Brutally Disappointed

I canceled two of my craft sub boxes.

Okay, I paused one and canceled the other.

I probably should have done it earlier than I did, but the themes were cute and it was hard to cut myself off. And then I realized that I haven't used more than a few pieces of the one I canceled.

The one I paused? That one I used all the time last year, but realized I wasn't using it so far this year, so I said I need a break after the March order arrived. This one I might resume, but maybe in 2027.

Some of my problem is that I want to use these items for the perfect project and there is no such thing.

I started because I saw this woman on Instagram get kits and lay down stickers and washi and create these amazing, arty pages and I thought, hey, I can do that! I can lay down stickers.

It turns out that 1) this woman is an actual artist and 2) no, I cannot lay down stickers and end up with anything as nice as what she created. 3) the delusion finally died and there was no point in thinking I was suddenly going to become artistic enough to even replicate what she did, let alone create something new and fresh myself.

This was a brutal disappointment, but it also finally gave me the impetus to cancel the sub box, so win?

Email Mountains

Email. Sigh. How does anyone keep up with it?

I am notoriously bad about this. I do manage to delete the promotional emails I'm not interested in. Without unsubscribing because I want those sale prices when I'm ready to buy.

I mostly handle personal emails okay.

My big problem is the semi-promotional emails with information in them.

Especially when the information is related to promotion of my books. Or maybe writing craft. I want to read these emails--really, I do--but not right then. The problem is that I never get back to them. I even created a special label for them. To_Read_Writing.

I've read nothing! I even added it to my habit tracker in the hope of getting to these emails so I can delete them. It didn't help. Not that I have a good track record with habit trackers, but still.

I know the prevailing wisdom is handle it once, but I'm usually busy. My primary inbox is up to 268 emails. My special brand new writing label is at 263. Updates at 2,210 emails. There are more labels than this, loaded with stuff I need to do something with.

It's overwhelming, especially when I don't want to spend time going through this mess. 

Reading Problems

I have discovered something. When I am doing a lot of writing, my brain doesn't want to read at the end of the day. It's tired and apparently reading and writing use the same part? Total guess since I can still watch TV or videos or doom scroll.

Problem two: The library loan period for ebooks is only two weeks.

Problem three: Whenever I look at my list of books and say, "oh, wow, it looks like I won't get any of my holds from the library for a while, let me unsuspend one of the books I want to read," multiple books miraculously become available. Either the library orders more copies or other people suspend their hold.

Problem four: It's a book I want to read and I think, "I can read a few books in two weeks. I used to read a book a day." Apparently forgetting Problem One, I've been focused on doing more writing every day than I used to do.

Problem five: the books (it's always plural) are now due in four days, so I spend Friday and Saturday nights staying up ridiculously late to read and finish them.

Problem six: I can't get up on Saturday and Sunday mornings and it throws my whole schedule out of whack.

Guess what happened this past weekend? Both books are read. Both books are back at the library. I now have nothing to read, but I'm scared to unsuspend a hold because I have a couple of books on active hold. All of those say they a couple of months out, but I don't believe it. 

The Face in the Mirror

I've been trying to be better about moisturizing my face. My skin is naturally oily, but over the winter, it was dryer than usual. And of course, I ended up with acne in a few select spots.

A long time ago, I used to have this blemish pen where I just touched up the spot that needed it without drying out my entire face, so I went to find something similar to that.

Instead, I bought a very big name brand cream that was for acne spots. I'd just dab it where it was needed.

This is a brand whose soap I use for my face all the time, and it was easy to say, cool, let's buy this.

It arrived while I had three spots that needed treatment. I dabbed on really lightly the first day. Day two, I noticed there was a visible film, and since I couldn't hide in the house all day, I wiped it off before I left. Then came day three. This was an at-home day, so I used the acne cream on the three spots plus another spot that appeared to be developing.

And while it sat on my face, my skin had an allergic reaction. Red, ugly rash across my right cheek and chin. Not only limited to where I dabbed on the medication, but across a wide swath. It was itchy, it was ugly, and it was lumpy.

Two days later, still red, lumpy and itchy. Three days later, the lumps begin to recede, but my cheek is still mottled red and itchy in spots. Four days later, all the lumps are finally gone, but still red and mottled. As I'm writing this it is day six. The redness is mostly gone, but still sort of there. Still a little itchy, too.

Acne cream is in the trash.

The lesson I've learned? Acne is better than a rash. Or test new stuff out on an arm before putting it on your face. 

Why So Much?

Patti, why do you blog soooooooooooo much about organization and planners?

Sorry.

This is a repeat for some of you, but I have ADHD and trying to keep myself organized is an ongoing process. I literally only share a fraction of what I test out to stay focused.

It was a little easier while my dad was still alive because I handle daily tasks like a pro because of the daily pages in my planner. I even can manage the monthly appointments, but everything else? It's chaos for me. My dad used to remind me of weekly or quarterly or infrequent items and now? I'm on my own for those.

2025 was my year of experimentation because he passed away at the end of 2024. I figured out how to keep track of more than monthly appointments (i.e. monthly tasks) relatively quickly thanks to monthly dashboard stickers. It took a little experimentation to figure out what titles to put on the dashboard boxes, but I have that nailed now and it's smooth.

But weekly tasks? No matter what I tried in 2025, nothing worked. It all just got ignored, which is why I cannot use a weekly planner no matter how hard I try. I'm completely capable of not noticing anything on a weekly layout.

2026 was the year I was determined to figure out my weekly problem. I started out with far too many box stickers laid out on the blank page my planner has in front of every week. I quickly learned that less is more. I pared down to three boxes. To Do, This Week, and Don't Forget. This seems to be working better.

So far.

I also wanted to organize my writing better. I have my kanban board for keeping track of progress. It was a game changer when I first started using it and it's still working for me years later. I am reward focused, and believe it or not, moving a Post-it Note into the Finished category gives me a dopamine rush.

That also works for checking items off my daily to-do list. There's something so satisfying about that.

I also have a writing planner now--two of them. The second one was an accident, but I ended up really liking it, and if I can find a way to get the circles that I color in on the first (big) planner into my tiny writing planner, 2027 will move me to one, but coloring those word count circles in is exciting for me.

This is my long apology for all the planner and organization posts that show up here. This is something I deal with all the time.