Tag Archives: watercolor

Bullet Journal February Update Watercolor Prima Marketing Pastel Dreams Self Care

Bullet Journal: February Update

February is here and I am so excited! I have a lot of events lined up, including my Galentine’s dates, supporting my friends and our first trip to Florida for Diagon Alley and Disneyworld. It is our four year anniversary this month as well. Just looking at the “Important Dates” on my monthly spread gives me butterflies!

But if I learned anything from my burnout in December, it is that my ability to have a social life and a creative life in addition to working in customer service is very dependent on taking care of myself and carving out time to reset. So in order to make sure I can genuinely enjoy the month of February, I incorporated gratitude, water intake, journaling and meditation into my bullet journal.

I need my daily gratitude tracker (you can see what it looks like in my October spread). Some days I feel like I can go on and on about what I am thankful for. But on the days where I struggle to find anything at all is when I need the perspective change the most. It reminds me of how fortunate I am on good and bad days, which is important for self-awareness.

Since I am using WaterMinder to track how much water I drink, I can see the percentage of my water intake goal of 60 ounces. I record it into my bullet journal before I go to sleep or when I wake up in the morning, which holds me accountable and gets me motivated for the next day.

I am also passively tracking the last two habits: Journaling and using Headspace, a meditation app. Instead of having an indicator on each day for these habits, I am going to mark the days when I have done either. At the end of the month, I will see how well I did and if I really do need a daily tracker for it in March. This is my first time passively tracking a habit, so I am intrigued to know if it will be helpful or if I will forget to do it completely.

If you are incorporating anything new into your bullet journal this month or have any tried-and-true trackers, please share with me! I love hearing and trying out how other people organize and motivate themselves (I usually tweak it to match my lifestyle). Even if it’s not with a bullet journal, I would love to hear how you plan on organizing the month of February!

Paints: Prima Marketing 590253 Watercolor Confections: Pastel Dreams
Journal: Moleskine Watercolor Album Sketchbook – 5″x8″ (Spanish Edition)

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What Life Do I Want To Live - Jen Sincero You Are A Badass Cassey Ho Blogilates Watercolor

What Life Do I Want To Live?

After having a conversation about struggling to adult and going through the motions of life with one of my best friends (Erin Vicencio, L.Ac business owner and amazing friend), she grabbed a book from her bookshelf and told me to borrow it. That same week, my sister (auroragrie, life blogger and wonderful mom/sister) told me that she finished a book that completely inspired her to take on her lifelong passion and recommended I check it out.

That book is You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero!

I was going to wait until I finished the book to do a complete review, but there was something that was too helpful for me not to share with you.

The entire book is about living the life you want to live because you deserve it. Even though that sounds pretty straight forward, I have to admit that I’m not there. One of the biggest hurdles is this: So I’m not living the life I want to live… But what is the life that I want to live?

Jen Sincero wrote a great segment she titled “Don’t Reinvent the Wheel” where she poses some questions about other people’s lives that you admire. Since I love to take notes, instead of answering Jen’s questions in my head, I wrote it down in my journal.

I found the results so powerful, so I wanted to share one of my answers with you guys!

  1. Who lives a life that you admire?
    Cassey Ho, founder of Blogilates
  2. Why do you admire them?
    Cassey Ho is a successful female Asian-American entrepreneur who embodies positivity and working hard. She is literally a creator. She created her pilates videos, apps/website, fashion designs for her workout line and she even published a book!
  3. How did they get there?
    I actually had no clue, but a couple days ago I found out that Cassey runs a podcast with Lisa Bilyeu, co-founder of Quest Nutrition called The Sheroic Podcast. They talk about their endeavors – including both successes and failures. They also interview other successful female entrepreneurs! I seriously stumbled upon it at the best possible time.
  4. Simplify it — what is it that you actually want?
    To create more! To be a business owner one day!

The last question is how can you get there? Whether it’s educating yourself on a topic, honing your craft or interviewing people in your life, it is important to have a call to action.

When I did this exercise, I actually listed four people. When I got to Question #4, I was surprised that three of the four people on my list were successful business owners. To be honest, I never would have thought that would be the common denominator, but this simple exercise was insightful. It’s easy and doesn’t take a lot of effort, so I encourage you to try it out – you might be pleasantly surprised!

 

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Watercolor Paints - The Arrive Hotel - Palm Springs, CA - Processed through VSCO

Learning to Relax on Vacation

The idea of mindfulness is great. It makes complete sense to be in the moment and not worry about something that already happened or may or may not happen in the future. My logical brain knows this. But in terms of my own practice, mindfulness is way easier said than done.

My thoughts are tethered to rumination and worry. I am constantly bouncing between wondering if I should have acted differently in a scenario that has already happened or thinking of what I should do if a certain scenario happens tomorrow. So when we went on our vacation to Palm Springs to “relax”, I had a difficult time at first. I wanted to pick out what we were going to eat for dinner the next day, find out what time check-out was and I hoped work was going smoothly without me there. Dennis’ mission was to make sure I relaxed for three consecutive days. We had only been there for a day and my mind was running all over the place.

We decided to hang out in a cabana by the pool for a couple hours to wind down and hopefully get me into the vacation mindset. The weather was perfect for lounging around, but I still found myself feeling antsy. I looked around and loved that our hotel (The Arrive Hotel) had such a beautiful, asymmetric design. I loved that the modern architecture was in this valley, surrounded by desert mountains and plants. Then I remembered I brought my watercolor travel paint set and my bullet journal! I went up to the room to get my supplies and came back as quickly as I could. I decided to stare straight ahead at my favorite part of the hotel and started painting.

This was a game changer for me. It was probably cheating in terms of mindfulness because I was physically doing something instead of just taking in the scenery. But it allowed me to focus on what was around me. It gave me a reason to look at the clouds in the sky and how the shadows played on the buildings.

By the time I finished painting, I felt at ease and, at the same time, I captured a wonderful memory of our time in Palm Springs. I am definitely going to try this practice again when Dennis and I go to Mexico in a couple weeks. If it makes me feel as calm as it did for this trip, I think I’ve finally found my own way of “relaxing” on vacation.

Paints:Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colour Sketchers Pocket Box

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Bullet Journal: October Spread

The number one reason why I love bullet journaling is because you can adapt and change your layouts whenever you need to. It really feeds into my personal needs for efficiency, aesthetic and novelty. Each month I identify what really worked for me previously and what I can get rid of for the upcoming spread. I’ve been bullet journaling for a year and a half now and I still alter my layouts each month!

The only page I’ve honed to my liking is the first page of the month. I usually take some time to color or paint something fitting for the month. Then, I list out my bills, birthdays, important dates and monthly goals. I posted my first page for October on my twitter (@caro_marcella) when I finished it last week.

Game Plan For October

  • Daily gratitude and spark joy entries. These are coming back from my August spread. I didn’t do it in September and I feel like I missed out on that opportunity for emotional self-care for an entire month. I have a list for gratitude numbered 1-31. A “spark joy” entry is simply this: What did I do today to spark joy?
  • Condensing my handwriting. In September, I took up too many pages by spreading it out too wide and writing too unnecessarily big. I use a 0.38 pen, so there is really no reason for me to take up so much space!
  • A real monthly spread. My entire bujo journey I have only done weeklies. The problem is similar to above where I feel like I’m wasting space! I’m going to see if a monthly spread works for me.
  • Symbols/Shorthand. A heart for self-care, a box for twitter, “SPARK” for my spark joy entry. It’s like using emoticons, but drawn out!
  • Meal Plan For Work. When Dennis and I try to meal prep for every meal of every day, it is too overwhelming for me. But I spend money at my work for lunch every day, so I am going to try to prepare lunches ahead of time this month.

I am excited to see what works for October and what I’ll have to alter for November. But until then, lets have a great month!

Paints: Winsor & Newton Cotman Water Colour Sketchers Pocket Box
Journal: Moleskine Watercolor Album Sketchbook – 5″x8″ (Spanish Edition)

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