I haven’t been able to get into electronic calendars, since my love for the paper planner is still evident. I write everything in my paper planner. EVERYTHING. To-do lists, meetings, blog post ideas, appointments, etc. And the prettier the planner is, the better. I LOVE colors.

Lately, I have been hearing about Erin Condren life planners from other blogger friends, and I was super excited to order one, but the price tag scared me. $50? Ouch…that’s a little steep. Then, about a month ago, the planners went on sale for $30 since it was almost May. To add more temptation, I saw on Plum District (referral link) that you could buy a $50 Erin Condren gift card for $25. I figured at that price point, I should give this planner a chance.

Y’all…I’m in LOVE with this planner. I didn’t think it was really possible to love a planner, but it has everything I need/want in a planner AND it’s bright/full of colors.

I ordered a planner where you can customize it to include things you enjoy (which repeats along the cover of the planner), as well as your name.

Isn’t that just adorable? I just love how personal the cover is!

Just to note, I’m showing (mostly) blank pages of the weekly/monthly planner, since some of the things in my planner are personal information. I swear, this week’s page is pretty darn full.

A tip I learned from another blogger. Write your upcoming posts on post-its. That way, if you want to change your schedule around, you aren’t scratching out things all over your planner. Just pull off and re-stick!

For the planner, I like how the day is broken up into morning/day/night parts (which is kind of hard to see in the picture…sorry). You have plenty of room to write down appointments and things you plan to get done that day! I also like the weekly goals and to-do list.

Here’s what the month looks like:

It’s pretty standard. Apparently next year’s planners are going to have the month spanning over two pages! Another feature you can see in this photo is that every month has a tab.

Ok, and these are just fun little features (which I’m an absolute sucker for) that they have for this particular planner. Stickers!

There’s another five pages of stickers, with four of those pages being completely blank stickers.

And last but not least of the cool features, there’s a small zipper pouch in the planner. When I got my planner, there were already some labels and personalized cards in there (as a bonus). I carry blank deposit slips (not the ones with my account information on there, but the freebies from the bank counter) in there, as well as stamps. You just never know…

You can kind of see in front of the zipper pouch that there’s also a small folder for papers.

Now, I know that $50 is crazy for a planner, but if you want to save money, you can often find Erin Condren gift cards on Plum District and One Kings Lane (both are referral links), which makes the planner a good bit cheaper! You just have to keep your eyes peeled…there’s a way to get deals on this site! Also, the planners for 2012-2013 aren’t for sale yet, but they will be next month.

Disclaimer: I got ZERO compensation or freebies for writing this post. Just wanted to share something awesome with y’all!

• It’s snowball season, y’all. A snowball is basically super finely shaved ice coated with flavored syrups. My favorite flavors are nectar (tastes like cream soda) and wedding cake. A new place opened near our house, and oh man, I’ve been visiting that stand way too much! It’s just so dang tasty. If you’re ever in New Orleans during the Spring/Summer, I highly encourage you to try one of these babies.

• Before Easter, I crossed off a major craft to-do. Two years ago, I bought a bunch of Spring colored felt to make into a gorgeous ruffle wreath. They were pretty popular around the bloggy world back then, and I finally found time to make one. It’s on our mantel now, and I absolutely love it! It was a bit time consuming to cut out all of those felt circles, though. I actually think this will go on the craft room door once Spring is over. I just can’t put it away!

• These border collie magnets just kill me. They basically describe Millie perfectly. I’d buy them, but I can’t justify spending $20 on four magnets.

• This mixer makes me want to open a bakery or feed a crowd with nothing but cookies and cakes. While I really only need a mixer that big for the holidays (hello bake-palooza), I think if I magically came across $550, I’d run to Williams-Sonoma and snatch it up.

• I’m pretty sure I’m about to give up caffeine again. I really hate that my body is SO dependent on it, so I’m going to go off of it cold turkey. I love you, Advil.

• I’m really sad that strawberry season is over out here. See ya next year, strawberries!

• I STILL haven’t gotten my 5% lost pedicure. There’s just not enough time in a weekend, y’all. As far as weight loss is concerned, things have stalled a bit for me. What? I’m human…it happens. I’m still 19 lbs. down, so it’s not like I completely messed things up. I’m going to get back on track next week, and this time, my diet is going to be a good bit more strict. I’m pretty stoked about it, actually. I love seeing results!

• H and I are about to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. Huh? Didn’t we just get married last month? I can’t believe it’s been 3 years already!

• I got accepted into a campaign for Essie nail polish on Klout. I feel like I sort of sneaked in on that perk…I’m SO not a beauty blogger. I actually have a make-up post in the works, but I feel like make-up/fashion is a subject I just can’t write well about…I just stink at it. In fact, I always criticize the way I do my make-up, and wish I had half the talent some of those YouTube gurus have.

• Also, thank you Kate Spade. Your sample sale didn’t tempt me this time around.

Now, the soil blend for a square foot garden is really lightweight. I noticed a while back that I really can’t climb in the garden to pick weeds (we’ve only had two weeds this whole month, by the way) or my whole foot will pretty much sink in the dirt. :-\ Well, Millie just realized that lizards are loving the veggie garden, and when there are lizards, Millie goes nuts. 4 perfect dents in my garden (from her paws), because of a dang lizard. Ugh…dog. At least she hasn’t killed anything.

Now, it’s taken a month, but I’m super happy to see ‘mater babies. Grow ‘maters grow!

I’m also seeing quite a few peppers growing. This is the largest bell pepper I have so far, and it’s eventually supposed to turn yellow.

So far, I’m loving the square foot garden idea. Barely any weeds, no bugs and it’s SO much easier to water. I can’t wait to see what comes out of this garden this Summer!

It all started with my dining table. I thought it needed a cute vase to have as a good centerpiece, and well, I remembered this yarn wrapped wine bottle that I saw on Pinterest. I’ve had an empty wine bottle sitting for a while in our kitchen, and I used some leftover yarn from making these scarves. It took me about 30 minutes to wrap/glue the yarn, and I just stuck a fake hydrangea in it. It couldn’t have been easier (I swear), and it was FREE! I love using craft leftovers!

Then, my husband’s coworker became a grandfather, so of course, I had to sew a quick taggie for him to give to his granddaughter. These are always a quick, but very cute project for me to make. Although I always shake my fists at the minky fabric a few times, (because it just stretches like crazy on me) in the end, it’s worth it to gift something as cute as this!

And most recently, I took on the challenge of making my first purse. I’ve always been intimidated by lining, interfacing, darts, pleats, etc., and now that I made the purse, I really have no idea why! All of these things were no big deal, but then again, I used a very thorough pattern made by Beki of Artsy Crafty Babe. By the way, if you love craft blogs and you aren’t following Beki’s blog, definitely give it a read. She uses the most amazing fabric combinations in her sewing, and I kind of want to have her craft studio.

Back to the bag–Currently, this pattern isn’t in her Etsy shop yet (I was SUPER lucky to be chosen as a pattern tester for this bag!), but keep your eyes peeled; I’m sure it will be on there fairly soon! If you’re a beginner at bags (like me), you should definitely check out her patterns. They’re nothing like the patterns that you buy at a craft store (don’t you just HATE how poorly those patterns are written??!) They’re actually written to where you can completely understand how to make the bag step-by-step. She has a few free ones on her blog, too. Y’all know how I feel about free stuff!

And, here’s how the bag looks on the inside. Don’t you just love these colors?

I decided to make this bag with my favorite print…I should totally buy a bolt of this, because the color combination and print is just so awesome! I combined it with this print for the lining and this print for the accents.

I didn’t waste any time at all to switch purses, by the way. I didn’t even want to iron out the wrinkles…I just wanted to carry this bag around! It’s such a fun bag!

I don’t see the craft bug bites going away anytime soon either. I have so much inspiration in my head right now, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a good chunk of free time to work on things in the next few months, too. So excited!

I start to question myself..

• maybe if I liked regular milk instead of chocolate milk as a kid…
• maybe if I didn’t have that Burger King habit when I worked at the grocery store…
• maybe if I didn’t sneak an ice cream snack every day after school…
• maybe if I ate better in the all you can eat cafeteria when I was in college…
• maybe if I didn’t randomly grab fast food at 3am because I had the munchies…
• maybe if I chose a career that wasn’t a desk job…
• maybe if I kept going after the wedding with my weight loss instead of gaining 58 lbs…

In January 2012, I was staring at a weight that was dangerously close to 300 lbs. 300 lbs. Football players are supposed to be 300 lbs….not a gal like me.

So, I started doing something about it. Could I have done better the past 4 months? Of course. If I pushed myself, I could have probably lost double. But I was proud of the 20 lbs. that are gone. I’ll never see those pounds again.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, an email from someone who reads this blog basically said that 20 lbs. was nothing in the grand scheme of things, and this made me question those 20 lbs. I know…don’t let one random person get you down, but darnit, this one hit me hard. The email made me think about those other 100 lbs. that are left along my weight loss journey. I was staring at my before/now pictures and thinking negatively about the belly I still have, the double chin, the back fat….ugh. All I could see was the fat in my current pictures.

(Left–before, right–4/16/2012)

After a few great, encouraging comments from y’all, I thought about it again….My XL shirts are looser. I can pull my jeans down (when they’re still buttoned), and if I forget to wear a belt (which BTW is on its last notch), it’s a battle all day to keep them up.

(Yeah, never forgetting my belt again…)

So, while 20 lbs. is a small fraction of my total weight loss goal, it’s still something. Something I’m very proud of. I still have 100 lbs. to go, but thinking about it, I only have 5 more rounds of 20 lbs. to lose. I can do this 5 more times.