Why Can’t I Remember Everything Anymore?

(A) the fact that I am a mom now

(B) if I’m just an adulting woman in her 30s with more crap to remember

(C) the fact that I’m getting older (I have officially crested and am “on my way to 40”)

(D) all of the above

All I know is that I have noticed a steady decline in the ability of my brain to remember some details in the past few years.  It started one day when I was aimlessly wandering around the grocery store parking lot trying to remember where I parked my car and I could not for the life of me remember.  I used to be really good at remembering where my car was parked but that memory seemed to take a back burner to all the other things my brain was processing at the time because it just didn’t seem as important.  My memory is not the steel trap it was (“rusty and illegal in 37 states”) in my late teens and early twenties when I needed to remember so many lesser details compared to now.

So like a good productive member of society I am always looking for ways to keep myself on task and on target with my goals.  Most of these goals are pretty mundane and just involve me running the household, taking care of the fam, trying to do things that enrich my life and making sure my obligations are met.  I’ve also always had a fascination for office supplies (I blame Babci, she was also a teacher until her retirement and loved shopping in office supply stores) and while I love my digital calendar I still love the look, feel, and satisfaction of writing things down (and crossing them off) in a paper planner.  Ever since I was a high school student I’ve had an unnatural love for a planner and sometimes dreamed of the “I’m so busy I need an entire 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper to keep track of my day” planner but alas I am not that busy/important (which I am grateful for) so I’ve gone down the road of a few versions.  With the joy of social media (thank you YouTube) I have also found that there is an entire world dedicated to showing off what you do with your paper planners and making them super complicated.  And like a good lapsed papercrafter I got sucked in!

Over the past few years between graduate school and new kid I have not been nearly as crafty as I have wanted to; I did enjoy the creative outlet of scrapbooking, card making, knitting, etc… in my life before life happened.  I am a competent DIY-er but currently the hassle of it seems like way more work than I care to deal with so along came the planner craze (and this blog).  The planner craze became an easy way to still be creative but in a very short time frame and with a defined purpose:  I’m able to decorate, sticker, washi tape it up and still make to do lists, calendar appointments, and try to keep myself on target for the week.  I am currently utilizing The Happy Planner by Me and My Big Ideas (or “MAMBI” for short if you’re in the know….) – once again not a paid advertisement just a mom doing her thing over here.

It’s not much (and believe me, if you go down the planner rabbit hole you will see some crazy involved beautiful spreads online) but it allows me to stretch my creative muscle with a purpose.  It also takes such little time and attention I can do it while watching TV.  This helps keep this mom organized and on top of things because it gives me a reason to look at my to do list every day because it’s so pretty!  Some weeks are better than others, and if you’ve noticed I’m not very OCD about it so stickers are not always lined up perfectly but I get to spend a little time on it and then I have something attractive and functional to keep this mom, almost 40 brain from acting like a sieve so I can appear like I’ve got my $hit together!