Notebooks

Are you a note taker? 
I am a BIG TIME note taker.  I take notes in church, from the radio, while watching TV, or whenever I need to write something down so that I don't forget it later.  We have so much information coming at us all the time, and it's really hard some days to keep up!  AMEN?  So ya know what I do?  I keep little notebooks in my purse, book bags, car console and on my nightstand.  Small enough to keep my purse from overflowing and big enough to take down a substantial amount of information when needed.

Notebooks are great to have on hand when someone needs to give you directions, a phone number or a date for your calendar.  When you're on the go, sometimes it's much easier to have pen and paper ready.  IPhones and Blackberry's are good for jotting down quick information too, but we don't always have time to pull up the app, and type. The good old fashion pen and pad has proven to be the best solution for me. Below is a photo of the notebooks I like best.  The brands I use are called Hot Chocolate and/or
Studio C.  Both can be purchased at your local Target or CVS stores.  I simply love their whimsical and colorful presentation. And two other fabulous features are their stretch straps that keep the pages protected and closed as well as an inside pocket for extra notes or business cards. 

Cute! Useful! Economical! And they pack a purposeful punch. 

What are you waiting for? Go shopping and get your thoughts and note taking covered!

You don't want to miss another incredible piece of information do you?

This little tool could be the beginning of the rest of your organized life (and thoughts!).

 

Don't forget to buy one in every color!!



5,000 Digital Photo's?

 

I bet you have a million pictures just sitting on your computer at home?  Am I right? If you are like me, and you love taking pictures, you've probably accumulated enough to fill 1000's of albums.  I'll bet if you layed those albums side by side, fillled up with all your memories, they could  probably reach from here to Texas!  That's A LOT of pictures.

If you're like me, you probably have some of those photo's in folders on your computer, some labeled with titles, some with dates and some with a series of numbers that give you no clue as to what is what. Day after day you say to yourself.." THIS WEEK, I'm gonna organize all my photo's on my computer!"  And then another year goes by and you've accumulated another 1000 photo's.  Sound familiar?

Wherever you may be in the process of gaining some control of all your precious memories (or not), let's look at some things we can do today to make the process easy and once and for all, give those pictures a real home.

• First of all, choose a software program that can help you organize your photo's.  There are a number of programs to choose from, but for starters, here are a few that I think are good.  Picasa is a good free option, and iPhoto is great too.  These programs help you do some basic editting and organizing.
• Next, decide how you would like to organize your photo's.  You can group them into chronological order (by date), or alphabetically (by category), giving each folder a title (ex: Kids/Kentucky Vacation 2011/Scenary, etc.).  Or both.
• Label your photo's with a description.   Give each photo a name and date.  For instance the lable for this photo below would look like this....20110401-Miles.  That way, when the computer sorts your photo's alphabetically, they will also come up in chronological order.

• The most important tip for organizing your photo's on your computer is USE YOUR DELETE BUTTON! You may think that every picture you took has value, and perhaps they do.  But it's so much easier to manage a reasonable amount of EXCELLENT pictures, as opposed to 1000's of just O.K. shots.  Use your delete button and wipe out all those out of focus shots, duplicates and bad shots.  This will help you cut down on your snap happy clutter and you will value the ones that you keep so much more! 
• Back up your pictures!  You should have an external hardrive for your computer to backup ALL photo's (and documents).  You can save pictures to a disk, external hardrive or an online site (ex; Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc.). I actually prefer both.  My pictures are stored on my computer hardrive, backed up to my external unit, and over time, I've saved many to an online website.  Online websites also make it easy to share mulitiple photo's with your friends and family and to create fun albums and gifts for people you love.

Getting organized is a matter of time, and your memories are worth it!  Set a goal to have all your digital pictures purged, sorted, dated and named by a certain time period.  Then break down the project by weeks.  In no time, you will have created an online photo storage that is ready for the albums you want to create or the family reunions you will attend. 

Keep taking pictures!  But don't forget to take some time to manage your memories too.

My Favorite Things

Today has been a reminiscent day of all things I love and things that have proven useful and beautiful to me.  I thought I'd share some of them with y'all.  And you are welcome to hum "My Favorite Things" by Julie Andrews as you peruse MY favorite things : )

Daisies....the happiest flower.

Cool Car Containers for things you need everyday.

The best store on planet earth.

Beautiful totes in EVERY color. I cannot have enough tote bags!

It's a fetish...I admit it.

Old window pane used as home decor. Super idea from

my pal Annie.

Cool signs that encourage and inspire!

My new jewelry tree inspired by Kara M.

Doubles as home decor and obviously very useful.

Sweet refreshment. Need I say more?

My faithful assistant.

Miles the Wonder Dog!

Jesus...the One and Only.

Happy Easter (a little early)!

Every pathway that leads to the beach!

These are a few of my favorite things!