Media Journal

Patti, what are you doing? Don't you have enough book journals that you're 1) not using or 2) haven't started?

Truth! But I started a media journal anyway. Everything but books will go in here and this will last forever. Or darn close to it. My reasoning was this: I'm getting farther and farther behind on my podcasts. I've been doing too much YouTube and not enough audio-only pods.

This is my plan to get caught up.

The picture to the left is the cover of my media journal. It's an A5 notebook with a really fun theme. I also had matching stickers and I used those on the cover page.

I actually haven't done very much yet. I used alphabet stickers to make a title for the journal and a title for the podcasts section, laid down a few decor stickers around the title, and then I put down the podcast tracker stickers I bought.

I'll put movies and TV shows in here, too, but the podcasts were what was important. I do well when I can check something off--a principle I used in my writing planner--and I'm hoping it helps me here, too.

 

 

This is the cover page of the journal, complete with the stickers that match the cover. I'm hoping that simple works better than shooting for Work of Art, but I might have used too many stars. 

This is the section title page for my list of Podcasts. I'll probably do some decoration around the title at some point, but for now, I'm going to leave it with just the title.

This is one of the podcast tracker stickers I bought. This particular podcast was easy to fill in because they break it down by season and there's usually somewhere between 23-25 episodes per season. I decided to limit this to just the podcasts I have on my phone (yes, there are a lot) because those are the ones I want to listen to and delete.

The pink splotches are from a dot marker. I'd like to claim that the media journal is working already and I powered through all these episodes, but that would be incorrect. I'd previously listened to them, and because I still had part of that season on my phone, I decided to put all the episodes in and check them off.

While I was able to get several podcasts in to track, I have a problem. A few of them do not have episode numbers and only have titles. I'm not sure how I can track those given the layout of the stickers I bought. I don't feel like writing all the episode names out, so I don't know. I'm not going to worry about it right now because I have plenty to get through first.

Note to self: Less YouTube while doing mindless tasks, more podcasts. 

Fiction Reading Journal, Take Two

I didn't think I was going to attempt my own book journal this year. 2025 was such a failure that I ended up throwing it away and that is not like me.

Then I ended up buying a book journal because there was a misprint and I was able to get a B5 size for around $12. But there are pages for reviewing books and I'm not writing that much.

My brain was back to no reading journal for 2026.

Until the two year-long reading challenges I planned to participate were released in December and I was like, I totally need a reading journal.

The picture of the reading journal cover page to the left is from 2025, BTW. It's the one I threw away. I couldn't share pictures of my 2026 reading journal because, well, I haven't made it yet.

I know! I need to get on it. Soon.

The issue? I create a lot of the things I use in my sticker making machine's software, and because I'm not good at this, it takes some time for me to get it done. I haven't felt like doing it, and the few times I thought, maybe I can do it today, it was gray and cloudy. The sticker cutter needs lots of light to read the registration marks and there are times even on sunny days that I need to hold my phone with its flashlight on to get the thing to cut.

This year, I'm going to make changes. For one thing, I'm going to do two books per page instead of one. That's where my journal got ugly, trying to decorate the rest of the page. But this will eliminate that. I will only have room for a book cover and a little room to write down information and a review. If I have stickers that will go with it, fine. Otherwise, the book cover is all the art I'll use.

No bingo boards this year. I hardly remembered I had them in 2025. Also, this book journal will not be limited to one year. If I don't fill it in 2026, I will use it in 2027. Because of this, I'm planning to add calendars and keep track of what I read by month.

I'm debating whether to put the book challenge icons/information in the same section with my review rather than a whole separate section. I need to decide before I start the book journal.

Hopefully, I don't mess everything up again this year. Stay Tuned. 

With Apologies, It's More Planner Talk

I think I mentioned that I'm trying a new primary planner for the year. The Complete Planner from Sterling Ink. (I received no compensation of any kind and paid full price for my planner.)

What intrigued me about this planner was that before every weekly vertical spread, there is a blank page. This gives me room to setup a weekly dashboard.

I've tried setting up a mini-dashboard in my 2025 planner, but because there were no extra pages, I had to do it in the middle of the weekly spread. It didn't work. I still forgot all about my weekly tasks.

However, in 2025, the monthly dashboard worked exceedingly well for me, so I was hoping that if I had a dedicated weekly dashboard it would help me out.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2024. I've always been able to manage my daily tasks by using my daily planner, but the monthly and weekly items killed me. It was a relief to figure out monthly, but I'm still testing out different options for the weekly, hoping to find one that sticks.

Overall, though, I really, really loved my 2025 planner because there was a meal tracking section in addition to the daily, monthly, and weekly pages. There was even room in the meal section to record my sleep. The Complete Planner does not have this dedicated section, and I knew I was going to miss it.

Then I had a scathingly brilliant idea. I am not a weekly vertical planning girlie. I get absolutely overwhelmed with that layout, which is why I struggle so much with weekly tasks. I was going to convert the weekly section to keep track of weather and word count (like I did in my 2025 planner), but that still leaves me a lot of room since I have that blank page in front of each week.

I counted lines and decided I had enough space to add the meal tracker to each weekly spread. Since I didn't want to do all that writing, I printed out some stickers, used a little washi tape, and came up with this layout.

I'm keeping track of the weather and word count at the top. Sleep and the books I'm reading that week are on the sidebar and then meals, vitamins and medication, and below that (unseen in the photo) is water tracking. I'm soooooooo bad at drinking water.

My 2025 planner had little water drops I could check off, but I don't want to use stickers here because of the bulk and I don't have a stamp small enough for the column. I do have a stencil I can use, but drawing 8 water drops for 7 days for 52 weeks? I can't do it. Instead, I'll just make tick marks for each cup of water I drink.

Just in case my Complete Planner doesn't work for me, I also bought the same planner I used in 2025 so I can switch if necessary. I think I'll like the Complete, though. It's just a matter of making the weekly dashboard work for me.

I am laying them out week by week so that I can change if it doesn't work and not be locked into anything.

My other planner, the one I used in 2025, I bought the 2026 version in a smaller size. I want to see if I need the A5 or if I can get by with a B6. I decided in the B6, to only do weather on the weekly vertical spread. I'm putting word count in the yearly tracker in the front. Again, testing it out because (if I like this), it will save me setup time in 2027.

I kind of wish that I could mash the Complete Planner and my 2025 planner layout together. It would be absolute perfection then. Sigh. I'll re-evaluate a few months into the year.

Storm

I am a Minnesotan. I lived most of my life in a suburb of Minneapolis and snow doesn't scare me. I don't like driving in it, but I can.

Or maybe I should say I could. I've been living in Atlanta long enough now that I might have lost my skills.

What I'm not used to are ice storms. I only remember having one in Minnesota while I lived there. It was the only two snow days I ever got while I was in school. I remember coverage of city buses sliding sideways down slight inclines because they had no traction. I remember the trees were covered in ice and took pictures of it because it was so amazing.

So of course, Georgia has an ice storm prediction up for the weekend and I'm semi-freaking out. I'm not worried about going anywhere. It's not supposed to get bad until Friday night and I'll just stay home all weekend. Not a big deal.

Why am I freaking out then?

Losing power.

When I still lived in Minnesota, we had a thunderstorm go through at the end of May and it knocked out power to the house. For six days. SIX DAYS! When I say that I am not a pioneer, this is how I know. It was literally the most miserable six days in existence.

I can live without television. I can live without music. But there honestly is nothing you can do once the sunsets if you don't have power. Want to read? Yeah, can't see the page. EBooks? How are you going to recharge the reader? Phone? Laptop? Same problem.

I do have a couple of power banks and I'll have all my electronic equipment charged to full when the storm hits, but who knows how long the power will be down? I never thought I'd be without power in Minneapolis for six days, but there you go.

There's also food in the fridge and the freezer to consider, too.

I went grocery shopping and spent a ridiculous amount of money on nonperishable items. I also bought powdered milk and gallons of bottled water. If worse comes to worse, I can make milk and eat cereal.

But I hate losing power. Hate it.

And I hate thinking about how dangerous the ice is for people to be out in, either in a vehicle or on foot.

Nope, I'm definitely not pioneer material.

I scheduled some blog posts ahead of time so that it the worst happens, y'all will still have content. Hopefully, I can post an extra one saying the storm missed me. Or at least the storm didn't take down the power. 

Facebook Strangeness

Weirdness on Facebook for me.

First, let me mention that Facebook almost never shows me posts from people on my friends list. About 99% of what I see is stuff from pages.

Which is where the second thing comes in. Suddenly, without any warning, I started getting posts from recipe/cooking pages in my feed. I'm like WTF? I'm pretty sure no one hates cooking more than I do. Why is the algorithm suddenly showing me these posts?

I tried hiding the posts for thirty days, but it didn't help. More and more cooking/recipe posts from a variety of pages kept appearing.

I'm growling, "I can't see posts from my friends, but random cooking pages? That I get all the time."

Most of what appears in my feed isn't even from pages that I follow. Most of them have little suggestions about following these randos.

Which is a clue to what happened the other day. I had another post (ANOTHER!) from some page called Grandma's Recipes or something like that and I suddenly noticed there's no follow suggestion button. Curious, I click the dots and discover I'm already following this page.

What?

No, I am not. Unless I accidentally touched something while scrolling my phone.

I immediately unfollowed the page and will check any other cooking posts that pop up in my feed to see if I somehow am following that one, too.

But the question remains: Why did something cooking related turn up in my feed to begin with?

There's still a mystery to be solved.

ETA: I found another cooking page I was following! Once could have been an accident, but twice? I don't think so!