Word of the Year 2020 - Renaissance

Hope. Love. Happiness. Peace.

These are the type of things I want to feel in 2020.

Dear Reader, you are probably wondering why I didn't pick these words to be my Word of the Year. Well, it's simple really.

To achieve the above buzz words of emotional goals, I first have to rebuild...recreate...rebirth myself, my habits, and my idea of daily life.

So it's a rebirth, or a renaissance because I'm bourgeoisie.

Word of the Year 2020 - Renaissance
My inspiration for my word of the year came from one of #leohusband and my favorite YouTube Channels, Extra Credits

They had this video out a couple of months ago called A Rebuilding Year. It gave me hope that I could turn my burnout around and take a year to basically FIFO (Figure It the F&#$ Out).


I had so many astonishing but life-altering things happen in such a short time. I got a new diagnosis, a new job, a puppy, and switched from the yoga studio to a gym membership.

My schedule now has an additional day of physical therapy, my mornings start unbelievably early for my job, my puppy is basically a baby that needs to learn everything, and if I'm spending the money, I better get my happy ass to the gym. LOL!

I need to figure out how all this applies to my life and what that looks like now. If you would like to hear more about Word of the Year, check out my awesome podcast with Rebekah Svensson, Chronic Warrior Women.

In fact, Dear Reader, if you are wondering how I am able to make a blog post with all of this and a puppy...I'm at Starbucks and the puppy is taking his post-breakfast nap in his house. Then I'm going to do my normal Friday grocery store run. My Starbucks is right next to two of my favorite grocery stores. Boom. Two birds. One Stone.

If I have extra time, I'm going to get a little reading time in for my peace of mind and my soul. I hate to admit it but I started Daring Greatly by Brene Brown in November and I still haven't finished it. I may even get a little bullet journaling in.

Speaking of bullet journaling, I'm doing something different this year but you will have to wait until next Friday to see.

Which brings me to this Dear Reader, I'd love to post every day, but let's be honest...that ain't gonna happen. LOL! So I'm shooting for Friday's.

Wish me luck this year in my Renaissance while I FIFO! WooHoo!!!

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Just Too Damn Busy

I think the title says it all. I'm not bragging about being busy. I don't want to be busy.

In fact, I totally hate those people who act like it's a badge of honor to be totally swamped. Stop it you pretentious pricks. Insert eye roll here.

I can't seem to catch my breath since starting my new part-time job in the wee hours of the morning, and it's been much worse since the time change. Ugh!

In fact, I can't believe I have the time to update today but I brought my laptop to my doctor's appointment and I finished my feedback for this morning's classes...

So here I am.

No. I haven't died. I've just been busy and when I have a break the last thing I want to do is blog.

Between work, the gym, physical therapy, and trying to get a healthy dinner on the table, most days I nap or I want to binge-watch Netflix and relax.

I actually started writing this post last week, waiting for a doctor's appointment to start and after she came in, I closed my laptop and when I got home, I fell asleep on the couch, until #leohusband got home. Man, talk about being completely drained.

Me and My BFF (My Back Brace) on Vacay

I've also been out of the social loop, on vacation, so I tried to spend a week catching up, with friends, family, and doctor's appointments. Gosh, there's only so much energy to go around y'all.

To further complicate matters...? We've got our favorite festival coming up, the Texas Renaissance Festival. Once again, I'm going for gold to try to win the costume contest. I love that I have something to funnel my creativity into but I always end up waiting until the last minute to get my costume together, even though I started it in August.

Now, and here is the big news. We're getting a puppy, the day after Ren Fest, because I'm apparently a glutton for punishment. It's not good timing but it's never good timing to get a puppy so we might as well jump into the deep end.

Well, that about sums it up. I'm guessing you probably won't hear from me for a while since I'm going to be adding puppy training into my already charlie foxtrot schedule. I'm hoping to be back up and blogging in January 2020!

Wish me luck! Much love to my readers!

April 2019 Bullet Journal Setup

I can’t believe April snuck up on me. I really enjoyed taking a break in March, but it’s time to get back to the desk.

I have my bullet journal set up, and this month I went crazy!

I went with a Harry Potter theme because I am lucky enough to be able to celebrate #BreadwinnerBFF birthday at Universal Studios Harry Potter world this month.

I wanted to get excited for my adventure so I grabbed my prisma color pencils and went to town on drawing Hogsmeade, a Quidditch pitch complete with snitch, and how I always envisioned the Firebolt to look.

My favorite book is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban so I took my cues from that book!

If you were a chronic pain warrior or a chronic illness warrior, and you haven’t started a bullet journal yet to keep track of your symptoms, pain levels, and day-to-day activities I highly recommend you starting one. You can start in the middle of the year it doesn’t have to be January.

How to Track Your Medical Expenses

Every year of my adult life since 2009 I have met my out of pocket maximum on my medical insurance. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you don't have severe medical problems or you have an HMO.

I want to make it clear that I am well aware of my priveledge to have and have had medical insurance since graduating college. I don't know the numbers of uninsured Americans, but if you are one of those then my heart goes out to you. I don't know how you do it, let alone survive.

However, this post is about tracking your medical expenses in the hopes to get a nice tax deduction and $$$ back from the government.

How to Track Your Medical Expenses
I'm not going to get into the merits of HMO vs PPO suffice to say that if you have no medical problems get the HMO, if you have legit medical problems, Type 1 Diabetes, Chrons, or like me, Adhesive Arachnoiditis, you want the PPO.

Why? Well, after I meet my deductable, then I start paying a percentage of each visit or procedure. Once I reach a certain amount spent out of my wallet, I don't have to spend any more and the insurance picks up everything at 100%.

I'll save the nitty gritty of HMO vs PPO for another post.

Since 2016, I know I've done a diservice to our finances by not tracking what we are spending medically. Even though I reach my out of pocket maximum that doesn't include perscriptions, and now other things can be covered by FSA's like massages and acupuncture.

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I need to take advantage of this in 2019 and start now with writing down monthly expenses.

I have alotted a page in my bujo next to personal expenses for this, now the tricky part is filling it in, or in my case, finding the time and energy to fill it in. Shame I didn't think of this when I was setting up my bullet journal in December.

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March 2019 Bullet Journal Set Up

How is March here already?

I was telling my mom yesterday that all the grand plans for 2019 have not worked out at all so far. She laughed and said it's only eight weeks in.

"Not good enough!" screams my inner perfectionist.

March 2019 Bullet Journal Set Up
Without further ado, I actually got my March bullet journal done in advance so there's that. I'm going to give myself a pat on the back for that.

I'm still loving my new month view calendar format but I think I'm going to make room for the month title at the top if I can, in April.

I may have to draw up some practice sketches first.
I kept my weekly's in the same horizontal layout because I'm really digging the overall appeal on the page.

I got some amazing wreath stamps, not that I minded drawing my own in January and February, but February has been such a weird month I needed a bit of a breather and hand drawing wreaths was not in my wheel house.

The stamps are gorgeous and I just colored them in with a tombow to make sure that they didn't bleed through the paper.



I intentionally added a menu section on now that my Whole30 is over. I'm debating adding a grocery list on the page below. I used the space below in February for what crafting project I wanted to complete that week.

BT Dubs, did you know that March is National Crafting Month! So definitely look for my Chronic Pain Crafts posts this coming month!



My bubble emotion and energy tracker has been looking awesome in February. In fact, I think it looks like Jupiter. Not sure if February and Jupiter have a corralation, but it looks cool. I haven't picked my emotion colors for March yet...maybe I should go with a Mars theme?

I kept my main tracker page the same because I really like the fact that I've ordered each category in keeping with my daily schedule.

Hope this gives you some inspiration this month! Get out there are get planning.

If you don't have a bullet journal yet or are looking to start one, you can start at any point in the year.

Fun fact, I started my first one in March!

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February 2019 Bullet Journal Spread

Where did January go?

Seriously?

Well, February is here and so is my bullet journal set up for the month. Last year, I opted for a sleek minimalism scheme that really didn't speak to my artist's soul.

I'm working on a balance between super detailed and artistic and simplicity in 2019.

Thing's I've changed up are a full calendar for the month at a glance spread.

I've also opted for a horizontal weekly view.

The trackers in January just didn't work for me. The pages were too busy, which made it hard to figure out what was going on.

I went for a colorful visual emotion and energy tracker that I'm looking forward to blending colors for, especially since I fluctuate during the day. Hoping to get a better bead on my adrenal fatigue and the emotions associated with it.

I'm seperating my AM and PM tasks into different columns so I can really tell how I get through the day and the consistency with the night time tasks.

I've also added back in my pain + sleep tracker to the same area.

I also had a nice doolding session one evening while exhausted, it totally made me feel better.