Making it Monday...

I feel like I've gone on ad nauseam, (and here ) about my need for a to-do list, my need for simplicity, and yet still yearning for pretty.  All the pretty ones I look at had too much stuff that I wouldn't use and would only clutter up my brain.

I like a spiral to keep a pen or pencil tucked in the spiral.  My original true love is a steno pad, but the part I don't like is rewriting the staples of my week over again on every page. 

I was inspired by this weekly layout by Kate Louise.  Hmmm, I wonder if 'Kate' is short for Kathleen, because Louise is my middle name too.  :)  

 So I started playing around with my publisher program.  I didn't arrange mine by days of the week, as I tend to prioritize things on the fly, and I don't like assigning things to specific days.  I kept a place for my monthly goal and my 3 major weekly goals for the things that I have to remind myself to keep working on or toward.  I arranged the constant repeats in a way that made sense to me...daily tracking my swiffering (my only real New Year's resolution this year), loading and unloading the dishwasher, decluttering with 27 Fling Boogies (á la Flylady), keeping up with laundry loads, and even my 52 Letters in 52 Weeks.  Oh, and the colorful banners really satisfy the pretty factor for me.

I was able to fit all of this on a 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" space, which means I could fit two per sheet of printer paper.  I printed them out, and cut them apart.  Then I stacked them up and I rummaged through my craft room and found some chip board that came as part of shipments of something or other.  I cut two pieces of chipboard (a handy bit of recycling, this) the same size as my list sheets, and I took them to Office Max to have them spiral bound.

 The chipboard gives it a nice firm writing base.

And now I have the best of both worlds...my world and the world of pretty planners.  :)  I've already started this week's list.  It is exactly what I need, because it was made just for me, and it has all the recurring chores preprinted.  It has enough pages to last over a year.  And it's pretty!

And other than my printer ink and printer paper which I had on hand, it cost exactly $3.24 for Office Max to add the spiral binding.

I can live with that.  :)