TGIM and Happy New Year! I hope your 2016 is off to a spectacular start. Before we get too far into the shiny new year, I wanted to share some lingering items from 2015 with you.
1. At the end of every year, I geek out over whichever new day planner I have selected to be my bae for the upcoming year. Day planners have been my thing since high school. When I was a teacher, I had two day planners: one for school and one for personal. But now I focus on just one fabulous day planner every year. Letts day planners have been my choice for the past several years. But I have just discovered Ban.do and am obsessing hardcore. I immediately fell head over heels for their gorgeous designs and cute illustrations. As you can probably tell, I am way too excited about my 2016 planner.
I love the annual ritual of organizing my new day planner with color-coded pens. Plus this Ban.do planner came with stickers! And fun graphics! And colored tabs! Beyond thrilled that I get to work with this beauty sitting on my desk every day.
2. How long did it take me to bake and decorate 115 Christmas cookies?
Five John Mayer albums and three Office eps. And these were only the ones for Christmas dinner. I baked small batches as well. What can I say? I love baking, and baking Christmas cookies is my fave baking of all. This year I made sugar cookies in nine shapes with three different glazes: almond, lemon, and coconut. Already looking forward to taking it up a notch in 2016!
3. What is it about this show?
Okay, let’s be real. The whole reason I started watching The Affair was because Joshua Jackson is in it. He is currently #2 on my Top Five Husbands List (Jake Gyllenhaal is #1, with John Krasinski, Paul Rudd, and Eminem also in the top five). I mean, hello, I would follow Pacey Witter anywhere, and that includes sailing off into the sunset on True Love even with my severe motion sickness. But then I discovered that the story is told from multiple points of view, and that we get to see the same scene from two different perspectives (one in the first half of the ep, then the other in the second). I have always been fascinated by multiple POVs. Six of my books are written that way and those were the kinds of books I most loved reading as a teen. So I was immediately hooked. When I heard that The Affair was having a panel at the Paley Center, I was on tickets like a rat on a Cheeto.
The cast has amazing chemistry on and off the screen. The Affair is the only show I know of that tells its story from multiple perspectives. Which is such an innovate technique for unfolding this complex story. It’s been so interesting to see how differences both small and large are exposed in Alison’s and Noah’s tellings of events, from the photo that was on the table to what she was wearing to whether Noah’s daughter took Metro-North and a cab to the cabin or a $200 Uber. When I first posted this pic on Twitter, a friendly neighbor commented how funny it was that the cheaters are all formal while the victims are business casual. I can’t wait to see what happens next…
4. Speaking of quality viewing, I was majorly stoked to see this ad for Recovery Road in my new Seventeen.
One of my biggest dreams is seeing my book (or books!) adapted for film or TV. I have an amazing film agent and we are working on that now…always dreaming big. So when my author friends achieve this tremendous accomplishment, I am always psyched out of my head with excitement for them.
Regular readers of this blog know that I have much love for every single book Blake Nelson has ever written. I have been Blake Nelson’s #1 fangirl since 1994 when I discovered Girl in the adult fiction section. I used to stalk that section at every bookstore, amped for a new Blake Nelson book. But I never found any. Years went by. Then I was talking to someone about how much I loved Girl and how I wish Blake Nelson would write more books and he was like, “Um, yeah. He has a bunch out. In the teen section.” When I tell you that discovering Blake Nelson had more books out was like Christmas morning, my birthday, and the vernal equinox all rolled into one, I am not even joking. I cannot. freaking. wait. for this show.
5. I will leave you with this sweet graphic from my Ban.do day planner.
This is your year. Make it one to remember.
Much love ❤
Susane Colasanti - Blog 
Been eyeballing those ban.do planners for a long time! They’re so beautiful but I’m in a very committed relationship with Erin Condren planners 😂
Wow, those look amazing! How have I not heard about Erin Condren planners before? I can see why you are in a longterm relationship with them. Wishing you continued happiness and relationship prosperity 😀
I totally get it about the planner! As the commenter before you, I was an Erin Condren girl for years. But I just switched to the Happy Planner for 2016. Very similar to Erin Condren but bigger and not coiled, so I can put more stuff in. 🙂 I also carry a bullet journal with me since the Happy Planner is big and not very travel friendly.
LOVE the Happy Planner! Again, cannot believe I’d never heard of them before. I really like how their website shows preview videos so you can check out the interiors. And like you said, being able to add more pages/notes/memorabilia is very cool. I am thankful that I now have three gorgeous new planner choices moving forward. Thank you!!!
You’re so welcome! I agree, I love seeing the interiors. The layout of the planner is so important in whether I’m going to use it or not.
If you ever decide on an Erin, I have a $10 off code you can use. 🙂 But there are SO MANY other planners out there too. It’s hard to decide! The planner community is vast. There are tons of us who decorate our planners with stickers and washi too! And the systems everyone uses for organizing. It fascinates me. As a stickers/stationery/notebook/pen geek, this is so up my alley. 🙂