inkWELL Press Planner Unboxing

Hi All - Today I bring you *my* highly anticipated planner post. When I say highly anticipated, I mean I was very excited to write this.

When looking for a planner for this year I did tons of research, and I mean tons. I am very particular when it comes to my planner layout because there are some things I really don't like. Some examples are - My daily blocks must be horizontal versus vertical because a) I have really big handwriting and b) vertical days tend to be laid out hourly and I don't like that for myself. I also need to have a notes section and if there's a way, a dedicated section for fitness. 

After weeks of searching on Pinterest, Googling, and watching YouTube videos, I chose the inkWELL Press liveWELL Planner in Flex. There are five different cover options to choose from that can be customized during certain times of the year (which I believe are prior to a new school year and at the end of a calendar year). I missed this time block so mine is not customized.

I ordered my planner on a Thursday night when they just happened to be having a flash sale for Chinese New Year. After seeing the original price and the discount price, I knew I needed to buy it right then. (You can get your own 20% off coupon code at the bottom of my post!) I received it the next Thursday, which was five business days since I ordered. As seen above, you can see it comes nicely packaged to protect from any potential shipping damage. 

There are a number of things I really like about this planner. To make this easier, I'm just going to give you a bulleted list of all the wonderfulness. 

• Let's start off by saying that the cover and the paper are great quality. The cover is like a hard cardboard which is good for anyone who takes their planner around with them, it'll be less likely to get ruined. The paper is thick enough that your pens won't bleed through but not too thick that it makes the entire planner unnecessarily thick.
• The page opposite of the year calendar view is a goals page with sections for personal, financial, social, health and fitness, and more.
• A Save the Date page which is good for you to have a whole overview in one glance versus flipping through every month.
• Each month has a monthly view, weekly views, a rambling page, notes page, and a goals page.
• Each weekly view has a notes section which I *love* because it's where I normally write my grocery list. I only grocery shop for myself and occasionally for my mom so I don't need too much space, so I can understand that it may not be big enough of a space for an entire family list. 
• Each day has a small section for meals, at home, and fitness. This is where I write down my workout for that day, what I plan to have for dinner, and if I need to do something around the house that night - vacuuming, laundry, etc. The only thing I find a little strange about this is you really only have enough space to write one meal making it less useful for someone who is into documenting all of their meals. 
• The back of the planner has some additional pages which are kind of cool. There's a section for travel where you can write trip information (airline, hotel, weather, etc.), a gift list section, a couple pages to write about movies and books (?!), a nice note section, and a 2016 calendar.
• There's also two open folders and a tie pocket.

I also want to point out how great their customer service is. I had a question and they were very quick with their response and very helpful. Customer service is huge for me and when it's good, I'm more way more likely to return!

There are a couple things that I didn't like which are really not even that big of a deal but I do still want to point them out for you to know. Some of the "extra" pages are really unnecessary for me. For instance, the page dedicated to movies and books, I'm not sure that this is something I would keep in my planner. I know it's silly to complain about but it is what it is. The main thing that I don't like is that the entire note section is gridded. I think it would be better to maybe do a half and half where they give a good amount of lined pages.

Also, I ordered stickers from Etsy and a website that inkWELL recommended. 

Of course, as it should be known by now.. It takes me forever to make decisions. I was hunting on Etsy for a good few days. There were TONS of cute ones but mainly I wanted to order my entire lot from a single Etsy shop a) that way it would be the same style, quality, and somewhat of the same theme, b) cut down on shipping costs and c) to give back a good amount to one shop at a time. The ones I decided on are from the shop It's Planning Time and eeek, they are so cute! I got small credit cards to remind me of pay day (even though no one really needs a reminder that they're about to get paid), stethoscopes for doctors appointments, grocery carts for when I wrote my grocery list in my notes section each week, and kettle bells for me to use in the month view to remind myself which days I actually went to the gym and didn't just plan to go. The stickers are a really nice quality and are a good thickness too. I'm already ordering my next batch of kettlebell stickers.
The next ones I got are some dots and flags from The Reset Girl via recommendation from inkWELL themselves.  I really like the color but I will admit, they are tiny stickers. They were not as big as I thought they would be but she does have bigger ones. I may skim through her page again and order the larger ones, but we'll see. Let me get through the ones I have now. She also sent some cute goodies with her order. Are you wondering what? Well you'll just have to order to find out! ;)

I have now realized that this has become a really long post so I'm going to cut myself off. Also because I want to do a "Plan with Me" post to show you how I actually use my planner and the stickers I got with them. If you decide to order yourself a planner before my next planner post, check out inkWELL's page and click here for a 20% coupon code. Do you have a planner and/or stickers that you totally love? Or do you have any tips on how you stay organized? If so, I'd love to hear them! Until next time, 

My Roll-Ups and My Weekend

This weekend was a super fun one that I'm going to tell you all about and even include some recipes. Whaatttt?! Yep. Full of deliciousness. 

Friday night I hung out with one of my friends at her place while we cooked and watched a throwback, Maid in Manhattan. She found this delicious Lasagna Roll-Up recipe that we worked off of that was seriously mouth watering. It can be made vegetarian or with meat, depending on your preferences.

Ingredients:

12-15 uncooked lasagna noodles (depending on size of your noodles - I had thinner ones - and how much mixture you would like to put)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

2 1/2 cups (one 10 oz package) shredded part-skim (or made with 2%) mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 package (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 jar spaghetti sauce (I still recommend the Bertolli Olive Oil, Basil & Garlic)

Directions:

I posted this on Snapchat and wanted to share it here too. 

1. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions, drain and lay out on wax paper to avoid sticking.
2. While cooking, in a large bowl combine all other ingredients and mix fairly well. You can also preheat the oven to 375* at this time.
3. Once the noodles are done cooking and are laid out, spread cheese mixture over each noodle and carefully roll up. I used about 1/3 of a cup per noodle.

4. Pour enough spaghetti sauce to cover the bottom of an ungreased baking pan. Place roll-ups seam side down over sauce. Top with remaining sauce and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until heated all the way through and the noodles are baked to your liking. 

*Some great ways to add meat to this is to have some meatballs on the side or to use a sauce that includes meat.


We also made an Autumn Chopped Salad that was found from the blog Espresso and Cream.

Ingredients: 

2 chopped romaine lettuce heads

2 medium pears

1 cup cranberries

1 cup chopped pecans

8 slices of thick-cut bacon cooked crisp and crumbled

4 to 6 oz. crumbled feta cheese

Poppy Seed salad dressing

Balsamic Vinaigrette 

Instructions:

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except the salad dressings. For the dressings, add in based on your preference. We did about a 65% PS to 35% BV ratio and were pretty generous with it.

Tips:

• This salad is also super delicious with green apples instead of the pears.
• I tried it with turkey bacon and it wasn't the same, what-so-ever
• Also very good with raw spinach

Saturday I went to a Breast Cancer bingo fundraiser held by my friend's mom. It was a packed house and a ton of fun. She is taking part in the Avon 39 Washington, DC in May and held this event as a way to raise money. Attendees donated $30 (or more) to participate in bingo. All the bingo round prizes were Vera Bradley (woohoo!) and they also had door prizes, raffles, food, and more, with all proceeds going towards her goal.

I went in and was basically throwing my money everywhere. Food? Sure, I'll eat a million extra calories today. Extra bingo boards? Here you go. Raffles? Why not, the money is all going to a great cause! - I was just expecting to have some fun and head home but I ended up winning the 50/50 raffle and a really amazing smelling set of Yankee Candles!

Also, all attendees who signed up at least two weeks in advance received a nice bracelet. I've recently really gotten into those online yard sale pages on Facebook so I'm thinking what I'd like to do is put the bracelet up for sale and whatever money I make for it, I will double it (up to $100) and donate it. Maybe the next person could do the same thing and start a really awesome donation chain? I've given up Facebook for Lent so I'm going to give this a shot as soon as I get back on.

In the mean time, if you would like to donate, please consider donating to my friend's mom's page. You can find her page here: http://info.avonfoundation.org/goto/jenschwab 

Sunday was just spent winding down and relaxing. I also spent the day trying to finish this delicious dessert bar thing that I bought at the fundraiser on Saturday. It was basically a HUGE Golden Graham bar - the graham cracker cereal, chocolate, marshmallows, delicious gooeyness.

I hope you had as great of a weekend as I did, and I hope you consider donating to Jen's page. Talk to you all soon!