Hello my lovelies!

Welcome to this week’s Weekend Coffee Share! Has it already been another week?

If we were having coffee today, we’d meet in town for a nice cuppa, possibly followed by the first mug of Glühwein (mulled wine) this year! It’s cold enough for it.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’ve had an extremely busy week. I spent a lot of time designing my own 2016 dated calendar as an insert for my Midori Traveler’s Notebook, and received quite a few comments from people who’d like to purchase one. It took some more tweaking and learning how to saddle-stitch, but as of Monday next week I will have my own little Etsy shop and it will be called:

To start with, I will sell the 2016 Week on 2 Pages (incl. Months on 2 Pages) insert in English and German, a simple 2016 Monthly planner in English and German, as well as a Recipes insert in English and German. I’m already working on adding more to this list, but as 2016 is not that far away anymore, my priority were the dated inserts. There will be undated ones in the future as well.

Month On 2 Pages layout. Either as a separate 12 months calendar, or as part of the 2016 Weekly Calendar.

Recipe layout

Week On 2 Pages layout for 2016, including space for notes, a monthly calendar and water intake.

What do you think? There will also be a makeover of the Fitness & Food Journal – a free version is currently available for download here, but I will also offer a printed and bound version in the near future.

If we were having coffee today, I’d tell you that my 2013 NaNoWriMo story The Bravery of the Soldier came 12th in the Inkitt Fandom Writing Competition! It’s the first time I entered any sort of writing competition, and to come 12th out of 1,710 participants is a huge deal for me!

And speaking of NaNoWriMo: I know I’ve gone quiet on this blog, but I have not been idle. I kept writing by hand as an excuse to get away from my computer and test out my fabulous new Lamy Al-Star copper orange fountain pen. And as of yesterday, I’m a NaNoWriMo winner!! This year was my 3rd participating and third win (excluding the Camp NaNo’s I did). On the one hand it’s kept me busy and distracted, on the other hand, November is never a good month for me, so NaNoWriMo is added stress. But I love to be creative, and the written word is still my favourite form to express myself in. And I love the NaNoWriMo community, though I keep wondering whether those over-achievers who knock out 1 million words during NaNo on a regular basis have any jobs or other responsibilities at all.

If we were having coffee today, we’d also just talk about DDP Yoga. It’s going quite well. I’ve been doing it on and off for 2 weeks now and I’m down 2 kg. I’m working my way up to the more challenging workouts, but I start each one with a 10 minute stretch. I can actually feel and hear my spine popping loose and getting more flexible. I also bought an elastic ball, and I supplement my yoga workouts with ab tucks, crunches, sit ups etc. But next to all the cardio workouts, I also try and do 10 minutes of breathing or meditation to calm myself down. It’s providing a good stress relief so far. Next week I’m going on a bit of a cleanse. My breakfast will be müsli, my lunch smoothies or juice and dinner veggies and salad. I’ve also stocked up on fresh ginger to make ginger tea with. Sticking to a meal plan with limited funds is the hardest part for me. I’d love to buy fresh, but can’t afford it. And when I do, I don’t seem to use it all as quickly as I should. My freezer is full of prepacked fruit for smoothies (I had spent an entire night last week cutting and bagging and prepping smoothie mixes) and I have no more space for anything else. So next week’s smoothies will be my attempt at clearing out the freezer and making space for fresh things.

Anyway, I think that’s enough to be getting on with for one Coffee Share. Make sure you stop by the other Weekend Coffee Sharers, I’m sure they’d love to see you too!

Oh, and look out for my announcements regarding Life In Notes!

Thank you for having coffee with me today! Same time, next week?