It’s back to school season and I love to stock up on items for myself. Yes your heard right …for myself!! I know my kids have lots of fun picking out things for themselves but there is no harm in throwing a few extra comp books into the cart for myself too!! During this time of year most of these supplies are at such a great price that it’s the time to jump on it. In this post I will be sharing my finds at Walmart.

In recent years the pen + gear company has proven to be a very good brand! Their paper quality is top notch for the price that they offer it at. Now in years past the exceed brand offered very high quality bullet journals but at my Walmart there weren’t any this year.

I do have to mention that the half composition notebooks were all sold out at all three of the Walmarts that I have access to but you can order them online. I just chose to go to my local Staples and purchase a few and have them cut them down for me. The size is fantastic and less intimidating!

I’ve included some of my favorite highlighters not only for the color palette but because they are retractable. It’s such a handy feature when it comes to highlighters! The S gel Sharpie pens are a new favorite of mine. I love the permanent dark line that they leave. I’ve also added the Crayola supertips. During this time of year they are offered at a great price and in my personal opinion they should be in everyones personal arsenal of art supplies. They always come in handy.

Have fun shopping and let me know what you pick up!! Click on any of the images below for the direct links!!

It’s almost July and that means that #onebookjuly2021 is nearly here! This is I believe in it’s 9th year!! I can not believe that it has been this long!! It’s really when I first met Rho and Carie. I can not believe I have been doing Youtube for this long and that I have known these amazing women for this long! If you are curious about what the challenge is all about I will link you to the actual channel that has ALL of the playlists listed there! https://www.youtube.com/onebookjuly

Each year we focus on something new to keep the challenge exciting and it’s fun to brainstorm new ideas and take aways. I love when the community all comes together to put this forward! This year our focus is on habits and routines! Now when I first heard about this I of course had to do a deep dive into this! Meaning I had to better understand why do we even have habits and routines? What’s the point? Does it do us any good to have them tracked or to even do these things every day? I wanted to not only focus on the tracking but the why. If I don’ t know the ins and outs of something I have a very hard time following through or even having my heart in it. I need to know the why! That’s exactly what I will be bringing to the challenge this year!!

Something that I do however want to include and how I brainstormed things that I like to track or things that I do everyday is by mind mapping them. This you will see often as the challenge goes on. I find that this is an excellent way of visually showing the importance of many things in our lives but most importantly to organize my days and my thoughts. So as a teaser here is what I did!

In the above mind map I simply wrote in the center what I track. If you are not tracking simply write ‘what I think I should track’ or ‘I want to track’. For myself I have alot of pets and kids. Meaning I have a fair amount of dependents. My kids are still small so if I don’t keep track of appointments, and school they really can’t do it on their own. I also have some things that I want to track for myself. I have some hobbies as well as some places in my life that I want to improve on. I want to keep on top of my fitness and meals. You can see how quickly a mind map can develop. Now the best part about this is it’s just a start and it’s something that you can add and take away from! I love that!! Just like planning it NEEDS to work for YOU! This is something that needs to show up as a benefit in your life and not as a burden!

In the next mind map I am more focused on the routines. For this I started with what MUST happen every day. I have to feed my pets and my kids. They are all part of a daily routine. If I want my personal habits to improve or I want to allow for some fun activities that once again improve the quality of my life then I need to have them incorporated into my life!!

This upcoming month of July 2021 we will be doing a deep dive into trackers, habits and routines and figure out exactly what it is that we want!!

I hope you will join us!

Thank you for your support!!

xoxo

Vicky