More Swapping and a New Family Member

Can I just say how much I love the Philofaxy community - there are now three splinter groups set up on FB, one for bags (there seem to be many people in the group who love their bags too, so Steve has set up a group to go with his Bagsey blog), one for washi tape appreciation (which seems to cover all the prettiness that people put in their filos, not just washi tape), and the fabulous Swap Sell Source Stationery where people can look to do swaps, find out where to get various stationery/filofaxes from and potentially sell some of their stationery that they no longer need to friends within the group.

It was on this last group that I spied that the wonderful Stephanie was looking for a personal ochre Malden and had a green Kate Spade planner that she was willing to swap for one. Did I have a personal ochre Malden, yep, did I like the look of the green Kate Spade planner, big, big, big yes!!! I have seems the one that Imy bought with her to the Philofaxy meetup in London and it was gorgeous, but the main thing to consider was could I cope with the fact that it has gold rings... that did take a bit of thinking about as I have a bit of an aversion to gold generally. I have a maroon Panama which has never been used (and probably never will be), mainly because it has gold rings. Being the Filofax traitor that I am I decided to go with the swap and was so excited when it arrived - OK, so it was actually the day after it arrived as I was expecting a knock on the door from the postwoman and I only discovered by checking the tracker when Stephanie messaged it to me that it had actually been delivered the day before. I sprinted down the stairs and out of the house, down to the bottom of the path, to my postbox and saw a package sat there (it had been there all the previous day and night poor thing, but it forgave me).

Check it out...

Badly angled shot, it isn't stumpy at all...

 Lots of pics inside, as it has the cutest inserts...

Inside front

Notes & Doodles

To Do

More To Do

Birthdays

Restaurants

Addresses

Inside rear

So my Malden family was sad to see it's middle ochre buddy leave, but they have welcomed the new Kate Spade with love and open clasps.

But what made the pain of their beloved friend leave, was the arrival of their new aunty...

Not to worry guys, aunty Rose is here :-)

As lovely on the inside as on the outside

I haven't taken a stack of photos of the new Malden addition as she wanted to get to her family as quickly as possible and fuss over them like a mother hen.

Thank you so much to the lovely Christa for selling me this gorgeous Malden - I had missed out on one on eBay a couple of weeks previously, so was very pleased when this one came up for sale :o)

LJx

Ooh - something new?

Wow!!! Look what arrived from Jen... picture heavy post I'm afraid - like everyone hates that... :o)

In his box, but what colour is he?

My A5 Cuban - isn't he gorgeous? He's smooth, sophisticated and smells divine :o)

Chilli Cuban from the front - check out that fabulous
contrast stitching

Why he's chilli of course - the colour on this is the most deep, luxurious red. It is simply beautiful, and I have coveted one of these for some time now. I am so pleased to have finally been able to get my hands on one.

Inside - plenty of card slots, nice zipped pocket and a
notepad slot at the back  

Viewed from the back - the contrast stitching here is even
more effective 

A shoddy photo I'm afraid - but I love how
the contrast stitching runs the length of the
spine and goes around the Filofax f

Here's a quick comparison of Mr Chilli alongside the rest of my red brigade (although the colour differences aren't showing up so much in the photo...).

The only one deeper than Mr Chilli is the delightful ruby Deco.
Mini Topaz is much brighter.

Usually I am tempted when I get a new filo to move into it immediately and give it a trial run, but unfortunately he has arrived at just the wrong time as I am still totally awestruck by the ruggedness of Mr Kendal.

My only worry with the Cuban is that he will get killed in my workbag.

I am considering using him with nice respectable paper for journalling, but I think a bound book would suit me better for that (although I am more than happy to only write on one side of the paper...).

LJx

Can I Live in a Pocket...?

Blimey – it’s my 100^th post already, so what more fitting thing to blog about than one of my favourite things – my pocket Malden!!!

As I showed in this post I was recently the recipient of the wonderful pocket Ochre Malden.

Looking a bit chunky!!!

I was desperate to try out this little gem of a Filofax as it can hold my iPod so I can have it with me everywhere I go.

I set to work setting it up, working out everything I wanted it to do (everything except work basically).

I wasn’t too sure what diary layout I wanted, so threw together a basic WO2P using my quadrille FF paper.

I knew I wanted some pretty dividers, but wasn’t going to make them with proper tabs for the first ones, just cut some dotty scrapbooking paper to size and use some post-it tabs. How hard could it be? ...not very, if I could add up!!! I measured the size I needed using my pocket today marker (why don’t I already have the table of sizes printed out from Philofaxy? – note to self: must do that), and proceeded to cut the paper using my rotary cutter, which doesn’t have the measurements going high enough along the side that I needed them on – (really? I must check that out before I hit publish for this post…). Once I had cut them all out (schoolgirl error, cut one and check before continuing) I discovered they were too small – significantly too small.

At this point I was given the helpful advice “Measure twice, cut once” – yeah, thanks!!! The fact is, it wasn’t my measuring that was the problem, it was the adding to get it correct on the cutter that was the problem – OK, OK, I’m an accountant so I’m supposed to be good with figures – it was late…

So I got some of my Sentimental Circus notepaper and cut those to size instead, and here they are looking lovely in my filo.

Confession – these were actually the second attempt, the first attempt I got all the papers lined up so I could cut the bit I didn’t want off and do them all in one go, and then put them into the cutter the wrong way round and cut the wrong side off – it wasn’t one of my finest hours :o)

I’ve been using the Malden as my purse as well as my carry around filo at the moment, as I lent my Pennybridge to a work colleague to try out, so I’ve had it with me at all times, but still haven’t finished setting it up.

This is the grand plan for the layout:

1                    Capture pages

As you can  see, this has mainly been used for info from Web Finds posts

2                    Diary pages – WO2P with a section for my Flylady zone as cribbed from DEM

3                    101 in 1001 days – just a simple list for monitoring and to check when I have a spare few minutes to do some planning.    

4                    Flylady – 6 sections using my 1-6 Paperchase tabs (again cribbed from DEM)  

-          Routines

-          Weekly plan

-          Zones

-          Menu plan

-          Crisis cleaning

-          Quarterly/seasonal tasks

5                    Logs & info – sectioned using my Paperchase London buses tabs (love them) 

-          Exercise

-          Food

-          Work hours

-          Addresses

-          Birthdays/anniversaries

6                    Section for photos to carry around (none in it yet – I need to print some).

This evening I figured I would actually get round to finalising the setup (or at least get the Flylady stuff written in ready for use).

So what happened?

… Oh my God!!! How is it possible to write properly on paper this small???

That pretty much sums it up. I could do it on paper and then add it into my filo, but surely the point is that you should be able to write on the paper that you already have in there…

But… I worked out that I don’t need my work stuff with me all the time, so… how much of this do I really NEED with me?

Answers on a (very small) postcard please.

LJx

New Arrival!!!

Woohoo!!! I have now got the wonderful pocket Ochre Malden from Lady Tammlyn - thank you!!! It was waiting for me to get to the UK and I haven’t been able to blog about it until now. I am still deciding what set-up I want and whether to separate my work stuff from my personal stuff. I have loved having all my stuff in one place (and I know it’s the sensible option), but if I don’t need to carry it round with me all the time, then is it really the best option for me…?

However, I came across two problems when I thought about this new baby:

i)                    I don’t have any pocket inserts at home as I gave them all away, so need to get a value pack of the standard ruled paper

ii)                   The ‘reason’ for purchasing this little beauty was so that I could put my iPod in the secretarial pocket at the back – it wasn’t until I put it in there and it fell out that I recalled that Steve’s post showed it being used for an iPhone, not an iPod – doh!!!

Complete with message from Ashlene

Lovely front pockets :o)

Doh!!! It's not an iPhone - muppet!!!

As I had a Saturday to myself in the UK I decided to check out all stationery haunts in Weymouth (to be fair, there aren’t many of them – although I was impressed with the selection of notepads in TK Maxx). Unfortunately the only Filofax stockist in town (WHSmith) only had the small packs of paper, and I refuse to pay that amount for 25 sheets of paper that isn’t actually that great, so I figured I would order some online… with the rubbish internet connection I have had during my holidays so far that wasn’t going to happen in time for anything to be delivered to my delivery man.

So, here we are in Karlsruhe after the Grand Prix and I mention to Ben that my iPod doesn’t stay in the pocket of my Malden – his response “Buy a cover for it, it should fit then”  - how did he get so smart (or should that be – why am I such a muppet…?).

Today was shopping day, and as we were walking through the shopping centre I spied Thalia (which also has a store near us that stocks Filofaxes), so I thought I would pop in and check out there offerings. Ben spotted the Filo stand as soon as we got through the door (he is getting good) and there they had a good selection of filos (although rather scratched) and to my surprise they also had the value packs of pocket sized paper available in lined or quadrille at 5.50 Euro, not a bad price – so obviously I got both.

I am looking forward to brightening some of these up with stickers and washi tape once I have decided exactly what I want my filos to do for me.

We then went into Media Markt to check out the iPod covers and as I couldn’t find anything special I went for a reasonably stylish black one with some rubbery bits to help it stay in the pocket of the Malden.

iPod cover with rubbery bits - ooh!!!

My purchases...

Fits like a dream - I think it's settling in for a sleep...

This post wouldn't be complete without a Malden family photo :o)

LJx

30 Lists in 30 Days – List 6

Favourite Colour Combinations:

Orange & turquoise (since forever)

Purple & turquoise (ditto)

Turquoise, purple & Orange (ditto)

Red & black

Purple & black 

Purple & ochre (Pennybridge & Malden) 

Purple & pink

Blue & white (my favourite cardigan, jeans & a white T-shirt)

Black & grey

Pink & aqua (Chameleons) - no photo in my archive of these I'm afraid

What's your favourite colour combination (especially for filos...)?

LJx

Is My Planner Failing...? And A Special Delivery To Make My Day!!!

Note: sorry, this is kinda long as it turned into two/three posts in one...

Hmmm... let me think about this question...

Is my planner actually failing, or am I just too distracted, trying to cram too many things in one place, and not using my system properly...?

So let's try and work this out:

          Do I love my current binder? Holborn Zip - yes, of course I do

Who wouldn't love this sleek baby?

             Do I love the inserts I have? Yes, yes, yes!!!

          Am I using the inserts appropriately? Well... I look at them and they make me smile...lots... does
          that count?   Heck - thought not :o(

OK, so I see the problem is me, not my inserts, so what am I doing wrong? Time for honesty - I am not being disciplined with regard to checking my personal items which need doing.

The last few weeks have been filled up with monthend (monthend tasks never go in my Filofax as we have a shared master checklist for this), writing up my 'Yellow Belt' project (a most hideous experience) and working on another project. The other main person working on this project was in our Zürich office with me all last week and we had a brief run through of where we were and what we needed to achieve, and so my poor filo didn't get much action.

However, I had a HUGE list of personal to do's to get through, and even though my Holborn was open on my desk all week, I barely looked at him apart from to think how lovely he and his inserts looked, and that the list was huge and I really needed to get some of those tasks done TONIGHT... every night... It is now Sunday night, and although some of the tasks are done, there are still a lot not done (way too much to get through in one weekend). It didn't help that I left the beloved on my desk at work overnight on a few occasions, forgetting the fact that I have everything else in there that I need to do when I get home, so nothing gets done.

OK - it's quite a list that I need to get through...

Previously I had a set up with work to do sheets in one section, and personal ones in another - for me this required too much flipping backwards and forwards between sections, and invariably I wouldn't look at the personal ones at all.

Putting them all together seemed to work for a while, but recently things have been pretty hectic again, and the personal stuff always ends up taking a back seat to work stuff... I know, I know, that's not how it should be, but that's just how I roll.

So I got to thinking, what could make me start using me Filofax successfully again? Could I:

          a)    Just do it!!! Stop being so bloody lazy and get on with it...

          b)    Go back to my old set up of sensible, professional looking inserts, to stoop me being
                 distracted every time I open my filo (yes, I am frequently likened to Dory from Finding
                 Nemo).

Very clean and practical... and I do love them and writing on fresh clean sheets of paper

          c)    Re-consider my whole set up...

I have considered these options and have discovered some things about myself along the way:

          a)    until I have a major consequence of my failing to do a personal task I will probably continue
                 to leave these until they are late. I try really hard not to, but that's probably the truth. I am an
                 atrocious procrastinator. I probably spend more time planning to do things, and weighing up
                 whether I should do things or not, than I actually spend doing things.

          b)    this would probably help as with 'normal' paper I was more disciplined with the use of my
                 filo... but I like my funky paper... The nice paper that I have is pretty distracting, and as there
                 is less structure and the paper is so 'busy' it does make it more of a challenge to identify what
                 has been done and what still needs doing, and it does make it easier to get overwhelmed by
                 the sheer volume of tasks.

A bit on the busy side...

          c)    I have already mentioned in previous posts that I am considering giving up the 'one life, one  
                 filo' philosophy, not because it doesn't work for me, but because I don't feel that I need to
                 carry my work planning everywhere any more. I don't need to take it home every night. I
                 think that all I really need to have with me is my appointments info so I can easily check if I
                 am free on a particular day (though it is pretty rare for me to need to check anything like that
                 when I'm not at work).

Things I have discovered about myself:
                -     I procrastinate too much (I'm sure my DF has told me this before)
                -     I am easily distracted by random things (If I am 'in the zone' at work, nothing can distract
                      me, but if I'm having one of those days where I'm struggling to get into it properly, I get
                      distracted by everything).

So... what to do...?

Do I split my life between two filos, saving my pretty stuff for my personal filo... or do I stick with the one life one filo A5 for a bit longer with more appropriate inserts?


Well, monthend starts again soon, and then I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks, so I have to sort out a travel filo for the trip so don't really have time to set up two more filos from scratch.

Let's see what a streamlined A5 will look like...

Well, I started writing this last night and got into work this morning to receive my special delivery so I have to include that in this post before carrying on any further as it's just too exciting.

I have been waiting for these to come for the last week as I knew they had arrived with my friend but I couldn't actually get to them, no suspense in this one as I have already blogged about them as I was too excited to keep it to myself so without further ado, please welcome my two new babies:

Boxed and beautiful

Red personal Finchley

 The photo isn't doing the colour justice, it's actually a bit of a deeper red than this shows and is such a beautiful shade - nicer than I was expecting. I realised after I took the photo that I have taken a photo of the back of this for some reason - not sure what I was thinking, but it still looks lovely...maybe I got distracted by shiny things :o) 

A5 purple Malden

 Again, the camera doesn't do the colour justice. It's quite a strange colour in a way though, as it can vary so much depending on the light that it is in...

There's nothing wrong with these rings!!!

This is probably closer to the colour that I see in most lights...

Once I'd photographed these new darlings it was time to get back to the serious business of getting my filo set up sorted.

As you can see - it was getting a bit stuffed. It is a bit annoying when you can't add any more sheets to the front because the rings are too full and if you open them without going to the middle of the inserts then the front ones all fall off the rings...

Beautiful...

But kinda full...

Clearly something needs to come out of there... have I made the right decision...?

Out!!!

 It was out with the huge number of sticky notes (I have used one since I put them in there), and the stickers (zero), the WO2P diary pages (ouch...), the timetables, the personal info pages and the International Info (none of which have been used at all yet) and out with my plans for my routines, they are not finished and were started months ago.

This means I am left with most of my set up left much as it was before, with the main change being that the WO2P has been moved out and the MO2P is now my main diary insert, with a few sheets of various random, non-matching sheets of paper in between... will stick with photos now as I have waffled for way too long...

No before pic for this one, but it's feeling quite skinny now

No more sticky notes - but I had to add a few sheets of Supercat to liven it up a bit

MO2P - will see how this works when I have to add appointments, but I don't usually have many, so it should be OK

Yes, I know it's still busy - but I'm going to give it a fair trial :o)

 OK, so that's done for now. Let's see how this works out - wish me luck!!!

LJx

Could I Be The Luckiest Girl In the World...?

It is totally official - not only do I love Philofaxy, but I love Philofaxy Adspot. On Monday I will be taking delivery of my A5 Purple Malden and my Personal Crimson Finchley, but today I have decided that I need to have a look at pocket filos...

And guess what I found? Only that the wonderful Lady Tammlyn is selling her Pocket Ochre Malden!!! And guess who is the lucky person who is going to be receiving that little beauty??? Woohoo!!!

How good is that going to look next to it's bigger brothers?

LJx

Too Excited!!!

Super quick post, because I am a tad excited...

I was reading Free for all Friday on Philofaxy today and saw the mention of seventeen filofaxes being added to the Adspot page. After giving three away the other week I do have space for a couple more in my collection, but hadn't intended on getting any for a while yet...

Oops!!! I somehow managed to click on the Adspot page (I really have NO IDEA how that happened...), but oh my word - an A5 Purple Malden at less then half price and a Personal Red Finchley at way less than half price. No inserts in either, but that is a good thing, I have loads here and it would just give me more diary inserts to throw out.

So I did what any self-respecting Filofax lover would do, I weighed up the pros and cons of the purchases and considered my budget emailed immediately about both of them and sat waiting in anticipation - feeling very excited and nervous... clearly the A5 Purple Malden would already have been snapped up, but the red Finchley was a possibility. And I could consider some of the other filos on the list (which I had resisted incredibly well - it would have been very easy to mail about four of the others as well) while I waited to hear.

But I received a reply in seconds, saying that both were available within minutes the whole email ping pong re Pay Pal etc was complete and payment made - love modern technology!!!

So very soon I will be the very proud owner of two more beautiful filofaxes - I guess I need to start digging through my others again pretty sharpish to see which ones I can pass on to new homes as I need to make sure that I don't get into a situation where I end up with more filos than years, and there are a couple more on Adspot that I am quite tempted by...

LJx

30mm Rings, a Couple of Moves and a Nice Surprise!!!

Wow, wow, wow!!!

That is all I can say. I was hoping my order from Filofax UK would arrive in time for my birthday, but as I ordered on Tuesday and my birthday was on Thursday, I knew that it would be a pretty close call.

But the FedEx lady arrived in the office on Thursday with a parcel for me - there was nothing else it could be, and I have to admit I squealed :o) But... I was supposed to wait until I got home to open my present, even though I wasn't going to be home until 9:30 as I had to work late for monthend close - what could I do? Obviously I could be a proper girl, call my DF and tell him my parcel had arrived and sound sorry for myself that I wouldn't be able to move from my violet Domino until the morning.

Ah yes, the violet Domino, what was I doing in there? Well, the red one, although utterly fabulous and a bit scratched (which isn't a bad thing) had a small problem. The top rings had a little gap so the paper kept catching a bit, which isn't the end of the world but I knew that come monthend I would find it really annoying, so I thought that as I was managing to use the A5 successfully this time, I would slip into the aqua Chameleon for a brief interlude so that she could see that it really had been my problem, not hers when I tried to go back to the A5 before. However, I now see why everyone loves 30mm rings - I am totally in love with them. I tried to put everything in the Chameleons 25mm rings and had to do half in one side then the other half on the other side to get the rings to close with any sense and just wasn't happy with it, so out came the violet Domino - it is a truly beautiful colour :o)

The red Domino - Dominoes are very faithful, if you have Dominoes as backups you can never go wrong

30mm rings!!! They are just the rings to beat all rings!!!

purple Domino - empty as less than 24 hours of use leaves no time for photos of it in use  :o)

Anyway, back to the delivery, clearly DF is not heartless and therefore I could open it and here's what I got...

So beautiful together :o)

I immediately transferred everything into the absolutely stunning, stunning, stunning Ochre Malden with it's wonderful 30mm rings. The colour is sublime, it looks old, loved and just stunning. Oh yes, have I mentioned that it is STUNNING!!!? I can now not believe that I was having such a dilemma over whether to order it or not...

Ochre Malden in all its glory

Lying flat like the dream that it is - so soft & flexible

Did I mention the 30mm rings? - awesome!!!

Along with the (stunning, I can say it again) Malden I received the compact purple Pennybridge, so I just HAD to immediately move everything from my purse into it. It is pretty huge for a purse (I have never had a proper big purse in my life) and this thing seems like a brick. Although I have to admit it was so easy to get my travel card out to show the bus driver when I was on my way home, and now I need to decide what set-up to have in there. I think it will just be a purse with a pen/pencil and a few sheets for reminders on the go as I don't intend carrying my A5 everywhere with me (eg shopping - now that would be like carrying a brick).

I seem to have a bit of a thing for purple - love, love, love the colour of this

Purse and filo all in one - excellent

Plenty of card slots and pockets

Space for coinage

WO1P with notes for now, lined paper and To Do lists behind

Final pic of the day - are you ready for the surprise?

A metal divider!!!

Bless my DF. He knows how much I love my filos and all the bits and pieces that go with that so he made me a trial divider to check if the holes are all lined up perfectly. I can change the colour just by changing the paper that it sits in front of, so I an have a different colour every day if I want to. I am soooo looking forward to having the full set...


Watch this space for the eagerly awaited City Organiser delivery (hopefully it won't arrive too soon as I would like to enjoy the Malden for a few days at least)...

LJx