter how important they are.

But I bought this planner more for the monthly section and its size. This is a B6 which is very manageable, but not too small. My dad had so many doctor appointments and I'm not good at electronically managing schedules, so my plan was to keep track of all of that here and carry it with me. And then my dad died before 2024 started.

It became more of a notebook after that, but while I loved the paper, I wasn't using it often. And then it was August and new 2025 planners were about to come out and I was like, GAH!

I decided to start really using this notebook. In addition to the planning pages, there are like 370ish blank pages. I had a lot of work to do.

I had monthly tabs left over from 2021. I think that was one of the years I thought about bullet journaling? Maybe? I know I tried once in 2016 and gave it up quickly, but I have a package of mini calendars that say 2021, so I must have tried again. I used the tabs that only had the month on them to tab out the weekly sections.

My plan? I'm going to time track myself. Lots of work, work, and more work on there.

I also know I'm more likely to use something if it's pretty, so I printed out some vellums and pasted them into the book. This is the first month I added. August.

Between the OMG, I have all these blank pages, and I don't want to haul a 2024 planner with me and OMG, I love this vellum, I managed to start doing some journaling. It helped that I found some writing notes scribbled on the back of the information package I got when I had surgery in 2021.

I copied the notes. Shredded the surgery papers. :-)

I also really love using Post-it notes in my notebooks. Like really, really, really love. I've shared pictures of my writing notebooks filled with Post-it notes on top of pages filled with notes in the past. Here's a spread from this planner.

I picked this one to share because it's from a class I took online, and I don't have to worry about spoiling any of my books by sharing it. I usually never use the super large Post-it Notes for my notebooks, but I needed the extra room here.

And then I had another brainstorm. Since I love using Post-it Notes so much, why not use pretty Post-its? I had some white sticky notes, and I had free printable template with some pretty patterns, so I decided to run those through the printer and have them on standby, ready to go.

I know there isn't much room to write, but since I have a lot of blank pages to go through, that might not be a bad thing.

Journaling as fast as I can because 2025 is coming!

Another Brilliant Idea Crushed by Reality

I had this grandiose plan to make my own silicone stamps for my planner. I knew exactly what I wanted and all I needed was time to sit down with my graphics program and make the images.

I'd found a video on YouTube about how to do it, so I was set. Piece of cake.

Yeah. Right.

Sadly, my graphics skills failed me. They're rudimentary at best, but trying to put together the check-ins I was looking for was beyond me. I tried. And tried. And I failed.

I went with a different plan and bought rubber stamps with the icons I wanted. I would have preferred self-inking stamps because I seriously have trouble with inking, but those were $10 per stamp. The rubber ones were slightly over $2. Big difference, especially when I was looking at about half a dozen.

So disappointing, but I've had a new brainstorm. I'm going to make my own stamps for my book journal! Those would just be words, not images, and I'm sure I can type them successfully in my graphics program. The only problem will be getting the size right. I figure printing them out will solve that issue, so I should be able to handle this.

But this is a project for future me. Stay tuned.

Another Multiple-Planner Year

Guess who's ending up with multiple planners this year? Again.

I ordered my usual planner super early, not realizing that I would be hating it by September and dying to get out of it. I have replacement options and I'm weighing which one will be it.

I also ordered the planner I'd been using in 2024 for journaling because it worked so well in this capacity. This is more formal journaling where I actually try to write nicely. I have another book where I scribble down words and it's a hot mess.

And of course, there's the planner I didn't expect to like, but fell in love with this year. It's become my EDC (Everyday Carry) planner and I'd be lost without it now that I've gotten used to having it everywhere I go.

My usual, official planner is an A5 size and on a spiral which makes it a desktop planner, not a take everywhere planner. My portable planner is a B6 and it has Tomoe River Paper, which means there are a lot of pages without it becoming a heavy tome I'm lugging along with me. I've bulked it up with vellum tip-ins and stickers, but it's still portable.

And then I came up with some ideas to combat my ADHD, all of which require a separate planner. Two extra planners.

Another method I came up with to deal with my ADHD was time tracking so I could see what I'm spending my time on. I bought booklets in traveler notebook size to handle this. I've been doing it the last few weeks, but in 2025 will start color coding so I can see how much time I'm wasting when I don't mean to relax.

Then there might have been a few accidental purchases. Planners I spotted that might absolutely work as my new daily planner, but I won't know until I try them out. I have ideas on how to use the ones that don't make the cut, so they won't go to waste.

This is a test year. A way to come up with a system that works and helps me combat my ADHD issues. I hope to have everything worked out long before 2026 planner season and keep the line up minimal.

The One with the Strategies

Being diagnosed with ADHD this far into my life has been interesting. Some of it is like, oh, that's why I've always struggled with this. And some of it is like, how did I cope for this long without anyone knowing, even myself?

I started doing more research into ADHD and found some YouTube videos, including ADHD hacks for your house. Of course, I watched them because anything that could make things go more smoothly at home would help.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I'm already doing many of these hacks. Maybe this is why I made it this far without being diagnosed?

An example is creating a station. I have a coffee station and I've done this since I started drinking coffee. My coffee maker is near a water source--either my sink or my refrigerator or both. In the cabinet over the coffee maker, I have everything I need to make coffee like paper filters and the coffee itself. I also have everything to make my cup of coffee, for instance sugar-free coffee syrup. Everything I need for every facet of coffee making either brewing or drinking, is in this area.

I've created stations in my bathroom using little caddies and baskets. My crafts go in craft totes, each craft in its own one. My knitting projects go into a bag with all the yarn for the project. If it's something I'm actually knitting, it's a tote bag. If it's a project I want to knit, but haven't started, it goes in a giant plastic bag with a zip top. Everything goes in there. The yarn I'm going to use and the pattern. That way, when I'm ready to start the project, I can just grab the plastic bag.

How do I get into trouble? When I don't put the pattern in the bag. I was knitting a project that I quit when I was over the halfway mark. I want to pick it up again but can't find the pattern. It's not in the project bag. Where did I put it? Who knows? Can I print another copy of the pattern? Sure, but the copy I was using had each row I'd knitted marked off. If I print another, I'm going to have to walk through it line by line, row by row until I figure out where I left off.

Another idea in the videos I watched was a Go-Bag for traveling. Every toiletry you need for your trip is in that bag and you never take anything out of it. I've been doing this since probably the 1990s. I kept my toiletry bag in my suitcase, and when I was planning to travel, all I needed to pack was clothes. Everything else was ready to go.

There were other ideas that I know won't work for me, like keeping track of things digitally. I've tried that and I would just delete the notification and forget all about the thing I was supposed to do. This is why I moved to a paper planner. Daily, not weekly.

Weekly planners have never worked for me because I see items listed across the week and it feels like if I got them done whenever during the week, it was okay. And because doing them on a particular day didn't matter, I never did them at all. A daily planner keeps me accountable. Yes, it's more of a to-do list than anything else, but I need it in the planner or it's too easy to blow it off.

If it's written on Tuesday, October 2nd, though, I'll actually do it on Tuesday, October 2nd because it bothers me not to check off everything on my list for the day.

The problem I'm trying to solve now, and where I've been falling down, is trying to remember to do things that don't have specific due dates. I've already mentioned the separate to-do list is too easy for me to ignore, and that digital doesn't work for me at all. So?

I think I figured out a way to keep up with a home declutter project. I created a cross between a creative journal and a bullet journal where I listed every single thing to go through. Example would be tall dress, drawer one. Tall dresser, drawer 2. And so on. I haven't actually tackled anything yet, but I'm hopeful because there is a space to check off finished items! The pieces are also very small, literally one dresser drawer at a time instead of Organize and Declutter Bedroom. That's overwhelming and will literally never happen.

But what about the random tasks? That's where I'm stymied. Another notebook? I'm still mulling.

Anyway, I just thought it was really interesting that even though I didn't know I had ADHD, I came up with strategies to function that are actually recommended. I just need a few more strategies.

Helene Comes to Town

As I'm writing this, it has been raining for the past twenty-four hours. There's been a few breaks in the rain, but they've been brief. Yesterday's rain was courtesy of a cold front, I guess? That's what I heard anyway. The rain I'm listening to now is from the hurricane.

Hurricane Helene is barreling toward Florida as a Category 4 storm. I live near Atlanta, but Helene will still be a tropical storm when it passes over us.

I have water standing in my backyard, but I'm not too worried about flooding because my house sits on higher ground. The standing water is on its way to the retention pond.

I'm a little worried about the wind. They've said gusts up to 70 MPH. We've had other hurricanes come through here after coming ashore, but this might be the strongest of the lot. At least it's the strongest I remember. I'm going to trust that everything comes through the wind okay.

My chief concern is the power going out. I have every electronic device in my possession charging. I even charged the charging bank I have for my phone. There's really not much more I can do, although I should probably find the lanterns I bought and get those ready and I will after I finish this post.

Of course, the worst of the storm will be rolling in overnight. In the dark. When you can't see what's coming. According to the weather reports I've seen, it will be cleared out by 9am tomorrow. There's still wind forecasted but not storms. We'll see if they're right.

After all this angst, I know I'm lucky to be far enough north not to take the brunt of it. I'm hoping everyone in Florida who needed to evacuate did, and that we can get through Helene without anyone being hurt.

ETA: When I wrote this, the storm hadn't destroyed towns yet. My heart goes out to the people who bore the brunt of Helene and to the families who lost loved ones. I'm saddened by the destruction left in the wake.

Can't Find This

If you've been following my blog, you know I was recently diagnosed with ADHD. This explains so much of my life and my challenges that I've struggled with since I was in grade school. Today, I'm going to talk about my biggest challenge.

I can't find anything.

One example is I wanted to learn to hand letter with the Tombow brush pens I bought. I found a video on YouTube sponsored by Tombow and they had a free, printable handout. Of course, I printed it out and was ready to use it while I watched the video, but the instructor recommended higher quality paper because regular copy paper would wreck the tip of the marker. Or I could put the page underneath tracing paper. Which I also had none of.

I would need to order tracing paper, so I put my printable away until it arrived.

My friends, my tracing paper arrived, and I cannot find my printed pages anywhere. I don't know where else to look. This came a week or two after I spent days (literally days) looking for my marker set (chisel tip, not Tombow). I'd given up and was using my colored pencils because I was not buying new markers when I hardly used the ones that were missing when it dawned on me where they were. And I was right.

If only 1) this revelation had come while I was looking for the markers and 2) I could have a similar epiphany about where my printed pages are. (Yes, I could reprint them, but dang it! I know they're here. Somewhere.)

Most of my house is clutter free. My office is not one of the places. This is where things go to disappear. I need to sort through it, get rid of things, organize myself. It's also something that I just never quite get around to doing.

Then I had a scathingly brilliant idea.

What if I created an organizing journal? One section for each room in the house. I'd break each room down in the extra small chunks. Like list everything one drawer, one shelf at a time. And check it off as I completed it. I love checking things off my to-do list.

And I had extra 8"x8" journals that I didn't use for my book journal. The one I picked had one of those historic sailing ships on it, so I decided on a pirate theme. For the electronic files that need to be cleaned up and organized, I went with space pirates.

This is still a Work In Progress and I'm waiting on items to use to put it together. I'm hopeful? Sort of. I'm a little worried that I'll burn out my enthusiasm for this idea putting the journal together. On the other hand, without a journal I've had zero interest in doing it, so maybe this will help.

More to come with pictures.

Reading Journal: Stamping is Hard

I think I might have to make a special Reading Journal image instead of repeatedly using "steampunk," but that's a project for another day.
After listening to two of my nonfiction books in audio format, I was ready to start filling in my reading journal. I printed the book covers on sticker paper, used my paper slicer to cut the length, and then used scissors to cut the vertical. I should have used the slicer on all of the cuts because straight lines are beyond my skill level, but that's a lesson learned.
I was debating whether to go with 3 inch covers or 2.5 inch. I opted for the larger height. I think that looks good. My book review silicone stamp set arrived and I was ready to go!
I pasted down the first two book covers, inked my stamp, and pressed down.

Stamping was not a success as you can tell from the picture above this paragraph. Too much ink on some parts of the stamp, not enough on the top. I also managed to get ink all over the acrylic block and all over my fingers. There was also some ink on my table.
Not cool.
I tried practicing on scrap paper, but I didn't get any better at it. I watched a few YouTube videos on how to stamp and tried again. Um. I might have an issue here. I still couldn't do it well and there was ink everywhere! No lie. It was especially bad on the acrylic block.
It got me wondering if maybe the block that came with my stamp set was too big. So I bought a smaller block, one that just fits the width of my stamp.

The picture shows the block I was using with the new, smaller block on top of it. The edges of the new acrylic block are wavy.
I haven't tried stamping yet with the new block. Part of me is worried that this didn't fix the problem because I don't know what to try next. Maybe I buy stickers, but that will make my journal swell in size. I just need to pick it up and give it a try. I can't do worse than I was doing previously.