Printable Palooza and Farewell Blogger

Hi there everyone!  I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday.  We had a quiet holiday, just the four of us, which... considering this stupid cold we all seem to have to varying degrees, was probably a good thing.  The boys had fun though, and it was a great day.  Today is blog catch up day for me.  I didn't mean to be gone all week, but with the kids home it's been hard to find the time to sit on the computer.  My days have been filled with light-saber duels, snakes and ladders marathons, puzzle building, and lots of hugs and snuggles.  I really couldn't say no to that!

Don't worry though, while I may not have had time to sit down an whip out a few posts, I did finish up the last of the printables for the personal planner.  (Hence the title of this post)  There's a number of them coming up at you, so I'll stop babbling and start sharing.

 The first one I'm sharing is a request.  I received a few emails asking if I was going to do the daily planner in a half page, and here it is!

 Daily Plan Half Page

Next up, a little something to help keep track of special dates through out the year.

Special Dates

This one is followed by my yearly planner.  I don't, as a rule, make resolutions.  I do, however, make goals, and the new year is a great time for setting goals for the coming year.  This page is more for small, personal goals, like establishing a new routine, learning something new ... you get the idea.  

Yearly Plan

I've also included some space for things we want to do as a family.  These could be anything from a vacation destination to a simple outing.  And, because I have a hard time taking time out for myself, I decided that this year, I would think of 12 things I could do to sort of nurture my soul.  To recharge my batteries.  I figure I can handle once a month.  It probably should be more often, but for now this where I'm starting.  These will most likely be little things like, "take time to let nails full dry after painting"  or "spend a couple of hours at the library... alone!"  

What planner would be complete without a monthly calendar?  None that I can think of.  Because everyone uses planners in different ways, and because I know no everyone is looking for a planner per se, I thought I would whip up a blank calendar.

Blank Monthly Calendar

You could print this one off and throw it in a frame or a sheet protector and stick on your fridge, or wherever it is that you hang your calendars.  

And that concludes the planned printables for the personal planner.  I hope you find some of the useful in the coming year.  It also means it's just about time to wrap up this post.  I'm getting kind of misty eyed here, because this is my second to last post of the year, and it also happens to be my last post here on Blogger.  Yeap, that's right!  The switch to Wordpress is happening tomorrow!  Crazy, yep!  Scary, you betcha!  But I've been testing the new site, playing around with some of the features, and I'm happy to report all seems to be working well, and I think it's time to stop stalling and take that next leap.  To my friends on Google Friend Connect, I do so hope you'll come over and say hi at scatteredsquirrel.com, or follow along another way.  We've got the Facebook page, the Google + page, Twitter, email, and RSS, and none of those are changing.  

All of you wonderful readers have made this blog such a wonder to be a part of!  Thank you for coming back each day, week, month.... whenever you get here.  And if you're new here, thank you for stopping by!  I hope we'll see you around some more!  You all mean so much to me.  Please enjoy this final, unplanned printable (or should I say printables, cause technically there are 12?) of the year!

2013 Calendar!

I hope this coming year is full of wonderful moments, amazing opportunities, joy, love and many blessing for all of you!

Happy New Year!!!!  

Busy Days and Two Free Printables

Good morning everyone, happy last weekend before Christmas.  Are you all set for the big day?  We are going to be brave souls and venture out for one more shopping forray today .... hopefully I retain my sanity throughout.  I'm sorry yesterday's post didn't go up as planned.  I was at the school with Liam for his Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun, the kids spent the morning doing crafts, having some fabulous snacks and then the kids performed some Christmas carols.  We missed the carols, as Liam was nibbling on the goodies for snack time he told me he was feeling kind of tired, and asked to go home.  Poor guy!  He made the right call though, because we got home and he spent most of the afternoon laying down.  At least he was able to see his friends and his teacher and wish them a Merry Christmas, and he was able to take part in some of the holiday fun.   This cold is not a nice one, I'm hoping it goes away soon.

So, between craft morning and still sick Liam (and a still kind of sick me) I just didn't make it onto the computer yesterday, and I'm very sorry about that.  Busy days tend to make my head spin.  I find that on those days I need to pay extra attention to how I'm using my time.  Most often, those days find me reaching for a blank sheet of paper, where I proceed to fill it with lists, sectioned off by category, and a plan for the day.  Last week, as I was doing my usual scribble, it dawned on me that maybe having a daily planner page in my personal planner would be a good thing.  I know I won't use the daily one every day, but having it for those days I do need it would be a huge help.  And so, my daily planner page was born.

Daily To Do

This is sort of a window into my brain.  I use this one two different ways.  On days when I'm feeling particularly scattered; when I know I'm going to have to dig deep to find any kind of productivity, I use the category boxes to list the items that MUST be done that day.  Then I schedule them into the day planner on the left side.  I use the to do list for any items that I feel need to be done, but don't quite meet the MUST stage qualifications.

On days when I'm not feeling quite so scattered, I use the boxes to keep track of things that I want to do over and above the normal.  Perhaps it's something like "plan a family game night for later in the week" or maybe it's something I noticed around the house like "clean vent in half bath".  I guess you could say that on these days, I use the boxes as a sort of secondary planner.

Now, I know that not everyone wants so much on a daily planner page, so I thought I would make a simpler one for those of you who just want a simple day planner. 

Daily 

This one is kind of a two in one.  You would use it as it is, two days on one page, or you can use for a half sized planner for in a mini binder.  With the half page planner in mind, I took care to possition the two days so that you had two ways of putting it together.  You can print doubled sided and using a paper cutter, cut the pages down the middle.  (straight down the middle) Or, if printing double sided isn't an option, you can simply fold the page in half.  Hole punch and you're ready to go.

As always, to grab your copy click the captions.  And that pretty much concludes the planner part of the personal planner.  I have a few more printables to share next week.  Because of all the holidays this coming week, and the switch over to Wordpress (I'll announce the exact date on Monday) I'll be sharing the rest of the planner printables later in the week next week, and I'll share the post of how I put it all together first thing in the new year.  

Can you believe how fast the month is going by?  Are you all ready for Christmas?  Are you ready to say good bye to 2012?

Got a Busy Week? There's a Printable for That!

Hi everyone, how are you doing?  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  My parents popped down for a quick visit this weekend, and it was such a lovely way to spend the weekend!  I was able to get in some time to work on the printables for this week, and get the finishing touches put on the Reader Request for this month.  Liam ended up with a tummy bug of some sort on Sunday, and lucky me, I seemed to have caught it yesterday.  Thankfully, it only seems to last for a day or two.  Liam was really happy about that, because today is his first ever Christmas concert, and he really didn't want to miss it.  He's excited to be able to be on a stage with lights and everything.  It's also his special week at school , where he gets to bring in some of his favourite pictures, his favourite story and a favourite toy to share with the class.  He got to fill out a question sheet that will get hung up with the pictures.  He was a little sad that he had to miss yesterday, but he was super excited to be going today.

Ontop of Christmas concerts, we've got a field trip coming up at the end of the week, a library trip to make, more Christmas baking to do, I've got bloggy stuff that needs to be finished up, our Teen has clubs and stuff most of the week, and Travis is off for the next three days, which means errands need to get run and so on.  It's is shaping up to be a busy busy week, and next week it only seems to get more so.   Why is it the last few weeks before Christmas are always so busy?

Last week I shared with you the Weekly Overview printable I made.  It's still working great, but for these busy weeks, it really has become nothing but an overview.  There is so much going on that there just wasn't room to put it all on the planner page, at least not in detail.  I knew this was going to happen.  There are going to be weeks where there is lots happening and more room for planning is going to be needed.  For those weeks, the Overview on its own just won't cut it, but I think one of these might!

 Weekly Planner

Weekly Planner

I know that with the addition of these ones, there are now a whopping five weekly planner printables on this little blog.  The two I shared earlier this year just aren't working for me anymore.  While they still function and work great, I wanted something that would allow me to structure my days.  With more and more being added to our weekly routines, I felt it was really important to start scheduling our days.  With the half hour increments I can easily block out times for each activity and that will give me a visual reference for how much time in the day I have for the things I need to do.  

Currently, I'm using the second one in conjunction with the Weekly Overview.  I used the Overview to keep track of what was happening this week, my to do list and so on, and I used the Weekly Planner to schedule it all in.  The week is still young, but so far this combo is really working out well.

As always to snag a copy for yourself, click the captions under the pictures!  And of course, all printables found here are for personal use only, if you would like to use them for something other than personal use, drop me a line and we'll work something out.

Just one more thing before I hop off, we will soon be making the move to Wordpress.  I've been busy trying to get it all set up.  To my friends who follow along on Google Friend Connect, please choose one of the other ways of following along.  If there was a way to get Google Friend Connect to work on Wordpress I would totally do that, but everything I've read says that it is no longer supported on other platforms :-(  If you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line.  

So, what do you think of the planners?  Will the work for you?  Do you find that the weeks get more and more busy the closer it gets to Christmas?

Linking up at:

New Nostalgia

A Bowl Full of Lemons

Just in Time, and a Planner Printable

Hello everyone!  We're only five days into December and already it's been a busy and productive month in our little home.  The holiday decorations are up, the tree has been trimmed, and I'll share some pictures later on this week, or early next week.  And I've been busy as a bee working on printable for my 2013 Personal Planner.  When I planned on doing the three months of printables, I had some very good reasons for doing the Personal Planner in December.  1.  There are not as many printables for this one as there was for the holiday planner, and as there will be for the Home Management Binder (coming in January) 2. It's a busy month, and I'm still not sure how often I'll be able to post as the month goes on, and I'm not sure how much time I'll get to sit and create printables, and 3.  I wanted to get the printables for the planner done in time for the new year, and make sure I made them available to all you lovely people too.

Little did I know when I planned this, that I would be in desperate need of this first printable.  If you've taken a stroll through the archives here, or scrolled through the printables page, you may have noticed that I have three (yes THREE) weekly planner pages already.  (see here and here)  The Family one has been working great.  Love it!  I love it so much I wanted something similar for my planner, sort of like an overview of what my week was looking like.  Something I could use on its own or in combination with a daily planner or a more structured weekly planner.  Something that would let me keep track of where I needed to go, what I needed to do, who I need to see, call or email ... and this is what I came up with.

Weekly Overview

Not much to explain on this one is there?  It's just a simple combination of a planner and lists.  On the left I can schedule stuff in for each day, on the right there's a spot for errands (Places to Go), a place for calls, emails or visits to make (People to See) room for a to do list, (Things to Do) and then a spot for anything that I need to remember either for the current week or the next (Special Reminders).  And boy, let me tell you, this week, I REALLY need the extra reminders.  

As you can see, I've already started to fill it up.  Mostly with house stuff, but that's my focus for this week.  Spend a little more time on household tasks so that throughout the rest of the month I can relax a little.  Best part of all is down at the bottom there, my Mom and Dad are coming to visit this weekend!  I can't wait to see them!  

And now, I'm off to go get started tackling some of that to do list.  To grab a copy of the printable for yourself, click the caption under the printable's photo.  You can either print, or click file and download to save a copy to your computer.  As always, the printables shared here on Scattered Squirrel are for personal use only.  Don't forget that I'm taking requests for the monthly "Reader Request" feature.  If there's a printable you want but can't find, let me know and I'll see what I can do for you!

So what do you think of the first planner printable?  Do you think it will be useful?  Are you super busy in December too?

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December Printables and BIIIG News

Good morning everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Ours was spent getting ready for the holiday decorating. I've been playing Christmas music whenever I can, and just enjoying slowly easing into the holiday spirit.  December is always a weird month for me, I'm busy gearing up for the holidays, and busy winding down the year... kind of a contradiction.  As this year begins to draw to a close, I find myself wanting to be prepared for the upcoming new year, and so, to continue the three month of printables, I'm dedicating December to the Personal Planner.

I don't think I'll have quite as many printables to share as I did last month, a day planner only requires so much, but I'm sure there will be enough for at least one or two each week.  By the time the month is ending, we'll have everything we need to put together a planner for 2013.  I'm so excited to share this with all of you.

December is also the month where I typically wrap up my yearly to-do list.  We've pretty much crossed everything off it this year, which is such a joy.  There is one item left though.  One item I've been working on for over a month now.  If you follow along on Google+ or Facebook, you might have noticed that the cover photos changed, and if follow on those two or Pinterest or Twitter, you might have noticed the sudden addition of new profile pictures.  (I just have to say, having my own picture taken is painful, I am much more comfortable on the other side of the camera)  You may have been wondering why this little ole blog wasn't showing any changes.... well, that's going to be changing in the next week or two.  We're making the move to WordPress!  Yep, I bit the bullet, and we're going to be making the BIG move.

A few little things I want to address.  Both myself and my techy husband have scoured for alternatives, and can find none, so my dear friends who follow on Google Friend Connect will have to find another way to follow.  You can sign up for emails, add us to your RSS reader, follow on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.  I really don't want to lose you, many of you have been with us from the beginning.

This wasn't an easy decision to make.  I went back and forth on it, a LOT!  As many of you know, I've been looking into alternative options for downloading the printables, and I have to say most of what I could find would either cost me, cost you, or required one or both of us to sign up for an account.... yuck!  Travis was the one who came up with the solution, if we self host the blog, we can offer the printables for download straight from the blog.  No need to use Google Docs or other programs, straight from us to you!  Which is great.  It means that if there is a problem, one of us can look into it right away, not send out an email and sit waiting for a reply.    And really, that's the only reason for the switch.  Blogger has been a joy to work with/on, but for the direction we're moving in it seems like WordPress is the best fit.  So stay tuned for more updates as this week goes on.  And please, if you follow on GFC, pick another way to follow, knowing that GFC wasn't available for WordPress was very nearly a deal breaker.

And if printables, moving the blog, and getting ready for the holidays weren't enough, Liam also has a busy month at school.  Lots of holiday activities, his first Christmas concert, skating (his first time as well) and a few craft days, all requiring Mom or Dad or both to be there.  I love being able to be there for the special days, sharing them with him, watching him interact with his friends and his teacher, gaining insight into what his days are like when he's away from me, they're treasures each and every one of them.  Lots of fun and exciting things happening this month.

How about you?  Do you have a busy month ahead?  Are you finishing up any last minute projects that you wanted to do this year?

Holiday Decorating and Some Printables

Hi everyone, I hope you all have had a great week and weekend!  To my American friends, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  It was a busy week, here in my little world.  Between cold/flu season rearing it's ugly head, a Teddy Bear picnic requiring a homemade wagon for the parade, a Library field trip and so much more, my head has just been spinning.  Between all of this I've been tackling each room in the house, giving it a good once over before the holiday season really hits.  Next week is the big one here, on Saturday I can officially start decorating and playing Christmas music to my heart's content!

Because Travis was off this weekend, but not next, I decided to pull out the decorations so we could get started on decorating the outside, specifically the lights.  We won't be turning them on until the 1st, but we wanted them ready  to go.  So, I pulled out all the boxes and bins and then had to go through them all to find where I put what.  Oh dear!  While it was fun to go through everything, it was time consuming.  So time consuming that we never did get to hanging up the lights.  It just took too long to find the outside ones amid all the boxes.  I wasn't too impressed with how I put things away two years ago.  (last year we went out of town for Christmas, so we didn't decorate) After all that grief, I decided that I need to do a few things differently from now on.  Firstly, I need to organize our stuff better, as in, I think I need to group it into categories, like indoor and outdoor.  Maybe even take it a few steps further, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.  I also want something that I can look at as reference.... I want a Master List.  Since my packing list worked so well for our move, I decided to adapt it for the Holiday Planner, and I made an Indoor and Outdoor one.

 Indoor Decor List

Outdoor Decor List

They are pretty straight forward.  Each box is for a different storage container or box, and it keeps track of what is stored in it, where I'm storing the box/container itself (we have two spots where we store Christmas decorations) as well as a spot for priority.  That spot is more for when it comes time to store everything away until next year.  What I usually put up first will be the last things put away, so they are the first things that come out.

I know that master lists don't always work for everyone.  Many people prefer to just use a label on the box. Well I thought of that too!  

Decor Box Labels

These ones print two to a page, simple cut along the dotted line in the middle.  There's a spot for listing what's in the box, a little checklist area in case you want to mark off what category of items are in the box, and I left space for a picture of the content. 

I'm now really excited for Holidays to get here!  I've only got a couple of printables left to share with you later on this week, and then I'll show you how I put it all together.  As always, to grab your copy of the printables click the caption under the photo.  

I hope you all are having a great start to this final week of November.  Can you believe how fast this month went by?  Are you ready for the Holidays?  Anything left on your to do list?  Have you started decorating or shopping yet?

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Reader Request

Hi everyone!  I hope you all are enjoying your week.  I'm super excited about today's post.  Like over the moon, couldn't wait for the day to get here, counting down the minutes like it was Christmas morning, excited.  The reason I'm so excited is because this is the beginning of a new feature here on Scattered Squirrel.  It's combining two of my all time favourite things, all of you lovely readers and more printables.

Last month when I posted about Three Months of Printables, I put it out there that I was taking requests.  I really do want to hear about what sorts of things you wish you had printables for.  I know from personal experience that there is nothing more frustrating than spending hours, days, heck even weeks, trying to find just what you're looking for.  There are so many options out there in Blogland, in Etsy stores, or even just in the big world wide web in general.  Even with all of that, it can be hard to find just what you're looking for.  It can be frustrating trying to make something work when it's not quite right.  That's why I started to make my own, and I absolutely love designing printables, and I love sharing them with all of you even more.

That brings us to the new feature here on the blog, Reader Request!  Once a month, (or more often if I get lots of requests) I will create a printable that one of you incredible people have asked for, and I'll share it here, on the blog, for all of you to enjoy.  Now, you might wondering, "What's the catch?"  Well, there is none.  Send me an email, leave me a comment on the blog, Facebook, Google+ or Twitter (I'm still learning Twitter, but I'm pretty sure you need to put @ScatterSquirrel in your tweet for me to get it, if I'm mistaken, please let me know. I'm still pretty Twitter illiterate) about what kind of printable you're looking for, and I'll see what I can come up with for you.  The only requirement is that the printable will be shared here on the blog for everyone to enjoy.  And like all the other printables here, they'll be for personal use only.,  That's it!

My first request is a special one.  The reader who wrote in has been with me from the very beginning, so when she left a message asking if I had a room by room cleaning check list, I couldn't wait to jump into creative mode and put one together for her.  After chatting back and forth a bit I discovered that what she was looking for was a Room by Room daily/weekly check list that included 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, plus basement/family room.  And here is what I cooked up:

Room By Room Weekly Cleaning

I kept it pretty simple.  A check list for each room.  I toyed with a few ideas for how to organize the rooms, and finally opted to group them by floor.  Topping the printable is the main floor rooms.  I opted to put these ones on top because our main floors tend to get the most use, they're also the first areas most visitors see and spend time in.  It just made sense to put them up top.  And even if your home is all one level, those are the rooms that company tend to see and be in the most.  That's followed by the upstairs.  Why did I put this one next and not the basement?  Well, typically doing the bedrooms shouldn't take too long, and we all need a nice clean and tidy place to rest our head.  And lastly the basement.  This box/section also contains some blank spaces in case there were items I didn't include or maybe you have a few more rooms and would like to add them.  And just for fun, I added in a simple check list of typical cleaning tools and supplies.   Ok, that's not strictly true, it wasn't just for fun.  I added in the bottom check list so that when you're planning out what room/rooms you're going to be cleaning you can quickly check to make sure you have all the supplies you need.  I thought it might be helpful.

Thank you so much to the reader who wrote in. It was so much fun to work on this for you, and I hope it was what you were looking for.  I'm truly honoured to have worked on this for you.  

So there you have it, my first Reader Request feature and the printable it inspired!  As always, click the caption to snag your own copy.  This one, and all the holiday printables will be added to the Printables tab this weekend.  

So what do you think?  What printable would you request if you were requesting one?


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New Nostalgia

Holiday Planner and 2 Free Printables

Hello everyone!  Happy November!  I really cannot believe how quickly 2012 seems to be coming to a close.  Isn't that always the way it goes though?  Time moving faster than we anticipated, days rushing by in what seems like a blur?  When I was younger I never gave much thought the the rhythms of my year, but as I've gotten older I've started to pay a little more attention.  November, foNew Nostalgiar me, is a month to pause.  Here in Canada we've already had our Thanksgiving, the only things that happen in November for my family are Remembrance Day and my Mom's birthday, so it's a good month to sit back and just enjoy the calm that comes after the busyness of October and to just enjoy the simple things in life before the craziness of the holiday season sets in.

Along with enjoying the simple things in life, November is also the perfect month to work on a project I've been wanting to do for years: create a Holidays Planner.  I figure if I start with the biggest holiday season, the other ones will be a breeze.  I tried putting together a Christmas planner a few years ago.  I forget where I found it, but I downloaded all the files, printed them off, put it all together and then never really used it.  I think it was a little too much organizing for me.  However, I really want a go to spot for holiday planning.  I want to know I can pull the planner off the shelf year after year.  As with the HMB, I want our Holidays Planner to be more like a reference book, with a dash of planner thrown in to help us stay ahead of the craziness.  

At first I wasn't sure what to begin with.  There are so many things I want to keep track of, but the truth is, only a few of them need to happen soon: Gift buying and sending out Christmas cards (which I always intend to do, and never end up doing it.  This year I'm going too!!!).  Since I'm bound and determined to send out Christmas cards this year, I decided to start there.  I created two different printables that I'm calling Mailing Lists.  The first one is an address book and check list all in one, and the second one is a check list.  Personally, I'll be using the one with the address book built in, but I realize that many of you probably don't need that, so the second one was created with you in mind.

Mailing List #1

Mailing List #2

As always to get your copy, click on the captions.  (I tried to make the captions easier to see)  Like all printables here on Scattered Squirrel these are for personaNew Nostalgial use only.  I hope you enjoy them!!!

I really do hope you like these ones.  I can't wait to start getting them filled out and start getting myself ready for the Christmas season.  Now that I have something to help me stay on track with sending out cards, I'm thinking the next thing to tackle is gift buying.  I have a few ideas for this one, so be sure to check back on Monday to see what I've come up with.

Do you send out Christmas cards every year?  How do you keep track of who you've sent them too?  Have you, or would you ever, consider sending your own e-card?  Any requests for other printables you'd like to have for your Holiday Planner?

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New Nostalgia