Study Tip Sunday: Clean Up!

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Pechay Guisado

Pechay can be grown easily in the backyard. My friends harvested their pechay today and shared some to me so I cooked it for our lunch, it's very yummy.


Ingredients for 3 servings:
1/2 kilo pechay
2 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 piece onion
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:
1. Saute the garlic and onion then increase the heat and add the pechay and soy sauce,  give a good stir to mix evenly.
2. Add salt and pepper to taste then stir until done and serve it hot.

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5 Ways to Start a New Routine Today!

I love routines. You know why? Because routines eventually turn into habits. And habits can make or break your productivity. Over the years, I have discovered that my morning habits typically indicate my day. 

If I wake up on time, ready to go, and hit the ground running (but not literally because running in the morning is my worst nightmare) then I already feel so accomplished by 9:00! 

If I wake up late, lounge around, waste hours a little time online, then I feel blah.

15 Quick Ways to Improve Your Morning Routine 

The other great thing about routines is this: They boost productivity! 

Oh, what's that? You love productivity? Me, too!  

OR maybe you're someone who's having a hard time creating or sticking to a daily routine. I have the hardest time with this whenever something in my life changes (like a work schedule, class schedule, or moving to a new home). 

How to Get More Done Every Day

Start your new routine: Take the following 5 steps today!

Write down your daily routine and post it near your workspace

You didn't think I'd post that without a new printable did you?! Please. Yesterday, I released two new routine planner printables in Organized Charm�s Etsy shop! One for daily routines and one for weekly routines. This should make it easier to keep you on track throughout your work day or to keep up with your class schedule in the coming up semester! You might even find that you have time to throw an extra yoga class into the mix! Namaste.

Write down your weekly routine to remind you of changes

Weekly routines are the ones that are most challenging for me. If I�m doing something daily, then great! I�m doing it daily! But once a week? That�s harder. What day does the trash run again? When do I need to leave for church to make sure I don�t miss more than half of it? Posting a weekly routine can really help you out with those annoying1-2 times a week tasks! And luckily, I know just where you can find one! 

Clear to Neutral every time you leave a space

How does this help you get into a routine? Because it is one! CTN basically just means leaving every space the way you found it (or the way you should have found it). Clean spaces boost productivity! Plus by doing this, you�re training your brain to get into several small routines throughout the day!

Create a Time Management System

I love this system and I�ll keep preaching on it until the day I die (or at least until the day I stop writing this blog). Your life is under YOUR control (mostly) so it�s your responsibility to make sure that you have time to do all of the things you said you would do. (and to do them well). So grab a stack of index cards or Post-It�s and start writing!

Sign up for The Skimm

I can�t even tell you how many times I get online so innocently in the morning just to �catch up on the news�. 4 hours and 500 Facebook posts later, I realize that (somewhere along the way) I must have gotten distracted. The Skimm solves that problem, it sends you a Skimm�dversion of the biggest worldwide stories (aka you�ll finish reading it before you finish your first cup of coffee). Witty summaries of current events in 5 minutes or less? #yesplease

The biggest thing to remember about starting any new routine is that it requires a certain amount of discipline: eating healthier means saying no to doughnuts at the office, earning better grades means saying no to late nights during the week, and saving money means saying no to Target's dollar spot (queue: me bursting into tears).

We will all make it to the productivity mountaintop together! 

Baby steps, my dears! Baby steps. :) 

Do you have any advice for starting a new habit/routine? Do you prefer to add one tiny task at a time or to just jump right in with a whole new routine? And of course, tell me what�s worked for you in the past!

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Planning a Trip to the Dominican

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  I have never been to Mexico, but seeing the Mayan ruins is definitely on my bucket list.  Until that trip gets planned, the closest I've been is the Dominican Republic, I guess...

After my sister and her husband honeymooned in the Dominican and my parents, step bro, and his wife went on a cruise to the Dominican... I couldn't be the only one in my family that had not been!  So I started looking into it (after we had already booked our Saint Lucia trip) and one of my friends from work wanted to go, so we made it a girls trip!

After reading some reviews and asking around, we picked Excellence Punta Cana.  It was ranked in the top three in several categories and had free beach horseback riding!

  

  

  

Now I have been to a couple resorts in the Caribbean and this one was okay.  You have to pay for your own transportation to and from the airport (a $70 40-minute taxi ride!).  The resort itself is a little older, but the people are nice.  Everyone speaks Spanish, but will speak English (which was good considering my foreign language skills are severally lacking).  There were several third party excursion companies set up on the resort, we ended up doing the dolphin excursion which was on my bucket list of things to experience.

I'm more of a beach girl than a pool girl, and the beach was pretty nice.  Apparently Excellence is the only resort in Punta Cana that actually gets pretty sizable waves, which means no water sports.  :(  I was totally pumped to get out in a kayak or paddle board, but no such luck, the flag is always red.  After checking out some instagram posts for the resort on our last full day I noticed some fun palm trees must be just around the bend in the beach.  After a short walk, the ocean was so calm and clear.  I wish I would have tried to convince the resort's water sports guy to let me take a kayak about 50 yards off the resort.  I did see someone snorkeling, but I assumed it was their own gear.

 

  

  

I love getting the window seat on the airplane!  The big puffy clouds are always so calming to me.  And look what I found in the seat back pocket!  Columbus is #3 fashion city in the country behind NYC and LA!  

Of course I can't leave out a food review!  Excellence has nine restaurants and ten bars.  The restaurants range from grab-n-go, buffet-style, casual, to semi-fancy.  They have asian, italian, french, mexican tapas, pizza, and the lobster house.  The night we went to the lobster house for dinner, the electricity went out to the whole resort for about ten minutes.  It was pitch black out besides a few candles.  We ate our appetizers by the light of our phones!  The power outage may have impacted our lobster, because it definitely was not excellente.  :(  Our favorite was the italian restaurant which also is the breakfast and lunch buffet, which were also good.  

If you're looking for juice, make sure to get your fix from the breakfast buffet (lots of fresh squeezed options).  Everything at the bar is some kind of sugary Tang-like drink, so your screwdrivers taste like syrup.  Also, room service is included!  So definitely take advantage of that when you have had a long excursion day.  And there are several full-sized liquor bottles in your room... also included.  If you finish the bottle of wine, you probably won't get another one.

 

 

 

The last picture is Garcia making these shots that as soon as he made one, about a dozen other people started ordering them.  They tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream!  Since that is one of my favorites, I paid special attention to how he made it.  The green is Midori (of course), the white is Baileys blended with a few ice cubes to make it extra cold and frothy, then a drop of chocolate sauce.  Pretty simple and so so good!

All in all, it was a decent resort with friendly staff and fun night entertainment.  Since it is adults only, but not couples only, it would be a good place to come with a group of friends.  Just don't set your expectations too high...  

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Planner Review: May Designs

I was recently asked to review my May Designs planner. (um... that only sounds like the most fun ever). So here it is! I've only been using the planner for a couple of months, but I have really gotten into the rhythm of using it daily, which is something I always worry about when switching planning systems. 

Create a Planner System That Works Best for YOU!

First of all, the coolest thing about May Designs is that you design your own notebook. You choose the cover design, add a monogram or name (or year), and you choose which package of pages that you want. You can get plain old notebook pages, a monthly planner, a monthly and weekly planner, graph paper, etc. 

Another great thing about it is the size. Here, I have it in a little binder and it fits pretty perfectly. Admittedly, I miss my old planner and this one was a little too simple for me, so I did need to supplement it with a binder and notebook pages. This binder is from Office Depot/Max and the dividers and paper are from the office supply aisle at Target! 

 The page package that I chose had both monthly + weekly views. The weekly views are all laid out vertically in a 2 week spread. So, if you are someone who tends to write to-do lists on your days (like me), you may need to supplement it with some notebook paper, too! 

The pages I chose are pre-dated, which I liked. I always tend to mess something up when I'm trying to fill in my own dates. I think it was a little extra for pre-dates, but worth it! I'm using my daily to-do lists instead of writing everything in the daily spaces. 

Overall, the bi-weekly spread is nice, although it can get a little cluttered-looking by that second week. The page quality is pretty good and my color-coded pens don't bleed through, which is fantastic! I'm not crazy about part of every Sunday being taken up by a calendar of the month, but it's certainly no deal breaker. 

The monthly view is just my favorite! I just love the simplicity of it and even the tininess of the boxes! Additionally, there are 6 pages in the back of the planner for notes (the only thing I have written back there so far is my morning routine).

This post was written because it was a request. If you'd like to request your own post, do it here!

Do you love planners and planner-related things? Have you ever used a May Designs planner? If so, how did you like it? If not, aren't they adorable?!

Join Organized Charm on Bloglovin'! 

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Weekly Menu

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  It felt like summer here in Ohio...and we have been waiting for this kind of weather since October!  So we went out and about with some friends to hike and camp Wildcat Hollow in Wayne National Forest.  It was a nice trail with tons of wildflowers, a couple beaver dams, several clear camp sites, and intermittent pine forest (which smells so good and the pine needles give the ground a little cushion).  First hike of the year is in the books (excluding our hike in St. Lucia, I guess) and we tested out a couple new things including trekking poles, wearing athletic tights instead of hiking cargos, and some new food items.

  

 

 

This week will be a fun one with Columbus Beer Week still going on and trying to make it to some of those events, May the Fourth (I'm sure there there will be Star Wars watching involved), Cinco de Mayo which should be celebrated with lots of tacos, and perhaps more great weather to get our kayak and paddleboard out!

Alright, here is my plan for this week (I'm just glad I don't have to carry it on my back to cook it!)...

lasagna rollups

sour cream enchiladas with homemade guac

bbq chicken pizza

asparagus frittata and hash browns

shrimp po boys

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