Word of the Year

This time each year we Love Cats often talk about resolutions, hopes and plans for the new year. Knowing by now how limited my willpower is, I don't do resolutions, so for me it's all about the WORD OF THE YEAR.  

This year my word of the year is LIGHT.

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For oh how that word can mean so many good things such as fairy lights, chandeliers, joy, glitter, happiness, ease, starlight, sunshine, rainbows, glints, glimmers, shiny things, delight, warmth, fun, laughter, a child's smile, simplicity... Letting in every ounce of light is my plan for the year. Gorgeous right?

But today I'm going to talk about a word that came really close. 

Who here has heard the Danish word "hygge"? (Pronounced hue-guh.)  Well, if you haven’t I know you’ll be glad you now have.

Here is what it means:

How lovely does that sound?!

And in order to give yourself over to hygge, you need not adopt it as a lifestyle choice, buy any special outfits, there is no set menu or adjustments to your food intake required.

It’s much more of a feeling.

Hygge simply asks that you be more present, more conscious, and that you slow down so that you might recognise those things that make you feel cosy, warm, secure, reassured, simple and content.

It could be lighting a scented candle. Making a cup of coffee or tea. Choosing a beautiful china cup from which to drink it. Covering yourself in a blanket. Eating a home cooked meal. Settling into a nook with a book.

It’s found in ritual. In making the every day into an art form. In seeing domestic life as something beautiful.

This word is my bliss. My happy place. I am a natural. I literally get goosebumps every time I think about it. For I cannot imagine of a more perfect, comforting, warm, wondrous way of choosing to see those moments that over the course of our lives we discover give us the simplest joy.

So this year, as I endeavour to let there be light, by turning my face to the sun, soaking in every one of my children's smiles, and being a conscious hyggelist, who’s with me?

Blank Pages. Fresh starts. New Beginnings. Bliss...

How can it be November already?  Seriously!  But here we are.

I can feel it in my bones.  Not merely in the itch of summer's nearness.  Or the final school concerts and plays and shows filling up my calendar.

It's that funny time of the year where I find myself wanting to put on the breaks as the final onslaught of family birthdays drag us all too quickly towards Christmas and the End of yet Another Year.

But I also start to get tingly about the Brand Spanking New Year ahead.

For isn't the thought of a New Year something truly special?

I know a lot of people don't like Mondays. So much so hating Mondays has its own anthem. 

But I adore Mondays. So much so I have a dedicated I Heart Mondays Pinterest Page ;). For me every single Monday feels like a fresh start. A new beginning. A clean slate.  Anything can happen!

The same way my very favourite part of writing is the very beginning. A blank page with nothing but Chapter One written atop. For at that moment the story sparkling so brightly at the edges of my mind is perfect. Unblemished by my effort to translate it from magical fairy dust into words tapped into a keyboard.

I feel the same way about reading too.  A brand new book - spine-uncracked, pages a little stuck together from the splicing of the paper at the printers - bliss! At the point at which you open the book you are hovering on the verge of so much possibility - this might be the best book you have ever read.

So while I begin in earnest to choose the perfect calendar for 2019, to decide which colour next year's Bullet Journal will be, I must make sure to savour every moment of the one that is barreling towards its final breaths.

What's your favourite time of year?  Day of the week? Do you love starting a new book or burning your way to the end?

Word of the Year

New Years Resolutions have always made me twitchy.

I’ve tried them, of course. I mean, any chance to write a list, right?  #stationeryaddict

But I’ve never really bothered to follow through in a real way.

Partly because I’m hopelessly laid-back and partly because I’m a naturally contented person, so the idea of making wholesale changes has never really stuck.

Mostly because I’m not great with being told what to do. Tell me not to eat a Tim Tam.  Go on.  I dare you.  I’ll show you!  Watch me eat this whole packet, right in front of you.  Take that!

But, in the contrary nature of the human condition, I love the thought of a New Year.  It’s the ultimate Fresh Start.  The chance to shake off the cobwebs. To take a deep refreshing breath and do better.  Be better.

Which is why I have fallen in love with the concept of Word of the Year.

Rather than a list of ways to self-improve, for me my Word of the Year is a touchstone, a way to gently tug me back to something meaningful.

For example, last year my WotY was SIMPLIFY.

I decluttered like crazy. Oh the bliss of a tidy house!  I cut back – on worries, on endeavours that sapped my time. I let go. Having that word as my touchstone worked. It made my life lighter.

This year it’s MOMENTS.

For me that could mean a hundred different things all of which speak to me at this point in my life.

It can be a reminder to stop. To breathe. To notice.  To soak in a bright blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. To take a moment to Shazam that song that made me dance in my seat. To see beauty in a wasp flittering over the pool. To spend a minute soaking in the first Jasmine flowers of the season. To look for accidental art in my coffee.

To put not only the big events in our family’s yearly Jar of Awesomeness, but those small moments, the forgotten joys – when my daughter tried to do a handstand in the pool, failed, and laughed at herself with the most gorgeous lack of self-consciousness. When my son made his Captain Underpants, fan–fiction comic book.  When I forced my mum to wear a huge pink ‘birthday girl’ badge the day we took her out for her 70^th birthday.

These moments are my bliss.  My happy place.  My smiles.  My delight.

I'm pretty good at knowing what they are when I see them, but this year I intend to bask in them longer.  To bank those feelings.  To swim in the sparkles till I turn all pruney.  So that it will become habit.

 

And I can't wait.

 

So how about you? If you had a word of the year, what might it be?

'Being Organised': One Writer's Life's Dream

My name is Ally Blake and I am a planner.

In fact, I honestly don't understand people who aren't!  How can you nutty non-planners possibly keep track of all that has to be done without writing it down?  Without a to-do list how do you wild and crazies live with that fluttery feeling that you might have forgotten something?!?!

I also adore symmetry.  And even numbers (petrol gauge, volume on the TV, even always).  I like stripes and spots. I love black and white. I adore renovation shows but would happily only watch the big reveal. All that neatness!  And tidiness!  And paint that's yet to be marred by a single dirty fingerprint!  The unclutter movement is my bliss.  I've done KonMari. The William Morris quote “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” gives me happy chills!

And yet - in the eternal dichotomy that is human existence - I don't see mess. It's comes part and parcel with my (diagnosed) 'Off With the Fairies' disorder. How can one possibly keep ones house tidy all the time when there are imaginings to be imagined? For example, I could walk over a bobby pin sitting on the stairs a dozen times and not notice it.  Or if I do I'll tell myself to pick it up later.  Just ask my husband - he's the one with the (undiagnosed) Just Pick It Up when You See It condition.  This also comes down to the fact that I have no willpower.  Am distracted by bright shiny things.  And happily lose great tracts of time to faffing.

And thus, in order to maintain a base level of sanity, my eternal pursuit for Being Organised is real.

Here are a few mantras and hacks that have helped me at least feel more organised:

DO IT NOW
Answer emails, texts and invitations the moment you read them!  The longer you leave them unanswered the more weight they place on your shoulders.  And it just keeps piling up.

WRITE IT DOWN
Think of something you need 'to do' write it down.  On a scrap, on your hand. Keep a master list somewhere - I use my Bullet Journal.

TICK IT OFF
Ticking things off you to do list is one of the best things you can do for yourself. It's been scientifically proven that you'll get a dopamine hit every time you make that tick. And you feel physically lighter!



@TheOrganisedWriter

CLEAR YOUR HEAD
Before getting to the meat of my day (the writing of the books) I now know I need to do a few things to clear my head first.  Admin things, preparation things, creative things. For me its a form of meditation.  Cleansing of the creative palette.

UNPLUG
Once the preparation is done - unplug.  Switch off.  Put your head down and work.  Distraction is the key to your undoing.

IF IT ISN'T BEAUTIFUL OR FUNCTIONAL, LOSE IT.
I'm a big one for finding your bliss and swimming in it till you're all pruney. So ditch the clutter and surround yourself with things that give you joy.  Lighter and brighter all the way, baby.

And if anyone has a magical piece of organisational advice to add, please share!  My learning on this score will never be done.

- - - - - -

Anyone coming to the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Brisbane this month, I'm holding a workshop entitled The Organised Writer in which I'll share hints and hacks to help others like me to organise their space, their time and their heads in order to write more, write clean, write better.  Head over to The Organised Writer facebook page for more.https://www.facebook.com/theOrganisedWriter/

Bullet Journal Bliss

My name is Ally Blake and I'm a stationery addict.

No surprises there. I've been self-confessed for a long time.  I only mention it here as it was the jumping off point for my topic of the day - the glory of the Bullet Journal.

Heard of it?  Then you surely understand my excitement.  If not...welcome to the jungle.

I have a calendar in my phone, sure. And I use it. Religiously.  But I also buy a calendar every year (see confession above). And a planner/diary.  Or two.  (They're just so pretty - how can I not?!?!)  The calendar gets a good work out, sitting as it does on my kitchen bench.  In it I scribble birthdays, colour in school days, note any appointments or events, though its mostly for my husband's benefit as this is the kind of stuff a woman has floating in her head all the time - am I right? Though it often gets hidden beneath school notes, grocery lists, and to do lists. Oh the to do lists!!  So many scraps of paper begun in earnest and ending up covered in coffee rings, with torn corners and half-hearted ticks and crosses.  As for the planners - I'm lucky to get past February.  Why?  Because they are never quite set out just right. They simply don't suit my needs.

Still with me?

Because this is where the Bullet Journal comes in.

The Bullet Journal was a paper notebook journaling system created by a digital product designer (ironic, right) named  Ryder Carroll as a way of creating a planner that works for you. That's right.  You create the planner yourself!  From scratch!  No static, built-in days/dates/layouts but an adaptable, evolving planner that is shaped as you go.

Making it a calendar, a planner and to do list compilation all in one.   Oh my...

Basically, you begin with a notebook.  Any notebook. (I use the Leuchtturm1917 A5 dot point - in case you were wondering :) ).  Then you google - Pinterest and Instagram are your serious go to spots - to get ideas on where to go from there!

Ryder suggests creating a key at the start of your journal so as to encourage consistency - circles for tasks, squares for events, or whatever kind of bullet points you please - also drawing a calendar each month, breaking it down into weekly layouts, and including to-do-lists as you go.  But as you'll see down the page, its truly up to you.

 

I've added layouts in which to write every book I read over the course of the year.  Every movie I see.  Funny lines the kids say that I don't want to forget. This year I've made a detailed list of every section of the house as I plan to declutter the lot and watching those little circles turn into black dots as I cross things off the list is bliss!

Ryder's original Bullet journal design is very simple.  Spare.  Black and white and uber tidy.  I have friends who claim theirs look like chicken scratches.  Half the reason I adore the system is the chance to stretch my creative muscles whenever I get the chance so mine is full of doodles, pretty banners and colour.

The main point being it can look however YOU want it to look!  It can function however YOU want it to function.

But the real beauty of the thing is that if this week's layout doesn't work for you, next week you turn the page and try something different!  Use the bits that work for you, ditch the bits that don't, and add the bits that you feel are missing. Miss a week and it doesn't matter. The Bullet Journal is forgiving. It is always fresh.  And it can be whatever you want it to be!!!

As for stationery, I may only get one planner a year now but oh the pretty Post Its, and colouring pencils, and writing pens, and washi tape, and...

-  -  -

 

Find out all about the evolution of the Bullet journal here: http://bulletjournal.com/.  and trawl through Ally's Instagram follows for lots more wonderful #bujoaddicts and inspiration on how you might set up one of your own.

Goodreads Reading Challenge

Last year I partook in the Goodreads Reading Challenge.

Not having any real idea of how many books I usually manage in a year, and no idea of the kind of reading time the year before me would bestow, I picked 50 books as my task. A book a week, pretty much. And I kept it up.  I did.  Gleefully registering each book as it reached ‘the end’.

Keeping track in my beloved Bullet Journal also helped each month at book club, as in the rush and wash of life I always found I had forgotten some gem that I had read that month.

I also particularly loved looking back and spotting patterns and anomalies.

-          Autobiographies written by smart, funny, creative women (Mindy Kaling, Shonda Rhimes) made a strong showing this year.

-          As did authors I go back to again and again (Lisa Kleypas, Jill Shalvis).

-          I discovered authors I’d never tried before then loved them and devoured them (CS Pacat, Harlan Coben).

-          And then there were authors (RJ Palacio, Lisa Lutz) who gave me one book which changed the shape of my reading year adding depth and flavour and delight.

So did I make it to 50?  You bet I did!  54 to be exact. Will I do it this year?  You bet I will!  It was fun, and helpful, and a buzz to see that tracker ticking over.

But it was the burgeoning realisation that I had such a healthy reading life that really warmed the cockles.  As a mum of three with healthy happy young kids and a writing career and a graphics business and the rest, to know that I still found those pockets of time for myself to sink, dive, indulge in the reading of stories for my own pleasure was extremely gratifying.

Starting as I mean to go on, I finished reading my first book of this brand spanking new year at half past midnight on New Years Day and I could not wait to write it down in my 2017 list.  I'm thinking 55.  One more than last year.  Surely that's a worthy goal.

So come on, who's with me?