Holy Subscription Box!

 SO the other day I was scrolling through the old Facebook and came across one of those advertisements for subscription boxes. Typically I would just shrug it off thinking it would be cool but that day was different, call it impulse or whatever but I had to order it. So what was this box of wonderful that I had to order?
OwlCrate! Now this is a box full of goodies. Ok so first things first, this is a bookworms dream box. Each box comes with goodies that are related to not only the theme of the month but also books. The big surprise in each box is a newly published YA Novel that falls under the theme. The month of Aprils theme was Dystopia, and with it I got many themed book related fun, as well an awesome looking book.

In this months box I received:
-A coaster, that reads "I spent my life folded between the pages of books"
-A Hunger Games magnet by Property of the HalfBloodPrints
-Stacked Hunger Games Mocking Jay bracelet from The Geeky Cauldron
-WICKED decal from The Maze Runner series created by ShailyAnnDesigns
-A small pocket sized notebook which features artwork from George Orwell's 1984 by Manuscript
-Flawed by Cecelia Ahern

Wanna join the fun Subscribe for the May box with the theme Steampunk!

5 Steps to Get Back on Track

Monday I posted about this semester being much more chaotic than fall. So today I decided to talk about  how I'm using spring break to get back on track.

For starters is bringing back the planner. At this point of the semester I have only used my planner to write in due dates and big events when in the fall everything goes in the planner. My first step to getting back on track is to get my planner back on track.

My next step is to go over what my goals were in January and reevaluate them to accommodate how the semester has been going. Hopefully this will help me get back into what I need to do.

Step three, Clean! Oh my goodness are my work spaces a mess! I can't even get to my desk in my studio. I have three full days off this week and while I slept most of Monday, cleaning is my top priority.

Step four, Get caught up with school work. This is important I know I have a few things that’s due when I get back to school next week so completing those as well as some other things I know is coming up is a must.

After that is trying to stick to a set schedule, I know to make a habit of something you need to do it continuously for so many days so that’s what I need to do I need to make a habit of sitting down and following my schedule.

I hope this has helped anyone who is in the same boat as I am. I know sitting down a writing this has got me feeling much better about getting things back on track I hope it works

Spring Semester Horror

I've been seeing a lot lately that the spring semester is a lot worse than the fall semester. It's been a conversation that I've had with a couple different people and I must say it is true. For what ever reason as soon as you hit the spring semester everything goes haywire and nothing happens the way you planed it. I've though a lot on why this is and can only figure it's because the break in between semesters is so much sorter for the spring. That and it feels as though the spring semester is shorter than the fall. But what ever the reason is we still get super stressed out in the spring.

Personally I've been spiraling out of control. It's super upsetting to make a detailed goals list and hope that you can actually do it this semester, then classes become very overwhelming so you're weeks behind in your planning. It seems to be my trend, plan to do a bunch of things, start them, semester gets picked up, then drop all the planning for trying to keep my head above water. At least I can say I'm passing my classes, which in the grand scheme of things is the important part right.

It's now spring break at my school and I'm going to use this time to try to regroup with everything and maybe get back on track with all the things that I wanted to do this year. I'm also hoping this new work schedule helps me with this.

2016 Goal Setting

I've never been good at Goal setting I always ended up forgetting about the goal or just giving up because it got overwhelming. So recently I decided to try it differently this year. I sat down the other day and told myself this is it you want to do these things you need to figure out a way to do it. These are the tricks I'm using to get my goals in order and achieve them.

My first step was to grab a pen and some paper and write down the areas I wanted to work on. For myself I chose;

-School

-Book

-Etsy

-Blog

I then started with one, in this case School and started to write what I wanted out of this semester. I decided that is how I wanted to organize all four sections, So each section was separated, spring 2016 which is January to May then Summer 2016 (June and July), then Fall 2016 August to December. For right now I just focused on what I wanted out of spring.

The Four notebooks and the Colors.

Now I have a list of goals for each section of my life with a reasonable "due date." I didn't stop there however. I then took to One Note this could be done with just a plain note book but this way I can print off the pages I want. If you haven't used One Note before it is a Microsoft office product that helps you organize your notes and documents all in one place. Now I have never really used One Note before but I love the ease of use it has and thought it would be perfect to use for my goal planning. In one note I made a notebook for each thing on my list, color-coded them with my planner, then moved on to pages. Each notebook, except school, has two pages: one is goals and the second is a timeline.

My Goals page for two of my sections

In the Goals page I've typed up the goals I wrote on my piece of paper earlier. Then it gets fun, The timeline page is where I've made my goals reasonable and easily achievable. I split up my goals put the date I wanted it accomplished then split the main goals into tasks with due dates. This way I know I need to work on a task for my main goal on a specific day and I know I will be able to do the task.

My Book timeline for one goal

Then I moved to my Planner and put the task in there with a sticky tab on the day I want to do it. This way when I plan for the next week I know I have something to do for my goal and I can make the time to do the task.

There you have it my new trick to get Goals done, splitting your large goal into small quick tasks that you can work on once a week. I hope this will help you with any of your goals you may have I know I feel so much better about getting everything done this year!  

The Program

"Slone knows better than to cry in front of anyone." 

When the first chapter of a book hooks me I'm done, I just don't want to put it down. That's how this book was. The story takes place in world where teen suicide is an epidemic, and the only cure is called the program. Slone a young teen who has seen what the epidemic has done first hand is fearful of the program and what could happen if she has to go there.

The story left me thinking what if, and made my heart ache for Slone. Suzanne Young made me a fan with her writing and the unique plot. The characters made me laugh and cry, until i was deeply invested. I'm not usually one to read a book that has a major romance in it. some romance is fine and more likely than not a book will have it. This book however the romance was believable and broke your heart. I absolutely loved reading about the love story as well as what was happening with the epidemic.

About the author 

According to her bio on her website Suzanne Young is the New York Times bestselling author of The Program series. She lives in Arizona where she teaches English as well as writes her novels.

Find her at:
http://www.authorsuzanneyoung.com/
and on Twitter

Monthly Motivation

   Every month I choose a quote that will inspire me to keep me working on my goals for the month. For me I'll get to a point in the month where I feel down about myself because I'm not doing what I should be. So I look to this quote to get me back in gear. Starting this month I'm going to share the quote that inspires me for the month. I hope with it, it will also inspire you.

    This quote hits home for me. Recently I've been getting overwhelmed with everything. however every night I still sit and think about all the things I want to do and start to beat myself  up for not putting in the effort to get it done.
     I chose this quote for this month to help me get over feeling like I can't accomplish all of my monthly goals and projects.

Back to School: Desk Organization/ 2015 Semester Goals

  This was my first week of school so I've been very busy getting everything ready, that includes organizing my work spaces. A few days ago I took on the task of organizing my desk. It was quite the mess.

1) Once bookshelf now catchall of random things.

2) Cluttered work area

3)Mail piled up needing filed

4) Another catch all

    As you can see I let it get really out of hand. So lets look at how I fixed it!

 1) An actual bookshelf dusted and reset

2) A work area that can actually be used

3) Only important mail and books

4) Notebooks and desk calender

  Well isn't that much better. Having a clean workspace makes the start of a new semester much easier. 

Something I've never done, but wanted to do this year is write down my goals for the semester. So because the semester just started I thought I'd add my goals to this post. Hopefully having it here will make me work harder for it. 

My Fall semester 2015 Goals:

-Make the Deans list

-Keep organized

-Don't procrastinate 

-Work hard on my art

So there you have it my goals not a lot but hopefully achievable.