After working out some delivery issues with customer service, I loved this product. But as lives go, mine got busy and I started using my journaling time as workout time and have been unable to find a time where I am rested enough and still enough to benefit from these activities.
Each month more and more of the planner remains blank because I can’t keep up— and that stresses me out.
I think I can incorporate some of the items I really like— monthly mood and habit trackers— into my current journaling practice.
But I would love if Silk & Sonder developed an annual planner that would allow exploration of this topics without feeling like I’m starting the over every month.
And as my life gets busier, making sure my paper planner and my phone calendar match has been exceedingly difficult.
Every morning this week I have had some kind of appointment so I’m averaging six hours per sleep a night during a heat wave while anemic.
To say I am fatigued is an understatement.
Took my 2015 Volkswagen Jetta in for its 40,000 mile service even though it’s only got 38,500 miles on it. As this things usually go there was good news and bad news.
I don’t know how long this will be active but I think it is super cool.
My friend and publishing partner Gayle picked me up when I dropped the car off and we took her sister to the doctor. She wanted to borrow my hedge trimmer and me, not remembering she was bringing me home, was wandering around the car dealership with a small electric saw.
Gayle packed the three of us a dragon fruit snack and let me read her completed Silk & Sonder planner for June.
When I got home, my new AirPods we’re waiting on the doorstep.
The teenager took the ones the dog ate.
And I was too stupefied to operate my daughter’s new Keurig mini to make coffee.
And then we got big news for Midnight Society at the Bizzy Hizzy: Stitch Fix is rolling out a $1 per hour shift differential. Their goal is to get second shift to 200-250 people to balance first shift.
Here’s hoping it won’t change the culture and camaraderie.
My friend Barb worked her last shift tonight and one of our leads brought munchkins from Dunkin for Barb to eat or to share. Barb, being the ultimate altruistic soul and team player, gathered everyone on the shift and offered them a donut.
Then at our roster meetings, our supervisors announced VTO— yes VTO— voluntary time off. Anyone who wants a half day tomorrow can have it. Early weekend. We’ve hit all our goals and the work is done.
So now I’m sitting with my foster cats Khloe and Louise as Barb enjoys a glass of celebratory wine at her house.
This is (kinda) my first full month with a Silk & Sonder planner. I say “kinda” because it arrived a week into the month.
But I realized today, that even if some of my prompts are empty, and even if I stare at the same exercise day after day, that I am still performing the reflection actively and being present for/in myself.
The new July planner is, according to a tracking email I got this morning, out for delivery today. This is very exciting as I feel like now I can perhaps slowly ease into the upcoming them and actually use the planner as a planner.
I’ve experimented with various ways to log what’s important to me and honestly I still struggle with “what should be where.” I can’t determine what should be on my monthly habit tracker versus my weekly goal tracker.
I have quasi-decided that my monthly habit tracker reinforces habits I have established and the weekly goal tracker helps me tackle specific projects or establishing/renewing habits.
The other “problem” I have is using the weekly health planner— it’s been blank each planner I have received. I don’t meditate, never have and don’t intend to. I haven’t reliably reconnected with flossing. I haven’t lifted a dumbbell in months. Once upon a time I did yoga…
But that also brings up the idea of how many times can you list something as a goal and/or put it on the tracker and not do it at all.
My new Silk & Sonder planning arrived today (no wait, yesterday) after some mishaps with the postal service. To read more about that, Silk & Sonder’s marvelous customer service and my previous experience with the product, allow me to direct you here: Silk & Sonder posts.
I already did the boring stuff— the data transfer of dates already scheduled and associated what not like what Hello Fresh meals we still have coming. Now I will sit with the book for a while and interact with it while blogging my feelings. I received the May journal late in the month and used the time to experiment and test how I wanted to use the book so I feel ready to commit more fully.
So let’s open the book.
1. I find the space “if lost return to” a tad silly and makes me feel five. As in five years old.
2. Table of contents.
3. Editor’s letter. Let’s actually read it this month. Meha, the author of the letter, does a really great job articulating why June is a great month for this theme of “play.” She also has a great thought that addresses my fear of play. “Play can be nurtured in seemingly ordinary ways, but it’s up to us on how willing we are to open ourselves up to new characters, stories, and settings in the midst of our chaotic schedules.”
Play can be nurtured in seemingly ordinary ways, but it’s up to us on how willing we are to open ourselves.
Meha, Silk & Sonder creator
Calendar stuff…
4. May reflections: wins, hiccups, favorite moments, hard moments, changing habits… I feel like I can answer these now and my answers will help frame the month ahead.
And coupled with this… on the same two page spread is space for June intentions.
So let me fill this out and I’ll be pausing there for right now. Until next time…
Greetings my readers — apologies for the lackadaisical level of blogging but in addition to mandatory overtime at the Bizzy Hizzy my life has been a tad repetitive.
I ended a beautiful work week with hitting my QC quota not once but twice, learning that my favorite nurse is leaving to take a job in hospice, introducing my daughter to some of my Stitch Fix colleagues, finding out I have to get the Covid vaccine* and wear a special sticker in the warehouse if I want to work without a mask this summer, and binging on fried food and a Swedish fish milkshake at Sheetz.
Midnight with teenager #1 at Sheetz
The new Swedish Fish milkshake at Sheetz (my favorite junk food spot in the middle of the night — scrumptious jalapeño poppers and Wisconsin-style cheese curds) topped off my night although I was a little “drunk” on sugar when I got home and slept like garbage because of it. But the sweet flavor and the tiny gooey chunks were a lot of fun.
And to make life exciting, my replacement Silk & Sonder June journal arrived. The excellent customer service made right for the difficulties incurred by the postal service. My original June journal has been sitting in the regional post office 8 miles away for two weeks and at one point did arrive in my local post office two miles away only somehow to be rediscovered at the regional post office yesterday. The post office claims it will be delivered today.
If I end up with two I will give one to my friend Gayle who is often my partner in crime. She’s a graphic designer, a college professor and, in my opinion, a professional and talented doodler. So if we use this “self-care” journal together, it could lead to some interesting feedback.
Another random side note, teenager #1 is considering returning to therapy. She has struggled to find a good match as she is a teen but an unusually mature teen with more adult than teen problems. I have reached out to a friend of a friend (we all went to college together) about the prospect of her professionally seeing my daughter and I was suddenly struck by the notion that I am now old enough that my friends have such fully developed skills and careers that we are, well, the grown-ups in the room.
Anyway, back to Silk & Sonder, the June 2021 theme is “play.” I am numb with fear. My mother and estranged husband all insist I don’t know how to play. I had carved away this small block of time before dinner to explore more of my June Silk & Sonder planner…
I transferred the June-related notes from my May planner. The basic layout is the same but I see they do try to change up the mood tracker and some of the pages. I didn’t try last month’s recipe or complete all of the “creativity” exercises.
But I was surprised at how distressed I became when I no longer had it. I’m a little behind on all my hopes for today so as I start working with it more there will be another post. Or many.
* Now, please don’t lambast me for not wanting to get the Covid vaccine. I am very glad there are products available for those who need it or would feel safer with it. But the research on this virus is still happening, the current products on the market are not approved by the FDA and the mRNA vaccines are new technology (using the same techniques developed by crispr to genetically modify mosquitoes so they can’t carry disease and the same technology was used by a Chinese scientist to modify a female baby so she can’t catch HIV) that is not a vaccine at all.
I had an appointment to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as that is a more traditional (do they call it viral vector?) product. My appointment was on the same morning the FDA called for the pause, so it was canceled, not by my choice. I don’t understand the fuss about blood clots when plenty of women get blood clots all the time from hormonal birth control pills.
And if that wasn’t enough to make me think twice, the new guidance from the CDC suggests that natural immunity generated by the body after contracting and recovering from Covid, which I had in December 2020, should last for at least a year if not for life.
So I probably don’t need an experimental vaccine product, not yet.
And, I have anecdotal reports from a friend who works in Washington DC as a medical technologist who has attended events at the CDC regarding this virus, that the next round of vaccine products, boosters as it were, may allow those who have not been vaccinated to receive only one shot instead of two.
And, I think finally, I am concerned that since I had Covid, the vaccine may cause a reaction on the first dose and since I had Covid once, I’m not ready to volunteer to repeat any of that experience. In addition, vaccinated people often test positive on Covid tests when they don’t have Covid and this can cause unnecessary quarantine and prevent travel and delay necessarymedical procedures as one friend can attest.
Earlier this week it was 90 degrees and sunny. Yesterday was 60 and cloudy and prone to dramatic cloudbursts of dramatic rain.
Today, the high was around 45.
My knees ache and my ankles keep giving out. I collapsed on the floor at one point, scraped my knee and tore my fancy, super soft and cozy joggers I bought at Stitch Fix’s Bizzy Hizzy employee pop-up store.
So I’m currently in bed with my electric blanket and two three-legged cats.
Louise, one of our fosters
Tomorrow I will finish my May edition of the Silk & Sonder wellness/self-care planner. Even though June starts on Tuesday, apparently Silk & Sonder starts all of its planners on Monday, so Monday May 31 is part of the June planner.
The June planner shipped in mid May, with an anticipated delivery date of May 24. According to the tracking information, it arrived at our regional post office about 10 miles away in the early afternoon on May 18, but didn’t arrive at our local post office 2 miles away until 4 days later on May 22.
It has languished there for a week.
Now, in the great scheme of life, this planner is not vital. But it is rather pricey, and I find a weird emotional sensation in stressing over planning my mental wellness strategies because my calendar is lost in the mail.
Receiving a calendar that suggests you plan for the future with reflection and mindfulness AFTER the month starts defeats some of the purpose.
And if there are problems with the United States Postal Service, shouldn’t the merchant find a new method of delivery? The product is time sensitive.
Honestly, I find it difficult to evaluate if the planner has allowed me to plot a calmer and more mindful future/existence because I’m too busy freaking out that tomorrow is Sunday, that I have to not only work Monday but work day shift, and I can’t even fill out my to do lists, meal plans and other Silk & Sonder pages.
As you may know, I am a daily journaler. What I journal from volume to volume may change, as I have been doing this for 30 years, but I have filled hundreds of notebooks.
Thanks to social media targeted ads, I discovered the Silk & Sonder planner, a self-care tool. Every month they will mail new a new planner with a new theme.
My subscription was due to start in June, but as tomorrow is my birthday I thought it would be fun to request the May book. I ordered it Saturday night. It was scheduled to arrive Friday, May 7. My mandatory overtime at work began May 10, so this would be the perfect way to organize my mental health.
Except it arrived Monday, May 17.
Regardless of this, and what feels like a very hefty price tag for an aesthetically pleasing but, in my opinion, cheaply manufactured spiral bound book (it’s not cheap, but I struggle to find the right words— the paper is not thin, but it’s also not as heavy as I would expect for the price).
For instance, it’s flimsy. You can’t write on your lap. You have to have it on a hard surface. For $20 a month, the cover at least should be a cardboard consistency to ensure it will withstand travel and daily use.
The interior is lovely. Ninety percent contains elements I already do in my journal, financial book, and/or on my phone: sleep tracker, expense tracker, habit tracker, mood tracker, meal planner, to do list, etc.
There is a weather tracker, goal lists, coloring pages, thought/writing prompts, and poetry and inspirational quotes.
My journal should contain what I have done and my Silk & Sonder should foster my goals, I suppose.
I’m definitely going to experiment with May and then decide on a system for June, which the company has already shipped.
It’s been eight days since I last posted, in part because of the mandatory overtime at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy. I had some scheduling difficulties regarding the commitment and had scheduled 13 hours of OT this week and 5 next week to meet my minimum commitment of 16 hours. I was told last night that I had misunderstood the communication and we had to work 8 hours each week.
So now I will be working 10 hour days and 9 hour days for the upcoming week of my birthday.
My Silk & Sonder planner which was due to arrive May 7 is still not here with no update to the tracking information. I will probably receive the June volume before the May one. They warned this might happen, but I really really hoped to have it for my birthday. It seems like the right time.
I bought some new gel pens at the Grocery Outlet and it’s been fun experimenting with colors.
Working so much overtime reminds me of the simple pleasures in life—
When you’re working mandatory overtime, it’s okay to buy coffee out. Even better if you find good deals.
Teenager #1 ordered us food from Tic Toc Diner for after her shift and my shift. We had a picnic in the backyard.
I have missed having my nails done. Having them done (currently I have birthday unicorns) bring me joy.
There was a new season of Hoarders on Netflix. That show is mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. I once went into a hoarded house. I have huge admiration for the people who work with those who suffer from hoarding disorder. That one experience was enough for me.
Teenager #1 introduced my blind friend Nan to Spotify. Hearing Nancy’s enthusiasm and seeing my daughter’s altruism really cheered me.
I had an observation at work where I scored 101%.
Fresca is a fun soda.
I ordered a new pair of jeans. Button fly. Because I love button fly. I hope they fit. I bought myself some things at Rainbeau and Stitch Fix and am slowly transitioning to a casual versus professional wardrobe.
Teenager #2 gave me socks for Mothers’ Day. And even hand-selected every design on them!
Angel Ackerman 