Here is another item you are going to want to get for yourself and probably another for a friend and another for your daughter or your mom/ cousin/ neighbor/ teacher, etc. Really. Pop on over to Amazon, B&N, or your favorite bookstore of choice and take care of your purchase. I'll wait. .... Okay.

I'd heard about the Totally Together Journal before I ever saw one because I followed Stephanie O'Dea's A Year of Slowcooking.  Then I signed up for the Totally Together emails that followed the next year in which I got a daily email that reminded me to do seasonal things, PROM the kids toys or pile of mail, or to remember to take care of myself. The Totally Together Journal is geared more toward women with families but I don't think women without kids would feel excluded. Heck, we all still have to take out the trash, plan our meals, and do seasonal cleaning around the house no matter what our family situation is.

One of the things I truly appreciate about Stephanie's writing, both on her blogs and in the Totally Together Journal, is that she does a phenomenal job of pulling together a lot of information in one place in order to help us with our daily lives. It might be cooking. It might be cleaning. It might be just remembering to enjoy life. No matter what it is, she writes with clarity and sense of balance. It's not about doing things right - in the way that a woman in white gloves, pillbox hat, and a disapproving scowl is going to come into your house and 'tsk, tsk' when she finds that that you aren't following it precisely. And might I say, Thank Goodness! We all live our own lives and our homes reflect our individuality and our needs. Totally Together Journal respects that, too, and understands that you are going to use it as it fits in with your own life.

I can tell you that I've worked this journal hard in the last few weeks. Not only have we been preparing for the holidays, but I've just gone back to work. This is the first time since both of my kids were born that I've worked outside of the house. Thankfully I have lots of extra hands to help out but it's still been an adjustment. It's still going to take us time to get our feet fully underneath us and thankfully, I have the Totally Together Journal at hand to help keep me on track. And for that I am very, very grateful.

I was provided with a Totally Together Journal for this review. The review and the ideas for the review are my own.  You cannot have this journal, it's mine.

I don't know how you guys do this but I'm still having trouble merging real life with our school life. I think I had more time to get things done before Comfort and Joy were in school. Or maybe I'm just trying to get so much more packed into so little time that my frustration is bubbling over.

Perhaps, the key is to manage my expectations and not presume that I can keep the house picked up, do the grocery shopping, find a well paying job, write the great American novel, and solve world peace when I only have 2 uninterupted hours a day in which to work. But, I say to myself - I have 5 days a week x 2 hours - shouldn't that account for something?

A ten hour a week job is barely even part-time, I remind myself. I'm trying to jam a LOT of stuf into a very small timeframe. Probably I should be glad that it's working at all but mostly I'm still trying to keep my head above water.

The only saving grace is that because the girls are dead dog tired they don't fight going to bed at 7:30pm and then I have the evenings to get back to work without guilt. Of course, I'm missing television and stuff like that but that's what Netflix and retirement are for. Right now I need to keep pushing on and see what I can create, produce, and make for dinner and hopefully at some point I can acknowledge that some of it will have been a Cool Idea!

Does the idea of managing your coupons or finding them in the first place make your head explode? Or maybe it gets you jazzed. Either way there is a place for you and it's A Full Cup. I've been lurking around and learning the place for a few months and although I'm no expert I can tell you there are some wonderfully helpful women there. Check it out and play around there as they've just rolled out a 'new look'.

Today, is menu planning and grocery list day for me so I need to get that done but I was up way too late watching TV because we are getting rid of cable for the summer. Part of it is to cut our expenses and part of it is that we want to be intentional about spending more time doing other things as a family. So, I caught up on bunches of shows that I'd been waiting to see On Demand. Taking stock of our time as the seasons change is a Cool Idea. We don't need to be burrowing inside all day anymore. And if it gets too hot to be outside together we have plenty of movies we own that we can watch together as a family. Find what works for you and remember that you can always change your mind. The cable company is going to welcome you back in six months. I promise.