Coming off the year end holidays with friends and family visiting, all the eating, wrapping, talking, etc. I need a good roundup of the items that are saving me right now. I’m still off work this first week of January, as the boys are off school, so I’m doing a lot of reflecting and planning as we go into the new year.
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First off, I’m going to start off with my love for baking soda and vinegar as cleaning hacks, not necessarily at the same time although we all know that’s good for drains! I’ve been keeping a small container of baking soda under the kitchen sink to sprinkle in gunked on pots as well as weekly cleaning of the sink. No need to spend extra money on cleanser, when you already have a big bag of baking soda around!!! The next one is vinegar with dawn dish soap filled in a dish scrub wand for cleaning showers. All the showers in the new house have glass doors and this is a great cleaning hack to get the soap scum off the shower walls and doors. Again, products I always have around the house and having the dish cleaner handle in each shower/bathroom was a cheap investment!
My current non-fiction personal development reading choice is the Highly Sensitive Person. A co-worker told me about this book, and I’m so glad she did! We were talking about my daughter and youngest son’s sensitive tendencies and how I know I was a very sensitive child. I know I’ve learned ways to cope over the years, but I still can’t do more than one party in a week. This book is giving me some great insights into how to help our youngest as he’s struggling with depression and social anxiety. We’re working with a whole team of people these days to help him and provide tools to him to help him at school, as well as life out of school. This book is helping me understand what are the ways I learned about “the care and feeding of me” so I can help guide him learn to do the same.
Another one of my life savers these days is Notion. I use it to organize my whole life: my daily tracker, next actions, blog planning, recipes. I’m starting to have a grocery list template on it, but I’m concerned that my cell service is not that great when I’m out shopping. I do not have any relationship with Notion, just recommending them for digital organization tools.
I’ve also started a personal challenge to walk outside everyday. I totally missed that in the pandemic! I had just started a new job (at same company) and it was so hectic trying to learn so much for work remote and then helping the boys with remote schooling. I did not have time for the outdoor walks I kept hearing everyone was loving and was often jealous! I decided I need to have something to commit to exercise-wise and as we are in the winter months in Texas, I want to still get out of the house and enjoy the outdoors. It’s not too cold here, but also not too hot! Outdoor activities are very popular here in Austin, as we have such great weather. You’ll often see people throughout our town walking, running, biking, and recently I saw a scooter that had an elliptical machine like powering capability. I decided I need to join these people in our great outdoors!!! I’m also pairing these daily walks with listening to podcasts as I don’t get enough time for that as I now work from home and do not have a daily commute to fill. My current two favorites are Happier with Gretchen Rubin and the Blonde Files podcast.
Last but not least, I love Canva! I’m currently working on my 2024 Vision Board. Hope to finish it tomorrow so I can put it on my computer desktop as well as my phone background. I’m still a novice, but I want to learn and experiment more as it looks like it has some great tools and templates for social media, Pinterest, blogging, etc. In November I used it to setup calendars printed out for our fridge for the boys to be organized with school days. I’ll be doing that again this week to have the boys organized to go back to school next week.
What is saving you these days? Or if you don’t need saving, what tools and tricks are keeping you in that great condition? I love hearing tips and hacks from others!
